This week, I am back on my ‘green’ soap box. Tomorrow (Sunday 11/4) marks the end of Daylight Savings Time (DST), sending clocks back an hour, and messing up our calendars, computers and internal clocks. For most of my life, I never questioned DST and treated it as a minor inconvenience and a reminder to change batteries in my smoke detectors. But for some reason this year, I decided to read up on this—why do we need DST? The answer that we all know from kindergarten—it helps save energy. Well, as it turns out there is not enough statistically significant evidence that DST decreases energy consumption. And some studies suggest that an extra hour of daylight in the summer makes Americans consume up to 1% more gasoline. See Wikipedia (scroll down to the Energy Use section) for details.   

And while I was researching the facts and fiction behind time change and energy savings, I came across another interesting piece of information. It’s called Standby Power—just like DST, I have always known that it’s there, but never really questioned it. The term refers to the amount of energy consumed by electronic devises and small appliances while they are in the “off” mode. Except they are never really OFF—a computer on standby, a dark TV or a microwave that’s not heating food continue to suck electricity, adding to your electric bill and completely offsetting the effects of whatever little savings are realized from DST. According to estimates, up to 10-13% of household power consumption can be attributed to standby power—that’s far greater than any % savings a clock shift can give you.

Well, unless you live in Arizona or a couple of lucky territories where DST is not observed, fall back tomorrow is inevitable. But if it doesn’t make you feel that you are doing your part to help save energy, make this a different kind of Fall Back. Let’s unplug all those energy sucking appliances (a power strip with an OFF switch would come in handy), remember to turn off the lights when we are not using them, and keep your home office at a comfortable temperature of 68 degrees. Because you are already working from home to conserve energy, right?