Alaskans’ Cost of Staying Warm: A Thick Coat of Dirty Air (This is What Climate Regulations Do)

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
Yeah, how very dramatic that people are complaining that the globalists under President Obama are slowly turning the U.S. into another Venezuela... perhaps you don't understand that people don't want to be taxed to death, and frozen to death because of "Obama's (and your) fight against climate change"...

Let's hope President elect Trump does something about this BS about "fighting climate change"...

Yet, here you are advocating new taxes when you say there needs to be a government rebate program in order to upgrade.

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
www.nytimes.com...

This is what I was fearing

This is what I was fearing, too - another hoax thread based on either poor reading or comments on the article by some other site who committed the poor reading.

So let's break down the bull#:

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
The EPA under Obama's administration has implemented several "regulations to combat climate" which will affect the livelihood of many people and possibly their lives. While on the one hand the pollution due to the cold weather in Alaska "could be bad".
...
In 2008 the EPA declared an area of nonattainment for Fairbanks and the North Pole.

So the nonattainment is the activist Obama administration's EPA regulations... when did Obama take office, again?
Oh yeah, 2009 - guess this dastardly deed happened under Bush.

Also, maybe you should read the article:

Dr. Olson, who works with racing sled dogs in her veterinary practice and volunteers with Citizens for Clean Air, a local group that has sued the E.P.A. to force a decision on Fairbanks pollution

Oh look - the EPA hasn't been pursuing this - a local group sued them in an effort to force the EPA to action.

Why would that group be trying to get the EPA to take away their wood-burning stoves - is it because of 'climate change' as ElectricUniverse alleges?

But here in one of the coldest parts of the coldest state, there is an only-in-Alaska pollution story: At about minus 20 Fahrenheit — a fairly regular occurrence here in winter — smoke that goes up comes right back down, to linger at ground level and, therefore, lung level. The average from 2013 to 2015 for dangerous small-particle pollution, called PM 2.5, which can be deeply inhaled into the lungs, was by far the highest in the nation in North Pole, just southeast of Fairbanks, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Ah - literally health and safety reasons.

Yep, yet another hoax. Thanks again. Please bin this garbage.

a reply to: Greven

Thank you for the clarity.

I still believe the premise of the thread is sound, however... environmental regulation run amok.

If Dr. Olson wins the suit, there will be deaths from the resulting regulations. Deaths. People will die of exposure, or be forced into criminality to stay alive. Never, ever, should there be any regulation that forces that choice. Dr. Olson should be sentenced to spend a week in the dead of winter with absolutely no heat, along with any other members of the group.

There are people who do not have the advantages that others do. Veterinarians make good money and this one no doubt has the latest and greatest heating system at home. If the pollution is that much of a concern (and i don't doubt it is), that group could raise the money to help those with older stoves buy and install newer ones, but that's apparently too hard. It's so much easier to make demands in front of a judge in a warm courtroom. I have no sympathy for anyone who would take such an inhumane action. Those sled dogs probably get heated quarters, but people? Nah, let them freeze.

And this would not even be possible if the regulations weren't written so broadly to begin with. I don't care who instituted them; I care about people surviving. Political blame be damned.

TheRedneck

Well ...after giving it a little consideration. It looks like the only reasonable solution is for the city to implement some type of program to ensure that all it's citizens get an EPA compliant stove. Because taking away the right to burn wood is not a reasonable /acceptable option.

Don't all the citizens of Alaska get a check from the state because of the pipeline? Maybe they could somehow incorporate that money into making sure everyone has a compliant stove.

a reply to: TheRedneck

She worked as a mechanic on planes in the late 70s at Elmendorf AFB, so as an Air Force veteran, she might already have done that much time outside in the dead of winter without heat. Even ran for office this past election against Tammie Wilson (the same from the NYT story against any government intervention in the matter).

So a veteran, small business owner, veterinarian... sounds like an American success story... maybe she's just tired of breathing pollution for weeks?

Staying inactive indoors for weeks cannot protect residents when prolonged pollution episodes fill buildings with smoke. A $67,500 air filtration system didn’t protect teachers and students inside Woodriver Elementary

I mean, it's not that bad... right?

Cole, columnist for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, reported “I have found a place that is reporting higher levels of particulate pollution — Guangzhou, a city of 8.5 million in southern China.”

Yeah, the air pollution is really quite bad in North Pole and Fairbanks. Surpassed only by China is not a particularly good distinction.

There is no joking about how bad this # is - look at this:

In the Rectangle of Death, at the intersection of Lineman Avenue and Dawson Road, the sniffer vehicle recorded the Borough’s highest PM2.5: 2,364 μg/m3(12/8/200911:30 am). That day, the 24-hour PM2.5in downtown Fairbanks was 47.6μg/m3

Yeah, cold will kill you, but so does pollution:

Exposure to one day of 100 μg/m3 PM2.5, for example, would be expected to increase a young person’s risk of being hospitalized for a cerebrovascular disorder such as stroke by 70 percent the following day.

Fun stuff! So how did they get into this mess?

FNSB Assembly repealed every code that addresses air pollution.
In 2012, State Representative Tammie Wilson sponsored Proposition 3, a voter initiative she promoted as “local control.” However, its effect was quite the opposite: The borough shall not, in any way, regulate, prohibit, curtail, nor issue fines or fees associated with, the sale, distribution, or operation of heating appliances or any type of combustible fuel.

So basically they can burn anything in whatever heater/stove they want.

As for taking away their stoves...?

Mr. Hamlin, the E.P.A. official, said his agency was definitely not trying to take away anyone’s wood stove, or make life more expensive. But he said the Clean Air Act, passed by Congress in 1970, requires a standard of breathable air for all Americans. The E.P.A. was given the job of enforcing that standard.

“We don’t want to be telling people what to do, but the standard is what it is, and we want to work with you to be able to get there,” he said.

It doesn't seem all that likely.

Regardless, the OP and the title of this thread are about CLIMATE CHANGE while the thrust of the actual article is about HEALTH & POLLUTION.

a reply to: Greven

Greven

Before you start digging the graves of people who live in Fairbanks California, you had best do some reading about the EPA's scandalous failure to fairly evaluate the health effects of PM 2.5 and PM 10. Dr. James Engstrom, an epidimiologist with 30 years of experience took them on and won!

scientificintegrityinstitute.org...

You say that exposure to PM 2.5 increases the risk of a stroke in a young person by 70 %. So what is the risk of a stroke to a young person. It sounds to me that 70 % is a damn close to zero.

The other take on this artrical is that the EPA has faked up its PM 2.5 and PM 10 study to falsely over-regulate the air quality and give themselves more power and control.

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: Phage

First of all, some of these standards began under ex-President Bill Clinton, but under Obama's watch, and thanks to the pricks put in place by Obama, these regulations have been made more stringent and were "updated" under Obama's watch.

Under the Obama administration the 2006 fine particle standard for soot was implemented and to this day it still applies.

Should we look at the EPA own website and see how they designate areas of attainment or nonattainment?

...
EPA uses technical information and recommendations from states and tribes to "designate" areas as attainment or nonattainment.
...

www.epa.gov...

It seems that they decide whether an area is in attainment, or nonattainment based on recommendations from states and tribes. What happens when the state officials in one state, let's say Oklahoma, had a quarrel with state officials of Texas. What is to stop the state officials from Oklahoma to "stick it" to state officials in Texas by complaining that Oklahoma's air quality has worsened because of Texas? After all, the EPA uses not only technical information, but also use recommendations by states and tribes on air quality.

Second of all, I see where all your "progressive compassion" goes when there are people who can't either pay for new stoves, or maybe they already have them but were burning more wood to keep warm, or the wood was damp which causes more smoke.

Then there is the fact that people like you want the government to be able to enter people's homes to tell them and force them to do your will. That's the main gist of this story.

I know you are a control freak, but keep that "control freakiness" in your home and allow people to make their own decisions without you wanting to stick your nose in their homes...

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Then there is the fact that people like you want the government to be able to enter people's homes to tell them and force them to do your will.

You have me confused with someone else. I don't want the government to enter peoples homes and tell them to do my will. Just as you have confused local pollution concerns with climate change.

Of course, I'm pretty glad there are air pollution regulations. I'm glad cesspools are a thing of the past where I live too. I guess you think otherwise.

originally posted by: Phage
You have me confused with someone else. I don't want the government to tell people to do my will. Just as you have confused local pollution concerns with climate change.

Wrong. I posted that article to show that these regulations are being used simply to squeeze states, and the people of more money... i didn't post that to "discuss climate change"...

originally posted by: Phage
You don't think air pollution is a problem?

Since these "new regulations" were made under the Obama administration, and since it has been clear from the start that the Obama administration has implemented many such regulations without the approval of Congress, imo these regulations were made up by the Obama administration simply to impose their own agenda and in the process squeeze people and the states of more money.

a reply to: Greven

Yeah, the air pollution is really quite bad in North Pole

Yikes!

1-1-15

From the News-Miner

Air pollution in North Pole worse than Los Angeles, Milwaukee and Detroit combined

“We could smell chemicals outside the house and also coming into the room where me and my infant daughter at the time slept,” she said.

Francesco said she took multiple trips to the emergency room in the wintertime because of her daughter’s breathing problems.

“Doctors called it croup the first few times,” Francesco said. “After that, her pediatrician called it asthma.”

After the family moved, the ER visits stopped and Francesco said her daughter’s coughing fits decreased.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Wrong.

You said this, right?

Yeah, how very dramatic that people are complaining that the globalists under President Obama are slowly turning the U.S. into another Venezuela... perhaps you don't understand that people don't want to be taxed to death, and frozen to death because of "Obama's (and your) fight against climate change"...

Since these "new regulations" were made under the Obama administration,

Which "new regulations?"

imo these regulations were made up by the Obama administration simply to impose their own agenda and in the process squeeze people and the states of more money.

You are welcome to your opinion.

a reply to: TheRedneck

You haven't lived 'til you experience -40F temps... I never want to again. Fairbanks, January '87.

When you get down into those temps. staying warm becomes very important business...as you may well imagine!

For the EPA to attempt regulation, without also taking into account the fact that the poor can not afford those more efficient stoves is criminal on their part.

My one and only experience with frost bite came in Fairbanks that January... I learned very quickly what cold does, or can do.

Fairbanks in the summer is wonderful. In the winter? Nightmare. My version of hell isn't everlasting fire. It's cold and dark, without a wood stove...

a reply to: seagull

For the EPA to attempt regulation, without also taking into account the fact that the poor can not afford those more efficient stoves is criminal on their part.

Is the EPA doing that?

a reply to: Phage

Now that I had begun to wonder about myself...after I posted. I know they want to. Whether they have or not, I don't know.

It's unenforceable, to my mind. Unless they, the EPA, are going to provide something else for those folks to use for heat...otherwise there are going to be people in dire straits from the cold.

...and it doesn't have to be -40, either, for it to be very dangerous, which you know of course.

If they are so concerned about the air quality, they need to, somehow, provide better ways of heating that folks can afford, and are available at all times.

Making sure homes are insulated, so as to require less in the way of fuel for those less efficient stoves. Not cheap, but doable IMHO.

I doubt that the EPA is going to forbid the burning of wood in stoves... People would ignore it in any case...I certainly would.

What they need to do is to help provide ways for people to abide by the regulations, yet not have to skip bills in order to pay for it. Tax breaks of some sort? Very low interest, long term loans of some sort?

Draconian measures will, almost certainly, not work. Alaskans are unlike most in the Lower 48...they'll only push so far then start pushing back. Speaking as a former, hopefully someday future, Alaskan.

a reply to: Phage

Which new regulations?... If you don't know yet that the Obama administration has changed old laws to the "more progressive views" you have been living under a rock.

Obama Builds Environmental Legacy With 1970 Law

By CORAL DAVENPORT NOV. 26, 2014

WASHINGTON — President Obama could leave office with the most aggressive, far-reaching environmental legacy of any occupant of the White House. Yet it is very possible that not a single major environmental law will have passed during his two terms in Washington.

Instead, Mr. Obama has turned to the vast reach of the Clean Air Act of 1970, which some legal experts call the most powerful environmental law in the world. Faced with a Congress that has shut down his attempts to push through an environmental agenda, Mr. Obama is using the authority of the act passed at the birth of the environmental movement to issue a series of landmark regulations on air pollution, from soot to smog, to mercury and planet-warming carbon dioxide.
...

www.nytimes.com...

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Which new regulations?

Much of Obama's effort was gutted by the SCOTUS, much to never take effect. But allow me to clarify. Which of the new and/or revised rules affect the residents of Fairbanks and their wood burning stoves?

I thought that was the topic.

a reply to: desert

And how much of that smog is coming from China?

China's bad air affects Alaska
Posted: Friday, August 08, 2008
By HAL SPENCE

As Beijing celebrates opening ceremonies of the 29th Olympiad, China's chronic and dangerous smog problems have raised serious health concerns among athletes.

But the dense gray haze hanging over the Asian capital and many other parts of that nation is not simply reason for local anxiety.

Industrial pollutants from China's increasingly robust use of coal are plating out across the globe, including here in Alaska, brought here by storms crossing the Pacific Ocean transporting tons of airborne chemicals that shower onto coastal waters and inland where it they end up in the local food chain, according to scientists studying the phenomenon.
...

peninsulaclarion.com...

Heck, even California is being affected by China's smog.

Made in China: Up to a quarter of California smog

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

You are correct, that the burning of fossil fuel (coal) in China reaches the West Coast and even into Alaska. Thank God, Obama and China signed up with the Paris agreement for shifting away from fossil fuel use!! The world needs to get away from fossil fuel! Too much pollution!!

But, that still does leave the problem of inefficient wood burning stoves in Winter in populated areas of Alaska, especially with inversion layers.

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: Greven

Thank you for the clarity.

I still believe the premise of the thread is sound, however... environmental regulation run amok.

If Dr. Olson wins the suit, there will be deaths from the resulting regulations. Deaths. People will die of exposure, or be forced into criminality to stay alive. Never, ever, should there be any regulation that forces that choice. Dr. Olson should be sentenced to spend a week in the dead of winter with absolutely no heat, along with any other members of the group.

There are people who do not have the advantages that others do. Veterinarians make good money and this one no doubt has the latest and greatest heating system at home. If the pollution is that much of a concern (and i don't doubt it is), that group could raise the money to help those with older stoves buy and install newer ones, but that's apparently too hard. It's so much easier to make demands in front of a judge in a warm courtroom. I have no sympathy for anyone who would take such an inhumane action. Those sled dogs probably get heated quarters, but people? Nah, let them freeze.

And this would not even be possible if the regulations weren't written so broadly to begin with. I don't care who instituted them; I care about people surviving. Political blame be damned.

TheRedneck

We haven't even determined if these regulations apply to people who's primary heat source are wood burning ovens.

I distinctly remember reading that citizens are exempt if they have no other means of heat, I just can't find the passage.

Can anyone CorD this?

a reply to: Phage

Has the EPA conducted a cost/benefit analysis for the fairbanks area.

Tired of Control Freaks