Collegiate Times

Among the energy saving provisions included in The Energy Policy Act of 2005, the United States Congress changed the start of Daylight Saving Time (DST) from the last weekend of October to the first weekend of November.

The primary reasoning for DST is to conserve energy by increasing daylight hours, which would then decrease dependence on electricity. The week was changed in order to conserve even more energy. The change was put into action only in 2007 in order to give various software and technology enough time to fix their systems to synchronize with the time change.

For anyone with a clock produced before 2005, this most likely screwed up your morning of the last weekend of October. Any clock made before the act was passed automatically changed from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m.

On Monday morning, people were woken up an hour earlier than desired. Granted, this might have helped some students get to class on time. However, waking up and getting ready for class only to realize that you could have gotten another hour of sleep is obnoxious.

This inconvenience makes one wonder just why Congress deemed it necessary to change a pattern that Americans have followed for 20 years, since 1986.

It's been proven that DST does decrease energy use. However, the idea of DST is completely disorganized and chaotic on a worldwide scale. DST is recognized around the world, but over 40 countries don't even have DST, such as Iran, India, and North and South Korea.

In the United States, Arizona, Alaska, and Hawaii don't change their clocks. 18 counties in Indiana observe Central Daylight Time, whereas the rest of the state's counties observe Eastern Standard Time.

Everyone around the world works on a 24-hour day, with 60 minutes to each hour. So how can some countries choose to change clocks forward and backward, while others don't change a thing? With differing time zones, it's already sometimes tough to distinguish what time it is in various regions of the world. Some countries, such as Japan, recognize DST between May and September. Others, including Iraq, have DST between April and October. Now, the United States springs forward in early March and falls back in early November. This is generating a very odd time configuration across the globe.

The confusion in time changes has proven to even be deadly. In September of 1999, Palestinian militants were killed in a territory in Israel by their own bomb. The bomb exploded an hour early while they were transporting it because they did not take into account the Palestinian Daylight Time, which is different from Israel Standard Time.

Something as universal as time should be decided by the entire globe. Unfortunately, organizing a meeting of every nation and territory is basically impossible, which means that unless DST is just dropped, every nation will be on its own schedule.

The editorial board is composed of Amie Steele, Joe Kendall, Saira Haider, Laurel Colella and Sara Mitchell.