The Charcoal Project » Health

PHOTO ESSAY: How Manila’s slum-dwellers eek out a charcoal living

Jean Kim Chaix — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 04:27:58 +0000

This being the UN-declared Year of Sustainable Energy for All, we hope policy-makers and all those pushing for clean fuels in the developing world will look into the eyes of this little girl and remember that solar and wind are not the only solutions. The world needs clean charcoal, too.

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Unsustainable woodfuel consumption and public health

Jean Kim Chaix — Tue, 03 May 2011 16:08:18 +0000

Researchers warn that East African plants that could cure malaria could disappear before scientists have a chance to study them.

A new book by scientists at the World Agroforestry Centre, "Common Antimalarial Trees and Shrubs of East Africa," identifies 22 tree and shrub species that traditional healers in East Africa use to fight the disease.

But, the researchers say, they are being cut down for cooking fuel and other uses and could disappear before scientists have a chance to study them.

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VIDEO: A modern take on the “killer in the kitchen.”

Jean Kim Chaix — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 15:49:04 +0000

No, we’re not referring to Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. From our friends at WorldStove comes this playful video intended to drive home the point about the perils of cooking on three stone fires, which, as we all know, is the only technology available to almost half the world’s population. Factoid: Glenn Close’s Dad was a physician in the Zaire during Mobutu’s reign. He was one of the first Western doctors to encounter the Ebola virus.

GACC yields 980K for clean cookstove implementation in Kenya, Guatemala, India

Jean Kim Chaix — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 16:06:06 +0000

The Centers for Disease Control gets in on the GACC action. Public Health Institute Award to Advance Clean Cookstove Technology OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 19 (AScribe Newswire) — The Public Health Institute (PHI) received notification it has been awarded a major grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) focused on implementing clean cookstove technology. The $980,000 award will support planning and field work for the next year on cookstoves in Kenya, Guatemala and India, as well as joining the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, the National Institutes of Health and CDC in planning a global clean cookstoves workshop. The … Continue reading →

Goal Looms for U.N.: Ending ‘Energy Poverty’

Jean Kim Chaix — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 22:59:57 +0000

taken from Green, a NYT blog about energy and the environment By Elisabeth Rosenthal New York – Oct. 4th, 2010 — The United Nations Millennium Development Goals were adopted in 2000 as a commitment to improve health and education as well as end poverty in less fortunate parts of the globe. The eight goals include targets like universal childhood education, reducing infant mortality and ensuring environmental sustainability. This year there has been a growing movement to add a ninth goal: ending energy poverty. Some 1.4 billion people lack access to electricity. Energy experts like Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the … Continue reading →

Clean-Burning Cookstoves for Developing Countries

ninulya — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:57:32 +0000

Source: The New York Times, published Sept 28, 2010 To the Editor: Re “Developing Nations to Get Clean-Burning Cookstoves” (news article, Sept. 21): It is great news that the United States will provide $50 million to help provide clean-burning cookstoves for villages in Asia, Africa and South America. In addition to the appalling health risks (1.9 million deaths a year due to inhaling smoke from open fires) and the environmental devastation caused by cutting down trees for fuel, women and girls risk rape and sexual violence when they gather wood to cook or sell. This is particularly true in refugee camps … Continue reading →

Struggle to agree UN summit kickstart for Millennium goals

Jean Kim Chaix — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 18:50:27 +0000

By Tim Witcher (AFP) – 1 day ago UNITED NATIONS — World powers are moving slowly toward an accord on the strategy to be embraced at a looming United Nations summit aiming to get the lofty Millennium Development Goals back on track. Ten years after more than 150 leaders set eight ambitious targets for 2015 — ranging from cutting child mortality rates by two thirds, to halving the number of people living in absolute poverty and spreading access to the Internet — none are likely to be reached, experts say. Fallout from the financial crisis, a lack of will and … Continue reading →

Can the Gates-ian approach to treating infectious disease work to alleviate energy poverty?

Jean Kim Chaix — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:53:00 +0000

It occurs to us that Mr. Bill Gates' description above of how the market treats (or not) infectious diseases could easily apply to energy poverty and the 3 billion people who depend on biomass as their primary fuel. For one, the socio-economics of the victims are similar. Second, there is no natural market for clean cookstoves.

So, could a Gates-ian approach to combating infectious disease work for poverty alleviation? Maybe, but there are major, maybe irreconcilable differences, between the two.

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Energy efficiency: what Coca Cola’s World Cup video can teach us

Jean Kim Chaix — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 20:12:09 +0000

While we wait for Coca Cola to help us produce the perfect video that tells the story of energy-efficiency-technology-and-policies-solutions-to-energy-poverty, (they can help us find a better name, too!) we've compiled four slideshows recently published in the New York Times that we think help visualize the energy hunger/energy obesity world we live in.

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To achieve cookstove scale we need standards

Jean Kim Chaix — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 03:57:06 +0000

What’s more important: reducing fuel consumption or reducing emissions of black carbon and other toxic gases?

The answer is, of course, both, but designing a stove that meets the highest current ratings in emissions reduction and energy consumption at a reasonable cost has so far proven elusive.

Coming up with the right standards will be critical to getting cookstove projects to scale, especially since carbon-credit financing will be vital for some projects to make financial sense, says Dean Still of the Aprovecho Research Center.

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