Our need to advocate for those who heat with wood responsibly is because wood heating is under attack. While just about every trend or activity gets attacked in one way or another these days, what makes wood burning a little different, is that it is not being defended very well, despite the fact that millions of households do it. Here are some thoughts on why it is attacked and why it is poorly defended.

• Although some people talk wistfully about how the sweet, spicy smell of wood smoke in the air on a cool autumn evening transports them back to the happy times of their youth, lots of others interpret that smell as rank air pollution. The fact is that beyond the slightest hint of the aromatic constituents of wood smoke in the air, the stuff stinks and is not good to breathe.
• Wood heating is considered a primarily rural activity, and cities now house around 80% of the population, so people who heat with wood can easily be dismissed as a marginal minority. This seems to be the case even though about half of all households that claim to burn wood live in areas classified as urban and many of those use conventional fireplaces. But when it comes to pollution that can affect peoples’ health, the use of strictly decorative fireplaces in urban areas can be viewed as irresponsible and frivolous.
• Big, influential institutions like governments, insurance companies and big-reach media outlets are almost exclusively urban in location and outlook. To them, wood heating may be viewed as romantic at best and archaic at worst. It is rarely seen as essential.
• Corporations have a big influence on government and media, but wood heating has a comparatively tiny corporate presence despite the fact that more than three million Canadian households and over 10 million in the US burn wood. There are no lobbyists in expensive suits prowling the halls of government with the defence of wood heat as their main preoccupation.
• Some firewood is user-produced and some is traded in the informal economy, a clearly negative connotation implying tax evasion. In ultra-modern, urban-centric societies like ours the practice of bartering or scavenging for heating fuel may be seen as mildly eccentric.
• Further to the previous point, the UN System of National Accounts yields the widely-used Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to allow comparison of various country's economic activity. GDP only records money transactions, so things like homemaking, child and elder care, home vegetable gardening and the labour devoted to heating with wood literally don't count.
• Some government agencies have found it politically expedient to take a negative tone about wood heating or to simply remain passive. Municipal governments want to be seen to protect their publics from smoke pollution. Even though people generally say they don’t trust government, when government says something is bad, people take it seriously.
• Wood heating has very powerful adversaries in the form of government health agencies and non-governmental respiratory health organizations. Because these agencies deal only with health, they see only the impacts. With some notable exceptions, they don’t know much about mitigating strategies or the fact that all energy sources have serious impacts, but are not as visible or smelly as wood smoke. To them, anyone who defends wood heating must be in favor of damaging children's lungs and causing old people to die prematurely.

Here are brief profiles of some of the activist web sites that call for bans on wood burning. The objective here is not to harass them, but to learn from their tactics and assess the quality of their arguments.

Burning Issues/Clean Air Revival

From the front page:

“Clean Air Revival provides public education about the medical hazards of exposure to wood smoke and other fine particulate pollution. Smoke from residential burning of wood and coal, wood burning restaurants and outdoor burning of wood, leaves, crops, tires and debris is permeating our neighborhoods, resulting in high ground level concentrations of toxic air pollution.”

This is the grandmamma of all anti-wood burning websites. It is beautifully designed and with all the right features to make people stay and learn and buy into the message. Mary Rozenberg has been active against wood burning for more than twenty years. The site is worth a visit just to appreciate the propaganda quality.

Citizens for Environmental Health

From the front page:

“Report: Montreal Bans EPA Certified Stoves. Integrity of EPA Science Proven False! Dioxin proven increased in Certified EPA. Home Use Contradicts Labs which are owned by the manufacturer. See: (Intertek Study funded by Environment Canada, 2002 proves Dioxin Furans Increased 400% in Certified Stoves.)”

Stella Haley, who lives in Pointe Claire, Quebec, (near Montreal) said that when her son was diagnosed some years ago with cancer at age 31, it prompted her to look into the correlation between air pollution and cancer. She has been very vocal and regularly posts comments following online stories about wood heating.

The “facts” quoted above from the site are all incorrect and we’ll be dealing with those in future articles at the Woodpile.

Wood Burners Smoke

Shirley Brandie of Amherstburg, near Windsor, Ontario hosts this site. She is angry about her neighbour’s wood smoke.

From the front page:

“I can tell you first-hand what it is like when one is forced to deal with a smoke issue, as I have lived through it. I can tell you that the stench permeates your entire home, your clothing, your hair, and you can even taste it. Exposure to the smoke was extremely uncomfortable and caused burning eyes, dry throat, irritation of the nasal passages and headaches. When the smoke stopped, so did the symptoms.”

Shirley obviously has or had a very bad neighbor. Shirley is one of the people we had a reasonably pleasant and respectful email exchange with. You can read it here.

Canadian Clean Air Alliance

Mission Statement:

“Our intention is to educate the public about the grave health hazards to human life and the severe effects that wood burning has on global warming. We strive to protect Canadians from the health hazards, pollution, nuisance and interruption to normal daily life from all residential wood burning smoke and odour both indoors and outside.”

Notice that this site and others attack the claim that wood is a renewable fuel that can help cut greenhouse gas emissions if used to displace fossil fuels. We will be explaining in future articles how firewood is a renewable resource that when used effectively can reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Activist Shirley Brandie runs the Ontario chapter of CCA

Vicki Morell runs the BC chapter.

Joan Doiron, Nathalie Doiron and Giulia Dalesio run the Quebec chapter.

Residents Against Wood Smoke Emission Particulates

From the front page:

"RAWSEP is a group of private citizens who are adversely affected by wood smoke emission particulates caused by wood burning by their neighbors. Burning wood for residential home heating and water heating causes air pollution and needs regulation and bans."

The RAWSEP site has recently been renovated and is now easier to use and much deeper in content. The site owner claims to represent others, but the site appears to be the work of one person. That person carefully guards their identity.

Wood Smoke Free New York

"Wood Smoke is a Public Nuisance and urgent health issue facing many New Yorkers (as well as the entire USA and other countries) today. The right to burn or not to burn causes heated debates from both sides. We'll present arguments and facts to help educate people on the dangers and severe health hazards of involuntary inhalation of wood smoke. We've banned barrel burning of leaves and trash.  We've banned cigarette smoking in public places. Why not ban wood smoke?  We teach our children NOT to smoke cigarettes. It's been proven that second hand cigarette smoke can cause lung cancer and other health issues. Yet we allow our children to inhale uninvited wood smoke into their lungs on a daily basis. This is ludicrous. Would we give our kids a carton of cigarettes and tell them to chain smoke? Of course not!  So why then, do we permit them to live inside a house that is constantly being bombarded by wood smoke? It makes no sense at all."

Victoria of WFNY wrote to us at woodheat.org and we responded. You can read our exchange here.

Environment and Human Health

From the front page:

"Environment and Human Health, Inc. asks the Connecticut Legislature to help the many people in the state who are being made sick from breathing their neighbor's wood smoke on a continuous basis."

This New England group deals with several environmental issues, not just wood smoke.

North St. Paul, MN - The Most Polluted City In The World

From the front page:

"WELCOME TO HELL ON EARTH

The air is smoky from burning wood in North St. Paul, MN, all the time. It is a nightmare. What used to be a nice place to live has become a living hell. Fresh air is very rare around here. If you are considering moving to North St. Paul or buying a home here, I strongly recommend that you do not do it no matter how good of a price you get. The only way you will be happy in this town is if you love breathing smoky air each and every day."

This is an activist blog, with 230 posts so far this year. The blogger posts almost every day, commenting on what the air smells like. The person responsible for it very carefully hides his/her identity.

Those are a few of the anti-wood burning activists posting on the internet. This review is not intended to be comprehensive, but is just a sample to get a an idea of what kind of language the activists use and how they handle information to make their case. We plan to analyse and respond to some of the claims made by them in the coming weeks and months.

JG