Indoor Air Pollution

As I began just over a year ago to prepare to teach "The Developing World" (a new gen ed course at my university), it came as no surprise to me that air pollution is one of the more serious environmental concerns plaguing millions of people in the developing world. What I didn't realize, however, is that the most pernicious and pervasive form of this air pollution is indoor air pollution, caused by improperly vented, primitive indoor cook stoves. In this article in the New York Times, Elisabeth Rosenthal looks not only at the health concerns raised by these stoves but also the collective environmental impact they are imposing on the global climate.