EU to recommend abolishing DST

eire4 · 23-03-2021 7:38pm

Quackster wrote: »

As long as the UK doesn't change, any Irish government will be opposed to change for political reasons.

So unless the UK were to unilaterally abolish DST, things will stay as they are.

Depends on the government of the day. The longer we live in a post brexit world and we become more and more integrated with the EU what the UK does or does not do with clock changing may not factor into what a future Irish governments decides to do with clocks. Rather what our EU partners do will be more influential.

dxhound2005 · 23-03-2021 8:10pm

Quackster wrote: »

I don't want the EU to abolish DST so that doesn't make much sense..??

Another thing which does not make sense is what you surmise about those who are in favour of permanent time zones.

I can only surmise that these people must never travel outside this time zone for holidays or any other reason.

I have no problem dealing with travel across time zones. Neither do I suffer any form of angst in dealing with the six monthly clock changes here. I am simply in favour of a perfectly good proposal which is very mainstream, not some sort of way out thinking.

RobertKK · 23-03-2021 8:19pm

It works at our latitude if one has no electricity.

dxhound2005 · 23-03-2021 8:22pm

RobertKK wrote: »

It works at our latitude if one has no electricity.

I only switch on the electric when I am lighting the candles.

Quackster · 24-03-2021 1:12pm

dxhound2005 wrote: »

Another thing which does not make sense is what you surmise about those who are in favour of permanent time zones.

I can only surmise that these people must never travel outside this time zone for holidays or any other reason.

I have no problem dealing with travel across time zones. Neither do I suffer any form of angst in dealing with the six monthly clock changes here. I am simply in favour of a perfectly good proposal which is very mainstream, not some sort of way out thinking.

If you could solve the problem of darker winter mornings, then it would be a no-brainer. But you can't without making it darker during the summer an hour earlier. If it came to it, I'd put up with going to work in pitch darkness in the middle of the winter but it sounds like plenty wouldn't.

Anyway, I don't see it changing anytime soon so I won't worry too much about it!

Rodin · 24-03-2021 1:16pm

Quackster wrote: »

If you could solve the problem of darker winter mornings, then it would be a no-brainer. But you can't without making it darker during the summer an hour earlier. If it came to it, I'd put up with going to work in pitch darkness in the middle of the winter but it sounds like plenty wouldn't.

Anyway, I don't see it changing anytime soon so I won't worry too much about it!

Plenty going to work in the dark under the present system anyway.
But the extra hour in the evening, particularly in November and February would be very valuable. Who cares if it's dark between 9am and 10am if people in work. Much better they get a brighter evening. Even now we see more people out exercising in the brighter evenings

Fr Tod Umptious · 24-03-2021 1:52pm

Rodin wrote: »

Plenty going to work in the dark under the present system anyway.
But the extra hour in the evening, particularly in November and February would be very valuable. Who cares if it's dark between 9am and 10am if people in work. Much better they get a brighter evening. Even now we see more people out exercising in the brighter evenings

Loads of people.

Under all year summertime it would not be bright until close to 10am in the morning.

There is no upside to people traveling to school and work in the pitch dark rather than in creeping daylight as is currently the case.

For example frost would take an extra hour to clear from roads due to the lack of daylight.

And because the weather tends to be poor in winter the "extra hour" in the evening does not offer as much value as people would expect it to.

The reality for our geographical location is that brighter mornings are more valuable in winter and brighter evenings are more valuable in summer.

The only way to keep that balance is to change the clocks, personally I'd prefer that they be changed to wintertime for December and January only, but the reality is that changing them is the best option.

Rodin · 24-03-2021 7:43pm

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Loads of people.

Under all year summertime it would not be bright until close to 10am in the morning.

There is no upside to people traveling to school and work in the pitch dark rather than in creeping daylight as is currently the case.

For example frost would take an extra hour to clear from roads due to the lack of daylight.

And because the weather tends to be poor in winter the "extra hour" in the evening does not offer as much value as people would expect it to.

The reality for our geographical location is that brighter mornings are more valuable in winter and brighter evenings are more valuable in summer.

The only way to keep that balance is to change the clocks, personally I'd prefer that they be changed to wintertime for December and January only, but the reality is that changing them is the best option.

Don't actually get frost often anyway.
In December and January it's dark anyway going to school/work so why not take advantage in the evenings? The schools are off for 2 weeks at Xmas anyway so they aren't affected by dark mornings then.
And poor weather in the winter means people won't want to get out in the evening? Rubbish.
Will mean better traffic safety in the evenings too.

But changing only for December isn't a bad idea

Vestiapx · 24-03-2021 7:51pm

I would like to change to GMT till valentine's Day it would be the same in as out for the winter and would give a consistent sun rise buy would mean that we only go home in the dark for three months.

Nqp15hhu · 24-03-2021 8:05pm

Rodin wrote: »

Don't actually get frost often anyway.
In December and January it's dark anyway going to school/work so why not take advantage in the evenings? The schools are off for 2 weeks at Xmas anyway so they aren't affected by dark mornings then.
And poor weather in the winter means people won't want to get out in the evening? Rubbish.
Will mean better traffic safety in the evenings too.

But changing only for December isn't a bad idea

What use is darkness at 5pm?

Rodin · 24-03-2021 11:13pm

Nqp15hhu wrote: »

What use is darkness at 5pm?

Would be sunrise at 10am otherwise.
And would still be dark for many people leaving work so the hour in the evening may not be helpful. More helpful in November/February.

dxhound2005 · 16-03-2022 1:08am

America did their clock change on 13 March 2022, and until the 27th, New York will be four hours different to us instead of five. The US Senate voted on 15 March 2022 to do away with clock changes from November 2023. Has to be voted on by the House of Representatives, and approved by the President.

https://www.opb.org/article/2022/03/15/senate-votes-to-keep-permanent-daylight-saving-time/

They will still keep their time zones just like across the EU. If it goes ahead in America, it might prompt the EU member states to agree to do the same. Every country will be able to choose whatever time zone they want to belong to, but they have to stick to that all year.

Fr Tod Umptious · 16-03-2022 1:37am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118791696#Comment_118791696

So if they go ahead with it and we continue to change the clocks we will only be 4 hours ahead of the east coast from late October to late March.

That will be handy because NFL games will start at 5pm rather than 6pm and the really late game will start at 12:20am rather than 1:20am.

The contiguous 48 states is much further south than Ireland, thus they do not have the extremes of long and short days that we have in Ireland.

In a place like Massachusetts on the north east coast it gets dark around 8 or 8:30 in mid summer, but on the other hand in mid winter it's bright at 7am.

Regardless of what Europe do, our location means that the best option for us will always be changing the clocks twice a year.

dxhound2005 · 16-03-2022 11:53am

Time zones are determined by longitude. Sweden and Finland are an hour apart, but Finland and Greece are the same. The idea will be to keep all EU member states in step, just as they are now with twice yearly changes on the same dates.

There are arguments both for and against DST. Every way round, and more especially further North than us, nature says that some days will be very long daylight, and some days very short. Every attempt like DST to manipulate clocks is up against that reality.

Mantis Toboggan · 16-03-2022 12:04pm

I don't mind having to change the clocks as it makes sense but it needs to be from start of December to end of February, 5 months of winter time is too much.

highdef · 16-03-2022 6:34pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118792726#Comment_118792726

Whilst I personally would prefer to stay in Irish Standard Time (IST) all year round and have no Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), I could cope with 8 weeks of GMT as a compromise but not much more.

Take this coming weekend as an example. The weather is set to be fine with plenty of sunshine so it'll be the first full weekend of the year where I can get to work out in the garden all day in fine weather and maybe even get a bit of a tan to go with it. In the part of the country that I will be in, sunset will be around 18:40. I might be able to work outside as late as 19:00 as long as the skies are clear but the ability to work till around 20:00 would mean a lot to me. Sunrise will be about 06:30 and I am very confident I won't be out and about at that time so I see it as a bit of a waste of usable daylight. Sunrise around 07:30 would be far more suitable for my preferences.......I probably won't be up that early either 😁

I've said it before but the above is my feelings on Winter Time/GMT. Everyone has their own opinion.

eire4 · 16-03-2022 6:41pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118791696#Comment_118791696

Given this passed the senate unanimously you would have to think its very likely to pass the US house and be signed into law by the president at some point this year. Hopefully the US's move will prompt the EU to get this done in Europe as well soon.

highdef · 23-09-2022 3:10am

Currently just a rumour from an individual but the individual is a freelance journalist so it could be the real deal. If the detail in the tweet is correct, we should be hearing more of this later today.

Strazdas · 23-09-2022 3:55am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119653354#Comment_119653354

Interesting, that would surely have consequences for us - NI would presumably not accept being in a different time zone to GB, suggesting we could very possibly have to follow suit.

prunudo · 23-09-2022 6:40am

Won't make a blind bit of difference to energy crisis, all it does is shift a hours worth of energy use from the evening to the morning.

Mantis Toboggan · 23-09-2022 7:17am

Logical solution, should have done years ago, brighter evenings will definitely have an impact.

Hotblack Desiato · 23-09-2022 9:00am

In the middle of winter it'll make no difference to energy consumption (dark in both morning and evening anyway) but IMHO we go into winter time two weeks too early and leave it four weeks too late.

Usual government-by-chaos we've come to expect in the UK though, the knock-on effects on IT for instance are huge. Windows systems don't cope well with unexpected time zone changes.

https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/07/microsoft_windows_chile_time_change/

And there's no reason we have to have the same time zone as GB or NI. I coudln't give a fiddler's if some people miss East Enders. Having a variable instead of fixed time difference between us and other EU countries is not good. Aren't we obliged legally to keep a fixed offset and change our clocks in lockstep anyway - the whole point of this thread?

23-09-2022 9:32am

I don't think there is any legal requirement to synchronise timezones, it's just a good idea to do so.

Northern Cyprus tried to sync with turkish time a few years ago but having two timezones on the island caused chaos and they quickly abandoned the idea after one or two years.

Any change will cause chaos in all time dependant IT systems unless planned years in advance.

Glaceon · 23-09-2022 9:36am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119653667#Comment_119653667

I think it's more the political sensitivity of having different time in Dundalk and Newry, or Lifford and Strabane, that has us reluctant to change without the UK doing so.

23-09-2022 9:48am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119653845#Comment_119653845

Spanish and Portuguese border cities manage it just fine

Glaceon · 23-09-2022 10:04am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119653903#Comment_119653903

They do, but I don't believe they have the same political tensions as our border region.

Thelonious Monk · 23-09-2022 12:16pm

Any poll I've seen says the vast majority want summertime to be year round. However every year we talk about it and nothing ever happens, it's a charade.

Quantum Erasure · 23-09-2022 12:25pm

Summertime all year round, what's not to like...

Mantis Toboggan · 23-09-2022 12:35pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119654741#Comment_119654741

Darker mornings in the winter

Thelonious Monk · 23-09-2022 12:49pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119654790#Comment_119654790

so what? people are going to work etc. brighter evenings make more sense.

EU to recommend abolishing DST

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