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In a world where energy consumption is
a major issue, especially because of the depleting natural
resources, daylight savings time is a timely and helpful
strategy.
Daylight savings time is a scheme to advance
clocks by an hour, sometimes more, in an effort to
artificially make afternoons take longer daylight.
The first
DST effort was proposed in 1907 by William Willet, an
English builder in aim of helping consumers lessen energy
consumption.
Naturally, energy consumption is less
during daytime because there is less need to turn on
incandescent lights, the conventional light bulbs then that
utilizes more electricity.
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Currently, about 70 different countries from all over the
world regularly and occasionally implement DST. India, China
and Japan are so far the notable industrialized nations that
refuse to observe any form of daylight saving. Aside from
the three, tropical and equatorial countries do not observe
DST because there is logically no clear advantage and energy
savings to be attained from doing so.
Australia daylight
savings was initially introduced under the
Commonwealth government during World War I. Because
of the wartime urgency, DST was made binding on all
Australian states. In 1967, the state of Tasmania
re-implemented DST amid a troubling drought, which
was quickly depleting the water reserves. |
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An hour of daylight savings was implemented
summer of that year across Tasmania to save electricity,
which logically uses water especially in hydroelectric power
production plants. Because of the favorable consequence, DST
was regularly declared in the state starting 1968.
In 1971, all Australian states were persuaded by the
Tasmanian government to temporarily adopt DST except the
Northern Territory and Western Australia. In 1972, New South
Wales, Victoria and South Australia regularized their
daylight saving schemes.
Queensland tried daylight saving
time in 1989 to 1992 but decided not to implement the scheme
through a state vote. |
People of Queensland argued that they do not need to prolong
afternoon hours when the temperature is as hot as 35°C and
humidity reaches 98%.
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Lack of uniformity has often
caused confusion across the country. The Parliament
looked at ways to implement a national DST
measurement.
However, in 1992, the Australia federal
government ruled that daylight savings should be
left as responsibilities of territory governments
and states.
Thus, while many local states adopt and
implement DST, others are firm in not adopting the
scheme. This has caused problems and confusion
within the communication, transportation and media
industries. |
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To date, DST is
still occasionally observed in the states of Victoria, New
South Wales, Tasmania, the Australia Capital Territory and
South Australia. Western Australia enacted a three-year DST
trial beginning December 2006. The Northern Territory and
Queensland are still firm in their stance not to consider
implementing daylight savings. |
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