Thanks for your informative article on this important and under-recognized topic. I hadn't realized the effect of air pollution until a few years ago, and now I discuss it in my university course.
This is relevant and new to me, so thank you. It looks like Kirk campaigned for cleaner cookstoves and for cleaner fuel, and two of his papers were cited in Berkouwer's study that I mentioned in my 2020 roundup (the one that evaluated BURN, which does provide clean cookstoves in Kenya): https://anyamarchenko.substack.com/p/some-philanthropy-wins-in-2020
This is relevant to Berkouwer's study (from the NYT article):
"He initially thought the answer to household air pollution was better cookstoves. But he came to see that replacing old stoves with new ones would take decades, particularly on the massive scale needed, and that many lives would be lost before such a transformation could take place. Moreover, he realized, the new stoves, at least those that were affordable, would not dramatically improve health."
Thanks for pointing me to Berkouwer's study. It's amazing that the more-efficient cookstove paid for itself in only a few months, yet people were often unwilling to invest in it. But I suppose there any many examples of people at all incomes (me included) making irrational economic choices, like taking payday loans at enormous interest rates or not enrolling in employer-matching of retirement savings programs. The authors make a reasonable conclusion that subsidizing things like efficient cookstoves may pull more people over this hump than would the push of a carbon tax alone.
Your quote points out the dilemma between incremental or abrupt change. It reminds me of the debate between hybrid and electric cars. It's important to study whether it's better to improve solid-fuel cookstoves or to jump to gas stoves, though either action, or both in parallel, would be better than nothing, and look like a win-win-win for climbing out of poverty, cutting air pollution, and slowing climate change.
Thanks for your informative article on this important and under-recognized topic. I hadn't realized the effect of air pollution until a few years ago, and now I discuss it in my university course.
Another surprise is that, globally, indoor air pollution is about as bad as outdoor air pollution. A professor in your area did a lot of work on it: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/climate/kirk-smith-dead.html
This is relevant and new to me, so thank you. It looks like Kirk campaigned for cleaner cookstoves and for cleaner fuel, and two of his papers were cited in Berkouwer's study that I mentioned in my 2020 roundup (the one that evaluated BURN, which does provide clean cookstoves in Kenya): https://anyamarchenko.substack.com/p/some-philanthropy-wins-in-2020
This is relevant to Berkouwer's study (from the NYT article):
"He initially thought the answer to household air pollution was better cookstoves. But he came to see that replacing old stoves with new ones would take decades, particularly on the massive scale needed, and that many lives would be lost before such a transformation could take place. Moreover, he realized, the new stoves, at least those that were affordable, would not dramatically improve health."
Thanks for pointing me to Berkouwer's study. It's amazing that the more-efficient cookstove paid for itself in only a few months, yet people were often unwilling to invest in it. But I suppose there any many examples of people at all incomes (me included) making irrational economic choices, like taking payday loans at enormous interest rates or not enrolling in employer-matching of retirement savings programs. The authors make a reasonable conclusion that subsidizing things like efficient cookstoves may pull more people over this hump than would the push of a carbon tax alone.
Your quote points out the dilemma between incremental or abrupt change. It reminds me of the debate between hybrid and electric cars. It's important to study whether it's better to improve solid-fuel cookstoves or to jump to gas stoves, though either action, or both in parallel, would be better than nothing, and look like a win-win-win for climbing out of poverty, cutting air pollution, and slowing climate change.