Here's my latest letter to Mayor Khan's Air Quality team: (Please show your support by signing the petition and spreading the word on fb and twitter. With your help we can make a difference.) : You can also write to him here: mayor@london.gov.uk To: Mayor Khan/GLA Air Quality Team: I'm surprised that I am having such difficulty getting the Mayor's office & GLA Air Quality team to understand that there is no such thing as a 'clean burning' stove or 'clean burning' wood. You appear to have ignored the research links I have sent? It's very concerning to think Mayor Khan is actually promoting 'eco' stoves and 'ready to burn' wood especially when the research is clear - woodsmoke is toxic and it will result in deaths and chronic illness - even 'smokeless' emissions from an 'approved' stove are toxic. Dry wood produces more PM2.5 than wet wood - so why promote it at all? 'Ready to Burn ' does not mean 'safe to burn' - far from it. It is completely irresponsible to be promoting wood burning (or any other form of burning) in residential areas. There is no safe limit to PM2.5 exposure - this is well documented. The stove industry seem to have a strangle hold on the Government. There is very little real understanding amongst LA's of the level of pollution produced by all fires and stoves, even pellet stoves - including the new ones. Imagine the stove industry's response to being told to tell people the truth about their product - that at best their new stove will still produce the same PM2.5 as 18 diesel trucks? It is clearly irresponsible to ignore the research; The elderly have an increased risk of heart attack when exposed to neighbours' stove pollution and it really makes no difference at all if the stove is on the government's 'approved list'. Unless there is a complete ban and an education programme for the public to understand the reasons why, the nation (and the NHS) will continue to suffer the effects of long term air pollution. No one would consider cigarette smoke 'clean' or 'approved' yet stoves pump out the equivalent of 120 000 cigarettes for every hour of burning. Here are the Utah Physicians reasons for a ban: https://www.monroecourier.com/21903/physicians-organization-gives-17-reasons-to-ban-wood-burning/ Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment give 17 reasons to ban wood burning: 1. All pollution is not created equal. Wood smoke is the most toxic type of pollution in most cities, more dangerous than auto pollution and most industrial pollution. Lighting a wood fire in your house is like starting up your own toxic incinerator. 2. Lifetime cancer risk is 12 times greater for wood smoke compared to an equal volume of second hand cigarette smoke. 3. Burning 10 lbs. of wood for one hour, releases as much PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) as 6,000 packs of cigarettes. 4. Toxic free-radical chemicals in wood smoke are biologically active 40 times longer than the free radicals in cigarette smoke. 5. Wood smoke is the third largest source of dioxins, one of the most intensely toxic compounds known to science. 6. The very small size of wood particles make them seven times more likely to be inhaled than other particulate pollution. 7. Wood smoke easily penetrates homes of neighbors creating concentrations up to 88% as high as outdoor air. 8. If you smell wood smoke, you know you are being harmed. The sweet smell comes from deadly compounds like benzene. 9. The most dangerous components of air pollution are much higher inside homes that burn wood compared to those that don’t, as much as 500% higher. 10. Considering the most dangerous part of particulate pollution, wood burning produces as much overall as all our cars during the winter. 11. The inhalable particulate pollution from one woodstove is equivalent to the amount emitted from 3,000 gas furnaces producing the same amount of heat. 12. Emissions from modern combustion appliances for wood logs may increase ten-fold if they are not operated appropriately, and most of them are not. 13. Wood smoke is the only pollution emitted right where people spend most of their time. It disperses poorly, is not evenly distributed and stays in the air longer because of its small size. Concentrations can be 100 times higher for neighbors of wood burners than what is captured at the nearest monitoring station. Real local “pollution victims” are created even when overall community levels are low. 14. If your neighbor is a regular wood burner, and follows all the rules, i.e. doesn’t burn during yellow or red alert days, but does during all “green” days, you can go an entire winter without having one single day of clean air. This is a civil rights issue. 15. According to California’s Bay Area Air Quality Management District, burning wood costs the rest of the community, primarily your next door neighbors, at least $2 in extra medical expenses for every lb of wood that you burn. An average fire then costs your neighbors about $40. 16. Long ago most communities passed ordinances protecting people from second hand cigarette smoke. Ironically those laws protect people at places they don’t necessarily have to be (restaurants, stores, buildings, etc). But in the one place they have to be, their own home, they have no protection from something even worse-wood smoke. People should have just as much protection from wood smoke as from cigarette smoke and for all the same reasons. We don’t allow people to blow cigarette smoke in your face, why should we allow people to blow wood smoke into your home? 17. Wood burning is not even close to carbon neutral over the short term, the next few decades, and it is that time frame that will make or break the climate crisis. Burning wood is extremely inefficient. Per unit of heat created wood produces even more CO2 than the fossil fuels do. Furthermore, the black carbon particulate matter released enhances the absorption of radiant heat in the atmosphere, making global warming worse, and prematurely melts already imperiled mountain snow pack. I feel there is more work for your office to do on this if you are serious about public health. Please use the links I have sent you. Kind regards Karen Baines. MArtsCW(Hons)