Use a Reel Mower!

It's summer time and so begins the lazy, hazy, crazy (and friggan humid) days of summer and the cacophony that is everyone in the neighborhood mowing their lawns. But I have a secret for you: real men and women use reel mowers. What exactly are reel mowers? Ask your father (or grandfather) and he'll tell you. They are, essentially, old-fashioned lawnmowers, or, in today's vernacular, eco-friendly lawnmowers. That pic to the left is my very own pride and joy. Now, why would anyone want to give up their loud, dangerous, expensive, polluting, waste-of-space power lawnmower these days? Here are three simple answers:

1. Save on gas. The average American spends anywhere from $100 to $200 a month (or more than eight percent of their income) on gasoline, and in this economy, you could probably use all the savings you can get. According to the EPA, lawnmowers are responsible for the same amount of emissions as 11 new cars and also 17 million gallons of fuel being spilled while Americans refuel their lawnmowers.

Gasoline prices remain high, and they've increased even higher thanks to the crisis in Iraq. And even if there were no crisis in Iraq, prices would still go up. As researcher Fereidun Fesharaki put it, "The future is one of an unstoppable force--demand--versus an immovable object--supply limitations."

2. Save the planet. Some good news: India has set an ambitious goal of planting 2 billion trees, and deforestation has fallen 70% in Brazil. Germany has set a record of generating 75% of its electricity from renewable energy. Texas, of all places, leads the nation in wind power generation. And, Kentucky, the state with the worst pollution in the nation, is beginning to cut its coal use.

But our planet is still in peril. Global warming has become so bad that rising sea levels in the Pacific have washed the remains of Japanese soldiers from World War II onto the island shores. And yet there are still Americans who offer the most bizarre responses. "Why did the dinosaurs go extinct?" is one question a congressman actually asked. Speaker Boehner simply said that he was "not qualified" to discuss the subject because he wasn't a scientist. (This is a common response among politicians, who conveniently happen to be experts on everything else.) Here's how one scientist responded to that answer: "What if we asked: 'Senator, do you advocate drinking toxic sludge?...would the response still be 'I don't know, I'm not a scientist'?" President Obama put it a bit better: "When President Kennedy...set us on a course for the moon, there were a number of people who made a serious case that it wouldn't be worth it...but nobody ignored the science. I don't remember anybody saying that the moon wasn't there, or that is was made of cheese." (Incidentally, the EPA administrators of the Nixon, Reagan, and both Bush administrations support regulating CO2 emissions.)

And yet even John Podesta, one of Obama's senior advisers on climate, has warned that their efforts simply aren't enough to prevent the worst effects of climate change. Brad Plumer at Vox puts this succinctly and pessimistically: "The idea that the world can stay below two 2 degrees Celsius looks increasingly delusional."

While we're making progress, there is much, much more to be done. As Thomas Friedman wrote in his book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," cleaning up our planet is not supposed to be fun and easy. There is nothing easy about this. We are way beyond the point where we can just change our light bulbs and feel better about ourselves. Is mowing the lawn with a reel mower easy and convenient? Of course not. Tiny twigs constantly and annoyingly halt my mowing. Will it eliminate the problem? No, but it's one more step we can take to help.

3. Exercise It's no secret that America has a severe health crisis, with more than a third of American adults suffering from obesity. What better way to shed some pounds walking? Walking has numerous benefits, including aiding digestion, improving blood pressure and lowering the risk of coronary heart disease, serving as a slight antidepressant, and many more. As Hippocrates said, "walking is man's best medicine." And what better way to walk than while pushing a reel push mower?

But what's that? You don't want to walk with a push reel mower and instead stay seated on your nice, comfy ride mower? Well, I have some bad news for you: A recent study has found that too much sitting raises the risk of cancer. The study found that spending the majority of one's day sedentary--whether at an office, in a car, or in front of a TV--creates a 24 percent increase of getting colon cancer. It's even higher for uterine cancer--a 32 percent increase!

The reasons are obvious. Use a reel mower--you'll help save your wallet, the planet, and your life. Now you can't beat that.

Here's a decent video on reel mower maintenance: