The total area of ‘yards’ where leaves are picked up is so utterly insignificant that I wonder if you have ever been outside. In any case, the article is about D.C. and, regrettably, there will never be a shortage of worms in the capitol.
Have you ever looked at any sort of public grounds? Because your home isn’t the only place on earth with leaves and I don’t know where you got the idea.
Public parks, office perimeters, college campuses, busy roadsides, and yes, home lawns are all locations where people gather up leaves to burn them or send them off to the garbage. These are spaces in which billions of people spend all day and expect to be “cleaned” of leaves, so yes, the impact is significant.
You clearly live in an urban area. You can see them on maps represented as little dots. Sometimes little blobs. All the other 'empty' parts of the map? Well, this may come as a surprise, but it consists of millions of acres of forests, trees, and wilderness.
You could nuke every city in America and the 'worm' population wouldn't even notice.
It's amusingly myopic to worry about the leaves in an urban area where, most likely, all the trees have been cut down and replaced with buildings and asphalt. Real honestly, nobody cares what the soil is like in an urban/suburban area as (a) the 'soil' was most likely carted in from somewhere else to begin with and (b) the plants and trees one finds in a suburban/urban area aren't native anyway.
I really don't care about the leaves or lack thereof on your 'college campus.' But, I find it astounding that, very often on HN, there is this absolute lack of awareness of how BIG this country and is. Some posts come across as if the author's only interaction with the 'real world' is watching BBC nature documentaries and picnicking in the 'public park.' No offense intended.
I grew up in rural America, and you're obviously not. :)
I'm very used to people around me gathering up acres of leaves to burn.
Your argument is exactly the same as what's used by climate change deniers. America has forests, yeah. But half the country is dedicated to agriculture and towns. A lot of the untouched land is fairly mountainous or lacking in deciduous trees, i.e., not great territory for worms and insects.
It's bizarre how people still deny obvious human actions having affects on populations of the little creatures below us. We know that their populations are dropping faster every year. Spraying poison and depriving the ground of nutrients are pretty strong candidates for causes.
The total area of ‘yards’ where leaves are picked up is so utterly insignificant that I wonder if you have ever been outside. In any case, the article is about D.C. and, regrettably, there will never be a shortage of worms in the capitol.