I always figured it was just to allow summertime activities to go on "later" by the clock. So incidentally that saves some lighting energy. But we're only "saving" daylight from the morning and using it later in the day,.and
that's why it's called
Daylight Savings Time. Here it's MDT or MST for Mountain time.
Apparently most agricultural folks don't like it much because the animals get hungry by solar time, so the farmers have to get up to take care of them "earlier" by the clock. So incidentally that uses some lighting energy .
So since there are more urbanites "saving" energy late in the "clock" day than there are rural folks "using" energy early in the "clock" day, there's a net energy savings effect.
Or let me put it this way: "There's
supposedly a net energy savings effect."
I expect there's a latitude contributor to this "savings" but I'm not about to noodle that out on only one cup of AM coffee.
Terry (yawn), 230RN
Hmmm... so after sipping on that second cuppa and abluting, Terry mutters to himself, "So let's see.... at 40° latitude, I'm almost halfway up to the North Pole from the Equator.... now, at the Arctic Circle, which is 90° minus the earth's tilt..."