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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.

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说到空气污染，并不是说简单的日常生活就必然是最安全的。研究显示，在亚洲，毒气最浓的空气并不在新德里和北京这样的现代化速度很快的城市，而是在亚洲农村家庭的厨房里。在农村，上百万的家庭用明火取暖或是做饭，他们使用的是廉价的燃料，这些燃料所释放的一氧化碳量和其他有毒雾量是国际标准的500倍。农村地区的妇女和孩子经常每天在通风不好的厨房里待上几个小时，呼吸这种有毒的空气。“这个问题从人类诞生以来就一直存在着，但是却一直被忽视了，”一位名叫伊娃.瑞弗丝的世界卫生组织室内空气污染方面的专家说道，“走进厨房你的眼睛就开始流泪，而且你会觉得呼吸困难，这太可怕了。”

世界卫生组织估计，在发展中国家，室内空气污染造成每年160万人死亡，其中印度占55万——而且死亡的大部分都是穷人。村民们除了用木头，煤或者是粪肥来烧火之外别无选择，这样会增加小孩子一氧化碳中毒死亡的危险，肺功能减弱，肺炎得病率增加。同样，那些在家里生火的妇女很容易得慢性呼吸道疾病。瑞弗丝说“有些妇女一天要花6小时做饭，五十年里日复一日，每天都生活在污染中。”

减少室内空气污染其实非常简单，只要用一套通风比较好的厨灶来代替木头生火就可以了，但是比较高级的厨灶要花120美元。中国和印度是世界上两个农村地区人口最多的国家，在最近几十年里启动了全国范围的救助项目，以补贴价格供给农村居民安全性能最好的厨灶。但是，这个项目并不是一直起作用。例如，印度政府在1984-2000年间免费发放了三百三十万套灶给农村地区农民，但是由于缺少健康知识教育和相关维护，多数家庭几年之后就又回到他们原来的取火方式了。

这使得一些像谢尔基金会这样的非政府组织参与进来。该组织与印度当地非政府组织在一些乡村地区开始小规模实验项目，开发和推广干净的、燃烧木头的厨灶，并使之市场化。这样厨灶可以减少40%的氧化排放量，并且只需要5-10美元。这个项目计划到2005年底出售15套厨灶，该组织准备今后在全国范围内推广这个项目。该项目的经理凯温.威斯特里说谢尔和它的非政府组织合作伙伴努力销售给顾客的不光是一种最高效的工具，而且还有一种理念，那就是：有所改变会更好。威斯特里说：“你必须要确定人们确实想要那东西与他们最终需要的联系，即在拥有一套好的厨灶，少呼吸烟雾和体验到健康的身体这三者之间建立一种联系。”

但是根深蒂固的传统习惯很难改变。瑞弗丝说：“他们一直是这样生活的，包括他们的母亲和祖母也是这样生活的，你需要给他们一种感觉，那就是他们可以对此做些改变。”这样人们会对自己的麻烦事感到轻松许多。