Smoking ban poses new climate threat (good grief....)

[The Straight Story]

Smoking ban poses new climate threat

By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 02/12/2007

Pubs are likely to pump hundreds of thousands of tons of additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as a result of the smoking ban.

Policy advisers predict that emissions from patio heaters in pubs and restaurants will increase from 22,200 tons of greenhouse gases a year to up to 282,000 tons - the equivalent of flying a jumbo jet 171 times around the Earth.

Heaters will be used for more than 237 days a year, when outdoor temperatures are lower than 15C, says the report, from Market Transformation. A further 80,000 tons of carbon dioxide will be produced next year by patio heaters in private gardens, according to an earlier study by the Energy Saving Trust.

Environmentalists say the heaters must now be banned if Britain is to meet carbon dioxide emission targets.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/12/02/easmoke102.xml

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Are they using this argument in order to justify smoking in BARS?

That is just too damn much!

Figure out some other way to warm the great outdoors, or something!

Maybe people could just step outside for a quick smoke, and then resume their drinking/eating inside?

:shrug:

[The Straight Story]

3. Or maybe allow people to have smoking and non-smoking bars (aka choice)

But I doubt choice will ever catch on :)

[Greyhound]

9. They tried that first. The non-smoking bars went out of business, so...

we got laws banning choice. Hmmm, anti-choice laws, no where have I heard that before?

[The Straight Story]

10. Choice is for a FREE people - we don't need that here in the US

:)

[magellan]

2. The fair way to fix this

...would be to have smoking pubs and smoke-free pubs, and let the customers choose for themselves which they want to give their business to.

[MADem]

8. Well I agree with you, but that won't work. And I don't smoke, either.

But the antismoking whiners will complain that their 'rights' are being violated if the smoking bar has a good band that they want to see, and they're "prevented" from so doing by the smokers in the smoking bar. If they want to turn up to hear the band, they MUST be accomodated, because they're special!

The smoking scolds don't care if Sally Smoker is a hundred miles away--they can "smell it" and they just KNOW.

Of course, many will happily sit by a stinking, roaring, crackling fire, in a small room with lit candles and they don't have a problem with that stuff stinking up the air--the burning tree plant is good, the burning tobacco plant is bad.

Cancer from your fireplace? Oh, yea! It can happen.... http://cbs13.com/local/fireplaces.smoke.dangers.2.474047.html

It's a dangerous world out there...!

[Labors of Hercules]

4. Agreed.

When it comes to saving the planet, much better to stop the smoking ban and hit two birds with one stone:

1. Kill off more people with cancer, emphysema etc.etc.etc. (thus removing their "carbon footprint" altogether), AND...

2. decrease CO2 from patio heaters!

Kick-ass plan to save the planet you got there Straight! I support it 100%! :thumbsup:

(for the sarcasm impaired: :sarcasm:)

[sam sarrha]

6. tobacco in the usa kills the equivalent if total iraqi war dead plus 1000 every week

is it time to do more..??

[Labors of Hercules]

12. yep. It's been time for years and years. nt.

[sam sarrha]

5. the law isnt about patrons.. it is about 'workers'

[sandnsea]

7. Utah has "private" drinking clubs

When you go, you have to pay a $5 membership or some such, to get in.

I think they should make "private" clubs that serve alcohol and food, and where people can smoke or that have indoor smoking rooms.

I live in a town that has all non-smoking restaurants, and it is nice. But it's also stupid to pay to heat the outdoors, has to be a better solution.

[wuushew]

11. That "report" is short on facts

Pending better data the paper is a set of reasoned assumptions that will not be validated for a year or more.

Although sales of LPG appear to be slightly down in 2007 the report argues that carbon emitions could be expected to rise 1-3% as a percentage of of pollution emitted by hospitality businesses if one accepts the assumptions of the report.


Space heaters are for morons, the report suggests several better ways of heating people electrically. Do people think the supply of fossil fuel is unlimited? Ha ha have fun watching your NPV on your investment evaporate with higher fuel costs and carbon taxes on the way.



Also IMHO Brits must be even bigger wusses than Amerikans if 5-15 (41-59 F) degrees Celsius bothers them.



http://www.mtprog.com/ApprovedBriefingNotes/PDF/MTP_BNDH18_2007October16.pdf#search="households"