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The Spare the Air Debate by Jesse Owings Kaposi Winter is upon us and managing to pay energy costs in this ever troubling economy is becoming more and more difficult. Not only is the average income earner financially strapped, but the cost of living keeps going up and up, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area. People may resort to tried and true ways of getting by, cutting costs where they can. People may resort to more rudimentary means of saving money such as burning wood in the fireplace to stay warm. Yet there is a new ban on burning wood on “spare the air nights.” The regulation is said to help improve the air quality, but there are fundamental problems with the regulation. This regulation is to the detriment of people and does very little to improve air quality while millions of dollars are being spent imposing it. The regulation fines people $2,000 for burning wood, requiring them to spend more money on heating their home with a heater which may be less efficient to begin with. The new regulation banning burning wood in fireplaces or wood stoves on “spare the air nights” should be revoked because it is illogical. There is no doubt that the effort of the environmental movement to improve our environment has reduced air pollution. Most people, including myself, have learned that with minimal change to one’s lifestyle all of us can have less impact on our environment and take part in resource conservation. Requiring industries to implement ‘greener’ practices has also been a factor in improving the health of our environment. The air quality has become very good indeed. Good enough that I can’t remember a day when I saw even a haze of smoke in the air except during the dreadful forest fires in California last summer. The air quality in American cities is better than it has been in more than a century (Schwartz). Yet, Americans aren’t aware of this good news—or don’t believe it. The public thinks that air pollution has been rising over the last few decades, that it will worsen in the future, and that it is still a serious threat to people’s health (Schwartz). There is no need for a wood burning a regulation. Look up in the sky in California, it’s crystal clear blue. Fires of prehistoric times were so massive that smoke filled the entire atmosphere of the earth, not to mention the unprecedented eruptions of volcanoes in prehistoric ages releasing all namesake of pollutants into the environment such as, methane, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide (Mitchell 177). Yet the earth survived. It lived through this tumultuous time and there is no way to prevent these natural events from occurring, not even global warming. Air quality management organizations contend that smoke from fires contributes to global warming. “Particulate matter may also play an important role in climate change” (Particulate Matter). Yet wood fires have been burning since the existence of trees billions of years ago. Since then there have been a number of ice ages and a number of global warming periods. Air quality management organizations also contend that particulate matter from wood smoke is linked to asthma, and is harmful for children and the elderly (Particulate Matter). This claim is debunked by a recent article in the Journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology which states: “It remains the case that no form of ambient particulate matter—other than viruses, bacteria, and biochemical antigens—has been shown, experimentally or clinically, to cause disease or death at concentrations remotely close to U.S. ambient levels” (qtd. in Schwartz). The human race and all living organisms evolved in an environment with 10 or 20 times the level of wood smoke in the air as there is today. Before man began putting out fires, the forests were constantly burning, cleansing the forests. There was a constant haze in the air (Wattenburg). The ban on wood burning and the fines are excessive. The ban will mean fines of up to $2,000 and hiring seventy Bay Area Air Quality Management inspectors to patrol residential neighborhoods (Rubenstine B1). This fine of $2,000 is way out of proportion for the so-called risk of burning wood in a fire place or wood stove. What’s next? I can’t mow my lawn, smoke a cigarette, BBQ or drive to work on a “spare the air day”? I’d say that I don’t own my house any more. I’ll just mail my mortgage payment to the government every month. The money spent on wages and benefits of these seventy employees could be spent so much more wisely to help reduce pollution. Whatever happened to cost vs. benefit analysis? The money could be spent insulating and weatherizing people’s homes, or to create a fund that would help people pay their PG&E bill and therefore not have to burn wood to keep warm, or to create a fund to assist people in purchasing an EPA certified wood stove to replace their non-compliant stove, or to create a fund that would assist Chinese manufacturing companies to become less polluting by funding the implementation of more green practices; remember we all live on the same earth. The whole concept of this regulation is ill-conceived, and the air quality management agencies themselves are worthless. Consider all of the pollution created by these government agencies who manage our air quality. They occupy huge administrative buildings, full of thousands of people producing pollution through their energy demands: lighting, heating, cooling, maintenance, machines, and so on. And the people have to get to their workplace DRIVING CARS. Consider all of the manufacturing that goes into production of pamphlets, fliers, pens, and stickers, used to advertise and “educate the public.” Consider the manufacturing of all of the equipment used by these agencies: chairs, desks, computers and so on. There are 340 employees in the Bay Area Air Quality Management District alone (Bay Area Air Quality Management District). And the California Air Resources Board operates on a $759 million annual budget (California Air Resources Board). Again, whatever happened to cost vs. benefit analysis? I’d say all of the so called benefit and reduction in pollution attributed to the effort of these organizations is negated by their mere existence. If the employees of these organizations got a job in the real world, they would benefit our community instead of taxing it and levying fines on it to pay for their existence. The regulation banning wood burning on “spare the air nights” is unfounded and unscientific and should be eliminated. Absurd regulations like this one cause people to be so afraid of their surroundings to the point that it causes unnecessary concern. People may want government to impose regulation to protect them, but people must be wary of the motives of government regulators. Regulators don’t always have the best solutions or the best intentions. Also, the peoples best interest may come second to their own. There is a lot to consider before drastic measures are taken to reduce pollution that may or may not be harmful to humanity and the environment. Jesse Owings Kaposi Marin County, CA. 2008 |
Works Cited:
Bay Area Air Quality Management Wikipedia 27 Nov. 2008. 30, Nov. 2008
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
California Air Resources Board Wikipedia 26 Nov. 2008. 30, Nov. 2008
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Mitchell, James. “Volcanoes.” The Random House Encyclopedia 3rd ed. (1990): 177.
Particulate Matter. Bay Area Air Quality Management District 21, Aug. 2008. 30, Nov. 2008
<http://www.baaqmd.gov/pln/pm/
Rubenstine. “Fireplace Police Take up Patrols to Spare the Air.” San Francisco Chronicle 20 Nov. 2008: B1.
Schwartz, Joel. “Blue Skies, High Anxiety.” The American. June 2007. 7, Dec. 2008
<http://www.american.com/
Wattenburg, Bill. Open Lines To The West Coast. KGO AM 810, San Francisco. Sat. and Sun. 10:00 PM to 1:00 AM. 6 Dec. 2008.