[MCN] How many people can just stop raking leaves??

[Lance Olsen]

Excerpt: “The worst thing you can do is put [leaves] in bags and send them to landfills,” David Mizejewski, a naturalist at the National Wildlife Federation, told USA Today. He noted that in addition to taking up space, leaves in landfills can break down with other organic materials to create methane, the greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.

Removing the leaves from your yard also has an impact on local wildlife. Caterpillars and pupa are often found in leaf litter, and raking it up removes a source of food for local birds. That’s concerning because as Mizejewski notes, North America has lost nearly 3 billion birds since 1970. “Keeping some leaf litter can really benefit these kinds of declining wildlife,” he said. 

“This is wildlife conservation on the scale of your lawn.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/10/05/raking-leaves-fall-stop-now-keep-leaves-lawn-mulch-them/3853468002/ <https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/10/05/raking-leaves-fall-stop-now-keep-leaves-lawn-mulch-them/3853468002/>


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Standard of living versus life on Earth. 
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“The ecological systems upon which humans rely for life support are in crisis, and human behavior is the root cause.”
 
Elise Amel, Christie Manning, Britain Scott, Susan Koger

Beyond the Roots of Human Inaction. Science 21 April 2017

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“Consumer expectations of ever-higher living standards were fuelled by more lenient and readily available bank lending, …. 

“Social status and identity became closely associated with consumption, in particular with the concept of luxury. 

"Identifying oneself with the good life meant being able to live beyond traditional understandings of basic needs. Debt was the price one paid for the joys of being part of a hedonistic consumer culture.”

Kenneth Dyson. The Morality of Debt. Foreign Affairs. May 3, 2015
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2015-05-03/morality-debt <https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2015-05-03/morality-debt>

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“The American way of life is not negotiable.”

George H. W. Bush. 1992

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"We are not able even to think adequately about the behavior that is at the annihilating edge."

R. D. Laing. Introduction, The Politics of Experience. 
1967, New York. Pantheon Books, a division of Random House

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