From: Kevin Jackson <foamdino@...>
Date: 2006-10-25T10:46:34+09:00
Subject: Fwd: [OT} DST - was Re: How can my boss take rails seriously with bugs like this?

Not sure about the US, but in the UK, the original reason for a BST
(British Summer Time) change was so that farm workers had more
daylight hours - don't know why the US calls it Daylight Savings Time
though.

These days as we have so few farmers/farm workers left in the UK, that
reason is no longer applicable, so now we have the following reasons
trotted out every time someone mentions abolishing it:

1 - tradition - the 'we've always done it' argument
2 - children walking home from school should be in daylight - hard to
argue with that - except 90% of schoolkids are driven to/from school
in air-conditioned SUV's and couldn't care less about whether it's
light or dark
3 - saves electricity - this one is actually true - I've seen the data
of the electricity consumption just before BST and after the change
and the difference changing the clocks makes is remarkable (basically
as you have more daylight, you use the lights less - although it
doesn't make sense really as you will use them later, the usage of
electricity is actually lower - suprised me)

Anyway, the electricity savings are real (at least the numbers I've
seen), and given the political ramifications of reducing energy
consumption (right now), don't expect any politician to advocate
something that could potentially use more power...

Kev