Some VA. lawmakers say it's time to eliminate daylight saving time | Hacker News Reader

Some VA. lawmakers say it's time to eliminate daylight saving time

virginiamercury.com

26 pointsbelltaco14 comments

The senate passed a law to move to DST, the house did not. Many states want to change to DST permanently. Some details at https://www.timeanddate.com/news/time/us-permanent-dst.html.

Washington state has approved moving to DST permanently, but we are waiting for congressional authorization. Our 4 months of darkness after 4 PM starts next week.

The Secretary of Transportation can also approve a change in time zone [0], and any state can switch to year round Standard Time [1]. Your state representatives are being disingenuous.

[0] https://www.transportation.gov/regulations/procedure-moving-...

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/260a

Read more carefully. We don’t need approval to switch to standard time, but no one but Arizona wants to switch to standard time! We do need congressional approval to switch to permanent daylight savings times.

Our representatives aren’t being disingenuous.

Yes, we need to move to dst in the north but other places would prefer it too. If the rest of the continental us didn't move together, I don't think it would happen. standard time (not daylight savings time) is what we want to get out of.

The problem for northern states is the sun goes down too early. Right now, Minneapolis sun up at 7am, down at 4:54. Seattle 7, down 4:44, chicago 6:28 to 4:38.

https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/minneapolis is one way to visualize (there's a graph at the bottom showing the dst/st change). A few days ago in the northern latitudes it was sun up at 7:50p, down at 6pm. Now it's an hour earlier. It's much nicer to push sundown an hour later.

So, to achieve the same practical end (to observe only the one of two time periods it currently observes which it cannot unilaterally choose), Washington state would instead propose changing its entire geographic time zone to Mountain Time, seeking approval from the Secretary of Transportation instead of Congress, on the bases laid out in that link, and then upon that entirely other approval which may or may not occur, unilaterally switch to Mountain Standard Time rather than Pacific Daylight Time… and it’s WA representatives who are being disingenuous? On the assumption that the other approval would be more forthcoming?

I asked ChatGPT to write about DST. I was impressed.

In the time of the Tang, as now, the sun rose and set, untamed by the hands of man. Daylight shifts, ordered by decree, an emperor's command to chase the dawn. Yet the sun's chariot keeps its pace, heedless of our earthly toil. Fields await the plow at first light, farmers stir by nature's clock.

An hour borrowed, an hour lost, the people sigh under heaven's gaze. In the rooster's crow, the day's true measure, not in the changing guards of time. Mandate upon mandate, cycles spun, a tapestry of human pride. Willows sway, rivers flow on, time's passage marked by shadow and sun.

Spring's warmth comes, regardless of the hour, blossoms heed not the shift of men. The poet's ink flows like the river, enduring beyond the edicts of the day. In each season’s turn, let us find harmony, for heaven's course is ever true, While man's adjustments, like autumn leaves, are swept away in the eternal stream.

(why do most regions seem to move to the 'daylight time' permanently instead of their 'standard' time by the way? like shifting to another 'standard time' entirely?)

Because the result is more daylight later in the day when it can be useful.

More like eliminate everything except Daylight Savings Time.

We’ve heard that before. Rand Paul was trying to push it through Congress IIRC just last year. I’m not holding my breath for Congress to do anything of much use. For VA to do something… okay? So did Arizona and the rest of the country did not follow suit.

I'd rather keep permanent DST...

Not everyone can agree which so we will probably be stuck with the changing back and forth.

It’s all noise congress can’t even pass a funding bill for Israel this will never pass

I swear there's got to be actual health risks for many people during this switch.

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