Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators urged the government yesterday to consider reintroducing daylight saving time to reduce carbon emissions, while the military said it would take measures to conserve energy.
“To save energy, we need to do more than just take off our jackets,” DPP Legislator Wang Sing-nan (王幸男) said. “We urge the government to reintroduce daylight savings. Along with the 110 other countries that implement daylight savings worldwide, it would let us take advantage of the longer periods of natural light” in the summer.
Wang said the government should seek to inform the public about the various benefits of daylight savings, including the opportunity to save energy and to go home from work one hour earlier.
Daylight savings was implemented from 1945 to 1979 and was abolished in 1980 amid complaints from the public.
“The mechanism did not work well 27 years ago because not many people realized the benefits of daylight savings. Also, back then we did not have so many electronic devices and the need to save energy was not so urgent,” Wang said. “I urge the premier to reconsider it.”
DPP Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) said his staff had carried out an Internet poll and found that 70 percent of respondents supported reintroducing daylight savings.
In related news, the Ministry of National Defense said the military would cut back on unnecessary usage of aircraft, ships and other vehicles to reduce its gasoline consumption.
“We will try to save as much energy as possible, but we will not reduce our regular air, sea and land patrols,” ministry spokeswoman Colonel Lisa Chi (池玉蘭) said.
Chi said the ministry would replace some military exercises with computer simulations.
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