[Stoves] Off-topic: News on clean cooking solutions and HAP in India on World Environment Day 2019

Wed Jun 5 20:17:28 CDT 2019

I am thinking of designing a small pilot of nutrition and cooking energy
intervention among the working poor in an Indian city when I get walking
again.

But will continue exposing lies repeated a thousand times.  Grants
for novel "studies" and press releases that make no positive interventions
only fatten the PhDs and leave poor people poor.

Two items today exemplifying this:

Cleaner Cooking Solutions Can Save Millions Of Lives, But Far More
Investment Is Needed
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulbledsoe/2019/06/03/cleaner-cooking-solutions-can-save-millions-of-lives-but-far-more-investment-is-needed/#412942e01805>,
Paul Bledsoe, Forbes, 4 June 2019

Bledsoe is an operator from Clinton White House 25 years ago. The depth of
his expertise is obvious from this:

"Many cleaner alternatives exist--including biogas, charcoal, ethanol,
kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas, natural gas, biomass pellets and
briquettes, electricity, and solar power--if they can reach end users. Some
countries are scaling up the provision of clean electricity through
micro-grids, distributed sources like village-scale solar, wind and
biofuels, and critical advancements in energy efficiency by using
government purchases to scale. "

The Contribution of Household Fuels to Ambient Air Pollution in India – A
Comparison of Recent Estimates
<https://ccapc.org.in/policy-briefs/2019/5/30/the-contribution-of-household-fuels-to-ambient-air-pollution-in-india-a-comparison-of-recent-estimates>,
S. Chowdhury, et al., Collaborative Clean Air Policy Centre, New Delhi 30
May 2019.

This is third rate economics - " a significant portion of the large public
health burden from ambient air pollution"doesn't mean LPG will cure
diseases for which other risk factors continue unabated.

"Across all studies, HAP contribution to average air pollution exposure in
India is estimated to be about 60% higher than all coal use, 4x higher than
open burning, and 11x higher than transportation in India. Critically, this
is in addition to the substantial risk households experience directly from
the combustion of these fuels. Put another way, in addition to the 800,000
premature deaths annually due to indoor exposure to HAP, approximately
another 300,000 (30% of one million) can be attributed to HAP due to
outdoor exposure. Cleaning up household fuel use thus both directly
benefits those exposed to HAP and has broader population benefits by
reducing ambient air pollution."

Anything "can be attributed to HAP", not that there are *any*
individual-level records of exposures and the diseases to which HAP is
blamed as a "risk factor", and other risk factors and confounding
variables. Or for that matter on the quantities and qualities of solid
fuels, combustion devices, or emission rates.

Forget the fact that concentrations ANYWHERE - measured or modeled - are
called exposures, and that the only reason PM2.5 is blamed is because it is
so estimated and pollutants that cannot be so estimated are ignored.

Everything looks a nail to one who has a hammer. Especially if he chooses
to blind himself.

Why not? Manufacturing lies as demanded by the Indian Fuhrer is a lucrative
business.

"These findings necessitate immediate action and demand formulation of
extensive policies to reduce HAP. "

Why wait to research evidence of Modi's "globally pioneering initiative"
<https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53856e1ee4b00c6f1fc1f602/t/59cbccceb1ffb6ec72ff9653/1506528465646/Modi+book+chapter.pdf>
(it was nothing of the sort; India's LPG subsidy program is 50+ years old,
and per capita lpg for household cooking lags behind many other developing
countries
<https://www.wlpga.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Accelerating-the-LPG-Transition.pdf>)
before starting other research junkets?

" It will soon be possible *to discern* the impacts of this policy on
outdoor air pollution levels in India using quantitative information from
the government, but additional substitution of clean burning fuels for
other residential uses like heating *needs to be warranted*." (emphasis
added)

Electric heating and water heating made its entry in Indian urban middle
class 50+ years ago, and by 2011/2, I found it common in smaller towns in
the colder regions in the Himalayan foothills and Rajasthan. Grid
reliability is the problem, not access. And LPG space heaters don't seem to
be appealing; I may be wrong.

The celebration of Indian Fascism was prescient; now the dead semi-solid
biomass will be burned in LPG or electric crematoria.

CCAPC collaborators could declare "clean fuels" are Aryan Hindu, solid
fuels are Dravidian (including those Hindu) or Dalit.or foreign.

And ignore the fact that many people in India do not have enough food to
cook or eat - India ranks 103 in IFPRI's Global Hunger Index for 119
countries and the 2015 stunting rate in children under 5 was estimated at
38%
<https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/the-paradox-of-indias-green-revolution/article27472671.ece>
."

Nikhil

PS: Came across a promising commentary by Thomas Clasen and Kirk Smith, Feb
2019 Let the “A” in WASH Stand for Air: Integrating Research and
Interventions to Improve Household Air Pollution (HAP) and Water,
Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) in Low-Income Settings
<https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/EHP4752>. It is really off-off-topic
for this list but is an avenue for information gathering and collaborative
research that has been neglected thus far. The idea of "clean household
environments" is over a hundred years old, rooted in the Home
Economics/Domestic Science movement, and also common to Tami Bond's CACHE
<https://publish.illinois.edu/humanenvironments/about/>.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nikhil Desai
(US +1) 202 568 5831
*Skype: nikhildesai888*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20190605/ee913840/attachment.html>