It may be time to change
Canada likes to pride itself on being a leader in finding ways to save the environment, but we may soon find ourselves following the lead of the United States in the Next Big Thing: extending Daylight Savings Time.
Monday, July 25, 2005
Deeming improved fuel-economy standards for SUVs too disruptive, the U.S. Congress thinks tinkering with time would make a great energy-saving measure. A new energy bill could, among other things, expand daylight-saving time, possibly by as much as two months. While this proposal is not, by any means, a solution to the North American energy problem, Canada may have little choice but to follow suit, if the benefits of synchronization outweigh the cost of change.
The measurement of time remains downright quirky, particularly here in Canada, where "half an hour later in Newfoundland" has become an established part of the lexicon and where Saskatchewan stubbornly refuses to spring forward. Time zones themselves cause late-night or early-morning conference calls. To some extent, this is unavoidable: the sun will always be in a different place in the Vancouver sky than the Toronto sky. But unnecessary confusion could be bad for business.
Canada and the U.S. are connected as never before, and having cross-border cities run on different hours in the spring and fall will created unnecessary complications. When deciding whether to follow the U.S. lead on extending summer time, provinces should consider this and other potential benefits. The energy-saving argument, for example, is an old one. Benjamin Franklin used it in 1784, in his humorous essay "An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light."
Franklin was referring to the profligate use of candles and oil lamps by night-owl Parisians. But the cost of modern electricity explains California's enthusiasm for daylight saving, and was behind the extended daylight-saving the U.S. government mandated in response to the oil crisis of the early 1970s.
Just how much energy an extension would save now is open to question. Lighting is becoming more efficient, with the widespread sale of compact-fluorescent bulbs. Compared with the energy used by air conditioning or water heating, lighting has never been a major consumer of power. An extra hour of sunlight a day for up to two months of the year might not save much energy. Indeed, office buildings that use natural light and solar heating might be a more significant way to use the sun for conservation.
But even if saving daylight saves only a little energy, it could still be worth doing. It's an easy way to get stubborn North Americans to change their behaviour.
Imagine if, instead of telling us to turn our clocks ahead in the spring, governments told us to get up and start work an hour later. North Americans might resent such an intrusion, although it is just a restatement of daylight-saving time.
Perception is everything, and the division of time into hours is an illusion. No matter what the U.S. decides, the Earth will move around the sun at the same rate. No matter what Canada's provinces decide, the North American economy will remain integrated. Meanwhile, time is running out for both countries to find ways to save energy
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