The New York Times’ article of April 16, 2009,
“Third-World Stove Soot is Target in Climate Fight,” is a piece that makes you
want to throw up your hands in despair – why are the world’s poor invariably
targeted as being responsible for global warming? The article points out that
while the stoves of the poor in developing countries do not contribute to
carbon dioxide emission per se (their contribution is “near zero” in carbon
dioxide emission), they contribute, nevertheless, to soot or black carbon which
is responsible for “18 percent of the planet’s warming.” The article notes that
this black soot is being seen as a “major and previously unappreciated source
of global climate change,” and scientists recommend “low-soot stoves” to
alleviate this problem.
The real worrisome aspect of the article is not so much in
the technological fix recommended as alternatives for the soot spewing stoves
that the poor in India are using. It is rather that the poor continue to be
viewed as passive unthinking collection of humanity who is unaware that their
stoves are detrimental to their health, and the environment. That scientists and
well-intentioned writer of this piece, Elizabeth Rosenthal, should provide such
a skewed view of the poor, gives cause for pause. So do the poor who use such
smoke spewing stoves not know the harm that they cause? A women’s interview in
the same article suggests that they do but they continue to use them anyway –
why? That is the more pertinent question. Those who have worked with the poor
know that the stove itself is not problem, rather it is a triage of related
factors – scarcity, access and cost of fuel that compels the poor to continue
using their cheaper, more accessible, almost maintenance-free stoves, and
accept smoke as the inevitable byproduct of choices they have been compelled to
make. So they continue to use the iron tripod stand or rocks that pass off as
stoves because they are the only affordable and accessible way of cooking.
The reductionist aspect of envisioning global warming as
caused by soot emitting stoves misses the more complex web of poverty that
compels people to do so in the first place. It is also unsurprisingly but
consistently a paternalistic way of viewing the survival strategy of the poor.
Development history has taught us that unless poverty is addressed in a
comprehensive manner, targeted interventions, no matter how well-intentioned,
does not make a difference, and may make it worse sometimes. Climate scientists
recommending low soot stoves that reduce particulate matter do not address the
more embedded problem of poverty and the challenges of accessing scarce
firewood, or even relearning of new skills required to adopt new stoves. The
assumption that new technology in and of itself will alleviate, if not solve,
soot emission, appears both pigheaded and a refusal to admit to the need for
multi-dimensional approach to solving the human dimensions of climate change.
As experience shows, such assumptions could lead to costly and harmful
consequences.
Scientists must be willing to acknowledge that only with
improvement in the quality of life such as better education and better access
to opportunities does it even make sense to claim that the soot from stoves of
the poor is contributing to global warming. Until that happens, we stand on
shaky grounds to have the audacity to point out ways to improve how the poor in
India or elsewhere should cook, let alone indicate, even remotely, that they
are contributing to global warming.
About the Author: Nalini Chhetri is a postdoctoral research associate at CSPO, and a
lecturer in ASU’s School of Letters and Sciences.
