The outside air temperature had already reached 70 degrees at 10 o’clock in the morning. I had to check the calendar twice to convince myself it really was November 1st. This time of year, I was supposed to be putting on long pants and a windbreaker for a morning bike ride, not shorts and a T-shirt. So, I dug out my summer biking clothes and began leisurely dressing, thinking about the warm, sunny bike ride I was about to embark on.
My pleasant daydream was shattered by a sudden burst of noise. A truckload of subrban lawn warriors had pulled up to the house next door. Despite the summer feel, it was autumn and there were leaves to attack, blow, and eliminate. With heavy leaf blowers strapped to their backs, a couple of warriors climbed a tall ladder to the roof and began blasting the leaves. Down below, an army of men, being showered in fluttering red, orange, and gold foliage, assaulted the land-based leaves with their fume-spewing leaf blowers. One of the troops rode a gas-propelled giant fan – a riding leaf blower – blasting huge mounds of leaves at once. The noise was deafening.
Hurrying outside, I hopped on my bike and pedaled away, hoping to outrun the brain-rattling cacophony of two-stroke engines. Leaf blowers often exceed 100 decibels, similar to a commercial jet taking off, but not quite as loud as the blast of a rocket lift off. The noise diminished as I rode down the street, but when I rounded the corner, I was confronted by another large group of men armed with loud lawn weapons. Accelerating, I left them in my wake, only to be faced with army after leaf blowing army; there was no escaping the noise and choking fumes. I rode for an hour, at times passing land forces so loud that my teeth rattled inside my head. Well, isn’t it worth it – the hours of brain-shaking noise and noxious fumes – to have those manicured, bright green, chemically treated, leafless lawns?
Leaves are essential for a healthy environment. They provide a habitat for ladybugs, fireflies, and other creatures, perpetuate pollination, and provide nutrients for the soil. Instead, suburban homeowners somehow think it’s better to strip the earth of nature’s nutritious, insulating leaf blanket and then add poisonous lawn chemicals to maintain that bright green spring look to their grass …. in November! Little flags are then planted along the property’s perimeter, warning people to keep their children and pets off the chemically laden lawn. Perhaps they should consider Astroturf!
Passing yet another militia of mowers and blowers, I squinted through the rising dust and debris. With one hand on the handlebars, I gently rubbed my right eye with the other, trying to remove a foreign body that had landed on my cornea, all while holding my breath. Turning blue, I tried not to inhale the enveloping brownish-gray clouds. It’s more than leaf debris that’s contained in those clouds. They’re chock full of formaldehyde, benzene, unburned fuel, fine particulate matter, animal feces, mold, fertilizers, pesticides, hydrocarbons, lead, asbestos, and a lot more. This cocktail of air pollution is known to cause an array of maladies from asthma to dizziness, headaches, heart disease, cancer, and even dementia. As an added bonus, the smaller particulate matte enters your body on the cellular level. Oh, but not to worry, it will dissipate sooner or later. Actually, it will be later, much later. The 2 to 4 pounds of particulate matter created by one leaf blower in one hour will remain airborne for about a week. It might not be visible but it’s lingering there, filling your lungs with every breath you take. Adding to the mix, the amount of exhaust generated is equivalent to driving a car 1,100 miles. Now you have to multiply this out by the number of leaf blowers, and the number of properties within your proximity. The result is air that is constantly contaminated with the residual pollution. Freeing the spec from my eye, I continued on.
Finally, in a neighboring town, I came upon a small stretch of street not under attack. Pedaling up the hill, I was greeted by a pleasant woman. Bending down on her leaf-covered lawn, she carefully picked up colorful leaves, selecting them one by one, and placing them in a brown paper bag. I stopped to chat with her, and she explained she was choosing the prettiest leaves to send to relatives in Florida, deprived of the season’s natural beauty in the northeast. A sense or serenity came over me, and I couldn’t help but tell her what a relief it was to see someone enjoying nature as it was meant to be. Her lawn was not the biggest and certainly not the greenest, but decorated in natures beauty of red, orange and gold leaves, it was the most beautiful of all.
Riding home past fluttering flags, boldly alerting humans to keep themselves and their pets off the toxic green lawns, I wondered how long it will take those humans, supposedly the higher species, to realize their pursuit of the superficial aesthetics of artificial lawns does more harm than good. Not only is the environmental damaged, but the impact on human health is staggering. The noise levels bring on hypertension and other cardiovascular disorders, including heart attacks, while the toxic fumes trigger other diseases. It’s time to get priorities in proper order, stop the senseless losing battle against nature, and allow the earth and your health to restore itself. Only then can one sit back, inhale deeply, and enjoy the world’s true beauty.