Europe wants to turn back the clock on daylight saving time
If you live in North America, Europe, or parts of Brazil, Chile, Australia or New Zealand, then you are familiar with the semi-annual ritual of changing the clocks for Daylight Saving Time. But Europe may be looking to turn back the clock on this century-old tradition.
Hey everyone, thanks for joining us, this is Plain English, the podcast for English language learners. I’m Jeff from Chicago and the producer of the show is JR from Mexico. Today is Monday, September 10, 2018 and this is episode 84 of Plain English. The transcript for today’s episode is available online at PlainEnglish.com/84. If you go there, you’ll find a word-for-word transcript. And if you speak Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Italian, Chinese or French, then you are in luck because the transcripts include instant translations of the hardest words and phrases from English to your language. Just hover your mouse right over the word—or if you’re on your phone, just tap a highlighted word—and you’ll see the translation instantly. The great thing about that is that you don’t have to pause the audio to look up the definitions. PlainEnglish.com/84.
End of Daylight Saving Time in Europe?
The long days of summer are getting shorter here in the Northern Hemisphere, as we get further into September, and pretty soon we’ll be turning our clocks back as Daylight Saving Time ends. But a new poll in the European Union shows that a vast majority of respondents are in favor of abolishing this century-old tradition. In fact, the European Commission will recommend that European countries be allowed to keep one permanent time all twelve months of the year.
Right now, countries in the EU are in one of three time zones, but they are all required to observe daylight saving time, turning their clocks forward by an hour in March and back again by an hour in October. The new proposal would allow each individual country the freedom to choose whether to observe daylight saving time or not.
Jean-Claude Junker, the president of the European Commission, said that 80% of survey respondents were in favor of abolishing the annual time changes. Some countries outside the EU, such as Russia, Turkey and Iceland, have stopped the change. In fact, Turkey waffled a bit, at first abolishing the time changes in 2016, then reinstating them in 2017, then immediately reversing its decision. So, as best I can tell, Turkey is still not changing its clocks this year.
The idea was first introduced in Britain and New Zealand in the early 1900s, but was first implemented in Germany as a way to save coal during World War I. Many European and North American countries followed suit, but did so unevenly. Many dropped the practice after the war ended in 1918. But it wasn’t until the 1970s that the practice became widely used and widely adopted around Europe and North America, in response to an energy crisis, in which fuel costs were high and there were shortages of heating fuel.
Since that time, study after study has shown that the energy savings associated with changing our clocks are either very small or non-existent. The idea was that we would use less electricity in the evenings if it stays light longer. But these days, lighting is actually a small part of our electricity usage: I bet your refrigerator, washing machine, air conditioner, and all your electronics use more electricity than your lights.
It’s a common myth in the United States—and I have no idea where this myth came from—that daylight saving time helps farmers and the agriculture industry. But this isn’t true at all: if you work the land, then you will work whenever the sun comes up, regardless of what the clock says.
In fact, farmers are generally against Daylight Saving Time. The benefits go to people like me—those of us who work a regular working day indoors and like some additional time in the evening for recreation and to enjoy some more sunlight. So if that’s the main benefit, then why not just keep the summer hours and abolish the change back to winter hours altogether? That’s what some people in the EU are hoping to do—keep the summer hours instead of the winter hours.
There are some down sides to changing clocks. For one thing, there is the economic disruption. If you work across borders, like I do, it’s always tough to determine what time it is in another location if that location doesn’t observe daylight saving time—or if they change their clocks at a different time than you do. For example, I work with people in India a lot, and like most of Asia and Africa, they don’t change their clocks for daylight saving time in India. So our time difference is either nine and a half hours or ten and a half hours. What’s more, countries in the Southern Hemisphere switch their clocks in the opposite direction, since when it’s summer in the north, it’s winter in the south. I’m recording this at 9:00 in the morning in US central time, and it’s 11:00 a.m. in Brazil. But in December, 9:00 a.m. here will be 1:00 in the afternoon there. Oh, and guess what? Brazil and the United States don’t change our clocks at the same time. So depending on the day, we are either two, three, or four hours different. Got that? I hope so, because I don’t!
Another down side is the disruption to your body’s rhythm. At first, I dismissed this, since an hour twice a year is nothing to me. I move between time zones a lot—last week I was in Los Cabos, Mexico, which is an hour behind me; I’m often in New York, which is an hour ahead—so changing an hour here or there is nothing to me. But I actually think it’s about more than just moving an hour forward or back—it’s about how your body responds to the light and the dark outside. It’s always a jolt leaving the office on that first Monday after daylight saving time ends, and it’s already dark outside around 6:00.
These are good problems to have, I think, because as the world connects and communicates more across borders, we all become better off—but it’s funny how something so fundamental—like time—can really affect our lives and can be so different in many different places.
Here’s something interesting I learned about the terminology. In the United States, we say Standard Time, to describe what we have in the winter, and Daylight Saving Time, to describe what we have in the summer. But in Europe, they say Summer Time and Winter Time, which sounds strange to my ear. In the US, if you say summertime, you mean the season. In summertime I like to go to the beach; in wintertime I like to go skiing, et cetera. But in Europe, Summer Time is what we call Daylight Saving Time.
And here’s another thing. The official name is Daylight Saving Time, but about 99 percent of the population says Daylight Savings Time, with an “s” on savings. That’s actually not correct, but it’s such a widespread pronunciation error—almost nobody says it the right way. This whole time, as I’ve been recording, it’s been such an effort to pronounce it correctly, since I also usually say Daylight Savings Time, even though it’s not correct.
Okay, so far this is the longest-ever episode of Plain English—and it’s about changing our clocks. Who knew there was so much to say about this one topic? We have a lot of listeners in Turkey, so I’d love to know what you think about stopping the time change—if you think it’s been a change for the better or for the worse.
I want to say hi to Gerson from Peru—he said he’s figured out (remember, figured out?)—he’s figured out the best way to practice his listening is by tuning into Plain English on Spotify. Also want to say hi to Gerber from Guatemala City and Diana from Bogotá, Colombia. Diana will not be changing her clock this fall—in fact, Bogotá is the closest I’ve ever been to the equator and the people there told me the days don’t really get longer or shorter; the sun rises at six and the sun sets at six pretty much every day of the year.
Learn English the way it’s really spoken
