Energy-guzzling Americans, always on the lookout for a painless path to conservation, can celebrate this weekend when they will cut greenhouse gas emissions by simply pushing forward the hands on their clocks.
At 2 am Sunday (0700 GMT), the United States will "spring forward" one hour to daylight saving time, three weeks earlier than usual, and will stay on that schedule until November 4, a week longer.
The additional four weeks each year of shifting an hour of daylight from morning to evening is expected to cut fuel consumption, as demand falls for electricity during early evening peak hours, according to experts. For a country deeply divided on most issues, it should come as no surprise the expanded daylight saving time has plenty of advocates, besides environmentalists, and lots of detractors.
Softball teams, which gather on playing fields after work, will be able to start their seasons earlier, as will backyard barbecue enthusiasts. Candy manufacturers see brisker sales at Halloween as children will have an extra hour of daylight to go door-to-door begging for sweets during the late-October holiday.
Some in law enforcement think evening crime rates could fall. But if you're an early riser or in the transportation industry, the idea stinks. Farmers will lose a precious hour of early light. Orthodox Jews, who wait until sunrise to say morning prayers, lobbied against the provision, and airliners complained it would throw their international schedules further out of sync with Europe, costing the industry millions of dollars.
Owners of BlackBerrys and other electronic gizmos have had to scurry to download "patches" to make sure their devices are aligned with the new time three weeks earlier than programmed.
For US companies, the time shift is nothing like the "Y2K" problem of eight years ago, when billions of dollars and countless man-hours were spent in an effort to protect computer systems as their clocks ticked over to 2000 from 1999.
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