Criticize drivers instead
Your paper and some letter writers have offered your readers what seems to be an annual condemnation of wood burning as a source of heat. I am sympathetic to the plight of those who are affected by wood smoke and for that reason limit use of my wood stove to (mainly) days where there is precipitation. I hope that that precipitation is washing smoke out of the air relatively quickly.
What burns my toast is that your paper has never criticized people for driving vehicles. These also are a major source of fine particulates as well as a multitude of other poisons. These are important contributors to climate change. Use of these is what is killing us, not burning wood.
Meanwhile, people constantly, carelessly overuse their vehicles. Live in the city where you work. Walk the two blocks to the store. Don’t idle your car for a half hour in the morning because you might be cold. Shop and recreate locally. Build heavily used services (such as hospitals!) close to town. Our vehicles are a perverse status symbol and an obsolete rite of passage. Condemn that!
Now, just don’t get me going on the uselessness and wastefulness of pretending that we might one day occupy Mars!
Warren Chapman
Duncan