Keep Australia Beautiful supports the introduction of “daylight saving” for Queensland to save energy and home power costs.
Queensland CEO, Rick Burnett, says the effect of turning clocks forward one hour “is like holding Earth Hour every day for 6 months”.
Earth Hour is the internationally acclaimed practice of turning out lights across the world for one hour at a specified time each year. It aims to educate the world about saving energy.
The next Earth Hour is scheduled for Saturday March 26, 2011 – www.earthhour.org
“Daylight saving is equivalent to holding Earth Hour every day in our homes,” Burnett said.
“It is a simple strategy to save a huge amount of energy across the community.
“We all still go to bed at the same time on the clock – whether it’s 10 pm or midnight.
“But we are turning our lights on an hour later in the evening,  as we prepare dinner with an extra hour of daylight.
“For those who might say they need lights on in the morning because the darkness is now at that end of their day, I say that is only true for very few people comparitively.
“And while they may not be able to change their routines, such as milking cows, I am sure as individuals, they can adapt. There are many shift workers already who rise in the dark every day.
“Daylight saving would mean the vast majority of the population will save energy – and that must be good for the planet, and the power bills.
“Of course,  the added bonuses are many people will enjoy the recreational value of the added hour of daylight in the afternoon.
“And businesses will be more efficient operating in the same time zone as the rest of the eastern seaboard.”
Burnett said the debate should not be state versus state but rather a challenge to the Federal government to revise the time zones, basing them on lines of longitude and latitude,  not State lines drawn by surveyors as the country was carved up 150 to 200 years ago.

Regards,
Rick Burnett
CEO Keep Australia Beautiful Queensland.