[Greenbuilding] No place for wood burning fireplaces in GreenBuilding

[Jefro]

I don't think the issue has to do with how many people it affects, but 
rather how the pollution mitigates itself.  I studied this a bit when I 
was taking flying lessons and learning about weather.

Wood smoke is a low-lying heavy particulate.  It mostly stays where it 
is made, with the exception of large forest fires.  By contrast, 
pollution from industry and automobiles can travel very long distances.  
In both northern and southern California, I have watched clouds of smog 
migrate hundreds of miles from coastal cities into inland valleys.  You 
can see and smell the smog from the San Francisco bay area all the way 
over in the Sierra foothills.  In a city, the smoke from a fire has 
nowhere to dissipate---there is already pollution everywhere, most of it 
much smaller and lighter than wood smoke particles.  The smoke 
particulates mix with the smog, and when the sun comes up it warms the 
whole mass, lifts it up and carries it away, spreading it over a wide 
area. 

I live now in a rural area on the north coast.  A burn pile or a brush 
fire has to be within about a quarter-mile for you to even smell it.  
The trees filter the particulates out because wood smoke rarely rises 
above them.  There is simply no other pollution here, so the 
particulates can do what they need to do---spend their heat energy 
traveling a short distance, and then drift back to earth to be 
recaptured.  Also, the population density here is microscopic compared 
to a city.  The impact from each person is far, far less here than in a 
populated city, and the earth as a whole system has a better chance to 
adjust. 

Cities are wonderful inventions for a lot of reasons, but there are 
problems associated with them, and one of those problems is highly 
concentrated pollution.  In other words, it's not about classes of 
people, but classes of pollution, with a dependence on where the 
pollution is released.  Wood smoke in rural areas is more acceptable 
because the overall level of pollution there is so much less than in 
urban areas to begin with. 

(I hope I'm not just "fanning the flames"!)

> What I do find deplorable is that somebody dares to say that burning wood in an urban area is not 'good', but burning wood in a rural area is 'alright'. Why, because it affects less people? What an irresponsible rationale. 
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> So the judgment is if something affects many people and it is considered 'pollution', then it is not allowable? But if this 'pollution' only affects one person, then it is ok? To me that is another way of creating 2 classes of citizens, those that can have fires and those that can't.
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