[Stoves] report with dissapointing results from cleaner cookstoves (Andrew) - Nepal

Traveller miata98 at gmail.com
Thu Dec 8 09:48:18 CST 2016


Now about the Nepal reports in Do smoke-free stoves really save lives?
<http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38160671> (BBC 7 December 2016).

Advance warning: those who are inclined to find animosity in honest
discussion may want to stop reading here. I mean to make fun of GACC and a
public health professor at GWU here - the type running around the world to
find life for the poor in the hands of the mothers of clean cooking -
Hillary and her offspring, the queens of Chappaqua and Washington, DC.

It is unfortunate that Majid Ezzati has merrily declared "Stoves are not
the answer". I doubt professor Ezzati knows enough about combustion physics
and the culture of cooking. So long as he is listened to by only the
"public health" variety of experts, I don't think it matters much. Gates
Foundation and Turner Foundation can go on funding the noisemakers; the
poor have to go on doing what they have been doing - climbing the ladder,
stacking, hosing, phosating. (I just made up those two last words in
anticipation of a few more high-paid PhDs from the academia, in need of new
buzzwords to win grants and propound theories of things they know nothing
about.)

Just think of the grotesqueness, simply disgusting quality of the
following:

"During the course of the study one young child was actually killed when a
cooking fire took hold and burned down the tiny thatched hut with the child
trapped inside.

The GACC says this is significant news."

SIGNIFICANT NEWS???? Where do these inanities emanate from? They needed to
find the news of an actual death from cooking fire?

I submit the stove maniacs are know-nothing (fill in your adjectives; mine
are all outrageous).

They don't even recognize that "a tiny thatched hut with the child trapped
inside" can be burned down in a few seconds with any flame, not just an
open fire inside (and that fire could have been from any fuel).

Arghh!!! These are the Warlords of Poverty. The GACC show belongs in
theaters for exotic dances.

I looked at gelfuel (ethanol) business in Malawi; could've gone further
than it did. Slum people in Blantyre were already using electricity, in the
most dangerous ways possible.

Never occurred to me that these GACC-ians would be interested in
"SIGNIFICANT NEWS" of Malawian (not just Nepali) children burning inside
thatch huts

Perhaps the super-human adventurers of GBD would include "roasted alive" as
a sub-category of HAP. And BAMG will model these kinds of fires with HAPIt.

Scientists must be fed and entertained; the poor can wait or starve/burn to
death.

******
There is something more about Professor Tielsch's work in Nepal. Hindustan
Times published a story last year - Children of mothers exposed to indoor
pollution have less body wt
<http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/children-of-mothers-exposed-to-indoor-pollution-have-less-body-wt/story-EEFvUWdooZqgkqFwQ1RLhI.html>
(11
October 2015).

The CEO of GACC was quoted, “We will soon have research evidence to show
that switching to cleaner cooking options results in saving precious little
lives and also empowers women,”

Yeah, right.

I will soon have research evidence to show that stove shows on the South
Lawn of the White House with Leo Caprio and Jose Andres is a nice way of
shaking money off the rich trees and pocketing some gold home.

Perfesser Tielsch claimed then "These studies will provide evidence..". Yes,
this was a promotional exercise -- GACC and Tielsch pushing the results of
an unpublished study to curry favor - or fame, money, whatever these
professionals do these days.

"Children born to mothers who spend long hours in traditional wood fire
kitchens have low body weight and are more prone to catching pneumonia.
These are the findings of a yet-to-be-released international study that has
pushed the government to come out with new clean cooking options for the
poor under its Swachh Bharat campaign.

Preliminary findings of the study by John Hopkins University, to be
published by the medical journal Lancet in early 2016, show a 90-gram
decrease in the weight of a child born to a mother exposed to high indoor
air pollution. The weight loss is significant considering a majority of
children in poor households are already born malnourished.

Such children are also prone to catching pneumonia after birth because of a
weak immune system, according to the study."

Within a few hours, Sudha Setty, then the GACC India Country
Representative, sent out an e-mail to "GACCpartnersIN at googlegroups.com":

"You may have seen this week’s front page story
<http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/children-of-mothers-exposed-to-indoor-pollution-have-less-body-wt/story-EEFvUWdooZqgkqFwQ1RLhI.html>
in
the Hindustan Times about the health impacts of clean cooking. While the
story was positive, it also included a number of inaccuracies,
unfortunately, including about the government’s work, the
yet-to-be-published."

I suspect GACC has been in the business of planting stories with the press
for a while. (I know how Washington works; 'nuff said.)

Ms Setty sent out another e-mail just five days later:

"Dear All:



You may have seen this ToI article on clean cooking, but forwarding along
just in case: *Make clean cooking part of eco drive
<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/developmental-issues/Make-clean-cooking-part-of-eco-drive/articleshow/49431473.cms>."*

Which began - with a 4x5 photo of the GACC CEO,

"India has more than one million premature deaths per year from smoke from
chullahs. Switching from cooking with solid fuels in chullahs to more
efficient stoves and fuels can help save lives, says *a top UN official*,
while also providing women with more time to engage in productive efforts.

In the backdrop of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pledge to provide clean
air and India's promise in Berlin to cut carbon intensity - the amount of
carbon per rupee of economic output - between 33% and 35% by 2030 from the
2005 levels, chief executive officer of *the UN-backed Global Alliance for
Clean Cookstoves* Radha Muthiah says India should incorporate clean cooking
into its environmental agenda." (emphasis added)

What utter rubbish.

Or what a laugh.

What is this Chief Entertainment Officer marketing - access? It is the UN
Foundation that backs the UN, not vice versa. US Government, at least in
this case, was not in the business of raising funds for a project of Tim
Wirth and Hillary. The dance-and-song at EPA, NIH, CDC in the name of
"science" is one thing, the usual corruption which is not.

Oh, well. Ms. Setty left GACC a few weeks later. No self-respecting
professional can stand "Untruths in Advertising."

I wish the GACC CEO greener pastures, just so that some other women get
empowered.

Nikhil
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