[Stoves] Ghana news: Second Lady named GACC ambassador; HAP deaths "alarming"

Sat Oct 14 18:26:20 CDT 2017

Thanks for the links, Nikhil.

If anyone wants to read and analyse the ‎draft international standard (DIS) it is for sale to the public on the ISO website.

Within it there are a number of referenced documents which gives a flavour of some of the thinking is behind its ‎composition.

Regards
Crispin

Crispin:

Clarification: The PM2.5 equitoxicity assumption is only one among many assumptions about risk factor attributions. And it is common to say something "kills", even if scientifically incorrect and morally wrong.

We economists have spent umpteen decades and zillion dollars on association and causal factors of economic growth. I will not fault other abusers of statistical methods.

Why, economists go into attributions of illness too. (A lot of PM2.5 work is by health economists, not clinical epidemiologists). Angus Deaton and Anne Case (a husband and wife pair at Princeton, Deaton a Nobel economist) write about the temptation to conflate coincidences as causal links:

Much of the commentary has linked the deteriorating health of midlife whites to what has happened to their earnings and incomes, and in particular to stagnation in median wages and in median family incomes. Because there has been real growth in per capita GDP and in mean per capita income, the poor performance for middle-class incomes can be mechanically attributed to the rising share of total income captured by the best-off Americans. ... Quite apart from the question of whether, if the top had received less, the rest would have received more, we shall see that the economic story can account for part of the increases in mortality and morbidity, but only a part, and that it leaves more unexplained than it explains. Our preliminary conclusion is that, as in previous historical episodes, the changes in mortality and morbidity are only coincidentally correlated with changes in income. (Mortality and Morbidity in the 21st Century<https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/casetextsp17bpea.pdf>, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Spring 2017)

They were writing about another Nobel economist, Joe Stiglitz, who wrote “When Inequality Kills<https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/lower-life-expectancy-white-americans-by-joseph-e--stiglitz-2015-12>.” (Project Syndicate, 7 December 2015), in fact celebrating an earlier paper by Deaton and Case.

Cause and association can always be debated. The primary problem with HAP GBD is not one of scientific method and language, but simply that the facts are missing.

There is no data on cookstove emissions and exposures for the average 50 million people who died every year from 1990 to 2016 worldwide. The data on numbers and assigned causes of death and illness are also paltry as far as developing Asia and SSA go.

With fuzzy doses and fuzzy responses, there is no point debating methods of dose-response computations, and I stopped digging into regressions and Granger causalities, the latter a convoluted fad in population health.

What does it matter if the HAP attributable deaths were 40,000 a year or 4 million a year and to whom, why, where? All that is rhetoric for the sake of marketing memes.

But even a lay person should care that assignment of risk factors for the cohorts dead has little to do with the future cohorts. That is what policy choices are about - ignoring weak claims of loud claimants.

Which is why WHO interference in TC-285  is hugely problematic. ANSI is acting irresponsibly trying to shove BAMG modeling on to TC-285 work.

Nikhil

On Oct 13, 2017, at 7:47 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com<mailto:crispinpigott at outlook.com>> wrote:

Dear Tom

I don't want to contradict either of you on the various interpretations but I would like to check something with you, as it is mere opinion:

"According to the World Health Organization, household air pollution from cooking kills over 4 million people every year and sickens millions more."

Do think think the average reader of that quote realises that the quote should be:

"According to the World Health Organization, household air pollution from cooking contributes to the premature death of over 4 million people every year and sickens millions more."
‎
There is ‎only one occurrence I can find in the WHO documents that says 'kills' and it misquotes another WHO document that says 'premature deaths'.

The 'kills' argument leads to [multiple cites] things ‎like, 'cooking kills x-many women per day' and 'since we have been talking in this meeting y-many women and children have died from cooking smoke'.

The abuse of statistics is universal but I see nothing wrong with stating problems as they are, in a context, with realistic plans and expectations, and competent implementation of appropriate solutions. ‎That's just me. Maybe I am not 'Hollywood' enough.

The 'creation of memes' centered on headline-grabbing alarm and calamity-mongering is a major distraction. I am saying nothing against the central proposition about smoke and health. My father died from cigarette-induced lung cancer. Does that qualify me to make emotional appeals for lower performance tier target values? No.

There is a popular story in the press right now that surely no one can miss. It is that in Hollywood there is a serious problem of sexual violence against women who have to leave their homes daily to earn a living, or at least make the attempt. Shall we stovers propose that if these women and girls were provided with a commercial quality stove, pot and training to make jam, and the opportunity to sell through a cooperative store, the number of these assaults would be reduced? This seems to be a good proposal. ‎There are lots of people around Waterloo who know how to make jam.

The number of exposures to violence could be reduced if these women at least had a coffee maker because a lot of these attacks apparently start in a coffee shop. We have a responsibility to protect those vulnerable women ‎who are only in Hollywood because of a lack of opportunities in the rest of the country. Some of them were already fleeing violence at home.

Please send $145 for each women you want me to save. I'll give them the kind that makes good cappuccinos. ‎They like them (it's cultural).

‎This is the quality of argument that is being used to raise funding. There is a well-established correlation between young girls in Hollywood meeting producers for a drink and sexual violence. Surely a cooking device of some kind is the solution.

Two more things:

The 'all PM2.5 causes illness and or death' is based on an argumentum ad ignorantium meaning proof from ignorance: 'all PM2.5 is equally toxic because we have not proven that it isn't.' That is the founding claim (and wording, paraphrased) of the EPA's regulations which serves as the basis for the WHO's calculations. Nikhil traced that to source.

‎The Kyrgyzstan winter stove pilot proved beyond doubt that getting the smoke outside, alternatively not making as much and getting it outside, reduces personal exposure, a conclusion reached without modeling any kitchens or dispersion. It also showed that men have higher exposure to PM2.5 than either children or women and benefitted the most from the improved stoves and installations.

The inference here is that there is a lot more going on in Hollywood than we supposed. ‎Details available in installments at the checkout till in your favourite store.

Regards
‎Crispin

Nikhil,

You complain that there is no demonstrated causality between emissions metrics (HAPS, PM2.5) and mortality and argue that therefore a stoves program shouldn’t be based on models and estimates of mortality. For many years the doctors in this community have advocated for more physiological studies.  Direct causes are difficult to get from death records. For example, my father’s death certificate lists a cause that was the consequence of the treatment rather than the cancer that he suffered from so he might not show up in a cancer statistic. I do know that wherever I travel people in industry and in government are concerned about PM 2.5 levels from any combustion source. Real or imaginary a relationship is assumed and PM 2.5 is regulated.

The stove policies and programs are based on a strong statistical correlation between PM 2.5 and reported mortality due to respiratory or cardiovascular causes. That correlation has been validated for some developed and developing countries. (Every study I have seen cautions about the shortcomings of the statistics but the correlations are strong.) If I were a policymaker I would find enough justification in the statistical correlation to promote healthier environments through programs like improved cookstoves of all kinds. The estimates that you complain about are likely based on the global rather than local statistics.

_______________________________________________
Stoves mailing list

to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org<mailto:stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>

to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org

for more Biomass Cooking Stoves,  News and Information see our web site:
http://stoves.bioenergylists.org/

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20171014/8e900160/attachment.html>