Since last year Quebec law punishes anybody selling a non-CSA approved wood stove with fines ranging from $2,000 to $25,000.
This doesn't seem to have deterred vendors on such sites as kijiji and craigslist from attempting to sell wood stoves without mention of any government approval.
I'd chuckle if someone was smacked with such a fine. Old wood stoves are the cause of our lack of sunshine. For springtime sunshine we rank 49 th in the country, with 562 points, only 15 more than rainy Vancouver. We're 34 th for year round sunshine. The problem is that 15 percent of Quebecers have wood stoves, well above the 10 percent national average. One wood stove will put as much pollution in the air over nine hours as a car will in 20,000 kilometers, something like a year of motoring.
Not only do the wood burners force the rest of us to suffer under smoggy skies but they also put a soup of poison in the atmosphere.
I love your blog, but its sad this disinformation in regards to wood burning stoves we keep readin in the media and know on your blog. Especially coming from one who espouses the need for cheap parking for cars downtown etc.. European countries, including Switzerland which has stringent environmental laws see wood burning stoves as a viable alternative to energy consumption needs. What people need to realize is that the problem is much more complex then to permit or forbid. Wood is a readily available source of heating in Canada. Quebecois who use this source of energy to heat their houses permit Hydro to export surplus energy to the states where coal plants are common. Acid rain, CO2 know no borders....
ReplyDeleteIn light of these facts, it seems short sighted on the part of the government or municipalities to forbid stoves. What indeed should be done, is to forbid inefficient stoves. All units should be equipped with the latest technologies such as catalytic converters double combustion etc...
I walk home from downtown to Point St-Charles every day. I am much more troubled by the quantities of commuters alone in their cars\truck\SUV waiting for their turn to take Victoria bridge. This is a completely inefficient, useless, and indeed selfish use of energy and resources.
PS: A little side info. I asked the Eco Center what they do with the nail filled wood that is dumped in their containers. They told me it was sent to the northern US to be burned and generate electricity. Isn't that nice.
CH
You might have some points there but my thrust is that the inefficient pollution-heavy non-CSA approved wood stoves could and should be eradicated. They've caused a massive rise in local smog and they're not even good at doing what they do, they're just for sentimental purposes and for a cancer-providing odour. Wood burning in certain other circumstances may or may not have its merits but there's no defending those antiquated ovens.
ReplyDeleteI believe a lot of cars could be taken off the roads if people were encouraged to work at home but nobody seems to want to advocate this possibility.
Overall however if we want to live in a society where goods and services are readily available we'll have to tolerate a lot of cars because that's the magic in how things get done. When your light switch breaks do you want your landlord to wait for a bus to come over to look at it and then take another bus to the hardware store and another bus back to your place, or do you want him to get his ass in gear pronto? Multiply that by a billions and you then realize why cars are necessary.
But wood stoves smell so gooood…
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As of removing cars from the road, yes, telecommuting is a big solution. For 15 out of the last 20 years, I’ve either worked from home or about one km away from home (the exceptions were when I had to commute to either Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Rosemont or Boucherville — thanfully, that one lasted only 3 months before the company folded).
Telecommuting is not only good for removing cars from the road, but also bodies from bus and subways, which is a good thing, given the STM capacity crunch as delivery of new trains get even more delayed.
The problem is the old-fashioned bosss’ attitudes who need to have their warm bodies in front of them (which means they are inept at management as they do not have methods of measuring work output). Even the expense of having a desk and a computer on the workplace cannot deter employers from demanding physical presence; this means that it must be a very deeply-set neurosis in the bosses’ minds. (In many cases where I telecommuted, I had to pull the hard cost facts of computer equipment and office furniture to get them to allow me to work from home, and subtle hints to their management incompetence and ineptness at measuring work output did the rest).
But a good solution can exist; all it takes is to amend the code du travail to state that in order for an employee to be required on the job premises for more than 2 days a week, the employer would have to justify that requirement to the satisfaction of the commission des normes du travail, pertaining of course to the appropriate amended regulations.
This way, companies could be strongarmed into letting their employees work from home, and expending less energy in transportation.
Move electrons, not bodies!!!
Kijiji can't be trusted. Too many scams on it to be creditable. Some people on Kijiji have been scammed out of rent money. Might as well just rip those "call me" tabs off the bottom of posters for items for sale, rental units, etc.
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