
Finland to propose that EU abolish daylight savings time - cesis
http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/15291-berner-finland-to-propose-that-eu-abolish-daylight-savings-time.html
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metafunctor
Here's why Finland doesn't like DST.

In the south of Finland (like Helsinki), in the summer, the sun rises at 4am
and sets at 11pm. The entire night is twilight, and it doesn't get completely
dark at all.

In the winter, the sun rises at 9:15am and sets at 3:15pm. At it's height, the
sun barely rises above the trees.

In the northern parts of Finland, things are even more extreme: for a long
period of time in the summer, the sun doesn't set at all [1]. Similarly in the
winter, the sun won't rise at all [2].

Therefore, for the Finnish people, DST is mostly useless. In the summer there
is no shortage of daylight in the evening or in the morning. In the winter
it's going to be dark in the morning, and dark in the afternoon anyway.

For most of the year, there's nothing be gained by moving the clocks around.
Moving the clocks mostly throws your sleep cycles off for a few days.
Especially families with small children seem to get hit especially hard by
this.

That all said, perhaps Finland should not move to totally abolish DST, since
some people in southern Europe appear to like it. At the very least, though,
northern EU states should be allowed to opt out of DST.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_sun)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_night](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_night)

~~~
cornholio
I see your point and indeed there is little to be gained in the extreme north;
people are already chronically light stressed and a small sleep shock with no
real daylight benefits could have the claimed psychological effects.

But this is not the case for the vast majority of the Europe's population. Why
would DST be mandatory anyway? We are already using different timezones, I
doubt it would disrupt trade, airtrafic or anything if an EU country does not
change timezones when others do.

~~~
metafunctor
DST in Europe has a bit of a history. The European Community, consisting
mostly of countries in the southern parts of Europe, decided in 1981 that DST
was a good idea.

For political reasons I don't fully understand, Finland adopted the same DST
convention in 1981. Possibly there was a need to appear to be in line with
other European countries. Maybe there was fear that international business
might be disrupted if the time difference between Finland and a given European
country wasn't always the same, no matter the date. Certainly the Finnish
people didn't need or want DST any more than they need or want it today.

Later, DST was encoded as a (mandatory) EU directive in 2002. All relevant
countries were already following the practice, so making it a directive
probably seemed like a good idea at the time. Given the amount of
international dealings with non-EU states with varying DST conventions, it
doesn't seem that useful to force the same DST rules on all EU states.

------
mrtksn
Turkey did that. The results so far are not promising as apparently more
energy is used and people are complaining that they don't see the daylight in
the winter as it's dark outside both when leaving home for work and coming
back.

Will switch back to daylight saving as nobody is happy(Maybe except for the
Energy minister who is the son in law of Erdogan and also runs energy
companies).

edit:

here is a source, it's form a Turkish factchecking website:
[http://www.dogrulukpayi.com/bulten/kalici-yaz-saati-
uygulama...](http://www.dogrulukpayi.com/bulten/kalici-yaz-saati-uygulamasi-
elektrik-tuketimini-ne-kadar-arttirdi)

according to the reports, the effect on increase in consumption is
inconclusive(there's an increase but not necessarily due to this) but public
opinion polls shows that people want to go back to the daylight saving
schedule with %66 majority and only %22 of the people like the permanent
summer time.

here is a news article reporting that Turkey is ending the permanent summer
time and going back to the daylight saving time at the end of the 2018:
[http://www.milliyet.com.tr/surekli-yaz-saati-
uygulamasi-2018...](http://www.milliyet.com.tr/surekli-yaz-saati-
uygulamasi-2018-de-ankara-yerelhaber-2366624/)

I guess you can use Google Translate to verify. The factchecking website also
links to the actual reports.

BTW, to all DST Haters, check [http://momentjs.com](http://momentjs.com) and
calm down. DST is your friend, let the computers do the bookkeeping and enjoy
the sunlight.

~~~
sunaurus
This makes no sense to me - are you saying that without turning the clock,
people in Turkey are incapable of going to work/sleep according to how much
sunshine there is?

EDIT: To clarify, I'm just disagreeing with the idea that it's necessary to
change the meaning of our clocks. Imagine if we started changing the meaning
of weeks so that all national holidays would fall on weekends (so if it's
Wednesday and tomorrow is a national holiday, we skip straight to Saturday) -
it seems insane, but in essence, it would be the same thing.

~~~
cpa
Maybe they can't, because their jobs require that they come in at 8 and leave
by 5. Maybe they have kids that have to be brought to school at 8. You could
say "just go to work an hour later in the winter", but that amounts to DST,
without the perk of knowing that everybody around you is living on the same
rhythm.

I have no opinion about DST btw.

~~~
sunaurus
DST is not an employer decision, it's a government decision. If a goverment
decided that work/schooldays begin an hour later in the summer instead of DST,
everybody would still be living in the same rhythm.

------
mpweiher
Can't happen soon enough for me.

Also smart: '“Member states should mull over together which time – summer or
winter time – should be adopted on a permanent basis.”'

Let's keep it on summer time, having light at 4 pm is more valuable than at 4
am. (I know, exaggerating, but only a little)

~~~
mongol
I prefer to keep local time aligned with its historical roots, so that 12 is
the hour closest to sun's highest point in the sky. What prevents society from
adjusting to that?

~~~
mpweiher
It's a good idea. However, it is incompatible with having the same time across
a fairly large swathe of longitudes.

The benefits of having a common time such as CET/MEZ for most of continental
Europe outweigh the nicety of having 12 noon correspond to the high point of
the sun's arc in the sky.

~~~
akvadrako
You could actually do even better and just make all of the EU one timezone -
since it doesn't have much to do with high noon anyway.

~~~
mpweiher
A good idea.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Time_zones_of_Europe.svg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Time_zones_of_Europe.svg)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_European_Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_European_Time)

------
cornholio
The great majority of people opposing daylight saving don't really appreciate
it's purpose: DST does not screw up winter, it makes summer better, much
better.

During the winter, there is limited light no matter what time you use. In a
world without DST, social conventions evolve so that work hours, business
opening and close times etc. find a compromise that allow most of the activity
during the day - a clear preference of the human species that also maximizezes
productivity and satisfaction for most people. It's irrelevant if that time is
called 7 AM or 54 APM, you will tend to start working at the time the winter
daylight starts. That's our baseline.

Since we are no longer use sundials and enjoy predictable schedules, that time
and schedule is maintained for the whole year; however, as summer arrives, the
days get longer and they stretch both in the morning and in the evening
symmetrically. And since most people like to start their activity in a short
time after waking up, and the wake time is now fixed by the wallclock to be
the same as during the winter, a good part of the daylight that we enjoy
happens before most people are awake, say 5AM to 6AM.

This is where DST idea comes into play: if the morning daylight is "wasted"
since most people don't get up so early, why shouldn't we "move" that extra
hour of light in the evening, so that most of us can enjoy a longer summer day
and late twilight evenings by simply moving the clock ?

Incidentally, DST reduces electricity consumption, but the main benefit in my
opinion is the increased quality of life during the summer, for a very modest
price: you wake up an hour earlier one day a year, and then enjoy 183 days
with 1h more of light each. The reverse, going back to winter time by sleeping
1h more is essentially free for most people. I love DST and would hate to see
it gone for a misunderstanding, it's impact over the winter days, when in fact
that's unavoidable and it's real purpose is to make summer better.

~~~
Faaak
Why is he being downvoted ? Is it false ?

~~~
cornholio
I guess people really hate daylight saving :)

------
failrate
I have never loved Finland more than I do right now.

------
hawktheslayer
We already thought of this in Arizona.

[https://youtu.be/k4EUTMPuvHo](https://youtu.be/k4EUTMPuvHo)

------
Jhsto
I recommend anyone interested to look at some of the documentation done in the
IANA timezone dataset (historical references of Finland shown here):
[https://github.com/eggert/tz/blob/master/europe#L1213](https://github.com/eggert/tz/blob/master/europe#L1213)

------
albertgoeswoof
While we’re at it let’s switch to binary time and a global timezone

~~~
Numberwang
I'm so with you on this. A bit of a shame it's just you and me.

~~~
akvadrako
You 2 guys want to say things like, lets meet at 01100110010110001101011 ?

------
cameldrv
It is fashionable among nerdy people, especially programmers who have to deal
with the complicated relationship between different ways people describe time,
and the actual flow of time, to not like DST. DST is really good, and really
simple though. It's a social agreement to do everything an hour earlier in the
summer. People like this pattern. Before clocks and railroads and computers,
people generally woke up with the sun, and went to bed shortly after dark. In
the winter, this meant that people slept a long time, but that was fine
because there wasn't much to do in the winter anyhow, and it was better to
conserve energy, since there wasn't much food available.

Since we now have artificial light and ample food, we prefer to stay up past
sundown and get a consistent 7-8 hours of sleep per night. Still though,
people like to wake up after sunrise -- the sunlight is a pleasant and natural
alarm clock, and waking up with it is built into our biology.

In the modern world, most people have to go to work. Most people prefer to
wake up, get ready, and then head to work. If work starts at 9:00 without DST,
and you're far enough north, the time between sunrise and 9:00 changes a lot.
Without DST, people either have to wake up later in the summer, or find
something else to do in the morning before they go to work. Most people would
rather go to work earlier and go home earlier while it's still light out.

Now, you could say, employers could understand this and have different summer
and winter hours. That's true, but there's a coordination problem. Suppose a
shop opens at 7 in the summer, but 8 in the winter. Maybe their bread delivery
happens at 7:30, so now that has to be changed twice a year. That means that
the delivery driver's route needs to change because not every shop changes
their hours, or if they do, they don't change them at the same time. DST fixes
the coordination problem by just relabelling time, so everyone starts doing
everything one hour earlier on the same day across the whole country.

------
rwmj
Please yes please. I _hate_ DST. It's an enforced twice yearly jet lag for no
reason I can discern.

~~~
user5994461
Adjusting the time allows to have more natural lights. It saves a lot of
electricity.

~~~
akvadrako
That doesn't seem true - when the US extended summer time it ended up costing
more electricity.

And if it was true, you can just extend it year round. Winter is when summer
time is really needed anyway.

~~~
Asseon
Russia tried that for 3 years, now they use normal time the hole year. It
seems only "summer time" is not a good idea either.

------
Promarged
Poland also wanted to remove daylight savings time (the project was in the
lower house) but ultimately it was rejected because all EU countries need to
use the same time (DST). It seems Finland is taking it further...

~~~
lgierth
Portugal, UK, Ireland have been in UTC for ages.

~~~
user5994461
UK is GMT time. Do not confuse with UTC, it's not the same.

~~~
dingaling
> Do not confuse with UTC, it's not the same.

GMT as a time standard is defunct. The Mean Sun no longer traverses his
notional sky.

GMT as a civil time zone is based on atomic measures[0]. It is not measured
from the meridian. This is the phrase used to indicate this in UK legislation:

 _In these Regulations Co-ordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the same time as
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)_

[0] Time scale UTC(NPL)

------
aristidb
In 1517174122 daylight saving time is so obsolete...

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mezzode
DST has it's place I think, but given the choice between having it active
never or always I'd choose the latter. The extra daylight is great.

