Show the love, support clean air in your community

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A new non-profit has been started called the Gabriola Island Clean Air Society.


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The burning question: How to tackle air pollution and health threats from wood stoves?

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Gabriola Island Clean Air Society board member, Dr. Michael Mehta, is quoted in this article in the National Observer on wood stoves. He states: "If the stereotype associated with country living holds fast, folks in Canada’s small towns and rural communities should be relishing the benefits of fresh, clean air. But rather the opposite is true, said Michael Mehta, a professor of geography and environmental studies at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C. The full article is here .
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How clean are the emissions from a SUV?

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In August 2015 we decided to test the PM 2.5 levels from a 2013 Ford Explorer with a V8 engine. The nephelometer (Radiance Research M90 )  was positioned 15cm away from the exhaust pipe on a calm day. After several minutes of readings on a warmed up engine, the PM 2.5 levels ranged between 8 and 11 with a modal response of approximately 8.5. Here's a photo of the experiment. This shows us how clean vehicles emissions are when compared to woodsmoke fires.   Paradoxically you would be safer (at least from a PM 2.5 perspective) breathing off this tailpipe like a snorkel than  living near a wood fire like this where readings have sometimes hit 200 (ten times the provincial limit).
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A personal story about dealing with wood smoke

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  After 14 years of fighting air pollution locally generated by neighbours from their wood stoves, fire pits, fireplaces, and open burning, we have sold and moved away from our community on Gabriola Island, British Columbia.   It was the most difficult decision of our lives, and a seemingly impossible one. Choosing between your health and home isn’t fair.   After writing dozens of letters to various levels of government on this issue, presenting to councils, setting up a pollution monitoring network using PurpleAir technology, presenting academic work at conferences, being interviewed more than 50 times by media on the topic, working with a group of wonderful, like-minded people to create a non-profit called the Gabriola Island Clean Air Society, and joining the Board of an international group called Doctors and Scientists Against Wood Smoke Pollution, I am exhausted.   We lost many friends over this battle, incurred significant financial costs, were taunted and shun...
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