Daylight Saving

Having not learned from previous disasters, many US states and some countries are again attempting to thwart Mother Nature by ignoring reality and changing our clocks backward while the sun and moon march on. Interesting that as countries change clocks, they still do not agree which date to make the time change, and they do not agree by how much time to change, or at which time to make the change. In the US changes are made at 2am, November 4. That is a day earlier than during 2017.
In some countries, Daylight Saving Time (DST) is also called “summer time”. When DST is not observed, it is called standard time, normal time, or winter time. Just 70 of the total 195 countries in the world utilize Daylight Saving Time in at least a portion of the country. Japan, India, and China do not observe Daylight Saving. China and India have the number one and two largest populations in the world, which amounts to 36% of the world population.

In the US, Florida Legislature overwhelmingly passed the “Sunshine Protection Act” by a margin of 103 to 11 in the House and 33 to 2 in the Senate, making it the only state to adopt Daylight Saving Time (as opposed to Standard Time) year-round, eliminating the clock changes. The bill went to the Governor's desk in March, 2018 and was signed into law. Now the bill goes to Congress. Looks like no law congressional change means Floridians will be required to change clocks again.
None of the US dependencies observe DST, including American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, the US Minor Outlying Islands, and the US Virgin Islands.


Tasmania, Queensland, and Western Australia have changeable dates to change clocks, often changing their dates due to politics or to accommodate festivals. In 1992, Tasmania extended daylight saving by an additional month while South Australia began extending daylight saving by two weeks to encompass the Adelaide Festival. In some years, Victoria extended daylight saving to the end of March for the Moomba Festival and South Australia and New South Wales followed suit for consistency. Special daylight saving arrangements were observed during the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Queensland does not observe daylight saving.