“Green” Wood-Burning Making Munich Germany’s Air Dirtier Than NSW – Even As Bush Fires Rage!

A number of countries have even made wood-burning a part of their drive to cut down on CO2 emissions. For example cities like Munich, Germany are seeing a rise in wood burning as a source of heat.

Moreover, many German cities are moving to ban diesel engine cars because of the CO2 they produce and, more importantly, all the terrible fine particles they emit.

German cities choking on “green” wood smoke

Yet, ironically, as cities move to “clean” up their act and protect the climate, the opposite is in fact becoming the result. German cities are increasingly choking on fine particles emitted by dirty wood-burning – and activists are turning a blind eye to the growing problem.

In the case of Munich, Swiss meteorologist Jörg Kachelmann recently pointed out that evening time air quality in the Bavarian capital becomes worse than the average air quality of much of New South Wales, Australia even as bush fires rage.

Kachelmann tweeted:

All air measurement stations in the fire-affected New South Wales currently have better air quality than the wood-fired Munich.

dpie.nsw.gov.au/air-quality/ai

Munich (as always: clean in the daytime, filthy evenings/nights):

kachelmannwetter.com/de/luftqualita

No journalist is interested.”

What follows is the chart for Munich, yesterday evening (January 6), up to 8 pm for fine particles:

Chart source: https://kachelmannwetter.com/de/

Yesterday evening (Munich – time) most stations in NSW showed an average cleaner air than Munich did. Evenings many of Munich’s citizens like to settled down and light cozy fires to sit by – and feel good about their contribution to CO2 cutbacks.

The chart above shows how Munich’s air had become laden with 70 micro grams of fine particles by 7 p.m. – worse than the average air quality in NSW!

New South Wales air quality, Tuesday, January 7, 2020:

Source: https://www.dpie.nsw.gov.au/air-quality/current-air-quality

9 responses to ““Green” Wood-Burning Making Munich Germany’s Air Dirtier Than NSW – Even As Bush Fires Rage!”

  1. Tom Anderson

    When I was a student, many decades ago, we dissipated our learning in what were called bull sessions. There, reference to a common polemical flaw, “compartmentalization,” was a sure show stopper. It led the unwary to support two contrary beliefs unconscious of inevitable self-contradiction. Either that is no longer a concern or nobody thinks that far ahead any more. Here the environmentalists compartmentalize wood smoke, which many cities in the US banned because of excess (possibly carcinogenic) particulate matter, away from really bad stuff like necessary atmospheric trace gases. They now advance wood smoke as “clean” (if smutty) technology. With thinking so hermetically balkanized self-contradiction apparently is no longer on the radar.

    1. MFKetterer

      Since you were comparing 24h rolling average (NSW) to hourly average (Munich) your comparison is of rather low value for your argument: Munich did much better than any reported location in NSW. Yet I see the concerns about the wood stoves as
      justified.

  2. Kneel

    FYI:
    I live in Campbelltown NSW, and to give context to the numbers, I note that for 1700 odd (for particulates), at 600-800m it looks about “half” shrouded in smoke – that is, it’s like fog where you can make out what’s there in general terms, but details are “hidden”, colours washed out etc.

  3. oebele bruinsma

    Back to the London smog of the 1950s, killing thousands of people. Is this called progress?

  4. bonbon

    Kachelmann’s Switzerland, well known for great air quality, at least above the tree-line, has gone nuts too :
    https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/de/home/wirtschaft/energie/energiewende.htmlhttps://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/de/home/wirtschaft/energie/energiewende.html
    All 5 reactors to be replaced with green “renewables” !
    Well I guess they will go back to good old forest wood stoves.
    Makes the Confederation Helvetique look like de-facto part of the EU!

    Now I wonder about the EU GND – swiss banks come to mind.

  5. Mick J

    Related, this article at Breitbart includes a table of PM2.5 levels for 73 countries that may be found useful.
    https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2020/01/02/leading-climate-alarmist-freaks-out-over-australia-bushfires/

    Drawn from the 2018 World Air Quality Report, published by IQAIR,
    https://www.airvisual.com/world-most-polluted-cities/world-air-quality-report-2018-en.pdf

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