Hey guys, I'm pleased to present a 5 page report I've been working on for the last few hours based on household health in the developing world that is due tomorrow for my Geography 12 class. Just have a readthrough of this, and though I can't claim it is great, I'm hoping it is good enough to get a really good mark for my class. If I do have any grammical errors or spelling mistakes, please point that out to me so I can hand in a good copy, not a rough copy... Anyways, enjoy, but if you aren't nice about it, I will smack you 
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Report on household health in the developing world
By: Andrew Robinson
Indoor cooking around the world is a necessity and for some in the developed world, a pleasure. To keep and prepare one’s food out of the elements, home shelters are obviously used. However, it is not the location of where the food is being cooked that is the general problem, but it is the fuels used for preparing and cooking the food that drastically affects the lives of billions of people around the developing world, even at this current time.
Unfortunately, for monetary reasons, a great percentage of people in developing nations, including those in African, Latin American, Asian and Oceanic states, are unable to afford safe and clean heating fuels, such as electricity, natural gas, or even liquefied petroleum gas. People living in these regions, especially where they make less than $1.00/day based on purchasing power parity (PPP), must resort to solid fuels, including wood, crop waste, and dung. In a World Health Organization publication on the issue, it states that nations with high levels of economic imbalance and extreme poverty are prone to having a high percentage of the population having to resort to using solid fuels and also having high infant and maternal mortality rates. Such nations include Bangladesh, the Central African Republic, Mali, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zambia.
There are great health concerns when dealing with solid fuels. For example, a mother of two children in Kenya are cooking out of a jiko, which is Swahili for stove. While they are cooking their meal, 25-40 percent of the heat is evenly distributed into the food, 20-40 percent is absorbed by the jiko’s walls or else into the environment, and 10-30 percent is lost to flue gases, such as carbon dioxide. However, if the same family did not have a jiko, they most likely would have to resort to open fire cooking, which only allows for 10 percent to heat the food, and the rest is dispersed into the environment via heat, gases and particulates. These particulates are the main cause of pneumonia, lung cancer from both coal and solid biomass fuels, asthma, tuberculosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and acute infections of the lower respiratory tract, especially in children. In conjunction with high particulate levels, various levels of Carbon Monoxide are present, which can cause dizziness, fatigue, impaired vision and coordination, nausea and confusion, and with higher levels of CO, suffocation can occur as CO, not oxygen, is absorbed into the blood stream and keeping vital oxygen out, thus causing death in more serious incidents.
In these developing nations, particularly in sub-Sahara Africa and South East Asia, governments are generally viewed as “developing democracies” by western governments, though in reality they are generally kleptocracies (root: Klepto+cracy = rule by thieves) and corrupt dictatorships. These nations are generally suceptable to to political corruption, bribery, the formation of political or military cliques, illiteracy, deficits in law, and other such issues that in a western society and government would not be tolerated in the least. The relationship between the lack of stable food preparation materials and meathods, political corruption, and illiteracy are quite intertwined with eachother in such states. In these developing nations, all three of these issues need to be tackled head on before the situation can get any better, or else it may get worse.
Around the world, the environment is also being challenged from the effects of human poverty that results in the over consumption of biomass fuels especially in developing nations. With 2.4 billion people relying on solid biomass fuels every day for cooking and heating of homes and water; 2 million tonnes of fuel being burned every day; and also with the rate of consumption versus the rate of replanting of consumed materials around the world being out of balance; we can see there is great potential for mass problems in the future, as well as problems developing and occuring today.
As stated previously, the rate of consumption of biomass fuels vs. the replanting of those fuels is out of sync, such as that in many areas especially in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest, Indonesia, and sub-Saharan Africa, that there is per annum a 0.5% or greater loss of forests. However, in comparison, China, Vietnam and Southern Europe is experiancing a 0.5% or greater increase of forests per annum, clearly stating the governments will to help replentish their environments. However, at this time, it is the nations that are losing their forests that are of concern, not only for the local environment and the people who use it, but also it can affect the entire world’s environment. For example, due to the reduction of size of the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil, potential sources of new medicines and foods, the potential for increase in carbon dioxide levels that may result in a higher level of greenhouse effect in the world, and the destruction of thousands upon thousands of species of plants, animals, insects, and others.
In order for this deepening trend to be reduced or even stopped, as previously mentioned an initiative to tackle the lack of clean and efficiant fuels, political corruption, illiteracy and poverty must happen in order for anything to happen in the developing world. Though within the next few years there is doubt this will actually happen, there is hope that in the future, the developing world will be on equal field with the current developed nations. There is need for greater cooperation between nations, for developed nations to actually notice these worsening trends that are occuring in developing nations and to stop helping the status quo kleptocracies that govern the affected states and actually help the citizens of the nations, and also for popular and free government to be formed, away from the corruption that is currently experianced in the developing world.
This is no easy task, that is agreed upon by most people. However, if accomplished, the benefits to the people of the world will great. If it is not accomplished, then the people residing in these nations shall suffer a sentence of long, painful death for just residing where they do.
Sources:
http://www.who.int/indoorair/publications/fuelforlife.pdf
http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~kammen/cookstoves.html
http://peacecorps.mtu.edu/stoves/Pollute.html
http://peacecorps.mtu.edu/stoves/Methods.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptocracy
http://www.itdg.org/?id=smoke_report_1
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Report on household health in the developing world
By: Andrew Robinson
Indoor cooking around the world is a necessity and for some in the developed world, a pleasure. To keep and prepare one’s food out of the elements, home shelters are obviously used. However, it is not the location of where the food is being cooked that is the general problem, but it is the fuels used for preparing and cooking the food that drastically affects the lives of billions of people around the developing world, even at this current time.
Unfortunately, for monetary reasons, a great percentage of people in developing nations, including those in African, Latin American, Asian and Oceanic states, are unable to afford safe and clean heating fuels, such as electricity, natural gas, or even liquefied petroleum gas. People living in these regions, especially where they make less than $1.00/day based on purchasing power parity (PPP), must resort to solid fuels, including wood, crop waste, and dung. In a World Health Organization publication on the issue, it states that nations with high levels of economic imbalance and extreme poverty are prone to having a high percentage of the population having to resort to using solid fuels and also having high infant and maternal mortality rates. Such nations include Bangladesh, the Central African Republic, Mali, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zambia.
There are great health concerns when dealing with solid fuels. For example, a mother of two children in Kenya are cooking out of a jiko, which is Swahili for stove. While they are cooking their meal, 25-40 percent of the heat is evenly distributed into the food, 20-40 percent is absorbed by the jiko’s walls or else into the environment, and 10-30 percent is lost to flue gases, such as carbon dioxide. However, if the same family did not have a jiko, they most likely would have to resort to open fire cooking, which only allows for 10 percent to heat the food, and the rest is dispersed into the environment via heat, gases and particulates. These particulates are the main cause of pneumonia, lung cancer from both coal and solid biomass fuels, asthma, tuberculosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and acute infections of the lower respiratory tract, especially in children. In conjunction with high particulate levels, various levels of Carbon Monoxide are present, which can cause dizziness, fatigue, impaired vision and coordination, nausea and confusion, and with higher levels of CO, suffocation can occur as CO, not oxygen, is absorbed into the blood stream and keeping vital oxygen out, thus causing death in more serious incidents.
In these developing nations, particularly in sub-Sahara Africa and South East Asia, governments are generally viewed as “developing democracies” by western governments, though in reality they are generally kleptocracies (root: Klepto+cracy = rule by thieves) and corrupt dictatorships. These nations are generally suceptable to to political corruption, bribery, the formation of political or military cliques, illiteracy, deficits in law, and other such issues that in a western society and government would not be tolerated in the least. The relationship between the lack of stable food preparation materials and meathods, political corruption, and illiteracy are quite intertwined with eachother in such states. In these developing nations, all three of these issues need to be tackled head on before the situation can get any better, or else it may get worse.
Around the world, the environment is also being challenged from the effects of human poverty that results in the over consumption of biomass fuels especially in developing nations. With 2.4 billion people relying on solid biomass fuels every day for cooking and heating of homes and water; 2 million tonnes of fuel being burned every day; and also with the rate of consumption versus the rate of replanting of consumed materials around the world being out of balance; we can see there is great potential for mass problems in the future, as well as problems developing and occuring today.
As stated previously, the rate of consumption of biomass fuels vs. the replanting of those fuels is out of sync, such as that in many areas especially in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest, Indonesia, and sub-Saharan Africa, that there is per annum a 0.5% or greater loss of forests. However, in comparison, China, Vietnam and Southern Europe is experiancing a 0.5% or greater increase of forests per annum, clearly stating the governments will to help replentish their environments. However, at this time, it is the nations that are losing their forests that are of concern, not only for the local environment and the people who use it, but also it can affect the entire world’s environment. For example, due to the reduction of size of the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil, potential sources of new medicines and foods, the potential for increase in carbon dioxide levels that may result in a higher level of greenhouse effect in the world, and the destruction of thousands upon thousands of species of plants, animals, insects, and others.
In order for this deepening trend to be reduced or even stopped, as previously mentioned an initiative to tackle the lack of clean and efficiant fuels, political corruption, illiteracy and poverty must happen in order for anything to happen in the developing world. Though within the next few years there is doubt this will actually happen, there is hope that in the future, the developing world will be on equal field with the current developed nations. There is need for greater cooperation between nations, for developed nations to actually notice these worsening trends that are occuring in developing nations and to stop helping the status quo kleptocracies that govern the affected states and actually help the citizens of the nations, and also for popular and free government to be formed, away from the corruption that is currently experianced in the developing world.
This is no easy task, that is agreed upon by most people. However, if accomplished, the benefits to the people of the world will great. If it is not accomplished, then the people residing in these nations shall suffer a sentence of long, painful death for just residing where they do.
Sources:
http://www.who.int/indoorair/publications/fuelforlife.pdf
http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~kammen/cookstoves.html
http://peacecorps.mtu.edu/stoves/Pollute.html
http://peacecorps.mtu.edu/stoves/Methods.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptocracy
http://www.itdg.org/?id=smoke_report_1
I just am not hundred percent sure of what your point is. It appeared to be originally about helping this, then later working together, then gov't reform etc...
