[diggers350] lighter later campaign

[David Masters]

I'm with Simon on this one.  Admittedly, many people work from 9-5 and don't
have a choice about that.  There are still 16 other hours in which to
sleep.  Most people need between 8-10 hours sleep, so why not go to bed
earlier and get up earlier?  (e.g. why not sleep 9.30pm - 6.00am?).

I blame TV for keeping us up too late, rather than the 9-5 working day.

David

On 2 April 2010 22:58, Simon Fairlie <chapter7 at tlio.org.uk> wrote:

>
>
> Why can't people adjust? In France, school starts at eight o clock, shops
> open at eight and most people start work at eight.  In the UK everything
> starts at nine. The government runs most of the schools in this country, if
> it wants people to get up earlier, it simply has to start school classes at
> eight and open government offices at eight, and (with the help of an
> advertising campaign), everyone else will follow suit.
>
> The alternative, of pretending that midday is at 11 am or even 10 am,  is a
> demeaning and confusing deceit, which shows how divorced most people are
> from natural diurnal rhythms. . The habit of changing to British summertime
>  also explains the complete absence of sundials in the modern built
> environment, which is sad because sundials not only tell the time, but also
> help to explain how time works,
>
> Incidentally  I have heard that in medieval Italy an hour was a not a
> defined length of time, but a division of the sun's arc, so that there were
> always 12 hours in a day,  winter and summer. An hour in winter only lasted
> what we now call 40 minutes, whereas in summer an hour lasted about 90
> minutes. Am I right in thinking that this made the construction of sundials
> very easy? Does anyone else know anything about this system,  or can point
> me towards someone who has written about it?
>
> Apologies for the typos in the previous message. It must have been very
> late, I'm confused.
>
> Simon
>
>
>
> On 2 Apr 2010, at 09:25, Dan Olner wrote:
>
> "If the daylight doesn't work well for ypu at the mpment , then just get up
> earlier."
>
> Except that most people can't just adjust their working time in the way you
> suggest. You might not like that, but it's the reality for the vast majority
> of people in the UK. If you are able to shift your own life rhythms around,
> then that's great - but you're a tiny, lucky minority.
>
> So, e.g. the carbon savings that can come from optimising the "position of
> sun/what it says on my clock" relationship are very real.
>
> Dan
> ________________________________
> From: diggers350 at yahoogroups.com [diggers350 at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
> Simon Fairlie [chapter7 at tlio.org.uk]
> Sent: 02 April 2010 00:00
> To: Andrew Pratt
> Cc: diggers350 at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [diggers350] lighter later campaign
>
>
>
> This campaign is ridiculous and is based on an erroneous post-modern
> assumption that time is a human construction and adjustable, This is not so.
> Midday is when the sun reaches the apex of  its journey around our sky  and
> it occurs at a certain moment of the day in every place in the world. It
> makes sense to approxiate this to the nearest hour, which in our case is  Greenwch
> Meantime. It doesn;t make any sense at all to tinker with that and say that
> midday by the clock is 11 o clock by the sun, it just causes confusion.
>
> For exam[le France, whose nearest hourly approximate is Greenwich meantime
> is aready one hour ahead of what it shpuld be, whioch means that it is
> (newraly)  two hours ahead when it goes over to summer time. The result is
> that vine workers in the Sout hof France go out to wotrk at 8 am clock time
> (which by the sun is 6 am) and finissh the morning's work at "midday" which
> is in fact 10 am by the sun. They then have lunch, and a siesta for two
> hours (in order to avpid the worst of the heat)  and go out to work in the
> afternoon at 2 pm  by the clock, which by the sun is midday the hottest
> part of the day. I did this for 10 years and belive me,  its  completey
> insane.
>
> Tinkering with the clocks is a way of marginalizing people's relationship
> with the sun.  If the daylight doesn't work well for ypu at the mpment ,
> then just get up earlier, don't try and pretend that you can alter the
> rhythm of of the sun.
> This email was sent atmidnoght, which seems a bit late, but thankfully  it's
> on;y 11 pm.
>
> Cheers
>
> Simon
>
>
> Simon Fairlie
> Monkton Wyld Court
> Charmouth
> Bridport
> Dorset
> DT6 6DQ
> 01297 561359
> chapter7 at tlio.org.uk<mailto:chapter7 at tlio.org.uk <chapter7 at tlio.org.uk>>
>
> On 30 Mar 2010, at 13:58, Andrew Pratt wrote:
>
>
>
> Please let people know about this campaign to switch the clocks forward to
> get more people outside, save carbon emissions etc - the way we currently
> live I think it makes sense
> Cheers
>
> http://www.lighterlater.org/
>
>
> With thanks Andrew Pratt 07980 602088
>
>
>
> ________________________________
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>
>
>
>
>  
>



-- 
http://twitter.com/davidmasters/

"It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings."
~ Wendell Berry


" . . . in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is
grace." ~ Frederick Buechner
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