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Trying to change how the world tells time might seem like a crazy idea at first glance, but in a globally connected world, a single time zone has its benefits.
For starters, time zones are political creations, not scientific ones. The world isn't divided into 24 precisely demarcated lines based on sunlight patterns. Instead, there are around 40 different locally observed times created by different nations and regions. Some countries, such as Nepal, Venezuela or North Korea, have 30- or even 45-minute offsets separating their time from their longitudinal neighborhood.
Countries also change their time zones regularly. As the Washington Post mentions in an interview recently with Hanke and Henry, five countries changed theirs last year.
Having a world with varying and potentially variable time zones can cause confusion for international travel, shipping, financial markets and other areas. The potential for disruption as a result of working across different time zones has led some industries, such as airlines, and scientific researchers, such as astronomers, already to adopt a universal time standard based on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
Daylight savings would also be eliminated in a world governed by a single time zone. As it is, daylight savings is disruptive to both international time, as different countries adjust their watches on different days or weeks, and our biological clocks. One study released last year even linked daylight savings to an increase in risk of injury and heart attacks.
There are trade-offs to switching to a single, global time zone. With the abolition of local time, businesses, schools, government offices and more would have to adjust their operating hours accordingly. In large countries that have abolished multiple time zones in favor of a single standard, such as China and India, the disconnects between local and solar time has led to inefficiencies and resource demands that have led some government officials to petition for the creation of additional zones.
A single international time standard is supposed to make it easier for individuals, businesses or governments to connect when they're separated longitudinally. Twelve o'clock in Los Angeles, for example, would also be 12:00 in London.
With the system of time we currently have, everyone has the same expectations in terms of what hours constitute morning, midday, afternoon and evening. Anyone unsure of a time zone in another part of the world can look it up easily enough. But in a world with a single time zone, determining the solar time, as in what point in the day another location happens to be in, is trickier.
Finally, moving to a single time zone would mean asking billions of people to completely reformulate their notions of time. For a plan whose entire basis is simplicity, that obstacle presents an awfully complicated challenge.
Reader Comments
MORONS!
Just set a single standard time zone for international business and political related bullshit and let the rest of live happlily ever after with fucking times so noon is actually the designated time when the sun is directly above us instead of when it is directly above the talking asshole sitting in the white house.
Geez, the sheer stupidity oozing out of humanity these years is enough to make me want to commit omnicide.
The whole system of time zones has been gerrymandered to the point of Twilight Zone Time.
It's now approaching the uselessness of Daylight Saving Time, which robs Peter to pay Paul, and the zombie biorhythms it generates.
now·a·days
[ˈnouəˌdāz]
ADVERB
at the present time, in contrast with the past:
"the sort of clothes worn by almost all young people nowadays" · [more]
synonyms: these days · today · at the present time · in these times
Stupidity at it's best. Yeah, sure, I'd like to call a partner in Singapore and wake him up in the middle of the night. Because I have to communicate with people all over the world, I was forced to buy an artificial
map which displays in digital form, the time for 24 different time zones. Thus I know when to call whom.
These are University professor's who came up with that idea ? Academia is going down a day at a time.
Idiotic yes, but intentionally? Why not just use sunrise and sunset, + or - for local time, as all time is really local isn't it?
I understand the frustration and incredulous disbelief of those above. But this is Psychopathic mind set in action - we create our own reality - because we say it is, it is so! Don't laugh at this because I can genuinely see it being implemented. Hang the sun, hang the moon - we're god down here. And no better way that to completely tame and manage people globally than to have them have no idea what natural 'time' of the day it is other than what Big Brother says it is (talk about adding an abstraction to a fake reality!) Black is white and white is black. Once people live like that there is no going back - they're fully programmed and will do exactly what they are told to (oh, I forgot, we've already got that!)