Last summer, an ardent Oak Parker encouraged all of us to stop using leafblowers. I admire her passion and appreciate her concern for the environment, but I can’t help wondering if leafblowers are really the best target. It is quite hard to know which lifestyle changes are the most environmentally appropriate.
What I want to avoid, of course, is giving up something which, in the end, has a negligible effect on the environment. The writer cited some stats backing her campaign against the bad leafblowers, but how might those stats stack up against those of other environmental campaigns? Given the many direct and indirect ways we harm the environment, how concerned should I be about leafblowing?
For example, how does “no more leafblowing” compare with “no more gas-burning fireplace”? Or what about a weekly steak dinner? Maybe the environmental impact of a weekly steak dinner dwarfs the impact of a weekly outing with a leafblower. Or what about the decision to take a job that requires a 30-mile one-way commute? Wouldn’t that one decision negate any number of leafblowers?
Or what about that annual trip to the Poconos? The decision to make that annual trek might unleash more environmental damage than a dozen little lifestyle decisions around the house. The conscientious non-leafblower might feel pretty good about things yet still manage to thoroughly muck up the environment by turning a blind eye to so many other things.
What about washing that nice Prius hybrid every week instead of once every couple months? How would that rank on the environmental impact scale? Also, I recently read that it takes 35 gallons of water (and who knows how much energy) to produce one cup of coffee. So maybe the daily Starbucks habit is even worse than the SUV parked in your non-java-drinking neighbor’s garage.
It’s not clear to me which aspects of our lives have the greatest impact on the environment. Taking one step that feels good yet has minimal impact might prevent one from making other lifestyle changes that would have far greater impact.
How does one know which steps to take? If one wanted to make five lifestyle changes that would have the greatest positive environmental impact, what would those five things be?
Karl Lauger
Oak Park
