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European Parliament set to end EU-wide daylight savings
- lsh 8y ago> mandated EU-wide summer time has only existed since 2002 and this repeal only repeals the mandatory adherence to daylight savings. Their next problem is consistency and coordination of the removal of DST among member states. And the Germans seem to be dominating the vote as well, so the really hard work in negotiating with others to remove their DST is the real barrier.
- Spearchucker 8y ago"And the Germans seem to be dominating the vote..." On what basis are Germany dominating the vote? They cannot. No EU member state can dominate a vote. Germany could at best lobby other member states, as other member states can (and do) lobby Germany.
- ben_w 8y agoThe number of seats in the EP is proportional to the population, and Germany is slightly more populous than any other nation. I wouldn’t call it “dominating”, but as a nation it is more influential. Separately, the seats are divided into parties, and not all MEPs represent the interests of their national governments — UKIP prior to the referendum, for example.
- anoncake 8y ago> The number of seats in the EP is proportional to the population Not quite, larger countries have fewer MEPs per capita[0][1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_in_the_European_Parliament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_in_the_European_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degressive_proportionality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degressive_proportionality
- LoSboccacc 8y agoDoesn't seem you were paying attention. Germany carrot and stick smaller states while engaging in favor exchanges with France, de facto dominating the European Parliament. Go check where art. 11 and the austerity protocols come from.
- tom_mellior 8y agoYou are confusing the Parliament and the Council.
- logifail 8y ago> On what basis are Germany dominating the vote? "In the largest survey ever conducted by the European Commission, 80% of around 4.6 million respondents said they favor abolishing the finicky practice of changing the clocks in summer and winter" "While citizens from all EU member states voted in the poll, around two-thirds of responses came from Germany " https://qz.com/1375622/eu-citizens-voted-to-abolish-daylight-saving-time-in-a-landslide/ https://qz.com/1375622/eu-citizens-voted-to-abolish-daylight...
- blattimwind 8y agoReason being that people picked this up very quickly and for once this poll even made it into mass media before it was over. I think this only shows how much changing clocks annoys people; they hear about a poll, they go vote. AIUI in most other countries this initial pick-up and publicity just didn't happen.
- afarrell 8y ago> mass media In which languages?
- blattimwind 8y agoImplied by context: German media.
- SyneRyder 8y ago> On what basis are Germany dominating the vote? The initial EU online public vote was dominated by German voters. There were 4.6 Million votes, of which 3 Million came from Germany [1]: "More than 80 percent of respondents to the largest online survey in EU history are in favor of abolishing changing the clocks in summer and winter, EU sources reported Wednesday. Around 4.6 million people took part in the survey, which ran between July 4 and August 16. Three million of the respondents were from Germany. And from the EU Commission report [2]: "It should be noted that the largest amount of responses came from Germany (70% of all replies), which has a statistical influence on the average results." That said, from section 3.2 of the EU Commission report, Cyprus & Greece were the only two countries where citizens voted to keep daylight saving. [1] https://www.dw.com/en/eu-citizens-feel-times-up-for-changing-clocks/a-45263664 https://www.dw.com/en/eu-citizens-feel-times-up-for-changing... [2] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52018SC0406 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52...
- imarg 8y agoEdit: I think I misunderstood your comment. I thought you meant Greece and Cyprus prefer to keep summer time for ever. Whereas you probably meant that Greece and Cyprus wanted to keep changing the clocks. Anyway I leave my initial comment below. I think you read that wrong. You should look at section 3.5. "The highest share of respondents in favour of “permanent summertime” is in Portugal (79%), Cyprus (73%) and Poland (72%)."
- Reason077 8y ago> "On what basis are Germany dominating the vote?" I suspect it comes down to the issue getting more publicity, interest and attention from media in Germany compared to other EU nations.
- Iv 8y agoFinally! Let more people see the light!
- henrikschroder 8y agoIn before "Let's all switch to UTC to solve this problem once and for all!" Anyway, it's so weird to me that daylight savings is such a new concept, it didn't exist where I was born when I was born, but it feels like a thing that ought to have existed for a hundred years at least. And yet, despite it being so new, people are actually defending it? Mindboggling.
- function_seven 8y agoWhenever someone advocates for UTC being the wall clock time all over the world, I think of Jason Mendoza from The Good Place: > Anytime I had a problem and I threw a Molotov cocktail, boom! Right away, I had a different problem!
- wesammikhail 8y agowhat a great quote :D
- teniutza 8y agoAnother of Jason's (somewhat) related quotes: I want you thinking about dance 24/7. That means every day, you think 20 thoughts about dance for seven minutes.
- mac01021 8y agoBy why is UTC a Molotov cocktail?
- function_seven 8y agoThis site does a good job of explaining: https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish For me the biggest headache would be the date changing in th middle of the day.
- henrikschroder 8y ago"Excuse me, does your workweek start on Sunday/Monday or on Monday/Tuesday?" Yay, everyone is now on the same time, too bad the concept of weekdays got completely broken in the process...
- hcnews 8y agoSomeday US will get this too! Right after the metric system. Seriously speaking: I wish US gets rid of the clock change (one way or the other).
- ghaff 8y agoIt's pretty much up to individual states.
- sverige 8y agoExcept there is federal law on this that affects their decisions. [0] I wish we would at least call it "summer time" instead of the lie "daylight savings time." There's no daylight "saved." [0] http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/usc.html http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/usc.html
- vinay427 8y agoIt affects their decisions in some nominal capacity, but it is still up to the states and territories. Federal laws don't have the authority to supersede local laws whenever they want. "As of 2014, the following states and territories are not observing DST: Arizona, Hawaii, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.[7]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_in_the_United_States#1966%E2%80%931972:_Federal_standard_established https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_in_the_Un...
- plopz 8y agoI thought that winter time was the default and summer time was opt-in by the states. But that both California and Florida when seeking to change to summer time all year round had to get approval from congress.
- sverige 8y agoThe relatively recent change adding an entire month of DST originated with Congress, not the states. That's more than nominal.
- BurritoAlPastor 8y agoThe graphic would seem to indicate that the UK and Portugal observe a time zone of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC±0). This is nonsense, of course; UTC is not a time zone. I believe the UK observes GMT (UTC±0) and Portugal uses Western European Time (UTC±0). It's also worth looking up the story of why Coordinated Universal Time is abbreviated UTC and not CUT, if you haven't heard it. Time zones are great.
- timthorn 8y ago> I believe the UK observes GMT (UTC±0) That's correct, with BST in the Summer. It can get confusing when working with people from different countries who aren't aware of BST and who schedule meetings explicitly in GMT, thinking that it automatically includes daylight saving.
- StavrosK 8y agoIn my experience, it gets more confusing for English people who schedule meetings in GMT in the summer and then are an hour late.
- SirHound 8y agoAh that old trick
- macca321 8y agoIt's also a problem for software engineers in the UK, for whom 6 months of the year utc and local time are the same, resulting in people not knowing the difference. In the rest of the world it's bleedin obvious. A downside to inventing time I guess ;)
- Sahhaese 8y agoYup, on occassion you think you've set up a server correctly but it's actually on local time, only to find everything breaks come the end of March.
- 8y ago
- bnegreve 8y agoFrankly, I like daylight savings. It contributes to reduce the difference between the sun time and my time. I wake up more or less when the sun raises and then go to work. Now if I keep doing that I'm going to show up either too late in the winter or too early in the summer.
- mabbo 8y agoSo you do you- just don't force the complexity of your life on the rest of us. We can contribute a measurable number of deaths every year to DST. It's a disaster.
- bnegreve 8y agoI say it's natural to wake up when the sun raises, you say it's natural to stick to the same hour all year long. I'm not forcing anything anymore than you do.
- vegardx 8y agoLet me invite you to the arctic circle, where the sun don't set or rise in large parts of the year.
- magduf 8y agoNo one is forcing you to wake up at any particular time. If you want to wake up when the sun rises, you can do that. You don't need to control everyone's clock to do that.
- bnegreve 8y agoEmployers do force their employees to show up at a particular time.
- magduf 8y agoNo, they don't force that at all. You're free to find another job with hours you prefer, or try to get your boss to let you work different hours. If all your coworkers don't like the hours, you have a better chance of getting the management to change the working hours. If you're the one weirdo who wants different hours, then maybe you shouldn't be trying to get everyone else to do things to your liking.
- kzrdude 8y agoI really hope this doesn't happen. I don't want to have darker mornings than they already are. Daylight in the morning is important to wake you up and to adjust your circadian rhythm.
- jve 8y agoSorry, but this so much differs depending on which month/day it is. My "biological clock" is reliably and wakes me up more or less the same time, however comparing winter/summer has a huge difference - having total darkness or sun heating your room. Regardless of DST.
- sambucini 8y agoI work in energy trading in Europe and for us this is a blessing. Of course we store our time series TZ aware, but many less professional small utilities or other market participants (incl. Grid operators) who e.g. Order power on hourly resolution with tz-unaware excel spreadsheets via email are a nightmare as each participants treatment of double or missing hours is different and requires manual processing.
- SimonPStevens 8y agoHey, sorry for the OT message. I like to connect with other devs working in the same industry as me. I work for Contigo Software, we make ETRM software and various other things for the energy industry. There's various ways to contact me in my profile if your interested in chatting.
- benj111 8y agoNaively I would like to think this was all done using a designed system, but this makes sense. Any documented cases of the lights going out due to an email ending up in the spam folder?
- zaarn 8y agoTo my knowledge, you won't loose power because your energy provider forgot to buy energy from the market, they still have to pay for it though (probably with late fees).
- silvester23 8y agoIt depends on the market design of course, but generally, if too many energy providers did not match their consumption with generation (or bought power), that could lead to power outages. Concerning the 'late fees': if your consumption exceeds your production, you pay what is called balancing energy. Essentially, you have to buy the energy for a price that is set by the transmission system operator depending on the total imbalance in the grid. In some cases, this might actually be beneficial to the energy provider as the balancing energy is sometimes cheaper than the prices you get on the sport market close to gate closure.
- apexalpha 8y agoTime for NL to detach from Germany then if they go to permanent summertime. That time is the natural time for St Petersburg. It'll be weird to have different time between us but otherwise it's just too off for us.
- widforss 8y agoIs the full colorization of Cyprus a result of a political statement or just ignorance?
- int_19h 8y agoEU does not officially recognize Northern Cyprus.
- oblio 8y agoNobody recognizes Northern Cyprus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Cyprus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Cyprus: > No nation other than Turkey has officially recognised Northern Cyprus as a sovereign state. The United Nations recognises it as territory of the Republic of Cyprus under Turkish occupation.
- tumetab1 8y agoTitle improvement suggestion: EU Parliament set to end EU-wide daylight savings IMHO, EU institutions should always be referred as such instead as related to a continent, i.e., "EU Parliament" is more correct than "European Parliament"
- esolyt 8y agoExcept there is no such thing as the EU Parliament. It is called the European Parliament: https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/institutions-bodies/european-parliament_en https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/institutions-bodie...
- sonnyblarney 8y agoIt's called 'European Parliament' but it's not the Parliament of Europe because EU is not Europe. Like the MLB 'World Series' ... not quite.
- Freak_NL 8y agoIt's literally called the European Parliament. Calling it the EU Parliament is like insisting we write Micro$oft instead of Microsoft. Referring to this institution as such means calling it the European Parliament (EP), because that is what it is formally known as in English.
- anoncake 8y agoCalling the European Parliament "EU Parliament" would be like calling the US Congress "USA Parliament". Not wrong, but silly.
- tumetab1 8y agoI think in the US example it would be like people referring to USA congress as "America Congress" instead of "US Congress". IMHO, implying that there's a political institution for a continent while that's false is weird.
- _Microft 8y agoAll of that because of a stupid survey in which the ones who wanted to abolish daylight saving time were overrepresented because it gave them a platform while the majority who doesn't, didn't bother to make themselves heard. That's not quite Brexit-level but maybe Swiss immigration referendum-stupidity.
- jackweirdy 8y agoThis proposal seems to be just making a mandatory time change not mandatory any more, and leaving it up to each nation state to decide - in the case of lots of split opinions isn’t that better?
- bad_user 8y agoWhy do you think abolishing the daylight savings change is bad? Personally I think it’s a super awesome move. And note that no matter what you have against it, disrupting the sleep of billions of people twice per year has caused depression and cardiovascular issues which shouldn’t be taken lightly. So what’s the issue in everyone switching to the summer time for the whole year?
- mcjiggerlog 8y agoBecause in the UK and Spain (the countries I have lived in) the sun would not rise until nearly 10am in winter. Lots of people think this change is a good idea simply because they assume they would stick to the time zone that they think is best. When the millions of people who want permanent summertime realise their government will most likely choose permanent winter time then it might not seem like such a great idea any more. This decision has been made way too fast and without proper investigation. Yes, there may be side effects of changing clocks twice per year, but how do they compare to the effects of having less light in the morning in winter or less light in the evening in summer?
- bad_user 8y ago> Yes, there may be side effects of changing clocks twice per year, but how do they compare to the effects of having less light in the morning in winter or less light in the evening in summer? In think the effects you’re mentioning are insignificant compared with having your sleep schedule disrupted twice per year. People have literally died due to it. Getting rid of DST also simplifies business. Did you know that European countries do not switch at the same time as the US? Daylight saving times are a clusterfuck.
- Tharkun 8y agoThe road to hell is paved with good intentions. Getting rid of DST sounds like a good thing. Not messing time is patently good. But a bunch of countries on the western side of the EU ought to be on GMT instead of GMT+1. And appparently a majority of people want to make that worse, by making a permanent switch to GMT+2. This will make for fun winters, with the sun rising long after rush hour. This is stupid.
- apexalpha 8y agoExactly. We talked about this in the Netherlands and permanent +2 for us is too far off. That's St Petersburg natural time, it would mean sunrise at 10am in wintertime. If the Germans will really push for permanent +2 time, then there will be a time zone border between us.
- Freak_NL 8y agoOpinion here in the Netherlands is divided between a preference for permanent winter time, permanent summer time, or keep changing the clocks twice a year¹. Sunrise at 10:00 in the winter? Fine! That at least gives us some light in the afternoon. 1: https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2018/12/19/meeste-nederlanders-willen-hele-jaar-wintertijd-a3126390 https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2018/12/19/meeste-nederlanders-wil...
- apexalpha 8y agoCould be! Permanent summer time has my preference but I honestly don't mind at all if I have light when I get up, but a lot of people seem to want that. Also: permanent darkness rush hours. Nice.
- mrunkel 8y agoSo now you're ok with UTC+2? That's permanent summertime.
- runarberg 8y agoYou are neglecting public health concerns. People’s sleep tends to be disrupted when they have to wake up long before sunrise. Sleep is important for the population, more important then afternoon sunshine, I would say.
- themistokl1k 8y agoI FEEL BAD FOR YOU TIME LIB MAINTAINERS
- ggm 8y agoA change which may be rational closer to the equator, but which makes less sense in Edinburgh or further north surely?
- pmontra 8y agoActually the closer you get to the poles the less you benefit from DST. At the poles you get 6 months of daylight and 6 months of night no matter what. The same at the equator, 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night (this doesn't take into account the inclination of Earth's axis, but you got the idea.) The places that benefit most from DST are the ones in between, especially around 45 degrees latitude. Then there are cultural factors, like those countries that like to spend their day time between 9 AM to midnight. It's easier to change the time on the clock than the minds of millions of people. For example, in my country there is a saying that only hens have dinner at 6 PM. It's not socially acceptable to get into a restaurant before 8 PM, friends will laugh at you if you suggest doing so. It's best to have dinner 9 or 10 PM, unless you're a tourist with different habits.
- ggm 8y agoIn Edinburgh, during the miners strike in the seventies we went to double summer time. In winter when it's bloody dark in the morning I found it credible a time shift helps. In summer when it's 11pm and bright outsides I find it credible a time shift helps. I think your 'less useful the further to the pole you are' line may be the inside the arctic circle story. I definitely think summertime made sense in the Edinburgh from personal experience. I now live in Brisbane around 600k of the tropic of Capricorn and it makes no sense at all, except economically because the southern state neighbour (NSW) does summertime, as does Victoria and Tasmania both significantly further towards the pole.
- pmontra 8y agoThanks, I lack the experience of living in the north for more than a few weeks in summer and a couple of days in winter.
- 8y ago
- diminish 8y agoThe `daylight saving` purpose is intriguing. I'm very curious why people long time ago, decided to change clocks, instead of work/school start and finish times. Like we start in April at 8:00 am, and in November, at 9:00.
- pmontra 8y agoI believe the reason is that it costs less to move the hands of a clock than to print and distribute new timetables for trains, buses, etc. That could cost less today because we use much less paper, but updating web sites and databases is still a large amount of work. It's far easier to communicate to all the country when to move the clock and keep everything else the same.
- mar77i 8y agoIt actually costs in an entirely different way, when you screw with everybody's sleeping schedules, cause accidents with wildlife getting surprised by brisk changes in traffic peaks. Personally, I never dealt well with the change, either, so this means I have one less thing to worry about in pollinosis season. Good riddance.
- wil421 8y agoDo you have any credible sources that say wildlife is affected in any way by daylight savings?
- Verdex 8y agoI don't have a source, but my understanding was that deer tend to learn when it's safe to cross the road. When all of a sudden people change their driving habits by an hour, deer start to get hit by cars that they didn't expect to be there.
- slavik81 8y agoWhere I live, we get both. They change both the time and the bus schedules in accordance with the seasons.
- thomasedwards 8y agoSo many people, including a lot of comments here, seem to think that it’s designed around the winter. It’s not, it’s to move an hour of sunlight from the start of the day (say, 4am) to the end of the day (say, 9pm) so that you use less energy in the summer (hence the ‘savings’), and then you can enjoy that rather than being asleep. Moving to summer time year-round means that the mornings in the winter will be darker. I like having a bit of daylight in the mornings in the winter, and I’ll miss it when it’s gone. As I’m sure a lot of people will when they realise that getting ‘rid’ of it makes the winter worse, not the summer better.
- fixvzbdjzis 8y agoThat’s why we should get rid of “it” in te summer, where it was added to begin with. anyone who’s a light sleeper appreciates how harmful daylight savings is. Plus no one stops anyone from waking up an hour earlier. But I bloody well can’t sleep in an hour later!
- Asooka 8y agoYear-round summer time sounds horrifying, is there anything I can do to prevent it?
- scotty79 8y agoAsk your boss if you can come to the office hour later in winter time.
- Asooka 8y agoHar har. That's not the problem, the problem is for everyone else who can't "just come an hour later" and especially for teenagers who will have to suffer even earlier school times for the entire year. From all I know, having winter time year-round will be objectively worse in aggregate, so I want to not have that happen. I already participated in the initial EU questionnaire and voted for repealing DST, but I don't want to end up on summer time all year.
- conradfr 8y agoI have a side project that displays French radios' schedules that is basically wrong two days per year because of DST so I guess thanks the EU for fixing it. As a citizen though I don't really have an opinion, except that I want the longest sun possible during the summer evenings ...
- hFAUST 8y agoMost of the people that I hear complaining about it are old people and by that I mean people who are retired and time only tells them if it's the time for their favorite TV drama or medicine. IMHO daylight saving time helps both mentally (less gloomy dark winter) and energy-wise.
- blattimwind 8y agoIf I observe regular office hours, it's dark when I go to work, and it's dark again when I get out of work. One hour either way would make barely any difference. Don't see the point. And in the middle of the summer the sun raises around 4:00. So, yeah.
- spiderfarmer 8y agoLets also try and spread working times from (mostly) 9-5 to 6-2, 7-3, 8-4, 9-5 and 10-6 so we can solve the traffic congestion problem, all while enabling people to work when they work best.
- otaviokz 8y agoCouldn't agree more. I see it already happening on some companies that allow employees to arrive anytime between 7am and 11am and leave once they do their daily hours. In my job I'd say somewhere between 10 and 20% of the people arrive before 8am or after 10am. I suppose it could be even better if there was an actual policy of organising it so as to improve spreading as much as possible.
- KajMagnus 8y agoAnd 30 h work weeks, could instead of 5 days x 6 hours, be 4 days x 7.5 hours, so that people didn't need to commute at all, one day per week.
- wazoox 8y agoYou forgot my favourite time slots, 11-7, 12-8 and 1-9 :)
- anticensor 8y agoAfternoon or night?
- wazoox 8y agoAfternoon.
- athenot 8y agoI would love this. But it seems what pegs everyone to the same schedule is uniform school hours for K-12.
- andai 8y ago
- freecodyx 8y agoHere in Morocco, it was made permanent starting this year, so instead of being GMT we are GMT+1 all year round, Except, this decision was made brutally without any prior discussion or vote,
- anticensor 8y agoSame in Turkey.
- runarberg 8y agoHuh, that means Iceland can no longer set our timezones to Casablanca. A few years back, Atlantic/Reykjavík was never an option when selecting timezone, so we would always go with Casablanca.
- ptah 8y agoUK's insistence on keeping daylight savings is disappointing to say the least
- CalRobert 8y agoWhatever we do I hope it syncs with the US, because 9 AM SF/5 PM Dublin meetings are a LOT nicer than 8AM SF/5PM Dublin or 9 AM SF/6PM Dublin