Science

No More Clock Touching!

Not only do I think we should get rid of moving the clocks twice a year, but Brad Plumer thinks we should shit-can time zones, too.

Time zones have outlived their usefulness. At least, a few academics seem to think so. Astrophysicist Richard Conn Henry and economist Steve Hanke argue that we should have just a single time zone for the entire world, all set to Greenwich Mean Time. Those of us in Washington, D.C. could still wake up at the same time relative to the sun — the clocks would just be flashing “2:00 a.m.” rather than “7:00 a.m.”

The logic behind this crazy idea is that people who do business globally would have an easier time coordinating conference calls and transactions. “Everyone would know exactly what time it is everywhere, at every moment,” write Henry and Hanke. Plus, as Catherine Willyard points out, the notion is hardly unprecedented. China already has a single time zone for the entire country.

It's not really all that complicated. The numbers are arbitrary constructs anyway. One time, different schedules -- makes way more sense than different schedules and different times.