They’re Coming For Your Wood-Burning Stove… Again

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

The weather is getting colder, and that means getting back to anti-wood-burning propaganda.

Did you know a wood burner can kill you? They pollute more than cars and cause cancer, “similar to cigarette smoke,” and so on.

Jeremy Vine is asking if it’s time to ban them.

This isn’t new – for want of a better word – “information”. We covered this last Christmas. Then over the summer, it was folded in with a barrage of “indoor air quality” fear-mongering, only to re-emerge now that the days are getting shorter again.

Sort of like reverse-hibernation.

A trendy wood burning stove almost killed me…they need to be banned before they do anymore damage

…screams the Daily Mail.

I like the word “trendy” — they keep using it — it’s so shamelessly manipulative, painting the humble stove as some pretentious luxury accessory, rather than the basic means of heating your home for literal millennia.

Anyway, the crux of the story is that this lady – Lizzie – had a severe asthma attack, and she “believes” it was linked to wood-burning stoves.

So they should be banned. Or something.

Then they quote a doctor:

‘This is why we want the government to launch a public awareness campaign on the health impacts and sources of pollution to empower the public to make cleaner choices and protect lung health, and other people like Lizzie.’

Then come the graphs. It’s all very predictable.

The Telegraph, more refined and less hysterical than the Daily Mail (which admittedly isn’t saying much) goes with…

Wood burners are bad for you. Here’s why you didn’t notice.

Detailing how new research has shown that wood burners are really terrible for everyone who uses them, but we just never noticed before.

Why didn’t we notice?

Oh, because the people who use them are “mostly” otherwise healthy and wealthy so the data was disguised by demographics.

Now, you might think that “research” which concludes “wood burning might make you sick, but being poor, eating badly or smoking are worse” is a shoe-in for the Well Duh! Prize at the annual Waste of Time Awards, but you’re wrong. It’s very serious.

Anyway, here’s their version of the doctor quote:

“It would be good to see increased awareness on the impact of wood burners, with clearer information and guidance from the Government on the health impact, as well as increased regulation around domestic wood-burning.”

No graphs this time, which is nice. But notice, like the Daily Mail article, the repeated association of wood burning with the upper class. It’s a luxury, not a right. That’s the message. The “expert” in the Telegraph even says, “primarily the reason for having a wood burner is the aesthetic of it.”

That’s a common sentiment, always presented without evidence.

That’s something I still find hilarious about the press — perhaps the British press in particular. These are identical stories, just in a house style. It’s like AI image filters, where you upload a photo of yourself and ask, “Show me this image as if it were painted by Van Gogh.” Or Rembrandt. Or Picasso.

“Tell me burning wood causes cancer in the style of the Guardian”. Or the Mirror. Or The Sun.

The aesthetic changes, the message does not.

And, of course, it’s not just the UK. When is it ever?

The devolved Scottish Parliament has already banned wood burners in newly built homes, with some local councils banning the installation of wood-burners in their council houses.

The anti-stove agenda clearly summers in Australia, because back in July, ABC were reporting on “the silent killer” of wood smoke, and how experts were calling for bans.

In New Zealand, government-commissioned research is blaming not just wood-burning stoves, but open fires, gas heaters and gas ovens for thousands of deaths per year.

In Canada, British Columbia is enforcing a registry for those who want to burn solid fuel domestically.

It comes back around to “indoor air quality”, the trendy new public health concern I wrote about back in July:

Reports are asking for new legislation to enforce limits and bans, and so on.

The European Public Health Alliance is demanding a “dedicated, harmonised EU framework for indoor air quality”, calling “healthy air” a human right:

Healthy air is a human right, and indoor air is no exception. It should be a shared global goal to make sure that this right is adequately and urgently enshrined, providing stronger legal tools for people to claim protections against environmental harms, including poor indoor air.

Investment in clean indoor quality is “vital preparation for the pandemics and climate emergencies to come”, apparently.

The United Nations launched a brand new Global Healthy Indoor Air Commission just last month; they are developing a “Global Framework for Action” even as we speak, to be published next year.

Consider buying a Smart Air Monitor, says the New York Times.

The Smart Air Monitor is the thing to watch here, I suspect. Full-on banning wood burners is a difficult sell – especially in the US – so the “compromise” measure may be mandated air quality meters to replace the smart meters in electrically heated homes.

Data and obedience to authority. That’s what this is actually about.

Yes, I’m sorry to have to disillusion anyone; it’s not really about asthma attacks.

The people that nailed you inside your house and forced you to mask up and vaccinate don’t actually care about whether or not you have asthma, Lizzie. They don’t really care about your well-being at all.

I’m sorry to have to tell you.

Likewise, it’s not about climate change. The preening idiots who fly private jets to catered global summits care about the planet about as much as they care about you. Or Lizzie.

It’s about information, not even important information, or useful information…just information. And control too, of course, how could we forget that part?

Information and control. The system is a machine designed to acquire both, forever. It requires we tell it everything and that everyone be dependent on it…for everything.

Wood burners — like people who keep chickens or dig their own wells or live without electricity — realistically represent only a small percentage of the population, but their existence poses nagging questions.

Questions like, How much wood are they using? How warm are they keeping their houses? For how long?

And most importantly: Who the fuck do these people think they are?

Burning your own fuel in your own house is about far more than the “aesthetic of it”, no matter how hard the papers try to tag it with that superficial label. A wood burner offers energy independence, and for that reason, like everything else that offers any kind of independence, they are considered a threat.

The existence of anyone or anything outside of the system, even in token or vestigial ways, threatens the idea that the system is even necessary. Therefore they must be attacked.

It’s an autoimmune response, a reflex; they can’t help it.

They need to know everything you’re doing, how you’re doing it, and why.

And, more importantly, they need you to be OK with that, to welcome it, even thank them for it.

They need you to know that is the safe; the normal; the only way the world works.

So, expect this messaging to continue until the ban is in place, or licenses are required, or they manage to wire a smart meter to a wood axe.