American Notes

In Seattle, where environmentalism and individualism are local mainstays, the woodburning stove has long been the appliance of the politically correct. Sales exploded during the 1970s energy crises, when stoves seemed an organic way of declaring independence from Big Oil.

But it turns out that they can be rotten for your health. The organic compounds of woodsmoke are suspected of being linked to cancer, heart disease and disorders of the central nervous system. "People never realized how dirty they were," says Naydene Maykut, an air-pollution scientist. Heating 30 houses with wood stoves, she notes, creates as much particulate matter as heating 30,000 houses with natural gas.

Although people on fixed incomes would be allowed to keep their stoves, King County officials are considering banning stoves in new homes and phasing out older models. "It's about time," says David Ortman, northwest representative of Friends of the Earth. "We shouldn't have put them in in the first place."