The calculation of daylight saving time and the accompanying clock adjustment were created with the goal of making better use of natural light and saving the energy used to produce artificial light. Although DST has been in use for just over a century, the idea of it dates back to the end of the 18th century.
Today, more than seventy countries around the world switch between the two time periods each year in March and October.
Thanks to the tradition of changing the hours, we can sleep an hour less on the night of the last Sunday in March.
Each option has advantages and disadvantages
In Hungary we are currently using the Central European Time Zone (CET), on the night of March 26 we will switch to Central European Summer Time (CEST).
If we choose the CET time zone when we cancel the time shift, in practice the usual winter sunrises and sunsets will remain, but in summer there will be days when it is light before four in the morning.
In the case of CEST, in addition to the usual days in summer, it will be a dark winter morning, when the sun does not come out until half past eight in the morning.
You can view the infographic in a larger size by clicking here or on the image.More on what would happen if Hungary changed time zones You can read by clicking here.
The abolition of the clock shift has been postponed several times in the European Union
The abolition of the time change has been raised several times in the European Union, and finally in 2019, the European Parliament decided in plenary session that it will be permanently abolished within two years. The decision was supported by more than 80 percent of EU citizens, and among Hungarians, it was one of the loudest groups who opposed the time change.
However, the decision-making process has been slowed down by the difficulties of budget negotiations and the coronavirus pandemic, and the issue of changing the clock is not currently among the issues to be discussed in the European Union.
Plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on March 26, 2019, in which body 410:192 voted to end the practice of changing clocks twice annually in 2021 (Photo: MTI/EPA/Patrick Seeger)EU member states were originally given until 2021 to decide whether to use winter or summer time in the future, if the clock change is scrapped. However, the deadline was later pushed back to 2024.
Two years ago, Prime Minister Gergely Gulias Gulias told Kormányinfo that although the majority of the Hungarian population believes that summer time should be kept, it would be beneficial for the EU member states to make a unified decision, and that our country is adapting to it.
Therefore, the debate has been going on for years about changing the clocks twice a year, and the arguments for and against have been collected in a previous article, more about them You can read by clicking here.
The flag supports winter time
The Secretary General of the Hungarian Sleep Society, Gyorgy G. Nemeth, previously said that the human body has a hard time adapting to the change of the clock, and experts who study biological rhythms are of the opinion that it can never adapt to it.
According to research, the first night after the spring time change, we sleep forty minutes less, and it decreases to nineteen minutes over time, but the lost time does not completely disappear. And our body can sense it if we artificially disrupt our circadian rhythm, which has evolved over millions of years.
Waking up early is the hardest for children (Photo: Flickr)According to science, it is not recommended to change the clocks, nor to force an early rise, that is, restoring the original time corresponding to our time zone would be the most reasonable decision from a physiological and health point of view.
According to the Sleep Federation, we’ve long been living on a schedule in which the center of gravity of our active hours syncs with natural light, and this aligns best with the current wintertime reckoning.
Because of the energy crisis, the end of the clock change may be off the agenda
Thanks to the change of time, we save energy equal to that of a medium-sized Hungarian city on an annual basis. In recent years, there have been many debates about whether to maintain the institution of changing clocks, but due to the current energy crisis, there are more arguments in favor of changing clocks to save energy than against.
Classical time is calculated in winter, however, tests with changing the clock have shown that calculating summer time leads to significant energy savings – The son spoke about this. Zoltán Lomnici is a constitutional lawyer, Századvég’s legal expert on the M1 program “Ma regleg” last October. He pointed out that the application of winter time burdens the afternoon in terms of energy use.
Because of the energy crisis, the end of the clock change may be off the agenda
By applying winter and summer time calculation, we save a lot of energy.
“Surveys have shown that electricity consumption is most intense in the European Union between 5 and 7 p.m., and the introduction of winter time has a direct impact on this.” pointed out.
The constitutional lawyer also recalled that serious debates had previously surrounded the institution of changing clocks in the federation. He indicated that the union would have delegated to the member states the decision to stay with the use of winter and summer time or not, but due to the current energy crisis, the question was removed from the table.
Zoltán Lumenici Jr. pointed out that differences between member states would have caused normal and practical problems in a world divided into time zones, so a unified decision by the EU member states was necessary.
Featured image illustration.
