Funny headline you think? what if I told you that this theory is being used by Queensland Premier Peter Bettie as an argument against implementing daylight saving in Queensland! (via TSSH). It’s got as much credibility as the moron dairy farmer interviewed by The West Australian last week when Daylight Savings came up again here in Western Australia saying that they couldn’t farm properly if daylight savings came in because 3pm would feel like 1pm (if you don’t get it, you move your clocks forward 1 hour, not 2)…mind you, with this sort of mathamatics is it little wonder half of the dairy industry is going out of business in this state? The latest news however isn’t all that good: despite word being that we’d get Daylight Savings starting 3 December, it looks as if the bill has been delayed and won’t be settled until mid November. Here’s crossing my fingers that Western Australia will actually join the 21st century and I’ll have daylight savings here before Christmas.
Daylight Savings causes cancer
I’m getting very tired this silly daylight saving bigotry that automatically assumes every anti-daylight saving argument to be moronic or pariochial.
The UV danger period of the day is 10am to 2pm and the biggest chunk of the damage that leads to skin cancer occurs in childhood. When kids are forced to travel home at what is now 2pm instead of 3pm, and when the bulk of their school outdoor activities are moved forward from 1-2pm to what is now 12-1pm, their daily exposure to UV radiation is going to rise also. The skin cancer effects of this accumulated increased exposure risk would be felt 20-30 years down the track when this current generation of kids reaches their forties.
If you want to check some facts about how a forward clock-change will affect daily UV patterns (instead of shooting your mouth off about anti-daylight saving morons) try this Australian Government website: http://www.arpansa.gov.au/uvindex/weekly/ausweeklyindex.htm
That’s because as an argument, it is moronic. Are skin cancer rates any higher in NSW, Vic, Tasmania or South Australia? and before you say “well Tasmania doesn’t have sun like Queensland does” they actually have more of it at that time of year, and the ozone layer is actually thinner over Tasmania as well. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is, or whether we’ve got Daylight Savings or not, you’re always at risk: solution, you put on sunscreen and wear a hat.
I lived in NSW for many years and I remember constantly reading and hearing media reports about alarming rises in skin cancer rates since the 70s – which they predictably put down to not wearing enough sunscreen.
No Cancer Council in any of the Oz states has ever done a study on the skin cancer/daylight saving connection – so unless such a study is made, neither they nor you can use the ‘no evidence’ defence. On the basis on the UV index figures available, the increased UV exposure risk of moving children’s outdoor activities one hour forward into the middle of the day CAN be measured over the long term. So far there’s been no political will to do so. Hopefully the Qld Premier has a thick enough skin to withstand all the faded-curtain hysteria to get such a study up and going. But I won’t hold my breath.
Also, your Tasmania arguments are a bit iffy. Even including the ozone factor, Tassie’s UV levels in the two hottest months of the year rarely top an 8. By contrast, Queensland regularly hits the 13+ (extreme) category. Queensland has far and away the highest skin cancer rate in the world. Tasmania barely gets a look in.