Hi,

I could list thousands of real world examples in which a cultural belief (e.g. Religion or political ideology ) in any particular area is attributing towards some form of social ill. However, I will only list one real world example for this case study, due in part, because cultural belief can cause some of the worst social pathological behavior to manifest and I,for one, wouldn't want to stir a psychological hornets nest. And that's why I've been very hesitant to get involved on a political level in the context of this case study. The reason I'm referring this case study to you ( the scientific community) is due to the fact that the more logical minds think about any particular problem the more probable a solution can be found to mitigate that problem.

Case Study:

A community is seriously contaminating the air they breath with toxic smoke (there isn't a "healthy" smoke). Whilst they do have the choice to not emit toxic smoke in there local environment.e.g. By using more cleaner technologies to heat there homes. They "choose" not to. The reasons why this form of social self harm exists (other than when there is no choice.e.g. Burn Coal or freeze) is only because of ignorance in most cases.

This ignorance is based on a central cultural presumption. A belief that blinds them from the facts, thus they act without due care and attention.

Fact 1.

The community (a significant percentage of the people in the community that contribute towards a negative health difference to the overall air quality) are choosing to behave in a way that, evidence has shown, seriously harms health ( e.g. Coal/wood smoke is far more toxic than cigarette smoke).

Fact 2.

They don't (are not cognitively indoctrinated too) accept the facts due to a habitual cognitive bias ( driven in part by a religious upbringing in which they are indoctrinated in such away that they avoid certain facts that contradicts their central premise (belief/opinion) and or ideological/financial incentive).

Fact 3.

local industry actively promotes ( and part takes) in the ritual of burning stuff in the local environment and is financially motivated to promote the burning of wood and coal.

Fact 4.

The culture is comparably wealthy in so that most (if not all) do not even consider the alternative cleaner options. New homes are built and coal fire places and or wood burners are installed.

Fact 5. The local governing bodies are part of the coal/wood burning culture thus are not interested in mitigating the problem (e.g. Smoke control regulations).

Fact 6. Some of the narratives promoted by local business ( financially associated within the tree to burning wood economy) suggest that burning wood for heating is a sustainable method to mitigate climate change.i.e. Tree's fix Carbon from the air and burning wood releases the carbon back into the Air ( and in local peoples lungs). Whilst this narrative is correct, they then go on to add the "carbon neutral" narrative, which is completely incorrect. For example, it takes a lot of industry (predominantly a diesel driven industry) to grow tree plantations and get those tree's processed and into houses as logs. Furthermore, the conifer tree plantations take up most of the forested areas of the local landscape and being of a monoculture design, are not self sustaining in the long term.e.g. Loss of fertile soils and loss of the carbon ( carbon capture cycle. Thus on a large scale disruptive to the ecosystem ).

So given the particulates (sorry, pun intended), the particulars of this case, does anyone have any suggestions what methods could be used in order to reduce smoke emissions thus improve the general health of the area. Other than replacing the entire culture with more intelligent thoughtful people, I'm at a loss in how to help these poor "souls" out.