Letters

Gas leaf blowers are the tip of the iceberg. How many years have the Southampton Village and town governments been working on that ban? Too many. It is time for fossil fuels to be history.

Southampton Arts Center hosted Drawdown Festival — “Tools for Regeneration” — a week and a half ago. Of the 650 registrants, I suspect that every single one of them would agree with the above. And I suspect they would each vote to elect representatives who agreed with the above.

And we all know that every single business in the world will have to go through introspection and creativity to bring forward the business practices we need for life on Earth to survive. And thrive.

We need our elected representatives to work quickly to take meaningful, impactful action now, not just on banning leaf blowers but across the board. And we want our elected representatives to know that we all thank you for your efforts when you do.

In the Project Drawdown analytics on embracing a green economy, there will be some expenses that will rise. We will need to pay more for landscapers to buy the right equipment or for more labor if they follow Hilary Woodward and Sally Van Allen’s lead to return to old-fashioned raking. But in the main, the cost of greening will be cheaper.

For example, the legitimate highest solution to greenhouse gas emissions is eating every speck of food that we buy. Who knew? And money saving.

For all businesses, product and service prices may go up or down as they green. It’s our responsibility to rise to the occasion and support those that promote the regeneration. And it’s our task and responsibility to promote and support those that pass the right legislation.

Time to end gas leaf blowers. Now.

Dorothy Reilly

Southampton