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You go out and cut wood for that wood stove and breathe in that fresh, cool air. You get a work out like no other. You know, it isn't like you're sitting next to some open fire inhaling raw smoke, far from it. Modern wood stoves are air tight and very efficient.
The water kettle on top of the stove puts humidity back into the air and when you need to make coffee or tea, you aren't running to a stove somewhere to get hot water, it is always there as a side benefit.
If it was all as bad as the pink hat thinkers would have you believe (since someone introduced black and other color hat thinking, this is valid) humans would never have survived past living in caves, humankind would have died out long ago.
Look, in California just this year alone, more wood was burned in forest fires than in all probability all the wood burned in stoves in the same year. It is like that every year and has been for decades and since wood stoves were invented.
It is another control mechanism at work not based on anything but scare tactics and making the smallest of problems seem the monster in the room.
Should every home use wood for heat? Please, no one is even suggesting that. The homes that do use wood though, aren't killing the rest of humanity because they use wood.
Then we get to costs. It would be nice if everyone could use a renewable fuel source that was clean and created no pollution but that isn't available and where it is, isn't inexpensive. The idea that it doesn't matter because we need to pay whatever it costs is an idea removed from reality. Tell the family that they can either heat their homes at a high cost with some renewable energy solution or they can go out and cut wood and have heat all winter and see what they tell you.
Notice that the renewable in renewable energy never ever includes renewable money to pay for it?
If it was all as bad as the pink hat thinkers would have you believe (since someone introduced black and other color hat thinking, this is valid) humans would never have survived past living in caves, humankind would have died out long ago.
What would it take to get you to put on a White Hat for a while and just take in the facts rather than leaping to ridicule everything that doesn't fit your already made up mind?
The health hazards from breathing wood smoke are not some obscure theory, they are well researched and thoroughly established medical facts. They've guided US Government policy for decades.
Comparing breathing smoke from a forest fire for a few days to breathing in peripheral smoke day after day, for years at a time, is nonsense. And comparing life today, when we live longer than ever before, to earlier eras when average lifespan was far lower than what we now enjoy, just shows that you aren't considering the big picture.
Being so totally committed to bashing the use of clean, renewable energy, no matter what the context, makes no logical sense.
Fossil fuels are not renewable, and they are polluting. Their use is not sustainable. This forum is about sustainability and ecological responsibility. Instead of criticizing every attempt to step away from what is clearly not working, why not get yourself on the side of moving forwards for a change?
I am certain that wood smoke contains hundreds of carcinogens.
I do not doubt that inhaling that for many decades could possibly effect your health [many many decades].
I have not seen any studies that prove having a woodstove will negatively effect your health.
Don't be obtuse. There are many, many studies that show that regular, repeated exposure to wood smoke causes health problems. Here just one:
With regard to adults, studies show that prolonged inhalation of
wood smoke contributed to chronic bronchitis (Rajpandey6
, 1984), chronic interstitial lung disease, pulmonary arterial hypertension and cor
pulmonale (Sandoval7 et al., 1993), and altered pulmonary immune
defense mechanisms (Demarest8 et al., 1979; Ramage9 et al., 1988).
While adverse effects on adults are notable, children appear to be at
greatest risk. Many studies that focused specifically on RWC have
concluded that young children living in homes heated by a wood-burning
stove had a greater occurrence of moderate and severe chronic respiratory
symptoms than children of the same age and sex who did not live in
homes heated with a wood burning stove.
Exposure of preschool children living in homes heated with wood burning stoves or in houses with open
fireplaces yielded these effects: decreased pulmonary lung function in
young asthmatics (Koenig10 et al., 1993); increased incidence of acute
bronchitis and severity/frequency of wheezing and coughing (Butterfield11
et al., 1989); and increased incidence, duration, and possibly severity of
acute respiratory infections (Honicky12 13 et al., 1983, 1985; Rajpandey,
1984; Morris14 et al., 1990; Collings15 et al., [quote]
Overexaggeration, all of it, designed to mask the truth rather than reveling it.
Quote:
Wood smoke from a properly drafting woodstove? Can anyone site any study otherwise?
Ever been in a house with a properly drafting modern woodstove that you couldn't smell any smoke at all? Me neither. If you can smell the smoke it's at dangerous levels for daily exposure. Occasional use is OK, weekend cabin use is fine, but daily use? Not healthy.
It is weeks, not a few days as claimed in the previous post. Not even close.
The AVERGE is 5 weeks for each fire, not all fires.
Comparing the burning of wood for heat as much less a threat that forest fires is somehow bashing renewable energy. Such is the pin hat thinking syndrome.
Forest fires rage for weeks, not days as is claimed above. How the facts get ignored.
Pollution from forest fires is a well known problem and thoroughly documented regardless of what pink hat thinkers might claim.
Here are some sources, from "green" environment organizations no less that directly contract the pink hat thinking that forest fires are of little consequence when it comes to pollution:
Would some of the scientists supporting the above information also support the information surrounding climate change? You betcha. So it is okay to believe them when they support the ideas of climate change but not forest fire pollution? Just how does that hypocrisy work?
Now, citing forest fires as a pollution source is dismissed and called bashing renewable energy? Pink thinking indeed.
From the cited article:
"The scientists report that smoke from fires on July 12–14 drifted across Canada, down the Mississippi River valley, and through Dallas, eventually settling in Houston nearly a week later (July 19–20). For the several days that the smoke cloud lingered over Houston, ground-level ozone levels (measured at 0–5 kilometers above the Earth’s surface) increased 50 to 100 percent, resulting in the highest eight-hour maximum ozone levels ever recorded for a July day in Houston between 2001 and 2005."
Now notice something - that pollution affected everyone in the studied area, not some people. It wasn't contained to the certain homes or limited areas burning wood for heat, it affected a large city in it's entirety.
From the EPA site no less (a source so often cited by pin hat thinking)
Read page 5 and notice that in 1998, 287,505.3 tons of CO were released into the environment as a result of forest fires.
Apparently, over 287 thousand tons of CO isn't a big deal. Well, lets add in the 4011931.6 tons of Co2, an acknowledged greenhouse gas and according to pink hat thinkers, that isn't of any significant consequence either.
That would be well over 4 million tons of Co2.
What is amazing is that the mere mention of forest fires as a significant and greater pollution source than wood burning stoves attracts such negativity from anyone.
It is a fact that many forest fires are caused by humans. Those fires aren't part of the normal causes but artificially created pollution sources, yet they are almost completely dismissed as having little to do with environmental hazards, yet let someone stoke a wood stove and the pink thinkers come out of the woodwork (pun intended) to claim renewable energy bashing.
In 1998 (and things haven't gotten better since then) nearly 4 and 1/2 million tons of greenhouse gases and other pollutants (not to mention particulates) were released into the atmosphere as a result of forest fires.
That is according to pink hat thinking, minor and of little significance compared to wood burning stoves. That has not been proved beyond reasonable dispute. For the studies say this is true there are others that claim otherwise.
Forest fires are not "green". When they occur in nature, they impact many benefits to the environment but forest fires no longer occur in the pristine environment. Now they occur in forests where human have interceded with the natural management of the forest.
Now some of the largest fires are started not by natural causes by on purpose and with malice but that means little to the pink thinkers because all they ever see is the single issue of renewable energy.
Well, there are virtually no virgin forests remaining in the USA in many other countries but that doesn't bother the pink thinkers because if it doesn't involve a solar panel or wind turbine it isn't green.
Hello? Green came from the color of the trees, the grasses and so on. It didn't come from solar panels, wind turbines or anything like that.
Forest fires last for a few days? A falsehood. Here is proof that is otherwise:
"The duration of individual fires has also jumped, from an average of one week to five weeks."
No problem, I stand corrected. I wasn't making any claim, nor was it a falsehood, I was merely referencing my own experiences with maybe a half dozen forest fires during my years living in Colorado and California a couple of decades ago, when they were week long events in which the smoke might be bad for a couple of days.
In any case, even if a forest fire IS a five week long event today, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the known health hazards of ongoingly breathing secondary smoke from wood stoves for months at a time, year after year. Nothing.
If reduction of fuel supplies in forests is the goal, controlling the burn is appropriate. Here on the Big Island of Hawai'i a pilot system is operating now to generate electricity in a GreenER way by burning eucalyptus trees in a a converted coal fired generating plant.
The trees were planted as the sugar plantations closed in order to reduce soil erosion. Now at the end of their natural lifespan, they become brittle and subject to storm damage, and the fallen trees are highly flammable and create a hazard of forest fires. Now the dead and dying trees are harvested and burned to fire the steam boilers that power the generators, will high tech sensors and controls minimize the resulting smokestack emissions. It's a win and a win and a win... reducing forest fire hazard, using the fuel to generate electricity, and reducing the pollution that burning large quantities of wood produces.
One out of five correct. Not a very good batting average, if you ask me! Yes, wood smoke does contain many carcinogens and other harmful substsnces.
No, bacon doesn't kill, per se., & ditto for the others.
Of all the things killing people today, wood smoke isn't at the top of the list nor even close.
When we ban cigarettes and other forms of smoking, then let's talk about smoke from fire places. Smoke from burning materials is harmful when inhaled, like the person who stands by a BBQ every weekend, walks behind a gas powered lawnmower, or the person who smokes marijuana (most studies cite regular smoking of marijuana as 1 joint per day - at one cigarette per day there would be a lot fewer cancers from cigarette smoking too ).
Does that mean the dangers of smoke from wood burning is inconsequential or to be ignored? Hardly, but perspective always helps, there are many bigger problems when it comes to cancer.
The very manufacture of solar panels reeks of cancer causing chemicals:
"A report released today by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition admonishes the solar industry to face its e-waste problem head on or risk “repeating the mistakes made by the microelectronics industry.”
The SVTC warns that solar panel production creates many of the same toxic byproducts as those found in semiconductor production, including silicon tetrachloride, dusts, and greenhouse gases like sulfur hexafluoride. These byproducts aren’t anything to scoff at— silicon tetrachloride, for example, makes land unsuitable for growing crops. And for each ton of polysilicon produced, four tons of silicon tetrachloride are generated."
The question of the harmful effects of residential wood stoves for heating isn't a simple one but it isn't the biggest piece of the cancer causing pie either.
One out of five correct. Not a very good batting average, if you ask me! Yes, wood smoke does contain many carcinogens and other harmful substsnces.
No, bacon doesn't kill, per se., & ditto for the others.
Then why when some people visit their Doctor are they told that if they continue eating the stuff it will kill them?
Everything in excess will kill you. There are people who smoke their entire lives and then live longer than most. Should you smoke to live longer? Of course not but like everything, things affect people differently.
The by-products of burning wood can kill you, no argument there.
The by-products of solar panel manufacture will kill you too and cause far more damage to the environment because getting rid of it, even if recycled isn't a very good solution.
Sulfur hexafluoride gas is produced in the manufacture of silicon. One ton of sulfur hexafluoride gas is equivalent to 25,000 tons of Co2.
So in going back to getting free energy, there is no such thing and the things that are often claimed to be the most viable solutions are also some of the most damaging to the environment in the long run.
To be clear, no one is arguing that solar panels are more harmful than coal, oil or other fossil fuels when used to harvest power but like many things touted as being "the answer" it isn't and at some point, all chickens come home to roost.
Last edited by Mack Knife; 11-10-2014 at 11:07 AM..
The question of the harmful effects of residential wood stoves for heating isn't a simple one but it isn't the biggest piece of the cancer causing pie either.
No, most things aren't either. But consider that cancer is not one disease, but about 200 distinct diseases, with widely differing causes. Do we stop work on most of them and just concentrate a couple of the biggies? No, there is ongoing research addressing each of them, with more resources devoted to the highest priorities.
Same thing with addressing pollution issues. Some are more pressing than others, and some obviously deserve more of our attention, but that doesn't mean we just ignore everything else, particularly something as obvious as the known dangers from woodsmoke, which has been on the dashboard for many decades.
The EPA Phase II standards went into effect in 1990, and they made wood stoves more efficient, since smoke up the chimney is energy wasted.
Quote:
The EPA Phase II generation of wood stoves is typically 7-15 times cleaner than older models, 40%-50% more efficient and typically uses 30-40% less wood. Naturally, these improvements save homeowners work and money.
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