How Daylight Savings Time Makes the World a Better Place

Daylight savings time keeps the hours people are most active lighter for less cost to a city. For example, if one gets up to go to work when it is dark one will use more house light in the morning. Multiply this use of electricity by hundreds of thousands of people and a significant amount of unnecessary energy consumption is created. By strategically employing daylight savings time in such a way as to allow daylight hours to coincide with people's hours of activity, the energy consumption for a city and country is more likely to go down. This in turn can lower the demand for energy, increase the supply and decrease cost for consumers. Furthermore, more discretionary income in the hands of consumers leads to greater domestic consumer spending power especially if the source of energy is imported.

Financial Benefits of Daylight Savings:

Daylight savings time also saves money outside the household. Many activities are held outside in arenas and complexes that require a tremendous amount of lighting. Local and National sports events, and commercial open air marketplaces that may require a lot of electricity can operate at a lower cost and greater profit margin if their electrical overhead is reduced. Naturally this can be good for businesses, and economy, GDP and a culture in general. Governments and Businesses can also save energy with daylight savings time by combining it with natural sources of lighting in architectural design and workplace operations. The less light one requires from electrical sources, the cheaper it is going to be.

National Implications of Daylight Savings:

Over months and years the energy savings derived from daylight savings time can be tremendous. The concept was employed during the second World War to save on the use of coal and support the war effort. In this case not only was energy saved but the resource for that energy was all saved thereby affecting the national capacity for energy usage. The more energy a country has for innovation, invention and commerce the more likely the energy savings from the reduction of energy consumption will be redirected and or stored for other purposes. These other purposes may include inventions that lead to more fuel-efficient cars, homes and businesses.

Disputes regarding Daylight Savings:

Some contest daylight savings time does not save energy because if there are more daylight hours do things in the more one is likely to be active and driving around a city. This may lead to other energy consumption like gas usage, and or electrical equipment for entertainment. While this argument holds some relevance it can be considered counter intuitive because the daylight savings time is designed to increase natural light during normal waking hours in which people are active regardless of how much natural light there actually is. People still need to sleep at night and are still awake and active during the day. The more natural light is in tandem with this natural human cycle, the greater the benefits in terms of energy savings.

Daylight savings time is widely used in the northern hemisphere of the World precisely because it does save energy. Many countries would likely not be using it if it didn't work. Thus, it can be inferred that these countries including the United States and Russia, two of the largest countries of the World, use Daylight Savings because it benefits them in some way i.e. in terms of energy saving. Daylight savings time saves energy and money and this is good for economies, businesses and households.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time ?http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/ ?http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/news/aa040200d. htm