Daylight saving wasn't implemented to trick farmers into getting up early, as popular myth suggests. It was first proposed in 1895 for a much more important reason — so entomologist and astronomer George Hudson could study insects at night.
Hudson is dead, so daylight saving is no longer necessary. Japan, India, and China don't observe it, and now the South Pacific island nation of Samoa is joining them in scrapping the confusing, accident-causing, useless-to-all-but-bug-watchers ritual of mass delusion.
On Sunday, November 7 at 2 am local time, Samoa will do the right thing by doing nothing. It's time for the rest of the world to wake up and do the same.
From the website Time and Date, which covers breaking news about the time and the date:
"The Ministry hereby advises that the Daylight Saving Time (DST) policy has ceased as per Cabinet Decision […]. There will be no activation of the Daylight Saving Time policy for this year." The announcement came from the Government of Samoa on September 20, 2021, following a decision made by Samoa's new Government Cabinet on September 15, 2021.
DST was implemented in 2010 by the previous Government of Samoa to give more time after work to tend to their plantations, promote public health, and save fuel. Instead, it "[…] defeated its own goals by being used by people to socialise more," according to the Samoa Observer.
[Photo by SONYA KERR on Scopio]
