Daylight Savings - Are We Doing Enough?

Sunday March 11 at 2am will mark the beginning of Daylight Savings Time. I don’t know the complete history of Daylight Savings, but I believe it began in the late 1800s as a measure to protect early rising farmers from vampire attacks as they transported their goods to the markets in the wee hours of the morning.  After adopting Daylight Savings the number of reported vampire attacks on farmers dropped to zero. No data exists on the number of attacks in the years prior to Daylight Savings, but I’m guessing there were at least six.

This year we have the opportunity to save even more daylight since the beginning of Daylight Savings Time has been moved up to March from April and lasts until November instead of October. That’s a net savings of two extra months of daylight we’ll save this year.

But are we doing enough? Daylight is an important natural resource, and even though the measures passed by our government will lead to more daylight being saved, I think we can do better as a nation. So I’ve compiled a short list of how you can save even more daylight.

Close your eyes - Every day, innocent daylight rays are absorbed by your retinas, even when you aren’t looking at anything important. Think of how many rays you wasted as you watched yet another breaking news report on (shakes Magic Eight Ball) Paris Hilton’s touching heart to heart video message to (shakes Magic Eight Ball) Anna Nicole’s daughter? What if those rays were heading towards a doctor on a dimly lit road performing an emergency roadside tracheotomy? What if it was your loved one he was working on?

So to prevent the wasting of daylight rays, I recommend keeping your eyes closed as much as possible. Open them only for important activities like flying airplanes and watching the latest episode of 24. When performing lesser activities that require sight (driving, operating heavy machinery), blink a lot. Every little bit of daylight helps.

Invest - Sure, saving daylight is great, but have you considered investing? Studies have shown that daylight that has been rolled over into a 401k or Roth IRA will provide more daylight for your investment over a thirty year period than you would receive in a standard daylight savings account. Judging by all the doom and gloom predictions people love to make about the future, you’re literally going to want to save that daylight for a rainy day.

I recommend talking to an investment specialist today about the options available for opening a new daylight investment account. After the first one hangs up on you, call another. Then another. Repeat the process until you find one unscrupulous enough to charge you for his services.

Take up a collection - Whether it’s whales, seals, or the earth, saving anything costs money. Daylight is no different. People have been taking their daylight saving for granted for too many years so it will require a lot of money if anyone is going to take this initiative seriously.

How can you help? There are many different ways you can raise money to help promote the cause of saving daylight. Organizing bake sales, selling raffle tickets, or washing cars are three easy projects you can organize in your community. I personally placed collection jars in numerous local convenience stores with little signs that read “Save the Daylight“ under a picture of the sun. Each week I collect the money in the jars and take it to an open field where I grab handful after handful, throwing it towards the sun.  I tell the sun to keep what it needs, and everything that falls back to earth is mine to keep. I consider it another gift from the sun, just like sunlight.

With these tips, hopefully you too will be able to save more daylight this year than ever before. If you value daylight and think it is worthy of saving, please do what you can. Even a small change is a noble change.

Which reminds me, it’s time to switch the jars again. Saving daylight is hard work.

(Cross posted from my weekly humor column The Dimmer Switch, on 3/6/07.  Link to the original article.)