Artigenda
Daylight Saving Time
When: Annually, the last weekend of March (night of Saturday to Sunday).
Daylight Saving Time adjustment that takes place on the last weekend of March, when the clock goes back one hour. This adjustment takes place on the night of Saturday to Sunday. Formally, it is only Sunday. This is also known as “Summer Time” or “Summer Time in Europe.”
Daylight Saving Time = Summer Time
Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Time or Daylight Savings Time is the same as Summer Time or Summer Time in Europe. It refers to the time indication in the period between March and October. When this time indication does not apply, standard or winter time is used.
Origin
The time signature we know as daylight saving time is fooling around, you may say. It was once decided. It was easier, mainly because of an economic point of view. This way, people could make optimal use of sunlight or daylight. In the summer period, the sun sometimes rises as early as around four in the morning. This provided energy benefits. This was not an advantage. At the time this decision was made, the environment was not yet a factor. The costs to be incurred played a role. Then it was about the cost of lighting, for example.
Later, other examples were cited. Think of how nice it was to get up in the morning while it was already light. The only drawback was that at a certain time of the year, this was no longer possible. The same goes for the approaching darkness at the end of the afternoon. Everyone knows that it gets dark “quickly” on winter days. Granted, that’s something you don’t want to think about yet when it comes to summertime. Then you want to think about the long summer days. Only there won’t be any at all when summertime kicks in. There is nowhere near summer yet, because it is spring.
The first proposal for summertime is said to have been made by the American scientist, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and later President Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1705/6 – April 17, 1790). The idea was probably really seriously proposed by British-New Zealand entomologist/zoologist George Vernon Hudson (April 20, 1867 – April 5, 1946). He suggested in the late nineteenth century, on the basis that it would better benefit human rhythms. So that included nothing about energy or energy conservation. Based on his suggestion, the clock should be moved forward by as much as two hours in the summer months.
World War I
Hudson’s plan received little traction until there was a global crisis. That was World War I (1914 – 1918). That was precisely a period when it was essential for some countries to pay attention to raw materials. They had to think carefully about how they handled energy. Therefore, some countries decided to introduce a different time indication in the spring and summer months. Germany decided to do so on April 30, 1916 and other countries followed suit. The Netherlands introduced summertime on May 1, 1916. After World War I, many countries felt the need to do so, except Germany. So it could happen that summertime was reintroduced during the German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II. After the war, they switched to standard time.
In the late 1970s, it was decided in a European context to introduce summertime. From then on, the clocks were moved on the last weekend of March and the last weekend of October. Incidentally, it would take until 2002 for all countries within the European Union (EU) to introduce summertime. This does not alter the division of the different time zones in Europe.
Discussion
Adjusting the clock leads to a heated debate twice a year. In 2018, this debate seemed to have been decided in favour of the opponents of the difference between summer and winter time (or standard time). The European Commission seemed to be moving towards abolishing summer time and moving towards the introduction of a time-based system, standard time. You can read more about this at this page. In the end, the proposal did not make it, it emerged in 2021.
Impact
If we decided to switch permanently to standard time (“winter time”), it would mean that we would suffer less from a disrupted biological clock in winter. In this article you can read more about the possible positive effects on the human body. On the other hand, we do have to settle for less daylight in the summer months. This could hurt some people’s moods, and affect our social lives and the way we recreate. In addition, it could affect energy consumption.
When?
Daylight saving time and winter time (standard time) do not start at the same time. The start and end times are listed below.
- 2024: Daylight saving time starts on March 31 and ends on October 27.
- 2025: Daylight saving time starts on March 30 and ends on October 26.
- 2026: Daylight saving time starts on March 29 and ends on October 25.
- 2027: Summer time begins on March 28 and ends on October 31.
- 2028: Daylight saving time starts on March 26 and ends on October 29.
- 2029: Daylight saving time starts on March 25 and ends on October. 28
- 2030: Daylight saving time starts on March 31 and ends on October 27.
- 2031: Daylight saving time starts on 30 March and ends on 26 October.
- 2032: Daylight saving time starts on 28 March and ends on 31 October.
- 2033: Daylight saving time starts on March 27 and ends on October 30.
- 2034: Daylight saving time starts on 26 March and ends on 29 October.
- 2035: Daylight saving time starts on March 25 and ends on October 28.
- 2036: Daylight saving time starts on 30 March 30 and ends on October 26.
