Environmental quick fixes are definitely to be avoided

Like the hibachi of Japan, in India they have the chulha as a cooking stove in rural areas. The chulha burns wood — shavings, twigs, kindling, anything wood, or even dung — that burns. When the environmental movement began in earnest 25 years ago, Indian government desk jockeys took the figure that 16 percent of all pollution was being caused by the burning of wood in these chulhas and came up with a solution: use government funds to invent, develop, and then manufacture environmentally-friendly new chulhas — and give 15 million away free to solve 45 percent of the smog and pollution choking India’s rural areas.

Their calculations were seemingly perfect: It was cheaper to supply these new chulhas free than the cost of trying to cope with smog disease and pollution in the cities. And India is, if nothing else, resourceful when it comes to cheap manufacture and innovation.

The new chulhas shipped to great media acclaim. Problem was, they were designed without any input from the women actually using them. The heating area was too small for traditional pots and pans, the heat produced was for slow cooking not the hotter, faster cooking traditionally employed and, worst of all, the fires went out repeatedly. Within a short time, people were bashing, cutting, welding and generally modifying these chulhas to fit their real needs.

End result? Not one puff of pollution reduction, not one less tree cut down. As the population increased, the pollution from these new chulhas began to be a very serious problem. Carefully invented and calculated combustion in the government-sponsored laboratory— delivered through a government program — had turned to hot air.

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The lesson here is that designing technologies for environmental benefit and affordability is indeed like sending a man to the moon, it is rocket science. And like good rocket science, you had better fit the science to real human needs, government or no government intervention.

Now, why have I brought this up? Because cooking stoves are back on the environmental radar. Scientists have discovered that black carbon soot is a key contributor to climate change. These black particles warm the air (often called soot radiators). When they settle on glaciers, they promote melting. When they mix in the clouds they cause heavy rains out of season. When they land in the sea, they change the acid balance of the water.

And now a bill has been introduced in Congress requiring the EPA to regulate black carbon and send US taxpayer’s aid to black carbon reduction projects abroad, including introducing — you guessed it — new, yet-to-be-improved chulhas in some 20 million homes in India (not to mention EPA plans to help sub-Sahara Africa’s cooking problems).

You cannot dispute the science of black carbon and the effect it has on the local environment. The science is simple, solar and black equals release of heat. What is not so simple is what those early rains, melting glaciers, changed ph in the oceans has on the livability for the flora and fauna on this planet. That science is complicated and in its infancy (although to be fair, it can be proved that there is human-caused climate change even if the naysayers dispute the extent of that change and any global warming).

And so, there is no reason to argue that nothing should be done to improve the polluting and noxious chulhas used by the poorest in India. The problem is not the good desire or basic science. The calculation is in the “why� and the “what needs to be done� and, importantly, “by whom.�

Once again, the international community sees these chulhas as an easy solution: 18 per cent of India’s current problem comes from these stoves, so replace them. There’s a quick climate fix for you. Meanwhile, let’s create more leeway for cars and power stations to continue to pollute.

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Further, it is worth considering that the do-gooders think that the primitive lifestyle of these chulha users – having to collect dung and bits of wood daily – is something the wealthy can feel good doing something about; social uplifting as it were. And that leaves the “have’s� feeling good, with their luxury emissions driving to work and living in air-conditioned comfort with electric stoves (powered by filthy coal-powered electricity plants).

It is almost as if we’re saying: “The poorest of the world, who use polluting chulhas because they cannot afford commercial fossil fuel, today provide us the only program we agree to enforce to avert climate change. Let’s not economize on our fossil fuels, let’s force the poor to change!� And do what? Begin to burn fossil fuels? Or starve?

According to 2006 International Energy Agency data, only about 13 per cent of the world’s primary energy supply can be classified as renewable. Of this, new renewables— solar, wind, geothermal and cogeneration (meaning, for example, you make electricity and steam as a by-product) — make up just about 4 per cent and hydroelectricity 16 per cent. The bulk — 80 percent — of what is renewable comes from biomass burning. You guessed it, biomass burning in the very chulhas of poor families. It is these families, living on the margins of survival, already vulnerable to climate change, that are in the good renewable energy zone. They are not the problem. They are, perhaps, the yin to our yang.

Formerly a resident of Amenia Union, Peter Riva is now based in New Mexico.