Daylight Saving Time 2011

During 2011 we in Canada along with those living south of the border will be setting our clocks and watches back one hour on Sunday November 6. But in Europe: France, Germany, Italy, Spain etc. will change their time a week ahead of time on Sunday October 30.

I like Daylight Saving time – it wakes one up to our seasons and it helps us focus on how precious time is to all of us. I love making sure all our clocks are set properly (which brings me to a question for you: how many clocks and watches do you have to change? – for us it’s 14)
What bothers me, is simple, why do we in Canada along with the USA not change our time on the same day as Europe?
With international trade so important why do we through another wrench into the mix by having a week or even two weeks difference in changing our time?
When we live in our own little space and have no contact with others in different time zones I guess it does not really matter but when you deal with different time zones is one thing but during this week that is changed in one part of the world and not in another can really mess things up. - Steve

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From an article in National Geographic News by Brian Hanwerk

"For most Americans, (USA and Canada) daylight saving time 2011 starts at 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 13, when most states spring forward an hour. Time will fall back to standard time again on Sunday, November 6, 2011, when daylight saving time ends. //
Where it is observed, daylight savings has been known to cause some problems.
National surveys by Rasmussen Reports, for example, show that 83 percent of respondents knew when to move their clocks ahead in spring 2010. Twenty-seven percent, though, admitted they'd been an hour early or late at least once in their lives because they hadn't changed their clocks correctly.
It's enough to make you wonder—why do we do use daylight saving time in the first place?

How and When Did Daylight Saving Time Start? Ben Franklin—of "early to bed and early to rise" fame—was apparently the first person to suggest the concept of daylight savings, according to computer scientist David Prerau, author of the book Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time.

While serving as U.S. ambassador to France in Paris, Franklin wrote of being awakened at 6 a.m. and realizing, to his surprise, that the sun would rise far earlier than he usually did. Imagine the resources that might be saved if he and others rose before noon and burned less midnight oil, Franklin, tongue half in cheek, wrote to a newspaper.
"Franklin seriously realized it would be beneficial to make better use of daylight but he didn't really know how to implement it," Prerau said.
It wasn't until World War I that daylight savings were realized on a grand scale. Germany was the first state to adopt the time changes, to reduce artificial lighting and thereby save coal for the war effort. Friends and foes soon followed suit.
In the U.S. a federal law standardized the yearly start and end of daylight saving time in 1918—for the states that chose to observe it.
During World War II the U.S. made daylight saving time mandatory for the whole country, as a way to save wartime resources. Between February 9, 1942, and September 30, 1945, the government took it a step further. During this period daylight saving time was observed year-round, essentially making it the new standard time, if only for a few years.
Since the end of World War II, though, daylight saving time has always been optional for U.S. states. But its beginning and end have shifted—and occasionally disappeared.
During the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo, the U.S. once again extended daylight saving time through the winter, resulting in a one percent decrease in the country's electrical load, according to federal studies cited by Prerau.
Thirty years later the Energy Policy Act of 2005 was enacted, mandating a controversial monthlong extension of daylight saving time, starting in 2007."

Read More from this article Daylight Saving Time 2011: Why and When Does It Begin?