The effort is underway demonize another way to keep you warm because fires “contribute to global warming”  and are as “toxic as cigarettes”

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Woodstoves may be as toxic as cigarettes http://t.co/itv7Y7a83v

Environmentalists have begun a new and unsavory comparison of fires to smoking cigarettes. It’s an attempt to make it easier to draw an equivalence between things that you enjoy but that may be bad for you and things you need–such as warmth. And then make it all about us.

And the upshot? When you’re done destroying your neighbors’ lungs with your evil fire, you’ll be responsible for destroying the planet.

Environmentalist Debra Taevs writes in this Portland Tribune Op Ed,: if you burn wood you create GLOBAL WARMING!!!

The United Nations ranks wood fires the second-leading cause of global warming.

But there are the countless environies I believe are important to put her claims into some context. 

• The earth has been cooling, not warming.
• Environmentalists don’t want to harvest timber, but support forest fires.
• Environmentalists don’t like CO2 but those same forest fires release the CO2 the trees have been retaining.
• Environmentalists block efforts to take advantage of cleaner energy such as LNG and fracking while trying to wipe out coal which accounts for 40%+ of the source of US electricity.
• Environmentalists’ moves raise the price of energy for everyone but those who  want to save money by burning wood now are told they’re as bad as evil smokers.

In fact, things are so ridiculous, California now puts a warning label, similar to those for cigarettes, on bundles of wood. 

Taevs, who works for an organization which gets its funding from the City of Portland, states of Washington and Oregon, and any manner of enviro groups,  allows that fire’s important and stuff but, hey, we’re beyond all that.

Yes, we’ve been burning wood since the dawn of time, since the days when our lifespans were short and the impact was small and there were very few of us. But in a densely populated urban environment, should we rethink this uncontrolled source of air pollution?

As our understanding of human health and the environment have evolved, we’ve altered many of our behaviors from those early days.

But here’s the money quote from this op ed in the Portland Tribune,

Our freedom to emit smoke without restriction is one of the only ways remaining that citizens are legally able to seriously impact the health of others.

Think about that. We’re on the road to criminalizing, or at the very least, making socially unacceptable, behavior that helps our own health and could save our lives–i.e. keeping us warm. 

HL Mencken once said, “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.” 

That reminds me of the story from San Diego from the other day. A man was arrested for attempted murder in Mission Beach. He ordered a woman to stop smoking and when she didn’t, he took out a knife, stabbed in her in the chest and then tried strangling her. He was affronted by her audacity to smoke and pollute his air and possibly kill him. So he tried to kill her. 

Sure, the dude was nuts, but where did he get the idea that it was somehow socially acceptable to assault a woman who was merely smoking? Non smokers are given social cues they’re morally superior. That mind set is affirmed by government PSA’s and the first lady! Add that to all the junk science claims about smoke killing our planet without hearing other mitigating factors to put things into context such as volcanoes and forest fires doing more to alter climate than anything man does and you’ve got some undereducated people. Now they’re ladling on the stupid!

California is already encouraging people to snitch on neighbors about water use. Soon we’ll have fire wars: neighbor versus neighbor. And those going after neighbors for fire will feel morally superior because, after all, all they’re trying to do is save the planet no matter if that leaves you in the cold.