Simon Collins tells us about how a third of the world's population cook their food by burning biomass. He writes about why this is such a bad thing, due to its health and environmental affects, and the solutions.
Firstly, cooking with these fires affects human health, especially when it is wet or cold, where these people from poorer areas, such as sub-Saharan Africa, cook inside, where there is usually no chimney. This is due to the 'particulates' released from the smoke which may enter the lungs, causing lung cancer, chronic emphysema, and other lung related problems. Also, if the toxic carbon monoxide gas builds up, this could cause brain damage, through atherosclerosis (which is effectively blood clotting), especially to vulnerable young children.
The environmental effects are mostly global warming-based. This is due to the carbon dioxide released from burning wood or charcoal, and deforestation from the chopping down of forests for the firewood. Also; however, this deforestation removes carbon sink, which leads to flooding and mudslides.
Luckily, there's good news! There are current solutions in place to reduce the number of people cooking using biomass. For example, efficient cookstoves are being sold at low cost to many of these people, with millions sold already. These stoves are better in almost every way than the traditional open fires, as they emit less fumes, reduce deforestation and also save millions of people multiple ours a week searching for firewood.
To me, this just proves that small, simple products, like these cookstoves, can be very useful in increasing the quality of life for many, by reducing health risks and the effects of global warming, giving an optimistic future for us all.
Philip Barnes
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