Green Living: British Summer Time

Every year we move forward an hour from Greenwich Mean Time in the summer months. The idea is that we get longer evenings, and the roots of this come down to energy use.

Ironically this was years before anyone cared about CO2 emissions. The drive to move the clocks forward was all about cash and coal.

British Summer Time was created in 1916 to save coal, and during the second world war, Britain went even further - adopting BST in the winter and moving forward two hours in summer to reduce fuel consumption.

Since then the jury has been out on whether we should keep BST all year round, or stick with the current seasonal system.

Opponents of BST argue that there are more accidents in winter mornings, which are darker than under GMT.

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond has come out strongly against a permanent change, arguing that it would leave many children in Scotland in the dark on their way to school.

In environmental terms however, we would almost certainly better off sticking to BST all the year round.

Darker evenings cause us to use around five per cent more electricity which generates millions of tonnes of CO2 every year.

I cross the Greenwich Meridian every day on my way to work, and Britain's place in chronological history is undoubtedly secure. Perhaps the time has finally come to consign GMT to history and move toward a brighter, lighter future.

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