Yikes!
Not to offend our good list manager, but I *do* see this as a critical Mpls issue.
I agree with Mr. Hohmann (see below) as well. We nedd to re-design our yards to be ecologically sound as well as beautiful and aesthetically pleasing.
Reducing lawn size and designing lawns to be mowable without electric or gas-powered machines is one way to exercise good urban citizenship to the end of creating a healthier watershed without costing the governmenttaxpayers a dime.
I do human-powered and earth-friendly yardening as a part of my business. I know at least one other man in town wjo does the same - going as far as using human power to get from job site to job site as well.
A couple of weeks ago I was working on a yard in the Fulton neighborhood when an elderly neighbor of my clients came over, shook my hand, and thanked me for using a rake instead of a blower. Across the street, a huge truck had pulled up towing a trailer, and disgorged loud, smelly mowers and blowers to do lawn care.
How strange to observe a grown man chasing some leaves down a driveway on a windy day, with a loud stinky blower in hand, with grim determination to make the grounds of this house leaf-free!
If the good citizens of Minneapolis would employ local, neighborhood people to do human-powered, earth-friendly yard-care, we would make a huge step forward in handing on a place worth inheriting!
Now, there are subsidies for studies for stadiums and the like -- half a million dollars here, half a million dollars there...I submit that our Mayor and City Council should create a program to incubate neighborhood micro-eco-enterprises related to household-helper work, energy, waste and water-management retrofitting, and transportation.
(I know, the state legislature did the $500,000 deal to do stadium study stuff for the billionaire Vikings enterprise, but that's truly a state issue -- I'll talk to my *state* legislator about that...)
How about it Mr. Mayor, City Council Folks??? How about creating a business incubator for micro-eco-enterprises...perhaps also related to luring some of the huge and growing renewable energy industry businesses and jobs to our town? (oooops.....new thread?)
Gary Hoover
King Field
In a message dated 5/21/02 10:06:05 AM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Electric mowers use about three times the primary energy as a gas-fired
mower, due to the thermodynamic efficiencies of electric power production...
three units of primary energy convert to one unit of electric energy,
compared to one unit used in a gas mower. In MN, most primary energy used
in electricity production comes from coal, and a lesser amount from nuclear
(and much, much less from wind)... to mow a yard? Might be better to
consider alternatives to the traditional 'green' grass yards that require
mowing every week and regular watering. Same considerations for leaf
blowers vs old fashioned rakes, and electric water heaters vs nat. gas, and
nat. gas furnace vs electric baseboard.
Michael Hohmann
Linden Hills
www.mahohmannbizplans.com
