While the island is rightly concerned about global warming, our part is but a drop in the ocean and nothing we can do will have the slightest effect in global statistical terms.

At the same time nothing is being done about a real menace to our health, particularly in urban areas, about which we should do a great deal and urgently.

I refer to eco-design wood burners , mistakenly regarded until recently as being quite a friendly heating option.

Recent research has now shown this belief to be utterly without foundation.

Irresponsible users who use non-kiln dried woods cause damage and smuts which can be smelled and observed by their unfortunate neighbours, Yet it is now known that users of dried wood also produce large quantities of very harmful tiny emissions known as PM2.5.

The figures are indeed so dramatic they would be very hard to accept at first were it not for the reliability of their sources Professor Chris Whitty, [England’s] chief medical officer, states that while older wood stoves produce 3700 times more toxic air pollution than gas central heating, even eco-wood burners produce 450 times more.

Put another way, the European Environment Bureau found that just one single eco-design woodburner stove produced the same harmful emissions as 750 HGV lorries.

A Labour MP has likened the insistence of manufacturers that their stoves are safe to that of cigarette firms who asserted for so long that their products were not harmful.

Older readers may recall ‘Craven A - Good For Your Throat’.

James Allan of Manchester University writes: ‘There is no safe level of PM2.5’.

Even small amounts have a measurable effect on health.

Air pollution kills up to 36,000 people in England each year.

The World Health Organisation has revealed the damage done to the human heart, lungs and brain by the deep penetration of PM 2.5, also linked to dementia and depression.

The infirm such as sufferers for heart problems or asthma are especially vulnerable, the WHO went so far as to label PM2.5 as ‘the most serious pollutant for human health.’

Coal burning emissions have decreased massively in recent years, yet despite this, those of the killer PH2.5 increased between 2011 and 2021 by124%.

The facts are now known.

London has taken drastic action already.

So why have our government and Douglas Council done nothing.

A Guardian poll revealed 67% of Londoners favoured a total ban.

A ban on fresh installations here and a short term for phasing them out altogether should be introduced now without delay.

Name and address supplied

This letter was first published in the Isle of Man Examiner of June 6.

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