I am a concerned citizen that has become aware of the world wide prevalence of air pollution by the unfortunate reality of personal hospital visits after becoming in the last year very sensitive to wood smoke. The more I read about the toxicity of wood smoke in the scientific literature the clearer it becomes that society is living in a deep denial about the damage of and prevalence of wood smoke in rural Canada and the world in general. In the 1950’s cigarette smoke was considered harmless, even a pleasant sign of sophistication not the dangerous, killing, toxic smoke it was. We are still in 1950’s thinking in terms of wood smoke from home heating in rural Canada with the result of increased disease and morbidity in rural Canada from pervasive wood smoke from home heating.
I am using Purple Air sensors to collect data on wood smoke levels and draw the attention of the community to the unseen danger they are living with.