Growing up in Arizona (little fluffy clouds), this unnecessary twice-a-year routine is still baffling.
In the age of WFH and ordering stuff online, DST is an anachronism pushed by retailers who worry that not enough people will visit their physical stores after work. Similar to the “8 hours of sleep” pushed by company towns wanting 8-8-8 work shifts.
At least in Europe we have until March 30… and there’s hope it will end in 2026.
And if you’re living off of solar power, the sun doesn’t give shit what time it is (this is true even if you’re still on the grid). It shifts the production time, which is admittedly worse when we fall back to standard because of the extra hour before I’m charging the LFP again.
The irony is that people still live according to solar time, no matter what the clock says. It’s most notable in Europe, where we use the same time zone from 9W all the way to 30E, or 2.5 solar time zones… but then breakfast, work, and dinner times across different countries, match the solar.
There was a nice graph with all the countries, that I can’t seem to find now, but let this one serve for illustrative purposes:
Good thing I have a passing understanding of Spanish and lived in Germany. I’d challenge you to find more than 20% of Americans who could grasp Alemania.
The further north you go (and south like New Zealand) the greater the effect. Imagine not seeing the sun rise until 9:30 am.
I switched to 24-hour time on all my devices after scrambling to get to work, only to discover it was 12 hours earlier. Those long nights can really mess with one’s sense of reality.
I love living in a place that doesn’t faff about with time changes. I hated it growing up. We could stand to shift an hour later, though, since I’m not a huge fan of sunrise sometime a bit after 4 in summer
Here’s how to adjust… SCREAM AT EVERYTHING
