One is a pet argument, and the other is a health concern. And this could be resolved simply by asking public health experts to do the relevant studies.
My concern is that is not going to happen, or—more likely—public health experts will issue a recommendation which will be ignored by the the politicians. The reasoning is that people’s pet argument of extra daylight hour is convincing enough.
Also note that this pet argument ignores the majority of the working class who will most likely be working this extra hour in the service industry.
If my options are to either switch clocks twice a year, or to be at work by the equivalent of 8 am in the winter, I'd much rather switch clocks.
It's not even close, either. I'm scared of these permanent DST bills.
I'm confused. You contradict yourself from one sentence to the next.
Can we not agree, or are we all in agreement?
I say it's the former, not the latter.
FFS, this is why we have to change clocks twice a year. It’s like the left or right side of the road debate. Which side you drive on doesn’t matter. Agreement is what matters.
We don’t have agreement on time because everyone has their pet argument for why this or that time standard has some marginal benefit for a given slice of the population. Meanwhile, we can all agree on that those marginal benefits pale in comparison to the measured harms of changing clocks twice a year.
We have a bill. It’s taken work. The choice isn’t daylight time or standard time. It’s this bill gets through the House (and is likely ignored by the Senate) or we punt the issue for a generation. Arguing we picked the wrong side of the coin is a point for the latter.
(If you prefer kids walking to school in the light, just change the school hours.)