[Stoves] Air pollution kills

Crispin Pemberton-Pigott crispinpigott at outlook.com
Sun May 6 20:05:05 CDT 2018


Dear Xavier

Let's take Ulan Bator. There are 1.5 million inhabitants.
If all of them were using electrical heating and cooking, and driving bicycles instead of cars:

  *   would we likely see less indoor and outdoor air pollution?
  *   would we likely see less cases of respiratory infections like bronchitis, pneumonias, etc.?
  *   would the respiratory infections cases likely be less acute?
  *   would there likely be less cases of deaths due to a respiratory infection?
  *   would the life expectancy of the population likely be higher?


     *   There isn't much air pollution now indoors so it would probably not be reduced. In a home where no one smokes and they have a typical Stove Programme stove, the majority of IAP is caused by smoking and cooking. In the case of IAP in gers (yurts) the indoor air is generally better than the ambient air outside.
     *   Respiratory infections are greatly influenced by the temperature in the home and seasonal flu. Assuming people would not be heating their homes any higher than they are now (which means 'chronically cold all the time') the rate would probably not change much. This was demonstrated in Kyrgyzstan when it was shown that increasing the average temperature 5 degrees and heating for more than 16 hrs per day instead of 2-6 there was a huge medical health benefit - nothing to do with smoke. Being chronically cold in a stove-smoke-free environment would help reduce eye irritation and asthma attacks, I think.
     *   I can't see the acuteness of the infections being much affected with an annual average PM2.5 of 160 microgrammes, if nothing is done to address the chronic underheating issue. Mostly children get sick, and they get sick because they are cold so much of the time, or are subjected to large changes in temperature all day from traditional stoves going from zero to 40 kW then back to zero. Electric heating would moderate that, presumable, but you described changing the energy source, not the temperature profile.
     *   About the deaths, this is the same as Q3 about acute problems. Remember that changing the energy sources for a few things doesn't change all the other sources of air pollution : ash ponds, the Gobi Desert, and vehicles. Using electric vehicles would remove about 50% of the PM2.5 downtown, but not the considerable fugitive dust created by those vehicles on dirt roads. Dust storms are 50 times worse than air pollution from people.  Construction dust is considerable. Stove smoke is only about 45% of the total. It used to be 88% in some areas.
     *   The life expectancy is affected negatively by a lot of things other than air pollution : alcohol is a big problem, the diet consists largely of meat and fat is appreciated, the average income is very low, there is a great reliance on traditional medicine. There are a great many car accidents and falls from horses.  Here are the top 25 causes of death in Mongolia (I don't have it for UB alone) :

[cid:image003.jpg at 01D3E57D.E6225A00]



Which of those are related to diet and what is the first on the list that might be contributed to by air pollution? A lot of people smoke and smoke indoors. Breathing the city air is on average like smoking a 1/28th of a cigarette per day - the same as Calcutta.



So how do Mongolian causes of death rank in the world?



[cid:image006.jpg at 01D3E57D.E6225A00]

Number 1 for liver cancer, stomach cancer and number three for suicide and stroke. Do you see any diet-related diseases there cause by consuming a large amount of meat and alcohol?



They have a very low global ranking for breast and prostate cancer and diabetes (all >170).

All things considered, it would be much better if there were no air pollution in the city, but is it a major killer, or the major killer? Doesn't look like it.

Bright side :

Improving the domestic combustion devices greatly reduces indoor and outdoor air pollution, saves money, increase the comfort level, being warm greatly reduces the incidence of bronchitis, and makes people a lot happier. Those are reasons enough to support stove programmes. Given the context, it is not going to make much difference to the premature death rate from ambient air pollution. Moving people from gers to heated apartments increases their IAQ problems because so many people smoke and the apartments have a low air change rate.  It is never simple and context is everything.

Never assume anything.
Crispin

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