04 September 2013

There will be no more fireplaces in Montreal

"Citing concerns for air quality and the health of its citizens, the largest city in the province of Quebec is poised to adopt a ban on fireplaces, effective at the end of 2020.

"Wood burning is a major source of fine particulate air pollution, meaning particles that penetrate into the lungs," Norman King, an epidemiologist at the Montreal Public Health Board told the CBC...

Montreal already had a ban on installing fireplaces in new construction, dating back to 2009, but about 50,000 homes in Montreal are still using wood-burning appliances. A provincial government program called "Feu vert" has offered $900 (Canadian) to replace them with natural gas or propane appliances, but the program ends this year, unless city officials get their way and it is extended. "

10 comments:

  1. In London (and to a lesser extent the rest of the UK), we have smokeless zones, where you can only burn certain types of fuel. Called smokeless fuels, but I think they still emit some material. Surprising that Montreal decided on a more drastic solution than London felt it needed, although perhaps Montreal is more environmentally conscious.

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  2. Ours is capped, and blocked with foam blocks. I grew up with a coal furnace. I live in a valley with bad inversion pollution. I don't need to add more particulates to my indoor air. Will not use it short of collapse of civilization.

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  3. ahhh the left wing loons are at again.....

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    1. You think particulate air pollution is a left-wing conspiracy?

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    2. Trying to restrict the ability to heat one's home under the misguided delusion that China, Russia, and most of continental Africa are adhering to the same self-limiting behavior qualifies as loony.

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    3. My apologies for the multi-post.

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    4. Multi-comments are no problem. I can always delete duplicates or comments later revised (done).

      Regarding your comment - China, Russia, and Africa obviously and extensively pollute the world's air, but the problem of particulates is also a hyperlocal phenomenon (note Steve's comment below), especially during temperature inversions or cities with geography in a bowl among mountains. I would disagree that environmental controls in those situations are misguided.

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  4. In May, 1974 I moved to Denver. That winter almost every day Denver had a brown inversion layer over it. It was nasty looking, especially when viewed from the suburbs or up near the Red Rocks amphitheater. I left Denver in late 1975, and a short time layer read where they had "finally" determined that the brown layer was coming from wood-burning stoves and fireplaces. People had puzzled over it for a long time, according to the article I read (about 1976).

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  5. So then what is better for the environment? Burning wood or fossil fuels? Seems like a lose lose situation these days..... I always thought wood was better but apparently I'm wrong as usual according to the lefties. They don't want fossil fuels burned and now not wood, so just bundle up and don't burn anything I suppose is the right (left) answer.

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  6. Oh no; The deluded tree-huggers (quite literally, it seems), are at it again

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