Physicians Organization Gives 17 Reasons to Ban Wood Burning

Can anyone who has a background in chemistry prove or disprove these points?

Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment give 17 reasons to ban wood burning:

1. All pollution is not created equal. Wood smoke is the most toxic type of pollution in most cities, more dangerous than auto pollution and most industrial pollution. Lighting a wood fire in your house is like starting up your own toxic incinerator.
2. Lifetime cancer risk is 12 times greater for wood smoke compared to an equal volume of second hand cigarette smoke.
3. Burning 10 lbs. of wood for one hour, releases as much PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) as 6,000 packs of cigarettes.
4. Toxic free-radical chemicals in wood smoke are biologically active 40 times longer than the free radicals in cigarette smoke.
5. Wood smoke is the third largest source of dioxins, one of the most intensely toxic compounds known to science.
6. The very small size of wood particles make them seven times more likely to be inhaled than other particulate pollution.
7. Wood smoke easily penetrates homes of neighbors creating concentrations up to 88% as high as outdoor air.
8. If you smell wood smoke, you know you are being harmed. The sweet smell comes from deadly compounds like benzene.
9. The most dangerous components of air pollution are much higher inside homes that burn wood compared to those that don’t, as much as 500% higher.
10. Considering the most dangerous part of particulate pollution, wood burning produces as much overall as all our cars during the winter.
11. The inhalable particulate pollution from one woodstove is equivalent to the amount emitted from 3,000 gas furnaces producing the same amount of heat.
12. Emissions from modern combustion appliances for wood logs may increase ten-fold if they are not operated appropriately, and most of them are not.
13. Wood smoke is the only pollution emitted right where people spend most of their time. It disperses poorly, is not evenly distributed and stays in the air longer because of its small size. Concentrations can be 100 times higher for neighbors of wood burners than what is captured at the nearest monitoring station. Real local “pollution victims” are created even when overall community levels are low.
14. If your neighbor is a regular wood burner, and follows all the rules, i.e. doesn’t burn during yellow or red alert days, but does during all “green” days, you can go an entire winter without having one single day of clean air. This is a civil rights issue.
15. According to California’s Bay Area Air Quality Management District, burning wood costs the rest of the community, primarily your next door neighbors, at least $2 in extra medical expenses for every lb of wood that you burn. An average fire then costs your neighbors about $40.
16. Long ago most communities passed ordinances protecting people from second hand cigarette smoke. Ironically those laws protect people at places they don’t necessarily have to be (restaurants, stores, buildings, etc). But in the one place they have to be, their own home, they have no protection from something even worse-wood smoke. People should have just as much protection from wood smoke as from cigarette smoke and for all the same reasons. We don’t allow people to blow cigarette smoke in your face, why should we allow people to blow wood smoke into your home?
17. Wood burning is not even close to carbon neutral over the short term, the next few decades, and it is that time frame that will make or break the climate crisis. Burning wood is extremely in inefficient. Per unit of heat created wood produces even more CO2 than the fossil fuels do. Furthermore, the black carbon particulate matter released enhances the absorption of radiant heat in the atmosphere, making global warming worse, and prematurely melts already imperiled mountain snow pack.

I have always loved building fires in the fireplace and enjoyed many campfires in my life. But now they're telling me it's almost as bad as cigarette smoke?!

I always assumed since wood is natural it is not a terrible thing to burn for heat, unlike oil or gasoline.

I think the article is written with a lot of bias and stretching though. Just from point #7: burning wood is poisoning your neighbors!!!

And the final point throws in global warming....I mean climate change....and how those nasty wood burners are going to destroy the planet!

What do ya'll think?

Link

You will be completely dependent on the utility companies whether you like it or not.

You will not enjoy the nation's forests and parks (this sounds like it's geared toward justifying year-round fire bans).

You will stay in the cities where we can keep track of you and control your behavior.

That's the subtext I read, anyway...

originally posted by: ArnoldNonymous
But now they're telling me it's almost as bad as cigarette smoke?!

No, they are telling you that it is much worse than cigarette smoke.

Bull ####

Just another law coming into play to protect what Govt. believes is their personal property. Our Wood.

Say it's bad, get some lettered people to state same, ban tree cutting.

Not that we haven't been burning wood in our homes since the birth of fire. And how many people have died from a glass of cognac and an open fire? All about the carbon BS. Don't fall for it.

They don't even try to hide their chains anymore do they?

Peace

...as the Saudi's lower the price of oil, trying to attack fracking. I am not a supporter of the fracking industry, but I think this article could have been written to try to convince people that burning wood is more dangerous than burning natural gas. As more and more of these articles are written by people with "credentials", we may see laws in the future to prevent burning of wood.

As far as the science goes, many of the points on the list MAY be factual, but for such claims I think they need to provide some strong evidence that is not "manipulated to further the agenda" of banning wood burning. I would like to see numbers and actual science. They have numbers there, but I DO NOT SEE ONE SINGLE REFERENCE FOR THEIR DATA. Immediate red flag.

I also like number 8: If you can smell wood smoke, you are being poisoned, haha

After looking over the list again (and again), I do think there may be some shreds of truth, but it is mostly swallowed up by fear-mongering and green uppity-ness.

I can see wood burning as having some polluting ingredients that are in more abundance than cigarette smoke or gas burning, but there is absolutely no way all the toxins and synthetic chemicals in man-made substances aren't worse for you than a log.

And they also told us bacon was bad.

Well, let's use this as a case to continue on with solar, driving out the petro and coal industries.

BTW, I love a good fire with wood. Nothing pleases the soul more.

a reply to: ArnoldNonymous

You got to be kidding me!


All the wood burning stoves in the US (as only a fraction of the population per capita use them) probably equals less pollution than a single freeking day of automobile pollution.

They want to ban or tax anything that interferes with paying the utility companies or being self reliant.

I'll take my chances with the smoke from my wood stove. Freezing in this subzero weather will kill you in a few hours.

Why not just go with all nuclear energy, it's so clean and green.

wood comes from trees which are living things so I have to wonder how trees can even live if they are full of all these toxic things that are released when they are burned?

I think coal probably is much more toxic when burned than wood is but these experts don`t seem to have a problem with large power plants burning tons of coal.
If burning wood is so bad then how did we even manage to survive this long considering that burning wood was the primary source of heat for everyone for a long long time.
I think it`s a bunch of BS.

Chains?

Note the huge emphasis on what you're doing to your neighbors, every time you burn a few logs. It goes right through their walls! 88% the concentration of outdoor air!!!!

They are trying to get your neighbors to report you. Zionist trademark. Works for guns and lots of other stuff too.

We are supposed to call who, you wonder? Why the police state you silly!

Those are your chains, like them or not.




a reply to: jude11

# 340

originally posted by: Tardacus
wood comes from trees which are living things so I have to wonder how trees can even live if they are full of all these toxic things that are released when they are burned?

I think coal probably is much more toxic when burned than wood is but these experts don`t seem to have a problem with large power plants burning tons of coal.
If burning wood is so bad then how did we even manage to survive this long considering that burning wood was the primary source of heat for everyone for a long long time.
I think it`s a bunch of BS.

You know tobacco is a plant too right. Also cobra venom comes from living things. I wouldn't want to go mushroom picking with you.

originally posted by: ArnoldNonymous
Can anyone who has a background in chemistry prove or disprove these points?

Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment give 17 reasons to ban wood burning:

1. All pollution is not created equal. Wood smoke is the most toxic type of pollution in most cities, more dangerous than auto pollution and most industrial pollution. Lighting a wood fire in your house is like starting up your own toxic incinerator.
2. Lifetime cancer risk is 12 times greater for wood smoke compared to an equal volume of second hand cigarette smoke.
3. Burning 10 lbs. of wood for one hour, releases as much PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) as 6,000 packs of cigarettes.
4. Toxic free-radical chemicals in wood smoke are biologically active 40 times longer than the free radicals in cigarette smoke.
5. Wood smoke is the third largest source of dioxins, one of the most intensely toxic compounds known to science.
6. The very small size of wood particles make them seven times more likely to be inhaled than other particulate pollution.
7. Wood smoke easily penetrates homes of neighbors creating concentrations up to 88% as high as outdoor air.
8. If you smell wood smoke, you know you are being harmed. The sweet smell comes from deadly compounds like benzene.
9. The most dangerous components of air pollution are much higher inside homes that burn wood compared to those that don’t, as much as 500% higher.
10. Considering the most dangerous part of particulate pollution, wood burning produces as much overall as all our cars during the winter.
11. The inhalable particulate pollution from one woodstove is equivalent to the amount emitted from 3,000 gas furnaces producing the same amount of heat.
12. Emissions from modern combustion appliances for wood logs may increase ten-fold if they are not operated appropriately, and most of them are not.
13. Wood smoke is the only pollution emitted right where people spend most of their time. It disperses poorly, is not evenly distributed and stays in the air longer because of its small size. Concentrations can be 100 times higher for neighbors of wood burners than what is captured at the nearest monitoring station. Real local “pollution victims” are created even when overall community levels are low.
14. If your neighbor is a regular wood burner, and follows all the rules, i.e. doesn’t burn during yellow or red alert days, but does during all “green” days, you can go an entire winter without having one single day of clean air. This is a civil rights issue.
15. According to California’s Bay Area Air Quality Management District, burning wood costs the rest of the community, primarily your next door neighbors, at least $2 in extra medical expenses for every lb of wood that you burn. An average fire then costs your neighbors about $40.
16. Long ago most communities passed ordinances protecting people from second hand cigarette smoke. Ironically those laws protect people at places they don’t necessarily have to be (restaurants, stores, buildings, etc). But in the one place they have to be, their own home, they have no protection from something even worse-wood smoke. People should have just as much protection from wood smoke as from cigarette smoke and for all the same reasons. We don’t allow people to blow cigarette smoke in your face, why should we allow people to blow wood smoke into your home?
17. Wood burning is not even close to carbon neutral over the short term, the next few decades, and it is that time frame that will make or break the climate crisis. Burning wood is extremely in inefficient. Per unit of heat created wood produces even more CO2 than the fossil fuels do. Furthermore, the black carbon particulate matter released enhances the absorption of radiant heat in the atmosphere, making global warming worse, and prematurely melts already imperiled mountain snow pack.

I have always loved building fires in the fireplace and enjoyed many campfires in my life. But now they're telling me it's almost as bad as cigarette smoke?!

I always assumed since wood is natural it is not a terrible thing to burn for heat, unlike oil or gasoline.

I think the article is written with a lot of bias and stretching though. Just from point #7: burning wood is poisoning your neighbors!!!

And the final point throws in global warming....I mean climate change....and how those nasty wood burners are going to destroy the planet!

What do ya'll think?

Link

I don't believe it. I don't believe the government. I don't believe the scientists, the priests and especially the doctors and I can't even believe the lawyer I hired because she is part of the system that wants to keep me a slave cause I can cut my own wood to heat my house from my own land and George Bush or Dick Cheney or Rothchild can't steal that from me. I work with doctors every day and I KNOW that they are all full of sh$t and all in the pockets of big pharma and a lot of times they are so f$cking clueless they don't even realize it. Ego is a bitch.

a reply to: ArnoldNonymous
Given that so much of our environment is salted with poisons from every aspect of modern processes, I would like to think that they had better things to do than to jump on the "ban wood-burning" advocates.

If those docs were to solidly go after banning nuclear energy and weapons, known pesticides that damage human health, known GMOs that are also bad,dangerous products in our foods, etc., I would be all for any pronouncements that they wish to inflict upon us, but they ignore the several elephants in the room and go for the tiny gnats buzzing around the monster's bung holes.

a reply to: Aliensun

to all:

Remember how they demonized punished (taxes) and isolated smokers - calling them dirty filthy stinking etc.

Now you can all see that a simple wood burning stove affected entire neighbourhoods worse than smokers ever did.

But I want you also to remember that man has been exposed to smoke (from burning of all kinds of organic material) to heat their homes and cook their food since man discovered fire. Indeed our entire respiratory system evolved and developed in the presence of smoke and copious amount of it.

Now remember that since the population switched over to natural gas and electricity for heating and cooking (about the 1950s, asthma and allergy in children has increased about 800 % with no end in sight.

They demonized smokers with only statistics and propaganda to convince non-smokers that smokers were killing them. They will do the same with wood burners, people who wear perfumes or perfumed grooming products.

Enjoy the ride folks - smokers had to endure it while you laughed - now smokers will laugh at you! We warned you about interfering with personal lifestyles and slippery slopes but you didn't believe us.

It is wrong to ban smoking on privately owned property and it is just as wrong to ban wood burning stoves.

How do you like being criminilized?

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: ArnoldNonymous

One of the biggest causes of nutrient deficiency has been due to the lack of burning wood.
20 of the longest living peoples on the planet are in 3rd world countries where they burn wood to cook,the ashes off the wood gets blown out by the wind and ends up all over the crops and soil which is beneficial and adds minerals and nutrients into the crop which our bodies need.
Most likely another plan to stop us from being independent in some way where we can cook for free.

I distrust most policies nowadays,the World is ran by loony bin bureaucrats that have meaningless lives until they sit at their desks and play God.

Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment is likely a "front group" for those in power who seek total control over us.

Mankind has warmed itself with wood heat since we stepped up from ape-hood.

Don't be fooled by this bullcrap.

They are of course referring to open fires in your home. Combustion heaters are much cleaner, more efficient and produce more heat.

Here in Oz and NZ new open fire installations have been banned for years for all the reasons mentioned. We still have fireplaces though.

The thing is .... I don't want this to be true. But I must accept that it may be true.

Judging by the comments people are calling B.S. without examining the evidence - real resistance (don't take away the simple pleasure of an open fire !!!!!)

If the evidence supports these claims - you would be a fool to ignore it !


Sam Harris - The Fireplace Delusion

I have some reading to do ....
Naeher et al. (2007). Woodsmoke Health Effects: A Review. Inhalation Toxicology, 19, 67-106.

Wood and fire is how man kind survived to where we are. Need to heat your cave, gather some firewood. Need to cook your food, use firewood. It's not as deadly as they are trying to make it seem, else a lot of people that did use wooden stoves for heating and eating would have died with a noticeable correlation.

Unless (tin foil hat) it IS a conspiracy that has been kept secret since man learned to use wood for fire!

That is my first thought but it is time to look up the sources that are being used to justify their stance.

"Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that exposure to the concentrations and durations of woodsmoke associated with residential woodburning is likely to cause a variety of aderse respiratory health effects.

That's in the book. It seems burning wood is bad for your health after all.