The United States takes the first step to end the time change

The debate about the time change has intensified in recent years in Europe and America.

As usual, last Sunday, the second of March, the United States advanced its clocks one hour to enter daylight saving time, and 2:00 was 3:00.

So this is the week in which, with a little more sleep, it starts to get dark later and the most

citizens regain faith in sunlight after the harshest months of harsh winter.

But this time they are not only in luck for that.

The US Senate unanimously approved the law on Tuesday that will allow no more time changes from November 2023.

If the legislative initiative prospers after passing through Congress (and everything suggests that this is done), the country will stay forever in summer time.

The rule has the poetic title of the Sunshine Protection Act, the sun protection law, and has been adopted unanimously by the 100 members of the Upper House.

And that's news too.

At a time when the political confrontation between Republicans and Democrats (and between Democrats and Democrats) breaks records of polarization, the initiative s.

623 has garnered all the support in a session led by Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, a senator from Arizona, a state in which the time does not change in the fall and spring (she does not change in places like Alska or Puerto Rico either).

Synema (along with fellow Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia,

the legislator who has provided Biden with the most headaches from her own ranks by opposing several of his most ambitious initiatives) has drawn up a record of the unanimity reached with a victorious gesture.

Now it remains for the law to be approved by Congress, to return to the Senate and for the President of the United States to sign it.

It is an endeavor of the Republican Marco Rubio, senator from Florida (which in the United States receives, now with more reason, the nickname of the Sunshine State).

In practice, it implies that it will get dark later in the fall and winter months.

"The effects of dark afternoons on our mental and physical health can be serious," explains Rubio in a written justification posted on his official website.

“The biannual transition of 'jump forward' and 'jump back' disrupts circadian sleep patterns, causing confusion, sleep disturbances and even elevated risk to heart health... Daylight saving time throughout the year also could decrease the probability of fatal car accidents, which increase 6% in the days after the time change, according to a 2020 study from the University of Colorado,”

Add.

In the debate held on Tuesday, Rubio also spoke of advantages such as the prevention of accidents with pedestrians, the reduction of crime and depression, and the fight against childhood obesity.

The end of the time change will also bring with it later sunrises.

In the inevitable debate that has followed the news on social networks, those opposed to the decision have adduced scientific arguments and have recalled that in some cities located at the western ends of the country's three time zones they will see sunlight at as late as 8:35 a.m. (in Tallahassee, Florida), 8:43 a.m. (Atlanta, Georgia), 9:00 a.m. (Louisville, Kentucky), 9:01 a.m. (in Detroit), and 9:06 a.m. (in Indianapolis , capital of Indiana).

It will also mean changes in the time difference with Spain (when the change occurs on the last Sunday in March), which will be from six to nine hours for half the year, and from five to eight the rest.

If the new law prospers in the Capitol, it will not, however, be effective until 2023. The legislators have decided to grant that extension to give time to sectors such as rail transport or commercial aviation to adapt to the new (and more immobile) time.

An initiative similar to the American one ran aground in Brussels last year.

Three years ago, the European Commission approved a draft directive to put an end to the time jumps that it regulated as of 1980. But the 27 failed to agree, despite the fact that the European Parliament has repeatedly spoken out against the time change, and a public consultation in which 4.5 million citizens spoke gave the result that 76% claimed to "have a negative experience" with the oscillation of the clocks.

It is not the first time that the United States will dare to play with time.

On December 14, 1973, the Capitol voted to keep daylight saving time fixed for two years, as it had done during World War II.

President Nixon signed the bill into law the next day, in the midst of the oil crisis.

YT

headlined in January “When summer time is the darkest hour” a chronicle in which it warned of an increase in accidents with children who, sleepy, wandered through the city on their way to school, even at night.

Watergate

would take Nixon ahead of him that summer

The consensus on the bonanzas of the clockwise experiment did not survive much longer either.

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