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I'm lucky because I work remotely and get to make my own hours a lot of the time. Still, I feel depression beckon. I often cannot get away from my computer during sunlight hours. There's no time to exercise outdoors, and treadmills are mind-numbing. I gain weight. The sun comes up in the six o'clock hour, but like most people, I have to get my workday going first thing.
My heart breaks to think of people—I once was one—who head off to the office first thing in the morning, an hour-plus commute requiring transit too soon after dawn to have any meaningful personal time in sunlight; who then toil all day in an office with limited windows and violet, artificial light; and who then leave work in darkness.
And it's not necessary. We squander sunlight in unusable morning hours upon the wildly outmoded notion that we have to get our farming done before the heat of the day.
New England state legislators perennially debate shifting wholly to Atlantic Time, GMT -4, a subterfuge to accomplish permanent daylight savings time without defying federal law. Maine has been most eager for the measure; the sun sets in the 3 p.m. hour in the Bangor winter. But no one state wants to be the first to pull the trigger, an economic collective-action problem.
Congress perennially debates permanent daylight savings time. The House recently passed the bipartisan Sunshine Protection Act. History suggests the bill will fail in the less democratically representative Senate.
Nevertheless, today I sent the following letter to my Rhode Island senators, Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse.
Letter to Senators Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.)
Dear Senators:
I would like to see you support permanent daylight savings time.
I am not an RI native, but in my 15 years here, I have seen, for myself and others, that a full hour of darkness, thus the full termination of twilight, at the time one finishes weekday work is an engine of depression. New Englanders working inside don't see the sun for five days a week.
The testimony of healthcare professionals that standard time is somehow best for "circadian rhythms" is ludicrous, and, I can only imagine, motivated by murky commercial interests I cannot perceive. The House rightly rejected these arguments.
Time zones are based on longitude,* Greenwich, which is arbitrary. The medical claim seems to be based on the idea of workers having to rise before the sun, which happens regardless, and meanwhile ignores the problem on the evening end. How is NO sunlight during waking hours possibly the better option for human health?
If there's a healthcare problem you want to address, let's start with food and shelter for all persons, or compulsory vacation and family leave comparable to Europe, or a shorter work week, freedom from 24/7 responsiveness, efficient public transit, and living wages. Rising before or after the sun is meaningless in comparison.
At minimum, the states should be free to decide. You must know that already there is a New England state pact in the works to move the region to Atlantic Time so as to subvert the federal scheme. The plan never gets going, because no state wants to be the one that pulls the trigger. But subterfuge should not be required anyway.
It's easy now, in summertime, to buy into the weak arguments against permanent DST. If the Senate cannot pass the House bill, I would like you to have a press conference at 5 p.m. on the first Monday in November. In the dark. Then you can explain to constituents why Congress made an arbitrary choice that they don't deserve to see their families in sunlight until the weekend.
Sincerely,
R.J. Peltz-Steele
* Word corrected from my typo in original.
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