[Stoves] Therepeutic Smoke

[Kevin Chisholm]

Dear Andrew

Your anti smoke position brings a breath of fresh air to the IAP quest. :-)

Kevin

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "AJH" <list at sylva.icuklive.co.uk>
To: "Discussion of biomass cooking stoves" <stoves at listserv.repp.org>
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 5:39 PM
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Therepeutic Smoke


> On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 07:41:39 -0700, Thomas Reed wrote:
> 
>>Wood smoke isn't all bad.  It is useful as a food preservative and a 
>>roof deverminizer.
> 
> This is a red herring, or at least a kipper. The overall aim is to
> reduce indoor air pollution, why compromise this by over emphasising a
> useful byproduct of bad combustion?
> 
> A number of points spring to mind
> 
> 1) smoking preserves food how? By adding a chemical that is pathogenic
> to putrifying agents? 
> 
> 2) compounds in smoke are pathogenic to bugs that attack thatch, by
> what mechanism? Insects have a relatively crude respiratory system.
> 
> 3) Are these compounds in pyrolysis off gas or just in products of
> incomplete combustion of this offgas?
> 
> It looks to me that these same compounds are dangerous to children if
> they are inhaled, no one has mentioned touched or digested. In fact no
> one in UK would dream of having creosoted products *in* the home and
> there are controls on creosote use anywhere.
> 
> If something with as diverse chemistry as woodsmoke or pyrolysis
> offgas were proven to be an efficacious preservative of thatch then
> the treatment should be such that people could not inhale it, as
> inhaling woodsmoke is a proven pathogen. In practice I think a better
> preservative will be something simpler and less toxic to humans.
> 
> I would not consider sitting in a smoky room to avoid mosquito attack
> if I were given the opportunity to sit inside a DDT impregnated net.
> 
> AJH
> 
> 
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