Adopting the World Time System
Philip Derosa

BC could point the way to adopting an energy saving World Time System.

     We need to respect the terms MIDDAY and MIDNIGHT, the middle of the day and the middle of the night. We can cut our energy use by resetting our alarms to wake up and go to bed earlier as Ben Franklin suggested. It is also important for health, environmental, communication, and safety reasons.

   By waking up and going to bed earlier we would eliminate clock changing, schedule reprinting, Daylight Saving Time, and   time differences in both hemispheres in the same time zone simplifying travel and communications. Solar time is the same everywhere north and south of the Equator on the same meridian. DST created a clock-time difference and is contrary to Sir Sandford Fleming’s universal time system.    

   We waste daylight getting up late and spending time indoors. We don’t take advantage of darkness. Sleep Disorder Specialists say both sunlight and darkness are essential. Canadians wake-up at 6:45 on weekdays and 8:15 on weekends. Bedtime is 11 PM on weeknights and midnight on weekends. MIDNIGHT should be the middle of our sleep time.

   Most activity takes place after work or school so daylight time must be saved for use then. We can be safer and use less energy burning spotlights. We confuse animal and plant life. Night-sky observation is affected. Instead of sleep being disrupted by sunshine, birds, dogs, or roosters, we should wake up with nature.

   We pay for indoor tanning and stay up late with lights blazing, then buy window blinds to block out the free daylight so that we can get a ‘full night’s sleep’. We buy lamps to mimic sunshine and drugs to replace natural melatonin. We can have both naturally and cost free. The ISO and the UN must put clock-time back in sync with the natural order of things by adopting an International Standard Time System that recognizes MIDDAY and MIDNIGHT as natural baselines. A cost savings idea that requires no lifestyle changes. It could be implemented ‘immediately’. BC could suggest it be put in affect in 2012. Canada took the lead with Fleming’s Standard Time and its Prime Meridian and 24 World Time Zones and can do it again.

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