https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-m2u43-13eb3e7
Episodes 56CR thru 56CZZ
Episode 56CR. April 21, 2023. “The Foot-draggers” issue. 1) Heritage Foundation versus PM2.5 limits, 2) Burning Man versus Nevada geothermal power, and 3) Sierra Club pro “Carbon Neutral” prescribed burns.
Residents Against Wood Smoke Emission Particulates (see RAWSEPresidents.wordpress.com and Scroll Down for PDFs of articles with U R L’s to search on, and on the website are links to 10 minute Tiktok and Youtube videos and 30 minute podcasts on Spotify, Podbean, podcasts.google.com, Amazon Music Prime (free for Prime subscribers), Cast Box, and Pocket Cast (Pocket Cast is only free on the phone App)
Ep 56CR Heritage Foundation 1 of 2 Ep 56CS Heritage Foundation 2 of 2, California 1 of 2 Ep 56CT California 2 of 2, Burning Man 1 of 2 Ep 56CU Burning Man 2 of 2, Montana Ep 56CV New Jersey, Utah 1 of 2 Ep 56CW Utah 2 of 2, Australia 1 of 2 Ep 56CX Australia 2 of 2, Brazil Ep 56CY United Kingdom Ep 56CZ Europe, Germany 1 of 2 Ep 56CZZ Germany 2 of 2, Asia, Health Effects of PM2.5
United States
RAWSEP View: Just as the Biden Administration proposal to regulate PM2.5 emissions from car exhaust of cars rolling off American assembly lines has the GOAL of 67% electric cars sold from U S manufacturers by 2032, the Environmental Protection Agency (E P A) has the GOAL of getting wood fires extinguished in the U S in the near future, for the same reason as elimination of gas-powered cars, to regulate 2.5 emissions from wood burning and from car exhaust. The GOAL of the E P A is NOT to make wood stoves clean, which is impossible, but to eliminate wood stoves as a product being sold in the U S, because that is one of the only two ways to meaningfully regulate PM2.5 emissions from wood burning. In addition, the second meaningful way to regulate PM2.5 emissions from existing wood burning appliances is to eliminate each existing wood burning appliance in use in the United States, one by one, if necessary. Governments should 1. hand out PM2.5 monitors to any near neighbor of a residential wood burner who complains of the PM2.5 that enters his or her yard and infiltrates his or her home, because of proximity to the polluting stack of a residential wood burner. And governments should 2. Pass laws that make use of the online historic data from each PM2.5 monitor placed in the yard of a near neighbor of a wood burner, as evidence to shut down existing wood burners. If PM2.5 emissions breach the “safe” limit set by the E P A (which could be either 8 micrograms per meter cubed annually or 25 micrograms per meter cubed daily) the GOAL of the government should be that the data used would shut down a specific wood burner.
The GOAL of any government seeking to improve air quality for its citizens should be to provide recourse for its citizens to have their complaints about air quality which affects their health be listened to, and their problems solved by government regulation of air quality. The interests of the gas-powered vehicle lobby and the wood burning appliance lobby and their profits should not be a primary government concern, although the efforts of lobbyists in the past have confounded adequate regulation of PM2.5 pollution through loopholes to compliance with auto emissions limits and loopholes to wood burning emissions limits. This failure of the wood stove certification program is explained in a report by the Office of the Inspector General (O I G), watchdog of the E P A, which explained in February 2023 that lobbyists for the wood burning industry have exploited loopholes to such an extent that the U S E P A wood stove certification program is “flawed”. The E P A certifies and allows continued sales of wood stoves that are highly polluting. A complaint-driven use of PM2.5 monitors in the yards of near neighbors could right some of the wrongs of the previous U S E P A wood stove certification system.
Again, real climate change science and air pollution emissions science from auto emissions and wood burning emissions is being attacked by the Heritage Foundation, lobbyists for the wood burning industry, in this Heritage Foundation article below. Note all the ways the Heritage Foundation falsely denies climate change, some listed in Wikipedia article excerpts below.
Excerpt from the Wikipedia article on the Heritage Foundation edited by RAWSEP for brevity and clarity.
The Heritage Foundation is an American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. which took a leading role in the conservative movement during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose policies were taken from Heritage’s policy study Mandate for Leadership and is among the most influential public policy organizations in the United States. The Heritage Foundation’s headquarters building, is on Massachusetts Avenue on Capitol Hill. The Heritage Foundation was founded in 1973. Growing out of the new business activist movement, and discontent with Richard Nixon‘s embrace of the “liberal consensus“, it advanced conservative activism. Coors was a primary early funder. Heritage advocated for pro-business policies, anti-communism, neoconservatism and the Christian right. Climate change denial. The Heritage Foundation rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. The Heritage Foundation is one of many climate change denial organizations that have been funded by ExxonMobil. The Heritage Foundation strongly criticized the Kyoto Agreement to curb climate change, saying American participation in the treaty would “result in lower economic growth in every state and nearly every sector of the economy.” They projected that the 2009 cap-and-trade bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, would result in a cost of $1,870 per family in 2025 and $6,800 by 2035; on the other hand, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projected that it would only cost the average family $175 in 2020.
RAWSEP View: Note all the ways the Heritage Foundation falsely denies climate change and denies the importance of emissions from wood burning causing harm to human health, in the Heritage authored article below. The profits of the wood burning industry are being protected by the Heritage Foundation in this article. The vast majority of commenters at the E P A hearings on lowering “safe” limits of PM2.5 from 12 and 35 to 8 micrograms per meter cubed annually and to 25 micrograms per meter cubed daily are not referred to in this article. The handful of business lobbyists who spoke against the lowering of PM2.5 safe limits in February 2023 are who Heritage is toadying to in the article below.
Heritage Foundation article excerpts edited by RAWSEP for brevity and clarity.
RAWSEP View: The E P A is not expecting residential wood burners to use industrial grade technology to control emissions from residential wood burning. The E P A is expecting that any residential wood burning above E P A “safe” limits will be detected by PM2.5 monitors placed in the yards of near neighbors who complain of PM2.5 from their neighbors’ wood burning. The neighbors’ yards would be the fence line, and logically, unsafe levels of PM2.5 measurements at the fence line would be the evidence to prove that the wood burning appliances will be shut down. Expensive industrial grade technology such as carbon capture is absurd to use, since Carbon Capture is expensive and doesn’t work, not on either industrial biomass burning stacks and not on residential wood burning stacks. Simply stopping burning wood itself can achieve the goal of limiting particulate emissions from residential wood burning. The only thing standing in the way of achievement of cleaner air from limiting PM2.5 emissions, is the greedy profit motive of the biomass industry and the wood burning industry, as supported by the Heritage Foundation. Already, it is more economical to generate energy from geothermal, solar and wind sources, than from biomass or wood burning. The United States needs to invest in growing those clean, economical industries and leave the polluting methods of energy generation, gas-powered cars, and residential wood burning, in the rear view mirror, and in the past.
The Heritage Foundation is looking in the rear view mirror nostalgically, and looking back to a past that never was. The past was polluted, and the future can be cleaner, if there is some change.
Refutation of claims of the Heritage Foundation as lies, lie by lie. 1. SCIENCE NOT SHAKY. The science of climate change is not “shaky”. The science of particulate pollution causing harm to human health is not “shaky”. Particulate matter of 2.5 micrometer size, PM2.5, is the perfect size to infiltrate the human lung, setting off a cascade of human health problems. 2. PM2.5 is real, and dangerous. The Heritage Foundation panders to willfully ignorant readers when it writes “You may not even know what PM2.5 is—and in fact EPA doesn’t analyze the chemical makeup of PM2.5—but they’re sure it’s killing you, even at low doses.”
RAWSEP note: The particulate size itself, 2.5 micrometers, makes PM2.5 in the air dangerous, and able to enter the lungs and infiltrate the human body.