title: How to get time/date string to UTC from local time zone
body: <p>I have this string:
  "2011-12-05 17:00:00"</p>
  
  <p>where this is local time</p>
  
  <pre><code>irb(main):034:0&gt; Time.zone
  =&gt; (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US &amp; Canada)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now how to I get a Time object with this in UTC?</p>
  
  <p>These don't work:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Time.local("2011-12-05 17:00:00") =&gt; 2011-01-01 00:00:00 +0000
  Time.local("2011-12-05 17:00:00").utc =&gt; 2011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>UPDATE:</strong></p>
  
  <p>On my local machine, this works:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Time.parse("2011-12-05 17:00:00").utc
   =&gt; 2011-12-06 01:00:00 UTC 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>but on heroku console it doesn't:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Time.parse("2011-12-05 17:00:00").utc
  =&gt; 2011-12-05 17:00:00 UTC
  </code></pre>