Changing the clocks would reduce carbon emmisions

[crowsashes]

i know i could get mine down a lot more,but it would involve gas engineers (as i have an electric cooker) again replacing the fridge/freezer etc

and another point. just because you can 'afford' the electric doesn't mean you should use that much!!

i have nothing against people earning high amounts of cash etc. work hard i think you deserve the reward but i also think you have the responsibility to do more.

im sure that yearly electric bill could have paid for a decent renewable heat/energy setup.

[Cloud]

Given that it's the evening peak they are trying to tackle, then the aim ought to be to get everyone to bed as soon as possible (and let them have a lie in in the morning for good measure). So I wonder the following would help...

shutting down the TV networks after 9pm

Turn off all street lights at 9pm.

Add usage allowances to electricity (like they do with broadband) - if you reach your limit only lights work until the next day.

[Millymollymandy]

Change working/school hours to an hour earlier in summer. Simples!

[sortanormalish]

As an American subject to the vaguaries of Daylight Savings Time, it really doesn't cause all the fuss that some might think. Plus you get a free 'sleep-in' day once a year.

I have no clue about savings, but presume that it does work as it has been continued intermittently since WWII. There was talk in our government about not continuing, but when an energy panel investigated it was continued. Thus, one can make one of two presumptions i)it works ii)it was in the financial interests of some politician or group thereof to continue.

[kompost krazy]

Got sent this fromthe telegraph.

A study of electricity consumption by Dr Elizabeth Garnsey at Cambridge University found that it would save half a million tonnes of carbon emissions in the winter alone.

I think it is left field ideas like these that are going to help in the long run!

Would it eckers-like. "...give another hour of daylight..."? How's that work then? the hours of daylight are fixed by the earth's orbit and rotation, and nothing we can do can change that. Every few years, we get some over-qualified bongo-brain form some university or other proposing this, and claiming it would reduce accidents, make us healthier, and probably provide a cure for the common cold as well, but it's nonsense. Some of us are old enough to remember the last time this was tried, in the late 60s. It was a widely-detested disaster, and was quickly dropped. Kids were going to school in the dark in winter, and in Northern Scotland, it wasn't getting light until 10:00 am or later. This is supposed to be safer? Yeah, right.

[marshlander]

I support the lighter later campagne http://www.lighterlater.org/ I would much rather have daylight in the evening than very early in the morning.

Couldn't the Scottish parliament could make it's own decision whether to change?

[Shirl]

Got sent this fromthe telegraph.

Every few years, we get some over-qualified bongo-brain form some university or other proposing this, and claiming it would reduce accidents, make us healthier, and probably provide a cure for the common cold as well, but it's nonsense. Some of us are old enough to remember the last time this was tried, in the late 60s. It was a widely-detested disaster, and was quickly dropped. Kids were going to school in the dark in winter, and in Northern Scotland, it wasn't getting light until 10:00 am or later. This is supposed to be safer? Yeah, right.

As a child in the 60's I too remember this. I can assure you all it was no fun going to school in the dark.!!

[kompost krazy]

Got sent this fromthe telegraph.

Every few years, we get some over-qualified bongo-brain form some university or other proposing this, and claiming it would reduce accidents, make us healthier, and probably provide a cure for the common cold as well, but it's nonsense. Some of us are old enough to remember the last time this was tried, in the late 60s. It was a widely-detested disaster, and was quickly dropped. Kids were going to school in the dark in winter, and in Northern Scotland, it wasn't getting light until 10:00 am or later. This is supposed to be safer? Yeah, right.

As a child in the 60's I too remember this. I can assure you all it was no fun going to school in the dark.!!

Glad you agree. Re. your sig.: the Church clock'll stand at ten to four if these idiots get their way!

[kompost krazy]

Come to think of it, we don't need to change the clocks across the board anyway: individual employers, schools, etc. could change their times of attendance for their employees, pupils, etc. by an hour, if a majority of them wanted it. In fact, with flexible working nowadays common, individuals could do it themselves if they wanted. Much more democratic and flexible than imposing it on the entire nation.

[homegrown]

Surely what we need to change is not our clocks but our lifestyles? The problem is that there is less daylight. It would be far better if everyone worked close enough to home that they didn't waste precious natural light in travelling time. Or, an easy change, if more people got into habits like not leaving unnecessary lights on or boiling a full kettle when they only want one cup full.

Wulf

I concur, Even more simple would be to simply stop building such bloody great big cities, get rid of more cars, walk more or cycle, grow your own veg, raise your own animals, build your own oh yeah I am preaching to the converted.

Seriously, take Christchurch New Zealand, its nestled in a cradle of hills on a gradual slope, so in winter it gets a layer of ploution trap above it, so the local government says its all from the particle emissions of open fires, so they ban them and attempt to force everyone to buy and install heatpumps.

Notice no one dared lay any blame at the feet of the factories pouring out polution or the trucks and buses pouring out billowing clouds of diesil dust ro car emissions. No they stopped people who access to free fire wood from using it ask them to pay thousands to intall the dam things, hundreds of dollars in extra electricity costs, place extra demand on our rather antiquated electrical infrastructure during winter, oh and what they didn't tell the consumer was that nearly forty percent of New Zealands electricty generation comes from coal-fired steam generators, so all they did was move the problem.

And now they have a carbon emissions trading scheme so big business doesn't actually have to decrease their pollutants just buy more emission units. and who foots the bill oh yeah US.

and just to tp it of they changed the building code so it is dam near impossible to get consent for installing a solar water heater, even though if every NZ house hold had one we'd remove nearly 2 million tons of carbon pollutants from our atmosphere a year and decrease demand on elecricity and gas resources, no instead they want to dam another river.

sorry I just get fed up with people taking shortcuts in this area instead of actually reducing our dependance on fossil fuels or nuclear energy, for goodness sake the sun generates more energy a year than we need as does the wind and the tides, and god made muscles for a reason. for those city folk who need to start their merivale tractors for a five minute trip to the local dairy or super market tp buy something they don't really need or could grow themselves if they were not so busy making money to buy things they don't need or could grow themselves.

Time is an illusion, cows don'tt need daylight savings and neither do we.

[Jack]

Gidday

Well all I can say is that that is absolute stupidity. You can do whatever you like to clocks but there will still be the same amount of daylight no matter what.

[sheridand]

We were in line with Europe anyway, until the DORA (Defence of the Realm Act) brought in by Lloyd George, to enable production levels to rise for the arms race and food production in the First World War. It's also DORA we have to thank for the pub closing hours, enforced to keep the workers out of the pubs, which were previously able to open as and when. So it is a relatively recent thing, and not one that the "Keep out of Europe" brigade can harp on about, as it was brought in to enable us to get IN to Europe and help the French. it's mainly kept on now due to the farming lobby who much prefer it this way round. I would be happy to see it go.

[oldjerry]

I think we can at least agree that this isn't really radical thinking.

Now,ban the ownership or use of any watch ,clock or timepiece,do outside stuff when the sunshines,and indoor stuff when it's dark,eat when you're hungry,and plant when the soil 's warm and harvest when the days get shorter. THAT'S left-field thinking.(Got to go there's a couple of blokes with white coats knocking on the door)

[123sologne]

I think we can at least agree that this isn't really radical thinking.

Now,ban the ownership or use of any watch ,clock or timepiece,do outside stuff when the sunshines,and indoor stuff when it's dark,eat when you're hungry,and plant when the soil 's warm and harvest when the days get shorter. THAT'S left-field thinking.(Got to go there's a couple of blokes with white coats knocking on the door)

Yeah, I like that and in winter we could simply hibernate, I am pretty sure we were meant to do that in the big picture anyway, we just took a wrong turn somewhere a few 10 of thousands of years ago...
Really, it will not make any difference, as if it did, we would have heard about it by now. As some have said, there is x amount of hours of light whatever you change the hours on the clock or not.

[Thomzo]

Quite honestly I can't see what all the fuss is about. It's dark when I leave home for work and it's dark when I get home from work. Shifting the hour one way or the other isn't gonna help much. I still won't see my garden from one weekend to the next until March.


Zoe