"it’s viewed as a dirty"

It is. I lived in a small town in a river valley some years ago: you couldn't open the windows in late afternoon, when everyone started to burn their dirty fires.

That's funny, because you get the same thing with firewood and wood furnaces now. Not particularly better on the unhealthiness scale, either.

Actually, between people burning whatever looks wood-like and coal, I'd probably prefer the coal.

You say that, but the EPA has been slowly tightening emission rules for wood burning stoves. Just this year the EPA is beginning to reduce the allowable soot emissions for stoves from 4.5g/h down to 2.0g/h. Old stoves are obviously a problem, but they’re getting measurably better with time.

The model I’m considering purchasing has an actual catalytic converter in it, just like a car, to ensure combustion is as complete as possible.

And cigarette filters are 30% effective at removing solids from inhaled smoke. But you are still smoking!

It's 2021. Burning wood makes no sense from a global warming and certainly not from a public health perspective.

Unless you can wave a magic wand and make alternative sources of energy sufficiently cheaper (or make people sufficiently richer, two sides of the same coin really) people are going to heat with wood where that is economically favorable.

Wood is carbon-neutral. Fossils aren't.

Well, it depends how peope start their fires and what they burn. A clean burning wood fire, started well, is no big problem.

A badly started coal fire? That is bad.

I think in 10 years it’ll be a requirement to have a catalytic converter on every stove.