Some Guy or Gal Devotes Web Site to the Idea That Wood Burning Causes Cancer.

:rofl:

It couldn't be!

Wood burning is renewable!?! It's so renewable they do it in Maine.

Anyway, here's the website. Have a laugh on me: http://burningissues.org/health-effects.html

Here's a funny picture from the website:



Scroll down to get to the hilarious cesium-137 (gasp) radioactive part.

bad for your health.

It immediately struck me as plausible, because I've got a buddy that's constanly burning wood, inside in the winter and outside in the summer, and anytime I spend more than a couple of hours around there it makes me cough into the next day, and I know my clothing certainly takes the smell of the burnt wood home with me.

Burning wood or other things gives off carcinogins like benzo-a-pyrene,etc.
Which is the reason that some have suggested that wood stoves and fireplaces are problematic.
And those around fires a lot like firemen, firefighters, are more likely to have lung problems, lung cancer.

But knowing this, our family heats our house primarily with an efficient, air tight wood stove. There are
tradeoffs in most choices. It works well for the way our passive solar home is designed.

the pioneers.

burn fires in homes because of air inversions and pollution? There just might be something to it.

This deserves study, not ridicule. It is known fact that wood-burning causes severe pollution problems, even requiring regulation. Some states regulate wod stoves, some areas have wood-burning prohibitions under certain conditions.

Maybe I shouldn't ridicule the website.

...their thousands of tons of smoke down into school yards and residential neighborhoods without some type of method to remove carcinogenic particulates? :wtf:

I've actually made some noise about them in this space.

..the fundamental premise is actually sound-- the particulate byproducts of any combustion product can be carcinogenic. The problem with scaremongering (or would that be monging scares?) about it is that there are so many variable factors that it's impossible to determine just HOW carcinogenic any specific combustion will be to any specific person in any specific circumstances.

Don't stand over a smoky green wood fire and inhale deeply, and you probably won't be in any immediate danger of increasing your cancer risk factors.

But it is wise to avoid combustion byproducts if you have a respiratory ailment or other pulmonary weakness, if there's a high level of pollution where you are already, if the combustion byproducts are heavily concentrated in a small space, etc. And especially if the combustible materials have nonorganic chemical components like paint, waterproofing treatments, etc.

"Clean" wood fires with well-seasoned, dry wood, burning with plenty of ventilation and air circulation, are unlikely to increase the cancer risk factors of people with healthy lungs by much.

debunkingly,
Bright

that being around campfires or wood stoves could damage your lungs in any way close to equivelent to smoking tobaco.

That is just stupid.

Of course it's stupid. What else could one possibly say?

The idea that combustion products could be remotely dangerous is just so ridiculous and bizarre that it is beneath contempt to even think about it.

Why, it's renewable.

We all know that renewable energy is totally harmless.

How could anyone ever, possibly, even remotely say such a thing.

It's just a corporate conspiracy, that.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs292/en/index.html