[Coda]

No, you can't point that out, because it's not actually true, and even IF it were true when it was implemented, it's not true now. Ben Franklin made a JOKE about saving candles and lighting oil by waking up earlier to take advantage of early-morning sunlight.

The origin was ACTUALLY to try to make an industrial society, which operates by the clock, integrate more comfortably with an agrarian society, which operates by the sun. The guy who first proposed DST as we know it today was actually interested in having more time after work to catch insects.

It IS true that many countries picked it up as an energy-saving measure during an emergency fuel shortage, because in a world fueled by manually-controlled coal-based heating, it DID save coal, because people could sleep through another hour of cold. (As I mentioned, the advent of the automatic thermostat has mostly negated this benefit.) It should also be noted that most countries that adopted it DROPPED it within a few years, and the farmers that were supposedly the ones most helped by it are among the ones who complain most about it.

And no, you can't expect people to adapt gradually to it. That's not a question of being stupid and unprepared. It's a matter of the way the industrialized world works. The modern world operates on strictly-defined schedules, and a very large population of people (particularly working-class people) don't have the flexibility to choose to vary their schedules like that. If you have to be at work at 8:00 AM or you get fired, there's really not a whole lot you can do to slow your mornings down.