[Stoves] Prakti two-burner stove features in article on "protecting the poor from climate change policies"

[Ronal W. Larson]

List,  Dean,  Crispin

	 I agree with Dean on both of his points  I respond to make sure that Dean has company in case list readers are unsure of what is going on given Dean’s strong language.  I add below to Dean’s pithiness on testing because testing is a very important topic and not one we should drop quickly as a topic.  Second point seems to need a rebuttal as well - given the nature of the groups claiming that our work on wood-burning stoves is misplaced.   On this list, we have tried to stay away from climate argumentation that can take place at the sister “biochar-policy” list.  But responding to Crispin seems mandatory - especially in this case because it is solely about climate belief and stoves and the only countries where the work is most important.

	I am not understanding why “Prakti” is singled out in the subject line.  Is this a complement or a slam?  If I were associated with Prakti (I only know the name), I don’t think I would be pleased to be there.

	So below a little more.


On Sep 27, 2014, at 9:06 AM, Dean Still <deankstill at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Crispin,
> 
> I do not see how linking together your two outlier beliefs that stove testing is wrong and climate change is wrong strengthens either case. The great majority of scientists involved in both fields disagree with you. 
	[RWL1:  Any disagreement with Dean that Crispin is in the minority?  More below on my perception on how few support Crispin - but this is much more than a case about number counting.  This seems to me to just be plain non-sense.
> 
> Dean
> 
> On Sat, Sep 27, 2014 at 2:38 AM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:
> ‎http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/09/26/protect-the-poor-from-climate-change-policies/

	[RWL2:  This “Watts” blog is the climate resource I trust least.  The article is from a Paul Driessen writing about an ultra-conservative religious group named the Cornwall Alliance.  Driessen has his own website http://www.eco-imperialism.com/what-is-eco-imperialism/.  He says he is the author of the term eco-imperialism, which I’ll let others read at his site.   I am unaware of anyone else making his claim.    I am sure I fit into his definition (being interested in the environment and developing countries and stoves - probably a good many on this list do as well. 
	I could not find this Watts article at the Driessen web site - and Google didn’t pick it up for me.  I ask Crispin if he is recommending all the views in this article or not - and why it seemed pertinent to bring to our attention right now.
	I usually find a good rebuttal to climate denial literature at the Skeptical Science site.  They didn’t disappoint again.  See quite a lengthy video piece on the Cornwall Alliance at http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=1606 .  This is not a typical Evangelical group;  no group could be further from mainstream church groups on this topic.  We should not think this view is common.


> 
> Dear Friends 
> 
> Domestic stoves are receiving more and more attention ‎with the contrast between the lives of the rich energy consuming nations and the poor living in a cloud of smoke getting more and more attention. Article are appearing with increasing frequency in Nature, Science and heath publications. The piece above directly challenges the story line that the poor should, in service to the greater good of mankind, continue to suffer in backwardness in order to save us all from thermageddon. The plight of stove users and breathers of smoke is starting to emerge as a PR talking point. 
		[RWL3:  From this, I am still not sure what Crispin’s view is on this article.  My own view is this fellow Driesen knows almost nothing about stoves in developing countries.  He is extrapolating from an extreme view on climate, because stove technology is only used in developing countries - and he is saying that all climate concerns adversely affects all developing countries.  I gather Crispin agrees.  I think the exact opposite.
> 
> Taking the standpoint of Samer Abdelnour which asks overarching questions about links and common associations, one can ask if improved stoves such as the one selected for the headline are actually substitutes for real energy democracy, with complex questions of access being 'technolgised' and reduced to providing a compensating $35 stove. Poor countries are now being actively defunded for new energy supplies as stove programmes are ramped up. Is this the trade off? Breathe less smoke is the dark - thanks.
		[RWL4:   I’m still not sure of the point.  I haven’t noticed that stove funding is excessive - or is in anyway taking away from other RE funding (which is going very well now without subsidy.  To remind all, Samer Abdelnour wrote about the problem of rape for women looking for firewood (in Darfur, Sudan - near where I once lived and where charcoal use has ruined the country).  I vaguely recall having a slight disagreement with Samer - so hope he can chime in to remind us of his views and how they mesh with the Crispin/ Driessen/Cornwall views.
> 
> Personally I don't think so - it is an accidental correlation. It falls to the stove promoting community to ensure that no backlash against omnibus climate control policies negatively impact the progress we have created in this sector. 
		[RWL5:  The first sentence seems to deny Crispin’s buying of the Driessen story.  So now I am confused on what Crispin likes or not about this Driessen article (which says we stove-folk are all wasting our time).  Driessen is arguing for modern fuels - electricity mainly.
	We have written on this list fairly recently about Kirk Smith’s desire that poor be given access to electricity - being much cleaner.  I am with Kirk and the Cornwall Alliance in thinking that electricity would be great for cooking.  I just don’t see that happening - and especially not coming from any of the right wing who I see writing about foreign aid.  Someone please correct me if what this list is about is eco-imperialism  (which view I believe Crispin has endorsed in this message - because much of our work is related to climate).  I affirm that much of my stove interest has a climate connection - and I know that Kirk has the same concern.  I would not be writing this on this list except for feeling a need to rebut Crispin on how climate topics do or do not relate to stove topics.

> 
> If the wonky science and even anti-science that pervades the climate alarmist narrative were to be detected in stove testing and promoting community the inevitable backlash will take down the stove programmes (including the CDM funding).
		[RWL6:   I guess those of us alarmed about climate directions (being “wonky” and “anti-science”) that are detectable in stove testing and promoting need to apologize for the “inevitable backlash [that etc.]”    This alarmist (opposite of denialist) theme is not only in Driessen’s article but throughout the Cornwall Alliance literature (which is the most extreme anti-climate-concern I have ever seen).  Driessen is speaking for a large group of climate deniers, but I perceive is pretty unusual in tying this to stoves and developing countries.  Has anyone else written that cook stove improvement is going to be badly hurt by being associated with concern about global warming?  This one is weird - and I am afraid that this is Crispin’s belief as well (I ask for more than words like “were to be detected”.
>  
> 
> The moment is therefore opportune to sweep the stage clean at the Guatemala ISO meeting and ditch the albatross that has weighed down the improved stove sector - tests with questionable math, poorly defined terms and even some invalid metrics. We are capable of doing much better and now is the time to prove it. 
		[RWL7:  Hmm.  I know a (very) little about this upcoming meeting.  So I see value in Crispin giving in detail his complaints - since I cannot recall anything very dire.  I guess this includes the idea that one should never be measuring char coming out of stoves that are intentionally making char?
> 
> If the stove community cannot even abide by the basic requirements to have our test methods peer reviewed, our formula changes tracked, our definitions standardised, our metrics validated, we become a vulnerable pawn in much greater conflicts about how the poor should be raised from they current conditions, including energy poverty. I invite you all to read my lecture presented on the 26th at Clarkson University entitled "Blowing smoke - the curious case of the mangled metric" which explores the conceptual error of applying a valid metric to a thermodynamic situation different from the one for which it was devised - and the negative consequences of doing so. I will make it available in a couple of days.
		[RWL8:    What methods I have seen at the EPA and GACC web sites looked pretty standard and to me.  The minutes of expert meetings are there - to show peer review.  What I wonder is about the timing of the Dreissen (really Cornwall Alliance piece in the major anti-AGW site (Watts) just shortly after an announcement by GACC about a major stove meeting very soon in New York at the UN.  See:
http://www.cleancookstoves.org/media-and-events/press/cookstoves-future-summit.html
	Oh heck  - undoubtedly just a coincidence.  Surely this group isn’t worried that the UN would be talking about stoves and climate together very shortly
	I also really look forward to reading Crispin’s talk at Clarkson.  Two days now passed so we should see it very shortly.  I couldn’t find anything with a Google search.  I am still waiting on quite a few papers from Crispin, which I hope can also be “available in a few days”.

> 
> In short, if the real scientists among us do not start taking a stand in favour of the use of valid stove performance evaluation methods, and soon, the whole improved stove edifice is going up in flames. There are opportunists and careerists on every side. We must NOT be caught with our mathematical drawers around our ankles. ‎At the moment we stand exposed. 
	[RWL9:   Well, that is not the way I (admitting to having been termed a “real scientist”) see the situation.  Thanks to Dean, GACC, and all other non-real scientists working on a most difficult stove testing problem.  I fear greatly on all sorts of fronts (climate, health, forest preservation, etc) if char-making stoves are tested in the way Crispin has advocated on this list.  Let’s have more discussion from those Crispin deems “real scientists”, and more from Crispin.  

Ron



> 
> Sincerely
> Crispin
> 
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