Daylight Savings Time Is Unsafe And Wastes Energy, White House Petition Demands Obama Change It

For many, daylight savings time is an energy vampire, since we lose an hour of sleep and some believe it even wastes energy. A White House petition agrees, claiming it’s time for President Obama to bring in some of that famous change of his where the United States really needs it.

In a related report by the Inquisitr, the risk of heart attacks actually rises during daylight savings time. It’s even believed that daylight savings time can cost you money. Ironically, we can blame Benjamin Franklin for all of this and, of course, it’s his face who graces the money we’re losing.

The White House petition is fairly blunt, asking that President Obama get rid of daylight savings time altogether.

“Daylights Savings Time was created to save energy during the summer months. However, now it is in effect for more than half the year. It destroys sleep patterns, which causes children to do poorly in school and should therefore be reduced to such dates as when most of the nations children are NOT in school ASAP. Return to Standard Time.”

If the daylight savings time petition reaches 100,000 signatures by April 7, 2015, then President Obama’s staff will officially give a response to the United States about the issue. Whether or not anything will change is another issue entirely.

Put into practice after World War I, the reason daylight savings time still lingers in modern society is because it supposedly saves energy. According to the Atlantic, scientific studies on daylight savings time show that it may actually cost more electricity due to the additional use of air conditioning and heat. But there is also the human cost.

“Daylight Savings Time isn’t just unnecessary. It’s also wasteful, cruel, and dangerous. The simple act of adjusting to the time change, however subtle, also has measurable consequences. Many people feel the effects of the ‘spring forward’ for longer than a day; a study showed that Americans lose around 40 minutes of sleep on the Sunday night after the shift. This means more than just additional yawns on Monday: the resulting loss in productivity costs the economy an estimated $434 million a year.”

Benjamin Franklin may have invented daylight savings time in order to save money on candles, but in modern times this annual clock change seems very archaic. What do you think?