Letters for Dec. 29

History should teach us

Why can’t we learn from history? The articles by Cannon Barnett and Amanda Sullender on clock changes and seasonal depression were very interesting, but neither article mentioned that the United States already tried permanent daylight saving time in 1974. People hated it so much that the experiment was canceled. Permanent DST has also been tried, and abandoned, in Great Britain and Russia. Cold, dark winter mornings are unsafe, and people are nearly unanimous in finding them extremely unpleasant. Permanent DST would extend those cold, dark mornings into even more of the year.

For almost all of human history, people divided their daylight in half according to the sun’s high point in the sky. Standard time uses this as its basis. DST, invented in the 20th century, forces early waking by artificially moving the clock ahead one hour. Standard time is what our bodies were built for.

Here in Spokane, permanent standard time would give us some very early sunrises in the summer. That’s not the fault of standard time, and with almost 16 hours of daylight we’d still have our bright summer nights.

Standard time has a practical advantage, too: Any state that wants to adopt it can simply decide to do so. Permanent DST would require an act of Congress.

Quotes from politicians and law professors are fine, I suppose, but could The Spokesman-Review perhaps have a science writer dig into this? What does the evidence say about health consequences?

Lee Wurm

Spokane

People listened to lies

It’s interesting to hear people who attempted coups to overthrow a free and fair election talk about the will of the people. I-2066? Pass through lies about threats which ignored the real energy threats to our environment and our own future. We must move off of fossil fuels, but the initiative did the will of the existing industry and wealth base to the detriment of the people.

Note, however, the people fighting it are taking using the legal system, lawsuits, rather than sacking the nation’s Capitol and putting together fake electors in multiple states.

I live in a complex where I have old-style heaters and air conditioners, while the buildings next to me has heat pumps. Funny how those pumps have worked just fine in the winter. I will admit, though, that they’re noisier than I’m used to.

They’re also newer technology that continues to advance and improve. All the existing laws did were to continue to move us toward a more energy efficient future that does save money, not just the environment, over time.

However, that threatened the fossil fuel industry, so it lied to people. As the presidential election showed, plenty of people listened to lies because it agreed with their biases. That’s not good.

David Teich

Spokane Valley