php strtotime and date functions are using different timezones

strtotime is being calculated from 1970-01-01 (UTC) and date is using my timezone i.e America/New_York A simple example:

Where timestamp is 0:

var_dump(date('Y-m-d h:i:s', 0)); 

prints: 1969-12-31 07:00:00

Where it should return 0, it returns

var_dump(strtotime('1969-12-31 07:00:00'));
-43200

Now, obvi开发者_如何学编程ously, I could add the timezone to the date i.e

strtotime($date . ' -5') 

and it'd work.

But, I'm using the strtotime function everywhere.

I tried playing with the _$ENV['TZ'] and the date_timestamp_get(); But I can't sync them.

I also modified the date.timezone in php.ini to America/New_York and still nothing.

Finally, forcing the timezone using date_timestamp_set('UTC'), works fine and both dates are synced. But, I need the timezone from the server.

Please advise, I'm out of ideas

var_dump(date('Y-m-d H:i:s', 0)); 

h != H in date. It is 7pm, and you're trying to get the time from 1969-12-31 07:00:00am after.