With apologies to Gabriel García Márquez, here in the busiest weekend of the #LockTheClock movement, I want to address something I am seeing a lot right now.
In short, I call it: Whataboutism.
The argument is always something like:
Really, with (insert issue here) going on, you think this is the most important thing you can do?
I get it. Even though I am the leader of the #LockTheClock movement, and even though I have probably spent more time working on this issue than anyone over the last six years, I understand that it is not the most important thing in the world.
Like everyone else, I find myself transfixed by a lot of the COVID-19 coverage.
But other than washing my hands for at least 20 seconds every time I come home, it doesn’t seem like there is a heck of a lot I can do about that.
On Daylight Saving Time, there is something I can do. I can continue to write here. I can talk to more legislators and staff. I can tweet and I can keep reading all the studies and then I can do all of that some more.
It doesn’t take anything away from COVID science to say that the science on the Spring Forward clock changing is really clear. A study just came out recently that directly attributes an additional 28 traffic deaths per year to a sleep-deprived and groggy populous in the days after the Spring Forward DST change.
And for every death there are countless other accidents and heart attacks. The research could not be any more clear.
Look, if DST clock changing doesn’t bother you, just consider yourself lucky. But don’t get mad at others because they are working on it, and don’t think just because politicians are working on this, that they aren’t also working on lots of other issues.
The sun is going to keep coming up, no matter what we do. But the way that we agree to run the clocks, that is up to us. Here on the weekend of the deadly time change, how about we agree to do what we can to fix that, or at least not be so critical of others who are trying to make a difference?