[Stoves] new health study

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Steven

Of course you are quite right about that, and it is obvious, however we have actors working on the matter who hold the following:

“Decreasing exposure by venting the stove just puts it outside, where it might blow in the window again, and adds to the ambient air pollution.”

Obviously it depends on the local circumstances whether either of these things will happen. Surely there is somewhere it would. However the inflation of the “possible harm” from displacing the emissions is talked up saying mere venting (putting in chimneys) is not solving the problem – the “real solution” is “clean cooking” which in modern parlance means LPG or electricity.

In short, they say there is no point, really, in cleaning up the air for everyone by ventilation. As Nikhil has pointed out many times, there is no point in doing anything in a particular community unless there is an overall strategy, because each step must take into consideration those local variables that affect the cost and consequence.

I can use the current example of Kyrgyzstan because it is being well-studied, and has an active stove replacement programme, changing stoves that at present leak a great deal of smoke into the house (they have chimneys already). The homes are in rural or peri-urban areas and in general venting the stoves properly has zero measurable effect on the air quality in the community – the smoke is greatly diluted.

So the issue is indoor air pollution. Leaky stoves, inappropriate operation and poorly installed chimneys still pose not just a health threat but a mortal threat. That is why the WB Winter Heating Pilot has guidelines (project rules) for the stove testing and performance, the inspection of the products, the installation of the stoves and the inspection of that installation afterwards, involving 4 different actors.

A good stove improperly installed is not going to perform well so this is not just a matter of building a good product. We have to build good installations. Because it is impractical to mandate repeated home inspections after first installation, we have developed a set of guidelines that “does the best we can do in the circumstances” for the money available the first time it is installed.

Of further interest is the comment from Norbert below that uses the phrase, “ongoing health effects vs cause”. What I see repeatedly is attribution of aggravating effects being described as a “cause”.  The two I will mention are upper/lower respiratory tract infection/bronchitis/pneumonia as one group and then asthma. Smoke as a disease agent is pretty unlikely to be a “cause” of these medical conditions but is definitely going to aggravate existing conditions, or predispose people to contracting them.

Through various serial miscommunications, it invariably ends up in the Press as “wood smoke causes asthma” (and so on).  We have to get the terminology, diagnosis and treatments and interventions properly characterised if we want to be taken seriously.  There is too many claims about PM2.5, which has its own history of misrepresentation as a “disease agent” and nearly nothing is heard about chronic underheating, or episodic over-then-under heating using traditional boxes-with-chimney stoves.

A number of the health improvements in the Kyrgyzstan Pilot are clearly the result of keeping the home warmer and warmer all the time. People are healthier in winter when they are warm all the time, smoke above the WHO guidelines or not. That’s why we wear warm clothing when outdoors.

Mongolians strongly warn not to remove any warm clothing outdoors when overheated from exercise in order to cool rapidly. They say it quickly leads to over-cooling and chest infections.  If it has something to do with surviving in really cold weather, I trust Mongolians to know what to do and not do.

So it is not enough to clean up the air, we also have to pay attention to the temperature variations in the home – something that is addressed with building codes, home insulation retrofits and heating systems that can operate automatically and continuously and conveniently.

I wish we had better stoves in that class for sawn wood – something really needed in Northern Canada.

Regards
Crispin




From: Stoves <stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org> On Behalf Of Law, Steven (MECP)


But is it burning wood that is the problem or is it the lack of venting the smoke fumes away from the people doing the cooking that is the problem?
I would offer that with proper ventilation of smoke fumes away from the people doing the cooking these problems would either go away or at least be diminished greatly.
Somehow we figured this out centuries ago...how have these folks not figured this out?

From: Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Norbert Senf


Hate to stir the pot again in the ongoing health effects vs cause discussion regarding wood smoke.
However, this study jointly conducted by the China and Oxford and published yesterday looks pretty solid:
https://www.ndph.ox.ac.uk/news/burning-wood-or-coal-to-cook-increases-risk-of-respiratory-illness<https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ndph.ox.ac.uk%2Fnews%2Fburning-wood-or-coal-to-cook-increases-risk-of-respiratory-illness&data=02%7C01%7C%7C4c674c7b896547e8689a08d6223e852e%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636734049242035360&sdata=CV0scFB5GiXvMEm1eg2YggxZK5S1fLbat9HO0fnLktE%3D&reserved=0>.
Norbert
--
Norbert Senf
Masonry Stove Builders
25 Brouse Road, RR 5
Shawville Québec J0X 2Y0
819.647.5092
www.heatkit.com<https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heatkit.com&data=02%7C01%7C%7C4c674c7b896547e8689a08d6223e852e%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636734049242035360&sdata=rpVNVoBnRzLTJPGRbj2lt%2ByL6foCszyogyk3VEipHl4%3D&reserved=0>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20180924/9165d3ce/attachment.html>