Wood Burning = Illegal

[Robert Maxwell]

Once again, you people seem to think I'm making a huge deal out of something when all I'm doing is bringing it up for discussion. I myself don't even have a fireplace in my apartment. I just general question things being banned that people typically can do in their own homes. Just because I bring something up does not equal me complaining. It's called starting a discussion.

Let's look at your original post, shall we?

Well, in the San Francisco Bay Area it is, anyway...

For the fourth time this week, a Spare the Air alert has been issued for Saturday by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.
According to the district, a high pressure weather system along with colder temperatures have lingered in the Bay Area all week, causing pollution to become trapped and rise to unhealthy levels. When an alert has been issued, it is illegal residents to burn wood, manufactured fire logs or any other solid fuels indoors or outside.

Full Story

So...during one of the coldest winters we've experienced in years, this BAAQMD wants to make a cheap and easy way to stay warm illegal. Apparently, if your home is without a permanent heating system you're exempt (apparently the wood being burned in those homes doesn't affect the air) but otherwise, if you're caught burning wood, you're subject to a fine...although, at least in my city, the police department has refused to assist in enforcing this ban. Something about having real criminals to worry about.

I get that we all want to have clean, breathable air...but burning wood? Something people have been doing since we discovered what fire is? The smell of someone having a fire in their fireplace has always been a pleasant smell for me, sort of one of those smells that lets you know it's time for the holidays.

I could see maybe suggesting people find another means of heating their homes if possible, but a ban? Seems like a pretty big overstep.
<img id="ums_img_tooltip" class="UMSRatingIcon">

(Emphasis mine.)

I mean, you basically said, "I get wanting to be able to breathe, but what about freedom?" Did you really expect no one to find that a bit absurd?

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Fear not. I have it on good authority that wood burning will still be permitted in San Francisco in the distant future of ten years from now.

 

[Kestra]

What is that, Doctor Who or something?

 

[Amaris]

Fear not. I have it on good authority that wood burning will still be permitted in San Francisco in the distant future of ten years from now.

Wow. That is a seriously large, unauthorized conflagration. If you're not careful, the EPA will see it, and when they do, they're going to be pi-

Fuck Fuck Fuck! Everybody Run!

 

[Mr Awe]

Well, in the San Francisco Bay Area it is, anyway...

For the fourth time this week, a Spare the Air alert has been issued for Saturday by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.
According to the district, a high pressure weather system along with colder temperatures have lingered in the Bay Area all week, causing pollution to become trapped and rise to unhealthy levels. When an alert has been issued, it is illegal residents to burn wood, manufactured fire logs or any other solid fuels indoors or outside.

Full Story

So...during one of the coldest winters we've experienced in years, this BAAQMD wants to make a cheap and easy way to stay warm illegal.

It may be cheap for the person burning the wood but it has external costs to others. Namely the frigging disgusting pollution that no doubt causes all sorts of health problems.

So, look at it another way. Why should someone be allowed to use a method of heating that produces excessive pollution and health problems for others?

Is the wood burner going to compensate the health problems of others? No. And, that's why it superficially appears to cheap but in reality it's not cheap.

Mr Awe

 

[doubleohfive]

Once again, you people seem to think I'm making a huge deal out of something when all I'm doing is bringing it up for discussion. I myself don't even have a fireplace in my apartment. I just general question things being banned that people typically can do in their own homes. Just because I bring something up does not equal me complaining. It's called starting a discussion.

Let's look at your original post, shall we?

Well, in the San Francisco Bay Area it is, anyway...

For the fourth time this week, a Spare the Air alert has been issued for Saturday by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.
According to the district, a high pressure weather system along with colder temperatures have lingered in the Bay Area all week, causing pollution to become trapped and rise to unhealthy levels. When an alert has been issued, it is illegal residents to burn wood, manufactured fire logs or any other solid fuels indoors or outside.

Full Story

So...during one of the coldest winters we've experienced in years, this BAAQMD wants to make a cheap and easy way to stay warm illegal. Apparently, if your home is without a permanent heating system you're exempt (apparently the wood being burned in those homes doesn't affect the air) but otherwise, if you're caught burning wood, you're subject to a fine...although, at least in my city, the police department has refused to assist in enforcing this ban. Something about having real criminals to worry about.

I get that we all want to have clean, breathable air...but burning wood? Something people have been doing since we discovered what fire is? The smell of someone having a fire in their fireplace has always been a pleasant smell for me, sort of one of those smells that lets you know it's time for the holidays.

I could see maybe suggesting people find another means of heating their homes if possible, but a ban? Seems like a pretty big overstep.
<img id="ums_img_tooltip" class="UMSRatingIcon">

(Emphasis mine.)

I mean, you basically said, "I get wanting to be able to breathe, but what about freedom?" Did you really expect no one to find that a bit absurd?

(See what I did there?)

 

[sojourner]

Lot of image linking fail in this thread.

 

[doubleohfive]

Fixed it. (sorry.)

 

[Trekker4747]

You live in one of the more Liberal states/cities in the country. This seems on par with that. Perhaps you'll be happier living somewhere else? Texas? South Carolina? Anywhere in the South?

 

[Locutus of Bored]

What is that, Doctor Who or something?

Lot of image linking fail in this thread.

Fixed it. (sorry.)

I don't think it's you. There seems to be something going on board wide with images taking a longer than normal time to load or not loading at all for some people. There was a similar issue in the Thread Bomb topic and a couple other places.

 

[Thestral]

Move somewhere less crowded if wood fires ETA: whenever you feel like it are that important to you.

No, because...

I mean don't get me wrong - I love a good wood fire, many fond fireplace memories. But, I live somewhere (relatively) rural; it's the price you pay.

What is that, Doctor Who or something?

Spoiler: Spoilers!

DS9, Past Tense - the one where Sisko and Bashir end up in 2020s San Francisco "Sanctuary Disctricts".

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Kestrel got Kestrolled. Boom!

 

[doubleohfive]

 

[Thestral]

Whoops.

 

[Squiggy]

I just general question things being banned that people typically can do in their own homes.

Like have sex with children?

Things get banned all the time. They have been since time immemorial.

If something you do is deemed to have a negative impact on society as a whole - be it burn wood or diddle a 4th grader, then society through its elected representatives will tell you to stop.

Why is this so difficult for Republicans to understand? You're free to do whatever stupid, inane, worthless thing you want to do as long as it doesn't interfere with others. If and when it does, then you have to stop it. Don't like it? Get people elected who will let you live in this libertarian wonderland that's never existed.

 

[Saito S]

Once again, you people seem to think I'm making a huge deal out of something when all I'm doing is bringing it up for discussion. I myself don't even have a fireplace in my apartment. I just general question things being banned that people typically can do in their own homes. Just because I bring something up does not equal me complaining. It's called starting a discussion.

But see, the thing is, it always comes across like it IS a huge deal. Misunderstandings can happen, but you have to reach a point where - if every time you do a certain thing, EVERYONE reacts to that thing in the same way, every time you do it - you gotta start looking at how you do that thing. The likelihood that this many people are all just reading way too much into your words over and over is extremely low.

On this particular topic: please.

This is the SF Bay Area. We are having nights that dip down into the low 30s, and we call that "unusually cold" for early December. My sister lives in Madison, Wisconsin. Know how cold it is there right now? FIVE degrees F.

Out of every region in this entire country, this is one of the places where it's least problematic to have a ban such as this. Heating even a large house to an acceptable degree is not overly costly or difficult, especially when combined with the fact that you can just add layers, which does a lot more for us than for people in places like Madison - we've gotten by with just wearing a sweater and turning our wall-mounted gas heater on for maybe 5-10 minutes every couple of hours at most. Unless, of course, you have no method of heating your household outside of a wood fire... in which case you are exempt!

Combine that with the fact that, as has been able demonstrated, the smoke from wood fires CAN negatively impact others, and I don't see any merit behind complaining about this regulation.

Kestrel got Kestrolled. Boom!

 

[Davros]

Can they burn flags instead?

 

[Robert D. Robot]

I think this air quality problem is particularly bad in cities where the local geography forms a 'bowl' where the air can just sit stagnantly for weeks during different times of the year.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Where I live they encourage you to get a wood burner. Practically everyone I know has one. I don't, can't be bothered, I just want to turn a knob and have heat. But on a cold day my whole street smells like woodsmoke from people's heaters.

 

[Miss Chicken]

In Tasmania they are trying to encourage people to give up woodheaters because of the many health problems caused by woodheaters here. This is especially true of the city of Launceston because of the bowl effect there. However there are several Hobart suburbs where the air quality is bad during the winter because of woodsmoke.

It is such a problem that woodheaters are now being removed from government housing.