Clearing The Air

Should fireplace fires be banned?

San Francisco; home of the enlightened-the-loafers, dirt munching, tree hugging druids; has decided to continue their nanny state assault by considering a ban on home heating methods.

Is this new consideration due to the same false health hazard fears that fueled smoking bans? Seems logical given that buring wood smoke produces far more hazardous chemical components than tobacco smoke. But the article asks whether alarmist fears of global warming may be the true motive:

Is this decision truly about air quality or global warming?

Interestingly, one loses on the issues of global warming because the odd paradox is, the more there is cloud cover or "smoke" in the air, the cooler the Earth will be. It is well documented how the Earth's temperature cooled after the explosion of the volcano Krakatoa. From that standpoint, one ought to encourage fires which produce the maximum amount of smoke.

NASA explored the above question here and concluded:

What is the mechanism wherby volcanic eruptions can make the Earth cooler? The volcanic clouds that reach into the stratosphere are composed of particulates and gases, including sulfur dioxide. Millions of tons of sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere can be readily converted to sulfuric acid particles (referred to as aerosols), which reflect energy coming from the Sun back to space. This solar energy is therefore not available to heat the Earth's surface and lower atmosphere.........The so-called "year without a summer" is attributed to the eruption of Tambora in the East Indes in 1815. This was an epic eruption. In New England, for example, there were summer frosts and poor crops.....

It would seem then that a ban on wood smoke may be just as disasterous and ill-advised as a ban on tobacco smoke in private bars and restaurants has been.

posted by marcus aurelius @ 12:04 PM