[Stoves] News of Burning Opportunity - to compute DALYs and sell aDALYs

[Nikhil Desai]

Apologies, Ron.

It's just that the World Bank is considering using aDALYs to raise money
for clean cookstoves.

There is a connection. GACC, Gold Standard, and WHO are manipulating the
ISO process in order to drive out solid fuels from donor considerations and
rationalize money in terms of aDALYs, where obviously LPG is going to
generate more aDALYs than most solid fuel stoves.

I had sharply criticized the aDALY approach in a response to Gold Standard
- copied on this List, with no rebuttal from them.

I also had a more detailed critique of the aDALY assumptions in a note that
was introduced in some policy discussions. I can send it to you or put it
on the List if you wish.

So we have this situation - the Facebook friend whose Ojai house burned
down is a vocal proponent of raising aDALYs like he raised carbon finance
in the private market. (Rather, he tried to and failed, I hear losing quite
a bit of money of his and his investors'.) He now helps some stove
projects, though only for carbon credits where he can earn the middleman
fees. I was being rather nasty in talking about smoke from his home that
burned down.

I would be more than happy to detail Ajay Pilarisetti's work - in his PhD
thesis and a report (I think) to the World Bank - which itself is a great
argument for NOT using aDALYs.

Perhaps if I did so, you and others on this list may join Crispin and me in
our estimate that aDALYs are demonstrably deceitful, and in practice
unlikely to raise significant amounts of public sector money any time soon.
The reputational risks are too high in supporting something that cannot be
directly measured, even against a hypothetical baseline.

GACC thinks differently, which is why it first pushed WHO to define SDG
3.9.1 metric as reduction in the % of households using solid fuels, and
then pushed it for a change to reduction in number of deaths attributable
to Household Air Pollution.

So, you decide - whether to support a blatant subterfuge against biomoass
cooking by the poor.

If you decide to be against the use of aDALYs as a matter of principle -
based on what Ajay himself says about the limitations of HAPIT - and as a
matter of policy - putting LPG above solid fuels when it comes to
government or multilateral project funding, then you and I would have no
policy disagreement at all.

You and I agree on making char and burning off the pyrolitic gases, though
we may disagree on how to support that. If you were to examine the
assumptions and limitations of HAPIT and oppose its use for aDALYs to
finance LPG, then you and I will be on the same page.

By the way, I tracked down a source with some memory of that USAID project
in Thailand (ending in 1982) where some changes were proposed to the
charcoal stove in use in Thailand, and the improved charcoal stove became
the inspiration for the Kenya Ceramic Jiko.

I may be able to identify the engineer maven who helped that report that
you or Crispin discovered. Will let you know.

For now, let me note that someone sent me the "household survey" instrument
that was used in Thailand more than 35 years ago apparently to inform
recommendations for improving the Thai/Chinese charcoal stove. There are
very few household surveys I know of that were actually used as a part of
the stove redesign process.

If you like that survey, you can add the question "Would you like to make
money while cooking by making  char you can sell"?

In the context of other questions relevant to stove design and promotion, I
would wholeheartedly agree that some questions - though not so direct - can
and should be added in order to understand user incentives and interests.

No quarrel with you on that either.

On WBT, though, you and I can have our differences and drink to diversity.

Nikhil






On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 9:53 PM, Ronal W. Larson <rongretlarson at comcast.net>
wrote:

> List:
>
> My interpretation of these two messages is that the authors are losing the
> stoves dialog.
>
> Ron
>
>
> On Dec 8, 2017, at 7:24 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
> crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:
>
> Dear Nikhil
>
> I see the opportunities you are pointing out. One of my sons lives in So
> Cal and he said yesterday there was ash falling from the sky in Santa
> Barbara. One of the VP’s at work lost his house to the ground slab this
> week past, and one employee died so far in the fires.
>
> Whoever dies for any reason this month in California before the age of 86
> will have the forest fire smoke attributed to be a contributing cause of
> premature death.  Deaths are avoidable, right?
>
> Well…..by definition I can get paid to prevent it. Smoky the Bear says,
> “Only you can prevent forest fires.”
>
> I will show that money can too. Just give me some.
>
> Regards
> Crispin
>
>
>
> Big wildfires are going on in California in recent days. Many animals have
> been killed and just a few hours ago I heard of a human death.
>
> I don't know if the deaths are due to heat or PM2.5. This is an
> opportunity for our California friends to do some computation of premature
> deaths and disease and publish a paper.
>
> A Facebook friend of mine lost his California home to these fires. He has
> been working with Gold Standard Foundation, GACC, and Goldman Sachs to sell
> aDALYs as "a health product."  This is an opportunity for him to sell fire
> retardants and artificial rains in terms of aDALYs.
>
> WHO published last year a report titled Burning Opportunity: Clean
> Household Energy for Health, Sustainable Development, and Wellbeing of
> Women and Children
> <https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapps.who.int%2Firis%2Fbitstream%2F10665%2F204717%2F1%2F9789241565233_eng.pdf&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cb587bf8e2b3e441080a408d53e953898%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636483732969282634&sdata=QQybrwSYB58bcGs7O2HKacjFGKFuGG9bl0v35gdc17Q%3D&reserved=0>.
> Right on page 1 it claimed "1. A HEALTH CRISIS Household air pollution
> (HAP) is driving a global health emergency."
>
> Too many boys and girls crying wolf.
>
> I see a burning opportunity in these California fires. Jerry Brown could
> be held liable for millions of tons of GHG emissions; another burning
> opportunity.
>
> Nikhil
>
>
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