Dear Lord, the excuses, the denial and the exceptionalism in the comments here would register at the top end of the scale on any pollution monitor.
Replies
Living in an area with 1930’s homes that have at least 2 chimneys, I can’t open my windows or hang washing outside in the winter . It’s so bad in urban areas because of the density of housing. We need more air pollution monitoring & enforcement
apr 18, 2025, 12:05 pm • 2 0 • view
Having mulled on this, I wonder whether there's a "hearts and minds" aspect that needs to be considered. In the old days (ie my youth), there would have been public information films - perhaps involving a cartoon ginger cat. Maybe we need a modern equivalent, that also avoids being too "judgy".
apr 18, 2025, 11:17 am • 2 0 • view
Yep. This topic literally causes people to lose their minds as if they're being asked to excavate their hearts with the soggy stump of their beloved pet's limbs.
apr 18, 2025, 10:32 am • 5 0 • view
Yes but is the wood burning stove a legal woman? One for the Supreme Dipshit Court no doubt.
apr 18, 2025, 10:29 am • 0 0 • view
They're not even healthy for the people using them. They do look nice though.
apr 18, 2025, 11:12 am • 1 0 • view
Our ecological crisis in a nutshell. Regardless of the issue, there will always be some who argue it's acceptable, at the level of the individual, business, and/or government. And should something we like be legislated away, we'll just vote for the candidate who promises to restore it.
apr 18, 2025, 1:21 pm • 3 0 • view
Yes it's amazing what people come up with. I'm sure that the excuses so called "tree surgeons" use to fell trees are motivated by profit to satisfy some people's need to have a cosy fire.
apr 18, 2025, 10:41 am • 2 0 • view
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apr 18, 2025, 12:07 pm • 0 0 • view
I have had some of the most through-the-looking-glass conversations with good friends on this topic. Nostalgia > health, in one case even when the person's *own child* is at particular risk due to severe asthma.
apr 18, 2025, 10:42 am • 5 0 • view
Air kwality monitors £25 on ebay
apr 18, 2025, 12:15 pm • 0 0 • view
We discussed wood burning stoves on the local WhatsApp. Quite a few contributors said they didn't care about the pollution and would carry on using their stoves.
apr 18, 2025, 4:06 pm • 1 0 • view
A friend who has campaigned on ecological issues for years has just had one installed. I called her out on it but she waffled some excuse. I am quite literally choked by this.
apr 18, 2025, 12:06 pm • 2 0 • view
It’s mad. We just published this piece urging the Irish Government to ban fossil fuel ads and the comments are insane.
apr 18, 2025, 10:34 am • 22 5 • view
My favourite was ‘most of the world’s history was warmer than now’. I think the world has gone mad. Many get angry at facts being pointed out. Facts = woke 🫠
apr 19, 2025, 1:31 am • 3 0 • view
It's very disheartening. It's just generic threads e.g. blame the greens, blame the lefties, disinformation about climate, inadequate public transport, taxes...
apr 19, 2025, 8:55 am • 3 0 • view
But also compare the CO2 emissions from the alternatives...gas boilers and heat pumps. Biomass which accounts for 10% of the grid is more carbon intensive than coal! There are no simple solutions...
apr 18, 2025, 11:23 am • 2 0 • view
Banning wood burning is a simple solution and would help the neighbours of selfish wood burners!
apr 18, 2025, 11:44 am • 2 0 • view
In the UK I can well believe it. We live in NZ these days and it's a rather different viewpoint here! But then we're only 5m people in a large and sparsely-populated country.
apr 18, 2025, 11:24 am • 0 0 • view
Of course, boaters, travellers and other poor people living in alternative housing are privileged exceptionalists.
apr 18, 2025, 10:43 am • 2 0 • view
"Predominantly" highlighted. I don't see George claiming people with no other option should be forced to abandon the only method to heat that they have. Happy to be shown in the article where it says that they should. Wealthier people pollute everyone, the harms are disproportionate on the poor.
apr 18, 2025, 10:55 am • 3 0 • view
And the harms this kind of narrative perpetuate are always shouldered by the poor. Sick of it, we have enough abuse thrown at us without adding to it
apr 18, 2025, 12:18 pm • 1 0 • view
I also posted this for you earlier as well, which explains more about what I'm also trying to say bsky.app/profile/colb...
apr 18, 2025, 1:17 pm • 1 0 • view
As some people are failing to engage in good faith, or dare I say even bother to read either article and persue a blinkered objective, you've been muted. I've no time for neither a deliberate lack of nuance nor false, egregious guilt tripping.
apr 18, 2025, 8:19 pm • 1 0 • view
It shouldn't be that way, but did George make a claim about the poor?
apr 18, 2025, 1:00 pm • 0 0 • view
However, this kind of narrative adds to the abuse we suffer every day, I don't see George highlighting that fact either.
apr 18, 2025, 12:17 pm • 0 0 • view
You're aware that the author is Matthew Taylor and not George. Whomever does the burning the impact is worse on the poorest, as you've eluded to! So what's the solution? The narrative here, hasn't actually narrated against the poor.
apr 18, 2025, 1:05 pm • 0 0 • view
Sure, the poor have been inadequately assessed in the article, but that's the author's fault. As most people who are polluting are the wealthier members of the population, surely they should be discouraged, and named as they have been, as they're the largest polluting group?
apr 18, 2025, 1:05 pm • 0 0 • view
It's terrible for respiratory health and an absolute disaster for air quality. And utterly selfish. No excuse for wood burners in this day and age. No excuse whatsoever.
apr 18, 2025, 10:42 am • 6 1 • view
I wonder if folks with wood burning stoves would be equally happy if their neighbours started burning rubbish in bonfires in their gardens again - it’s basically working class hygge but somehow everyone agrees it’s unacceptable. Stick it in a fancy stove and push it up a chimney and that’s 🆗 right?
apr 18, 2025, 10:39 am • 36 3 • view
People are still burning rubbish in their gardens!
apr 18, 2025, 11:40 am • 6 0 • view
And meat! All those effing barbecues were another reason to move out of the city.
apr 18, 2025, 4:02 pm • 2 0 • view
I wonder if people clutching their pearls about woodburning would prefer boaters and other poor people living in alternative housing froze to death
apr 18, 2025, 10:41 am • 11 0 • view
An EPA certified wood stove is required for new installs now in the US. Wood isn’t cheaper if you’re buying it. It’s possible to start and maintain fires responsibly without smoking your neighbors out.
jul 23, 2025, 12:57 pm • 0 0 • view
The studies that prove that residential wood smoke increases mortality rates are readily available for you to find. There’s no excuse for polluting neighborhood air. One person’s health and quality of life doesn’t supersede another based on finances.
jul 23, 2025, 12:57 pm • 1 0 • view
Goodness. Who knew it was the responsibility of the poor to ensure the health of those financially better off.
jul 23, 2025, 1:11 pm • 0 0 • view
No pearls here! I am sick literally of breathing in other people’s smoke! People who are really too poor to heat in other ways must be helped but vast majority just do it because they want to! Too selfish and lacking in empathy to think of others!
apr 18, 2025, 11:42 am • 2 0 • view
Yes, not wanting to freeze to death is so selfish, glad to see you are so selfless you're happy to see frozen bodies hauled from our homes
apr 18, 2025, 12:16 pm • 1 0 • view
I think you didn’t read my post! I said people too poor to heat homes in other ways must be helped!
apr 19, 2025, 9:42 am • 1 0 • view
Way to miss the fucking point. People burning wood aren’t the poor ones!! And nobody should have to burn wood to stay warm. Jesus the sooner your “if it was good enough not to die” attitude is scorched from this earth the better
apr 19, 2025, 4:46 am • 3 0 • view
Goodness, this is the first time I've witnessed an actual pleas for someone to die. I have to say, that ain't happening anytime soon.
apr 19, 2025, 9:52 am • 0 0 • view
He isn’t making pleas for anyone to die! Ffs! All wood burners jump on the bandwagon of poor people who will die of cold if they can’t have their wood burning stove. The vast vast majority of people with stoves are not remotely in this category!
apr 19, 2025, 12:46 pm • 1 0 • view
It's a distinct issue with fuel poverty that needs addressing, but as the article from George states, in England and Wales, it's predominantly (not exclusively) people who have an alternative option to heat. People shouldn't be forced to choose a polluting option that risks their health. Alt 4 🔗
apr 18, 2025, 10:52 am • 20 2 • view
Had solid fuel as my only source of heating for years. Still thought it was polluting expensive and generally crap
apr 18, 2025, 5:30 pm • 2 0 • view
But you didn't freeze to death I take it
apr 18, 2025, 5:36 pm • 0 0 • view
You are literally the “yet you live in society” meme
apr 19, 2025, 4:47 am • 2 0 • view
The choice is very much dependent on place. In our adopted state of Maine, the most forested state in the USA, with a large rural poor population, wood really is a key heat source. midcoastwoodbank.org (Our heat pumps need this supplement when it's really frigid.)
apr 18, 2025, 10:34 am • 3 0 • view
I can burn my garbage wood and pruned wood, and safe money, or pay at the landfill to dump it there. Hmm, difficult choice.... I live in a city btw, no forest around, but if policy makes doing the best thing more expensive ...
apr 18, 2025, 11:04 am • 0 0 • view
I’m in Maine, too. I’m wondering if the US has different environmental standards on woodstoves, also? www.epa.gov/burnwise/epa...
apr 18, 2025, 3:43 pm • 0 0 • view
It shouldn’t need a wood burning supplement! Heat pumps are used successful in some of the coldest countries!!
apr 18, 2025, 11:44 am • 1 0 • view
This is not realistic for locations like Maine, USA, where we frequently see temps at -14°F and our housing stock is old, and our infrastructure is extremely spread out and rural.
apr 18, 2025, 3:47 pm • 2 0 • view
Seems to work in Scandinavia? Maybe US homes need better construction and insulation.
apr 18, 2025, 4:22 pm • 1 0 • view
these are all things that are very expensive, especially for older folks
apr 18, 2025, 8:04 pm • 2 0 • view
You mean the stoves are expensive I assume!
apr 19, 2025, 12:47 pm • 1 0 • view
I work in the building engineering industry. I am talking about the immense one-time expenses of insulation, upgraded windows, and heat pump units, versus cheaper wood stoves which can be fueled with material you can forage for yourself
apr 19, 2025, 5:40 pm • 1 0 • view
We have just fully insulated our home and upgraded windows and have had a heat pump installed! Expensive but not immense! You should only be burning properly seasoned and dried wood not crap you have foraged!
apr 19, 2025, 6:05 pm • 1 0 • view
You do not sound like a person who has lived in actual poverty before
apr 19, 2025, 6:19 pm • 1 0 • view
It will be the people who do live in poverty who have serious health concerns that are affected by wood smoke. There are 4 people in village who only heat with stoves, two have cancer, one heart disease and the other has an autoimmune disease her husband having died of cancer in his 50’s.
apr 20, 2025, 12:31 pm • 0 1 • view
Didn’t claim to have done. Have you? Poverty is a bandwagon people jump on to justify burning wood. Vast majority of people with stoves do not live in poverty. No one in my village wit a stove lives in poverty - it is a small village and I know everyone.
apr 20, 2025, 12:27 pm • 1 0 • view
Probably not. A new wood stove will run about $3K, compared with heat pump installation which is $7K and higher. Plus many people have woodstoves for decades, or buy them secondhand.
apr 19, 2025, 2:59 pm • 2 0 • view
It will be the decades old stoves and secondhand ones that cause the most dangerous fumes for both the user and neighbours.
apr 20, 2025, 12:32 pm • 1 0 • view
Sure. Comparing Sweden to Maine, Sweden has 11.3% of the population living rurally vs Maine’s 61.3%, and our state has the oldest population. People, especially seniors, rely on wood heat because it’s economical, the infrastructure exists, and it’s necessary due to frequent storm power outages.
apr 18, 2025, 4:58 pm • 1 0 • view
The issue isn’t where people live. Air source heat pumps work anywhere with electricity or are you saying that large parts of Maine have none? Likely difference is quality of Scandinavia and US construction and insulation. Scandinavia also includes Norway and Finland btw!
apr 19, 2025, 9:50 am • 1 0 • view
Yes, I know what countries comprise Scandinavia, thank you. I chose one country for simplicity. There are people here not on the grid and everyone in Maine is vulnerable to power outages due to storms for days or weeks at a time. Going without heat during those means certain death.
apr 19, 2025, 3:03 pm • 0 0 • view
Wow! Surprised that I haven’t heard reports of this on the news every winter!
apr 19, 2025, 4:45 pm • 0 0 • view
Finland isn't Scandinavian tho. Only the weird 3 aka Denmark Sweden and Norway
apr 19, 2025, 11:01 pm • 0 0 • view
There are different definitions of Scandinavia and Finland is one of the countries listed. Why are the 3 you have listed weird?
apr 20, 2025, 12:24 pm • 0 0 • view
The way we were taught Scandinavia is a historical, language and cultural region not geographical. Finland speaks a language that is in a different language family vs the Scandinavian ones. The region is so weird that not all of Norway is Scandinavian, like the island of Svalbard.
apr 20, 2025, 12:32 pm • 1 0 • view
I just asked Finnish and Swedish friends and they both think of themselves as Scandinavian. Maybe location has taken over older reasons. Also Finland used to be under Russian control so maybe they want to be allied with Scandinavia. There isn’t a legal definition anyway.
apr 20, 2025, 1:03 pm • 0 0 • view
The weird bit is just me being silly but it felt rude to just call Sweden and Denmark weird so i included us Norwegians in it too. We are a strange bunch after all
apr 20, 2025, 12:34 pm • 1 0 • view
It's a large issue that heat pumps fitted by installers without the foresight to predict seasonal variation, especially when models for the Scandinavian market can cope and in old buildings. www.euronews.com/green/2024/1... Mitsubishi supply units working down to -5 F = -21 C.
apr 18, 2025, 10:46 am • 2 0 • view
It goes down to -35C in Northern Maine, I’m next door in Canada and my heat pump works fine down to -26C, but I’m close to ocean and it rarely goes below that.
apr 18, 2025, 12:22 pm • 1 0 • view
I lived in a small community and had a wood-burning stove. In small rural areas in BC, Canada, it is the best, cheapest heat. It's also the most reliable because power would often go out from trees falling during winter storms. It doesn't invalidate @georgemonbiot.bsky.social's point, mostly.
apr 18, 2025, 10:56 am • 4 0 • view