[Stoves] Apocalypse Now! World Conference on Air Pollution and Health, 30 October-1 November

Ronal W. Larson rongretlarson at comcast.net
Wed Aug 22 18:14:10 CDT 2018


Nikhil, Professor Gadgil and ccs (adding the stoves list - as I think many will appreciate the new cites you provide)

	The key sentence below, for me, is this:  "I will get around to answering you and Ashok Gadgil when health permits, but I am simply putting the burden of proof upon you — find me the primary data and the validation of causality."

	Sorry to hear of the health issue.  My recollection is that Professor Gadgil and I were asking exactly the reverse.  We would take this dialog seriously if you could provide someone/anyone who supports your denunciation of WHO, IMHE, HEI, Kirk Smith, GACC, etc.  

	I vaguely recall the connection to Cox (see below).  Looking again at http://cox-associates.com/index_htm_files/Coxbio.pdf <http://cox-associates.com/index_htm_files/Coxbio.pdf>, I don't see much reason yet for his view on risks (his specialty) to over-ride the many hundreds of experts around the world coming up with the numbers you point us to below.  Glad to look at a specific reference in support of your views

	I claim zero expertise on this topic;  I have things to do that are much higher priority than trying to come up with evidence beyond that you already give below.  I trust what I read in the Lancet and other places - because I would be happy if they are within 10 or even 20% - and because a number like 4 million seems about right.   Maybe a few experts are generating death statistics only for the income, but I don't see that for the ones I have come to know - especially Prof.  Smith.

	I recall much larger numbers for days loss from work/school etc due to indoor pollution (NOT deaths, not DALYs).  Can you supply a cite to such illness numbers?  I don't see any such statistics in the cites below.  The economic loss from illness alone has to be justification for many countries to do what we are about on this list.  In my >20 years on this list, we have made considerable progress (too slow) and more is clearly on the way - as a stove Tier system becomes a driver.  Such a system will drive users to the cleanest of stoves - but not for health reasons.  It will be because the user can experience negative costs - which amazingly also has climate significance as char is placed in soil.

Ron



> On Aug 22, 2018, at 3:22 PM, Nikhil Desai <pienergy2008 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear Ron: 
> 
> As the fervent devotee of WHO, you might be excited by this news -  http://www.who.int/airpollution/events/conference/en/ <http://www.who.int/airpollution/events/conference/en/>.
> 
> If you happened to read the HEI report you were so excited by, you may have discovered the hollowness of the whole exercise of computing premature deaths by causes of death via a series of assumptions and manipulation - i.e., no valid data - and then cooking up the allocation of the causes of death among "risk factors". 
> 
> I will get around to answering you and Ashok Gadgil when health permits, but I am simply putting the burden of proof upon you -- find me the primary data and the validation of causality. This is all poppycock dressed up as science, in the service of third rate economics (such as "expected disease of burden at a given level of development", as if these fools know a thing or two about what "level of development" means). 
> 
> Examining the roots of quantification of health damage due to air pollution exposures is indeed examining the Heart of Darkness, or Apocalypse Now, the Francis Ford Coppola classic 40 years ago. 
> 
> Below my summary commentary today on a WHO "Fact Sheet" on "Household Air Pollution" - intellectual pollution by Kirk Smith & Co. 
> 
> N
> http://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/household-air-pollution-and-health <http://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/household-air-pollution-and-health>
> It says "Household air pollution causes noncommunicable diseases .." and "Close to half of deaths due to pneumonia among children under 5 years of age are caused by particulate matter (soot) inhaled from household air pollution."
> There is zero evidence for these allegations of "cause" in WHO literature. Some epidemiologist would have to offer proofs of causality of PM2.5 and diseases; Tony Cox's review earlier this year trashed all such pretenses so far. 
> 
> As a matter of fact, as one reads down from "Key facts" to the rest of the Fact Sheet, one only finds the words attributable or attributed (4), risk or risk factors (15 times). and likely and contributes (once each). The word "cause" comes in only for emissions caused by combustion practices (which can vary for every fuel; organic pollutants are not inherent to fuel), kerosene as a cause of childhood poisoning (which has nothing to do with cooking per se). The alleged evidence of "links" is spotty and specific to particular periods and cohorts and indicates no causality.
> Rather, WHO ASSUMES a) a fictional level of daily average concentration worldwide among users of solid fuels for cooking and heating, b) that concentration is a proxy for inhalation, and c) that a Relative Risk can be assigned on the basis of instantaneous response to such assumed level of inhalation using an assumed Integrated Exposure Response (IER) curve."
> There are no actual data on fuel quality and quantity, emission rates, emission loads, concentrations, exposures, diseases, medical treatments and responses, disabilities or deaths. At every single step, a set of assumptions are substituted for facts, and the results are marketed as science. Every quantification - number of people exposed to HAP, level of exposure, resultant disease and death - regarding the health impact of HAP is a carefully manufactured lie.
> GBD estimates are made by both IHME and WHO to allocate premature deaths by causes and then allocate causes to risk factors. Estimates of HAP DALYs are based on non-existent data on exposure or disease incidence and on assumptions and methods that are not credible. In any event, attribution is not causality - so the claim that solid fuel emissions "kill" anybody is spurious - nor does the attributable mean avoidable. There will be premature deaths even if all household fuel was gas and electricity; the deaths and diseases will be allocated to other risk factors.
> In short, the HAP GBD numbers are fiction and of no policy relevance.
> 
> There is enough criticism of this hyper-adventurism of IHME to please the purveyors of MDG and SDG "progress". 
> 
> It is easy to cook up numbers and graphs; more below. 
> 
> N
> 
> http://www.who.int/gho/phe/indoor_air_pollution/burden/en/ <http://www.who.int/gho/phe/indoor_air_pollution/burden/en/>
> 
> But no data on exposures: http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.134?lang=en <http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.134?lang=en>
> 
> One-time delivery of premature deaths (2012): http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.134?lang=en <http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.134?lang=en>. 
> 
> Summary 2004 and detailed 2012 DALYs cooked up by country: http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.BODHOUSEHOLDAIRDALYS?lang=en <http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.BODHOUSEHOLDAIRDALYS?lang=en> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Nikhil Desai
> (US +1) 202 568 5831
> Skype: nikhildesai888
> 

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