Mr. Smith Doesn’t Go to Utah
13-year-old helps save daylight saving in Utah
I know this is supposed to be an uplifting story of how clever a teenager is, in a sort of afterschool special kinda way, but I’m more cynical than that. I see it as a bunch of blowhard politicians happily debating something they do not understand, have made no effort to understand, but are willing to make a decision about anyway, despite the fact that by not understanding the issue you have no hope of recognizing the ramifications of your decision. All this despite the fact that a teenager can understand and explain the concept, so it really wouldn’t have been all that difficult to have a staffer spend a few minutes Googling the information and summarizing it for you.
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Quoting from the article you linked:
After a few minutes of this, 13-year-old Flynn’s time bomb seemed ready to go off.
So, he patiently mapped out why getting rid of Daylight Saving messed with the tilting of Earth and Utah’s relationship with the Equator.
Flynn told the House Committee, “You’d have your lights on for several more hours a day than you would normally, which doesn’t seem smart.”
What? I’m pretty sure that getting rid of Daylight Savings Time won’t cause the Earth to flip over (which is what the article makes it sound like) or move Utah closer (or further away) from the equator. Maybe it’s just the article was poorly written and the author didn’t understand what the kid was saying (I have no idea what the kids argument was but now you’ve gotten me curious).
Also, the last sentence (the direct quote from the kid) seems to be exaggerating (or maybe it’s my confusion by what is meant by ‘several’). Maybe it save several hours of turning on the lights over the course of DST but per day? Really?