[Stoves] News: Death toll from pollution, including from biomass stoves, raised to 9 million a year

[Nikhil Desai]

Pollution kills 9 million people each year, new study finds
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/10/19/pollution-kills-9-million-people-each-year-new-study-finds/>,
Brady Dennis, Washington Post 19 October 2017. Just in time for the pre-CCF
2017 workshop next Monday
<http://www.cleancooking2017.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/The-Public-Health-Benefits-of-Taking-Clean-Cooking-to-Scale_AgendaOct18.pdf>,
the lighting the fuel, high-smoke stage of boiling water. (Do go for dinner
at Karim's in the evening, and make a trip to the original Karim's in
Chandni Chowk when time permits.)

"In 2015, the largest number of deaths attributable to pollution occurred
in India and China, with an estimated 2.5 million and 1.8 million deaths
respectively."

Well, well. These two countries have some 37% of the world population and
36% or 20+ million of the world's 57 million deaths per year, just that
proportionately more of their people suffer diseases attributable to
pollution. Some friends will sell assumptions, telling the poor to eat cake
a la mode(l). Even with LPG, people will die, just that some other risk
factor will be blamed.

Clean enough air and water take investments; pollution is a poverty
disease, an occasion to bake rich cakes of rich theories. Restoring air and
water quality in China and India to US standards by 2060 will take
trillions of dollars and millions of lives along the way.

+++

Based on the report of The Lancet Commission on pollution and health
<http://www.thelancet.com/commissions/pollution-and-health>, 19 October
2017.

According to H. Ross Anderson, Implications for the science of air
pollution and health
<http://www.thelancet.com/pb/assets/raw/Lancet/pdfs/S221326001730396X.pdf>,
"The Commission relies largely on the results of the Global Burden of
Disease study." and bemoans "the fact that the existing estimates of the
burden of disease rely on small numbers of studies, most of which are based
in high-income countries with relatively low pollution and that display
considerable heterogeneity."

He says, " For example, although it is widely accepted that associations of
particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter less than 2·5 µm (PM2·5) cause
disease, the methods of quantifying the effects of individual components of
the PM2·5 mixture are poorly developed,". (Well, why bother/? Just assume
equitoxicity a la the lords at EPA).

Anderson confirms my cynicism about the IER (Integrated Exposure Response),
"Although the IER is a very useful tool, there remains a need for
additional empirical studies in the relevant exposure scenarios to improve
and validate it. This is especially relevant to the burden estimates for
household pollution from solid fuels. The estimate for household PM2·5 and
cardiovascular disease (which represents about 50% of the burden from this
source) *assumes* that it is plausible that household PM2·5 from solid
fuels will have cardiovascular effects.9* Empirical studies to support this
assumption are needed*.  (emphasis added)."

I urge people going to the warm-up Monday morning to keep in mind - there
is neither data nor theory to support the HAP attributions of death and
disease, nor to clap that LPG will yield quantified "health benefits".
Murder by assumption and saving lives by assumption is in the realm of
cults.

Of special interest - In control of ambient and household air pollution —
how low should we go?
<http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lanres/PIIS2213-2600(17)30393-4.pdf>.
The authors Stephen Gordon, Kevin Mortimer, Jonathan Grigg, and John Balmes
have risen to the challenge -

"The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health identifies improved
cookstoves and cleaner fuels as important short-term and middle-term
strategies* to reduce HAP in the absence of definitive solutions.* The
Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, sponsored by the United Nations
Foundation, has the ambitious goal of encouraging the distribution of 100
million clean cook stoves by 2020. *An important gap in knowledge, however,
is how much emissions need to be reduced to have substantial health
effects.* Recent studies can be interpreted as suggesting that there is
insufficient intervention-based evidence to be certain about the answer to
this question, for either early childhood ALRI or adult COPD. A
four-country (Guatemala, India, Peru, Rwanda) RCT of a so-called “clean”
liquid petroleum gas stove intervention is currently being done, with a
primary endpoint of ALRI in children, but spirometry in adults will not be
included in this study. Even if the results of this trial show a positive
effect of cooking with liquid petroleum gas, large-scale distribution of
this fuel is not likely to be feasible in many LMICs and renewable energy
solutions would be preferable. Additionally, reducing emissions of cooking
sources in isolation is unlikely to have major health effects* unless this
forms part of a comprehensive, affordable, and sustainable clean air
strategy.* (Emphasis added.)

Duh! Who needed this discovery of truth that was self-evident 10,20, 30
years ago?

Like the bettors on - not just in - Atlantic City casinos who made a
killing marketing a dream, the Global Advocates of Clean Fuels has enriched
the rich and the loud.

Nikhil
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