夏令时与能源节约第 2 页

　Host: It’s daylight saving time, and if you feel a bit 1)grumpy about losing an hour of sleep last night, you can blame one of the first people to 2)advocate having the government do something to get people out of bed early. That was Benjamin Franklin, not because he was in the habit of getting up early. As American Minister to France in 1784, Franklin wrote that he usually slept ’til noon, and was amazed after he forgot to close the 3)shutters one night and sunshine filled his room at six AM.
　　So did Franklin invent daylight saving time?
　　David Prerau (Researcher): He probably didn’t do it himself.
　　Host: The person who actually invented it, I guess, was a British home-builder…
　　David: That’s right. His name was William Willett. He thought of it in about 1905, and he used to go each morning for an early morning horseback ride, and he was surprised to see that nobody was up and about while he was riding, because he thought it was the most beautiful time of the day. After thinking about this for a long time, he finally conceived of the idea of moving the clocks forward. Willett’s proposal was embodied in a bill that was put to Parliament, but Parliament rejected it for nine years, and eventually Willett died never having seen daylight saving time come to fruition.
　　Host: It was really World War I that put daylight saving time into use, wasn’t it?
　　David: Yes, in World War I, there was a big need to save energy. It turned out it was the country of Germany, under Kaiser Wilhelm, that put in daylight saving time first. Once they did, Britain put daylight saving time in effect two weeks later.
　　Host: And the U.S. followed, too, and used daylight saving time when it got into World War I.
　　David: Daylight saving time, as you mentioned, has historically been associated with saving energy, but it also reduces traffic accidents and in some countries they consider that the number one benefit of it such as in the U.K. It also reduces outdoor crime like mugging because there’s not much mugging right after sunrise but there’s a lot after sunset. But I think…
　　Host: All these other benefits.
　　David: Yeah, the main benefit, I think, is that most people like it. Most people just rather to have that extra hour of light…
　　Host: It gives us more sunlight.
　　David: …in the evenings, even in the afternoon or evening than in the morning.
　　Host: What are some of the more notable, practical or humorous effects of daylight saving time?
　　David: There was a very interesting period after World War II, and every state, city, or town that wanted to have daylight saving time could have it if they wanted to have it, and they can start and end it whenever they wanted. That led to a chaotic situation around the country in the 50’s and 60’s. In the State of Iowa, in 1964, there were 23 different pairs of starting and ending dates of daylight saving time in use in that one state. And there’s also a famous bus ride, that you could take in the 60’s, from Moundsville, West Virginia, to Steubenville, Ohio, and it was 35 miles, and if you wanted to adjust your watch at each stop to keep track of whether you were in daylight saving time or standard time, you would have to change your watch 7 times in 35 miles.
　　翻译:旭文

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