Why Europe couldn’t stop daylight saving time

The Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House are seen before (above) and during earth Hour (below) in Sydney on March 27, 2021.

* The EU was set to stop changing its clocks in 2021, but then came Brexit, the pandemic, and some messy international bureaucracy. Lots of people hate changing their clocks when daylight saving time begins in March, but the European Union seemed prepared to do more than just complain about it: In March 2019, the European Parliament voted to dispense entirely with biannual clock changes. A continent full of people — tired of being plunged into early evening darkness in the fall and then having an hour of precious life yanked from their existence in the spring — were looking forward to the last year ever for moving to the eight-month-long DST period in the EU this month. Countries opting to keep to summer time would ‘spring forward’ for the final time in March, while those that preferred the winter schedule would carry out their last clock change in October. In the US, a similar move to break the much-despised clock-changing habit has been advanced by a bipartisan group of senators, whose ‘Sunshine Protection Act of 2021’ would make year-round DST the law of the land. State-level measures along those lines have passed in California, Florida and many other states. The arguments for abolishing the practice, which emerged in the early 20th century as a means of saving energy by shifting working hours to follow the sun, are many and varied: The disruptive effects of the twice-a-year time change have been linked to higher rates of car crashes, workplace injuries, street crime, heart attacks and general crankiness.