[Stoves] Stove tests - in practice?

ajheggie at gmail.com ajheggie at gmail.com
Fri Feb 20 14:13:40 CST 2015


[Default] On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 03:58:09 +0100,Samer Abdelnour
<samer.abdelnour at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>However, to AJH:


It's Andrew Samer, I just got in the habit of signing myself off with
my initials many years ago.

>While I understand the consumer argument, I don't think it really
>holds here. Do users really have choice when stoves are subsidized by
>donors, disseminated by NGOs, and pushed onto them? Are we talking
>consumers or beneficiaries?


Well that was largely my point, I am a consumer and I have choice, in
my analogy were I a soldier I would not have choice, the car (or other
equipment), would be dictated by the procurement process. In the
stoves case they too are dictated by the top brass at the NGO who have
decided based on their policy. If the "testing" method they have
chosen to evaluate the stove they intend to disseminate is flawed or
biased to one type of stove then not only does the user suffer a worse
stove but so does a rival stove manufacturer. In any case the subsidy
is an intervention in the market place which will have local knock on
consequences.

In point of fact there will never be one size fits all stove. Back to
the car analogy In UK a new car buyer has many choices and the
government requires manufacturers to publish fuel consumption figures
which are derived from a rigorously applied driving cycle. This tends
to favour driving a car at 56mph because that is one of the standards
the test is tuned to, in other respects it is very difficult to
achieve the claimed fuel consumption but it has driven up the
standard, just as have early stove tests.
>
>Regardless of this, the macro-discourse for the promotion of stoves is
>for the benefit of mankind.

Actually I suspect it is intended to benefit about 1/3 of the current
7  billion mankind that can only dream about the living standards of
myself, a resident of England.


> If this stoves game is really about
>marketization, then it really doesn't matter if the test performance
>translates into real-world benefits. However, if the global push to
>create a stoves market is to benefit users and their families, stove
>test must correlate in practice (not in theory) with future social and
>environmental impact.

...and the perceived wisdom is that top down dictats and grants, gifts
and subsidies aren't a good way of delivering the benefits but in the
absence of local education and local wealth creation is there an
alternative?

Fifty years ago it struck me that a poor person 2000 years ago was in
the same position as a poor person now, yet I was in a better state
than the wealthiest emperor then. Now the poor are just as poor,
global wealth has increased dramatically in the 50 years yet that
wealth has not benefited the poor. I now realise this inability to
share is inherent in the human condition.

Andrew




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