“Two of the big proponents for having permanent daylight time are golf courses and outdoor mall owners, because they think, they're probably correct, that if you have more light in the evening, more people will play golf after work. More people will go shopping after work.”
Atmosphere with Emily Gracey · October 2026
Context
Zeitzer pointing out that changing the clocks doesn't add daylight, it only moves it. He asks who would actually benefit from evening light, and whether that would improve health or "just make wealthy people wealthier."
Transcript
…What happens when you change this from a circadian perspective? But what we didn't look at, it's not my area of expertise, but I hope someone will, is, well, what happens if you move that hour of light? Because people think like, oh, you're getting more light. You're not getting more light.
Right.
That's finite. Like, I wish I could change that. It'd be really popular if I could change how much light was there, but I can't. But I can just, you can just change when it's occurring. Well, does it change exercise, which would imply that it might change health? So do people exercise more if you move that hour of light into the morning or into the evening? Two of the big proponents for having permanent daylight time are golf courses and outdoor mall owners, because they think they're probably correct, is that if you have more light in the evening, more people will play golf after work. More people will go shopping after work. And I don't know. I'm not an economist. That sounds reasonable to me. And the question is, is that, well, if more people are playing golf then, maybe that offsets some of the health. Or maybe they would just get exercise in a different way. I don't know. It's an important question to think about, you know, if you're thinking about the health consequences. And even the economic argument is like, well, who's going to be making that…
There's so much to unpack here. And that doesn't even factor in like. I'm a mother, so my thought keeps going back to like kids and especially like school in the morning and bus stops and dark bus stops. But then also, like, is school starting too early? Like, is it about our schedules? And should…
Yeah, well, and this is one of the one of the things that people complained about, at least in the uh, in the news, at least, back in the 70s, was you know, kids waiting in the dark, you know, because if you're if you're basically having permanent daylight time in the winter, now it's going to be…
Travel would be a disaster.
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