Pat Palmer: The bureaucratic beat-up on home fires and wood burners

In 2007 the Health and Air Pollution in New Zealand report (HAPiNZ) from the Ministry for the Environment estimated that fine particles (PM10) in the air in New Zealand caused 1,170 premature deaths each year. 

This estimate was based on an epidemiological study from Europe and assumed that PM10 from all sources - blast furnaces, diesel trucks, petrochemical industries, or from your toaster - are all equally toxic. Most PM10 in the New Zealand air has been fairly reliably measured as coming from home fires.

Pat Palmer: Air quality PM10 standards and health in Christchurch

In May the Press published a summary of a Ministry for the Environment (MfE )report extolling the improvements in health which have been achieved in New Zealand by the reduction in concentrations of PM10 in the air we breathe. 

The report said an 8 per cent nation-wide reduction between 2006 and 2012 resulted in 14 per cent fewer deaths and 15 per cent fewer hospital admissions from man made air pollution. Other reports from the Ministry say that respiratory health is the main effect. These numbers came from a model relating numbers of premature deaths and hospital admissions to measured or estimated concentrations of PM10.

What the Press (Fairfax NZ) report did not say was that the health impacts were not derived from hospital records or mortality statistics (which seems strange seeing that one of the contributors to the report was the official Government Statistician). This is "I say so" science. The sort the church authorities relied on to prove the sun went round the earth each day. Not the "You can see so" science of Galileo and Copernicus.