Paraphrasing Martin Niemöller: ‘First they came for our bags, and I did nothing…” (well not first, the specific bans/restrictions we have endured over the years here in the Garden State by seeming well-intended surely bribed bureaucrats are most likely multitudinous, I just can’t recall them all presently) “…now they come for our gas-powered mowers.’
Already targeted and even banned in some towns across the country (and here in NJ where I live) a further ban on gas-powered blowers is gaining ever more traction in the Garden State. As of this week a state Senate committee advanced a bill that would ban two-stoke blowers use for most of the year. Four-stroke combustion engines will still be allowed during our heavy leaf periods of spring and fall.
But like the bag ban, heartedly fueled by a political propagandized agenda masked as conservationism (and talk about a fuel that is harmful to the environment!) let’s ask a few questions before we get all ‘green with it’ to feel we are doing our part (as humans conceitedly consistently feel like they can have some real ecological effect on the planet).
First, the ‘well other states enacted it’ argument.
NJ has leaves. Much more than California or other states that have enacted the mower ban. Creating laws here, any law in fact, judging one state by another is not always the best policy.
Also, electric powered mowers do not have as much power as gas, therefore the clean-up will take longer.
Landscapers are also weighing in that they will have to retrofit their existing trucks and equipment to charge batteries throughout their workday, forcing them to keep their diesel engines running.
Sounds like this won’t be so great for the ecology.
I’m just saying that before we find ourselves on the other end of another ban that will as much cost us more in retail revenue and even have a more dangerous impact to the ecology (plastic bag ban) please folks, let’s think this one through. Yes, we are wonderful little naked apes, aren’t we? But we won’t save a planet that doesn’t need our saving and as George Carlin famously said, the Earth will really just shrug us off when we have had our day.
