Dr Thomas Smith 🔥🌏 Profile picture
Dec 3 19 tweets 9 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
So I spent yesterday evening having a quiet night in. At around 11 pm I began to smell smoke *inside my flat*.
I went out to investigate…

This is a somewhat angry (but evidence-based) wood-burning thread.
*trigger warning* for urban wood-burners!

#WoodBurning 🔥💨🧵 [1/n]


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I live in inner-London (@LBHF). My flat is offset from a road by a building & car park, & gardens on the other side. All my windows & doors were closed. Below an air vent in my bedroom, I measured 34 µg/m3 of PM2.5 (close to unhealthy).
So I left my flat to investigate...
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@LBHF I had a very good idea where this smoke was coming from. After a short walk upwind from my flat, I headed to the pub on the opposite side of the road from my estate (& not for a pint!) They were burning wood on an open fire. This is illegal (more details below).
[3/n]
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@LBHF To start with, it's an offence to emit smoke from a chimney in 'smoke-control areas' (all of @LBHF). Smoke isn't always visible, but this illegal fire was producing obviously thick smoke, billowing from the pub's chimney towards council flats & student housing opposite.
[4/n]
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@LBHF In front of the council flats & student accommodation, the sensor measured PM2.5 at 60 µg/m3 (unhealthy for everyone, increasing risk of aggravation to the heart & lungs). On the walkway in front of my flat it was 45 µg/m3 (unhealthy for sensitive groups, e.g. asthmatics).
[5/n]
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@LBHF I'd overstayed my welcome in the pub after covertly taking photos & then asking to talk to the manager (who wasn't there), so I couldn't take a reading inside. Outside, a measurement from an air vent to the pub was 72 µg/m3 (unhealthy). It must have been higher inside.
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@LBHF The rules about what you can & cannot burn, & in what appliances, aren't well-communicated. However, once you find them, both @DefraUKAir & the council's websites state that wood must be burned in 'exempt appliances' (e.g. a Defra-approved log burner), not on open fires.
[7/n]

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@LBHF @DefraUKAir The open fire in this pub emits ~4,000x more PM2.5 than a gas boiler (per MWh energy produced), equivalent to almost every dwelling (4,910) in my council Ward (Ravenscourt Park) & 22x more polluting than the 180 gas-heated flats on my estate *combined* (downwind today).
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@LBHF @DefraUKAir I will be complaining to the @LBHF Air Quality Team, my local councillors (@lizcollins777 & @walshpatrick95), & my MP @andyslaughtermp (AGAIN). *Again*, because this is not the first time that I've complained about the pub (see this email from February, this year).
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@LBHF @DefraUKAir @Lizcollins777 @walshpatrick95 @andyslaughtermp I know it's the festive season & I don't want to be a Grinch, but the height of the chimney is below that of the housing opposite. In the flat above me is a toddler with asthma, & the people working in the pub will have chronic exposure to a known carcinogen.
[10/n]
@LBHF @DefraUKAir @Lizcollins777 @walshpatrick95 @andyslaughtermp Domestic wood burning accounted for 25% of UK PM2.5 emissions in 2020. This has increased by 35% between 2010 & 2020. It is now the single-biggest source of small particle air pollution in the UK, exceeding that of road traffic.

[11/n]london.gov.uk/programmes-and…
@LBHF @DefraUKAir @Lizcollins777 @walshpatrick95 @andyslaughtermp Some technical details: The sensor I'm using is pretty accurate according to a comparison with regulatory-compliant monitoring equipment (I'm a co-author on this open-access paper led by @DrKrisChan in which we evaluate the sensor hardware):

[12/n]journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…
@LBHF @DefraUKAir @Lizcollins777 @walshpatrick95 @andyslaughtermp @drkrischan This table helps to compare the measurements on my device in the photos (in micrograms of PM2.5 per cubic metre, µg/m3) with the US Air Quality Index & associated health risks. *There is no safe level of PM2.5*, hence my concern for the 34 µg/m3 in my flat.
Source: @IQAir
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@LBHF @DefraUKAir @Lizcollins777 @walshpatrick95 @andyslaughtermp @drkrischan @IQAir Even legal Defra-approved burners using approved fuels emit 465x more PM2.5 per MWh than gas boilers. One house (& there is at least one) upwind of my estate can emit twice as much PM2.5 than the combined emissions from all 180 flats on my estate!

[14/n]
@LBHF @DefraUKAir @Lizcollins777 @walshpatrick95 @andyslaughtermp @drkrischan @IQAir I'm glad some councils and MPs are considering the issue, especially now that solid-fuel burning in a relatively small number of households is the single-largest source of particulate pollution in the UK.
@RuthNewportWest @AdamDKHarrison

[15/n]
@LBHF @DefraUKAir @Lizcollins777 @walshpatrick95 @andyslaughtermp @drkrischan @IQAir @RuthNewportWest @AdamDKHarrison Domestic sources of PM2.5 in cities were all-but eradicated by the Clean Air Act 1956 & the transition to gas/electric heating in the 1960s/70s. This regressive trend for (arguably unnecessary) wood burning in urban areas is negating that progress.

[16/n]
@LBHF @DefraUKAir @Lizcollins777 @walshpatrick95 @andyslaughtermp @drkrischan @IQAir @RuthNewportWest @AdamDKHarrison Finally, wood-burning is not a 'green' alternative to fossil fuels. Burning wood rapidly releases CO2, when the wood carbon might otherwise slowly decompose or be stored. It's also less carbon-efficient than other energy sources:

@dsawsp
[17/17]dsawsp.org/environment/cl…
@LBHF @DefraUKAir @Lizcollins777 @walshpatrick95 @andyslaughtermp @drkrischan @IQAir @RuthNewportWest @AdamDKHarrison @dsawsp I'm fairly sure you will be interested in this thread:
@mwt2008 @GeorgeMonbiot @DrGaryFuller @kschrekenberg1 @jksmith34 @ndrlee @fionaharvey @CarolineRussell @Sefi_Roth_ @techpoodle @FedUpWithBadAir @cleanairforall2 @woodburningldn @cleanairdayuk @anotherjon @jimmcquaid
Thanks for the supportive replies. I'm learning to ignore the semi-abusive & ignorant ones. Many asked about the sensor & how to get one. It's a Xiaomi Smartmi PM2.5 detector. It used to retail for ~$30
@AliexpressGl, but harder to find at that price now:
onbuy.com/gb/p/new-smart…

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More from @DrTELS

Oct 25
It's not as ridiculous as it sounds. We don't really know how the jet stream will change, but it will! We can't rely on the past to inform our preparedness for the future. Risk scenarios need to tackle the known unknowns, not only the known knowns. Here's my thread below:
This thread was put together on Friday 20th October, before the worst of the weather arrived. The emphasis was on why extreme wind & rain from the east (#StormBabet) is not on the UK's risk radar:
@jimmcquaid is right here. Forecasting provided plenty of warning, including geographically appropriate yellow, amber & red warnings. But the response might have been insufficient because the scenario was unusual & not part of civil contingency planning.
Read 4 tweets
Oct 11
Smoke knows no borders. Our atmosphere is a global commons.
Experimenting with AI to highlight the farce of the denial culture around responsibility for haze (smoke pollution).
[1/5] Image
Which do you prefer?
[2/5]


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There's clearly a lot of smoke travelling across borders.
[3/5]
Read 7 tweets
Oct 6
The world's worst air pollution crisis is happening right now across Kalimantan & Sumatra, Indonesia 🇮🇩
According to our monitoring network, PM2.5 is at a 24-hr average of around 300 µg/m^3 (hazardous AQI of 350), 1-hr averages peaking at 750 (above the AQI max)
A thread 🧵 [1/n]


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Persistent fires in Kalimantan, particularly in Central & South provinces, are sending a thick plume of smoke that by today has enfulged pretty much the whole of Indonesian Borneo (~500,000 km²). Millions of people have been exposed to hazardous air pollution for weeks now.
[2/n]
The situation is also bad in Sumatra, where fires in Lampung & South Sumatra are sending a thick plume north affecting millions on the island, but also densely populated cities across the Malacca Straits to Singapore 🇸🇬 & Malaysia 🇲🇾.
[3/n]
Read 14 tweets
Jul 22
"I'm not aware of a similar period when all components of the climate system were in record-breaking or abnormal territory"
This is what I mean by "all components of the climate system"... [🧵1/n]

@GeorginaRannard @BBCNewsbbc.co.uk/news/science-e…
We're most familiar with air temperature records. These are being smashed for individual weather stations, regions & countries all over the planet. June in the UK was 0.9°C warmer than any previous June on record. Global assimilations show the same pattern.
[2/n] Image
The surface of our oceans have been warmer than any other time on record since *March* and the difference between previous records & this year is widening. El Nino is playing a role, but that has only just begun. The North Atlantic plot is from @LeonSimons8
[3/n]
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Read 11 tweets
Jul 8
What are tipping points?
They are processes whereby a system experiences a shift in state when a threshold in its conditions (caused by forcing) is breached. The shift is relatively rapid & if you reverse the forcing, the system does not return to its earlier state.
[1/n]
Examples of systems that exhibit tipping point behaviour:
- Society (often related to critical mass where once a few people have adopted or contracted something, a rapid shift follows, e.g. viruses, tech adoption, fashion)
- Financial markets
- Earth's climate & ecosystems
[2/n]
A fire ecology example: From forest to non-forest. Stabilising feedbacks keep a forest a forest. But if you keep forcing (e.g. with logging & climate change), a tipping point is crossed & new mechanisms help to maintain the non-forest, even if you reverse the forcings.
[3/n]
Read 12 tweets
Jul 7
I *hope* we're not crossing tipping points. We might not know for some time and & we may not know in our lifetimes. But it's very hard to look at these data & not be very worried. The past three days are *likely* to have been the warmest on our planet since records began. [1/3]
Daily data are preliminary estimates using models that will be carefully evaluated over the next few weeks. There appear to be few places on the planet cooler than average, with dramatic +20°C anomalies over Antarctica (it's winter there).

[2/3] https://t.co/ZsbDHyUR52climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/


The reason why we can't know about tipping points is because thresholds are not well-defined for most of them. We simply don't have the precision. Many are also related to slow inertial processes that even if we were to cross thresholds today, we may not know about it for decades
Read 4 tweets

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