Green Options

Spring your clock ahead one hour this Sunday!

Benjamin Franklin once noted that by waking up earlier to make use of the morning sunlight, Parisians saved on candles. We see from this comment that the argument for Daylight Savings as it relates to energy consumption–most notably energy from lighting the home–began long ago.

Congress might have finally moved the one-hour “fall back in the fall” time switch past Halloween so young trick-or-treaters don’t have to roam the streets in the dark, but it’s time to chuck the idea of Daylight Saving Time altogether. Why? Because it wastes energy and creates pollution.

The concept has been around since the days of Benjamin Franklin, who saw it as a way to reduce candle tallow consumption for household lighting. But while Daylight Saving Time, or DST, might have made sense purely from a lighting perspective in the 18th Century, it doesn’t work in a 21st Century society that also uses electricity for heating and cooling, according to research by Matthew J. Kotchen and Laura E. Grant of the National Bureau of Economic Research.