Jessa Gamble Quotes
Why would you have a work day that does not respond to shorter or longer day length? There's something that we lose, taking our schedules away from that locally relevant rhythm.
Gamble, Jessa. The Siesta and the Midnight Sun: How Our Bodies Experience Time. Penguin Group, 2011.
While riding through the London streets early one Spring morning, Willett noticed that all the house shutters were closed. He saw it as a waste of a natural resource. Lighting was primarily gas or early electricity, and expensive. He observed that people could use those light hours for working, construction, reading, government and education, but most important, for enjoying additional leisure time. He claimed that it would also save £2 1/2 million pounds each year. He lobbied for the notion. The English Parliament began debating the idea. The Germans however thought so much of Willett’s notion that they made a quick decision and thus Germany became the first nation to adopt Daylight Savings Time. During the First World War (1916), as an economy measure, England finally adopted Daylight Savings Time—the year after Willett died. (See {588253}). Soon all their European allies did also. Contrary to popular belief it was not adopted to assist farmers, who have always hated it and most still do. They argue that roosters rise when the sun comes up.
Jessa Gamble, née Sinclair, is a Canadian and English author and co-owner of the science blog The Last Word on Nothing. Her book, The Siesta and the Midnight Sun: How Our Bodies Experience Time (Penguin Group), documents the rituals surrounding daily rhythms. Along with local languages and beliefs, these schedules are losing their global diversity and succumbing to what Gamble calls "circadian imperialism." The foreword was written by Canadian broadcaster Jay Ingram.
