Right: Really? Already? Farmers have always held strong views on daylight saving, with not a few dairy farmers pointing our that their cows were reluctant to submit to milking an hour earlier than usual.
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Arguments for abolishing daylight saving
1. Daylight saving is injurious to human health
Daylight saving has been judged as harmful to human health because it disrupts circadian rhythms with a range of adverse consequences.
Dr Michael J. Brues, writing for WebMD, has stated, 'Moving our clocks in either direction changes the principal time cue -- light -- for setting and resetting our 24-hour natural cycle, or circadian rhythm. In doing so, our internal clock becomes out of sync or mismatched with our current day-night cycle.'
A study, published in 2007 in the journal BMC Biology, combined surveys from 55,000 people in central Europe with data on 50 individuals' sleeping and wakefulness patterns for eight weeks around the shifts to and from daylight saving time. The researchers found people never fully adjust their circadian rhythms to the hour shift associated with daylight saving time.
In an interview on the ABC's Radio National on September 18, 2018, Professor Thomas Kantermann, an expert on chronobiology (the study of biorhythms) at the University of Applied Sciences for Economics and Management in Germany, has stated, 'We are like other animals... we have this biology ticking in us that tries to synchronise us with the environment, and adding this artificial clock change, this pretending we are moving into a different time zone - it just irritates...
If you have morning light, you synchronise with the day, and it helps you to fall asleep at an adequate time in the evening. If you have no daylight in the morning and only daylight or brighter light in the latter part of the day or the evenings, it makes you sleep later; it shifts your clock into the night.'
In an article published in The Conversation on October 5, 2018, Oliver Rawashdeh, Lecturer in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Queensland, stated, ' Changing the clock alters the body's rhythmic production of melatonin, the hormone produced when it gets dark, and cortisol, the stress hormone. These regulate when we feel like going to sleep, when we're hungry, and our ability to fight off bugs. This misalignment is a form of jetlag, and can upset the body's rhythms. It can affect our ability to think clearly and can increase the risk of heart attacks, depression, and even miscarriage.'
Dr Rawashdeh has further noted, 'Several studies have shown your risk of having a heart attack (myocardial infarction) and stroke increases in the two weeks after the changeover, compared with the two weeks before. The risk is highest in the first three weekdays following the switchover...
[While] a 2017 study of IVF patients found a greater chance of pregnancy loss after embryo transfer in spring, when daylight saving time began: 24.3%, as opposed to 15.5% before daylight saving time.'
A CNN report published on March 8, 2018, further noted, 'A 2016 study found that the overall rate for stroke was 8% higher in the two days after daylight saving time. Cancer victims were 25% more likely to have a stroke during that time, and people older than 65 were 20% more likely to have a stroke.'
2. Daylight saving is psychologically harmful
DST has been associated with an increased incidence of depression.
Psychologists have noted that the master biological clock, situated in the anterior hypothalamus, plays a vital role in orchestrating the circadian rhythms of multiple biological processes. Increasing evidence points to a role of the biological clock in the development of depression. In seasonal depression and in bipolar disorders it seems likely that the circadian system plays a significant part in the genesis of the disorder.
Bertel Hansen of the political science department at the University of Copenhagen examined nationwide data between 1995 and 2012 from the Danish Psychiatric Central Research Register, which included 185,419 depression diagnoses. One of his group's findings was that it takes about 20 weeks after the time change to DST for the number of depression diagnoses to level off.
It has also been suggested that DST is related to an increase in male suicides in Australia. A study published in 2008 in the journal Sleep and Biological Rhythms found an uptick in suicides in Australian men during the first weeks after daylight saving time.
Australian suicide data from 1971 to 2001 were assessed to determine the impact on the number of suicides of a one hour time shift due to daylight saving. The results confirm that male suicide rates rise in the weeks following the commencement of daylight saving, compared to the weeks following the return to eastern standard time and for the rest of the year. After adjusting for the season, prior to 1986 suicide rates in the weeks following the end of daylight saving remained significantly increased compared to the rest of autumn. This 2008 study suggests that small changes in chronobiological rhythms are potentially destabilizing in vulnerable individuals.
DST has also been connected to anxiety and lapses in emotional control. In 2015, research from Tel Aviv University found sleep disruption can stir anxiety and increase the likelihood of emotional outbursts.
It has also been suggested that the adoption of DST adversely affects students' test performances. A study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics suggested there was a surprisingly strong negative relationship between imposition of the time policy in a geographic area and SAT scores of local high school students.
It has been suggested that adopting DST on an ongoing basis, so as to avoid the heightened negative affects which seem to occur immediately following the annual adoption of DST may not be the solution. In an article published in Psychology Today on October 5, 2017, Dr Judith Wurtman suggested, 'The increased hour of darkness in the morning resulting from not switching to Standard Time may potentiate symptoms of a winter depression or seasonal affective disorder.'
3. Daylight saving is environmentally harmful
Opponents of daylight saving argue that it increases energy consumption and the production of greenhouse gases and thus is environmentally damaging.
Studies conducted in the United States have demonstrated that power usage has increased as a result of daylight saving. It is claimed that energy demands for both cooling and heating have grown as a result of daylight saving. A study conducted in Indiana post 2006 concluded, 'The largest effects occurred in the summer - when shifting clocks forward aligns our lives with the hottest part of the day, so that people tend to use more air conditioning - and late fall, when we wake up in a cold dark house and use more heating, with no reduction in lighting needs.'
Residential electricity consumption was estimated to have increased by between one and four per cent. Commenting on the effects observed in Indiana, Catherine Porter, writing for The Star in March, 2008, noted, 'Instead of saving electricity and money by adding an extra hour of sunlight to evenings most of the year, it cost Indiana homes an extra $8.6 million in electricity bills - mostly from chugging air conditioners - each year. And since 95 per cent of that extra energy was generated by coal-fired power plants, that meant much more atmosphere-warming carbon dioxide was spewed into the air.'
Also referring to the effects observed in the Indiana study, Matthew Kotchen, a University of California-Santa Barbara economics professor , has stated, 'In Indiana, I can tell you unambiguously now, there are social and environmental costs associated with daylight savings time because of the pollution emissions and carbon dioxide emissions contributing to climate change.'
In another study, scientists used the extension of daylight saving time in some states in Australia during the 2000 Olympics to examine the real-world effects of the policy.
'Our results show that the extension failed to conserve electricity,' the researchers wrote in their 2007 report.
In fact, energy usage went up with additional daylight savings, especially in the mornings. Critics of the supposed energy-saving benefits of daylight saving argue that early predictions of such gains were originally based on the savings to be made from reduced use of lighting. Contemporary studies have indicated that modern lighting is now much more energy-efficient than was the case when daylight saving policies were originally adopted. Thus the actual energy savings from reduced use of artificial light are now quite low. What has increased is the reliance on air-conditioning which together with the greater use of heating due to early morning starts has resulted in an increase rather than a reduction in energy consumption.
This position was summed up by John Stromberg, in an article published in Vox on November 1, 2015. Stromberg stated, ' Despite the fact that daylight saving time was introduced to save fuel, there isn't strong evidence that the current system actually reduces energy use - or that making it year-round would do so, either. Studies that evaluate the energy impact of DST are mixed. It seems to reduce lighting use (and thus electricity consumption) slightly but may increase heating and AC use, as well as gas consumption. It's probably fair to say that energy-wise, it's a wash.'
Additionally, DST increases petrol consumption. It has been suggested this is because evening activities - and the vehicle use they require - increase with the extra hour of daylight.
4. Daylight saving promotes accidents
Numerous studies have linked both the beginning and the end of daylight saving with an increase in automobile and some workplace-related accidents.
According to a Texas A & M University study, the week after daylight saving ends there is a 7% increase in traffic accidents, with a 14% increase in morning accidents. Dr. Alfred Lewy, director of the Sleep and Mood Disorders Laboratory at Oregon Health & Science University, has stated, 'Just like when you have jet lag, your performance falls. Your cognitive abilities decrease... Even though you're not [necessarily] sleep deprived, your [circadian] rhythms aren't adjusted, and that produces deficits in performance.'
The connection between fatigue and the proclivity to suffer an accident is well established. A 2004 study of 400 United States Army motor-vehicle collisions found a correlation 'between insufficient sleep and driver-at-fault accident.' A 2008 National Transportation and Safety Board report 'noted that train crew fatigue resulted in the failure of the engineer and conductor to appropriately respond to wayside signals governing the movement of their train, resulting in three deaths and $5.85 million in damages.'
Relatedly, it has been claimed that workplace accidents increase following the change to DST. Researchers from the Michigan State University have analysed 23 years of data from the Mine Safety and Health Administration to determine potential links between DTS and accident rates. On average, 3.6 more injuries occurred on the Mondays following the switch to daylight saving time compared to other days, and 2,649 more days of work were lost as a result of those injuries.
Researchers have argued that loss of sleep, in addition to the disruption to circadian rhythms, is a significant factor in causing DST-related accidents. The sleep deprivation mechanism is triggered by the transition into DST, when clocks jump forward an hour on the transition date. This creates a 23-hour transition day, rather than the standard 24-hour days people are accustomed to. While this "missing" hour could be cut from work or leisure time, researchers Barnes and Wagner (2009) find that Americans make up the majority of the missing time by sleeping less. Using the American Time Use Survey, the researchers found Americans sleep an average of 40 minutes less on the night of the spring transition. Research conducted in 1997 found that depending on the individual, this transition can impact sleep patterns for anywhere from two days to two weeks with an average of about one week.
It has been estimated that car crashes in the United States caused by sleepy daylight-saving drivers cost 30 additional lives over the nine-year period from 2002-2011. 5. Daylight saving leads to a decrease in productivity
It has been claimed that lost sleep and the disruption of circadian rhythms results in reduced productivity.
David Wagner and Christopher Barnes, professors of management at the University of Oregon and University of Washington argue that daylight saving results in lost productivity. Their studies found office-based 'workers tend to "cyberloaf"', using computers for non-work purposes, on Mondays after a shift to Daylight Saving. One study, sponsored by a foam and cushion manufacturer, estimated a national productivity loss of nearly $434 million - about $1.65 per person.
An index from Chmura Economics & Analytics, released in 2013, suggests that the cost could be up to $434 million in the United States alone. That is an estimated total of all of the health effects and lost productivity attributed to daylight saving.
Till Roenneberg, a chronobiologist at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany, has conducted research which indicates that the human body's circadian clock, kept in tune by light and darkness, never adjusts to the changing chronology of DST.
In an interview conducted with National Geographic in 2010, Roenneberg stated, ' Light doesn't do the same things to the body in the morning and the evening. More light in the morning would advance the body clock, and that would be good. But more light in the evening would even further delay the body clock... The consequence of that is that the majority of the population has drastically decreased productivity, decreased quality of life, increasing susceptibility to illness, and is just plain tired.' (NOTE: that the actual NG interview may not still be available, but the quote can be seen in an article in The Atlantic, of November, 2013)
The impact of reduced sleep and circadian disruption on human function has been studied extensively. Electro-encephalograph data show decrements in central nervous system
arousal as a function of increased sleepiness. Brain imaging studies of sleep-deprived participants have found that the greatest decrease in cerebral metabolic rate is in the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is an especially important part of the brain for such functions as temporal memory and divergent thinking tasks as well as control of emotional responses and attention. Consistent with this contention, empirical research indicates that sleep is an important determinant of alertness and attention deployment and control.
All these sleep-related impairments reduce productivity by reducing human efficiency in the workplace. The impact of sleep deprivation on human decision making suggests that there is a relative loss in the capacity to weigh a range of conflicting factors when forming a decision. A recent study found that judges hand out harsher sentences - 5% longer in duration - the Monday following the time change, as compared with other days of the year. This means that sleep impairment could be influencing important decisions that should be impartial.