Extra sand in the glass … and cash in the pocket?
November 3, 2007 | Journalism,MSM,Statistics
Have you been reading that changing clocks earlier in spring and later in fall is saving us energy and money? Maybe. If we turn the hourglass back to 1974.
Carl Bialik, The Numbers Guy at The Wall Street Journal, said that statistics used to promote the Energy Policy Act of 2005 are outdated and supposed savings are in doubt.
When Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, introduced the bill, they said the extension could save Americans the equivalent of 100,000 barrels of oil a day — an estimate repeated frequently in the media. But that statistic relied on figures from 1974, when President Nixon sprung clocks forward early, in January, during an energy crisis.
Never mind that our energy use is much, much different than it was three decades ago.
(I’m not sure when WSJ articles disappear behind the paywall, so here is another link to the article.)
November 5th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Mr. Markey’s picture in the congressional directory is about 30 years old, so his research is quite recent by comparison.