Daylight saving time
Letter to the Editor of the Montreal Gazette. It appeared in the 2002-11-5 edition under the heading “Let’s make those long winter evenings brighter”.
Dr. Colin Shapiro recently pointed out (Changing clocks causes temporary havoc, Gazette 2002-10-28) that the switch from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time, on the last weekend of October, disrupts the circadian rhythms of children. Of course, it does so for adults as well, and I would raise the possibility that this switch may even trigger Seasonal Affective Disorder (winter depression) in susceptible individuals. In Iceland, which stays on Standard Time year-round, the incidence of seasonal affective disorder is very low.
This may be another reason to stay on the same time schedule year-round, instead of setting the clocks back an hour in the fall and forward in the spring. However, rather than staying on Standard Time during the summer months, it makes sense from the point of view of saving energy, to stay on Daylight Saving Time in the winter, as was done the United States during both world wars and again during the oil crisis of 1973-74. There are also a number of studies suggesting that Daylight Saving Time during the winter months results in fewer road accidents involving pedestrians, especially school children on their way home in the late afternoon. Safer children, reduced energy costs (think Kyoto!), and possibly less winter depression: what are we waiting for?