Killing the Leaf Blowers

A NY Times article points out the problem.

a two-stroke gasoline-powered leaf blower spewed out more pollution than a 6,200-pound Ford F-150 SVT Raptor pickup truck. Jason Kavanagh, the engineering editor at Edmunds at the time, noted 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.”

With those words, the California ban seems quite reasonable. 

Gasoline-powered lawn-care machines — mowers, trimmers, leaf blowers, etc. — consume nearly 2.2 billion gallons of gas each year and are responsible for about 10 percent of all the mobile hydrocarbon emissions in this country.

...

“Using a two-stroke engine is like heating your house with an open pit fire in the living room — and chopping down your trees to keep it going, and trying to whoosh away the fetid black smoke before your children are poisoned by it.”