我在爱丁堡大学(University of Edinburgh)的修谟楼(David Hume Tower)听了平生第一节经济学课，当时是早上9点，老师是杨森教授(Professor Youngson)。我走进教室时天还黑着。我读书那会儿，正好赶上英国政府的一个三年试验，即将夏令时推广至全年。
待我回到家里打开电视，新闻播报头条经常有儿童交通事故的报道：苏格兰街道上的杀戮让学校里的学生越来越少，医院则人满为患。直到几个月后有关道路交通事故的数据才出来，结果清楚无疑：数字减少了。
没错，在天色较暗的早上，伤人事故更多了，但由于下午天色更亮，事故减少幅度更大，抵消了早上增加的事故。“背着书包，满面红光的学童”或许会不情愿地嘟哝着去上学，但以为他会像蜗牛一样慢吞吞拖着脚步的莎士比亚大概错了。他会因为担心迟到而一路小跑，而在慢慢吞吞的回家路上他更容易受伤。
那几年，我学到了很多经济学以外的东西。我学到传言比统计数据更强大。我还学到一个人的观点往往不会因为相反的证据而改变，特别是当这种观点反映了某种深层次的偏见时——在上面这个问题上，这种偏见就是苏格兰人的受害者心理。孩子们因事故丧生是因为没出息的英格兰人宁可调整时钟也不愿意早起。
试验没有继续下去，苏格兰的强烈反对仍是英国时钟比大多数欧洲国家慢一个小时的主要原因。最近，一名代表南部选区的保守党议员提交了一项私人法案，要求改革这种制度。
指出英国采用布鲁塞尔时间而不是格林威治标准时间或许会有好处，在政治上也许不够正确。但与我们共享时区的只有两个国家，加起来人口只有1500万。它们便是爱尔兰和葡萄牙。而从华沙到马德里都采用欧洲中部时间，共计30个国家3亿人口。采取统一标准是有一些经济优势的。
不过，与乘坐欧洲之星列车时不用调整手表时间相比，还有一些更重要的问题。我们每天醒着的时候大概有16个小时，但平均来说每天的白昼只有13个小时。所以无论我们住在哪里，无论我们怎么调整时间，无论我们何时起床，每年我们醒着的时间里至少有1000个小时天是黑的。
但是，除了纬度非常高的北部地区，我们经历的令人郁闷的黑暗时光不会超过1000个小时。英国冬季的正午大致上恰好是日出至日落的中点。但对多数人而言，正午并不是一天的正中，甚至不是工作日的正中。天已经亮时我们还在睡觉，因此对白昼的利用不够充分。
对我们的健康来说，这大概并不是好事。我还是学生时，人们常常抱怨爱丁堡的冬天又冷又黑。现在我们称这种现象为季节性情感失调，通过购买灯具或花钱接受各种疗法来让自己好受点。其实我们只需要更有效地利用现有的白昼时间。
节约利用白昼时间还能带来其他好处。工作场合和道路上的事故会减少。我们在取暖和照明的花费也能减少，用电高峰时段不会那么紧张，发电容量也能因此得到节约。
苏格兰有什么不同吗？没有多少。夏令时试验确实显著减少了苏格兰的交通事故，但只限于大多数人口居住的南部地区。隆冬时节，尽管时钟已经向前调了一个小时，但苏格兰北部依然下午天就黑了。12月份因弗内斯(Inverness)白天最多有7个小时，不到一天的工作时间，而在夏季白天长达19个小时。要解决这个问题，唯一的办法就是把苏格兰整体向南迁移。
这已经超出了政府的能力范围，但将时钟向前调还是可以做到的。政府应该抓紧机会这么做。
译者/管婧
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001036005
Professor Youngson delivered my first course in economics at nine in the morning in the David Hume Tower at the University of Edinburgh. I walked to his lectures in the dark. My student days coincided with a three-year experiment in which British
Summer Time was extended to the whole year.
When I returned home, the news bulletins would regularly begin with reports of injuries to children: the carnage on Scottish roads was emptying its schools as it filled its hospitals. Only after a few months did data on road accidents become available, and the results were unequivocal: the number had fallen.
There were indeed more injuries in the darker mornings, but that was offset by a larger reduction in accidents in the lighter afternoons. “The whining schoolboy with his satchel and shining morning face” may go unwillingly to school, but Shakespeare was probably wrong to think he creeps like a snail. He hurries because he is late and is more likely to be injured on his dilatory journey home.
I learnt more than economics in those years. I learnt that anecdotes are more powerful than statistical data. I also learnt that opinion was often immune to contrary evidence, especially when that opinion expresses an underlying prejudice – in this case, the Scottish sense of victimhood. Children were being killed because effete English folk would rather adjust the clocks than get up early.
The experiment was not continued. The strength of Scottish opposition remains the main reason why clocks in Britain are an hour behind those in most of Europe. This week, a Conservative MP representing a southern constituency will put forward a private member’s bill to change it.
It is probably impolitic to mention that there might be benefits if Britain followed Brussels time rather than Greenwich Mean Time. But we share our time zone with two other countries with a combined population of 15m. They are – as it happens – Ireland and Portugal. Central European Time is observed from Warsaw to Madrid, by 300m people in 30 states. There is some economic advantage to a common standard.
But there are more important issues than not having to change your watch when you catch a Eurostar. We are awake for perhaps 16 hours a day, but there is light, on average, for 13 hours a day. So wherever we live, however we set the time, and whenever we rise, we stay awake during at least a thousand hours of darkness a year.
But, except in very northerly latitudes, we need experience no more than a thousand gloomy hours. Midday in Britain’s winter is roughly halfway between sunrise and sunset. But midday is not the middle of most people’s day. It is not even the middle of most people’s working day. We sleep when it is light, and hence use daylight inefficiently.
That is probably bad for our wellbeing. When I was a student, we complained that the Edinburgh winter was cold and dark. Now we call that phenomenon seasonal affective disorder, and buy lamps and therapies to make us feel better. We could just make more effective use of the daylight we have.
Daylight saving would bring other benefits. There would be fewer accidents at work and on the roads. We could spend less on heat and light, and peaks in energy demand would be less extreme, leading to savings in generating capacity.
Is Scotland different? Not much. The experiment with summer time did reduce Scottish road accidents significantly, but this effect was confined to the south of the country, where most of the population live. In the depths of winter the north of Scotland was still dark in the afternoon even when the clocks had been advanced. Inverness has at best seven hours of daylight in December, less than a full working day, and 19 hours of light in summer. The only solution to that problem is to move the whole country south.
That is beyond the power of government. But shifting the clocks forward is not. We should take the opportunity to do so.
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