Patio heaters could be banned by the European Union over fears that they are contributing to global warming.

Publicans have invested €176.5 million in heaters over the past 12 months
Euro-MPs will tomorrow vote on energy efficiency proposals to phase out the sale of the popular gas-burning appliances which are increasingly found outside bars, cafés and restaurants since the indoor smoking ban.

Patio heater ownership by region
Patio heaters targeted over CO2 emissions
Patio heaters compared
Fiona Hall, a Liberal Democrat MEP, has led the calls for the ban, which is expected to be endorsed by the parliament in Brussels.

"Patio heaters are scandalous because they are burning fossil fuels in the open sky, so producing vast quantities of CO2 with very little heat benefit," she said.

But the proposal has been attacked by publicans, who say bars and pubs need the heaters for customers driven outside by smoking bans.

The trade has invested €186.5 million in heaters over the past 12 months and a ban could cost pubs, cafés and restaurants an estimated $250 million a year in lost business.

If proven to be successful, the ban is set to be implemented world wide by the end of September 2009

i'm not sure what they burn over there but int he states they use propane heaters which are a lot more environmentally friendly then a wood fireplace, hell a lot of them use electric heaters and close off the patio to keep the heat in. maybe they should ban something that might actually do some good like those giant ass suv's, or ban unleaded gas and switch to e85 or something instead of this crap. hell maybe we should ban people making over so much a year buying these huge 20 bedroom houses for 2 people owning 50 damn cars, spread that money around a little bit to all the people that can't afford a car that runs half way decent. buy them all some compact fuel efficient clean burning cars, they get jobs. enforce birth control, reduce the population, replenish food reserves......




ok i'll just sum it up with...

we got a lot bigger problems then the heaters at bars.....

I don't suppose anyone has told them that global warming is a myth.

WTF?