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Is Daylight Savings beneficial? Page 1 of 2 Is Daylight Savings beneficial? 3 Written by Bob Owen Sunday, 25 March 2012 02:01 We don‘t often post articles which are not specifically related to Cramahe readers, but this one, sent to us by Reliance Home Comfort seemed interesting. We have posted excerpts from the document â€" Although modern daylight saving time (DST) was introduced in theory in 1895 ' and implemented during the First World War, ancient civilizations adjusted their timekeeping seasonally. They also allowed for more of a change than modern DST does. This article is about this month‘s DST change, including the history behind it and the energy conservation goals that changed the annual start and finish dates. The idea of reducing overall energy consumption with the use of daylight f saving time swayed most counties in Indiana to adopt the practice in 2005. The estimated reduction was supposed to save the state‘s residents over $7,000,000 in electricity costs each year. Since then, the University of California has studied the presumed positive effect of the change and found that the outcome wasn‘t a reduction in energy costs at all, and that it actually increased the amount Indianans were spending on electricity. In fact, Indianans consumed an additional $8,600,000 of electricity, presumably because the increase in daylight also means an increase of hours with higher temperatures. As a result, Indianans came home and turned up their A/C. The opposing argument is that this will be a shortâ€"term (matter of years) trend that will result in Indianans adopting different practices like passive cooling to keep their home cool. From a longâ€"term perspective, an increase can be expected during the period in which people are adapting to the change, and adopting the DST was still the right decision. For argument‘s sake, and to make sure you can form a more educated opinion on the practice, let‘s take a look at the pros and cons of the DST change. Daylight saving time pros The list of pros for DST is pretty specific, and it is argued that most of these outcomes could not be achieved without DST: 1. An increase in physical fitness due to more time spent outdoors. http://www.cramaheâ€"now.com/index.php?view=article&catid=1 :‘latestâ€"news&id=2512:isâ€"da... 4/1/2012