Unfortunately I think that's going to be very, very hard to sell to many people here in rural Ireland (Roscommon in my case). I would really love to see people stop burning turf but it's such a strong cultural thing that in some parts you'd be ostracised for even thinking the thought.

I've personally spoken to people (who are otherwise quite environmentally aware) who suggest they'd never vote for the Green Party because they'd take their turf away. It's a tough sell.

I think they should be allowed for cultural reasons but only if cut by hand like we did when I was a kid :)

> I think they should be allowed for cultural reasons but only if cut by hand like we did when I was a kid :)

Me too! That was a lot of work, and surprisingly hard to stack.

And turning it would cut your fingers to shreds! But it was great if the weather was fine.

Thank you both for the imagery here - quite beautiful, in its way.

This has made me remember having to go out to the coal shed and fill up a brass bucket and then come back in all covered in coal dust.

I've not thought about That Smell in years!

Did you have one of those ubiquitous brass boxes beside the hearth?

No, we had some antique brass bucket thing that I'd invariably have to drag in, accompanied by complaints that I was doing so, because obviously I'd put way too much in, so I didn't have to go out later to get more...

Which it almost never was :/

How much impact does it realistically have on climate change? I would expect it to be relatively small compared to things like owning a car?

In a perfect world we would want to reduce emissions as much as possible in every facet of life, but in the real world I think we should pick battles that have the biggest impact.

Might be one of those situations where globally it is irrelevant but heavily fouls up local air due to geography or prevailing airflow patterns.

Smoke yes, but you're also turning a carbon sink into a carbon source. At ~16% of the island's surface area, peatland stores an estimated 53% of soil based carbon. (source: Irish Peatland Conservation Council)

It grows back right?

I think the domestic heating use is a drop in the bucket compared to commercial extraction of peat for export, or historical use for electricity generation.

I've only so many shits to give, and people heating their homes doesn't rank.

People heating their homes can be very sigificant. In the UK ~15% of all its territorial GHGs come from heating with gas: actual CO2 from the home boiler flues.

CO2 from small amounts of rural home heating is probably not the big thing to be worried about, especially if local recent biomass, eg wood from forest management. But there are still nasties (PMs, biodiversity losses, etc) to be considered and that should be dealt with in due course.

The actual quantity of people burning turf for home heat is tiny, though.

At least in 2004 (not sure if it's still the case) there are some homes which still burned coal for heat. That is the nastiest smell out there.

In England it is no longer legal to sell "traditional house" coal for domestic heating:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/selling-coal-for-domestic-use-in...

On cold mornings you can see the wood smoke hanging over the town of Taos New Mexico. It's easy to see even a little bit of haze in the otherwise crystal clear air. Taos is in general a very environmentally conscious place. The KTAO radio station has been solar powered since the early 1990s. It also has a significant population of low wage tourism industry workers.

Not sure what we are supposed to infer from your last sentence?