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</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>The “bandwagon” of this list is sound technical discussion. It is not a platform for your personal crusades. You highlight whatever criticism is convenient for your cause and repeat these same themes without ever proposing practical alternatives. Give use something useful and we might listen.<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><a name="_MailEndCompose"><o:p> </o:p></a></p><span style='mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose'></span><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> Nikhil Desai [mailto:pienergy2008@gmail.com] <br><b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, August 29, 2017 6:50 AM<br><b>To:</b> <tmiles@trmiles.com> <tmiles@trmiles.com><br><b>Cc:</b> Discussion of biomass cooking stoves <stoves@lists.bioenergylists.org>; Karin Troncoso <karintroncoso@gmail.com><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [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><p class=MsoNormal>Tom:<br><br>Oh, dear. <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>If you cared to read the NatiGeo piece and what I wrote, it ought to have been evident that it is NatGeo which faults the "efficient stove" for being too small to hold the tamale pot. <br><br>I don't know how to cook tamales, and won't speak whereof I know nothing, unlike the Berkeley crowd. If STI's stove was too small and the user had to cook on open fire once a month. <br><br>Rather, my criticism was aimed at the ludicrous Kirk Smith et al. campaign against "stacking", mindless recitation of WHO SFC "Guidelines" (based in turn on Smith, et al. cookery of facts), and the goose chase to ""<span style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif'>determine whether the use of gas stoves improves air quality and the health of children."</span><br><br>What is indefensible cannot be justified by repeating the lies a thousand times. This WHO/IHME bandwagon is against the principles of this group, against the poor, a gravy train for researchers whose work cannot be laughed at enough. <br><br>But someone has to read first. <br><br>Seems to me Radha Muthiah knows whereof she speaks. <br><br>Nikhil<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><br>On Aug 19, 2017, at 11:48 AM, <<a href="mailto:tmiles@trmiles.com" target="_blank">tmiles@trmiles.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p></div><blockquote style='margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>Nikhil,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>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 style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>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 style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>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 style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>Tom <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b>From:</b> Stoves [<a href="mailto:stoves-bounces@lists.bioenergylists.org" target="_blank">mailto:stoves-bounces@lists.bioenergylists.org</a>] <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 <<a href="mailto:stoves@lists.bioenergylists.org" target="_blank">stoves@lists.bioenergylists.org</a>><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 style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <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='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;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-top:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>"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='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;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='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;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-top:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><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><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>But the GACC CEO's frankness is admirable - <o:p></o:p></p></div></div><blockquote style='margin-left:30.0pt;margin-top:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>"<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 style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>If so, why bother with ISO "international standards" exercise? <o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <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 style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>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-top:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>"<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 style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><br>Next -- HAPIT for cats? (I loved this attached picture). <br><br>N<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><br><b><a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2017/07/guatemala-cook-stoves/" target="_blank">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></blockquote></div></div></div></body></html>