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Leaf blowers are a scourge. Why is it hard to get rid of them?

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Re: Leaf blowers are a scourge. Why is it hard to get rid of them?

#121

Post by rootusrootus »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #118
mcpackieh wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Siccing police on landscapers using leaf blowers is like trying to get rid of a hornet nest with a napalm bomb. Fining the property owner is far more appropriate.

> Siccing police on landscapers using leaf blowers Rephrased it in a straightforward, non-melodramatic way: "asking *police* to *police* people who break the law" What a difference an honest phrasing makes: that's not so outrageous, is it? If we didn't want police to police illegal stuff, we wouldn't have made it their job. If we didn't want the illegal stuff to be illegal, and thus policed, we wouldn't have made it…

> "asking police to police people who break the law"

That would be one way to get many laws changed in a hurry. As well as slashing the funding for police. I expect most people don't realize how often they break the law.

Re: Leaf blowers are a scourge. Why is it hard to get rid of them?

#122

Post by 123pie123 »

mcpackieh wrote: post #116
galleywest200 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would let a small child just run around in the forest? OP said small. Where I live the woods have bears and mountain cats. A teenager may be able to navigate those dangers successfully but a small child, toddler age, would not do so alone.

> You would let a small child just run around in the forest? Yes of course! My entire childhood was spent running around in the woods. Bears and mountain lions are rare and most of them are more scared of you than the other way around. No more than a small handful of people are attacked by those across the entirety of North America, the last time a child was killed by a mountain lion was about 25 years ago. There wer…

as someone from the uk, I would be terrified of poisonous spiders and snakes more than bears or mountain lions

Re: Leaf blowers are a scourge. Why is it hard to get rid of them?

#123

Post by mcpackieh »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #118
mcpackieh wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Siccing police on landscapers using leaf blowers is like trying to get rid of a hornet nest with a napalm bomb. Fining the property owner is far more appropriate.

> Siccing police on landscapers using leaf blowers Rephrased it in a straightforward, non-melodramatic way: "asking *police* to *police* people who break the law" What a difference an honest phrasing makes: that's not so outrageous, is it? If we didn't want police to police illegal stuff, we wouldn't have made it their job. If we didn't want the illegal stuff to be illegal, and thus policed, we wouldn't have made it…

Even if the police make an earnest attempt to do their jobs well (which is a pipe dream) coming to the scene of a lawn worker using a gas blower will be very low on their priority queue and is unlikely to happen most of the time.

If the homeowners don't like being fined and don't want to do the lawn work themselves, they can specifically hire lawn companies that use electric tools. You still haven't given me any reason why my proposal isn't a good one. The homeowners are the ones paying for these gas tools to be used, so they should be the ones fined for it.

Re: Leaf blowers are a scourge. Why is it hard to get rid of them?

#124

Post by indigo0086 »

campboy wrote: post #11
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #6

It’s just a symptom of the larger problem of manicured lawns being the number one “managed crop” in America. Eliminating home lawn is probably one of the singular things that would significantly slow down our destruction of the planet I’m sure someone will post some reason why their lawn is different somehow [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lawn-largest-crop-america_n_5... [2] https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisf…

Even without lawns people will use leaf blowers to blow leaves, off their driveways or xeriscapes or whatever. So we should ban gas powered leaf blowers regardless.

Ban disiguous trees

Re: Leaf blowers are a scourge. Why is it hard to get rid of them?

#125

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

rootusrootus wrote: post #121
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Siccing police on landscapers using leaf blowers Rephrased it in a straightforward, non-melodramatic way: "asking *police* to *police* people who break the law" What a difference an honest phrasing makes: that's not so outrageous, is it? If we didn't want police to police illegal stuff, we wouldn't have made it their job. If we didn't want the illegal stuff to be illegal, and thus policed, we wouldn't have made it…

> "asking police to police people who break the law" That would be one way to get many laws changed in a hurry. As well as slashing the funding for police. I expect most people don't realize how often they break the law.

Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't. Point is, some places voted for them to do it for 2-stroke leafblowers, so if you think they shouldn't have, convince them to change their mind and hold a new vote.

Until then, we still expect police to do their job, which, again, is what we tell them to do, not what they feel like doing.

Re: Leaf blowers are a scourge. Why is it hard to get rid of them?

#126

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

mcpackieh wrote: post #123
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Siccing police on landscapers using leaf blowers Rephrased it in a straightforward, non-melodramatic way: "asking *police* to *police* people who break the law" What a difference an honest phrasing makes: that's not so outrageous, is it? If we didn't want police to police illegal stuff, we wouldn't have made it their job. If we didn't want the illegal stuff to be illegal, and thus policed, we wouldn't have made it…

Even if the police make an earnest attempt to do their jobs well (which is a pipe dream) coming to the scene of a lawn worker using a gas blower will be very low on their priority queue and is unlikely to happen most of the time. If the homeowners don't like being fined and don't want to do the lawn work themselves, they can specifically hire lawn companies that use electric tools. You still haven't given me any reas…

The answer to why people wouldn't accept your proposal is simple: that is part of the job that we pay the police to do, and they aren't paying us to do that part of their job.

You keep falling back to the excuse 'well, the police won't do their job'. If that's the case, that's the root cause of the lack of enforcement, and we need to address it. Who knows what other crimes they won't feel like investigating tomorrow? Domestic violence? Murder? Obviously we can't leave such discretion in their hands, rather than the hands of the people.

The excuses about police workload always inspire skepticism given their petulant tantrums and refusals to do their job in retaliation for being criticized for their wrongdoing.

Honestly, though, I'm just not convinced they're using the available person hours and budget in the most optimal way to achieve what the people want. If the police feel like they truly do need more people to do their job, however: like I said, they can submit themselves to civilian review to determine if they're meeting enough civilian goals to justify increased budget.

Re: Leaf blowers are a scourge. Why is it hard to get rid of them?

#127

Post by panarky »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #6

It’s just a symptom of the larger problem of manicured lawns being the number one “managed crop” in America. Eliminating home lawn is probably one of the singular things that would significantly slow down our destruction of the planet I’m sure someone will post some reason why their lawn is different somehow [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lawn-largest-crop-america_n_5... [2] https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisf…

> home lawn -> destruction of the planet

Your citations state that lawns consume 60% of household water, implying that this leads inevitably to environmental catastrophe.

But household water usage is a small fraction of total fresh water usage.

In a dry region like California, households consume only 10% of total fresh water [0].

In regions that get more rain, households consume a much smaller fraction than that.

If the government could somehow force every household to convert every lawn into cactus and prevent every resident from bathing more than once per week, would that delay the "destruction of the planet" by any measurable amount?

[0] https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/

Re: Leaf blowers are a scourge. Why is it hard to get rid of them?

#128

Post by DougN7 »

mcpackieh wrote: post #116
galleywest200 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would let a small child just run around in the forest? OP said small. Where I live the woods have bears and mountain cats. A teenager may be able to navigate those dangers successfully but a small child, toddler age, would not do so alone.

> You would let a small child just run around in the forest? Yes of course! My entire childhood was spent running around in the woods. Bears and mountain lions are rare and most of them are more scared of you than the other way around. No more than a small handful of people are attacked by those across the entirety of North America, the last time a child was killed by a mountain lion was about 25 years ago. There wer…

> most of them are more scared of you than the other way around. No more than a small handful of people are attacked

I personally like to think of the stats too, but then again, why wear a seatbelt?

Re: Leaf blowers are a scourge. Why is it hard to get rid of them?

#129

Post by giantrobot »

4death4 wrote: post #113
giantrobot wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the case at all in California. There's thousands upon thousands of lawns and most people water them all year. Many cities still have ordinances requiring lawns be maintained, you can't just let them die or go to weeds lest you be fined. It's expensive to convert them to drought tolerant landscaping so most people just keep grass lawns. HOAs are militant about lawn maintenance and often restrict how lawns c…

And yet total residential usage of water is only 10% California’s residential / agricultural / industrial water usage. Agriculture is 80%.

The grass bandaids on commercial lots is not captured by that 10% residential use figure. So all those dumb strips of grass on medians and in front of strip malls get counted in that 80% figure. A lot of that water is wasted by running off into drains.

Grass lawns are a waste of water, gas (mowing/maintenance), time, and effort. Reducing grass lawns in residential and commercial spaces would make for a meaningful reduction in the state's water usage with little reduction in economic output.

Re: Leaf blowers are a scourge. Why is it hard to get rid of them?

#130

Post by namaria »

panarky wrote: post #127
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #6

It’s just a symptom of the larger problem of manicured lawns being the number one “managed crop” in America. Eliminating home lawn is probably one of the singular things that would significantly slow down our destruction of the planet I’m sure someone will post some reason why their lawn is different somehow [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lawn-largest-crop-america_n_5... [2] https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisf…

> home lawn -> destruction of the planet Your citations state that lawns consume 60% of household water, implying that this leads inevitably to environmental catastrophe. But household water usage is a small fraction of total fresh water usage. In a dry region like California, households consume only 10% of total fresh water [0]. In regions that get more rain, households consume a much smaller fraction than that. If…

Close to 5% total water usage being just to keep the vanity ground colorful seems like a huge waste.
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