Six years ago, when Tom Emswiler moved from Washington, D.C., to Massachusetts, he saw something that shook him to his core: The sun went down at 4:11 p.m.

"I knew I was moving north, but I had no idea how far I was moving east, and so you can imagine my horror when in December the sun was setting" in the mid-afternoon, Emswiler told NBC News on Wednesday.

He began dreaming of a better future for the Bay State. An hour into the future, to be exact.

Emswiler, a 37-year-old public health advocate, is now one of 11 members of a state commission studying whether Massachusetts should leave the Eastern Time Zone and join the Atlantic Time Zone. In a region where winter darkness comes early, an extra hour of sunlight could be a boon for the economy and a godsend for public health, according to supporters of the shift.

Do it!

On a related note... We in the US are in the time of the year right now where sunrises are as late as they will ever be - according to our clocks. These three weeks have the worst mornings. Last Thursday, the sunrise where I am was at 7:25 AM. Today it was 7:32 AM. The Saturday after this, sunrise will be 7:40 AM. Blech! But that night, we leave Daylight Savings Time, and the following Monday, sunrise will be 6:40 AM. And even though it will gradually get later and later until early January, sunrise will never be later than 7:24AM until next October.