Thursday, January 29, 2009

Smoke gets in your eyes.......


We are still up here, getting ready to leave in a few days so I get the chance to sit around, sip my strong coffee and read the local periodicals.

An interesting article today about another form of freedom grabbing tactics disguised as the green squad.
Seems that you can no longer heat your house by burning wood in several parts of the state.

About 20 years ago there was a push to eliminate wood burning stoves. If you wanted a fireplace or a wood stove you had to purchase a pellet stove and feed it with special compressed wood pellets. Which were a lot more expensive than the old logs and stuff laying around your property.

Well now that could be against the law. The EPA has now joined the cause.

The smoke police can come and give you a big fine.
Your neighbor can complain if smoke bothers him.
Smoke police drive around and look for smoke emanating from chimneys.
And the expensive pellet stoves are not going to be approved anymore.

The problem is now that the cost of electricity and natural gas is very expensive combined with that a lot of people are at home because they have lost their jobs, are now being told that they can't throw a log on the fireplace to keep warm.

"It's the particulate matter we are told." So fine that it can invade your lungs and your bloodstream.

Pardon me, but I think there are a lot of more dangerous stuff that can kill you nowadays, like
Peanut Butter, Spinach, Tomatoes and something else you read about every day.

Thankfully, we heat our house in Patzcuaro with wood, a renewable resource, we don't have natural gas and if we used electricity we would have to sell a gold ingot every month to pay the CFE bill.
Not a big problem unless you don't happen to have any gold ingots.

So burn baby burn while you still can, or build a real tall wall around your home, one tall enough that the neighbor or the smoke police will not be able to detect your smoke. Naaa they probably already see your house via satellite........

And I like the smell and the crackle of the wood burning in my fireplace..........especially when you can sit down , grab a good book and enjoy a little time in the radiance of the heat.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Phew!
At first I thought you meant Michoacan about not being able to burn wood for heat. That smell is one of the most elemental and pleasant. I can't wait to huff some more of that Patzcuaro woodsmoke goodness.
Particulate matter and all!
Post on.

Tancho said...

Thankfully AC, Mexico has not figured out the profit center on a lot of the regulatory and overflowing economy draining motives the dear politicians have in the US.
But....they are probably not far behind.