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When it comes to air pollution, the simple life isn’t necessarily the safest. The most poisonous atmosphere in Asia is found not in rapidly modernizing cities like New Delhi or Beijing but inside the kitchens of homes in rural Asia. Millions of families in the countryside heat their abodes and cook with open fires using cheap fuels that belch carbon monoxide and other noxious fumes at level up to 500 times international safety limits. Rural women and children often spend hours each day in poorly, ventilated kitchens, breathing this putrid air. “This is a problem that has been around forever, as long as humankind has existed, but it’s been ignored,” says Eva Rehfuess, a World Health Organization expert on indoor air pollution. “If you walked into these kitchens, your eyes would start tearing and you would find it difficult to breathe. It’s terrible. ”
The WHO estimates that indoor air pollution cause 1.6 million deaths per year in developing countries around the world, up to 555,000 of which occur in India alone-and overwhelmingly it’s the poor who are dying. Villagers have no choice but to use wood, coal or dung fires, raising the risk that young children will be killed by carboj-monoxide poisoning or a bad case of pneumonia ravaging weakened lungs. Likewise, the women who typically keep their home fires burning are vulnerable to chronic respiratory diseases. “Day in and day out for 50 years, some of these women might be cooking six hours a day, exposed to pollutions,” says Rehfuess.
Curtailing indoor air pollution can be as simple as replacing open wood fires with better-ventilated cookstoves, but more sophisticated stoves can cost up to $120. China and India, home to the world’s largest rural populations, have launched ambitious national programs in recent decades to supply villagers with safer stoves at subsidized prices. But the programs have not always worked, in India, for example, some 33 million stoves were given out free to villagers in rural areas from 1984 to 2000—but because of a lack of health education or follow-up maintenance, most families abandoned the cookstoves for their old fires within a few years.
That’s left nongovernmental organizations like the shell Foundation to step into the gap. It has begun a pilot program with local Indian NGOs in a pair of rural states to develop and market clean, wood-burning stoves that cost just $5-$10 yet can reduce emissions by up to 40%. The project is on track to sell 1000,000 stoves by the end of 2005, and the groups plan to expand the program nationally in the future. Program manager Karen Westley says Shell and its partner NGOs made an effort to sell their customers not just more efficient tools but also the idea that different is better. “You have to make sure people actually want that damn thing,” says Westely. “They need to make the connection between having a better stove, breathing less smoke and experiencing better health in the end.”
But habits ingrained by tradition can be hard to break. “They’ve been living with this always, and so have their mothers and grandmothers,” says Rehfuess. “You have to give people the felling they can do something about it.” And that they’ll breathe a lot easier for their trouble.
參考譯文:
說到空氣汙染，並不是說簡單的日常生活就必然是最安全的。研究顯示，在亞洲，毒氣最濃的空氣並不在新德里和北京這樣的現代化速度很快的城市，而是在亞洲農村家庭的廚房裡。在農村，上百萬的家庭用明火取暖或是做飯，他們使用的是廉價的燃料，這些燃料所釋放的一氧化碳量和其他有毒霧量是國際標準的500倍。農村地區的婦女和孩子經常每天在通風不好的廚房裡待上幾個小時，呼吸這種有毒的空氣。“這個問題從人類誕生以來就一直存在著，但是卻一直被忽視了，”一位名叫伊娃.瑞弗絲的世界衛生組織室內空氣汙染方面的專家說道，“走進廚房你的眼睛就開始流淚，而且你會覺得呼吸困難，這太可怕了。”
世界衛生組織估計，在發展中國家，室內空氣汙染造成每年160萬人死亡，其中印度佔55萬——而且死亡的大部分都是窮人。村民們除了用木頭，煤或者是糞肥來燒火之外別無選擇，這樣會增加小孩子一氧化碳中毒死亡的危險，肺功能減弱，肺炎得病率增加。同樣，那些在家裡生火的婦女很容易得慢性呼吸道疾病。瑞弗絲說“有些婦女一天要花6小時做飯，五十年裡日復一日，每天都生活在汙染中。”
減少室內空氣汙染其實非常簡單，只要用一套通風比較好的廚灶來代替木頭生火就可以了，但是比較高階的廚灶要花120美元。中國和印度是世界上兩個農村地區人口最多的國家，在最近幾十年裡啟動了全國範圍的救助專案，以補貼價格供給農村居民安全效能最好的廚灶。但是，這個專案並不是一直起作用。例如，印度政府在1984-2000年間免費發放了三百三十萬套灶給農村地區農民，但是由於缺少健康知識教育和相關維護，多數家庭幾年之後就又回到他們原來的取火方式了。
這使得一些像謝爾基金會這樣的非政府組織參與進來。該組織與印度當地非政府組織在一些鄉村地區開始小規模實驗專案，開發和推廣乾淨的、燃燒木頭的廚灶，並使之市場化。這樣廚灶可以減少40%的氧化排放量，並且只需要5-10美元。這個專案計劃到2005年底出售15套廚灶，該組織準備今後在全國範圍內推廣這個專案。該專案的經理凱溫.威斯特里說謝爾和它的非政府組織合作伙伴努力銷售給顧客的`不光是一種最高效的工具，而且還有一種理念，那就是：有所改變會更好。威斯特里說：“你必須要確定人們確實想要那東西與他們最終需要的聯絡，即在擁有一套好的廚灶，少呼吸菸霧和體驗到健康的身體這三者之間建立一種聯絡。”
但是根深蒂固的傳統習慣很難改變。瑞弗絲說：“他們一直是這樣生活的，包括他們的母親和祖母也是這樣生活的，你需要給他們一種感覺，那就是他們可以對此做些改變。”這樣人們會對自己的麻煩事感到輕鬆許多。
