A reminder to change your clocks back to Standard Time tonight, as it applies to you. As you relish your extra hour of possible sleep tonight (sorry Arizona) something to think about…

Along with others, an Australian Study shows that Daylight Savings Time actually wastes energy. While it may make it unnecessary to turn on your lights as early as you would otherwise, this is found to be more than offset by the use of climate control: heating in the morning (you don’t turn on your heat until you’re out of bed right?) when you wake up in the dark in cooler months, and cooling in the afternoon for the warmer months as people get home when it is still hot in the afternoon.

Especially with the incandescent bulb bans going into effect, 100w to light a room can not compare to the kilowatt hours and units of natural gas need to extend our climate controlled comfort.

For the Theater Artist, this matters less, you’re still going to be in the dark all day with power hungry lights running. The change just means that you’re leaving the theater in the dark for earlier rehearsals too. Your lights aren’t going anywhere either. As I am in tech myself, I’ll be thinking about this point.

I originally saw this article on Climate Progress, who are referring to an article in the Wall Street Journal.