Cook the green way
02/18/2010I'm cooking over a traditional chulha and can feel and taste the smoke stinging in my eyes and throat. Moving over to the new technology, the Envirofit cookstove, the steam coming off the rice is the only visible emission! There is a huge difference for health and the impact on the person doing the cooking with the green technology. I decided to purchase two cookstoves on the spot!
Getting the right stoves into homes that need them most
02/18/2010In countries all over the world, people cook their daily meals over smoky, sooty, and poorly ventilated traditional wood or biomass cook stoves - ‘chulas' in India... I am deeply concerned about the harmful effects of indoor air pollution on the health and well-being of men, women, and children, as well as on our environment... Cook stove technology has improved greatly over the years but there are many obstacles in getting the right stoves into the homes of those who need them most.... That is why I heartily embraced the recent announcement that the ministry of new and renewable energy would be introducing a bold new ‘National Biomass Cook Stove Initiative.' This ambitious new program can lead the way to a solution, not only for the citizens of India but for others at risk around the world.
The stove that won’t kill the world’s poor
02/14/2010NEARLY half the world's population relies on crude open-fire stoves. They produce hundreds of millions of tonnes of climate-damaging carbon dioxide and are often lethal to their users. According to the World Health Organisation, a person dies every 20 seconds from illnesses brought on by inhaling the toxins in the soot from wood, animal dung or other detritus that serves as fuel.
A company funded by the charitable arm of Royal Dutch Shell, the oil giant, has developed a cheap and efficient stove that it says could save carbon and lives. Envirofit, a spinout from Colorado [State University], claims that its $20 (£13) stoves cut smoke and toxic emissions by 80%, and halve the amount of fuel that is needed. It aims to sell 10m in the developing world over the next five years.
In India, Battling Global Warming One Stove at a Time
12/17/2009Special PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer correspondent Fred De Sam Lazaro looks at reducing black carbon emissions in North India, where the simple act of cooking can be dangerous for the environment and lung health.
Devising the stove that could save the world
12/15/2009About half the worlds population cooks with gas, oil, or electricity, while the other half burns wood, dung, coal, or other solid fuels. As global temperatures have risen, the smoke from Third World kitchens has been upgraded from a local to a universal threat. The average cooking fire produces about as much carbon dioxide as a car, and a great deal more soot, or black carbon. Cleaning up these emissions may be the fastest, cheapest way to cool the planet.
Small Energy-Saving Steps Can Make Big Strides
11/27/2009High-Tech Solutions Can Help Lower Consumption, but Researchers See Faster Progress in Low-Tech Measures; Think Cook Stoves
Bringing sustainable development back to the centre stage
12/07/2009Lost in the hubbub last week over the government's detailing of its "constructive" position on climate change was an important announcement that may have great significance for poor people in the country, namely a national biomass cookstoves initiative.
Strong action will save millions of lives, improve health of billions
12/01/2009"Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century." So concluded a Lancet-UCL Commission earlier this year. Kirk R. Smith, professor of global environmental health at UC Berkeley and lead author of the paper, said: Combustion-related air pollution is estimated to be responsible for nearly 2.5 million premature deaths annually around the world and also for a significant portion of greenhouse warming. These studies provide the kind of concrete information needed to choose actions that efficiently reduce this health burden as well as reduce the threat of climate change.
Stove for the Developing World’s Health
03/04/2009When Kurt Hoffman visited Tanzania in the 1970s as a young product-development researcher, he could hardly bear to enter village huts to ask questions. “I couldn’t stand the smoke, the pain in my eyes and the coughing,” he said. “And yet the women and children were sitting there the whole time,” enveloped in smoke from traditional open pit fires or poorly functioning stoves.
