[Stoves] ***SPAM*** Re: REVISED Re: Fwd: News: On-the-ground research reveals true impact of cook-stove emissions in India

Nikhil Desai ndesai at alum.mit.edu
Sun Dec 17 22:15:35 CST 2017


Ron:

I replied to you offlist about Mooney. Post it here if you are that keen on
discussing unpublished results.

For others' information - Mooney is a new kid around the block at
Washington Post. He doesn't come up to my standards of science journalism.

I think EPA has been asked to revisit its nonsense about PM2.5. Lets wait
till the review is completed. In the meantime, I hope you read Tony Cox's
review of toxicology.

Enjoy!!

Nikhil

------------------------
Nikhil Desai
(US +1) 202 568 5831
*Skype: nikhildesai888*

On Sun, Dec 17, 2017 at 8:21 PM, Ronal W. Larson <rongretlarson at comcast.net>
wrote:

> List and ccs
>
> 1.  There is one happy sentence below, where “you” is me:  “*If you have
> a problem with that, there is nothing more I can say. "*
>
> 2.  That was preceded by this  ”* Attribution is not causality. And
> attributable is not avoidable. Even if there is a causation from pollution
> exposure to disease and death, it does not mean that the reverse causation
> occurs in the same quantitative manner. These are different cohorts and
> there are confounding factors. *
> I do have (different) problems with all parts of this, but especially the
> first two short sentences,  so hopefully Nikhil will now stop talking about
> WHO.
>
> I’m trying to finish the long list from Xavier -  on real material of
> import to this list - WBT test procedure validity.
>
> 3.  Although I am not choosing,to say anything on the rest of Nikhil’s
> long response,  I disagree with almost everything there also, especially a
> 1999 paper by an expert (Dr. Kirk Smith) who also disagrees with everything
> claimed by Nikhil.  Again - bringing up this paper is “curious”.
>
> 4.  Being a topic of my choosing, I ask Nikhil for a third time to comment
> on the statements in the Washington Post about death statistics due to
> forest fire smoke.  Reason - it is a very similar topic, with attribution
> and causality claimed by four named experts.  I claim avoidability is
> possible.  I believe the health statistics raise all the same issues where
> Nikhil differs so much from WHO and EPA.  I say the issues are the same for
> households or entire air basins  Remember the issue also is whether forest
> fire smoke is worse than that from coal plants - which all but a few on
> this list agree are themselves pretty horrendous.
> I am claiming that if the four experts are correct, then Nikhil and
> Crispin are wrong - about WHO and EPA.
>
> Ron
>
>
> On Dec 17, 2017, at 4:00 PM, Nikhil Desai <pienergy2008 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear Ron:
>
> I was on the road when an incomplete response went out in error. Below a
> completed response, with the new text in purple (if it comes through)
> additions to the previous text (which is in black).
>
> The address you have for Grant seems to be an old one. Also, I believe
> Boiling Post stopped some time back.
>
> __________
> .
> Dear Ron:
>
> I said no such thing. What nonsense.
>
> Grant's PhD thesis - as I remembered it and as I confirmed it last night
> when I gave you the link to it - was about protocols of measurement, not
> about health consequences. He says right in the beginning, "Current
> knowledge of emissions from stoves and how to gauge emission levels is
> severely limited."
>
> Soon after, in Section 1.2.2 he elaborates "the difficulty of measuring
> emissions from stoves used by rural poor", citing Ahuja (whom I have known
> since 1983).
>
> These difficulties continue to date, and confound all actual field
> measurements of emission rates and concentrations; there aren't many such
> measurements anyway, and IHME goes on killing millions of people by
> assumption. (If, say, 4 million of some 50 million deaths worldwide in 2012
> were attributed to HAP, those people had lived some 200 million
> person-years. Many diseases attributed to HAP are long-term, and
> interpreting attributability as causality would require exposure and
> disease evidence over these 200 million person-years. As a matter of fact,
> there is not a single death - leave alone 4 million - that has had HAP
> exposure tracked over a lifetime. Not even for a child dying at age 2 from
> disease attributed to HAP.)
>
> Since "risk factor" attribution of "premature deaths" and DALYs is
> basically an allocation game as agreed to among several hundred public
> health professionals worldwide, I won't ask WHO to identify even one death
> caused by HAP. But I would certainly want to know how DALYs for cohorts
> dead were attributed to HAP based on actual measurements of exposures and
> diseases for representative populations.
>
> So, ignoring Grant's caution about the inherent difficulty of measuring
> emissions and concentrations - I don't believe he proposed any protocol,
> just that he used the 1985 WBT for his tests - let us look for emission
> measurements as reported.
>
> This is where I remembered Kirk Smith (1999) "Indoor Air Pollution"
> (Pollution Management in Focus, Discussion Note #4, World Bank). Here I
> produce his table from there:
>
>
> <image.png>
>
>
>  That is, as of mid-1999, there were 27 studies over about 600 households.
> I don't now remember which ones of these I might have known - there is no
> direct reference to any summary report - but I do remember none at the time
> lasted more than a few days with the possible exception of Smith's famous
> Guatemala study. (It might have started around then).
>
> Such spotty studies do not providee generalizable conclusions of
> concentrations and exposures.
>
> I remember seeing a more recent review - circa 2012, perhaps under the
> World Bank/ESMAP - of such emission and concentration measurements, and of
> course there is a compilation of some 150+ such studies under the WHO
> "emission database" for HAP as of 2011. I do not claim to have read many of
> them, but I do remember some other paper from Kirk Smith - or in this 2012
> paper from the World Bank - that these field measurements did not have a
> consistent protocol, equipment varied, and so did durations - from a few
> days to six months or at most a year; the only multi-year monitoring was in
> Smith's Guatemala project.
>
> There are serious problems in using such disparate studies and cooking up
> "risk factors", though that is what public health folks do. As a policy
> analyst, I do not find this much of an "evidence base" no matter that it
> might be claimed "the best that science could do."
>
> I have no problem accepting that emissions lead to disease, just that not
> enough is known empirically about the pathways and quantification of
> relative risk.
>
> And I don't care what WHO/IHME think. Newer, more robust evidence on any
> risk factor would simply mean re-allocation of DALYs across risk factors.
> If nothing else, cohorts are changing: in 2010, say, some 50 million people
> died and in 2020, some 60 million people will die. The increase in deaths
> comes from both rich country nationals who have lived past 90 or 95, and
> from the increasing populations of developing countries.
>
> I have a very succinct proposition for you, namely,
>
> Attribution is not causality. And attributable is not avoidable. Even if
> there is a causation from pollution exposure to disease and death, it does
> not mean that the reverse causation occurs in the same quantitative manner.
> These are different cohorts and there are confounding factors.
>
> If you have a problem with that, there is nothing more I can say.
>
> It is this "reverse causation" part that led me to dismiss
> WHO's Guidelines for Household Fuel Combustion - Solid Fuels. It has no
> science behind it. Not only does WHO have no business messing with issues
> of energy or environmental policy, it has no intellectual justification for
> these "Guidelines" and worse, getting into ISO TC-285 exercise and
> proclaiming health benefits of Tier 4 rated stoves over Tier 3 rated stoves
> on the basis of lab measurements of hourly average emission rates using
> fictitious fuels and cooking fictitious meals.
>
> If you recall, I resisted Crispin's allegation that there is an
> ideological against coal and against all solid fuels.
>
> But there is a war; deliberate or mindless, I am not sure.
>
> When GACC and Gold Standard (with Goldman Sachs and C-Quest Capital) get
> together to market aDALYs, it is evident that the Tier 4 rating on PM2.5
> has one purpose - making money for these middlemen. Who knows, Gates
> Foundation will become a market-maker, giving $10,000 aDALY for the first
> LPG project in Ghana. The circus will run for decades.
>
> This, my friend, has nothing to do with poor people's health. It is all
> about making money. Secretively.
>
> I wish you all the success in the campaign to take away poor people's
> killer stoves and throw savior stoves at them, saving the earth in the
> bargain. Just please spare me the pretense of scientific quantification of
> health gains from use of LPG. World's oil and gas industries don't need
> such marketing help. Along with governments and international
> organizations, they too risk losing face in this song-and-dance when people
> realize they haven't been given a new lease on life, just convenient
> cooking.
>
> Mind you, I have nothing against convenient, modern cooking options for
> the poor. The best marketing for LPG is customers themselves - the
> technology sells itself, albeit with subsidies and under tight safety
> regulations.
>
> Because there isn't enough money for all the poor - the poorest always get
> the least - they will inevitably "stack" for economic reasons. Give them a
> choice of a lower-cost option using solid biomass, primary or processed,
> without regard for IWA Tier 4 label being "truly health protective".
> Support the poor's choice of "stacking". Enough merrymaking in the name of
> the health of the poor. We have known since cave days that wood smoke is
> unpleasant (though animal smoke and some leaf smoke may be pleasant and
> possibly good for our health).
>
>
>>
>> Nikhil
>>
>> On Dec 17, 2017, at 6:23 AM, Ronal W. Larson <rongretlarson at comcast.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Grant: cc list
>>
>> Sorry to bother you.
>>
>> I am following up on Crispin’s ”Sure” below.
>>
>>  My version of the argument is that you believe there are serious health
>> hazards to traditional cookstove use.  Nikhil, apparently supported by
>> Crispin, has offered your thesis as proof there is no proven link. (This is
>> my version of the argument; they can give another.)
>>
>> I recommend ignoring the tie below to SELF; that tie also makes no sense
>> re health issues related to smoke. Not sure why all the extraneous links
>> were felt necessary.
>>
>> I will separately forward my email preceding this one.  I quoted the
>> first two sentences which I thought were enough to disprove you were on
>> Nikhil and Crispin’s side of this argument.  Your sentences are:
>> * “Approximately 2,500 million people are exposed daily to emissions from
>> biofuel-burning cooking sites.   Respiratory disease, which is the
>> main cause of death in developing communities, is linked to these
>> emissions.”*
>>
>> The main question,  I think,  is whether somewhere in your thesis you
>> argue against these two sentences.   I assume Crispin and/or Nikhil will
>> correct me if I am asking the wrong question.
>>
>> I’m not sure why Crispin thinks I am lying when I say I have read your
>> thesis and asserts I won’t read what I asked Nikhil to supply two other
>> sentences from it.  Might you and I have ever communicated about your
>> thesis?
>>
>> I am now deciding how to ask his permission re his last line:  “… *you
>> shall hereinafter never again claim or even hint…* “   Any guidance?
>>
>> Ron
>>
>> ps  to stove list readers,  I urge visiting Grant’s site: www.hedon.info
>>  and signing up there for “Boiling Point” - perhaps the best journal on
>> these stove topics..
>>
>>
>>
>> Begin forwarded message:
>>
>> *From: *Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com>
>> *Subject: **Re: [Stoves] News: On-the-ground research reveals true
>> impact of cook-stove emissions in India*
>> *Date: *December 17, 2017 at 12:06:53 AM MST
>> *To: *"'Stoves (stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org)'" <
>> stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
>> *Reply-To: *Discussion of biomass cooking stoves <
>> stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
>>
>> Dear Ron
>>
>> If you can’t be bother to read one of the first PhD theses by someone
>> investigating stove test methods and impacts of emissions, how will you
>> even understand what Nikhil is talking about?
>>
>> [RWL3   I met Grant in Johannesburg in 2002 and probably read it then,
>> because I thought he looked quite knowledgeable  I stopped reading the
>> Thesis this time after the first two sentences…
>>
>>
>> As Nikhil has pointed out repeatedly, you can’t discuss what you have not
>> read.
>>
>> How about giving one or two sentences that supports your reading of this
>> thesis?
>>
>>
>> Why? You won’t read it for ideological reasons.
>>
>> Shall we waste Grant’s time by asking him whether he supports your
>> version of stove health issues?
>>
>>
>> Sure. Let’s ask him.
>>
>> I also can’t believe you are asking me to go Kirk’s website to prove
>> something on stove health issues that supports your non-causation, anti-WHO
>> theory.
>>
>>
>> Nikhil is not against the WHO. He is against untestable claims supported
>> by defective models and invalid arguments. So am I. That’s why we are both
>> critics of metrics that are selected on the basis of ideological
>> convenience or, in the case of the IWA,  ass-covering. Nikhil does not have
>> a theory of non-causation – you made that up – it is the WHO and EPA that
>> have an untested theory of causation. WHO’s theory is based on an other
>> theory of equitoxicity (EPA) and instant homogeneous distribution of PM
>> (Berkeley) from stove fires, something contradicted by the WHO’s own
>> internal discussions record and model testing.
>>
>> Those making claims have a responsibility to provide proof of their
>> theories of causation. Proposed mitigations require an articulated theory
>> of change so proofs can be made and effectiveness judged.  The theory that
>> replacing wood stoves with LPG stoves reduces exposure to PM2.5 in poor
>> communities has so far shown that the ambient PM2.5 dominates any exposure
>> to stove smoke. That is valuable, because it may be far cheaper and more
>> effective to control ambient air pollution that to supply KPG stoves and
>> fuel indefinitely.
>>
>> 4.  The reason I don't like the IWA metrics of efficiency and PM2.5 is,
>> there is no statement of the problem and there is no theory of change.
>> Prove me the alleged worldwide deforestation and desertification, climate
>> change, ill health, and sexual violence caused by inefficient and smoky use
>> of solid fuels.
>>
>>
>> RWL4:   Please cite something anybody ever said to support that really
>> curious argument.
>>
>>
>> Well I can do that easily. Here below is a recent appeal (yesterday) from
>> the Solar Electric Light Fund that has it all in one appeal for money:
>> Hollywood, hatred for Harvey Weinstein, AIDS, fear of the dark, women as
>> perpetual victims of perpetual predator men, saviour stoves, dreaded solid
>> fuels, leaving the foxhole to cross no man's land in desperate need of
>> water, hints of child molestation and abuse, and never forget to mention
>> that continent of despair: 'Africa', after all, it’s Christmas.
>>
>> Ron, you shall hereinafter never again claim or even hint that stoves are
>> not promoted using, “that really curious argument”. They are. It is not
>> ‘curious’, it is obscene.
>>
>> Regards
>> Crispin
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> [http://files.constantcontact.com/545ab2b9301/8568738f-baa8-
>> 441b-a82e-2c2faeb93164.png]<https://eur02.safelinks.protecti
>> on.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fr20.rs6.net%2Ftn.jsp%3Ff%3D
>> 001EhkYPKexEyHIf1jElaabe7daeL6aUovPZrAxcSczKvigL9zMD6SFKAJBR
>> XhYJj2YNxznNGaJoly6doYe9CBRyK2czeC0_vCZDgGwLeHoflxdu3HpzfZsi
>> bxcfOrk-MJV1agaePEjRg11d-ugN4PjHw_WTbgGRnSq%26c%3DcMEqrRZdR8
>> iOyc5777Y-IMqRRryLSG0nat1ACVL1KSr-2hPQNTIV-w%3D%3D%26ch%
>> 3D0zT7Lbia_jEk0U0sEbrllzXfNtw5bFkRAjmYbxVLfIckgji6vDWI4Q%3D%
>> 3D&data=02%7C01%7C%7Ca1dbdee8f196416cdf3908d54407f43c%7C84df
>> 9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636489723343281308&
>> sdata=jViKpAZfuK3j83%2B9BvynzKP6GxRpV%2Fpe%2B7%2Fp718eJtw%3D&reserved=0>
>> <http://files.constantcontact.com/545ab2b9301/8568738f-baa8-441b-a82e-2c2faeb93164.png%5D%3Chttps://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fr20.rs6.net%2Ftn.jsp%3Ff%3D001EhkYPKexEyHIf1jElaabe7daeL6aUovPZrAxcSczKvigL9zMD6SFKAJBRXhYJj2YNxznNGaJoly6doYe9CBRyK2czeC0_vCZDgGwLeHoflxdu3HpzfZsibxcfOrk-MJV1agaePEjRg11d-ugN4PjHw_WTbgGRnSq%26c%3DcMEqrRZdR8iOyc5777Y-IMqRRryLSG0nat1ACVL1KSr-2hPQNTIV-w%3D%3D%26ch%3D0zT7Lbia_jEk0U0sEbrllzXfNtw5bFkRAjmYbxVLfIckgji6vDWI4Q%3D%3D&data=02%7C01%7C%7Ca1dbdee8f196416cdf3908d54407f43c%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636489723343281308&sdata=jViKpAZfuK3j83%2B9BvynzKP6GxRpV%2Fpe%2B7%2Fp718eJtw%3D&reserved=0%3E>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> [http://files.constantcontact.com/545ab2b9301/e36ef59d-f550-
>> 4087-bd69-7d4379b437df.jpg]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> [http://files.constantcontact.com/545ab2b9301/c37e2f96-aa68-
>> 49b7-b8cf-1c84379a0812.jpg]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> [http://files.constantcontact.com/545ab2b9301/c2378568-67fd-
>> 4ad8-bd5e-0a21628f2ae8.jpg]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> [http://files.constantcontact.com/545ab2b9301/b8064189-1b21-
>> 48c4-9a88-a691ebcf140a.jpg]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> [http://files.constantcontact.com/545ab2b9301/7ef787a9-af47-
>> 4615-ab05-4c4a7633bb92.jpg]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> [http://files.constantcontact.com/545ab2b9301/4f71dad7-f2ce-
>> 4055-bbc6-4f830a8294a3.jpg]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20171217/d6b1b0a9/attachment.html>


More information about the Stoves mailing list