Got wood?

Then they came for the wood burners

The Government earned plaudits from the green lobby yesterday for its new plan to crack down on the craze for wood-burning stoves

There's so much wrong with that sentence, it's almost impossible to know where to begin

Firstly, I had no idea the Government had announced a new plan to crack down on wood burners. I was either asleep, or they did it quietly
There's always something they want to crack down on; some extra detail of our lives where they think they are not yet interfering enough. And these people are supposed to be Conservatives. It's as though they care nothing about the general population they are supposed to serve, all they want is 'plaudits from the green lobby', or some such rubbish

So why wood burners? Ours save a fortune in fuel and weren't we told that wood burners are more environmentally friendly?

As the Mail reported on its front page, the stoves chuck out lethal pollution, particularly from wet wood, and contribute to thousands of early deaths from lung and heart disease

Yeah, well the Mail will report any old press release they are given, without bothering to check if it's complete bollocks. I wonder if these thousands of early deaths are the same type of early deaths caused by second hand smoke, bacon or sugar? IE, deaths that are calculated on a spreadsheet that throws out the numbers it is supposed to, rather than actual physical deaths of actual physical people caused by actual things.

There's so many thousands of early deaths these days, it's surprising we live in a time when life expectancy is higher than it's ever been. How's that possible?

But hang on! One reason Britain burns more wood than it has done for decades [...] is that only recently, the Government and the greens told us burning wood to heat our homes was the best thing we could do for the environment.
Wood is ‘sustainable’, we were told. It gives off less CO2 than any other heating. It will help us save the planet and meet CO2 reduction targets under the Climate Change Act.
As a result of these persuasive arguments, about 1.5 million British homes have wood-burning stoves and 200,000 more are sold every year.

Good Lord! So the Government tells us to heat our homes by burning wood and gets it's 'plaudits from the green lobby'. Shortly after, the green lobby change its mind and the Government cracks down on people heating their homes with wood, gaining them some more 'plaudits from the green lobby'

If we could heat our homes with fucking 'plaudits from the green lobby', energy would be almost free.

The Government must just love getting 'plaudits from the green lobby' and the sugar lobby and the tobacco lobby and the salt lobby and the fucking bacon and sausage lobby

It's not like they care about anything else, they just wait to be told what to do next by another lobby, and then bend over. We're ruled by a bunch of small children who care nothing about doing what's right, but just covet affection and approval from single issue groups who are mostly funded by the Government anyway

Not so long ago we were all told that diesel fuel is more environmentally friendly than petrol, so like dutiful little citizens, many people went out and bought diesel cars. Now the Government wants to penalise those people who bought diesel cars when they were told to, because as it turns out, the green lobby have changed their minds once again and diesels are now the Anti-Christ

They even reckon they can get away with banning all internal combustion engines by 2040, even though the technology is not yet in place to replace them, and with constant Government interference in the market, is never likely to be

All no doubt, for more 'plaudits from the green lobby'

I have a diesel pick up truck. Not because I was told to buy diesel, but because the truck kicks arse and just happens to have a diesel engine. When I do replace it, I won't pick a truck that runs on petrol, diesel, wood or bloody plaudits from the green lobby, just because the Government has a new bug up it's arse about something. I'll pick the vehicle I like and buy it. Because even if I wanted to be a dutiful little citizen and buy what I'm told to buy, how the hell would I know if the goal posts are going to change in a few months

If the Government doesn't know what it wants from one month to the next, how are we supposed to take it's advice on anything?

I also burn wood. I don't have proper all singing and dancing wood burners, just two open fires, one small and one large, that are great for heating. I get broken pallets from work as a completely free source of fuel and once the fire is going, they don't even give off any visible smoke

Which means I can ride this one out like the rest of them, continue to do what I'm already doing and have another WTAF! moment when the Government decides to tell us that wood burners are actually the future, but now we can't use washing up liquid, because it gets into the water supply and cleans all the fish in Asian rivers

You know I'm right