Posted on 11/07/2022 2:44:13 PM PST by rey
EDITOR: Feeling glum after reading that greenhouse gas emissions hit a record high, I took my dogs to the park. To enter, I held my breath to get by four employees from the Petaluma parks department with gas-powered leaf blowers. Now I’m really down because gas-powered blowers are huge contributors of greenhouse gases.
The California Air Resources Board says operating a gas leaf blower for an hour leads to the emission of as much smog-based pollution as driving a Toyota Camry for 1,100 miles. Margaret Renkl of the New York Times quoted one expert saying that “hydrocarbon emissions from a half-hour of yard work with the two-stroke leaf blower are about the same as a 3,900-mile drive from Texas to Alaska in a Raptor (a heavy-duty Ford truck).”
Please, can parks and rec switch to electric blowers? We are switching vehicles to electric, but these gas blowers emit more greenhouse pollutants than even our vehicles.
ANNA COOPERSMITH
Petaluma
I have thought for years that gas leaf blowers probably cause more pollution than any of the things they claim are hurting the environment. Certainly worse than a friggin cow!
I am a member of the I.A.P.I (Ice Age Prevention Initiative). One of the most important contributions a member can make is choosing the correct leaf blower.
“I think it time to start throwing a few of these alarmists into wood chippers.”
ELECTRIC WOOD CHIPPER!
“I looked up a couple of studies. One had blowers using 47 3/4 gallons an hour”
I don’t b believe you
Flunking math course seems to be a job requirement for enviros. Or an SAT math aptitude score below 400.
Common sense isn’t common anymore. Half of America has flunked stupid.
I used my Stihl 2 stroke leaf blower for at least an hour yesterday.
I filled the tank three times from my one gallon gas can.
The gas can was still about half full when I was done.
So, I MIGHT have used 1.5 quarts in about an hour of constant use.
I absolutely detest gas powered blowers because of the noise. My battery powered leaf blower does the job fine with a fraction of the noise.
On a side note I found it interesting that a neighbor a few blocks away felt compelled to blow their leaves from their yard out into the street. LOL I blow my leaves into flower beds and natural areas and reduces the cost of pinestraw.
Indeed.
Dolt reporters. Portraying their dreams as some kind of fact.
Anna is real smart...”huge contributors of greenhouse gases...smog-based pollution...hydrocarbon emissions”
CO2 and unburned hydrocarbons are as different as rocks and raindrops.
The EPA itself says that the manmade gasses carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and fluorinated gases are the culprits. There has not been any linkage of unburned hydrocarbons to global climate change. Unburned hydrocarbons are a major contributor to urban smog.
The noise and atmospheric dust kicked up by blowers is probably the very worst of their emissions. Dust does not get enough recognition.
+1
And here I thought I was being overly concerned protecting my lungs when I closed all my windows, when the neighbors use their loud and dust cloud causing blowers.
The 300 hp Camry (do they even make such a thing?) processes most of its emissions into CO2 and water. The leaf blower does not. (The Camry operates at a leaner mixture with higher compression and doesn't burn much oil, while everything it does burn goes out through a cat converter. The leaf blower ... nada.)
So while the leaf blower generates only a tiny fraction of the CO2 the Camry does, it generates far more of the partially-burned junk that causes smog and respiratory problems, etc. Still usually not a big deal outside of an enclosed space.
When you see those numbers, they refer to a few specific components of the exhaust, including oxides of nitrogen, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide. These are much higher in 2 stroke exhaust to begin with. Then the catalytic converters on cars remove almost all of these things, whereas small engines usually don’t a catalytic converter. It’s a comparison deliberately designed to make small engines look bad, obviously, though to be fair, in a very strict sense, it’s not wrong.
I am all in for banning the NOISE polluting contraptions. Change over to electric, batter or pushbroom.
Why not put the station out to sea away from the CO2 spewing volcanic islands?
We went to the Renaissance Festival this summer and watched a guy make a neat looking glass. After he was done he asked the crowd if there were any questions. A fellow in the crowd asked if the guy blew anything besides glass.
At the same time we can close the Martha’s Vineyard airport and allow only wind powered,or manually powered,ocean vessels to dock there.
They got rid of them ten years ago.
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