By David K. Li -
NBC News
Children may start going to school in the dark next year in exchange for more sun at the end of the day, while their parents return home from work with the benefit of light.
These would be some of the consequences of abandoning standard time and adopting daylight saving time throughout the year, a change in legislation that the Senate approved this week without any opposition.
If
The Sunshine Protection Act
, as drafted, passes the House of Representatives and is signed by President Joe Biden, citizens would move their clocks forward for the last time in March 2023.
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After nearly everyone turned their clocks back on November 7 to usher in standard time, the sun rose over New York City at 6:33 am and set at 4:45 pm.
On March 12, the last day of this schedule, the sun rose and set over the city at 6:12 am and 5:59 pm, respectively.
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If daylight saving time is maintained during the fall and winter months, the sun will rise an hour later, which means that early risers and children heading to school around 7 a.m. will do so without seeing the light. .
But more than eight hours later, much of the daily grind would unfold with the sun in the sky until around 6 or 7 p.m.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, a leading proponent of the bipartisan bill, said he hoped year-round daylight saving time
would reduce crime, reduce
childhood obesity -- because it would encourage kids to play later -- and rates of seasonal depression.
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“I know it's not the most important issue facing the United States, but it
's one of those issues where there's a lot of agreement,” Rubio said on the Senate floor Tuesday.
It took so long to arrive."
The possible change would have far-reaching implications in many areas of citizens' lives, such as education, transportation, health, and even weather reports on the nightly news.
"A
permanent
jet lag "
Among the staunchest opponents of permanent daylight savings time are doctors and researchers at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
Sunlight activates key hormones that drive a person's activities during the day, and the earlier that process begins, the better, according to proponents of standard time.
They also ensure that melatonin, which is key to falling asleep, is activated after sunset, so that the sooner it happens, the body can rest for a longer period.
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"Going to daylight saving time year-round is a very bad idea
," said Dr. Nathaniel F. Watson, a sleep academy spokesman who is a neurologist at the Sleep Center of the University of Washington Medicine.
"If we do this, it's essentially putting the entire United States into
permanent
jet lag ."
One concern that has been highlighted by the school community is how unsafe it would be for children to wait for their bus or walk to school on darker mornings. Fertnig / Getty Images
Watson said that the ideal would be to set standard time, adding that changing the clock every spring and fall would be even better than daylight saving time throughout the year.
However, according to a 2020 study,
turning clocks back and forth, as is currently done, is linked to a number of negative health outcomes
, including higher rates of heart disease and more traffic accidents.
So eliminating this practice could at least alleviate those risks.
Despite its potential impact on school systems, the bill took some education stakeholders by surprise.
Eric Runez, director of the DeForest Area School District in Wisconsin and a member of the executive board of the American Association of School Administrators, said lawmakers had not consulted his group and other educational policy institutions on the issue.
Runez assured that he is concerned about the problems that this change may cause during school transportation first thing in the morning.
"It's going to be a pretty dark environment for the kids waiting for the bus to come by or the ones that are walking
," she said.
"There are security concerns around that."
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For much of January and December in the Runez district, the sun doesn't rise until 7:30 am, causing children to hit the streets just before dawn.
It would be even darker with daylight saving time throughout the year.
The city of Seattle offers an even more extreme example, because sunrises start even later, occurring a few minutes before 8 am.
With the new bill, the sun would not rise until almost 9 am.
The Institute for Highway Safety, funded by insurance companies, has long advocated for year-round daylight saving time.
The group claims that more lives, especially those of pedestrians, would be saved by
having better lighting during peak hours.
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"This would have a benefit to road safety, it's something we hope decision-makers will take into account," spokesman Joseph Young said.
weather data
National Weather Service offices across the country release balloons into the atmosphere at 8:00 am and 8:00 pm each day during daylight saving time and at 7:00 am and 7:00 pm during standard time.
The data from those balloons is the basis of almost every weather report read on the Internet or shown on television.
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If the collection of information occurs later, likewise forecast data would arrive later.
That, in turn, could affect people's decisions about whether to pack umbrellas or how they assess the likelihood of their children's Little League games going ahead.
This is how it worked in the past
The United States adopted daylight saving time once for an entire year, from 1974 to 1975. But the change was repealed by the government largely because of parental concerns that schools would open before sunrise.
"We already tried it in the mid-'70s, during the OPEC oil embargo, and people didn't like it," Watson said.
"We've been through this before and we know it doesn't work."
He added: "Standard time is the time that best aligns your body clock with the solar clock, which is how we've lived for millennia."