Do you have a lawn? Do you use a lawn mower, a leaf blower, a chainsaw? What powers it? Is it gasoline?
Over five million gas-powered lawn mowers are sold in the United States every year with the designs largely unregulated. The emissions standards which small displacement engines are required to meet are inconsequential compared to those of larger automobile engines, and as a result small displacement engines, mowers, etc. produce MORE pollution than automobiles.
How much more?
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says a traditional gas powered lawn mower in a year's use produces as much air pollution as 43 new cars each being driven 12,000 miles. Another source says that one mower running for an hour emits the same amount of pollutants as eight new cars driving 55 mph for the same amount of time. This means that if the exhaust from your mower was used in your car engine, it would actually exit the tailpipe cleaner than when it came in.
In all the EPA concludes that lawn mowers produce 5% of the nations total annual pollution.
Further, some chemicals found in lawn mower emissions are classified as probable carcinogens by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Emissions which are unfiltered from lack of regulation.
Electric mowers are available, but are usually more expensive than their gas-driven counterparts, while a "human powered" hand reel mower can be had for around 70-80 dollars online, with free shipping.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Sustainability
This word gets a lot of press lately. It’s become a political platform, a raison de’tere for books, magazines, television shows, etc. But what does it mean?
Generally it implies the idea of modifying our current culture in such a way that it might not depend on fast depleting natural resources, might not produce such gratuitous waste, and might not destroy the environment in ever increasing ways. But generally, it also means to modify our culture as little as possible to reach these goals, to keep the status quo as much as possible.
As of July 1, 2008 the world human population was 6,706,993,000, with every sign indicating its steady rise will continue.
Can this number of human beings be sustainable with the status quo that we currently live by? Under any circumstances, can this population, and its continued rise, be sustainable?
When we speak of building factories which produce one third the waste, or cars which produce one tenth the pollution, or products which last twice as long, are we not just indulging our own egos? Soothing our own consciences?
If we truly mean to embrace the idea of sustainability, we must recognize that its biggest stumbling block is our tremendous population. The only numbers, the only fractional decreases, we should be concerned with are those concerning the number of living, breathing, consuming, waste creating human beings.
Imagine a world with one tenth, one twentieth, one hundredth the current population, and imagine how easy it would be to sustain this current “standard of living,” and to increase it.
Generally it implies the idea of modifying our current culture in such a way that it might not depend on fast depleting natural resources, might not produce such gratuitous waste, and might not destroy the environment in ever increasing ways. But generally, it also means to modify our culture as little as possible to reach these goals, to keep the status quo as much as possible.
As of July 1, 2008 the world human population was 6,706,993,000, with every sign indicating its steady rise will continue.
Can this number of human beings be sustainable with the status quo that we currently live by? Under any circumstances, can this population, and its continued rise, be sustainable?
When we speak of building factories which produce one third the waste, or cars which produce one tenth the pollution, or products which last twice as long, are we not just indulging our own egos? Soothing our own consciences?
If we truly mean to embrace the idea of sustainability, we must recognize that its biggest stumbling block is our tremendous population. The only numbers, the only fractional decreases, we should be concerned with are those concerning the number of living, breathing, consuming, waste creating human beings.
Imagine a world with one tenth, one twentieth, one hundredth the current population, and imagine how easy it would be to sustain this current “standard of living,” and to increase it.
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