A person I shared this article with made the following comments (edited for brevity):
It’s true that a lot of people die prematurely due to indoor smoke. This is mainly because they cook on simple hearths that lack chimneys, as pictured [...]
However, there is a good chance a new American kitchen with a gas range is actually worse for indoor air quality that an old-fashioned wood stove, because bizarrely, American building codes don’t require range hoods or exhaust fans in the kitchen.
Electric and gas heating have obviously had a massive impact on outdoor air quality, but that’s not the argument the author makes for them [...] It’s not so much that [old] fuels are dirty, it’s that the smoke isn’t dumped outdoors.
Indeed, as someone who grew up with a wood stove (with a proper chimney), I was pretty confused by this point. Are chimneys rare in developing places?? Were chimneys rare in pre-industrial america??
A person I shared this article with made the following comments (edited for brevity):
Indeed, as someone who grew up with a wood stove (with a proper chimney), I was pretty confused by this point. Are chimneys rare in developing places?? Were chimneys rare in pre-industrial america??
A wood stove works well for heating but did you also used the stove for cooking?
No, although I expect it would work OK for stove-top cooking (but not for baking).