Tuesday 5 October 2010

This daylight saving thing fools the fools

- Cairns Post 5th October 2010

3 comments:

Frank said...

Why are three of the responses circled? Christof’s point, I believe, is that daylight saving brings more daylight during the hours at which people are up and about (rather than sleeping). Hani may be saying the reason daylight saving is not implemented in Queensland is that, overall, our climate is warmer and sunnier than the southern states. For example, under daylight saving, Queensland children would be going home from school at 2pm (standard time) when the clock says 3pm (summer time). It’s likely to be hotter at 2pm, or at least the sun’s rays would be more direct. Elsie’s point, perhaps, is that we don’t need clocks at all: if we took more notice of the sun and the moon we would be active at more sensible hours, rather than when told by an artificial time-keeping device!

yk said...

This whole Daylight Savings debate is as tiresome as it is regular. It seems to me that there is a belief that if something is successful in other states then it simply cannot be successful in Queensland.
I do not think I would like to see it introduced in the Tropics. However I find it extremely difficult to understand why it has not already been introduced in the south east of the state, particularly with all the energy conservations issued flying around at the moment. It seems ludicrous to have broad daylight in Brisbane at 4.30am when most of the people are still asleep then the entire population having to turn their lights on at 7pm at night when it becomes quite dark. And it is not only domestic lighting - there's all the street lights, security lights etc. extremely wasteful apart from the costs involved. If the government was serious about conservation then daylight saving would be introduced irrespective of what the people thought.

Unknown said...

From what is said and how it is said on this topic, it appears that a fair number of participants in the debate are not aware of how the fact that the Earth is a rotating spheroid affects day lengths.

At low latitudes like northern Queensland there is little difference in daylength between summer and winter, so it is logical to choose one particular hourly time-zone that best matches the times when people are out and about, and stick with it year round. Seasonal shifting from one time zone to another (ie daylight saving) only makes sense in high latitude parts of the planet where the solar days can be very long indeed in summer, and very short in winter. The idea is to bring some of the otherwise unused daylight of early summer mornings into the times of day when people are active, to reduce unnecessary reliance on artificial lighting late in the day, but then shift back again when those light mornings have gone.

Tanetahi