When you think of someone living off the grid, relying on nature, and not creating much of a carbon footprint, you likely think of some cabin in the woods, with a massive garden, all sorts of animals, and a wood-burning stove. After all, this is what life has looked like for humankind for centuries, long before we introduced technology that turned oil into fumes and minerals into metals and plastics that now pollute the Earth.
And yet, when it comes to living “green,” as the political left calls it, there is one thing that’s a major no-no: Burning firewood for fuel to heat your home.
In fact, last year, in the United Kingdom, the government even began cracking down on the use of wood-burning stoves, virtually banning them for private or commercial use.
The question is, why?
I mean, trees, where wood obviously comes from, are a renewable source, unlike the metals it takes to create solar panels or the engines to run wind turbines (which still require fossil fuels to operate, by the way).
Well, according to research conducted in a government study, burning wood and coal for home use puts massive amounts of “fine particulate matter” or PM 2.5 into the air. And if you know anything about pollutants, this is a particularly nasty one that is supposedly one of the main sources of humankind’s carbon footprint on the Earth and why our climate is falling apart.
The study claimed that wood-burning stoves in the UK “contributed to nearly half of all fine particle emissions” and that it was the “single largest source” of PM 2.5 in the country. And all this from a mere eight percent of the nation’s homes being fueled in this way.
And so they moved to ban such energy sources, including wet wood and bagged coal.
However, it has recently come to the nation’s attention that figures put forward in that study were rather exaggerated.
According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, also known as Defra – the UK’s equivalent of our Environmental Protection Agency – last year’s study on wood and coal-burning stoves had a number of flaws.
I know you are shocked. That a government study would manipulate figures to push forward legislation on their agenda is just appalling…
So how bad was the study flawed? Well, according to the most recent figures on the topic, it is estimated that the supposed damage caused by burning wood and coal in this way is only about half if not less than what it was previously suggested to be.
As the UK’s Express reported, “Most recent figures from Defra suggest it is overall less than a quarter of the total” PM2.5 produced in the nation.
So what caused such a vast difference in numbers? According to Express, it seems the government had “mistakenly logged newly-installed stoves as additions rather than replacement, which likely skewed the results.”
Basically, they rather sloppily both collected and input their data, whether that was the intention or not. And then, they allowed that data to be used by leftist elites dead set on banning one of the most efficient and timeless heating sources known to man.
But as Andy Hill, chairman of the Stove Industry Alliance, believes the numbers in the new study are still far higher than actual numbers. And as such, he has stated that he and the SIA “would welcome further research into particulate matter source apportionment for domestic combustion.”
Of course, none of this has stopped eager leftists such as climate activist Simon Birkett of Clean Air in London from continuing to demand that wood-burning stoves should be banned, regardless of their not so detrimental environmental effects.
As he told The Telegraph, it doesn’t matter what the number is, “it’s still an extremely serious problem.”
I imagine he still agrees with Alexandria Ocasio Cortez about how the seas will soon swallow both all of California and much of the eastern seaboard. Oh, wait, that was supposed to happen a while ago…
And yet, they are still above water.
Could it be that this is yet another attempt for them to weaponize climate change, raise your taxes, and push socialist policies? Given newly proven fudged numbers, I’d say it’s more than likely.
