Dear Friends,
I’ve created the petition “Stop new wood heaters emitting more pollution in a few hours than the average car in an entire year” and wanted to ask if you could add your name too.
The UN Environment Program/World Meteorological Association recommended phasing out log-burning heaters in developed countries as part of a package of 16 measures, without which the world is doomed to exceed 2 degrees of global warming. The 16 measures were chosen for both their climate and health benefits.
Over 3000 Australians a year are estimated to die from heart attacks, strokes, lung diseases, cancers and other ill-health related to breathing fine particle (PM2.5) air pollution. There is no safe level of PM2.5.
Changes cannot be made to wood-heater standards without industry approval. Current standards are so lax that it takes only a couple of hours for the average new wood-heater to emit 20 grams of PM2.5, as much as the average petrol car in an entire year. In Sydney, the small proportion of houses using wood-heaters emit more PM2.5 per year than all other sources put together – trucks, cars, buses, industry etc.
Living downwind of a single new wood heater could easily increase PM2.5 exposure by 2 ug/m3, enough to decrease brain volume by 0.32% and increase the risk of silent strokes by 46%. Problems with the current ‘standard’ led to health experts such as the NSW Chief Medical Officer to say that wood heaters are so detrimental to health she supports banning and phasing them out in built-up urban areas.
Pollution standards should be set by health experts, not profit-driven industries. A consultancy report for the NSW Government concluded that woodsmoke is an $8.1 billion health problem in NSW. Two simple measures (not allowing new wood heaters to be installed until the new standard has been developed, removing existing heaters that don’t meet the new standard before houses are sold) together with effective assistance for people suffering health damage from other people’s woodsmoke could reduce this cost by 75%. If all states adopted similar policies, we could save over $18 billion in health costs.
The more support we can get behind this petition, the better chance we have of succeeding. You can read more and sign the petition here:
Thank you!
Dr Dorothy L Robinson
