Leafblowers don't represent a big environmental impact, this article claims, because "In the US, the emissions from all leaf blowers, both residential and commercial, for all of 2008 will be roughly equivalent to the emissions from driving that occurred between the arrival of the new year and 11:00 a.m. on January 1." Yikes! That's huge! Remember, transportation is an almost unimaginably large producer of emissions. 1/750th of the yearly emissions from road vehicles in the U.S. in no way represents a trivial impact. When you consider that transportation is the foundation of almost all economic and social activity, whereas leafblowers are essentially powerful rakes, that 1:750 ratio seems to me like a gross overallotment to leafblowers in the ol' carbon budget. michael5000.blogspot.com

Good point! And leafblowers are not only powerful and polluting, but also noisy and don't put the leaves in a nice pile to be removed. They just blow them onto someone else's property, only to be blown back by the wind often. I despise leaf blowers. As in the biofuels discussion, I think it's helpful to have a sense of proportion as to where problems/solutions fit in the Big Picture, however.

But you gotta admit, leaf blower wars are fun to watch! Dave Lister