Speaker 1: If we sound crazy, it's because we had a wild
Speaker 1: night last night.
Speaker 2: Was it wild? We're too old to have wild night.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we went to dinner. We would have dinner late.
Speaker 2: We had a late dinner. That's a wild night for
Speaker 2: us to hear that. I feel like if I'm eating
Speaker 2: at nine o'clock something went wrong during the day, or
Speaker 2: I'm out with my friend.
Speaker 1: A nine o'clock dinner feels like a It was practically breakfast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it felt like two o'clock. I'm like, I was like,
Speaker 1: what the how's this restaurant still open? Right? What are
Speaker 1: all these people doing?
Speaker 2: There were children there. Yeah, those little girls we saw.
Speaker 2: I was like, eating that late, They're gonna have heartburn.
Speaker 2: I'm t T and I'm Zachiah and from Spotify Studios.
Speaker 2: This is dope laps.
Speaker 1: I think we feel like that because it's so dark outside.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been starting to get dark at like what
Speaker 2: six point thirty too early, way too early, and it
Speaker 2: just messes with you as soon as you get out
Speaker 2: of work. It's dark.
Speaker 1: It's crazy and all that does is lead to seasonal depression.
Speaker 2: That is real in places that don't get that much sun,
Speaker 2: Like I lived in Michigan for two years, and seasonal
Speaker 2: depression is real. So you know, while I do like
Speaker 2: it when it's wintertime, that's something I hate. I feel
Speaker 2: like it gets dark so early, and then on top
Speaker 2: of that, then we move the clock.
Speaker 1: They were like more darkness. I don't understand. Right, today's
Speaker 1: episode is exploring daylight savings. Is anybody else drowning in time?
Speaker 2: Oh? Daylight saving drives me crazy?
Speaker 1: Who came up with that?
Speaker 2: I think it's stupid. I think daylight savings is stupid.
Speaker 1: At all you're gonna do is forget to change your clock,
Speaker 1: be somewhere late, and if you like me and you're
Speaker 1: already late, then going to be super late. And you
Speaker 1: got a problem?
Speaker 2: Were we falling back or we're falling back not springing
Speaker 2: for it? So that means that what I'll see, all
Speaker 2: of it is confusing for me. Would we be late
Speaker 2: or early?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't understand. And that's the thing.
Speaker 1: That's why, that's why nobody should be using this time
Speaker 1: right here, this is a textbook example.
Speaker 2: I really just want to know why this was put
Speaker 2: into place, Like, who's idea was this and what problem
Speaker 2: were you trying to solve?
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't. If it's not broke, don't fix it exactly.
Speaker 2: Turn to your textbook on page Let's get to the
Speaker 2: bottom of it. Let's get into the recitation. First of all,
Speaker 2: apparently we've been saying it wrong this whole time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not daylight savings time with an s. It's daylight
Speaker 2: saving time.
Speaker 1: Trying to save the daylight. Is that what it means.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what it means. But everybody says daylight savings time,
Speaker 2: and that's not right. So you know, when you hear
Speaker 2: your friends saying daylight savings say, sorry, that's not right.
Speaker 1: And so I've been thinking that daylight saving times starts
Speaker 1: in November, but it's ending.
Speaker 2: Mind blown, like honestly, like I never thought of it
Speaker 2: like that. I thought that daylight saving was when we
Speaker 2: fell back.
Speaker 1: No, so in the US, daylight saving starts in March.
Speaker 1: It's the second Sunday in March, and that's when we
Speaker 1: move our clocks forward, and then it ends when we
Speaker 1: turn our clocks back, and that's the first Sunday in November.
Speaker 1: And so even though we've been feeling like it's been
Speaker 1: getting dark, we're really about to just deep dive into
Speaker 1: the abyss. Oh my gosh, it's like we're basically going
Speaker 1: underground now. Yes, we're going to be multiple. Now that
Speaker 1: I have learned that to a bit, it still doesn't
Speaker 1: change a thousand questions that I have.
Speaker 2: For real, I mean, whose idea was this and why
Speaker 2: was it put in place? I know that daylight saving
Speaker 2: time is not a thing everywhere, right, so who makes
Speaker 2: this decision is a government.
Speaker 1: Who keeps holding it over me because I don't want
Speaker 1: to participate.
Speaker 2: I don't think most people want to participate. I don't
Speaker 2: know who benefits from daylight saving time.
Speaker 1: Raise your hand if you like daylight saving time and
Speaker 1: it makes your life better, I want to know. I
Speaker 1: don't see no hands, who you are and how that works.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: I also have questions, like I really want to know
Speaker 2: how it works, because if it's dark when I wake
Speaker 2: up and you say we're going to fall back, and
Speaker 2: I don't even people say oh yes, fall back, spring
Speaker 2: for it, that doesn't make sense to me because fall for
Speaker 2: it sounds good too. So also, I never know which
Speaker 2: way the clock is supposed to go. I always need
Speaker 2: to be with someone.
Speaker 1: I'm like, help me.
Speaker 2: But now our phones do it on their own so
Speaker 2: it's like if you got a clock in your house,
Speaker 2: it's the only thing you got to worry about.
Speaker 1: Is daylight saving time? Scientific? Is it a social construct?
Speaker 1: Like when you say who came up with it? But
Speaker 1: who does it belong to? Does it belong to the physicists? Right? Biologists?
Speaker 1: Somebody who?
Speaker 2: Yeah, plant your flag in daylight saving time? And tell
Speaker 2: us who who is responsible? What community?
Speaker 1: M H need more? I need more info. And then
Speaker 1: you said that some people participate and some people don't.
Speaker 1: How does that work?
Speaker 2: And like, we know that we it messes all of
Speaker 2: us up. I know how I feel exactly. But on
Speaker 2: the grander scheme, are there bad parts about daylight saving time?
Speaker 2: What are the pros and cons of having daylight saving time?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Like what are some of the greater implications?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And what are the greater implications when you don't have
Speaker 1: everyone participating?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: I don't know how you can have a system where
Speaker 1: everyone doesn't participate.
Speaker 2: That's just like, not even everyone in the United States
Speaker 2: participates in daylight saving time. And that's what's wild. That's
Speaker 2: like if not everybody follow the traffic lights. Some people
Speaker 2: just don't participate. That's madness, It's crazy. So it's like
Speaker 2: when you go to Jersey and they want to pump
Speaker 2: your gas for you.
Speaker 1: No, thank you, Actually I like that. I hate getting out.
Speaker 1: Then you gotta tip them.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I could do this myself.
Speaker 1: You gotta tip them.
Speaker 2: You don't tip them.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I thought you're supposed to tip them.
Speaker 1: Are you getting I thought it was a bundle deal.
Speaker 1: I thought it was rolled into the price, like it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be.
Speaker 2: The United States. We ain't united, not on this, not
Speaker 2: on that, definitely, not on daylight savings or on pumping gas. Apparently,
Speaker 2: all right, so we got to get some answers to
Speaker 2: these questions. Yes, so let's get into this section. But
Speaker 2: before we introduce today's guests, we really need to just
Speaker 2: talk about time. If you think about it, time's a
Speaker 2: pretty abstract concept. The first thing is that it's man made.
Speaker 1: So I'm never late, that's not true.
Speaker 2: So time is something that has been determined by humans.
Speaker 2: And right now, there is a place in Colorado, it's
Speaker 2: called the National Institute of Standards and Technology. They have
Speaker 2: the atomic clock, and that clock kind of like calibrates
Speaker 2: all of us. That is the official time in like
Speaker 2: the world. And yeah, so they have determined what a
Speaker 2: second is scientifically. So the technical definition of the second
Speaker 2: is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the
Speaker 2: caesium frequency or the unperturbed ground state hyperfine transition frequency
Speaker 2: of the caesium one thirty three ADAM to be nine billion,
Speaker 2: one hundred and ninety two million, six hundred and thirty
Speaker 2: one thousand, seven hundred and seventy one expressed in the
Speaker 2: unit hurts.
Speaker 1: So, girl, the only thing I know from that hurts.
Speaker 1: This definition hurts. What does that mean?
Speaker 2: The way that most of us think of a second
Speaker 2: is how we say, okay, there's twenty four hours in
Speaker 2: a day, there's sixty minutes in an hour, there's sixty
Speaker 2: seconds in a minute. So if you do the math,
Speaker 2: you end up with eighty six four hundred seconds in
Speaker 2: a day. But what they realized in the nineteen fifties
Speaker 2: is that the Earth's rotation isn't consistent enough for that
Speaker 2: to be valid all the time. So they were like,
Speaker 2: how can we make this more accurate? And then they
Speaker 2: thought about it some more and they said, well, maybe
Speaker 2: we can base it off of atoms, and they based
Speaker 2: it off a very specific atom. But before we get
Speaker 2: into that specific atom. Let's talk about the basic structure
Speaker 2: of an atom. So an atom is made up of
Speaker 2: three things, the nucleus, which is made up of protons
Speaker 2: and neutrons, and then you have electrons that are orbiting
Speaker 2: all around it. So the atom that they were looking
Speaker 2: at to determine what a second is is the caesium
Speaker 2: one thirty three atom, and they looked at it because
Speaker 2: season one thirty three only has one electron that's orbiting
Speaker 2: in its outermost shell, so that was unique to it.
Speaker 1: And what they.
Speaker 2: Discovered is that that specific electron switches its spin from
Speaker 2: one to another and back about nine billion times per second,
Speaker 2: and so that became the standard for how we determine
Speaker 2: what a sect second is. The reason why they do
Speaker 2: it that way is because that nine billion times that
Speaker 2: the spin changes that is standard, Like, it never changes.
Speaker 2: Caesium one point thirty three is always on time. It
Speaker 2: always has that same number every single time, and it
Speaker 2: always hits the second. It is so consistent that after
Speaker 2: a month it'll only be off by one nanosecond. So
Speaker 2: that's pretty accurate.
Speaker 1: So now that we got that primer from TT, let's
Speaker 1: dig into daylight saving time, specifically to help us, we
Speaker 1: call it.
Speaker 3: Doctor Laura Grant, I am a professor at Claramont McKenna College,
Speaker 3: and I study environmental and public economics. In essence, I
Speaker 3: look at how I can get people to work in
Speaker 3: better cooperation and in better improvement for the environment in society.
Speaker 2: Doctor Grant examined how daylight saving affects energy use, because
Speaker 2: saving energy was the real reason why we started changing
Speaker 2: our clocks in the first place.
Speaker 1: So this has nothing to do with the sun girl
Speaker 1: saving energy? When when did this?
Speaker 2: Like I have so are we doing that with the
Speaker 2: wind turbines?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Like what? What blew my mind though, when you
Speaker 1: think about it is when she told us that this
Speaker 1: trace is back to Benjamin Franklin. It really is all
Speaker 1: about the Benjamin So corny, but I love it. When
Speaker 1: she told us that this trace is back to Benjamin Franklin,
Speaker 1: I just had to roll my eyes.
Speaker 2: Things were way less complicated back then, so maybe changing
Speaker 2: the clocks wasn't a big deal, but in our new
Speaker 2: age it is.
Speaker 1: A big deal. That was the late seventeen hundred. So
Speaker 1: he came up with this idea when he was a
Speaker 1: diplomat in France.
Speaker 3: So instead of turning on lights during the during the
Speaker 3: morning or in the evening. If we live more by sunlight,
Speaker 3: then we won't use as much energy. That's the hypothesis.
Speaker 2: But what doctor Grant says is that it was low
Speaker 2: key a joke.
Speaker 3: He was joking about this fact that they were staying
Speaker 3: up late, eat having fun, playing poker, and sleeping in
Speaker 3: and one morning he said, oh my goodness, the sun's out.
Speaker 3: To my surprise, we could be living by like the
Speaker 3: economy of sunshine rather than burning candles at night. Right,
Speaker 3: so he said, he wrote this essay that was very
Speaker 3: whimsical and is a fun essay that basically said why
Speaker 3: would we waste candles when we could wake up in
Speaker 3: the morning. And in fact, he kind of proposed what
Speaker 3: I would call an economic solution. He said that we
Speaker 3: should clang bells at dawn and band shutters all again
Speaker 3: in jest, more or less saying we should live during
Speaker 3: the daylight.
Speaker 2: But at first, Ben Franklin's idea wasn't taken very seriously
Speaker 2: by any government for a very long time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't until the early nineteen hundreds that a
Speaker 1: few cities in Canada began changing their clocks. Canadians, but
Speaker 1: it was World War One, that took daylight saving time global.
Speaker 3: And all the energy resources were really necessary. We wanted
Speaker 3: to conserve and we're really concerned about energy resources. So
Speaker 3: the Germans first implemented it, actually, and many other countries
Speaker 3: followed suit, but we repealed it afterwards. People didn't like it.
Speaker 2: And we still don't. Wait, okay, so we meaning the
Speaker 2: United States. Yeah, and of course we all know that
Speaker 2: daylight saving didn't stay repealed because we are currently experiencing it.
Speaker 1: Unsurprisingly, war again brought it.
Speaker 3: Back, and then World War two comes around, we practice
Speaker 3: again because again energy conservation, all of our resources need
Speaker 3: to go towards the war, and repeal again.
Speaker 2: And that's right, we repeeled it again.
Speaker 1: Why can't we learn our legs? Like, why isn't it
Speaker 1: Why are we like war energy conservation? Let's live crazy
Speaker 1: war energy conservation. Why can't we serve energy allway?
Speaker 2: It's just like fool me once. Shame on you. You're not
Speaker 2: gonna fool me again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're over it. But even though it's no longer
Speaker 1: federally mandated, some places continue to practice daylight saving and
Speaker 1: that obviously became very confusing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you have certain cities or certain states that
Speaker 2: still change their clocks, and everybody else wasn't. So you
Speaker 2: go down the road and they'd be like, it's nine o'clock.
Speaker 2: You're like, actually it's eight.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine going to a different town, Like and
Speaker 1: I mean it's already confusing enough when we travel on
Speaker 1: different time zones, but I'm talking about ten minutes down
Speaker 1: the road a different city.
Speaker 2: Especially if it's like someplace you're trying to get food
Speaker 2: and they're like, sorry, the kitchen's clothes. Huh, that's the
Speaker 2: easiest way to get me upset.
Speaker 1: You know that, you know that I do.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty six, the federal government passed a law
Speaker 2: called the Uniform Time Act. It standardized the start and
Speaker 2: end dates for daylight saving across the country. So today
Speaker 2: the US is one of about seventy countries that practice
Speaker 2: daylight saving. So now we know why we started observing
Speaker 2: daylight saving, But why does the amount of daylight we
Speaker 2: get fluctuate in the first place. Yeah, this all has
Speaker 2: to do with planetary rotation and the Earth's axis back
Speaker 2: to TT. So the tilt of the Earth acxis defines
Speaker 2: the amount of daylight we see, and daylight hours are
Speaker 2: shortest during each hemisphere's winter, So in the wintertime, we
Speaker 2: get the least amount of sunlight between summer and winter solstice.
Speaker 2: So that's June twenty first for summer solstice and December
Speaker 2: twenty first for winter solstice this year. Yeah, the number
Speaker 2: of daylight hours decreases, and the rate of the decrease
Speaker 2: is larger at higher latitudes.
Speaker 3: The further south you are, the more your days are
Speaker 3: the same all year. So down here in southern California,
Speaker 3: our days change slower than yours do or somebody in
Speaker 3: New York City or Chicago. And that's actually also why
Speaker 3: a lot of tropical countries they're not going to practice
Speaker 3: daylight saving time. They're on the equator and by definition
Speaker 3: equal days on the equator, so they don't need daylight
Speaker 3: saving time, right.
Speaker 2: So that's why in places like I think Iceland they
Speaker 2: have twenty four hours of darkness and other places that
Speaker 2: are super high up on our hemisphere, and so the
Speaker 2: fewer sunlight hours, the colder the nights get, and so
Speaker 2: that's when winter starts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's why winter is different in the northern
Speaker 1: and southern hemispheres MM, because when it's winter and we're
Speaker 1: having short days in a northern hemisphere. It's summer and
Speaker 1: they're having long days in the southern hemisphere. Yes, all
Speaker 1: of that's because of the tilt of the earth.
Speaker 2: Woo. Imagine the Earth stood up straight, stand up, respectability politics,
Speaker 2: pull up your pants Earth.
Speaker 1: Now. In theory, daylight saving is supposed to occur in
Speaker 1: the winter and summer, but in the US that's not
Speaker 1: the case.
Speaker 2: The federal government has changed our start and end dates
Speaker 2: twice to extend daylight saving, and as of two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven, we observe daylight saving eight months per year.
Speaker 3: This seems a little absurd to me that it's not
Speaker 3: just half and half, or that it's centered on the solstice.
Speaker 1: Well, they need to change it back, because you might
Speaker 1: as well go ahead and extend it some more all
Speaker 1: year round. Now it drops off and is drastic exactly.
Speaker 2: But it's like, why it's something like daylight saving, which
Speaker 2: was started in order to save energy and.
Speaker 1: All this stuff.
Speaker 2: Why is it regulated by the government. It should just
Speaker 2: be regulated by science.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the solstice exactly.
Speaker 2: But I guess we shouldn't feel so bad because we're
Speaker 2: not the only country that practices daylight saving for more
Speaker 2: than half the year when we extended it, and by
Speaker 2: week she means the United States.
Speaker 3: Mostly because it now includes Halloween, and the candy companies
Speaker 3: like that Halloween has more daylight so that people will
Speaker 3: go on more trigger treating, so you get lobbyists involved, right.
Speaker 3: But as soon as the United States changed it, Canada
Speaker 3: immediately followed suit because their economy is so intertwined with US,
Speaker 3: it would be ridiculous for them to be off schedule
Speaker 3: with US for a few weeks in the spring in
Speaker 3: a few weeks in the fall.
Speaker 2: A lot of other countries, though, like some countries in Europe,
Speaker 2: they were not into the idea of changing their start
Speaker 2: and you're up.
Speaker 3: Practice is daylight at saving time and does not coordinate
Speaker 3: perfectly with our start dates.
Speaker 1: And we don't even coordinate perfectly within our own United States.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Hawaii doesn't observe daylight saving Hawaii.
Speaker 1: That feels like, Okay, you guys are floating out there
Speaker 1: in the ocean. You're doing your own thing.
Speaker 2: But Arizona doesn't even observe daylight saving, and they're right there.
Speaker 2: They're probably the contiguous forty eight states, right, But then
Speaker 2: even within Arizona, the Navajo Nation, they observe daylight saving.
Speaker 1: So it's not even Arizona as a whole has opted out.
Speaker 2: Right, so if you're in Arizona, time depends on where
Speaker 2: you are.
Speaker 1: Well, now that I know a state can opt out
Speaker 1: of daylight saving.
Speaker 2: Time, I'm declaring my house a state.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's really frustrating, and I always feel like I
Speaker 1: don't want to do this, But I guess now that
Speaker 1: I know what it's supposed to do, which is to
Speaker 1: provide some type of you know, economic benefit, saving energy
Speaker 1: all of that, it feels like, Okay, maybe I should
Speaker 1: get on board. But what I still don't know is
Speaker 1: is it actually doing that.
Speaker 2: And how does it affect us personally. We'll dive into
Speaker 2: all these questions right after this break.
Speaker 1: We are back.
Speaker 2: We're talking about daylight saving and how it all started
Speaker 2: with Ben Franklin in the seventeen hundreds making a joke.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of crazy if you think about it,
Speaker 1: But to go from Ben Franklin suggesting like, hey, we
Speaker 1: should change the time so we're not burning as many candles,
Speaker 1: to the government implementing this in the nineteen sixties, and
Speaker 1: then to extending daylight saving time in the early two thousands,
Speaker 1: and to now we're you know, using this time for
Speaker 1: over eight months of the year. A lot has changed
Speaker 1: since the seventeen hundred for real, and we have to
Speaker 1: really ask. I feel like we need to ask. That's
Speaker 1: the really big question in the room, which is is
Speaker 1: daylight saving still saving energy exactly?
Speaker 2: Because back then they were burning candles. We not burning candles.
Speaker 1: Candles and LEDs are different.
Speaker 2: It's very different.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how much a candle costs back then, but.
Speaker 2: Them candles these days, you go to Yankee Candle, they
Speaker 2: always got to sell. They'd be like, yeah, six candles,
Speaker 2: large candles for like.
Speaker 1: Three dollars Yankee candle, You bougie.
Speaker 2: So we've got some real, real questions about if daylight
Speaker 2: saving is actually saving anything.
Speaker 1: And doctor Grant had the same question.
Speaker 2: So doctor Grant and some colleagues decided to look for
Speaker 2: a relationship between energy use and daylight saving.
Speaker 3: Actually, I thought it might even cost more energy because
Speaker 3: of all of our new modern day appliances are much
Speaker 3: different than light bulbs.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: The way economist study questions like these is to look
Speaker 1: for real world examples, and they found Indiana was the
Speaker 1: perfect test ground for this. So Indiana used to be
Speaker 1: one of those states that did not participate in daylight
Speaker 1: saving and then in two thousand and seven they be
Speaker 1: gan to participate.
Speaker 3: And so here we have what we call a natural experiment, right,
Speaker 3: which is a really great place to say, oh, well,
Speaker 3: then let's look at their electricity data and say what
Speaker 3: happened before and after.
Speaker 2: So a natural experiment is just being a fly on
Speaker 2: the wall.
Speaker 3: So what we wanted to do is compare it to
Speaker 3: then the either the states next door or like the
Speaker 3: counties within. And that's exactly what we got to do
Speaker 3: is we actually got to say, Okay, these people did
Speaker 3: not change daylight saving time, these people did change date
Speaker 3: saving time, and then we kind of have this control
Speaker 3: group and a treatment group going forward.
Speaker 1: So this is really cool because, like you said, being
Speaker 1: a fly on a wall, you get to observe what happened.
Speaker 1: So you have kind of two things that you can
Speaker 1: look at. You can say Indiana, which was not practicing
Speaker 1: daylight saving time compared to neighboring states that were practicing
Speaker 1: daylight saving time.
Speaker 2: And comparing Indiana to itself before and after they implemented
Speaker 2: daylight saving.
Speaker 1: Yes, and it's so great that she's able to do
Speaker 1: states next door, right, Because like you said about latitude
Speaker 1: and location having a big role in how much daylight
Speaker 1: you get, therefore how much energy you need to use.
Speaker 3: So we looked at several years of these data and
Speaker 3: this before and after, and so we got something like
Speaker 3: eight million observations on residential utility of bells.
Speaker 1: We all know those bills go up in the winter
Speaker 1: to heat that home.
Speaker 2: I wait to the very last second to turn my
Speaker 2: heat on because that gas bill is crazy.
Speaker 1: You saw me over here at t T's house and
Speaker 1: my coat on Instagram. She tried to freeze me out.
Speaker 2: I'm not playing around like I turn it on when
Speaker 2: I need to. Everybody else just needs to put on socks.
Speaker 3: When Indiana went on Daily Saving time, they used more
Speaker 3: energy and we found that it cost Indiana millions of
Speaker 3: dollars per year.
Speaker 1: So you mean to tell me we're out here listening
Speaker 1: to Benjamin Franklin. You see, I don't have any respect
Speaker 1: for him anymore.
Speaker 2: It's calling him by his full first name, last.
Speaker 1: Name, Benjamin Benny.
Speaker 2: Okay, we're listening to Benjamin Franklin. He's got us out
Speaker 2: here waking up at old dark thirty and going to
Speaker 2: getting off work dark.
Speaker 1: Oh, I definitely miler.
Speaker 2: I'm like, huh, is that a pie?
Speaker 1: It's wild that doctor Grant found that they weren't even
Speaker 1: saving energy by going on daylight saving time.
Speaker 2: I'm not surprised because when Benjamin Franklin was doing this,
Speaker 2: things were very different. Now, all the tech and everything
Speaker 2: that we have that heat our homes and light our rooms,
Speaker 2: I'm not surprised that we're not actually saving any energy.
Speaker 1: And not only are we not saving energy, we're not
Speaker 1: saving dollars. Franklin is in my bag. Get out right.
Speaker 2: Benjamin Franklin's then and gone, and all of us are
Speaker 2: wasting coins not anymore.
Speaker 1: Hey, I'm taking the person sets out. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I can think of what changed, but I want to
Speaker 1: know what doctor Grant thinks about this, Like why does
Speaker 1: daylight saving time no longer help us save energy?
Speaker 2: Right, We're so busy thinking about the winter time, but
Speaker 2: we really need to think about summer.
Speaker 3: We have just aligned our day with the sunlight, which
Speaker 3: means the hottest part of the day, which means we're
Speaker 3: going to crank up air conditioning. And you can probably
Speaker 3: guess that air conditioning versus the light bulb. Air conditioning
Speaker 3: does use more energy, so that swamps it. So, yes,
Speaker 3: we get some savings with lighting in the summer, but
Speaker 3: we're coming home to the hottest part of the day.
Speaker 3: Our houses are hot, we change the thermostat and use
Speaker 3: more energy.
Speaker 1: And even though it gets cooler when we get into
Speaker 1: the fall, our energy use doesn't really go down.
Speaker 3: And what happens is as we approach that date, what
Speaker 3: you'll notice is that you're actually waking up in the dark.
Speaker 3: It's the coldest time of the year, so you're going
Speaker 3: to crank up your heat, right and it's the coldest
Speaker 3: time of the day. You're not doing anything except for
Speaker 3: just changing your lighting us from the evening to the morning.
Speaker 1: Doctor Grant's study was of Indiana, and we don't know
Speaker 1: that it's going to work for everybody. You know, usually
Speaker 1: you want to have more than one study and look
Speaker 1: at different cases. But I, for one, right, this is
Speaker 1: enough information for me. I propose that, at least where
Speaker 1: I live in Maryland, that we all just boycott daylight
Speaker 1: savings and let's do let's look at our bills. Let's
Speaker 1: all just not fall back, let's fall forward, Let's just
Speaker 1: fall out of all of this stuff. Let's just keep
Speaker 1: let's fall into the gap.
Speaker 3: The gap.
Speaker 1: I just want to know how does it affect me?
Speaker 2: Because I know, I mean, I'm really interested in the
Speaker 2: energy conservation piece. I'm definitely interested in my budget, but
Speaker 2: I know I feel something in my body too.
Speaker 1: Is anybody else struggling out here?
Speaker 2: Me struggling?
Speaker 3: No matter what. An hour change is pretty shocking to
Speaker 3: our economy and to our bodies and our society.
Speaker 2: So let's look deeper into these two things. First, our bodies,
Speaker 2: how does daylight savings affect our physiology?
Speaker 1: Our circadian rhythm is our sleep wake cycle, right, so
Speaker 1: your body gets into this zone. Mine is a little off.
Speaker 1: We've talked about that, Yes it is.
Speaker 2: Zakia doesn't go to bed till two thirty in the
Speaker 2: morning and then wakes up two hours later.
Speaker 1: When your circadian rhythm gets off or upset, a whole
Speaker 1: host of negative things can happen. We're not going to
Speaker 1: go in too much detailed this episode, but for now,
Speaker 1: what you need to know is that messing with your
Speaker 1: body's internal clock doesn't just cause drowsiness. It can cause stress,
Speaker 1: exacerbate any existing health problems, and even can lead to
Speaker 1: seasonal depression. So just know you want to hit the
Speaker 1: sack all right, And daylight saving.
Speaker 2: Is way deeper than just beauty sleep. Yes, it can
Speaker 2: have some spillover effects. Some studies have shown that sleep
Speaker 2: deprivation from daylight saving has led to an increase in
Speaker 2: vehicle and workplace accidents. Let me tell you, maybe we
Speaker 2: shouldn't go to work. That's what I'm going to tell
Speaker 2: my boss. I'm like daylight saving. I'm sorry, I don't
Speaker 2: want to crash my car. I'm going to stay home
Speaker 2: and sleep today. I'm going to tell work I think
Speaker 2: I work better in my pajamas anyway, I definitely do. Now,
Speaker 2: let's move on to the second thing Doctor Grant mentioned society.
Speaker 2: The time change has multiple effects.
Speaker 3: Transit schedules are an issue, airline schedules are a real issue.
Speaker 2: And it can also make pollution worse.
Speaker 3: When we use more energy, especially in the Midwest, we
Speaker 3: burn something. We tend to burn coal there still or
Speaker 3: natural gas, and when we burn things, we emit pollution,
Speaker 3: so we have that much more pollution as well, which
Speaker 3: is in the form of smog and carbon.
Speaker 2: So that's a whole lot of negative in my book.
Speaker 2: But adjusting our clocks also does have some benefits. We
Speaker 2: have to, you know, say both sides.
Speaker 3: It does increase recreation, So the recreation industry really likes it,
Speaker 3: because you do tend to have people people go do recreate,
Speaker 3: tend to recreate more on the afternoon or evenings, especially socially,
Speaker 3: so that is more likely than at six in the morning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's more time for you to go
Speaker 2: out and do stuff outside, and so it's better for
Speaker 2: people who like to do those types of things like
Speaker 2: you know, hiking, biking, going for walks.
Speaker 3: It also does tend to reduce crime a little bit
Speaker 3: because things like muggings, things that would happen in the dark,
Speaker 3: and if we have less people in the dark, in
Speaker 3: other words, we're living during the sunlit hours, it's less
Speaker 3: just likely that those crimes of opportunity might happen.
Speaker 2: So the results of daylight saving are kind of a
Speaker 2: mixed bag. And here in the US, it doesn't look
Speaker 2: like things are going to change on a wide scale
Speaker 2: anytime soon, even though some people, not just men Zekiah
Speaker 2: but also doctor Grant would really like to get rid
Speaker 2: of daylight saving permanently. Before we let her go, she
Speaker 2: gave us our pitch.
Speaker 3: A lot of us have these opportunities now like telecommuning
Speaker 3: and working from home, freelance opportunities where we have the
Speaker 3: Internet and we have instant communication and we have instant
Speaker 3: messager and you know, updates constantly arraging us. It kind
Speaker 3: of doesn't you know, you can check in and find
Speaker 3: out if somebody's awake or not really quick. And I
Speaker 3: really think that we might actually be like kind of
Speaker 3: a post clock period pretty soon, and then localities could
Speaker 3: go back to actually the way it was in the
Speaker 3: eighteen hundreds, where each locality had a little bit more
Speaker 3: of their own time zone and said this works for us,
Speaker 3: this works for our school district, this works for our work.
Speaker 3: We're going to allow our work. There's a little more
Speaker 3: flexibility when they come and go. And I do think
Speaker 3: we have that opportunity now.
Speaker 1: I'm ready to move into a post clock society.
Speaker 2: Imagine that would be amazing. You create your own work schedule,
Speaker 2: you decide what, like what is socially acceptable in your
Speaker 2: own house.
Speaker 1: Yes, actually I may be living there already.
Speaker 2: It seems like it's sometime.
Speaker 1: Do you remember I was like, would you like to
Speaker 1: come in? You were like, it's two thirty, I'm going home.
Speaker 1: I want to wake up in my own bed.
Speaker 2: Yes, this happened literally the other night. It was like, okay, friend,
Speaker 2: would you like to I was like, uh uh no,
Speaker 2: I'm getting in my car, I'm going home. I want
Speaker 2: to wake up in my own bed.
Speaker 1: I wasn't planning on going to sleep, so I didn't.
Speaker 2: Understand, Oh, my friend needs to give some sleep. Forget
Speaker 2: daylight saving save me from the Kia.
Speaker 1: You don't mean that, and you don't just lashing out
Speaker 1: the ones you love.
Speaker 2: That's it for Lab seventeen. Don't forget to check out
Speaker 2: our website for a cheat cheet on today's episode. You
Speaker 2: can find it and sign up for our newsletter at
Speaker 2: Dope Labs podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Also, we love hearing from you. Last week, somebody called
Speaker 1: and talked to me about their instapot. What did you
Speaker 1: think about I enjoyed it? What did you think about
Speaker 1: today's lab? What are your ideas for future labs? Our
Speaker 1: number is two zero two five six seven seven zero
Speaker 1: two eight.
Speaker 2: You can also find us on Twitter and Instagram at
Speaker 2: Dope Labs podcast.
Speaker 1: Tt is on Twitter at dr Underscore t Sho.
Speaker 2: And you can find Zakia at z Said So follow
Speaker 2: us on Spotify or wherever else you listen to your
Speaker 2: podcast special thanks to our guests doctor Laura Grant.
Speaker 1: Dope Labs is produced by Jenny rattlet Mass of Wave
Speaker 1: Runner Studios, Mixing and sound design by Hannis Brown, Additional
Speaker 1: production help from Elizabeth Nacano and special thanks to Steve Allman.
Speaker 2: Original theme music is by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex sugi Ura.
Speaker 1: Dope Labs is a production of Spotify Studios and Mega
Speaker 1: Own Media Group, and it's executive.
Speaker 2: Produced by us T. T. Shadia and Zakiah Wattley. My
Speaker 2: second is like, however long, It's like M I S.
Speaker 1: S and what is that thing? Like, No, I know
Speaker 1: what it is. It's one Mississippi, two Mississippi. What were
Speaker 1: you doing? Ala S S I S S I P P.
Speaker 1: That's how I learned to sell Misissippi. But that's not
Speaker 1: what I meant.