[Stoves] Savior stoves and Malawi (Re: Xavier, Tom Miles, Crispin, Andrew)
Traveller
miata98 at gmail.com
Tue Dec 13 12:00:45 CST 2016
Xavier:
I am not frustrated. I never intended to be a stove designer, though I wish
I had lots of money to support development of usable stoves in different
contexts ONCE the service standard and objectives of stove development were
determined.
I was inspired by your post back in June to start on this List again and I
believe one of my first post asked these questions - What is the service
standard, and what is the objective of (in that particular post) emission
control.
I still have not a single response on those questions. Except that Cecil
(and the World Bank) gave me at least the basic guidance to answering these
questions -- CONTEXT. I fully agree - the context of cooking and other uses
of combustion (bath/laundry water, commercial foods, space heating) and the
context of local resources, capacities, and relative costs is everything to
defining the service standard and the objective.
This is why I am dismissive of both "stove science" that presumes to be
context-free and the "stoves and health" pseudo-science (whether ISO/IWA,
WHO/BAMG, EPA/GACC) that is plainly context-free.
Cecil is kind enough to say all that is premature. I suppose he means that
all that jazz is putting the cart before the horse.
I am am a horse's ass, but I have seen the Horse's Mouth, so let me put it
bluntly -- all that is simply horse manure, killing by assumptions and
saving by assumptions, from WHO to HAPIt. Not worth a dime of attention,
but that is where millions of dollars go.
I also have a clearer definition at last of what is wrong with the "stoves
science" mania - be it Water Boiling Test or the lack of protocols, abuse
of data and methods, failure to understand the culture and history of fuels
and cooking, or the madness of chasing grants or giving grants: many people
have forgotten the context: cooking and cooks.
A stove is merely one of the tools in cooking. There is more to cooking
than a stove - at the very least, the fuel and the cook. And there is more
to a kitchen than cooking, more to a home than a kitchen (if one exists),
more to fuel use than home cooking, and more to fuel markets than household
and commercial markets for cooking and heating.
Generalized pronouncements about "stoves" -- I vacillate between calling
them inanity or insanity.
But that is where the blabber and blather - including mine, of course - has
been stuck for decades now. I know zilch about design of solid fuel stoves,
but I know something about cooking and something about money. What Tom
Miles calls "broad pronouncements and sweeping changes" is a pathology of
chasing grants, on the one hand, and the rush to disburse money that
happens every now and then.
GACC is not the first on the grant-giving side to fall in that trap; many
people have fallen in that trap - donors, government agencies for
forest/resource protection and/or for promotion of "improved stoves". I am
sure people on this List know; that Caravan piece Up in Smoke is a good
example.
And this time around (since roughly 1999), I see GACC was unfortunately
caught in its own rhetoric.
It is not even GACC rhetoric; it was handed down by the real powers with
purse strings - US Department of State and USEPA. These two are the primary
culprits behind the insanity, not the hapless GACC CEO who had the hopless
job of marketing lies generated by others. I feel sorry for GACC CEO, and
even the Queen of Chappaqua; she was fed lies.
*Tom: *
I no longer think "The focus on indoor air quality (IAQ) in 2000 led to
several benefits." On the contrary, I think IAQ research became a red
herring. I agree fully with Prof. Kirk Smith's view that cooking is to be
seen primarily as a health issue, not resource (forest) protection,
domestic content, GHG emissions, or via what I call the "fuel fetish"
(bioenergy as a "renewable energy", which begs definition and relevance).
All those were red herrings of the Stoves movement - I mean, on this List -
for years.
And IAQ became yet another red herring when it went the route of what
passes as "scientific research" - quantification of "health risks" in some
generic sense, independent of CONTEXT (sorry, I keep returning to that
word) and history.
Yes, it was in 2000 that Prof. Smith wrote the famous paper on non-CO2 GHG
emission rates from different fuel/stove combinations. (A friend asked me
to read it in 2001, but I had an attitude problem - I thought Prof. Smith
had said pretty much all the policy-relevant stuff by 1987. I read it in
2003 or so - "If one is going to put carbon in the atmosphere anyway, CO2
is the least harmful species from health of climate points of view. The
policy implications of this finding are profound." This jolted me, as also
another paper in 2000 by James Hansen and (Makiko?) Sato, which said,
"Considering the inertia in the energy system, we propose that the focus of
mitigation effort in the first half of the coming Century be on non-CO2
GHGs and black carbon." I am writing from memory; another friend drew my
attention to that paper in 2001 but I didn't get around to reading it till
2004.)
But what more needed to be said and to whom?
I remember the Shell Household Energy and Health online discussion in 2001.
I was excited that humans, not trees, were finally getting some attention.
But I was skeptical about both the direction and pace of "stove
development" and about quantifying the health impact of poor IAQ. Seemed to
me some lobbies were interested in research for the sake of research,
without stating the objective or differentiating across different types of
users, different regions, fuel chemistries, building characteristics,
demographics.
In other words, I saw that suddenly the stove promoters had found Holy
Grail -- not the Savior Stove but another ideology of stove development --
"Clean Cookstoves".
Unfortunately, stoves and health is an extremely complex issue with many
variables out of control for experiment design.
But the ideology of smoke epidemiology gets loads of money. CDC and NIH
seem to have found another gravy train for research.
I submit the epidemiologists are wasting time and money, but that's their
choice.
I think stove designers need to do the job of stove design - usable,
marketable stoves that make the cook (and other users) happy.
GACC is an expert in spreading lies -- that users don't know how smoke is
killing them, but will be persuaded when we come up with results of
regressions with statistically significant coefficients to the third
decimal point.
And GBD folks are spreading other lies - manufacturing deaths by assumption
(like CDC's claim that Hollywood movie ratings are the "cause" of death for
one million children.
Let me go out and make a strong, challengeable assertion: DESIGNING
EQUIPMENT FOR CLEAN COMBUSTION HAS LITTLE TO DO WITH THE SMOKE
EPIDEMIOLOGY.
There. As always, I would be happy to be proven wrong. As far as I am
concerned, it's a waste of time to read epidemiology papers. I happen to
know a little about regressions (statistical or psychological); my teacher
some 40 years ago said to me, "You learned it the right way - it is more
important to understand what not to do."
But people regress, and regress, and regress.
Nikhil
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 11:06:05 -0800
> From: "Tom Miles" <tmiles at trmiles.com>
> To: "'Discussion of biomass cooking stoves'"
> <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Subject: Re: [Stoves] SPAM: Re: Offtopic: Malawi and responsibility
> (Andrew, Roger)
> Message-ID: <011601d253e1$9fcf36b0$df6da410$@trmiles.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> The focus on indoor air quality (IAQ) in 2000 led to several benefits. You
> may argue with approaches, methods, outcomes and who has benefited, but the
> level of activity in improved cooking and health has increased
> substantially. Research and development has broadened to include the whole
> living environment - the space, ventilation, fuels, devices and how they
> are operated. Tools for monitoring impacts on cooks and others moving round
> the space have improved. Design, construction, use and performance data has
> been better documented. Beneficiaries have increased from thousands to
> millions. (Remember when 10,000 stoves was a very big number? It still is
> for an individual program.) Indoor air quality has been the primary driver
> for funding.
>
> The challenges and accomplishments have changed substantially since my
> first experience with three stone fires more than 50 years ago. We fumbled
> with improving stoves in the 70s but applying good combustion principles
> led to some of the designs that are still in use today. There was a
> productive round of activity in the 80s (Eindhoven, VITA etc.) after which
> donor agencies like USAID tired of funding projects that seemed to have no
> visible outcome. GIZ seemed to lead the way with food security as a goal in
> the 1990s. The health focus from 2000 on has led to substantial funding
> beyond anything before then. There will always be successes and failures.
> (Since 2000 a peri-urban family in a developing country has probably gone
> through several stoves, sometimes abandoning the rusted LPG stove for a
> biomass stove they can fire with free fuel.) While improvements and stove
> production during the last 15 years has increased the world has experienced
> substantial increases in poverty, land degradation ? diminished access to
> biomass fuels- and urbanization. According to the World Bank more than 84%
> of the extreme poor (788 million people) are in Subsaharan Africa and South
> Asia. When 4 out of 10 people (389 million in Subsaharan Africa) are
> desperate and probably in urban settings it?s a tough development
> environment. For a health program deploying improved cooking devices this
> speaks to a multi-tiered development strategy where different devices are
> developed to meet different needs. There are opportunities for improvement
> in every aspect of household energy.
>
>
> There is a tendency on lists like this to want to make broad
> pronouncements and sweeping changes. We make better use of the talent and
> experience in this community when we focus on practical solutions for
> clearly identifiable problems that we can influence.
>
>
>
> Tom
>
>
>
> From: Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf
> Of Andrew Heggie
> Sent: Sunday, December 11, 2016 6:53 AM
> To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Subject: SPAM: Re: [Stoves] Offtopic: Malawi and responsibility (Andrew,
> Roger)
>
>
> On 11 December 2016 at 14:00, <cec1863 at gmail.com <mailto:cec1863 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> Until the dispersed virtual stove community ?of experts and practitioners
> gets desperate enough to overcome it's present disunity and agree on
> metrics and standards, the clever priesthood of stoves and their tribal
> rulers will remain large and in charge: "Stovers of the world unite.....we
> have nothing to loss but our powerlessness!"
>
>
> Cecil
>
> I like the analogy but Orwell's book, Animal Farm, suggests that after
> the war to displace the authoritarian regime and the incomers have fought
> each other for succession then the new ruling class become their own
> despots with equally unwieldy and unequal regimes.
>
> Real life suggests this has been so for various revolutions.
>
> Education strikes me as being the way forward and we may be nearing
> halfway to that in UK, and I can vouch for the fact that petty corruption
> and nepotism thrive here.
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 15:35:16 +0100
> From: Xavier Brandao <xvr.brandao at gmail.com>
> To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
> <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Subject: Re: [Stoves] report with disappointing results from cleaner
> cookstoves
> Message-ID: <baf2ae40-5a7c-a6b6-73f3-93e66ab4e3e8 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>
> Tom,
> Closing the list? I'd be curious to know who had this brilliant
> idea. That'd be terrible, this is the space where we can find truly
> helpful information. This list has helped a lot of people. Much more than
> any webinar or conference/workshop ever did. Freedom of speech has its
> flaws, but among rants and negative emotions, there are some ideas too.
>
> I still think we can use freedom of speech discuss on this list
> with patience, without too much anger or scorn.
>
> Nikhil,
> I can understand your frustration, but we don't know about the motives of
> the people behind this study, the way they think, the way they work. Rather
> than "qualify" them, I would really focus on their work, and on the
> scientific debate: did they screw up? Did they do a bad job? Where and why?
>
> You are sure about the fact that a methodology where 3 groups in
> each village using *only *and for a given length of time traditional
> stove, or improved woodstove, or electric plates, wouldn't at all allow
> to *prove or have a fairly good assumption* that cleaner cooking does
> exist, and has a positive impact on health (may it be pneumonia or
> other diseases)? If not, why?
>
> Gentlemen and women,
> I think for the sake of clarity, we should really put this simply. And we
> should start interacting with the study authors.
> People on this list question the study methodology:
>
> * Assumption 1: there is a lot more to health than pneumonia.
> o Question 1 for the study authors: what do they think?
> Can cookstoves be cleaner, their use healthier than traditional
> stoves? They said some users noticed they were coughing less?
> How important is that, in terms of health?
> * Assumption 2: there is a lot more to pneumonia than just the smoky
> cooking device, there is malnutrition for example.
> o Action 1: what are the scientific papers which back up this
> assumption?
> o Question 2 for the study authors: didn't they know there was a
> lot more to pneumonia than just the cooking device? If so, then
> why such a methodology? Don't they think their results prove
> nothing?"
>
> Has one of us started to talk with them? If not, should one of us do
> so? We need to start this conversation, if we want to be going somewhere.
> We need to ask clarifications, present arguments, they
> will counter-argument, etc. etc. This is how a sound scientific debate
> And this is how, collectively, we can agree on the right methodology
> for the next million-dollar health study to measure impact that we can
> be sure will happen in the future.
>
> Instead, alas, of funding R&D to make cleaner stoves.
>
> Best,
>
> Xavier
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 14:43:09 +0000
> From: Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com>
> To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
> <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Subject: Re: [Stoves] report with disappointing results from cleaner
> cookstoves
> Message-ID:
> <YTOPR01MB0235D0D5735501ACDB0081B8B1980 at YTOPR01MB0235.
> CANPRD01.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM>
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Dear Xavier
>
> Thus study is fine, What has been under the spotlight are claims that were
> not supported by anything other than the fact so many people repeated the
> claims.
>
> Quite separately, the whole business of ?modeling exposure? is for some
> reason being done so poorly that it is a cause of concern for people
> actually involved in the allocation of resources.
>
> There is a certain attraction of ?making stuff up? that suits the agenda
> of those with agendas. Obviously. That is not new by any means, but it
> doesn?t make for good policy.
>
> We should keep those two separate: the Malawi study and the claims for
> exposure and impact on human health. The study (which is bound to be
> repeated because of the policy implications) undermines the claims of
> health impact in terms of childhood pneumonia ? something given great
> weight in policy to date.
>
> Regards
> Crispin
> Message: 6
> Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 17:36:48 +0000
> From: Andrew Heggie <aj.heggie at gmail.com>
> To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
> <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Subject: Re: [Stoves] report with disappointing results from cleaner
> cookstoves
> Message-ID:
> <CAPSaZebECHFrFwwLzhh27MaT3CsMJNC70u=MbU7xp9b-hYfvcw at mail.
> gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> On 12 December 2016 at 14:35, Xavier Brandao <xvr.brandao at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Gentlemen and women,
> > I think for the sake of clarity, we should really put this simply. And we
> > should start interacting with the study authors.
> > People on this list question the study methodology:
> >
> > Assumption 1: there is a lot more to health than pneumonia.
>
> Xavier
>
> That's right it looks like about 30% of the 10 thousand children in the
> study suffered from malaria. The study implies there were too many other
> sources of pollution from tobacco smoke, rubbish burning and exposure in
> visited households such that any improvement the cleaner stove offered may
> have been overwhelmed.
>
> The lead author seems to be a veteran of work on respiratory problems and
> the implication of smoke and was himself surprised by the result.
>
> So Roger has offered some plausible reasons why no benefit was not shown
> and the report implies much the same, it's the whole environment the
> children are exposed to which is the major factor plus the people are too
> poorly nourished to develop good immune responses and maintain good
> sanitation.
>
> The study appears to have been thorough, well planned and well funded, I
> cannot imagine what it cost for the couple of years and the number of
> children involved in the two groups.
>
> AJH
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 17:43:41 +0000
> From: Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com>
> To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
> <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Subject: Re: [Stoves] report with disappointing results from cleaner
> cookstoves
> Message-ID:
> <YTOPR01MB023543B2C6ED480B9DFE47A6B1980 at YTOPR01MB0235.
> CANPRD01.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM>
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Dear Friends
>
> Andrew says
> >That's right it looks like about 30% of the 10 thousand children in the
> study suffered from malaria.
>
> And Nikhil asks if you are interested in helping the public, who about
> developing and giving out malaria vaccines? Or treated nets which are very
> effective.
>
> There was a CBC article saying last week that the nets cost about $3
> through one NGO and $40 through another. Donate carefully.
>
> Crispin
>
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