Daylight Saving Time

On Sunday almost everyone on the mainland had to change their clocks ahead 1 hour. Hawaii, along with Arizona (except some Indian Reservations), Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa*, do not do this, so now instead of being 5 hours behind our families in Tenn/Georiga/Virginia we are now 6 hours behind. It will be this way until November, when they move their clocks back 1 hour.

I read an article about Daylight Saving Time, it explains it is "Saving" not "Savings" -- and the saying "Spring Forward, Fall Back" was coined to help us remember what to do with our clocks the second Sunday in March and first Sunday in November. Before 2007 the time change took place in April and October. The change took place because of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which was implamented to help save 10,000 barrels of oil each day by reducing the power used by businesses during the daylight hours. The article says that it more than likely hasn't done that, and there is really no way to find out. Daylight Saving Time is suppose to help us use less energy by lighting our homes, by having later and longer daylight hours.

The start of Daylight Saving Time was during WWI to save energy for war production by taking advantage of the later daylight hours in April through October. Again during WWII they decided to do this again, for the same reasons, I would think. The government didn't start inforcing this until 1966, except for when it was being done during the Wars. The states were allowed to decide if they wanted to participate in it or not, until 1966 when Congress passed the Uniform Time Act standardizing how long it would last.

So, if you were every wondering why we practice Daylight Saving Time, I hope this helped. It always messed up my schedule, and I figured it wouldn't now, since we don't participate, but it has made it a little hard to get ahold of family now that they are 6 hours ahead. And I thought I was behind on finding things out on Facebook and Blogger because of the time difference, man, that hour longer difference makes it very hard! HA!

*(This choice does make sense for the areas closer to the equator because the days are more consistent in length throughout the year.)