The purpose of watching this Ted Talk by Amy Smith was eyeopening as I got an insight into the amount of smoke that is emitted from indoor cooking fires. As the speaker zoomed into Heidi, she mentioned the lack of trees that aren’t able to hold the soil thus resulting in constant flooding. Smith sheds light on the alternative cooking fuels such as waste paper and how engineers are working towards making them burn quicker. I learnt a lot about the small scale sugar mills that harness ‘Bugas’ as well as the way cow dung is used as cooking fuel in India. This has a drastic impact on the health of women and children that live around the area. Such a phenomena raises questions regarding sanitation and public healthcare. Involvement of the government is crucial to safeguard the lives of the families that live under the poverty line in India as well as Africa. Due to the prevalence of wheat and rice straw in India, Amy and her teams started working on charcoal briquettes. However compared to wood, the charcoal briquette didn’t burn as long. This led to the need to compress the briquette on a low cost. I learnt the comparison of wood to charcoal and the switch from the former to the latter that eventually has the power to save lives. On a larger scale this subject has a strong connection to health and economics. Questions regarding technology to promote micro finance and aiding farmers to their betterment were raised in my mind.
