Dear editor:
Happy New Year! As every year ends, there are reports shared from around the world as different cities across different time zones bring in the New Year.
December 31 – January 1 is no different from any other day; and yet, it feels stranger on that day that those living on the Pacific islands of Kiribati begin the year 2025 hours ahead of the rest of us.
We humans have imposed 24 different time zones upon our world. I suppose it seemed reasonable to have a local time of 8:00 a.m. be a similar time of morning everywhere.
But these are just arbitrary numbers that we have instilled with meaning. Why couldn’t morning begin at 2:00 p.m. instead?
In fact, the current setting of the hours to mark our day seems askew. Our day begins at 12:00 a.m., otherwise known as midnight.
I personally do not like the idea of sleeping away the beginning hours of a new day. Also, 12:00 a.m. does not arrive in the middle of the night. Where we live, during the summer it may not be dark until 9:30 – 10:00 p.m. 2:00 a.m. is closer to the middle of the night than 12:00 a.m.
Since the timing of the current system seems a bit off, why not simplify things by having one global time. True, it wouldn’t be 5:00 somewhere unless it was 5:00 everywhere, but at least we all could bring in the New Year at the same time.
A global time would end the need for Daylight Savings Time. A global time would also make flight arrival and departure times more uniform regardless of whether your flight be westbound or eastbound.
Rather than dividing humanity across 24 time zones, perhaps a single, global time could help foster a greater sense of how we are all on this special world together.
Pastor Gene McBride
Pioneer