| ▲ | WA 6 hours ago |
| No smokers in my neighborhood, but people use their goddamn fireplaces too much and it’s kinda impossible to get fresh air in winter evenings and often during the day. Not sure how to train them. And unfortunately, there are too many. Burning wood should be forbidden in residential areas. It’s similar to smoking in restaurants, except you can’t escape them. |
|
| ▲ | j-conn 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| 100% agree, many people don’t realize just how harmful wood smoke is. It’s also the main source of pollution in the Bay Area during the winter. Unfortunately energy costs are high enough here that people resort to burning wood to save money, so collectively beneficial policies are likely to face resistance (understandably). The purpleair map has been awesome to at least make the problem visible. I hope they are using it to aid enforcement on spare the air days. |
| |
| ▲ | its_ubuntu 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Wood smoke is harmful? Hardly. Did you notice how they have banned and demonized tobacco, but the lung cancer rate keeps increasing? I just don't get it! Now they're coming for wood stoves next. I'm sure the cancer will go away after that. | | |
| ▲ | 47282847 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | “Burning wood at home produces more pollution than road traffic” https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjdne9ke0m1o “Residential wood-burning is the biggest source of particulate matter and soot/black carbon in Europe” https://www.fern.org/publications-insight/latest-evidence-on... “domestic wood-burning is the largest source of particulate pollution in the UK. Only 8% of the UK’s homes burn wood, but this accounts for around 21% of the total PM2.5 emissions, whereas all traffic on the UK roads produces 13%” https://medium.com/the-new-climate/why-the-environmental-mov... | | |
| ▲ | its_ubuntu 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Ah yes, the proverbial Quick Google Search that proves me wrong. Sorry, can't be bothered to take any of that noise seriously. As I pointed out in my other now-censored post, I breathe in smoke every day through the copious amount of weed I smoke, and have done so for decades. I'm in perfect health. Odds are, much better than you in fact. When was the last time you were sick? For me it has been decades. Let's compare notes and decide which of us really knows the meaning of health. Everything is a lie. Believe none of it. |
| |
| ▲ | f33d5173 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Did you notice how they have banned and demonized tobacco, but the lung cancer rate keeps increasing? No, I noticed the opposite. They demonized tobacco, and lung cancer rates went dowm precipitously. | | |
|
|
|
| ▲ | adsteel_ 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| My romantic views of wood smoke hit reality when I first camped in Canada's Banff-Jasper national parks, where you could buy unlimited firewood for the night for $5. Everyone bought it, it seemed. Trying to breathe downwind of a campground was a rude wakeup call. It should definitely be restricted in denser residential areas. I can't imagine some of the towns in Germany or Poland where residents depend on wood fires for heat. |
| |
| ▲ | schrectacular 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Where they depend on wood for heat they are more likely to have efficient stoves that completely burn the wood. Smoke coming out of the chimney is "firing for the crows" and wasting fuel. | |
| ▲ | sejje 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | People should just make better fires. A good fire doesn't release much, if any smoke. It burns it up instead. A good woodstove is worth the money. | | |
| ▲ | robocat 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The stink remains even for efficient fires. Smoke is often correlated of course. I'm in Christchurch, New Zealand which gets winter smog,. The city council enforces rules and woodburners need to meet strict emission standards. They regularly tighten the rules so that if you want a woodburner you need to replace it every 15 years or so. But they do still smell. The rules have radically improved the air quality here and we now get much less smog than when I was a kid. Outright banning open fires and coal years ago made a big difference too. I'm not sure what happens if you don't follow the rules. A neighbour can make a complaint and there will get taken seriously and I believe they have a van sometimes checking too. Although I've personally never heard of anyone actually getting caught. | | |
| ▲ | its_ubuntu 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sounds like a hellish existence, friend. No wonder all the elites like that place so much. | | |
| |
| ▲ | sevensor 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | People have romantic ideas about heating with fire and burn the most awful green wood in their fireplaces, stinking up the whole neighborhood. I understand burning bad wood because you have no options -- I witnessed a chimney fire or two as a kid that resulted from burning too much wet pine -- but I cannot fathom the mindset of someone who does it recreationally. | | |
| ▲ | sejje an hour ago | parent [-] | | Meanwhile my neighbor is burning wood he stacked eight years ago. Some of it precious, too. Like black walnut. |
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | carey 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The atmosphere above Christchurch, NZ tends to form layers in winter that trap the smoke and make this worse, and new fireplaces have been restricted to clean-burning log burners and dry wood by law. It seemed like the biggest change in air quality in recent years came from the tragic earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 knocking down all the unreinforced-masonry chimneys, though. |
| |
|
| ▲ | DiggyJohnson 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I cannot fathom making this comparison. |
|
| ▲ | its_ubuntu 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| If you want "fresh air", why do you live near other people? Especially an entire neighborhood full of people who burn things, if you hate smoke. You can't have everything exactly how you please. Nothing worse than a busybody neighbor who thinks he owns the patent on how to live in a neighborhood. I live way out in the country exactly so I can live how I choose without some judgmental ass breathing down my neck. Maybe you should do the same to escape the terrible, obnoxious smell of burning wood. I'm sure there's weed smokers in the neighborhood causing you serious quality of life problems too. Escape while you still can! |
| |
| ▲ | WA 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Good neighborhood = keep your emissions low. Be it sound, light, or smell. These rules apply to almost all public places. If you want to be loud, burn shit or have floodlights, move to a place outside of the city. | | |
| ▲ | its_ubuntu 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > move to a place outside of the city Now there's an idea I can get behind. Best move I ever made. City living and I just don't mix. | | |
| ▲ | sejje 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Five miles from pavement, and my air quality is perfect 365 days per year. I hear some gunshots during hunting season, echoing across the valley, but they'd be drowned out by the frogs singing--they're way louder. Wait until these guys start telling you you don't need a truck. | | |
| ▲ | technothrasher 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > I hear some gunshots during hunting season I don't mind the gunshots near my house during hunting season, because I have good neighbors. Those shots mean my freezer is getting stocked with venison. | | |
| ▲ | sejje an hour ago | parent [-] | | I live far enough out that the gunshots are usually people hunting NFS land. A huge swath of it borders my property, as I'm the last house up the road on my mountain. I don't mind 'em at all, though. I think it's locals, just folks I haven't met. They keep it clean and they go up far enough I can't hear anything besides the rifle crack. |
| |
| ▲ | its_ubuntu 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Right there with you man. Frogs and crickets and birds and all. |
|
| |
| ▲ | blazers777 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | i see both sides, having lived with both super sensitive and petty neighbors, and also inconsiderate, loud neighbors. There are definitely sensitive people who have either misophonia rage, or PTSD from something, and they can't handle normal levels of city noise. on top of that, some apartments simply allow smoking inside. If they always use the balcony, they're really doing you a favor. if you are worried about emissions, you really have to think about cars and refineries and jets, and even restaurants. These are incredibly out of control when it comes to pollution and disease. in my experience, if you're buying machines and building devices, and your target refuses to play that game, then it's clear who the adult is, and who the child is. |
|
|
