When posting this bit of (dis) information I was holding out hope that a nice prolonged cooling trend might be around the corner and the wood burning season may get extended. Making wood burning even more economical and possibly even a brilliant investment. Being non political I take no sides in the global warming/climate change debate.. You would have to blind not to see the profound change man has had on the landscapes, waters, and creatures of the world, some for the betterment of man kind, but most for the detriment. With the recent advent of cleaner energy alternatives (solar, Wind, GeoTherm) we still insist on fracking around population centers and drilling all along our seaboards. Follow the money as one poster mentioned and it all leads back to the fossils.
It appears that the sunspot activity has really slowed down and that means a weaker magnetosphere due to less solar radiation to power it. When the magnetosphere weakens, more cosmic rays get through as well as other things. Cosmic rays influence clouds and storm on earth. As well as loosing its shielding properties, periods of weaker magnetosphere seem to correlate with increased volcanism. During the Maraunder Minimum (1645-1715) , the Little Ice Age as it is now called, sunspot activity was very low, less than 50 spots during a 28 year period. To put this into perspective, during the past 8 year 2009-2016 we have had 2,574 days with spots. As of today we have gone 4 days without a spot. Also during the Maraunder there were 4 large sulphur rich volcanic eruptions that affected the global climate. It is also speculated that freshwater from melting glacial sheets during the medieval warming period may have slowed the thermocline circulation of the worlds oceans. Though too early to tell for sure, it appears the setup now is eerily similar to the setup back then. Am I promoting living in fear? No, quite the contrary. I am looking forward to it if it does materialize and if it does not well that is fine too. I just brought this up to spur the imagination a bit during the lull in the burning season.
As far as science goes you only need to know one thing - in science there are no certainties. The very nature of science is to challenge every notion, every law, every finding. Science like history is re-written all of the time. The basis of all science is the notion that the atom is the smallest constituent unit of ordinary matter. Could this be proven false one day as we encounter unknown forms of matter? Possibly. When it comes to earth science - it is like the wild west. Models and theories change daily, so to base any credence in what scientists are saying in news articles or even scientific journals is ridiculous. it is all a great unknown.
As far as wood being as dirty as fossils - that is complete nonsense. Trees are stored solar energy, fossils are stored carbon energy. That is all you need to know and to argue it is a waste of time. I like burning wood. It is good exercise rounding it up and even more fun sipping a bourbon next to the stove while the weather turn nasty outside. I dis-like pumping gas, it is a P.I.T.A. and it cost me a lot of money and you cannot legally sip a bourbon while burning it!