You know the enviros have gone too far when you lose the right to stay warm in your own home.

This year, a new regulation has gone into effect prohibiting Californians from burning wood in their own fireplace – that’s right, in their own fireplace – on days that have been designated “Spare the Air Days.” 

This new regulation took effect this year and continues through the end of February… ironically, during the same cold winter nights that people actually need a fireplace the most.  I know. I am one of them.

The regulation applies to residents living within the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (which has some terrible acronym such as BAAQMD which, frankly, is far too long and makes absolutely no sense).  The problem is, this “District” applies to residents not just in the immediate San Francisco Bay Area, but also includes residents all along the Northern California coastline, Humboldt County, Mendocino County fishing communities, farming communities and more inland areas such as Napa Valley and beyond.  At the risk of oversimplifying, there is quite a difference between, say, downtown San Francisco, and a home in the sparsely populated areas of Sonoma, Napa, and Lake Counties where the fireplace is often the main source of heat for the home.

Certainly, I understand that the Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s concern about pollution in the densely-populated metropolis that is San Francisco. And certainly, we should all do what we can to conserve… after all, that’s where the term “conserve-ative” comes from.

But when we begin putting a piece of policy above real, live human beings, we’ve got ourselves a problem.  When children aren't warm in their own homes and when the elderly are falling ill because they don’t receive the warmth they need, then the BAAQMD should absolutely re-tool its policy to exclude these homes far beyond the Bay Area during these especially cold winter months.

If BAAQMD wants to eliminate pollution in the City, they should focus on densely populated areas within the Bay Area, and allow the rest of the Northern California communities the dignity to keep their houses – and their families – warm.

To sound off, send a letter to the BAAQMD at: SpareTheAir@BAAQMD.gov.