British Summertime!!!???

So, the clocks have gone forwards, and we are now officially in British Summertime. Here is this week’s weather, as forecast by the BBC. Do you see anything strange?

Day	Weather
Wednesday	Grey Cloud
Thursday	Sleet Shower
Friday	Heavy Rain Shower
Saturday	Thundery Shower
Sunday	Grey Cloud

Yes, that’s right. No sun. So what is British summertime, if there’s no sun?

Well, officially summertime starts when the hours change, usually in the last weekend of March. This causes much confusion, but it means that the evenings are lighter, and the mornings are darker. However, there is a new idea (or an old idea from 1960) that is becoming  popular again:

A huge public campaign is trying to change all the clocks in Britain, all year round. It is called the ‘lighter later’ campaign, and millions of people are signing up to try and persuade the government to change the time, so we are always 1 hour ahead, and in summertime 2 hours. Why? Here are the main reasons:

• 1 Cut at least 447,000 tonnes of CO₂ pollution – equivalent to more than 50,000 cars driving all the way around the world – each year

  2 Save 100 lives each year and prevent hundreds of serious injuries by making the roads safer

  3 Lower our electricity bills by maximising the available daylight and reducing peak power demand

  4 Create 60,000–80,000 new jobs in leisure and tourism, bringing an extra £2.5–3.5 billion into the economy each year

  5 Reduce crime and the fear of crime

  6 Help make people healthier and tackle obesity by giving people more time to exercise and play sport outside in the evening

  7 Save the NHS around £138 million a year through reducing road casualties

  8 Improve quality of life for older people

  9 Make the nation happier – including reducing the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder

  10 Demonstrate that dealing with climate change can be good for the economy, good for people and good for society as a whole

  These reasons (and more information about the idea) are on the following website. Why not sign up and join the movement?

http://www.lighterlater.org/

Enjoy the summer!!