Just say no to DST!

I wanted to highlight a note I just received on the importance of moving to permanent Standard Time from Susan Golden, Director of the UCSD Center for Circadian Biology, (CCB) and Steve Kay, Keck School of Medicine, USC.

Why is Daylight Savings Time (DST) bad? To put it simply: morning sunlight is important. Going through winters with the work- and schooldays starting by a social clock that is an hour ahead of the sun sets human activity too early by the biological clock. Our society is already delayed and sleep-deprived, and year-round DST will exacerbate the negative health, performance, and economic consequences. You can find an excellent article on this in the Sacramento Bee if you're interested in more information on this topic.

If you're in California, please contact your State Senator and voice opposition to California Assembly Bill 7. This bill would result in permanent Daylight Saving Time in California, which would make people wake up before sunrise all winter, which is worse than switching back and forth from Standard Time to Daylight Saving Time.

Find your State Senator here. A call to the Senator’s local or Sacramento office would help, and cite your expertise as a scientist working on circadian rhythms. AB-7 is opposed by members of the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms. An open-access Position Paper, approved by the SRBR Executive Board, outlines the history and arguments for permanent Standard Time and will appear in the June issue of the Journal of Biological Rhythms.