[Stoves] Offtopid: News: Killing children - by satellite imagery

[Traveller]

News items - Indoor Pollution: 8,500 children die each year in Bangladesh,
Says Unicef
<http://www.thedailystar.net/city/indoor-pollution-8500-children-die-each-year-bangladesh-1307635>
UNB
1 November 2016 (and 300 Million Children Breathe Highly Toxic Air, Unicef
Reports
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/world/asia/unicef-children-toxic-air.html>,
NYT 30 October 2016).

The Bangladesh story says, "Over 8,500 children die every year in
Bangladesh from diseases caused by household air pollution (HAP) and 89
percent of households use solid fuels, mostly wood, agricultural waste and
cow manure, for cooking and space heating."

How do they know? Because a Unicef report *Clearing the Air for Children
<http://www.unicef.org/publications/files/UNICEF_Clear_the_Air_for_Children_30_Oct_2016.pdf>
*
shows, "*Clear the Air for Children uses satellite imagery to show for the
first time how many children are exposed to outdoor pollution that exceeds
global guidelines set by the World Health Organization."*
The quality of satellite data - what pollutants they measure (none, except
PM), at what heights - is at best questionable. And the only thing they
have is short-term snapshots of concentrations, not exposures.

Besides, how do satellite data show HAP contribution?

God - or GBD - knows.

Maybe GACC knows.

(The NYT story confirms that Unicef uses GBD to cook up its numbers.)

But this is mindless cite-o-logy. On page 48, Unicef says "Indoor air
pollution is highest in Africa, where the proportion of the population
using solid fuels can, in many countries, exceed 95 per cent.70", citing
WHO <http://apps.who.int/gho/data/view.main.1671>.

Where does WHO get this data? That is another super-human effort. See Solid
Fuel Use for Household Cooking: Country and Regional Estimatesfor 1980–2010
<http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/wp-content/uploads/121/7/ehp.1205987.pdf>; it's
cite-o-logy, cooked up data allegedly from "nationally representative
surveys and censuses", the provenance of which is rather obscure. At best
the censuses get answers to the question, "What is the principal fuel used
for cooking"; I have never seen census data on quantity, quality of fuels.
Other "representative" surveys are dubious; I doubt there can be any
"nationally representative" data on biomass quality or quantity. Emission
factors and hence emission loads are thus fictitious. And so on down to the
Burden of Disease.

**

Good thing, " the Bangladesh Country Action Plan for Clean Cookstoves is a
governmental strategy to achieve the goal of 100 percent clean cooking
solutions by 2030."

Tony Lake, Unicef ED, says,"Air pollution is a major contributing factor in
the deaths of around 600,000 children under five every year - and it
threatens the lives and futures of millions more every day,” and
“Pollutants don't only harm children's developing lungs - they can actually
cross the blood-brain barrier and permanently damage their developing
brains - and thus, their futures. No society can afford to ignore air
pollution."

Oh, well. They have ignored air pollution for centuries - inside homes -
and go on ignoring it every day, month and year; just look up stories of
air pollution over the last few days in Delhi, Lahore, Tehran to start
with. (See How Is Your Family Coping With Delhi’s Air Pollution?
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/05/world/asia/how-is-your-family-coping-with-delhis-air-pollution.html>,
and Delhi Closes Over 1,800 Schools in Response to Dangerous Smog
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/05/world/asia/delhi-closes-over-1800-schools-in-response-to-dangerous-smog.html>
(NYT
5 November 2016).

And do not forget that exposure to pollution from open defecation also
damages children's brains.

Nikhil
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