False predictions

The firewood crisis has not resulted in a forest crisis. For years, energy experts and foresters have believed that the poor will eat away the forests of the developing world like locusts in order to meet their ever-growing firewood demand. But how much do we really know about the poor and how they meet their needs, about rural ecology, and about how human-nature relationships are changing over time?

Fuelling a crisis

KEROSENE is the cooking flame in the kitchen for a large part of Delhi's households. This most basic of liquid fuels has for years been provided by the government's public distribution system (PDS), a classically corrupt and decentralised system, to people who usually turn a blind eye to the bent "fair price" shopowners siphoning off to the blackmarket just about everything -- except precious kerosene.

Turn it off

A study by non-profit Prayas Energy Group, which estimated the total standby energy-saving potential in India, found:

Cooking on toxic fumes

Nepal  has a high incidence of tuberculosis. Nepal is also among the South Asian countries where a lot of biomass is burnt for fuel. The two facts provided a group with reasons to link indoor air pollution from fuels with tuberculosis—something that six studies have so far have tried to do, unsuccessfully.

News for cooks

THE stuff that makes moth balls also turns up as one cooks. In an experiment that modelled the European restaurant kitchen, scientists found that cooking beef steak on a stove releases naphthalene.

The challenge of the chulha

About 24 years ago, I was in a house in a small village some distance from Udaipur town in Rajasthan. A government functionary was explaining how an improved chulha (cookstove) worked-- they had installed it in the kitchen. At that time, India was waking up to forests being devastated. It was believed then (wrongly, as it turned out) the key reason was poor people cutting trees to cook food. It was also being understood smoke from chulhas was carcinogenic and that women were worst hit by this pollution. The answer was to design improved chulhas--for better combustion and with a chimney.

According to report

Biofuels for good: The emerging biofuels industry in the us could require as much land by 2050 as is currently farmed for food, said a report by a group of 22 international scientists in the October 3 issue of Science magazine. The scientists stated that the biofuels industry, if managed under a sound, science-based policy, could increase domestic energy security and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

Cow dung smoke could cause arsenic poisoning

using cow dung as cooking fuel could expose people to arsenic. A recent study shows villagers on the Ganga Meghna Brahmaputra plain were exposed to smoke containing high levels of arsenic everyday while cooking. The study by Jadavpur University's School of Environmental Studies says the region's groundwater is contaminated with the

Women, children worst victims of indoor air pollution

World Health Organization (who) says over 3 billion people use solid fuels, including biomass--wood, dung and crop residues--and coal for cooking

Dangers of using biofuel for cooking

using bio-fuel for cooking could lead to cardiovascular diseases and cancer, says a research team from Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, Kolkata. The team found that biomass smoke causes the activation of neutrophils and monocytes (white blood cells) and platelets. Platelets are blood cells that help in blood coagulation. These clump together to form blood clots inside the blood vessels, thereby increasing the risk of cardiovascular diseases.