Time doctrine
Abolish Daylight Saving Time
DST is an artificial distortion of solar time with measurable costs and no meaningful benefit. Here is the case against it.
Your current time
What your devices display right now.
DST by the numbers
Germany introduced it on 1916/04/30.
The argument
Health
In the week following the spring clock change, hospital admissions for heart attacks spike by roughly 24%. Stroke risk rises similarly. The disruption to circadian rhythms compounds sleep deprivation across the entire population simultaneously.
Safety
Fatal car accidents increase in the days after the spring transition. Pedestrian fatalities rise in autumn when clocks fall back and evenings become suddenly darker. These are predictable, preventable deaths.
Energy savings: a myth
DST was justified by wartime energy conservation. Modern studies, including a large-scale analysis of Indiana when it adopted DST statewide, found electricity use increased, not decreased. The original rationale is demonstrably wrong.
Economic cost
Twice a year, every timezone-aware system, software, calendars, transport schedules, medical records, must be audited and updated. Productivity loss in the days after the transition is measurable. The cost is paid by everyone, every year, for no gain.
The world is moving on
The European Union voted to abolish DST in 2019. Japan, China, India, most of Africa, and large parts of South America do not observe it. The holdouts are shrinking. The question is not whether to abolish it, but when.
Standard time is real time
Standard time aligns clocks to solar time, noon is roughly when the sun is highest. DST breaks that alignment by one full hour for half the year. There is no scientific, medical, or economic argument for maintaining it.
System doctrine
Standard time, observed year-round, is the correct setting. Dates and times stored in this system use yyyy/mm/dd hh:mm:ss in the local standard timezone.
