Wood-burning homes targeted as major air polluters

Wood burning creates on average 5 tons of PM2.5 emissions each day in Southern California, about four times the amount of PM2.5 from all the power plants. These tiny pollutants get sucked into the deepest part of the lungs, the alveoli, interfering with oxygen exchanges, causing lung disease, emergency room visits, heart attacks and even premature deaths, and only an industrial type of face mask can block them. People with asthma or respiratory diseases, children or the elderly should not be in a room with a wood-burning fire, even after it has been extinguished. In many areas, wood smoke is the single biggest source of air pollution in the winter months. While newer EPA-approved stoves emit up to 90 percent less pollution than traditional stoves, even the cleanest wood stove is 60 times more polluting than a natural gas furnace. Many lower-income residents, who burn wood as their sole source of home heating, cannot afford the approx. $3,000 upgrade. The EPA estimates there are 10 million wood stoves in operation in the United States, with 65 percent of them older, inefficient conventional stoves.
All of that said, Utah is a nanny state in so many more ways. For example: you can't buy liquor at the grocery store. In many cities you can't buy beer (which here is very much near-beer because the alcohol content is so low) on Sunday. If that's not the state being a nanny, I don't know what is.
My favorite part? Utahns are so very much in favor of some nanny-state laws and so much against others. If it's something they don't agree with (and Utah mormons in particular are a very cohesive voting bloc) then it should be banned. It makes for very entertaining political theater. (Another favorite is things like politicians saying, just the other day, that it's okay to rape your wife if she's asleep; seriously Utah wtf?)