Is that true though?
Not just directly but also indirectly?
Burning fossil fuels causes global heating, and even in what used to be the moist or even wet temperate climate of Britain we've had more wildfires, which cause horrible air pollution.
That's also one of the reasons I've spoken out for years about the risks from bonfires. And I've reported bonfires - burning plastics in particular - to Environmental Health officers, though they never did anything about it. That was in my parents' area, where pollution from cars was horrendous.
Fair enough - people with asthma, COPD, heart conditions, and more need clean air. (And that's clean air free from _all_ forms of pollution.) But as far as I'm aware that doesn't apply to any of my immediate neighbours, and none of them have asked me to stop burning firewood.
I'm not saying that burning wood is okay for everybody, let alone for a minority who can afford to buy heat pumps.
But it is better than burning fossil fuel, especially in sparsely populated countryside where local sustainably produced firewood is available and burnt in a cleanburn stove.
I do use electricity generated from renewable sources. But that doesn't mean I can necessarily afford to buy a heat pump.
And how do the apologists for burning fossil fuel claim to do so without harming the health of people and all other living beings?
So only people living as hermits are allowed to keep warm with firewood? The rest of us poor people in the countryside must stay cold?
Yes, but firewood from sustainable woodland management is keeping a cycle of sustainble growth going in an essential habitat.
The model you are quoting from is the less ecologically sound system of clearfell plantations - rather different.
Yes, but 'cleaner heating subsidies' do not exist except for people who have to meet deliberately very strict criteria. I am poor but I am not poor enough to get any such cleaner heating subsidy, and most people around here are also not poor enough. So we struggle on without.
'Burning fossil fuel is better than burning wood.'?!
No thank you.
The firewood I burn is local - from a few miles away - and is produced from managing local woodland. That management does good, not harm.
It is immoral to contribute to the global climate crisis by burning fossil fuels.
Of course not everybody can keep warm with firewood. We've increased human populations beyond the point at which firewood can keep us all warm. And firewood is not environmentally friendly in cities and big towns.
But that's because of overpopulation, and travel emissions, not the firewood itself.
!
Firewood has been sustainable for thousands of years of human history!
It's fossil fuels that are not sustainable, by definition, because they're made from fossilised remains of living creatures.
Thanks James!
I've never said that, and it's unfair of you to pretend that I have. I'd rather people in cities and towns got heat pumps. Burning firewood in cities and towns is not sustainable. But I'd rather people burned wood than coal or oil or gas in the countryside, where there is local firewood available.
theleap.org/our-work/car...
The film www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m8Y... says that (instead of more weapons) we need to rebuild the economy 'around the core of essential work – food and farming, care for young and old, public health. Not to mention the essential care of the more-than-human world...'.
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Shanell Johnson last September:
'... The loss of libraries, youth clubs, community centres and pubs has left many without places for face-to-face connection. In their absence, people turn to social media, where anger is amplified and exploited...'
Some of the questions are good and sensible, but there's a disturbing whole section on the BBC being asked to promote economic growth. Growth of what?
Our so-called 'Labour' government's obsession with money.
Why don't they know that there's more to life than money?
www.gov.uk/government/c...
Just finished doing the online (postal and email options as well, but too late now for the post) consultation for the future Charter of the BBC.
Less than an hour left.
www.gov.uk/government/c...
I don't have much choice. And I live in a village. There are far worse sources of air pollution around here.
Please stop trying to guilt-trip me into getting ill from hypothermia.
I agree no excuse in cities. But not everybody lives in cities.
Thanks for the link - not one I've seen - I'll read later.
But not everybody has alternatives. Not everybody has the money to pay for electric heating, let alone heat pumps. And even those prepared to burn fossil fuel (not me) may not have space for an oil tank, or live somewhere with a gas supply.
'If you chop down a tree to burn it, then it won't be absorbing CO2 anymore.'
Not true.
If most British native trees are cut down they are not killed. They regrow from the stump. That's why for centuries we heated our homes with firewood from coppiced woodland.
Nothing wrong with burning firewood if it's from sustainably managed local woodland, and it's burned responsibly.
Electricity has to be generated from some other source of energy, and not all such sources are as sustainable as firewood can be.
I'm no fan of so-called 'artificial intelligence'. Although good computer programmes can be wonderful and useful, only conscious beings - humans and non-human animals - can be intelligent. Machines and computer programmes are neither conscious nor intelligent.
But this is really encouraging.
The Met Office never say there's 0% or 100% chance of rain. And they don't give probabilities to 1%. They're all to the nearest 5 or 10%, and the minimum and maximum are < 5% and > 95%. Statistically far more numerate!
'Oil & gas prices skyrocketing'
Was that what they wanted all along? Like it probably was when they invaded Iraq?
For people in the UK: less than a week left to contribute to the consultation about the BBC's future. We need to protect our BBC.
The consultation closes just before midnight on Tuesday 10 March 2026.
www.gov.uk/government/c...
[Why does our daft government label it 'Britain's Story'?!]
This looks like it will be essential reading - published later this year.
naomiklein.org/end-times-fa...
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
'Keir Starmer ... issued his strongest rebuke yet, saying the UK did not believe in “regime change from the skies”.'
Best response - Emily Thornberry: “I can’t help but wonder what Churchill would have made of Trump. He certainly ain’t no Franklin D Roosevelt.”
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...
I'm critical of a lot of what this supposedly 'Labour' government has done so far.
But at least Keir Starmer isn't as foolish as Tony Blair, who believed that bombing a country would get them a better government.
(And of course that's not why Trump is doing it.)
