Smoky cooking fires and stoves contribute to the soot that is estimated to cause approximately 16% of global warming. Further, the burning of hydrocarbon fuels, coal, charcoal, and even dung contributes to the accumulation of greenhouse gases. In Africa, collection of wood for cooking and charcoal production is the primary reason for the disappearance of the forests. Where wood is already limited, its collection leads to desertification. Deforestation and desertification īeyond these public health issues, cooking with wood fires is also unsustainable and contributes to rapid deforestation in the developing world. Women in Ethiopia's UNHCR refugee camps say that they fear assault, rape, and violence while searching for wood. Women and older children usually collect wood, often facing gender-based harassment and disputes with landowners who accuse them of trespassing. Meanwhile, collecting wood involves risk to personal safety. In Ethiopia 90% of energy comes from biomass like wood and charcoal. They carry heavy loads for many miles which they will use or sell as woodfuel. In Entoto, on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, thousands of women and girls collect firewood. Indoor air pollution also disproportionately effects refugee, poor urban, and HIV/AIDs populations living in crowded and poorly ventilated conditions, and already carrying the burden of disease. Respiratory disease in children is the leading cause of death for children, though malaria and diarrheal diseases are better known. Indoor air pollution also increases the risk of acute lower respiratory infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and is associated with tuberculosis, perinatal mortality, low birth weight, asthma, otitis media, cancer of the upper airway, and cataracts. Indoor air pollution causes 56% of deaths and 80% of the global burden of disease for children under the age of five. Indoor air pollution īecause of their constant exposure to cook fires, women and children are particularly at risk. Indoor air pollution is especially deadly for children it is responsible for nearly 50% of pneumonia deaths in children under the age of five. 500,000 of these deaths are from childhood pneumonia. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 4 million people die each year from household air pollution generated by cooking with solid fuels in poorly ventilated spaces. Traditional biomass fuels release emissions that contain pollutants dangerous to health, such as small particles, carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide, butadiene, formaldehyde, and carcinogens such as benzopyrene and benzene. Smoke and gaseous emissions pour out of burning wood, animal dung, or crop residues, leading to lung disease and respiratory illnesses in women and children. Approximately 60% of African families cook with traditional biomass, a percentage that increases to 90% for Sub-Saharan Africa. More than 3 billion people cook with wood fire worldwide. Because of the inefficient heat production of wood-fired stoves such as this one, women cook indoors for hours each day in poorly ventilated dwellings.
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