Monday, November 10, 2008

Leaf Blowers Part Three

I hate leaf blowers, every LC student hates leaf blowers, the faculty hates leaf blowers, the administration hates leaf blowers, and most especially leaf blowers hate leaf blowers. So why do we have leaf blowers on our campus? Not only are they annoying for a community but the pollution and noise is especially damaging to the user who is in constant close proximity to the blower. It is like standing next to the exhaust of a car all day only that exhaust is several times more toxic and that car is located on an airplane runway. Last year I had a conversation with facilities about why we have leaf blowers. The answer was that the Executive Committee wants a leaf free campus, because in their opinion this looks most presentable. So every year we spend lots and lots of dollars paying people to blow leaves around. We have been locked into using these wasteful machines and there is no force for change.
Few people know that last year for a month Copeland was a “leaf blower free zone”. This was because at the end of my meeting I agreed to maintain Copeland in exchange for them not using leaf blowers there. Every week I would go out and pick up trash around Copeland. Students walking by me mostly thought I had gotten into some sort of trouble. However by doing this it allowed me to send weekly updates about my work and continually remind facilities that leaf blowers are bad. At the end of my work I wrote a very long summary in which I said “I don’t think I prevented one leaf blower from being used” and that the problem with leaf blowers was that there is no interaction between the facility workers and those who benefit from their work. Why should they care if they are making a lot of noise as long as it makes their job easier?
Our inability to manage the problem of leaf blowers is a symptom of a larger problem on campus. No matter how many community forums we have or emails from student government asking us to attend meetings most people just don’t give a fuck. We did not go to college and spend thousands of dollars every year to participate in making the Lewis and Clark community a better place. We pay this money to get our degree so we can supposedly go out and make the world a better place, or just make a bunch of money. However, this logic is obviously flawed. The solution to leaf blowers is simple. Purchase a leaf vacuum. This is a big cart that you can drive around that will suck up leaves. It would save the school money in terms of labor and would decrease the amount of pollution we create. But no one seems interested. The only way upgrading would save us money would be to “let go of some workers” and facilities doesn’t want to do that. Furthermore as long as facilities are getting rid of the leaves the Executive Council has no reason to question them. All the while leaf blowers continue to pollute both the air and noise of our campus.
We have reached a strange point in which because we are so focused on passing a test for some class about environmental destruction that we hurry by the leaf blower on our way to pass that test. How are we supposed to prevent nuclear waste if we are unable to solve the problem of leaf blowers? We are caught in a fantasy that by reading about the world we will somehow solve the world’s problems. Our work is the excuse we give ourselves for not engaging the world around us. Schoolwork has become the opiate of the masses. Instead of learning how to actually change the world we are simply learning how to read a book really well. Our campus has been locked into thinking that leaf blowers are necessary. In truth they are actually costing us much more in terms of health and noise. Up until now students have merely interpreted the world. The point however is to change it!

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