[Stoves] Malawi Philips stove intervention study and Nikhil's 28 sins of insolence about GACC/WHO (Re: Ron Larson)
Ronal W. Larson
rongretlarson at comcast.net
Wed Jan 18 11:47:16 CST 2017
List, Andrew, Tom:
I am basically sad that Nikhil, after a few amazingly favorable recent messages about his principal past targets (GACC and Radha Muthiah), chose to continue with his past themes: “… I might as well shower as many invectives as I can…” ; “….it seems Ron himself didn’t read it…”, “ Ron appears to admire “highly qualified” junk…”; “My friend, I am afraid you don’t know zilch about DALYs. “; “I have no qualms insulting 15 British professionals,..”; “UNF is a racket…”; “…theTC 285 exercise has been reduced to a pretense of morality ..”; “Otherwise this "better biomass stoves" enterprise is doomed. (I think coal will survive.)”
So, to avoid giving Nikhil a chance to continue, after he has stated that he was through with this list, I respond only with the few quotes above. I feel these further exemplify why I took the time to give 28 similar examples from just one message back in early December. I confess I still don’t understand the reason for such invective - especially given his brief recent turn-around for both GACC and Ms. Muthiah (that is not continued in most of today’s response).
Glad to communicate briefly with anyone off-list on any of the points he has made below, should anyone want to know how I would have responded, save for my wanting this sad interlude to be over. But, I will only answer one or two at a time - nothing like the 28 of this message. And, I may choose to answer some on this list; I do not want to spend my time in an endless off-list dialog when my responses might be pertinent to list advancement.
Ron
> On Jan 18, 2017, at 8:15 AM, Traveller <miata98 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Tom and list: This is too long a reply to Ron Larson's list of 28 objections on 8 December 2016 (cc'ing Crispin) to my short post on 7 December 2016 - Re: report with dissapointing results from cleaner cookstoves (Andrew) - Malawi.
>
> I have little problem with Ron's complaints against me personally, though I have addressed them lower down this post. However, it is the Malawi study itself -- and the "stoves and health" mindset or mania behind it - that ought to give all on this list a serious pause, my crass impudence notwithstanding.
>
> Others may have forgotten the Malawi paper from Lancet (in this week's print edition); there was nothing to it, and it seems Ron himself didn't read it (though several others did).
>
> As I note below, GACC and others also found that study basically "junk". Ron appears to admire "highly qualified" junk issued by "authorities". Opinions apart, there is a serious danger that such blather from epidemiologists that possibly there have to be lower emission rates than the Philips stove will drive public opinion and money away from work on "better biomass stoves" that meet the desires of the users (in and outside homes).
>
> Anil said "all fuels are dirty, only excellent combustion makes them clean". But "excellent combustion" is a matter of handling the stove and the fuel, and there can be spikes of pollutant emissions. To set Emission Rate Targets to achieve an IAQ Guideline is a gross error, as is selection of IAQ Guidelines only for Household Fuel Combustion PM2.5. Back in late summer of 2001 I had cautioned against using questionable epidemiology for the purposes of designing solid fuel cookstoves, and now I am ready to throw in the towel and claim that the WHO, EPA, UNF influence on the ISO IWA process is a cruel tragedy for billions of people. Rich people - say in America - never had to suffer such theology of "premature mortality from HAP" in choosing their stoves and fuels or foods and beverages; the poor now must entertain the theory class about health, climate, women's empowerment.
>
> Ron and I go back ages. I have learned a lot from him. Too bad to part company.
>
> ANYWAY, I wasn't going to send this except that last night I went to see and hear Chef Jose Andres and GACC CEO. The Chef is a bozo who put up laughable slides and blabbered on about three billion people, x% of this and y% of that, and pretended to be a climate scientist (ocean temperatures near the Galapagos islands). But that is what GACC needs him for. I give him credit, though, for answering a question about community cooking - "Better for anthropologists to work
>
> On the other hand, GCC CEO delivered a superlative performance. Wonderful. I am a fan now. She is an impressive speaker and can probably persuade many. Indeed, she reminded me of the last Washington personality I had heard - in another auditorium, across the street nearly 20 years ago.
>
> She failed to convince me of the relevance of IWA or the multi-pronged "Evidence Base" research. Or about stoves reducing sexual violence (I am not denying it; I first heard about it while roaming around Addis mountains in early 1993).
>
> In fact, her "common sense" statements about cooking militated against the research bandwagon about "performance" and "results" as defined by experts of, and in, groupthink. (She said, "On health front, we have good initial information. We need more." I don't think it will come from HAPIT or studies like this Malawi one. I also liked her saying that clean cooking is not an end goal, just a means, to many SDGs for instance; I don't think just some haphazard surveys will quantify these "benefits". It is a mockery of social sciences to reduce cooking to oxidation, and stoves to deforestation or rapes.)
>
> I once again wonder if she was just handed down a bad recipe, stove and tools she had no role in choosing and has become Hillary, Jr. (Hillary was also fed puff puris (filled with hot air coming off the deep-fry pan).
>
> I hope she can be freed of the blather she has been forced to parrot. But then she won't make her fund-raising targets and commissions.
>
> At least, stop this "clean" pretense. "Cleaner" is clean enough.
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Dear Ron:
>
> I am sad that you are mad. I waited over a month, hoping you would not be so angry. But now that you have said what I reply to you is irrelevant and you wouldn't react, I suppose I might as well shower as many invectives as I can and see how much madder can you get! :-)
>
> I am a dog; I already admitted. I am a '60s boy and question authority, why don't you?
>
> ************
>
> I will get to your charges of my unforgivable sins, but first, I am surprised that you didn't find it disturbing that a bunch of "highly qualified" professionals found Philips stoves in Malawi not effective enough to have health benefits they chose to go out looking for. They <http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(16)32507-7.pdf> instead say,
>
> "It is also possible that the cookstoves used simply did not reduce emissions sufficiently to have an effect."
>
> THAT, more than anything I could have said and can say, is sure to have detrimental effect on what you call "stove science", your purported moral touchstone.
>
> And even this didn't bother you?
>
> "There is insufficient evidence on which to recommend replacing open fires with biomass-fuelled cookstoves for the prevention of pneumonia in young children in settings where biomass fuels are burned in open fires for cooking."
>
> I haven't seen a Philips stove - maybe at an exhibit in Nairobi in 2011, but not in operation. I have no idea if users like it. But it is shocking that a bunch of know-nothings think their silly study hold any "implications". It is not as if "prevention of pneumonia in young children" is the only - or even a significant - consideration for replacing open fires (which they do admit led to burns and even a death).
>
> Even GACC criticized this Malawi study and noted criticism by Ezzati and Baumgartner, plus the fact that by the end of the study, "intervention households" were not really using the Philips stoves at all (for whatever reason).
>
> “Based on the type of stove evaluated in the Malawi trial, the lack of impact on child pneumonia is not surprising. While this stove may offer a range of environmental, climate, and lifestyle benefits, the stove does not meet WHO indoor air quality guideline <http://www.who.int/indoorair/guidelines/hhfc/en/> levels expected to reduce child pneumonia under the best performing laboratory conditions.
>
> Who is WHO to set IAQ Guideline? On the basis of what epidemiology? GoBbleDygook? And why for household fuel combustion alone, as if that's all there is to IAQ? Is this preaching new religion to the heathen?
>
> And who assigned IWA Tiers to Philips stoves in GACC's Clean Cooking Catalog <http://catalog.cleancookstoves.org/stoves>?
>
> Why aren't stove scientists who know anything about cooking up in arms over this nonsense of Tiers of Performance in IWA <https://cleancookstoves.org/binary-data/DOCUMENT/file/000/000/6-1.pdf> and WHO Indoor Air Quality Guidelines <http://www.who.int/indoorair/guidelines/hhfc/en/> that mysteriously -- rather, illegitimately -- link concentrations to stove emission rates and other selected performance values that a real cook may not give a hoot about?
>
> [Yes, I have no shame criticizing WHO DG who writes in the Preface "Currently, although there are many global and national initiatives aimed at ensuring access for all households to clean and modern energy, there is a lack of clarity about what technologies and fuels can be considered clean and safe." and then goes on to justify the guidelines as "The guidelines were developed and peer-reviewed by scientists from all over the world and the recommendations were informed by a rigorous review of all currently available scientific knowledge on this subject."
>
> I have read those reviews, and they have zilch to do with cooking. They treat a cookstove and a lung as oxidation boxes. Even so, they have not examined all the primary literature, instead going on to assign literature quality labels of "strong", "moderate" and "low" in a haphazard, self-serving manner. There is rot in WHO governance and arguably also in ISO governance.
>
> In the absence of "policies for the period of transition from current practices to community-wide use of clean fuels and household energy technologies, recognizing that intermediate steps will be needed for some time to come among lower income and more rural homes reliant on solid fuels," there is no sense in setting Emission Rate Targets and then cooking up compliance with Guidelines. They are "guidelines", for heaven's sake; a stove standard cannot be based in the absence of an IAQ standard.]
>
> ************************
> Any claims about particular "stoves" and particular "disease" are contextual and epidemiological results subject to too many qualifications. Responses to exposures to different irritants, pollutants, and disease agents vary and have different lags.
>
> The generalized claim of HAP and premature mortality is nonsense because a) there is no data on pollutant exposure (nor fuel quantity, quality, combustion method) and b) the methods of allocating DALYs to "air pollution" and then to HAP PM2.5 are untenable.
>
> Central to GBD (2010), et cetera is Burnett et al. (2014) <https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1307049/> assuming equitoxicity and "integrating" (i.e., confusing, which to me means fusing in order to con) different curves for different exposure profiles and different species. Sorry, doesn't pass laugh test. Did you read my 10 September 2016 post on this list addressed to you - "$/DALY or $ for dalliances? (Re: Ron on WHO)" (I hope you also read Kirk Smith's Millions Dead paper.)
>
> WHO then abuses the dubious GBD exercise to cook up IAQ Guidelines just for Household Fuel Combustion (as if that is all there is to IAQ), and the IWA draws up Emission Rate Targets for several Tiers of "Stove Performance" as if a) there is any conceivable way to backtrack from IAQ (annual average or max 24-hour) for PM2.5 (not just from HFC) into hourly emission rates and b) these performance criteria matter to cooks for the purpose of cooking and many other uses.
>
> The Malawi case is like that MIT paper (Hanna, Duflo, Greenstone) four years ago - a mindless RCT study picking some random "improved stove" and then finding that it didn't deliver the result the researchers expected (they oughtn't have in the first place).
>
> For the MIT cons, they picked a stove design certified by Indian MNRE and recommended by it or some NGO. (The original developer had long abandoned that design; might have designed it only for meeting MNRE performance standards).
>
> Someone should go probe the sorry history of experts setting performance standards or targets and testing protocols hoping to deliver fantastic results by ignoring cooks and cooking. GACC, WHO, EPA and ISO/IWA are repeating the same mistakes of the past in India. (And likely to go the same way - Up in Smoke, with some pockets being filled in the meantime.)
>
> These Malawi researchers went and picked a Philips stove that GACC now says does not meet WHO IAQ Guidelines.
>
> Who in the world can ever say that a stove meets or does not meet IAQ Guideline of annual average or three 24-hour average max? By modeling? I am surprised stove designers or users were not revolted by this fake "science".
>
> In both the MIT/India and this Malawi cases, the users were not using the "improved stoves" as they were meant to be and then the RCTs showed that they didn't produce results the foolish researchers were demanding.
>
> I leave aside the problems with RCTs. Not every RCT study is worth a dime, even if a million dollars have been wasted on it by, ahem, Cantabrigians or Liverpudlians.
>
> ************
> The intellectual smoke should've given you and others on this list severe asthma attacks by now.
>
> This "stoves and health" mania of GACC, EPA, WHO, BAMG has harmed and will harm development of usable solid fuel stoves - specific to contexts and chemistry - than you have understood so far.
>
> "Clean cookstoves"!! Bah, humbug!! Certainly not as certified by these PhDs and MDs. Not Philips stoves, and perhaps NO SOLID FUEL stoves (as if pollution was sitting idle in fuels until liberated by human touch) might meet these self-styled arbiters of "stoves and health", purveyors of "clean fuel" (intellectual snake oil gel).
>
> It really hurts me when you call me "anti stove development" while you praise pedantry of pundits by pundits who want not a more usable stove than the Philips stove was in this experiment but a "lower emission" stove. As if pneumonia hides in emissions.
>
> To give you an example similar to this Malawi study - "The results add to growing evidence that replacing solid fuels may not be sufficient to eliminate the harmful effects of indoor air pollution and that a transition to very clean fuels (e.g. natural gas, ethanol; much harder goal) may be necessary." (Kiros Berhane, Indoor Air Pollution and Cardiovascular Disease <http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/133/24/2342>, Editorial, Circulation, 13 June 2016).
>
> If this holds up, your biochar stoves may only be for producing biochar, not for cooking.
>
> Tehran will have to shift to gas for transport, industry, power. Not that gas is absolutely "clean"; you would ask for Carbon Dioxide Removal. (Is your preferred solution Atomic Cafe <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atomic_Cafe> with nuclear toasters <http://www.geekwire.com/2017/nathan-myhrvold-nuclear-nova-toasters/>, er Bill Gates' Terrapower?)
>
> It is GACC and WHO who are driving any "cook-friendly" stove development into the ground because they have a - um, a thing - against solid fuels. (You are only against coal. You ought to be alarmed at this junk science.)
>
> I thought you were going to present "the other side" - of whatever. I don't see anything debatable; you haven't given me a summary you promised.
>
> You are aggrieved "how seriously Nikhil is hurting our international development efforts on this list."
>
> Yeah, right. What a grandiose ambition of this List after 30 years of demonstrated failure. (By your own admission, you came to stoves late in your NREL career. I came to "improved stoves" literature back in 1983 and to "improved stoves" themselves around 1965.) Some people need to be disabused of the notion that biomass stovers of US have made even a dint in "international development efforts". (This is not to denigrate the work of individuals and individual organizations, just that we have to be modest in our self-praise.)
>
> Again, how many trillions of meals did "better biomass stoves" cook in the last 30 years and what did the users say - that they saved time, reduced drudgery, saved trees, saved humanity, empowered women?
>
> Kirk Smith said in 2012 that the term "improved stoves" should be retired. Nobody can question "better stoves", but I wonder how many better stoves have been found usable (except for Mirt mtad and all the gas/electric appliances). He has written in favor of LPG and electricity and said that no biomass stove yet meets the criterion of "truly health protective".
>
> For all you know, GACC, USEPA, Gates Foundation, and WHO may have given up on this ideology of "free biomass" and "renewable biomass" and are driving solid fuel Emission Rate Targets to "truly health protective levels" that cannot be met except by processed biomass.
>
> You and most members of this list ought to now suspect - as I do - that the entire IWA process originated in a fog - or smog - of baseless fantasies about stove testing without regard to any real physical science, or cooking of foods, as it relates to any aspect of individual health. WHO has abused the entire
>
> Let me repeat - "It's all in fuel chemistry, air chemistry and atmospheric chemistry." Or expand to add - "soil chemistry, water chemistry, fertilizer chemistry, biochemistry, agrochemistry."
>
> Anything and everything about disease incidence or productivity (absence of disease, broadly defined, in all biota, and consequent growth of economic potential) is basically about chemistry.
>
> Not the "way of life" the "super-human" heroes and heroines IHME folks enjoy with their computers ("stoves") that cook up data without chemistry, physics, culture of disease or its prevention/treatment.
>
> ***********
>
> Now to your litany of my impudence.
>
> I don't mind being called a "climate denier". Since I was prepared to put that on my cap during Obama years, I should wear it now during TPP (Tillerson, Pruitt, Perry) regime. I might get millions like UNF Inc. did.
>
> No, I will wear a GACC t-shirt. I didn't see any for sale at this seminar - "Interconnectivity of Cookstoves"
>
> What next - you will call me a Communist? Or a non-Christian Indian (whatever that may mean)? :-)
>
> As to your blanket charges:
>
> "a. Essentially no messages that advance stove science (the word science being used here intentionally)
>
> *** a. I am not a stove scientist. I was trained as a chemist and I am a cook. More relevant than what you can say about the army of "highly qualified" professionals who can't see themselves in mirrors. ***
>
> b. Negative comments about especially GACC (Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves) and especially its CEO (Radha Muthiah)- about which/whom I have seen no evidence he knows much.
>
> *** b. I find pronouncements of GACC and its CEO - a curious title for the Executive Director of UNF, Inc - rather funny. You don't know what I do or not know about GACC but of course you are one of those who believe absence of evidence is evidence of absence, be it PM2.5 equitoxicity or Nikhil's words. I have already stated that the CEO is doing a commendable job assigned to her - propaganda for fund-raising. That's what UNF does and that's what Hillary wanted her to do. She has all my sympathies; Washington is a weird town and I am sure she knows it. I have made no negative comments about her person, just her position. (I finally saw her last night and as I said above, I became an instant fan. She has great stage presence. I would look like an idiot arguing with her.) ***
>
> c. Negative comments on Hillary Clinton, whose work on stoves has been wonderful - and I never saw mentioned during the campaign
>
> *** c. Well, she has had bad support staff, hasn't she? Hillary is also a public figure but in her own words "a lousy cook <https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/why-hillary-clinton-eats-a-hot-pepper-every-single-day/2016/06/18/a8cbb5bc-2f16-11e6-9de3-6e6e7a14000c_story.html>". She is a hothead - so am I - and eats a hot pepper every day, as do I. I also believe "“everything in moderation, including moderation.” I admire her and would like her to settle back in Washington. I already offered a suggestion that she return and take control of GACC, in a partnership with Ivanka. A billion dollars are needed. GACC CEO will get her cut. A lot of work needs to be done. GACC needs to dump WHO and NIH, that's all. EPA may be lost for four years anyway. NIH has found its savior in Gates. WHO needs to have Intellectual Air Quality Guidelines internally. ***
>
> d. Nonsense statements about DALY’s - a standard method in the health community for addressing health impacts of all kinds - and especially stoves (My last message listed all the acronyms in this world - with cites.)"
>
> *** d. My friend, I am afraid you don't know zilch about DALYs. It doesn't measure "health impacts" of any kind, leave alone stoves. DALYs serve propaganda purposes but in any event, just remember Kirk Smith - "attributable" does not mean "avoidable". Baselines matter. What HAPIT does, only uppity HAPITters know. I would have told you except that I am shutting off after one note as I promised. I will be glad to exchange e-mails privately. ***
>
> ------
>
> ND to RWL 1 and 2. Scientists do regress into infantilism. Such behavior has enormous costs - direct (money and time provided) as well as indirect (resulting from neglect of more relevant work based on hard data instead of cooked up variety.) Adults holding cuddly stuffed bears in bed is benign. When they start saying that the bears are live, and comforting because they are real, psychiatrists need to be consulted. If scientists find my jabs insulting and fear for their reputation, ditto. Challenge me on my facts or take sedatives.
>
> ND to RWL 3: Yes, details depend on the price to consultants. Some information is handy and can be provided free of cost to the recipient. One reason why WHO data, once cooked up, have been used to generate IHME GoBleDygook. Policy-relevant actual data are difficult to define and more so to develop and use.
>
> Just because "peer-reviewed" - "pal reviewed" - horse manure exists does not make it good enough fuel (unless the stove is very forgiving and very efficient at the same time.) And yes, consultants do give advice according to price. Why do you think I keep asking for a few million dollars? And why do you think there is an army of mercenaries ready on the horses of WBTs?
>
> ND to RWL 4 and 5: I stand by my comment on the Malawi study which "was expected to show children are less likely to die of pneumonia if they live in a home where food is cooked on a smoke-free stove rather than an open fire." Too many confounding factors. Remember, for all 100+ years of transitioning to smoke-free stoves, there is no convincing evidence that the incidence of child pneumonia in the rich countries declined because children were living in homes where food was cooked on a smoke-free stove. Epidemiologists are on a trip. Malawi and Malawians are good targets for the neo-imperialists.
>
> ND to RWL 6 and 7: I have no qualms insulting 15 British professionals, nor any interest in perpetuating their nonsense of "stoves and health". Dismissals are deserved. I will be happy if this charade of "knowledge development" ended, the sooner the better. Does anybody else have a problem with "Emissions from uncontrolled combustion of fuels occur within "homes" as well as other cooking places, and they spread "outdoors" where exposures can occur to the poor as well as non-poor."? How much "poverty" and "exposures" did these 15 cognoscenti - or for that matter anybody else - measure to inform GoBbleDygook? (Wait till I get around to Murray-Lopez 1993 and 1996.)
>
> The problem is with people claiming that HAP "kills". No. All that GBD says is that x million premature mortality or y billion DALYs (of cohorts dead) are attributable to exposure to HAP as a "risk factor". Anybody can cook up methods to allocate blame to this or that. When presumptions and allocations are marketed as "knowledge", science degenerates into fetishism. Read Kirk Smith - "attributable" is not "avoidable", and cohorts are different.
>
> ND to RWL 8 and RWL 9: I confess this was vile, crass insult. I like making fun of academics and their poverty tourism for the sake of getting enough approvals to publish in Lancet. (Read Lancet carefully, please. There is a lot in that journal.) If you think the hypothesis "replacing open fires with cleaner burning biomass-fuelled cookstoves would reduce pneumonia incidence in young children" is not laughable on first impression, you need to talk to a pediatrician.
>
> These hi-falutin' experts have nothing better to do than provide dark entertainment at tax-payers' cost? They can all collect in unventilated smokeshops and praise each other's work, puffing their chests that you call them "highly qualified". Perhaps. "Highly qualified" should be applied to their results, and guess what, they indeed are honest and humble enough to do just that:
>
> "Baseline data showed that in addition to almost exclusive use of biomass fuels for cooking, exposure to smoke from other sources including burning of rubbish, tobacco, and income generation activities was a common day-to-day experience. Additionally, as cookstoves were only issued to households that had a resident child younger than 5 years, exposure to smoke from neighbours’ or relatives’ cooking fires is likely... It is thus possible that these other air pollution exposures would have negated any potential beneficial impact of the cookstove intervention and that had even cleaner burning cookstoves been used, they would be unlikely to have had an impact. ....There was a high incidence of serious adverse events unrelated to cooking across the trial population reflecting the expected range and frequency of serious childhood illnesses seen in rural Malawi."
>
> These considerations might have occurred to any Malawian nurse. (I just met a Ugandan lactation specialist in a hospital here; should have asked her. Even I would have said this for a 10% cut on the grant. I have walked through Blantyre slums and Malawi villages, where my car once broke down coming back from a sugar ethanol refinery)
>
> The point is, many of these studies are excuses to wander into blind alleys to just confirm that they are blind. Anybody at the entrance would've told these experts that their hypotheses do not meet a laugh test.
>
> Still, I respect their integrity. Lack of common sense - what I called "eyes and brains" - is not a mortal sin, though it seems to be a necessary condition for marketing papers these days.
>
> ND on RWL 10-11: Gill is a lousy reporter, and his editors ought to have some sense. A picture is worth more than ten Lancet articles.
>
> ND on RWL 12-14. Gill's allegation "UN-backed" is a lie.
>
> It is relevant that UN Foundation is a private enterprise with venal objective (it is entitled to its pretensions). I have met none of GACC staff and feel pity that they have to carry the burden of EPA and State rampage. If they don't know that they are not "uber nuts", they need to know it.
>
> It is only you (Ron) who thinks I impugn this whole List as "gullible". For clarity, a gullible person does not know that s/he is gullible. (Sometimes even the glib don't know they are glib.) I am sure there are people on this list who know who is what.
>
> I feel sorry that you need press badly. Call Marc Gunther and Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar. Or call UNF, Gates Foundation, who both fund WHO. Or Michael Greenstone; he knows how to get free publicity, as does GACC CEO. Or Jose Andres and other State culinary diplomats of yesteryears <https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/chefs-are-the-new-diplomats/2012/08/31/d67b5714-ead3-11e1-b811-09036bcb182b_story.html?utm_term=.2b86d2adb3b5>. Rope in WWF into stove science. Or Jeff Bezos.
>
> ND on RWL 15 and 16: I have written enough on GACC propaganda, beginning with the claim that HAP causes deaths. But I fully understand. GACC is paid to propagandize.
>
> As for Hillary gang, you need to be a Washingtonian. (I was and remain a Hillary supporter, but politics have nothing to do with stoves, does it?)
>
> UNF is a racket, like many tax-payer financed (via tax exemptions) fancy charities. It is not for nothing that UNF Executive Director earned nearly $1 m in four years, a pittance compared to what Gates Foundation pays its top folks. Standing pays and standing requires pretension if not outright lies and gibberish.
>
> Us Washingtonians know the charade. Politics is a reality, and we do not readily fall for any claims of moral superiority as in your "I interpret this to be a rejection by Nikhil of everything going on to advance stove development - which is already pitifully low by any sort of moral standard."
>
> Ah, so glad to fall short of your moral standard!! :-)
>
> Let me go out and make a more incendiary claim -- the TC 285 exercise has been reduced to a pretense of morality when it confused "stove development" with "health benefits" at the level of an individual user. What utter - um, nonsense. WHO and ISO - not private entities but apparently controlled by some as well as the US government - have no business using IAQ "Guidelines" to develop ISO fiat about Emission Rate Targets or "Standards".
>
> The entire line of arguments upwards (Global Burden of Disease is attributable to HAP) and downwards (that individual burden of disease can be measurably reduced by setting solid fuel emission rate standards, akin to the NSPS in US) is erroneous. It is a house of cards that needs to be knocked down in order to really advance stove science to the users' wants.
>
> I have said it before and need to repeat it -- get your head out of the firebox and EPA/BAMG "box models" and look at the cooks and their environments. Peer-reviewed literature has its uses, so read it diligently.
>
> ND on RWL 18 and 19: You need to have pizza and beer with me at Comet Ping Pong, my friend. (I see you too confuse UNF with the UN as in what you allege to be my "put-down of the UN." And why shouldn't I even engage in a put-down of the UN if and when I feel like it?)
>
> To repeat, it is my duty as a devout Hindu to slay sacred cows.
>
> As C S Lewis quotes Luther in The Screwtape Letters: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn."
> ND on RWL 20: Is "stove programs" Ron Larson's exclusive turf that you can get away with claim "someone wanting to kill stove programs will love to quote this list about expertise being cooked"? Yes, SOME stove programs should be killed. The governments of Norway and UK may want to take notice and examine just what cakes are being marketed by EPA and BAMG. Someone should be paid to do primary data research and pop the balloons that have been floating around the last six years about stove emission rates and premature mortality rates.
>
> ND on RWL 21: "Golden pills" is mixing metaphors - instead of "silver bullet", I chose golden, because the Gold Standard Foundation is involved in this racket. And I chose pills because bullets are not good metaphor for medical interventions. WHO and EPA seem to be abusing -- the sense I got from the webinar in September with Michael Johnson and Ajay Pillarisetti -- the GBD methods ("killing by assumptions") to create an impression that a "better stove" is just a pill. Guess what - child pneumonia may be easier to prevent by improving the whole "home environment", not just a stove, and may be easier to treat with a vaccine (under way in India). But no, you seem to yearn for Golden Pills - stoves certified by the Gold Standard. (Tell you what - I will buy you a Golden Pils. The Gold Standard is a pile of lead rust.)
>
> ND on RWL 22: I suggest you read definition 3 for pornography <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pornography> at Merriam-Webster's website. Yes, I stand by my accusation that Gates funding is poverty porn. I never said "stove research" is poverty porn, just much of the purported "heath research" by NIH/CDC. This Malawi study was not funded by Gates, and it didn't need any funding to conclude what should have been obvious to anybody with eyes and brains:
>
> "The lack of effect on pneumonia might be explained by exposure to other sources of air pollution, including rubbish burning and tobacco smoke, that could have overwhelmed any potential effects of the cookstoves. An important implication of these observations is that tackling any individual source of air pollution exposure in isolation is unlikely to be effective for improving health; an integrated approach to achieving clean air that tackles rubbish disposal, tobacco smoking, and other exposures, as well as robust cleaner cooking solutions (eg, cleaner stoves and fuels) that achieve a high rate of acceptance is probably needed to deliver health benefits."
>
> But more is at stake than "highly qualified" researchers reaching "highly qualified" findings. The whole idea that fuel emission rates -- in this case by two varieties of Philips stoves -- should have had "an effect" measurable and measured by this study's research protocol is lunatic.
>
> ND on RWL 23 and 24: If you had bothered to read, it is the Malawi study that my e-mail was about. I quoted from it at the beginning of the post. It is evident that you don't bother to read anything. A highly moral stance for this list?
>
> ND on RWL 25: Whoever gave you the idea that GBD is "medically based"? Read my post on this list on 11 September 2016 - The story of GBD 2010: a “super-human” effort, "a way of life"; still getting away with murder? IHME researchers honestly admit their tricks. Read Lancet instead of just throwing citations. GBD is one way of cooking up numbers; to my knowledge, no government in the world gives a damn about GBD and Comparative Risk Assessment. And it is not obvious anybody should. Why don't you take up a campaign to reduce substance abuse in the US? Or is Colorado marijuana pollution getting to you?
>
> ND on RWL 26: Hey, good that you remember 1978. I was asleep the whole year. The cult you want to think of is not of Jim Jones' but of Sts. Hillary and Tim - Glib Arrogant Cookstovers Cult.
>
> ND on RWL 27 and 28: For once, you guessed right and admit that you "have not been sufficiently following this GACC work". (If not, why were you in such a rush to calumniate me?) Please send me a summary if you have finished it; it's over a month now, past holidays.
>
> In conclusion, let me say I smell a skunk in the South Lawn and Imperial Hotel fine-wine-dine-and-shine parties. I don't charge conspiracy when mere stupidity suffices to explain the outcomes. (A very critical Washington lesson from some Congressional hearing back in early 1970s - "Do not rush to ascribe to conspiracy that which mere stupidity would suffice to explain." Sometimes dumbness is disguised as deceit.)
>
> If I had a monopoly over money, I would cut out WHO from the ISO process and junk the ERTs, Tiers, as they exist until the testing protocols are reformed to include actual cooking. If you had a monopoly over stove science, I would give you the money and five years to make a class of solid fuel stoves (biomass and coal, cooking and heating, in or outside the home) that can reach all users in the following ten years. (I have a feeling this is also what GACC and WHO/IWA folks want, just that they have put an airplane before a horse. You could use all GACC partners, research on marketing and business models, to sell your stoves.) I am afraid the train has left the station, you have too little time to stake a case that modern solid fuel stoves - informed by all "stove science" that you know - will be found "usable" by masses soon enough. Otherwise this "better biomass stoves" enterprise is doomed. (I think coal will survive.)
>
> -----------
> See you back some time, otherwise call or write to me.
>
> Nikhil
> ---------
> (US +1) 202-568-5831 <tel:(202)%20568-5831>
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 9:25 PM, Ronal W. Larson <rongretlarson at comcast.net <mailto:rongretlarson at comcast.net>> wrote:
> List and Nikhil, Crispin
>
> This is the promised expansion of my last-night's message telling Nikhil that I object strongly to his weird anti-stove development comments. Since mine he has put 6 more into the system, generally including my name; I will add a little below on those as well.
>
> To summarize what I am objecting to in Nikhil’s behavior on this list (including much more than the following message):
>
> a. Essentially no messages that advance stove science (the word science being used here intentionally)
> b. Negative comments about especially GACC (Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves) and especially its CEO (Radha Muthiah)- about which/whom I have seen no evidence he knows much.
> c. Negative comments on Hillary Clinton, whose work on stoves has been wonderful - and I never saw mentioned during the campaign
> d. Nonsense statements about DALY’s - a standard method in the health community for addressing health impacts of all kinds - and especially stoves (My last message listed all the acronyms in this world - with cites.)
>
> If Nikhil continues in this anti-stove-development-vein, I ask the stove list moderators to put his comments into a review status. This would thereby limit his remarks to those that help, rather than harm, stove development. The last thing we need on this list is someone driving people away from this list and from supporting stove development.
>
>> On Dec 7, 2016, at 11:06 PM, Ronal W. Larson <rongretlarson at comcast.net <mailto:rongretlarson at comcast.net>> wrote:
>>
>> List, cc Nikhil, Crispin et al
>>
>> I consider this to be the single least professional document I have yet seen on this list. This is to tell anyone agreeing with Nikhil that his rants and ill will towards (apparently) everyone working on stoves do not coincide with anyone else’s thinking that I know in this business. He has some strange mental aberration that is beyond my comprehension.
>>
>> It is too late at night to go into detail - but I will do so tomorrow - on at least the 28 emphasized words/topics below. I repeat - I am embarrassed that anyone would treat honest stove research in the way he has done below (and many earlier times). There must be some explanation for his ill-well. Anyone know?
>>
>> I repeat - anyone who believes all this animosity - please wait until you hear the other side.
>>
>> Ron
>>> On Dec 7, 2016, at 1:27 PM, Traveller <miata98 at gmail.com <mailto:miata98 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Ah, another report on "scientific" advance. I see scientists regressing
> [RWL1: insulting to many on this list. Petty.
>>> to infantilism.
> [RWL2: Ditto
>>> Andrew asks, "Is it because there are other vectors of the illnesses linked to poverty?" (Do Smoke-free Stoves Really Save Lives <http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38160671>, BBC News 7 December 2016)
>>>
>>> Possibly, as Roger has pointed out.
>>>
>>> Any more details depend on the price.
>
> [RWL3: Unclear meaning. I am afraid Nikhil is saying that consultants will need to be paid more to give good advice, which does not apply to the stove contractors I know. Thanks for Andrew and Samson taking this seriously.
>>> I have been surprised so often over the last 15-20 years, I stopped being surprised.
>>>
>>> For one, the Malawi study "was expected to show children are less likely to die of pneumonia if they live in a home where food is cooked on a smoke-free stove rather than an open fire."
>>>
>>> Ah, forget
> [RWL4: Here, telling Andrew (see last message below for the lead into this story) there is no need to try to understand the reports in the BBC piece)
>
>>> about "other vectors". The very premise is presumptuous beyond common sense.
> [RWL5: (d,f). This is an insult to everyone working on stove health issues (neither Andrew or I are). The next two questions are meant to insult a whole slew of medical experts -who know perfectly well how to answer such questions.
>>> What does "live in a home" mean, and what does "less likely to die of pneumonia" mean? Where do these pundits
> [RWL6: The “pundits” he is referring to are 15 physicians in the UK, with Dr. Kevin Mortimer (see below) as the lead author. See the whole article at: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)32507-7/fulltext <http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)32507-7/fulltext> The article answers the next question perfectly well.
>>> get their baseline data and the methods of testing likelihoods for different samples?
>>>
>>> Kevin Mortimer says,""Exposure to household air pollution is a problem of poverty. If you're not poor, you're not exposed."
>>>
>>> What nonsense.
>
> [RWL7: “Nonsense” is obviously intended as an insult to 15 professionals, specializing in tropical medicine, with a specialty in stoves and health. I guess with a hope to stope their further work.
>>> Emissions from uncontrolled combustion of fuels occur within "homes" as well as other cooking places, and they spread "outdoors" where exposures can occur to the poor as well as non-poor.
>>>
>>> They <http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)32507-7/fulltext> set out with an untenable, ill-defined
>
> [RWL8: The hypothesis seemed fine to me - and this list has had several responses on why the hypothesis failed. I can think of a lot more - but that is not pertinent in this message. The point is Nikhil has not explained why “untenable” and "ill-defined”
>>> hypothesis and put 8500+ Malawian households under the researchers’ eyes (no data on researchers' eyes or brains)
>
> [RWL9: Only intended to impugn the (highly qualified) authors (the Lancet is one of the world’s leading medical journals).
>>> - "10 543 children from 8470 households contributed 15 991 child-years of follow-up data to the intention-to-treat analysis." They "found no evidence".
>>>
>>> It is amazing
>
> [RWL10: The reporter Gill probably had no choice in these photos or their placement. Both photos do a good job of letting the BBCs readers (and viewers?) know that cooking in developing countries is much different from cooking in the UK. I take this to me a slam at a reporter who did a good job in getting a Lancet story out to people who would otherwise never see it. I wish the Denver Post did something similar once in a while. (Beeb means BBC)
>>> that the first photo in the Beeb story is of a closed smokey kitchen with open fire, and the other is of a one-pot "improved stove" OUTSIDE the home. Maybe Gill wanted to allege
>
> [RWL11: All parts of this sentence seem intended to be derogatory; Reporter Gill is smart enough to know that indoor and outdoor cooking have very different health impacts. I think someone else is doing the alleging.
>
>>> that even outdoor cooking with improved stove does not yield any measurable health benefits.
>>>
>>> ********
>>>
>>> BBC wonders "Where does this leave a huge UN-backed project.. ".
>>>
>>> Depends on what the meaning of "backed" is and what the meaning of UN is. Yes, some unrecognized Uber Nuts
> [RWL12: Nikhil: I consider this the worst putdown of all that I am commenting on in this message. Apparently you think this is great humor, but I perceive it as harmful in the extreme. If “Nuts” was an attempt at humor, it fails at the sixth grade level.
>>> - otherwise known as GACC
> [RWL13: For all who don’t know GACC, please go to http://cleancookstoves.org/about/our-team/ <http://cleancookstoves.org/about/our-team/> to see photos of 29 staffers. I have met briefly only 5 or 6 and only expect one to know me now. My interactions with all (mostly at ETHOS meetings) has left me impressed. They do not deserve to be coupled with the word “NUTS”. At this GACC web site, there is plenty of other information on what they are doing.
>>> , a project with no legal personhood - have been feeding “Annual Reports", quarterly reports, CEO's golden words to the gullible
>
> [RWL14: I fail to see any importance to the idea of “legal personhood". The CEO in question is GACC’S Radha Muthiah. For anyone on this list to call any media “gullible” seems intended to hurt all that this list stands for. We need the press badly; from my perspective they are doing a fine job under very difficult circumstances (I am objecting to the views on the press of one recent Presidential candidate). For anyone from the press reading this, I suspect Nikhil is NOT speaking for most on this list.
>>> media, but that amounts to glib propaganda, nothing else.
>
> [RWL15: Notice that NO examples of glibness and propaganda are given. Some examples? I interpret this to be a rejection by Nikhil of everything going on to advance stove development - which is already pitifully low by any sort of moral standard.
>>> Now that Antonio Guterres is at the helm of the United Nations, he should formally resign from this gang o <http://cleancookstoves.org/about/our-team/>f Hillary lovers
> [RWL16: I can only interpret this as his strong political statement more on Hillary than GACC - which has no place on this list. I do not recall any prior reference to politics ever on this list - which is intended to be helpful to every part of the world, not the US. I am extremely proud of the fact than the new head of the UN has been associated with GACC - and so hope he stays with GACC, to whatever extent is possible.
>>> who have nothing better
> [RWL17: I suggest Nikhil is NOT an expert on what GACC is about. I attended their meeting in Cambodia and found it to be exceptionally well run. Since the funding now is hugely larger than a few years ago, we should all be very thankful that the UN Foundation (mostly funded by Ted Turner - with projects only with national governments) is the home of GACC. The UN Foundation has excellent status around the world - which explains a lot of their fund-raising success.
>>> to do than host fine-wine-and-dine opportunities. Now that the South Lawn is beyond reach after 44 days, I would be happy
>
> [RWL18: GACC is a lot more than what Nikhil (again) disparages. Googling “Comet Ping Pong” led me to a D.C. story about a man with a gun who believed a preposterous fake story about cutting up children (by Hillary). I consider it unbelievable that Nikhil would being this onto our list and talk about “premature deaths”. This story is obscene.
>>> to serve them wood-fired pizzas at Comet Ping Pong, and measure their pneumonias and premature deaths. Beer for $10 a pint.
>>>
>>> Wait a minute! BBC Action <http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaaction/about/funding> is a NEW IMPLEMENTER PARTNER <http://cleancookstoves.org/about/news/11-27-2016-new-partners-november-2016.html> of GACC and is funded by the same delusional
>
> RWL19: This “delusional” seems as harmful for me as the above put-down of the UN. I hope all the donors to GACC hear loudly that most of the stove community greatly appreciates their caring about stove improvement even if a few on this list disagree. I know little about BBC Action, but their site says: “BBC Media Action is the BBC’s international development charity”. In my mind they chose in GACC one of the best possible ways to encourage international development. Again, I hope all understand how seriously Nikhil is hurting our international development efforts on this list.
>>> donors who fund GACC (DfID, Govt of Norway), some more (US State Dept, EU) including some private companies (BMB Mott McDonald, DAI) who do “consulting" (which can mean expertise cooked to recipe).
>
> [RWL20: I suppose Nikhil thinks this “cooking” double entendre is clever; someone wanting to kill stove programs will love to quote this list about expertise being cooked. (And for what reason is it "cooked”?)
>>> And, of course, by those saviors
>
> [RWL21: another word chosen only to diminish our efforts. I have no idea what “Golden Pills” refers to.
>>> of the world looking for Golden Pills and fund the NIH/CDC kind of poverty porn by, ahem, "research", viz. Bill and Melinda Gateses.
> [RWL22: Anyone agree that Nikhil’s view that stove research is “porn”? I did a search on the GACC site for “Gates” and came up with 15 entries. Anyone able to identify those that are porn (or “ahem” research)?
>>> DfID also funded this “study”, passed off
> [RWL23: I have no idea what “this study” refers to, but clearly Nikhil found it was not “hard science”. Nikhil: specifically which “study” was “passed off”?
>
>>> as “hard science" to those gullible
>
> [RWL24: I need to know which report DfID supported, before agreeing that I am among the gullible. I suspect this indicates that Nikhil doesn’t know that DfID supported about 30 studies.
>>> enough. Once you imbibe
> [RWL25: Another loaded word - whose only purpose I can see is to further demean the work of GACC. The term “GBD brew” refers to a major medically-based 2015 update study whose site I gave earlier today: http://thelancet.com/gbd <http://thelancet.com/gbd> .
>>> the GBD brew and get all mushy-headed, “hard science" is incarnated in BBC stories.
>
> [RWL26: I take this to be another way to discredit everything related to stoves and science. Nikhil is probably trying to be clever in referring to a tragic cult situation in 1978 - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones> . If not this- what is he talking about? And why?
>>> Blind pundits parroting platitudes to the public.
>
> [RWL27,28: I guess the blind are those at GACC, or maybe it is anyone, like myself, who applaud the GACC “platitudes”. I guess “parroting” is meant to say that there is nothing new and original. I have not been sufficiently following this GACC work - and so I will try to do some summarizing ASAP.
>
> Apologies for being long-winded. The subject matter seemed worthy of the time involved. Basically I am mad.
>
> Ron
>
>
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