Right now, it’s the exact same time here in Maine as it is in Michigan, which is roughly a zillion miles away. That’s because both states are in the Eastern Time Zone, us at the extreme eastern edge and them at the far western boundary.
The reason two such disparate places (Detroit has Lions and Tigers, Maine has Black Bears) got lumped together in the same zone has more to do with politics than geography (or sports teams). If lines were drawn according to the way the sun actually shines on us, standard time in Maine would be about an hour ahead of where it is. That would put this state – and much of New England – on Atlantic Standard Time, along with the Canadian Maritimes, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and part of Greenland. Which would mean we would no longer be the poorest state in our time zone.
That’s hardly the only reason bills have been introduced in the Legislature every few years to shift Maine to Atlantic time. If we moved to the same zone as our impoverished solar neighbors, we’d have a lot more sunlight in the evenings, particularly in the grim winter months. This would be good news for the ski industry, for commuters and students used to wending their way home in the late afternoon darkness, and for the lazy among us, who’d be able to sleep in on frigid January mornings without being disturbed by the rising of ol’ Sol.
If we maintained Daylight Savings Time, Mainers would also gain an additional hour of light on summer evenings to enjoy their mosquito-clouded patios and tick-infested campsites.
There are, however, some drawbacks to this idea. People who get up early in the morning – farmers, radio talk-show hosts, other damn fools with real jobs – would be forced to slog through an additional 60 minutes of darkness. Also, the United Nations High Commission On Mandating What Time It Is Where You Live Whether You Like It Or Not (motto: One of Agenda 21’s More Obscure Provisions) might require all Atlantic time residents to use Canadian hours, which (like their money) are worth only 80 percent of American hours. While this might prove valuable to hourly workers – they’d only have to labor for 48 minutes – it would also shorten vacations, TV shows and visits with your psychiatrist (although not by all that much).
Nevertheless, there’s a serious movement underway (having nothing to do with black helicopters or blue-helmeted troopers) to move our clocks permanently ahead by one hour. According to the Boston Globe, Massachusetts recently created a task force to study whether that state should shift to Atlantic time. The group is supposed to begin meeting in November’s gloom and report back by the end of July, when it will be bright enough in the evening to read its conclusions without electric lights.
Among the topics being considered is whether the Bay State should ask its New England neighbors if they’d like to join in this time warp. Contrary to what some idiot wrote erroneously a couple of paragraphs ago, this change would have to be approved by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Public health advocate Tom Emswiler of Quincy, Mass. told the Globe a unified approach would be helpful in clearing that hurdle.
“If we moved as a region, we might have a shot,” Emswiler said. “This isn’t going to be Massachusetts Standard Time.”
In a 2014 op-ed in the Globe, he argued that shifting to Atlantic time year round with no daylight savings – a change that would only affect us from early November until early March – would reduce heart attacks and workplace accidents, both of which show a marked increase on days after we spring ahead or fall back. He also claimed that later sunsets would help the region retain young people, who are apparently drawn like moths to places with more sunlight.
Which explains why recent college grads flock every summer to Nome, Alaska.
In his Globe piece, Emswiler concludes that if politicians and bureaucrats “follow both science and the map, they may well decide that New England should join a time zone more suited to us, not one that works for New York.”
Or, for that matter, Detroit.
I won’t zone out if you email me at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
For people who need to work around the solar day, the time on the clock face is irrelevant.
That said, I am all in favor of switching to Atlantic time and never, ever, have daylight savings time ever again.
I hate DST so much that if, Lepage did away with it, I would vote for him.
I’ve pleaded for years to drop DST, and the older I get, the less I like that sudden change….in either direction!
Snowman,
Regarding your last sentence, let’s not go overboard there.
I may be dense, but it seems to me we ought to leave mother nature alone and not fool around with clocks and time. Who knows when “time” even got invented? It’s been changed before. We don’t even know when zero or one b.c. even happened. If you stay up late, you run up your light bill for running light bulbs and if you get up in the dark — same thing. I don’t think daylight savings really amounts to much
Actually, it’s Michigan, not Maine, that’s out of its more logical time zone. If you want time zones an hour wide (which most of them are, though India and a few other places are on fractional hours), that means each should cover 15 degrees of longitude (before adjusting for political boundaries and other supposed conveniences). Greenwich Time (England) centers on the zero meridian (near London); Central Time (six hours earlier, 6 x 15 = 90) centers at 90 degrees west (Memphis and New Orleans); Eastern Time (5 hours earlier than Greenwich Time) centers at 75 degrees west (Philadelphia); and Atlantic Time (4 hours earlier than Greenwich) centers at 60 degrees (eastern tip of Nova Scotia). Houlton, Maine, next to New Brunswick, is right about at the halfway point (67.5 degrees) between the centers of the Atlantic and Eastern time zones, so the only part of Maine that is really closer to the center of Atlantic time than to the center of Eastern time is the Downeast region from Machias to Eastport. The great majority of Maine isa bit closer to its natural (solar) time as part of the Eastern time zone than it would be as part of the Atlantic zone. Why Massachusetts (which is further west) would want to switch to Atlantic time I don’t understand.
Now if you wanted a half-hour time zone (Atlantic-and-a-half), that would be a much closer fit for Maine — but at the expense of making it harder to coordinate long-distance phone calls and mass media events (“tonight at 7:00, 6:00 Central Time, 7:30 Atlantic-and-a-half”).
But eliminating Daylight Saving Time (which could be done without a time zone change) would be a good idea.
Larry Kuenning:
When you get right down to it, the time at the equator is not the same as at the poles due to the greater rotational velocity- by the theory of relativity time runs slower.
This is why it’s more fun to vacation in the tropics :)
Snowman this is the second time I can recall that you’ve made sense. I hate DST so much I would even vote for Susan Collins if she helped abolish something so stupid. (Yes, she is on your team and you can keep her.)