Another application of the Grecian government formula blows up in their faces.
From EuroNews:
Smog hits Athens as cash-strapped residents choose fire over fuel
Bad news for austerity-stricken Greeks is also proving to be bad news for the environment – specifically the air quality in Athens.
Wood has soared in popularity, with many of the city’s residents using it to heat their houses, after an increase in duty has seen the price of heating oil double in two years.
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Also, via The Raw Story:
Air pollution in Athens has surged in recent days because of people choosing wood over more expensive fuels to heat their homes in the grips of a continuing economic crisis, the environment ministry said Friday.
Particulate matter has been measured at 150 milligrammes per cubic metre, or three times the danger level, especially in the northern and western suburbs of the Greek capital, the ministry said.
The visible smog is reminiscent of that which cloaked the mountain-ringed city before it modernised its cars and buses.
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Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing after all that Lord Elgin bought the Parthenon marbles.
Juergen Uhlemann says:
January 2, 2013 at 1:10 pm
…..They listen out for chainsaws as this is the only way to capture them….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Time for the two man saw Sounds like a business opportunity.
“What say you now, all you carbon taxers? Next a chimney tax?”
Don’t give them any ideas, mpainter. 🙁
I’ve heated my house solely by wood for twenty three years now and wouldn’t have it any other way. Well, I would go to NG if it was available where I live and was cheap enough…
“Reverse cycle heating has a typical efficiency of about 350% to 400% because of how heat pumps work, yet try explaining this to some idiot who thinks burning wood is both more efficient, and cleaner, and greener, and cheaper.”
Wood is more efficient because it is radiant heat. The BR in my house is 57F which feels delightfully cool after relaxing by the stove. I have propane forced hot air as a backup which I rarely use. Takes more fuel for the same comfort. The forced air from a heat pump is much cooler and requires even an higher ambient temperature for comfort. That higher temperature translates into greater heat loss, dryness and overall discomfort.
This article does not address another problem that is being mentioned elsewhere. Trees, under-forest and habitat that was tripped bare for over two thousand years, painfully and slowly restored in recent years, is being stripped again. In huge swathes. And houses built in the last 40 years simply are not equipped to deal with wood fires.
If Statist governments and enviro-wackos continue on their current path of economic and environmental destruction through: overregulation, massive sovereign debt, perpetual budget deficits, “stimulus” programs, burgeoning unproductive bureaucracies, bailouts, subsidies, runaway entitlement programs, insane monetary policies (zero interest rates, money printing, intential inflation, currency devaluation, fiat currencies, etc.), the next fuel source won’t be solar, wind, Thorium, bio-fuels or geothermal…. It’ll be furniture….
GlynnMhor says:
January 2, 2013 at 3:44 pm
Markw complains of “… blaming the victim.”
Well, when the blameworthy include the victims, then that’s what needs to be done.
Being a victim does not automatically absolve one of guilt.
================================================================
I agree. They should just die and decrease the surplus population. /Sarc off
But… the stratosphere is getting less pollution:
http://www.countingcats.com/?p=13667
Ahh…..a bonfire of the vanities?
If only every Greek household had a James Hansen, then their plight would be less sorrowful.
It wouldn’t actually make them warmer, of course, but some of them might believe themselves to be warmer.
Reduced aerosol and particulate pollution since the 1960s has been a significant factor causing increasing surface temperatures. Specifically, decreased low level aerosols/particulates and low level seeded clouds have increased early morning solar insolation, increasing minimum temperatures.
I predict decreasing winter minimum temperatures in Athens and Greece generally, begining in 2008.
There may be a little too much being attributed to the wood burning here, I could not know for sure. I used to visit Athens a lot, especially in the 80’s. it’s never had good air quality and I’ve been there some summers when the air was thick with particulates and the temps were 105 F. People were dropping dead in the streets from heat exhaustion and respiratory problems.
Sure, Athens like California and much of the Western world have solved a lot of their particulate emission problems and so they should but I think some of this is attributable to geographic conditions and local weather patterns. Some days the air just won’t move and Athens is a very uncomfortable place to be then.
Greece is still a very rural country on the whole and it’s no surprise to see people resorting to wood burning in times of fuel poverty but those blaming the people doing so for polluting as opposed to dying ought to be ashamed.
Don’t be confused about Greece being a warm country, after November and at night it gets bitterly cold.
Philip Bradley says: January 2, 2013 at 8:16 pm
Specifically, decreased low level aerosols/particulates and low level seeded clouds have increased early morning solar insolation, increasing minimum temperatures.
================================
any links/references?
GlynnMhor says:
January 2, 2013 at 3:44 pm
Well, when the blameworthy include the victims, then that’s what needs to be done.
Being a victim does not automatically absolve one of guilt.
……………….
Say that to the rape victim who was wearing a mini-skirt, tough guy. Doubling down on stupid, GlynnMhor? /sarcgolfclap
1980’s EPA assessment of “Brown Cloud” over Denver Valley –
1/3 Industrial
1/3 Automobiles
1/3 from the 10% of people heating homes with WOOD!
Also, there are some early 20’s photos by Ansel Adams which show the “Brown Cloud” over the Denver Valley…100,000 population..almost exclusively caused by wood burning for heat!!! (National Geographic, if I recall correctly.)
True story:
About 5 years ago, I was traveling around the gorgeous city of Thessaloniki, Greece, where I noticed hundreds of rusting tractors parked Helter Skelter along virtually every street and intersection in and around the city.
After awhile, I asked my driver about this strange situation, and was advised that farmers just leave their farm equipment exposed to the elements like that because it makes it easier to block traffic when they decide to strike for higher crop subsidies….
I knew then and there I would not do business in Greece as it would be too risky.
Any country where its people view capital equipment as a means of extortion rather than means of production will not survive.
It turns out I made a wise decision not to do business with Greece.
Greece is the portent of things to come for all countries that forfeit individual freedom and industriousness for a false and temporary illusion of State largess.
mpainter says:
January 2, 2013 at 8:47 pm
An article written by me, using unpublished analysis of Australian temperatures.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/11/4/australian-temperatures.html
The figure 150 is micrograms not milligrams. If it is mostly wood smoke it is <PM1.0 which, like diesel particulates, is respirable. Wood can be burned extremely cleanly but often is not because of primitive "stoves" which are little more than a box with a chimney. Modern wood burners can operate across a range of power levels and produce profoundly low levels of CO, VOC's, PAH's and PM.
I noticed a reference to New Zealand and wood stoves. NZ is a good example of how to stimulate invention. They have performance based standards which allow any new ultra clean technology to be used. Most countries have an prescriptive rules that stifle innovation. The EPA uses test methods so prescriptive that manufacturers do not make clean burning stoves, they make products that 'test well' when operated according to the prescribed method.
The consequence is of course smoky stoves in the real world. NZ stoves are much cleaner burning than US stoves.
The improvement in air quality in the South African highveld is from a combination of electrification, switching to Handigas and the use of the top-lighting technique known as Basa Njengo Magogo which reduces coal smoke by 80%. Poor people with 50 kWh free per month still do not cook with electricity – too expensive.
As a rule, don't blame a fuel for something caused by the lousy combustor. Almost all fuels can be burned very cleanly using simple, appropriate equipment. But beware the charlatanry in the stove sector. There are carbon cowboys lurking in them thar woods.
Wood, schmood. Fossil fuel is no excuse for poverty.
The world is burning more cheap fossil energy than ever before so there should not be any poverty in Athens or anywhere else.
John W. Garrett says: Thank you for bringing this to the forefront. If they get their way, the enviro-nuts will have half of New England burning firewood for heat.
No they won’t–In Utah, you are not allowed to burn anything but wood (no home trash including newspapers, cardboard, construciton leftovers) or you will be fined–they are trying to get wood outlawed (which it is in many cities in the US now). The enviro-nuts will have many people without the ability to heat at all. And then congress will pass bills to pay for the “clean?” electricity heat and all of us will be paying for heat in all the areas where they have managed to get wood and other incineraters outlawed and our trash will be burined in landfills rather than keeping us warm. Then the landfills fillup and the taxpayers have to foot the bill for more clean up…the enviro-nuts don’t think past the energy in their personal illumination.
SAMURAI says:
January 2, 2013 at 6:54 pm
If Statist governments and enviro-wackos continue on their current path of economic and environmental destruction through: overregulation, […] etc.), the next fuel source won’t be solar, wind, Thorium, bio-fuels or geothermal…. It’ll be furniture.
====================================
And after the furniture is nearly gone, we can revert to burning witches. There’s a large supply of them working at high-levels in environmental regulatory bureaucracies and NGO advocacies, A little seasoning outdoors and they won’t be too green to set alight and burn brightly. Renewable, too, with so many control-driven acolyte women aspiring to be their replacements.
The sad fact is that the Law of Unintended Consequences has kicked in big time. These lovely “Carbon” taxes the Greens think will drive down consumption of “fossil” fuels hits the poorest hardest, so they switch to alternatives, like wood. This is why in Africa deserts are advancing so fast. Anything the goats don’t destroy is burned as fuel for cooking and heating.
A major reason, in my view, the CO2 levels keep rising.
Anna Robic–
In the not too distant future after enviro-wackos get their Utopia and the Scientific Method has been outlawed, a CAGW sceptic witch is found and brought before the enlightened ruling class for justice:
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=UTdDN_MRe64&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DUTdDN_MRe64
Wood-burning stoves don’t have to be polluting. Ours burns really clean and provides us with plenty of heat. More likely the Greeks are using open grates which are awful in comparison — little heat, lots of soot both in the room and up the chimney, piles of ash to clean up. I feel sorry for them but it’s not burning wood which is the problem, it’s the way it’s burned.
On a similar vein I pointed out to Warmists at the Guardian that if you deprive say Africans of cheap oil and coal they will cut down every tree in every forest, resulting in loss of forest, wildlife and not dent co2 output one iota. Greens should really think through where we are headed.