[tz] California may vote on permanent daylight time

[Paul Eggert]

Randal L. Schwartz wrote:
> Permanent-DST is confused people thinking DST is cool.

Money is driving this, not coolness. Owners of convenience stores, tourist 
attractions, and similar businesses profit more if we all get up earlier in the 
day, and they spend way more money to lobby the legislature about timekeeping 
than the rest of us do. The costs of getting up earlier (for example, it 
increases cancer rates) are not nearly as well known or measured and hardly 
anybody lobbies the legislature against daylight saving time.

Speaking of cancer, remember that study I mentioned in November that reported 
that breast cancer rates in the US are 12% higher in the western parts of time 
zones, where people get up earlier in the solar day? In April, Harvard 
researchers published a similar study about liver cancer, and found an effect 
there too: they reported that moving west within a US time zone significantly 
increases the incidence of liver cancer. See:

VoPham T, Weaver MD et al. Circadian misalignment and hepatocellular carcinoma 
incidence in the United States. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2018-04-10. 
https://dx.doi.org/10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-17-1052