Joseph Epstein’s op-ed “Enough with Changing the Clock” (Jan. 24) argues for eliminating daylight-saving time and adopting standard time throughout the U.S. While Mr. Epstein goes in the right direction, he doesn’t go far enough.

The U.S. should scrap its current system of time zones and daylight saving in favor of worldwide adoption of Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC. This would mean that everyone’s watches would be set at exactly the same time. The only difference they would notice, depending on where they’re located, would be where the sun is in the sky at a particular hour. Midday would be as it is today, when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky. What would be different under UTC is the time on your watch. In New York, midday would no longer be noon but rather 5 p.m., or 17:00 UTC.

The adoption of UTC wouldn’t mean people would be going to work in darkness. Business hours would be adjusted. In New York, under UTC, instead of the usual 9 to 5 schedule, businesses would open at 2 p.m. and close eight hours later at 10 p.m.

Adoption of UTC would allow for a return to “true time,” or solar time. With that, everyone would rise with the sun in the morning and go to sleep when it’s dark at night according to their natural circadian rhythm, not some artificial time constraint.

Pilots, for the obvious reason of safety, already use UTC. Global markets, including Wall Street, operate with UTC. Virtually all modern technologies, including the internet and GPS, use it too. It’s time for the rest of us to do the same.

Prof. Steve H. Hanke

Johns Hopkins University

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