Let’s Get Rid of Time Zones, Not Just Daylight Savings
There’s biological time and global time, and we need to sync with both. That means rethinking our clocks.
You’re late — somewhere.
Photographer: Bloomberg/BloombergThis is one of those weeks when, sitting here in Berlin, I feel much closer to my place of birth, New York. By one hour, to be precise. Most of the U.S. switched to daylight savings time last weekend, whereas Germany — the first country to introduce “summertime” about a century ago — will spring forward next Sunday.
As a general rule, nothing that was originally proposed by Benjamin Franklin should be dismissed as self-evidently daft. The crafty founding father surmised that changing the clocks twice a year might nudge people to rise and go to bed earlier in the summers, thus saving candle wax. That probably seemed sensible at the time.