Two relevant items from the day’s news:

The first is the New York Times print version of Margaret Renkl’s powerful essay about the environmental and human damage wrought by leaf blowers. We mentioned its appearance online yesterday. Today it ran as the lead editorial for the entire newspaper. You can see how it was presented below, and read it here.

Main editorial page of the *New York Times*, October 26, 2021.

The second was an also-eloquent essay in the Stamford Advocate, in Connecticut, by noted biology professor Jason Munshi-South. Its title is “Turn off the leaf blower and let the leaves be this fall.” You can read it here; a sample is below.

Now imagine [an autumn] scene disrupted by the banshee screams and whines of gas-powered leaf blowers, blasting any ears nearby with excessive noise and poisoning lungs with raw exhaust from burning a mixture of gasoline and motor oil. Bills for hundreds of dollars then arrive in mailboxes all over the neighborhood for the so-called “Fall Cleanup,” when every leaf is blasted away and every last stem is cut to the ground in our gardens. This cost on our pocketbooks, environment, and health is unnecessary, and even counterproductive. All of us should consider leaving the leaves and other plant material in our gardens this autumn!
That layer of fallen leaves in our garden beds protects plant roots over the winter, and provides valuable shelter for bumblebees and other insects that burrow in the ground. If not cut down, many plant stems provide hollow tunnels for insects, or places for the chrysalis of butterflies and moths to ride out the winter. Dried seed heads such as those on coneflowers or black-eyed susans are valuable food for goldfinches and other birds. Waiting for the warmth of spring before removing these materials gives insects a chance to emerge before new plant growth.

Congratulations and thanks to these writers and their publications.