<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 15 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Helvetica;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:DengXian;
panose-1:2 1 6 0 3 1 1 1 1 1;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:"\@DengXian";
panose-1:2 1 6 0 3 1 1 1 1 1;}
@font-face
{font-family:Georgia;
panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
p.msonormal0, li.msonormal0, div.msonormal0
{mso-style-name:msonormal;
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
span.EmailStyle18
{mso-style-type:personal-reply;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
color:windowtext;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Nikhil,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>We are patiently waiting to see what Nikhil Desai will personally contribute to the health and welfare of people like those described in the National Geographic article. I am sure that Stove Team International would appreciate a generous donation. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I am proud to say that Stove Team International is lead by my cousin. Like similar NGOs, she and her partners and supporters personally donate substantially each year to reduce trauma and improve the health conditions that she previously worked as a volunteer to remedy. Instead of just picking out what is easy to criticize from a limited article, visit the families who are using the various stoves and see what they think of Stove Team. Your opinion doesn’t matter to them. They see the improvement in their lives. They are satisfied customers. If they weren’t, Stove Team and the many generous organizations like them wouldn’t still be in operation after several years. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>These organizations and their beneficiaries have clearly been helped by the focus on stoves and health. The benefits to family health are usually the impacts of improved stoves that users most cite. Set aside your personal war on Berkeley and GACC for a moment. What is your plan to improve their health? How would it differ from what is being done? Since you seem to be more concerned with money than with the livelihoods of the individuals, how would you fund such an effort? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Tom <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces@lists.bioenergylists.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Nikhil Desai<br><b>Sent:</b> Saturday, August 19, 2017 7:21 AM<br><b>To:</b> Discussion of biomass cooking stoves <stoves@lists.bioenergylists.org><br><b>Subject:</b> [Stoves] News: National Geographic on promotion of gas stoves over improved woodstoves - in Guatemala<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>A nice piece of "Crisis Reporting", after WHO declared solid fuels use as a global crisis. NatGeo will go much farther in moving minds than GBD and HAPIT. <br><br>This story is really about "stacking" and dose-response mechanisms. <o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><blockquote style='margin-left:30.0pt;margin-right:0in'><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>"Their efficient woodstove, a knee-high concrete cylinder donated by an aid group called StoveTeam International, is too small to support the tamale pot. So, as she does about once a month, Perez has fired up the old wood-burning stove, a crumbling, chimney-less brick ruin whose smoke pours directly into the unventilated kitchen. Everyone notices the smoke, but it’s a familiar annoyance—and compared with the daily challenge of affording food and fuel, it’s a minor one."<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><br>So what does the UC-Berkeley research do - instead of putting the focus on "efficient woodstove" being only one type and size, going wild that "the indoor air pollution was still far above guidelines set by the World Health Organization." <br><br>Not the general guidelines but the particular guidelines for Household Fuel Combustion, influenced heavily by the Reviews and blessings of UC-Berkeley team in the first place. As part of the war against solid fuels, which they (and WHO) DEFINE to be "dirty".<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>There is the usual reciting of globalization mantras: <o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><blockquote style='margin-left:30.0pt;margin-right:0in'><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black;letter-spacing:.15pt'>"Wood-burning household fires and inefficient stoves cause broader suffering, too. The firewood trade promotes deforestation and also provides cover for timber smuggling, since wood from rare trees can be hidden among logs from more common species. The smoke from cook fires pollutes the air outdoors as well as indoors, especially in cities. And as a major source of black carbon—a sunlight-absorbing pollutant—the world’s billions of household fires are also thought to be accelerating the effects of climate change, speeding the disruption of monsoon cycles and the melting of glaciers."</span><o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><br>But the GACC CEO's frankness is admirable - <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><blockquote style='margin-left:30.0pt;margin-right:0in'><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>"<span style='font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black;letter-spacing:.15pt'>Muthiah and other stove experts emphasize that there is no single ideal stove or ideal fuel, as every household, every community, and every culture has different needs and priorities: a stove designed for rural Guatemala may well be completely impractical in Nairobi."</span><o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><br>If so, why bother with ISO "international standards" exercise? <o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>I for one don't think an international research team is warranted to "<span style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black'>determine whether the use of gas stoves improves air quality and the health of children."</span><span style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black'> </span>Of course it does that and much else. It is the precise quantification, and its applicability in quantitative forecasting, that I find to be morally repugnant and waste of public money in creating unproductive research jobs. <o:p></o:p></p></div></div><blockquote style='margin-left:30.0pt;margin-right:0in'><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style='margin-left:30.0pt;margin-right:0in'><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>"<span style='font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black;letter-spacing:.15pt'>Thompson and a network of collaborators are now expanding this research to India, Peru, and Rwanda, studying how gas-stove adoption—and associated improvements in household air quality—affects the health of mothers and children."</span><o:p></o:p></p></div></div></blockquote><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><br>Next -- HAPIT for cats? (I loved this attached picture). <br><br>N<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><br><b><a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2017/07/guatemala-cook-stoves/">Three Billion People Cook Over Open Fires With Deadly Consequences</a></b>: In Guatemala, locally made cookstoves are helping combat toxic smoke—but economics and tradition keep many people from using them. By Michelle Nijhuis, August 14, 2017. National Geographic <o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></body></html>