Daylight Savings Is Officially Being Done Away With?
Greenland officially became the first country to do away with daylight savings, the practice of falling back and springing ahead with clocks.
Daylight savings comes as a rite of passage when we say goodbye to the summer and hello to the fall and when we say goodbye to winter and hello to spring. Every year as the shift of time approaches, the debate about whether it is necessary for society to still utilize that practice that was initially meant to ensure farmers had enough daylight during waking hours to tend to their fields. As of this past spring, Greenland officially became the first country to do away with the practice of falling back and springing ahead with their clocks.
According to AP News, “Greenland’s parliament, Inatsisartut, voted to stick to daylight saving time year-round.” Their rationale was that it would give Greenlanders another hour of daylight in the afternoons, giving them more time to conduct business with the rest of Europe. Europe and the United States have been seriously considering abandoning the practices as well, but neither has committed to that action as of yet.
They might have gotten a little nudge forward, especially if Greenland didn’t fall into apocalyptic turmoil due to not adhering to daylight savings practices. They can prove to the world that anarchy will stay at bay and the earth will not shift on its axis due to its unchanged manmade timing mechanisms. This will allow Greenland to remain only three hours behind Copenhagen and the rest of Europe instead of moving to four hours during the winter months.
Greenland is a semi-independent Danish territory that is in the Arctic. The land is sparsely populated, with approximately 56,000 residents of Inuit descent. These indigenous people live in small towns and hamlets located up and down the country’s west coast, with the others living in remote locations inland. They are considered part of the Danish realm, with the southernmost tip of the territory being approximately 2,000 miles from the Danish capital of Copenhagen.
Geographically Greenland is on the North American continent, and they are closer to the United States than Europe. However, geopolitically they fall in with the European nations regarding matters that affect that grouping of countries. Visit Greenland, which is the government’s national tourism agency, has already been using the switch from daylight savings time in their tourism promotional materials that stated, “The shift of time zone marks an exciting new beginning, an equal connection to North America and Europe, and an opportunity to slow down in a fast-paced world,”
Since they have made the switch away from daylight savings time, there have been zero reports of a negative impact from parliament’s decision. It will be interesting to see what happens there as the eyes of the world are watching to gather conclusive evidence that in today’s society, not adhering to the daylight savings process might benefit our counties. Sometimes all you need is for one domino to fall, and I think we will adopt this model soon after our two political parties can do something for the common good of America and put their party’s interests on their side.
