Mow-Town
I am pleased to report that all the human trash-talkers of human-powered lawn mowers are wrong.
We just picked one up and it’s awesome. The rotary blade is coupled to the wheels and spins around as you push. Since there isn’t a power plant on board, they are much lighter and consequently easier to operate than conventional mowers.
Gasoline-powered lawn mowers try to cut through stray branches, lawn gnomes, etc. Since a human-powered mower stops automatically when not in use, it’s safe to leave the blade exposed. If you hit something other than grass with a human-powered lawn mower, you simply reach down and remove it.
Consumer-grade gas-powered lawn mowers are probably the least energy-efficient devices commercially available today. So it’s all the stupider that they mess up our atmosphere pretty much for nothing.
Concurring opinion at Treehugger.com
Administrative note! I’m renaming the blog from Jeweled Battleshorts to Faster Cars and Smellier Air (another Douglas Adams quote) to better reflect the Environment-oriented nature of many of my recent blog postings. I’ll probably be deleting or retconing some of the more extraneous previous entries to bring them better in line with that theme.
I’ll also put up a more appropriate icon as soon as possible.