Political Quotes

“I rise today to introduce the Clean Cookstove Support Act. This legislation addresses a serious global public health and environmental issue, and I am very pleased to be joined in this effort by my friend and colleague, Senator Durbin. Nearly half of the world's population cooks over open fires or with inefficient, polluting, and unsafe cookstoves using wood, agricultural waste, dung, coal, or other solid fuels. Smoke from these traditional cookstoves and open fires is associated with chronic and acute diseases and affects women and children disproportionately. Alarmingly, the Global Burden of Disease Study of 2010 doubled the mortality estimates for exposure to smoke from cookstoves referred to as household air pollution from 2 million to 4 million deaths annually in the developing world. The GBD indicates this is more than the deaths from malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS combined. The GBD ranks household air pollution as the fourth worst overall health risk factor in the world and as the second worst health risk factor in the world for women and girls. Millions more are sickened from the toxic smoke and thousands suffer burns annually from open fires or unsafe cookstoves. Traditional cookstoves also create serious environmental problems. Recent studies show that the emissions of black carbon or common soot from biomass cookstoves significantly contribute to regional air and climate change.…”