So far, I am convinced that their efforts to make chainsaws cleaner (leaning them out, CAT mufflers and the like) have put more chainsaws in the scrapper than anything else. If you're just creating machinery that doesn't work properly and that ends up in a landfill, you've really kind of defeated the purpose. Maybe we could say that at least we're tying?
So this is just my opinion, but I think most of the efforts to date to clean up chainsaws has backfired. It looks to me like stratocharging has some pretty good potential. I have no idea what to think of the computer chip thing, I suppose we just have to wait and see what the reality is when the technology is straightened out.
Having said that, here's why I feel (so far, at least) that clean technology + chainsaws has limited value....
I'm all for doing sensible things to machinery to help clean things up. And I think that everything they can do with cars makes all the sense in the world because there's 12 jillion of them on the road at any given time and they use gobs of fossil fuel. But there's probably not 6 chainsaws in use in my town on any given Saturday... and there are far less in use BETWEEN towns. The fact is, people just don't USE chainsaws for much. Most people don't have a chainsaw, some have never even HELD a chainsaw. There are some that have them but never even USE them, others maybe a few times per year. The are very few people that use them all the time, relatively speaking.
So my question is.... is the time, effort, and money spent on making an essentially dirty chainsaw engine into a clean engine going to pay any dividends? My personal feeling is that even if you just THREW all the chainsaw engines in the WORLD into the crusher today and made them go away, you would not move the pollution index even one iota.
So.... I think cleaning up chainsaw engines is a bit like cleaning up a particle accelerator. It's just not where the problem is. Clean up cars, power plants, smelters, and all the other substantial contributors to point and nonpoint source pollution.. even lawn mowers I get... everybody has one of those and they run them all the time.
I think it's a good effort mind you, and I laud the EPA on putting their best foot forward to make a difference, but I think chainsaws are a casualty of an indiscriminately applied rule. Not only have we not really cleaned up the air, we've screwed up the machinery in the process. I mean, seriously.. anyone can buy a Hummer and drive it to the store to get a candy bar and we are going to lose a nice simple hobby that really wasn't hurting anyone because we're going to "clean EVERYTHING up?" The logic blows me away. Let's face it, we do some really dumb stuff. So dumb, that now some freight train of a government agency is going to step in and tell us what to do. It's a bummer, but I guess we did it to ourselves, eh?
Not that it is really an overriding factor, but like some of the other guys, I really miss the machinery that i can fix myself. I used to do all my own auto repair and I don't anymore.... my lawnmower carburetor isn't even adjustable... it's giving me fits! There is more than a little suspicion in my heart that sometimes technology is applied to things that don't need them in order to create and expand a brand new industry. Let's call it the "you're-not-smart-enough-anymore-to-fix-this-gadget-so-you're-going-to-have-have-to-pay-ME-to-fix-it" industry. Maybe I'm seeing this wrong and I'll have to remind myself to be open to the idea of applying clean technology to chainsaws. But this is what I think today, anyways.
And you guys thought I was green!! I really don't feel that I am... I just like to try to find the truth of things which, or course, changes as the world does.
