Literally nobody here takes 3 hour lunch breaks. A lot of offices have 2 hours, yeah, but this is becoming less and less common regardless. Small shops do close for 3 hours in the middle of the day, but they are open till about 9pm which is a lot more useful than being open in the middle of the day. It also should be noted that there are actually 5 meals in a spaniard's day. There's a mid-morning and late-afternoon snack, which is the actual reason for the "late" lunch and dinners.
Also, all changing the timezone would do is give us useless light early in the morning and less light in the evening to go out and play sports, hang out in the park etc. People would still eat at the same time regardless. It gets dark at 6pm in the winter and 10pm in the summer. It's not exactly crazy.
Spaniard; can confirm. 3 hour breaks are simply mandatory for small shops. In the south of the country during summer there is literally no way you can go out until... 19 or so if you don't want to die. So if shops closed then, there would be no business.
Arizona is in the car-centric USA. You walk straight from your car with AC into a shop with AC via the shortest path possible.
Spain, like most Europe is a lot more pedestrian/cyclist friendly and I'd imagine that traffic drops off a lot during the heat of the day.
I live in Canada which isn't anything near as hot as Arizona or Spain and I walk/cycle everywhere and I specifically avoid going anywhere from 11am-2pm in July/August if I can help it. sample-size=1, your mileage may vary.
Okay, I'm a Canadian living in Spain and can tell you, from 1200 - 1900 in the summer the sun hurts, and yeah, a lot of stuff is done locally = walking or biking (usually walking).
It is much easier in local towns and villages to walk around and get what you need rather than take a car, often a more difficult thing to do given parking scarcity, and really not necessary given that there are many options for going local. I have two supermarkets within a KM of my home, 16 (!) cafeteria/bars/restaurants, and most other services are covered (banks, dry cleaner, gas station etc). In larger cities (Barcelona, Madrid and smaller cities) the neighborhoods tend to have most things. You really only do the long drive to hit larger supermarkets or to go to a mall or something.
Shops manage to be open in the Middle East, Africa and Asia where it gets much warmer than Spain and in many places with much less favorable conditions.
I've been to the south of Spain it's hot but 35c isn't unbearable in the middle of the day.
I remember back in the early 90s when I visited, Chennai certainly did have siesta periods. It wasn't everyone though, but enough that you couldn't be sure.
Often I think of Canada having the same problems as Arizona, but in reverse (cold instead of hot). Except it sure is convenient that the coldest part of the day is when everyone is asleep.
Is 11-2 really the hottest part of your day? That may be when the sun is highest in the sky, but usually the hottest temperatures of the day are closer to late afternoon.
> Apparently that's rapidly ending, so maybe the standard schedule will change as well someday.
Those hours are pretty ingrained in US culture, though, and virtually no one (compared to the present population) would live in Arizona without massive amounts of air conditioning anyway, whereas conserving water has a direct economic advantage in the here and now.
I wouldn't say most Arizona homeowners had grass lawns, as far as Phoenix goes, there are districts such as arcadia that have very large lawns, but I would say that is limited to specific areas.
There are many plants that are not native that still grow very well ranging from Mediterranean species to some that are from the desert regions of Asia.
*edit (Thu Jul 20 13:35:05 EDT 2017) I about parts of Chandler and Gilbert still have water rights tied to the property.
You fly into Phoenix and the rampant waste and misuse of water is obvious. All those lawns and pools sitting idly by while Arizona (and California) drink far too deeply from the Colorado and other rivers.
Arizona has always managed its water supply far better than California. And a flyover is misleading, most houses have natural yards and the lawns are all special summer grass adapted to the heat.
My point is how much water does it take even for that. If what you were saying is true, I'd expect to see that grass growing all over Phoenix and it would be green rather than red.
It does consume water, but again we manage our water well. I think most people are under the mistaken impression that fresh water is in short supply. The problem is that our water supplies could easily be a free market while still being ecologically friendly. They could easily limited to reusable and naturally refreshed sources, and not drain rivers like the Colorado below safe levels. Market prices would ensure water was used efficiently.
But instead California gave away massive free water rights to landowners who use it to farm in their deserts. Over 90% of their fresh water is given to farmers to grow crops a little cheaper than farmers in other states who aren't raping water supplies, and so bad farming and water usage drives out good.
With the invention of air conditioning and an abundance of solar power during the desert day, it's pretty stupid to let the weather dictate your behavior.
People exist in Chicago despite the fact that it would be completely inhospitable without heating sources. The only difference is that air conditioning is a newer invention so people like you view it as some kind of opulent luxury rather than a technological tool like anything else.
You're comparing 2 different things though. Heating/AC is required for people's survival whereas green lawns in the middle of an arid desert... not so much.
> With the invention of air conditioning and an abundance of solar power during the desert day, it's pretty stupid to let the weather dictate your behavior.
> With the invention of air conditioning and an abundance of solar power during the desert day, it's pretty stupid to let the weather dictate your behavior.
You do have to go outside to get anywhere. We don't have completely domed cities yet.
We sort of do. My 20 mile commute in Seattle involves about 100 feet of walking outside the "dome". I go from my house to my attached garage into my car. To the park-n-ride. From there I walk to the bus. Then ride the bus downtown, where i then walk half a block to my office.
Try to go out with 45 degrees, with direct sunlight, etc. Some people will even faint within minutes. Because remember you don't get teleported to the shop, you have to walk.
Phoenix is not even in the same conversation as Spanish cities when it comes to walking. Madrid, Barcelona and others you walk everywhere to do anything.
As they say about Phoenix, "it's a dry heat". It's near 20% humidity during peak sunlight during the day. I've been there in really hot summer weather and I was surprised by how really high temperatures didn't feel as hot as I was expecting. To give you an idea of how much this matters, in a gentle breeze, 39.5 C at 20% humidity feels like 57.3 C at 90% humidity.
People definitely don't faint within minutes in a typical Phoenix sunlight. The biggest risks are sunburn and dehydration, both of which take a lot longer.
The prior claim was that, in a gentle breeze, 135F and 90% RH was the same as 103F and 20% RH (that hotter AND more humid was the same as less hot and drier).
I have in the Phoenix and Death Valley deserts. I think you don't understand the difference between low humidity heat and high humidity heat. The latter is intolerable and causes the problems you described. The former just requires adequate hydration.
I'm from a much milder but still hot climate, and while the summer weather probably wouldn't make you faint in minutes, people spent very little time outside of air conditioned homes, cars, and shops, and the towns were designed around that fact.
What's the humidity there though? In much of the Southern US, we get temps well above 100 with very high levels of humidity. Even with hydration it is dangerous.
Yes, but at the cost of running crazy air conditioning. The only time I visited Phoenix I arrived near lunchtime and was baffled to be wandering around a seemingly modern city where the streets were entirely free of people. I felt like it I was in the opening scene of a zombie movie or something.
Personally speaking I've never seen much value in living by the clock if it puts you in conflict with the seasons. The notion that people everywhere should adhere to the same schedule regardless of local conditions is inherently absurd.
Because of the way thermodynamics works, it's much more energy efficient to simply move heat around (air conditioning) than it is to create it from scratch (heating). It costs several times the annual energy to live in Maine than it does to live in Phoenix, for example. We could save a substantial amount on our overall national residential energy budget by moving people from cold areas of the country to Phoenix.
You can heat by moving energy around, too (heat pumps). Indoor/outdoor temperature differentials are admittedly greater in cold-climate winter than hot-climate summer, but on the other hand natural solar heating (greenhouse effect due to windows) is working for you in the winter but against you in the summer.
Sadly in Phoenix you'll find the streets entirely free of people year-round. Even when the weather is nice (Oct-Apr). I am one who walks, and often wonder if I'm just crazy when I notice I'm pretty much the only human not inside a car just walking about. I also not wonder but know it's true when I realize that hey, it really is too damn hot some days and being outside is just nuts.
For the first half of this year, I was walking about 10 miles a day through Seattle suburbs to get to/from work. During that time I think I encountered exactly two other long distance walkers, and everyone else who was outside seemed to be walking to a bus stop or taking their dog out to poop. (I've noticed that a lot of older Indian couples will get out and take a walk around the block in the afternoon, though.) I think it has something to do with cable television and Facebook.
Not just Arizona - this happen even right in the middle of downtown & midtown Atlanta, on streets surrounded by skyscrapers on either side.
I was visiting in April a few years ago and was really surprised how empty the sidewalks were despite the beautiful weather - you would see more people outside walking in a non-central residential neighborhood in berlin in the rain.
It is the same all over in southern Greece, for the same reasons. Shops in city and country close until the blasting heat of the midday sun is past, then re-open for a few hours. On the islands some would stay open past midnight, which ended up being a fun time to go shopping.
Edit: to be clear, I agree that most people doesn't have siestas and three-hours breaks only remain common in some sectors (retail) and places (small cities). The original article doesn't make much sense, by the way.
A break is generally considered as a short period of time amid an otherwise continuous activity. You don't conceive of night as a break between days, even though you could stretch the definition of the word to accommodate that. Likewise the siesta is not simply an overgrown lunch break.
>Literally nobody here takes 3 hour lunch breaks. A lot of offices have 2 hours, yeah, but this is becoming less and less common regardless.
Is that because nobody likes to, or because pressures for employers and economic conformity forces them? That this is "becoming less and less common" (implying it was indeed common) speaks to the latter.
Nobody wants to. In fact, doing no lunch break is considered a privilege. Nobody wants to work from 9AM to 8PM, even if you have three break hours at lunch. That's time you lose for being with family, friends...
We have the 3 hour lunch break here too (Greece), and yes, it is extremely inconvenient. It means you have to do your commute twice, and that you lose the whole day.
Some people like it, because it lets you eat and take a short nap and rest, but then you have to go back to work, which is a pretty big downside.
However, we don't consider it a lunch break here, we consider it as having to work two shorter shifts per day.
>Some people like it, because it lets you eat and take a short nap and rest, but then you have to go back to work, which is a pretty big downside.
That, in Greece and elsewhere where it happens, is usually a habit from an earlier era, when most city businesses were small and/or family owned, retail stores and the like, and people lived in neighborhoods next to their business. So they would just close the store, had lunch or a nap etc at the house, and come back open for business again at the afternoon.
The current situation is a regression, and not because of the remnants of the "3 hour break": commutes and/or major traffic, and offices that demand people stay late without major breaks, so you get the same 8-9pm to late shift, working constantly (and then having to commute back).
>Nobody wants to. In fact, doing no lunch break is considered a privilege. Nobody wants to work from 9AM to 8PM, even if you have three break hours at lunch. That's time you lose for being with family, friends
Only the regular course of modern business, is not to give back the lunch break time to family/friends, but for the companies to have you work 9 to 7 or 8 just without the break.
Open 'till 9pm? Where? Every time I'm in Spain (mostly in Galiza) it seems like the stores still close at 7-8pm, despite only opening at around 4:30pm.
That light wakes people up and increases their energy levels. It's not always pleasant, but work isn't supposed to be. For example, in the US, pushing school start times back from 8 to 9 results in an increase in student performance (it was originally 9 and then moved to 8 to save money on buses).
Your example seems contradictory of your point. Since starting school alter is documented to increase student performance (perhaps because it also increases teacher performance), why would you want to have lower performance?
I also don't see why work shouldn't be pleasant except insofar as it's an unavoidable necessity for it to be otherwise. If you want people to work under less pleasant conditions, then the pay should be raised correspondingly.
You have misinterpreted the example. Students perform better at 9, that is, when the school day corresponds with the solar day. It was moved to 8, as I said, to save money on buses. If it seems insane to you to compromise student achievement in order to save money on buses, please direct your concerns to the Republican Party of the United States, and not to me.
Pay cannot be raised to compensate for the unpleasantness of light coming through your window in the morning. I don't see why you chose to argue about that.
Also, all changing the timezone would do is give us useless light early in the morning and less light in the evening to go out and play sports, hang out in the park etc. People would still eat at the same time regardless. It gets dark at 6pm in the winter and 10pm in the summer. It's not exactly crazy.