current official time

A primer on Daylight Saving TimeSusan Lazaruk , The ProvincePublished: Saturday, March 08, 2008"I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind. I even object to the implication that I am wasting something valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves."-- Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, 1947, XIX, SundayDAYLIGHT SAVING TIME:If it seems the change came earlier than usual, it has, thanks to a change last year in the U.S. (and followed by Canada) to extend DST by starting it three weeks earlier in spring and one week later in fall to cut down on energy costs.Some facts and figures:- The main purpose of DST is to make better use of daylight, by moving an hour of daylight to the evening from morning. Some argue it would be better named Daylight Shifting Time.- Sometimes referred to as Daylight Savings Time, perhaps because it rolls off the tongue better, but it's grammatically more correct without the "s" because saving is a verbal adjective (a participle) that modifies the noun "time." Technically requires hyphenation - as in daylight-saving time - as with mind-expanding book or man-eating tiger.- The rationale for DST is to save energy (candles when Ben Franklin first conceived the idea more than 250 years ago) and electricity now. Thanks to fewer lights and other appliances needed an hour later in the busiest evening consumption hours and more people staying out later, consumption dropped by one per cent, according to a U.S. Department of Transportation study, and 3.5 per cent in New Zealand. (DST isn't needed all year round because the savings in the evening would be offset by the need for lighting in the dark early-morning winter days.)- But a study in Indiana found households observing DST consumed one to four per cent more in electricity than those in counties that didn't, or about $3 per household per year. Extrapolated to the whole country, it amounts to $8.6 million more a year. Others argue that more fuel is consumed by those driving around longer in the evening.- A U.S. study also found violent crime dropped during DST compared to standard time as much as 10 to 13 per cent, perhaps because crimes such as muggings are better suited to the dark.- Some 70 countries use DST, with Japan, India and China as the biggest holdouts among major industrialized countries.- Fire departments encourage householders to change smoke detector batteries during the time change.