Monday, I was wrong. I was grumpy and tired, as I usually get when we lose an hour during the spring Daylight Savings Time adjustment. I vaguely remembered from somewhere in my school career that the clocks were changed for the benefit of farmers. And since I couldn’t remember exactly, I asked Twitter.
Can someone educate me as to why we still observe daylight savings time? #coffeecoffeecoffee
â David Crampton (@dcrampton) March 11, 2013
I got one response, and I couldn’t really argue with it.
@dcrampton in June when the sun is shining in my face at 6:30am instead of 5:30am I’m happy for DST.
â George (@revgeorge) March 11, 2013
My assumption was that DST was something that only the United States, and maybe a few others, still practiced. A backward, holding-on-to-the-past nonsense custom that we should really get rid of. You know, like our refusal to use the metric system.
Follow up question, is the USA the only country that observes Daylight Savings Time?
â David Crampton (@dcrampton) March 11, 2013
Turns out, we’re not. We’re not even one among a few. I found this article, and this map:
The blue bits are where DST is observed. The orange bits are where it’s formally observed. The red bits chuck it to the wind. If you count formal and actual observing, most of the world still observes DST.
So, I learned that one of my preconceptions was not only off, but completely erroneous. The origins of DST have nothing to do with farmers. Farmers lobby against it, in fact. It’s observed over quite a bit of the world. So, in about a year from now, I’m going to try for less grumbling and more coffee, ready at hand.