LET THEM BURN DUNG

In a recent article written by Elisabeth Rosenthal that was taken from the New York Times News Service and appeared in the Edmonton Journal April 26th, fingers were pointed at the most impoverished people of our world.
The article featured a picture of a small family huddled around a dung and stick fired cook stove constructed of stone and covered with a piece of metal. The children are dressed in what appears to be underwear and T-shirts and no shoes. There are no signs of any kind of furniture, wall coverings, floor coverings, nor utensils with which to actually cook or eat with. The picture was taken in one of India’s poorest areas in a village named Kohlua. The village has no cars and little electricity. The normal culprits cited in the “Global Warming” debate are almost nonexistent.
But are these poor smucks who live in this village free from the finger pointing of crazed environmentalists? Not likely. These poor folks who consider themselves fortunate if they
happen to come across an extra piece of dung or a few small sticks to fire their cookstoves that
evening, are being targeted by rabid environmentalists that are ready to put an immediate end to the “Black Carbon” that they are emitting while cooking their meager evening meals.
Its interesting to me that it always seems easier to put the blame on those that can’t fight back. For that matter I don’t even think that those being accused of this heinous crime, are even aware that they are being targeted by the pollution police. I seriously doubt that they are able to read. And further if they could read and actually had a newspaper, they would likely burn the paper as fuel for their cookstoves. Further in the story the brilliant Climate Scientist, Veerabhadran Ramanathan purported to be the brains behind this latest revelation, is proposing that all the stoves in India be replaced with more efficient modern units that give of less black carbon emissions than the old stone units. In his words “Black Carbon” is responsible for about 18% of the planet’s warming compared to 40% for carbon dioxide (which incidently is not being emitted
by anyone in Kohlua because they can’t afford it).
The questions that immediately come to mind are; if they have updated stoves, what are
they going to burn that will reduce emissions? Who will pay for the fuel? Who will pay for the
stoves? If they are issued new stoves by some benefactor at an estimated cost of about $30
US., why would they not sell them and use the money to buy food or clothing for their families?
In doing some research on the subject, I came across other article by this imminent climatologist. In his article he gave percentages that make clear who contributes what in the way
of “Black Carbon.”
42% Open bioass burning (forest and savanna burning).
18% Residential biofuel burned with traditional technologies.
14% Diesel engines for transportation.
10% Diesel engines for industrial use.
10% Industrial processes and power generation, usually from smaller boilers.
6% Residential coal burned with traditional technologies.
Soooo... This tells me that 18% of the so called “Black Carbon” is produced by those nasty people trying to eke out a living in the impoverished villages of India and other third world countries. As “Black Carbon” makes up only 18% of the so-called Global Warming debacle anyway, this means that the inefficient stoves used by these poorest of the poor make up only 3.24% of the carbon that is supposedly causing global warming. This leaves us with an interesting number; 97.26%. That is the percentage of carbon based and carbon dioxide not emitted by the poor of the world. Not only do they not create much carbon, that they also don’t throw anything away; no plastics, no metals, no cardboard, as a matter of fact they waste nothing. We on the other hand have turned waste into an art form. Small third world countries could live quite comfortably on what we throw away. Its’
actually shameful that we as a society would have the gall to point fingers at folks living in
such a manner as to have a carbon footprint so small it could only be described as a “Carbon
Finger Print” while we carry on as if there’s no tomorrow when it comes to our planet.
I am far from being a global warming advocate but I do believe that we need to take much better care of the resources that we have been given the care of. I’m sure Ramanathan had a greater effect on the environment just traveling to that poor village to examine their plight than those poor folks have in a lifetime. I certainly believe in reducing our “Carbon Footprint,” but I for one would like to leave a size 13 foot print on the rear ends of some of these characters that come up with this garbage.