House Professor, Garrick Blalock spoke to the Rose Scholars about the evolution of green technology and the practicality of it in today’s world. He started by speaking to the students about how familiar we were with hybrid technology and how many people we knew with hybrid cars. We all knew how much hybrid cars helped the environment and how they could even save us money, so how come everyone wasn’t driving hybrids? We concluded that it was because of sheer accessibility and a change in the norm. One worry of many people who consider buying hybrids is that there won’t be a charging station nearby when they need it most. Or the car may break down and the parts to fix it are inaccessible or priced extremely high. For reasons like this, it is hard to complete a shift to green technology and to get people to buy more hybrids—it’s simply easier to have a regular car. Blalock then used this comparison example to explain a phenomenon that occurs globally. He told us about the stone fires used in Uganda to cook and boil water. These fires are extremely easy to make- only requiring 3 stones, a base, and a spark. However, they release strong chemicals into the atmosphere that affect the people’s lungs and are also inefficient sources of heat. To solve this, people came to Uganda to give them a cleaner source of heat and newer stoves. What they noticed was that Ugandans were choosing to ignore the cleaner stoves and continuing to use the stone fires due to the ease and familiarity. This talk showed how turning the society isn’t as easy as it may seem, it requires a shift in culture and thought as well as additional resources to accommodate the changes.

This talk reminded me of an idea called the path of least resistance that I learned in a sociology class. It’s human nature to avoid change and take the easiest path, the path that will give you the least resistance. Changing to be a more green society to many people is not the path of least resistance, which is why it’s hard for many people to makes these changes. It’s easier to have a normal car, go to normal gas stations and to your local auto garage than it is to have a hybrid and make special accommodations for the car. This principle is what makes the path to a greener society more difficult and is a change we have to keep in mind when thinking about the future of the earth.

On Wednesday, March 9th, I attended the Rose Café with Professor Garrick Blalock. Garrick’s talk focused on his research in rural Uganda. His research involved getting the local Ugandans to switch from using their traditional three-stone stoves to a new gas-burning stove. I remember at last year’s Rose Cafe Garrick gave the same talk. I remember that it was very interesting to see the statistics on the “barriers of adaptation.” For example, on the houses that Garrick just offered the new stove for sale, there was a very low buy rate. However, the buy rate jumped significantly when Garrick offered things such as a warranty, weekly payment plan, and a free trial period. The most interesting part of the talk was when Garrick related trying to introduce these new stoves to buying a hybrid car. Buying a hybrid car is more feasible when you have these economic support systems in place. Just like a hybrid car, the new stove is more expensive at first, but the health, long term cost, and environmental benefits far outweigh those of the three-stone stove. Another interesting part of the talk was that this year Garrick went back to Uganada to follow up on his research. It was both interesting and saddening to hear that almost none of the stoves that Garrick had sold were still being used. Very few of the families still had the stoves in their homes. I guess the takeaway from Garrick’s talk was that culture maybe the biggest barrier to adaptation as the Ugandans had every economic support offered to them and a year later, not a single one was still using the new stoves.

Immersed in technology and studying in an intellectual environment, it is too easy for many of us to feel that knowledge and technology are the panacea for the human race to lead healthier lives and to protect the ecosystems that the life of our species so very much depends on. Professor Blalock’s discussion on “Barriers to Adoption” did a great job of educating me about issues as economic or social aspects that can stand in the way of progress, and helped me clearly understand that the desired outcome will likely be out of reach unless those issues are also intentionally dealt with.

Even though Professor Blalock’s discussion was on “why technology isn’t helping the poor”, he astutely started the conversation with something closer to home that affects our own lives. He asked us about environmental issues, and specifically whether we believe global warming will be impacting us in the next few generations. And we had clear agreement in the audience that global warming will impact us. He then pointed out that more eco-friendly vehicles like the Prius can help reduce global warming, and asked why we aren’t all driving eco-friendly vehicles. In fact, as he expected, very few in the audience drove electric or hybrid cars. And the reasons from the audience ranged from cost to style to pragmatic issues such as size or safety of the vehicles. This simple poll of the audience made it abundantly clear that better technology and understanding its benefits are far from sufficient in making a real and significant change.

Professor Blalock proceeded to discuss his own research on clean cooking stoves in East Africa. In Uganda, villagers commonly use a three-stone wood-burning stove that is both harmful to their health (smoke) and to the environment (inefficient burning of the wood leads to more deforestation). There is no shortage of relatively cheap technology that is much healthier and more efficient than these stoves. Nevertheless, many issues stand in the way of adoption. For example, a stove that costs $15 is not affordable. Cheaper but slightly less efficient stove are also available but are not adopted widely. As part of the research, villagers were allowed to try the stoves for free for a month and either return it or pay for it across several months. This approach led to a much higher adoption rate of about 50%. So it is clearly possible to get higher adoption if people become more familiar and comfortable with a new technology and it is made more affordable through financing. But the real shocker is that after a few years, many of the purchased stoves were no longer being used and people were back to the three-stone alternative! So clearly not all barriers to long-term adoption were dealt with.
As someone pursuing a career in high-tech, it was enlightening for me to understand that significant adoption of new technologies has many potential barriers and that those barriers need to be explicitly dealt to achieve wide-spread adoption and a real shift in behavior.

Everyone wants to do what is best for the environment to leave it in better conditions than it currently is. But through the research of Professor Blalock and his group, it was seen that not everyone will actually take the right steps here. In his research, Professor Blalock tried to get people to use a newer and more efficient way of heating to be used in the home. The original procedure they were using was a three stone fire. This fire reeked havoc on the lungs and health of the people in these homes. When offered with a better option, most people did not want it. The few that did take the offer, however, were unable to find it later on when Professor Blalock came back. Even though they knew it would be the better option, they did not want to change their ways. The point here is that people often know what the right thing to do is when it comes to what will help the environment. But, it is seen that not everyone will take those steps. Instead of thinking that others will be the ones that will help, we need to start to take things into our own hands and make the changes necessary.

As millennial from a well educated family, growing up in city known for its technological exploits and fluid intelligence, I always thought education was the key to bringing the world together and finding solutions to issues that were curbing human growth and development. As a high schooler, I valued internet as much as I valued food, and I thought that sharing it with every part of the world would solve Earth’s issues of poverty, malnutrition, and disease. I was all for projects like Internet.org.

Over the past two years, in parallel with the political race, I’ve noticed my naïveté. One of the Obama Administration’s goals was to make internet more accessible, and they have accomplished that. 98% of Americans have access to the internet. However, 20% of Americans refuse to use it. Even though internet is accessible to almost all, ignorance is still rampant in America. Some American’s still believe in ancient visualizations of third world countries. Some Americans refuse to believe that the weather is more extreme than it has been in the last century. And some people, myself included, will continue to consume junk foods like Hersey’s chocolate, Cheetos or Coke even though we are well aware of the outrageously detrimental health side effects.

Professor Blalock’s talk on the adoption of cook stoves was altogether very intriguing, surprising, and affirmative. In summary, his research and work showed that culture, upbringing, and tradition won out over education. As a mechanical engineer interested in dedicating her life to the development of underdeveloped countries, I’ve read a lot about organizations who have developed everything from cost effective water purifiers to business opportunities for women. I’ve always wondered why these initiatives haven’t been effective. Is it corruption? Lack of communication or education?

It was extremely powerful to hear first hand about an initiative just like the ones in the articles I’ve read. It was interesting to hear about the process the team used for adoption. It was really interesting to hear the problems they faced. But it was most interesting to hear about the information they gathered from the initiative.

That in order to make new habits, it is vital to make new traditions first.

I enjoyed the way Professor Blalock began his talk with an extensive analogy involving a Prius and our majority decision to not own one and our reasons for doing so, despite the fact that we are all aware of how much better it is for the environment. He then linked this analogy to the specific issue of cooking stoves used throughout rural, underdeveloped areas in Africa.

Based on his experiences trying to convert people living in such areas to use cleaner stoves, his discussion was interesting in terms of the thought processes/habitual behavior behind such people and their decisions to not use cleaner stoves despite having information that clearly advises against it. Considering this specific situation in a broader, more general sense, it was enlightening to think about how applicable it was in our seemingly environmentally-aware society.

Last Wednesday’s Rose Cafe featuring Professor Blalock, our resident professor, brought up an interesting perspective on the nature of humanity as a collective. He started by surveying us, college students living in America, asking us how many of us wanted to help the environment. While almost all of us raised our hands in response, when we were asked whether we owned an automobile which optimized efficiency and reduced waste, almost no one did, save for one or two people. He followed this by telling us that his research in rural Africa proved a similar case–when given an opportunity to use more efficient stoves (than the commonly used three-stone stove) which reduced the amount of smoke and the amount of damage done to the lungs of the families using the stoves, almost every family abandoned the more efficient stoves and returned to the old three-stone stove system. When we compare these two points on our globe, Africa and America, though we differ culturally and geographically, we must realize: we’re not so different, are we? This brings about the question–is it simply our nature as humans to resist change? To that, I will say yes and no. If we truly deflected all change, we would still be living in caves like our cro-magnon ancestors. We would not have the technology and adaptive means of survival and comfort that we have today. Change is inevitable. But it cannot be denied that though change is inevitable, we are quick to resist it. But the knowledge is there. In a couple of years, decades, who knows? Maybe the majority of the U.S. will be driving Priuses, and maybe the rural areas in Africa will be using more efficient stoves.

Last week I attended a really interesting presentation by Professor Blalock about an unusual topic: cook stoves in Africa. Professor Blalock began the presentation by getting to audience to agree that electric cars are good for the environment; however, only two people in the room actually owned a Prius. He then went through a laundry list of reasons why someone wouldn’t own a Prius, and provided solutions for most of them. Despite this, only a small fraction of the population actually owns an electric car, despite clear evidence that gas-powered cars are very bad for the environment. Professor Blalock then turned his attention to three stone cook stoves that are very popular in African villages, but also very bad for the environment as well as human health. He told us about how he and his colleagues clearly explained these health risks to the African villagers and offered a cheap new cook stove alternative; however, almost none of the villagers agreed to buy one. Some of the same barriers to buying a Prius were the same as the barriers to buying one of these new, environmentally-friendly cook stoves; particularly cost and not knowing if a new stove would meet their needs. Professor Blalock solved these problems by offering financing options and a free trial period, and ended up selling quite a few stoves.

Professor Blalock’s talk made me think about the psychology behind humans resisting change, even when it’s good for them. It’s understandable why someone wouldn’t get a Prius even if it’s good for the environment due to other factors like cost, style, and already owning a car. However, in follow up studies, most of the African villagers in Professor Blalock’s endeavor were not using their cook stoves, even though they had already paid for them! The reason for this was clearly not ignorance on the health issues of their three stone stoves. This had been drilled into their heads. Was it style? Were they worried about their fellow villagers’ opinions of them for using a “Western” device? Or was it simply a desire for familiarity? Old habits die hard, and it’s very easy to just put three stones together and get their old stove back. Perhaps they rebuilt the stove with intentions to use it only once to cook something that was hard to cook on the new stove, but they just continued using it after that one time. Because that was the easy and familiar thing to do. Change is scary, and history has shown time and time again that humans do their best to resist it.

Last week during the Cafe Series, Professor Blalock came to speak to us on “why isn’t technology helping the poor?” First he started off using the Prius as an analogy. Almost everyone in the audience agreed that electric cars are better for the environment. However, despite that, the majority of the people in the audience, except for a few didn’t electric cars at all. We discussed how there are many factors that influence one’s decisions to buy more environmentally friendly goods; in the Prius’ case, it included style, cost, and functionality. Thus, even though everyone accepts as a fact that while certain consumer decisions are better for the greater good, they might not be beneficial if not used correctly. Prof Blalock called this a problem of collective action, in which individuals don’t take action for a greater cause because they believe their individual action would not have an impact on the cause in the long run. This ultimately leads to a chain of inaction. The analogy is difficult because although everyone knows the positive impact of electric cars, it’s unreasonable for many of us/our families to just buy one because it’s good for the environment. Cars are huge luxury goods, and many families can only afford one or two cars at most, and it’s unpractical to expect families with cars already to trade them in for a Prius. Although none of us should feel bad for not owning a Prius, it goes to show how difficult it is for people to change their lifestyles even when a better alternative exists.

Regardless, the Prius analogy represents a larger issue of a cause that Professor Blalock has been working on, which is the use of cooking stoves in Uganda. The story is nearly identical to the one he spoke about last year, which is detailed in a blog post I made previously. But the underlying issue is still present. Even though many of those people bought the cleaner, more efficient stoves, they stopped using them in the long run. This might be likely due to familiarity with the three rock stoves and inability to adapt and use the newer stoves. Prof Blalock’s story shows that new technology and innovation might not always be the best solution, as there exists psychological barriers that prevent people from fully utilizing them. Perhaps now what’s important is not just the development and sale of new technology, but how to make their functionality more accessible to more people.

Last week, Garrick spoke at the Rose Cafe series event. I found this cafe event very interesting, as he emphasized the significance of unhealthy cooking practices that are used daily around the world. So many people are dying from diseases related to something that seems so easily fixable; however, this rings true in many situations (not wearing seat belts, texting and driving, not getting vaccines, smoking, etc.). Most of these situations parallel the open flame as a method of cooking in that knowledge and information is not necessarily the key to getting people to change their ways. There are many aspects at play (unfortunately, this includes financial reasons for cooking tools) that lead to people endangering themselves and others by not changing lifestyles. Hopefully Garrick can soon develop a reasonable and functional replacement to the unhealthy cook stoves that are used around the world!

Last Wednesday, I attended the Rose-Becker café on technology and sustainability. Professor Blalock talked about the disconnect between the general feeling of wanting to solve issues of climate change and our willingness to act on it. When asked, most people in the room responded that they or their families did not own environmentally-friendly vehicles despite believing in environmental causes. However, it’s difficult for most families to afford buying such expensive vehicles and most would not think to spend that much money up front when they have perfectly working vehicles. Further, the proposed solution of using loans is not a viable option for every family either. I know that my family at least would not be in the position financially to do so.

Professor Blalock also talked about his work in Uganda to bring more environmentally-friendly and safer cooking stoves to rural families. The product had disappeared within 5 years and they were still using the same unsafe cooking stoves. Professor Blalock argued that it is because people are unwilling to change their bad habits that we are unable to create greater environmental change. However, I think that while environmental concerns are important there are more immediate concerns for individuals in rural areas and for the country as a whole. Awareness of environmental concerns will come with technological development but this development has to come from within the community rather than from outsiders from Western countries.

The living arrangements in the villages of third world countries are vastly different from those available in the urban sectors of the countries. The rural life is a completely alien lifestyle to foreigners and urban citizens who are exposed to new technologies and use them on a regular basis. The disadvantages of living in such rural sites include the scarcity of everyday technology like stoves, microwaves, and other kitchen appliances that we take for granted. Often, people have to sacrifice their health to make up for the lack of resources in their community. Garrick Blalock highlighted the issue of bringing modern stoves to a village in Uganda, where women burned wood, that they chopped themselves, to heat their pots and pans. The health risks associated with inhaling the heavy influx of smoke from the wood is very high and often children, who are in the kitchen with their mother, have to inhale that smoke.  However, a lot of the families have refused to adopting new methods of cooking as it is not feasible for them to spend money on gas stoves. How is it possible to convince the villagers to take up a new method of cooking? It’s not.

Garrick explained that the he and his team had an idea of bringing modern gas stoves to the village and the new gas stoves emitted much less smoke than what the villagers were actually using. Unfortunately, the new gas stove also cost about 5 times the weekly salaries of the villagers. In order to get them to try the new stoves. Garrick and his team made a deal with the villagers in which they would pay for the stove in weekly installments if they actually found it useful. Even though, 50% of the villagers kept the stoves after 5 weeks, when Garrick visited after 2 years, he saw that almost all the families who had originally kept the stove had switched back to the old stove. The problem lies in the fact that it is impossible for a person to make another person change their regular hobbits. The change must come within. If the villagers realized that the new stove would be of no use to them, they would go back to their old stove no matter how harmful it might be. They are probably more concerned about their economic situation than their health, so if it means giving up a new piece of technology they will do it without any hesitation.  In order for the Ugandan village to see the change, they have to to propel it themselves.

I was really fascinated by Prof. Blalock’s talk last Wednesday about the problems of cook stoves, but also frustrated to learn how difficult it has proven to find a solution. After listening to the presentation, I found myself feeling that there must be some workable solution. Certainly there are many obstacles to changing people’s behavior–the Prius analogy was very effective in showing what those might be–but I felt that there had to be a way to get around them. Part of me wants to start with the stove itself. As Prof. Blalock told us, the stoves are tricky and inflexible, by nature of the way the wood and the gases burn. Still, I wonder if there isn’t a way to work around those limitations to build a more flexible stove – maybe by making it so that you can adjust the positioning of the food relative to the heat, or by making multiple burners, etc. Even if this made the stoves slightly more expensive, I think if it delivered a product that met people’s needs more effectively it would be worth the price (which hopefully you could offset with greater fundraising efforts on this side). I would hope that if you could deliver a more effective stove, it would change the trend Prof. Blalock observed: that people completely abandoned their stoves after a period of a few years. I think that abandonment was really the most confounding and frustrating part of the story. Why was it that people decided, after some time, to stop using the stoves entirely? Even though they were right there in the kitchen, completely available for use? It must be that somewhere the incentives were wrong. And I suspect that they were wrong in small ways in a number of places: like in the Prius analogy, with the cook stoves there are questions of product effectiveness, social norms, safety concerns, effort required for use, ingrained habit, etc. So likely changing only one thing–like the design of the stove–in itself wouldn’t be enough to solve the problem. Still, I think that the stove itself is probably one of the most important factors (considering that people still didn’t use it even once almost all barriers to their doing so were removed), so that’s where I would start.

Last Wednesday, Rose House’s Garrick Blalock presented a very interesting argument. One major topic he discussed was consumer preferences. He first highlighted our own preferences when it comes the cars either we or our families own. Interestingly, a lot of people in the audience said they agree that electric cars are better for the environment. However, everyone but two then said that they (or their families) do not own any electric cars. This discrepancy showcased that our knowledge and thoughts do not always align with our purchases. Other factors, such as style, cost, and functionality, also come into play and arguably dominate our decision-making thought process of which car to buy. Although this wasn’t really discussed, I would argue that our values play a major role, if not the most important role, when making purchases. For example, a dedicated environmentalist would most likely try to purchase an electric car regardless of the other factors simply because they believe it’s much better for the environment than diesel. However, assuming their knowledge is the same, someone who doesn’t value the natural environment as much would most likely put much higher values on the other factors.

Mr. Blalock went on to explain his past work in Africa trying to improve cooking stoves and cooking stove conditions and environments. The issue with the current, traditional stoves is two-fold. The problem is the exhaust from burning charcoal both effecting the families that inhale the smoke as well the fact that all that carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. He explained how a new stove design was introduced to a couple of communities in an effort to get them to switch to the cleaner stove. After trying different approaches, Mr. Blalock and his team found that people were more likely to buy the cleaner stove if there was a one-month trial period. In other words, a warranty of sorts was offered. This increased the use of the stoves but when the team went back four years later to see how many people were still using the new stoves, they found that next to no one was. Although I think their efforts were very beneficial to the people they helped teach about the harmful effects of charcoal burning, I personally wish there were larger campaigns showcasing the harmful effects of charcoal burning when cooking in a small and enclosed kitchen. I think there should be NGOs dedicated to this cause because it’s so deleterious to the health of these families. I look forward to seeing future projects in this area in the hopes of helping communities cook safer and cleaner.

After attending the talk lead by Adam Scwartz the week before on laughing about environmentalism as a way to get it to be more successful, I was surprised to see Garrick Blalock also covering the environment. However, the way this similar topic was handled was worlds apart. While Adam pushed how important caring about the environment is and ways to get people involved, Garrick showed us just how hard it is to make people interested.

He started the talk with asking our opinions on Prius’s. How many of us have a Prius, how many have driven them, do we think they are important for the environment, etc. While many of us said we think they make a difference environmentally, almost no one had one. Garrick asked us why? Was it the upfront cost, did it not fit our lifestyle? He gave several solutions to those problems and more and it seemed as if we were going to repeat last weeks discussion. However, after listening a little bit harder, I realized he wasn’t saying we were wrong for not having a Prius or that we should feel bad for not caring more about the environment, but he was more getting at just how hard it is for people to change their lifestyles.

Garrick took us on a trip to Africa he took to help bring a new stove revolution to the places he visited. In many parts of Africa, they use stoves that coat their lungs and walls in black gook. Scientists had tried to come up with healthier stoves for both the earth and the people using them, and after coming up with a relatively easy and cost effective one, Garrick and his team went from family to family offering the stoves. They said we will let you use these stoves for a few months and if you don’t like them we won’t charge you and you can give them back, or you can keep it and pay money. What happened when they returned? Nothing. Not one family was using theirs anymore.

At this point in the lecture I was shocked. How could no family be using these stoves if they were so much healthier and at that point free? But, thinking back to the Prius example, I have no desire for a Prius and pretty much wouldn’t consider getting one. This is a very interesting dichotomy. We can know what we are doing isn’t the best option but continue doing that thing.

So what should we do if even no brainers don’t work? I think the only way to get something into wide-spread use is to capitalize on the flaws in humans. When people found out that if they cut out gluten they could maybe lose some weight, suddenly gluten free options are everywhere, sometimes more than gluten containing options. People with celiac disease have been around forever, but it wasn’t until people saw a selfish benefit that they cared. I guess humans are going to have to see something they can directly benefit from before they are willing to make a change.

It really would be best if everyone who drives bought a Prius (or a Tesla or some other model of fuel-efficient car). Professor Blalock pointed out at the beginning of last week’s Rose Cafe that for every barrier to people switching to a more green car, there exists a viable solution. Yet there exist psychological blocks that discourage people from taking action. Most people recognize that an individual making the car switch would have virtually no environmental impact, but if all drivers switched, there would be a rather sharp reduction of carbon emissions over time.

Professor Blalock then described how such principles function in developing nations such as Uganda. There, the great majority of people cook their food on open fires, with the most common set-up being a set of 3 arranged rocks. Not only are these apparatuses not particularly efficient, meaning women have to spend more time gathering more firewood, but they produce large amounts of smoke. So much smoke, in fact, that it has serious negative affects on the health of people who work and play around the fires.

You would probably think that people would happily switch to any other kind of stove that is less likely to kill them, but in reality the opposite is true. Professor Blalock mentioned a special program that involved engineers designing an oven just for people in developing countries, but Ugandans largely rejected it. The model that was created was to expensive for its intended customers was not as easy to use or repair as the 3-rock stove. Professor Blalock went on to describe other efforts to get Ugandans to adopt new, healthier stoves, such as trial runs, information sessions, adding a warranty, and helping pay for the cost of the new stove. But even when people do purchase the new stove (about 50% of the time), all will evtually return to the old 3-rock model. I think the case outlined by Professor Blalock demonstrated how important psychological factors are to development programs and economics, perfectly illustrating how even if a choice seems rational and obvious, committing to it is actually quite hard.

Last week I attended the Rose Café event led by professor Garrick Blalock. The conversation centered on why we don’t always take the best solution (indicative of technological progress) and instead choose to remain with what we have at the current moment. One of the points that was touched on at the beginning of the presentation was : if we can all agree that driving a Prius or a Tesla is more environmentally friendly than our more conventional cars, then why aren’t we all driving a Prius or a Tesla? Student’s responses ranged from the cars being too expensive to them not being aesthetically appealing. Responses to the Prius/Tesla example made me reflect and realize that the underlying principle as to why we don’t all purchase these cars can be applied to other examples in life where we don’t pick the best technological solution.

Another example with the same underlying principle was later presented. It involved cooking in Uganda. The problem with the conventional way of cooking is that it is not efficient and produces a lot of smoke which can negatively impact health. A new cleaner (produces less smoke) and more efficient stove was introduced but it wasn’t really adopted by all because it was either too expensive or not as practical as the conventional “stoves”. I’m a person that thinks that health is one of the biggest priorities in life so when I heard this I just thought that it was interesting how much of an influence economics and practicality can have to make someone put their life at risk.

Overall, i thought the presentation was eye opening because it made me view decisions in life in a whole new perspective. I’ve even begun to look more closely at why I’m making the decisions I’m making and if the best solution to a problem is actually a feasible option for me.

In the Rose-Becker Cafe on March 9th, 2016, Professor Blalock gave us an overview on his research on how to encourage people in Uganda to adopt eco-stove cooking solution. It was very interesting to learn that some Ugandan natives build their stoves by putting three rocks together and burn biofuel as fuel sources. The picture below shows how it looks like.

Although it looks like a pleasant set up, the Uganda had to walk a long distance to collect the biomass as a large amount is needed in their cooking process. Due to the way the “stove” is designed, heat escape very easily. Also, burning of biomass releases harmful chemicals that can cause lung dysfunction and many other health problems. Ugandans who use these kind of “stoves” may not even live long enough for lung cancer to develop. In order to resolve such problems, one of the alternatives was to encourage the Ugandan to adopt the eco-stove cooking solution, which may look something like the stove shown below.

With the help of programs, such as carbon fund where people donate to offset their carbon footprint(or guilt), the eco-stove were sold to Ugandan for a very affordable cost. They were also offered the options to return, get warranty and financial installments. Although a good number of people bought the stove. Many of the stoves essentially just sit in the Ugandan home without being much used. But why was that? Perhaps, it could be because of conformity. Even though people are concerned about health and efficiency, they may be more concerned about conforming to the norm. Since the Ugandan who adopts the eco-stoves cooking solution are the early-adopters in their country and innovation adoption does not appear to be popular in Uganda, using a strange stove may just appear weird to neighbors. As a result, despite experiencing all the benefits of the eco-stoves, Ugandan may still be very unlikely to use the cooking alternative any time soon.

Last week at the Becker-Rose Café, Rose House Professor Garrick Blalock gave a talk about his research in adapting new technologies in Uganda to reduce carbon emissions. Teaming up with engineers, Professor Blalock set to replace the three-stone stoves that the villagers were using. But not only were the three stone stoves inefficient, but they were also releasing a lot more pollution into the air. Professor Blalock and his team devised a stove made by engineers here at Cornell that reduced the amount of pollution the stoves released while focusing the heat on the food. Not only would this save time and energy for the villagers, but also improve health conditions in the house.

I really liked Professor Blalock’s talk since he started out with a problem that everyone could relate with. Nowadays, we’re constantly emphasizing the need to live a greener life. And one of the causes of carbon emissions are cars. However, there are plenty of companies like Toyota that have developed cars that are very efficient in terms of pollution. The Prius was a pretty popular choice when Professor Blalock asked the entire group, but surprisingly, very few people, including my family, own a Prius. Branching off of this idea, Professor Blalock incorporated his research and was able to draw a parallel in trends of the villagers having completely stopped using the stoves after he revisited a year or two later.

It makes me think whether or not it’s because of human behavior and habit that made the transition from traditional stoves to more efficient stoves so much more difficult. Perhaps if there was a bigger motivation force, things could change?

It was great to go to a Rose Café where Professor Blalock himself was presenting. I didn’t know anything about his research before the café, and I found it to be really engaging.

At first, I was a bit confused as to why he chose to start the discussion by questioning us about why we don’t own more fuel efficient cars. I don’t think it was at all intended to be so, but I found his tone to be slightly accusatory. This confusion quickly diffused as he transitioned into discussing his research, and it became clear that he started the hour the way that he did to show us that problems with adopting better technologies exist in the US just as much as in developing nations. I appreciated that he did this, because it forced us to recognize the fact that we aren’t immune to these problems, and it made the cookstove discussion more relatable.

Professor Blalock’s work with cookstoves in Uganda make it painfully clear why changes in people’s behavior are so hard to implement. When trying to get people to adopt new technologies, we often assume that if the benefit of technologies are explained, people will quickly adjust their lives to include it. Professor Blalock’s research, however, showed that habits and social norms can be much stronger than education when it comes to behavioral change.

Last week, Professor Blalock described the issues that arise in the adoption of new technology. In East Africa, traditional cookstoves burn inefficiently, causing not only environmental problems, but grave health and lung problems to those around the stoves. The problems with the stoves are clear, and given modern technology, the solutions to these problems should be equally achievable. However, this has not been the case: the traditional stoves, which burn wood and are constructed of rocks, are more or less free. In rural areas, fuel– firewood– is either fetched for free, or, in urban areas, charcoal is purchased at low prices. A new stove, which costs not only to purchase, but to also maintain, is therefore a tough sell. Even considering the health benefits of the new stoves, nearly all of the people in the study elected to continue (or return to) using the traditional stoves.

One can point to a number of reasons for this aversion to replacing the traditional stoves with new and more efficient technology. The explanation that I found most interesting was that of collective action: if everyone were to adopt the new stove technology, the environment and community would be healthier. But, since each individual incurs a cost, many elect not to adopt the new technology. Therefore, one might reason, it is best not to buy the stove because its individual purchase and use will have negligible impact. The analogue to our society is the adoption of a Prius, or any electric car. The group identified a number of issues: range, size, style, etc. The same goes for the stove– the new technology could simply not be used as flexibly as the traditional stove, there was possibly some stigma, and moreover, the traditional stoves are free, or cost next to nothing. The lesson seems to be that unless everyone is on board, no one (or at least a negligible number of people) will be.

Perhaps the solution to this problem is not market-based, but rather policy-based. I wonder if the governments of these countries, with aid, could possibly undertake a large-scale stove adoption program.

For years, House Professor Garrick Blalock has battled the environmentally unfriendly three-stone stove in East Africa. But something has prevented a seemingly provocative shift toward the efficiency and health that alternative stoves offer. While the lack of infrastructure behind the alternative stoves is likely an important factor, I believe it really has to do with the timescale of the benefits offered by the stoves.

Environmentally friendly products are expensive, but we have several ways to manage their cost. We can offer financing. We can offer insurance to subsidize the cost of accidents. We even have warranties that can fix or replace the product at no expense. All of this forms an infrastructure which supports expensive investments in environmentally friendly products. This type of infrastructure is largely absent in East Africa. For that reason, it is very difficult to introduce relatively expensive, environmentally friendly cook stove products into these regions.

However, even when the cost of a healthy stove is practically reduced to zero, families almost always revert back to their original three-stone stove. This issue seems beyond financing. Even when the health benefits are many and the cost is none, the families in this region choose their traditional option over seemingly pure benefits.

So then my question is, is it really that simple? Clearly the benefits of using the environmentally friendly stove do not outweigh the costs. So what are the costs that we aren’t seeing?

Perhaps the issue is in terms of timescale. Similar to the talk given by Prof. Sachs, the environment operates on a much larger timescale, and that can differentiate between imminent, tangible, humorous events and long-term, intangible, intrinsically non-humorous events. Maybe the timescale of health is related. Maybe the benefits of using the alternative stoves are on a timescale that is too drawn out to be noticed by these families. When the benefits were presented in the talk, time was not a factor. However, when each is made a function of time, the cost of adopting a new twist to an essential activity becomes concentrated and could far outweigh the diluted benefits that would slowly be introduced over the course of YEARS!

When time is introduced, it seems to me much more understandable that the environmentally friendly stoves have not been adopted.

This past Cafe, given by the one and only Garrick Blalock, prompted a very interesting discussion about just how difficult it is to get a population to change its behavior. Although the talk was focused on the adoption of clean-burning cook stoves in third-world countries, one can easily see how the idea could apply to almost every aspect of our lives. More specifically, we discussed something called the collective action problem. In this social trend, each individual believes his or her own part of the solution is insignificant and so leaves the action to be done by the rest of the group. Now, if everyone has the same idea, we can quickly see how this could become a problem, and nothing would actually get done. The worst part of it, to me, was the sheer scale of the issue. We can educate people all we want and still only achieve marginal results. And even though it’s good to know how effective your efforts have been, it does make the endeavor feel rather hopeless…I’m not entirely sure how we can solve this issue. Perhaps by educating not only about the issue itself, but about the threats associated with collective action? Maybe then individuals would feel more responsible of their actions? I’m not sure…but I’ll leave you with the iconic Gandhi quote, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

The past Wednesday, I had the opportunity of attending a Rose Cafe where Professor Garrick Blalock was talking about how difficult it is to change a population’s habit even if the population knows that it is the best option. Because this is my second year participating in the Rose Scholars program, this is my second time going to a discussion about this topic. Although I had heard this before, there were some more things that I took away from this discussion that I had previously missed. The entire process of adapting to a new platform or more specifically replacing a current way of life, is difficult. Prof.Blalock’s experience is not unique to one situation, rather it is representative of the difficulties of product adoption.

Prof.Blalock had gone to Uganda to help people adopt a new and healthier option of cook stoves. The current cook stoves that many people in Uganda used were very inefficient and hazardous to their health. The new cook stoves were not only more energy efficient and healthy but they also took less time away from an individual. For example with the old cook stoves, the women would go to the forests to find fire wood, thereby spending a large portion of their day on one task. If they adopt the new cook stoves, there would be less time spent going to the forest to search for fire wood, leaving more time for other things. One of the interesting things was that even though the people were educated on the benefits of the new stoves, they did not incorporate it in their lives. One of the first things that comes to my head for adopting a new technology is to make sure it is at a right price point for the target market. Prof. Blalock’s team had created financing solutions which made it easier for people to purchase the stoves. Although they had covered most of the hindrances to adopting a new technology, the people did not seem to adopt it. It is interesting to try to understand what really stops an individual from using a new technology. Although it is a complicated question, part of the reason might be that people care a lot about short term benefits. Overall, I found the discussion very intriguing and thought provoking.

Professor Blalock spoke about the troubles of implementing new technology, especially with cook-stoves in Africa. At first, I was thinking that the issue must be somewhat financial or educational. If these people did not know the dangers and costs of the cook stoves they were using, they wouldn’t believe that they needed to use anything else. He explained why this is rather untrue. He used the analogy of car shopping or the cars that we own. For us, we know that some of the cars we own and drive are not as good for the environment as say, a Prius. For some, it is the cost, for others the size or the style. In the end, we have options to finance and test the cars before we drive them.

In Africa, the situation was different. There were not many options for buying a stove or trying it before hand. What Professor Blalock did with his research is allowed a financing and trial option for better and safer cook stoves. They found that when someone was observing the use of these new cook stoves, they were used, however when no one was there to observe, they were not used. They knew what worked and how to use their old ways. It was easier for them just to go back to what they had been using for so many years. I found this extremely interesting because it in a way applies to what we do today.

Professor Blalock led an intriguing discussion about general individual and societal resistance to change in the context of helping the environment. The surveying at the beginning of the talk was a clever way to demonstrate right in front of the audience the general “apathy” people have when it comes to changing their lifestyles to better preserve the Earth. Most people don’t want to change to more efficient cars or similar technology because of inconvenience, lack of style and more. With that in mind, Blalock talks about how he and his research team went to Uganda to help a native village adopt a more efficient stove. It was surprising and slightly horrifying that Ugandans, especially children, were exposed to harmful smoke emissions, equivalent to smoking multiple packs of cigarettes, on a daily basis.

You would assume that the advanced technology, which would not only be more efficient but it would make the living environment better, would be adopted and integrated immediately. However, as Blalock and his team learned, this was not the case. The Ugandans who received the new stove learned how to use it but when Blalock returned many years later, none of the families were using the new stove. It is probably because it may have stopped working and there were no technicians around to fix it, and it was something that the Ugandans weren’t used to. While families probably didn’t want to expose their children to such harmful emissions, the three stone stove was easier to operate, cheaper and an appratus they have learned to use all their lives. Convenience is a major factor and any form of inconvenience or reason to not use it because it is too hard or adds friction to people lives, no matter how small, will cause people to drop the new technology, regardless of how superior it is, in favor of the old and tested technology.

I enjoyed the connection to his research and I think that society will transition to a more eco-friendly one as next generation technology improves and becomes near infallible.  Resistance to change exists, but there is change nonetheless, most likely spearheaded by the new generation of individuals. Is there anything you are willing to change in your life that would help the environment and if not, what is the biggest reason why you wouldn’t, especially if it is a small, trifling issue?

On March 9^th, House Professor Garrick Blalock lead the discussion for the Rose Café. The discussion was centered around the idea that technology exists that can help improve the environment and people’s health, yet most individuals do not adapt this technology. In the United States, hybrid cars can reduce emissions yet not everyone drives a Prius because it doesn’t fit their needs. This can include the price or the size of the car. Professor Blalock then discussed how Ugandans use three stone stoves whose use is equivalent to four packs of cigarettes! The health effects from these stoves cause four times the amount of deaths as malaria, which sounds crazy considering it was the first time I have heard about these stoves! Even when given a choice between cleaner stoves versus the traditional stoves, Ugandans still chose the three stone stove instead. Why? For the same reasons as Americans choose the Prius, the three stone stove is easier to use and better suited for their lives.

The technology of today’s world is constantly changing and improving. As a HD major, I can’t help but think that part of the inability for people to adapt to the new technology is habit. After so many years, our current tools and technologies have become part of our culture. In America, some people use cars to show off their wealth and take pride in the word they put into their cars. Movies like Fast and Furious also promote a culture associated with cars. Although switching to a hybrid can have a positive effect on the environment, it’s impossible to transform the culture over night. One of the reasons Ugandans may not switch over to the new, cleaner stoves is because the traditional stove is a part of their culture. I think that in order to help implement new technology, we should try and apply it to our culture so that it is better adopted.

This Wednesday at Rose Cafe, Professor Blalock lead a discussion on why adopting new technologies, especially in rural Africa, is harder than it may seem to be. He posed an interesting question at the beginning of the discussion: almost everyone agrees that global warming is a problem, emissions by automobiles are contributing to the problem, and that Prius and Teslas can help reduce this impact. But only 3 people in the room drove a Prius or Tesla, so why aren’t we all driving one? (I actually do drive a Prius). Although Prius or Teslas would be ideal, a multitude of factors impede the adoption of efficient technology: financing, fit, opportunity, etc, and change is difficult. The problem of collective action is also a problem: why should any one person adopt a piece of technology that does not fit their needs when others are able to freely choose? And, unless everybody drove a Prius, there would be little change in the state of the environment.

Almost 50% of the world cook over three stone stoves. These stoves color the ceiling above tar black, and use of the stoves is estimated to be equivalent to smoking 4 packs of cigarettes a day! Use of this stove also requires a large amount of wood, contributing to deforestation. I was shocked to learn that 4x as many people die from using this stove (due to subsequent health problems) than from malaria, yet we do not treat cookstoves as a global crisis in the same manner we treat malaria. Despite this, when faced with 2 stoves, one that burned cleanly and the traditional three stone stove, most people from Rwanda’s villages did not choose the healthier, cleanly burning stove- and due to the same reasons why everybody in the US doesn’t own a Prius or Tesla. The unhealthier stove is more convienient, cheaper, and better suited to the needs of the people.

How then, can we encourage the adoption of efficient technology? To encourage the adoption of clean burning stoves, only when focus groups and free trials were offered (applying the same methods US dealers use to sell cars), were they able to convince 40% to adopt the clean burning stove. However, when Professor Blalock went back to Rwanda 5 years later, most had gone back to using the traditional stove. However, we can learn a lot about people and the adoption of new technology from this study. In summary, getting people to change their behavior and adopt new technology is tough, but aligning incentives is the key to behavior change.

On Wednesday, I attended the Rose Café series talk given by House Professor Garrick Blalock. The focus of the discussion was on Professor Blalock’s research in Uganda. He and fellow researchers aimed to discover more on how they could work towards implementing healthier stoves in the homes of Ugandans and other cultural groups who use similar stoves. I attended this talk last year as the semester came to a close, so I was happy to hear the follow-up to Professor Blalock’s work and some of the findings that the research team made within the past year.

In my Human Development class on children’s play, we were recently discussing how difficult it can be to change the practice of giving children certain toys to play with or sitting them down for hours in front of the TV. Once a certain methodology or behavior is ingrained in a culture and becomes the norm, it is very difficult to change, especially if the people have low income and few resources. This was very much at the heart of the points that Professor Blalock raised. He gave a great example of how a majority of people can agree that a Prius is more eco-friendly than the standard model car. Yet, the same majority will most likely own the standard model car. In the US, this is for various reasons – cost, size-efficiency, and design. It is believed that for similar reasons, Ugandans will more likely continue using their three stone stoves over healthier gas ones. They can buy the fuel at little to no cost, and they can adjust the stones to account for quantity of food, temperature, and cooking time. The newly designed gas stoves could cost one to two weeks’ worth of a Ugandan household income.

Professor Blalock’s research shows that there are numerous factors that go into a culture’s willingness to adopt new technology. It does not solely come down to cost. Many times, it also involves function. The psychology behind his research is so interesting. While most Ugandan mothers would agree that they would not want to be shoving a whole pack of cigarettes into the infants’ mouths, they still continued using their three stone stoves. The advertising and propaganda really did not make a difference. Though, this may have just come down to cost and what the families could afford.

I enjoyed speaking to Professor Blalock more about his research and the team’s findings after the café had ended. It revealed to me more about the challenges that come with this area of research. For example, Professor Blalock was trying to come up with an algorithm to account for differences in distances between the heat source and thermometers attached to the three stone stoves. Given the variability in how the stone stoves are set up, this proved to be very difficult.

In thinking about the question of what we can do to improve how technology is used to help the poor, I think that on a broader scale, we can be more cognizant of the psychology and reasoning behind cultural practices. While finances are often a major driving force, we cannot solely aim to alleviate this issue. I like that Professor Blalock and his team’s work is trying to offer a tangible solution. It has been discussed in numerous Café Series how simply making monetary donations does not always have a positive effect. It definitely takes more effort to develop these tangible solutions, but it is a step in the right direction. It is about finding a balance between technology and cultures’ longstanding methodologies.

It has been a year since I’ve had Professor Blalock as my Managerial Economics I professor, and it sure was nostalgic hearing him speak about his attempt at creating an efficient cook stove that underdeveloped African countries would want to use. Anyone would think that it’d be boring to listen to the same lecture given twice, but it was actually pretty enlightening and entertaining. I’m actually glad I got to hear the lecture twice because I was able to pick up on details I wasn’t able to during the first time. And I was also excited to hear about any progress made on the research. It was especially fun because of all the managerial econ terms and ideas he was trying to get people to realize. One of the things I really admire about Professor Blalock is his ability to tell an entire store and navigate you to the message that he’s trying to get across.

One thing I didn’t really remember from the first lecture was the study done on verifying how often the cook stove was used. Professor Blalock mentioned that there were three tests done to verify it: (1) ask them how often they use it, (2) watch them to see how often they use it, and (3) attach a device on the cook stove that counts how many times they’ve used it. I was shocked at the fact that they found out no one was actually using the cook stove, even though it was much more efficient and overall healthier. It could be that they just don’t like change. I’m saddened that there wasn’t any progress done after this discovery, and I really do hope that one day, they will switch out the three-stone stove for something that is more advanced and healthy.

This past week at Rose Scholars, the speaker was house professor Garrick Blalock, and he spoke to us about adopting technology that is better for us.  The talk began by speaking about cars.  Professor Blalock asked us how we felt about saving the environment.  Obviously, all of us thought we should be doing what we could for the environment.  He then asked us how many of us had environmentally friendly cars, to which only three or four people raised their hands.  We then discussed the difficulties involved in getting people to use environmentally friendly cars — cost, appeal, etc.  We discussed how those might be overcome, and then finished by realizing that even with these ways to overcome the issues, not everyone would have environmentally friendly cars.  It came down to the fact that each individual person does not think so much that their individual impact on the environment will matter in the grand scheme of things.

The talk then shifted focus to Africa, where Professor Blalock spent some time doing research.  He told us about how many people use open fire stoves in the tight quarters of their homes, and how damaging this could be.  Children breathing in the smoke constantly is incredibly harmful to them, as well as to their mothers.  Additionally, the mothers have to walk for miles a day to gather firewood, which aids in deforestation.    As part of his work, Professor Blalock helped provide 400 efficient and safe cook stoves for families to use in place of the open fire stoves.  These new stoves would be safer to use and require less fuel — an overall improvement.  However, what Professor Blalock discovered was that at the end of the research, several years later, almost none of the families were still using the cook stoves.

I heard part of this talk last year when Professor Blalock gave it, but I was just as amazed by it this time.  It is shocking how hard it is for people to adopt a new technology, even if it is so much better for them or the environment or the world.  I like to think that when I go out into the world, I will get an environmentally friendly car, because it is better for the environment and the world and my children’s children’s future.  But of course it is equally likely that I will just go the traditional route and just get what is easiest for me as an individual.  Hopefully myself and the others of my generation can do a better job of thinking about others in our choices.

The problem I see, superficially looking at this dilemma, is that there is a cultural incongruence between the researchers on this project and the people that are being prescribed these stoves. There is culture and history behind the ways that they cook their food, perhaps if the team incorporated a design that looks like and functions like the cultural tools that the families use. Of course it is not that easy, there are engineering designs that work and some that don’t. I guess that’s part of solving the problem.

I also think that just bringing in the stoves are not going to be enough to change the culture of the community. There needs to be other efforts; education, legislation, resources.

House Professor Garrick Blalock led an interesting an interesting discussion in the Rose Cafe about the adoption of new technologies and tools in today’s world. He began by asking us about our beliefs regarding global warming and whether human beings contribute immensely to this unfortunate phenomenon. Everyone in the room recognized that human beings play an immense role in causing global warming, yet when asked how many of us actually drive a Prius to be environmentally friendly, only a couple people indicated that they own one. The professor then focused on this seeming discrepancy, and students provided a range of justifications, such as the lack of style and social status associated with driving a Prius and also the fact that an individual’s actions in all likelihood would lead to practically zero difference. He then discussed how one of his research projects was centered around the adoption of new technologies and tools in Africa. Specifically, one incredibly problematic aspect of life in many villages is the use of what as known as a three-stone cook stove, which releases a profuse amount of smoke and thus causes a lot of health and lung problems for humans who operate them. The professor discussed how his team sought to introduce a safer and healthier cooking stove through various means such as demonstrations and various trial periods, but in the end, the adoption and usage rate was close to 0 percent.

I think the discussion definitely revealed that human beings are creatures for whom change can be tremendously difficult. Even if the proposed change seems highly beneficial and reasonable, for one reason or another, we often times do not accept it. In some cases, it could perhaps be a result of the presentation of the proposed change, although the various mechanisms and presentation formats that Professor Blalock and his team utilized to introduce the new cooking stove seem to suggest otherwise. Indeed, I suppose that all human beings possess some type of innate stubbornness that makes accepting change difficult.

The cafe hosted by Professor Garrick delved into a few interesting topics. We started in a some what roundabout way by examining the US car market. We looked at what mechanisms allow people to feel comfortable making such a large purchase. From test drives to access to internet/reference books, there are a multitude of things that provide a consumer the chance to explore his/her options without feeling that they are buying in the dark while insurance and warranty allow the consumer to feel secure in his/her financial investment.

Then we got to see this method applied through Garrick’s research. His project focused on the adoption of cleaner burning stoves in Africa. The current stoves cause issues that result in millions of deaths. Garrick walked us through the challenges they faced, and how they tried to overcome them. Even though they utilized a lot of things learned from the US car market, they were very unsuccessful in getting the native populations to adopt the newer stoves.

Ultimately, this is a reflection of how hard it is to change people’s behaviors. Smoking in the US is not the perfect parallel, but it does have some strikingly similarities. The US government poured countless millions into health initiatives to discourage smoking, and it took decades to have an effect. People were very reluctant to change despite knowing the health risks of smoking. Even now, it is questionable how large an effect those media campaigns had on the older generation, and whether the decrease in smoking is coming from the younger generation.

Garrick and his team didn’t face big tobacco, but they had a myriad of challenges. A more limited budget coupled with cultural differences lead to a very low rate of conversion to new stoves.

Garrick Blalock’s talk gave me a lot to think about. He began by asking a simple string of questions designed to get us to think about what it takes to get people to do something thats good for them. His example for us was driving a Prius. We all know that Prius’s are better for the environment than traditional cars, but few people drive them. We thought about the reasons people had for not driving a Prius. Everything from style to cost was mentioned.

Then we applied these concepts to clean burning stoves. People who have cooked over open fires for their entire lives show some resistance to investing in a cleaner alternative. Some of the reasons might be similar. What seemed to be a major obstacle was convenience. Cleaner alternatives are costly, different, and difficult to get and maintain.

My issue with the conceptualization of this issue started in the first section. Prius are great, and it would be wonderful if more people drove them. They’re not accessible to many people. But whose fault is that? It is certainly not the fault of the working class people who can’t afford them.

One of the questions Blalock asked tried to show the importance of the long term returns on a Prius. He basically lead us to say that if you’re buying a car, the cost difference between a Prius and a regular car can easily be made up for by the money you save in gas. But who is buying new cars? Certainly no one where I grew up. I don’t think I know more than five families from my neighborhood that could have considered buying a new car from a dealership.

So whose fault is it? Its not the fault of working class people. Its not the fault of the people who can’t switch to the cleaner stove either. The entire system is flawed. Targeting the behavior of the people who are struggling is no way to make a change.

I heard Professor Blalock speak about the inability to get people to drive Priuses despite the fact that they are better for the environment and can save money in the long-run. In a similar manner, it was difficult for him to incentivize people to use cooking stoves in East Africa that burned more efficiently and safely. The cooking stoves that people were using were equivalent to “smoking four packs of cigarettes a day,” which was pretty shocking to hear. A team of researchers tried to resolve this problem by attempting to incentivize the use of more efficient cooking stoves in various ways.

One thing that was not emphasized in lecture enough are the social aspects of the problems these two issues present for society. The underlying one being that human nature is to resist change. The reason why it is so difficult to make someone change their cooking stove to a more efficient one is the same reason why my friend still uses Safari instead of google chrome. It is the same reason why I prefer printing out articles that I can just read on my computer. Sometimes, there is a natural preference for each individual, or a preference that a community shares. It may be the case that those cooking stoves have some significant cultural or historical value. As a result, it is difficult to incentivize them enough to change. It would probably take more than a tax on printing paper (or perhaps a subsidy to purchase an e-reader) to discourage me from printing out my lengthy homework.  This is where economics sometimes fails. Incentives in theory work perfectly. In practice there are too many variables that economic models simply do not account for. People do not exist in a perfect vacuum of assumptions that economic theory needs for its models to make accurate predictions (For example, in a market everyone has perfect information – when is this ever true?). Though I should probably think more about the environmental precautions of printing my paper, that is not in my mind when I am worrying about homework. This is not ideal, but as they say, old habits die hard. A combination of reading everything on paper in high school and professors making me print out readings have been reinforcing this habit for years. Undoing this would take a lot of work and patience.

In terms of community outreach, there needs to be a relationship of trust between the people receiving the help and the people giving it out. It’s been suggested that a community should explicitly ask for help before receiving it otherwise the help that is given can be misguided. There is probably  inherently a low amount of trust between the people who are coming into a country that is not theirs to do community outreach and the community. For these reasons, to drop stuff off and tell people about the benefits (that they might not entirely believe), provide a small economic incentive, and then come back four years later and expect everyone to change their every-day behaviors is bound to fail. As I said earlier, changing reinforced habits takes massive amounts of time and patience. If I imagined myself in that scenario I do not know if I would be trusting of the person who is trying to sell me the product, so I would go back to what I know and what is familiar.

On the issue of Priuses, it is incorrect to suggest that people can just “get a loan” and buy one at the snap of their fingers.  There may have been people in the audience for whom it might not be as simple as “just getting a loan.” Low-income people have a hard time getting financial support, and it is probably not on the top of someone’s priority list to get a Prius when they can not afford shoes or enough food to eat in a day. It is easy to sit in a place of privilege and criticize people for not using fuel-efficient cars or other products that are not environmentally friendly, but doing so ignores crucial socioeconomic and institutional factors at play. In an an abstract sense, it is valid to say that people have a consensus when it comes to caring about pressing environmental issues and that there is a problem when it comes to turning those concerns into action. However, to shame everyone for not driving a Prius is, to go back to the Aaron Sachs lecture, the very self-righteousness that turns people off from the environmentalism movement.

At the last Rose Cafe, Professor Garrick Blalock discussed his research on clean cook stoves for use in East Africa and why these more efficient, healthier, and relatively cheap products aren’t being adopted by people who are currently using very primitive methods for cooking. In order to make the issue relatable, Professor Blalock used an ingenious analogy about our use of energy-efficient cars in the U.S. Most of us care about the environment and know that a car such as a Prius or Tesla is a better option in terms of fewer emissions, yet only a small percentage of people actually own such a car. Clearly, there’s a discrepancy between the products available to consumers, and the consumer’s needs and values. This stems from a number of factors, ranging from vehicle affordability, size, range, style, and convenience. But although the products don’t perfectly align with consumer needs, various marketing techniques can be used to increase demand.

Similarly, superior technology is available in East Africa, yet people mostly elect to continue cooking with a three-stone stove that requires time spent collecting fire-wood, yields low efficiency in terms of how much energy is actually used for productive heating, and causes extreme health issues due to the excessive smoke created by this cooking method that accumulates indoors, where people spend hours a day inhaling this harmful byproduct. Initially, it seems shocking that people wouldn’t opt for a better method, but when considered in context, it makes more sense. Just like the Prius, which is objectively the better option, more advanced stoves don’t meet the needs of the people they’re trying to serve. There is no way to adjust the temperature on such a stove, it’s relatively expensive whereas three stones are free, and there’s no warranty or insurance in case the stove malfunctions. Addressing some of these issues using subsidies, trials, and educational campaigns, Professor Blalock tried to increase the use of clean cook stoves. Although initially successful at getting some people to adopt this product, four years later he discovered that essentially no one was still using it. The challenge thus remains relevant and pressing, as every year millions die from respiratory diseases linked to unhealthy cooking and deforestation continues to harm the environment as more fire-wood is collected for primitive stoves.

Professor Garrick surprised me.  He started off his presentation asking how many of us (including our families) owned a Prius or other fuel efficient car and followed up by asking why the majority of us don’t own one if we care about global warming and improving the environment.  Both questions made me upset.  We are college students: most of us don’t have thousands of dollars lying around to give to our parents so they can buy a Prius, nor do we have any right to tell our parents or other family members which car they should buy and drive.  Their priorities are different from our own, and I respect my parents’ decision to drive a minivan and jeep even though it is much less fuel efficient than a Prius.  Secondly, Professor Garrick is speaking from a position of extreme privilege.  His reasoned that families could spend an extra couple of thousand of dollars buying a Prius and the cost would be offset with car loans as well as a Prius’s fuel efficiency.  This simply is not true.  I can buy a great second hand car for under $5,000, and automobile loans can cause you to spend a couple of thousand dollars overpaying for your car as a result of interest.  It is illogical for me to spend $20,000 extra dollars to buy a Prius than a second hand car, and then pay an extra $2,000-3,000 as a result of car loans because it will save me a few cents on filling up my tank.  I understand that driving a more fuel efficient car will reduce my carbon footprint, and I want to leave this world better than when I entered, but the majority of US citizens do not have the funds or resources to be “environmentally conscious”.  Further, these people need a car the most.  They often commute to work, and in order to do that, they often need a car.

If you truly want to make a difference and have the funds, take that $20,000 dollars that you saved from not buying a Prius and donate it to a company that is lobbying to require car manufacturers to produce cars that release fewer harmful emissions.  I doubt that the richest 5% of citizens in the United States buying a Prius will make any significant change on climate.  However, if the richest 5% chose to lobby our government and policy makers to tighten laws controlling the emissions/wastes produced by cars, then we could actually make a tangible change.  Further, this goal is much more realistic than hoping for a sense of justice and conservation to wash through our middle and lower class and cause the people who can’t afford to buy a fuel efficient car to sacrifice and save to purchase one.

Professor Blalock’s talk regarding the challenges of design, implementation, and adoption of new technologies was very interesting and thought-provoking. 

Going into the talk, I thought that many villages in rural Africa were using harmful charcoal, or “three stone” stoves because the residents in these villages were not educated about the health and safety hazards of operating these stoves. Thus, it was extremely interesting to hear that even after the health and environmental hazards caused by these harmful stoves were communicated to the villagers, the villagers still did not change their use of these stoves. 

When engineers designed a new, more efficient, safer, “healthier” stove and introduced it to the villagers in Africa, there was very little to no adoption. Why? Because the villagers were more used to the “three stone” stove and new exactly how to operate it, how to modify it to their convenience. The new, technologically more advanced stove developed by engineers was harder to use, and the villagers did not know how to modify the flame, how to repair it when it broke etc. All in all, the “three stone” stove was just more convenient. 

This talk raised lots of questions and got me thinking. Is there a way engineers can design an easier to use, yet efficient and safer stove by working with the villagers to co-create a new stove? If we include the villagers in the design and production process, would they be more willing to adopt this new technology? By co-creating, engineers can see through the eyes of the villagers, to see their needs, wants, and conveniences, and thus be able to design a better stove that fits the needs of the villagers. 

At this Wednesday’s Rose Café, our very own House Professor, Garrick Blalock, spoke about his time in Uganda. He brought up several of points that I had never connected before, and he essentially summarized the entirety of human behavior in one hour: getting people to change is very hard. He grew a comparison between the popularity of carbon-emitting monsters of vehicles the developed world endorses to the harmful smoking-heavy cook stoves women use in the underdeveloped.

He also brought up the point of collective action and the idea that just one person’s doings won’t change the world. When he talked about this, I couldn’t help but think about the 2016 presidential election. Unfortunately, I know a fair amount of people who choose not take practice their civic duty, because “it won’t change anything”. If there are, for example, 10,000 people who feel the same way, then that unrealized impact is magnified.

It’s the same mentality with global warming. We all know it is real, and we all know we could reduce our carbon footprints, but on an individual basis, “it won’t change anything”. How do we change this mentality?

I wasn’t sure what to expect going to my first Becker Rose Cafe event, but I definitely did not expect us to start a conversation about how you buy a car and why we all don’t have a prius even though we know its a more environmentally friendly car.  But the discussion led to the fact that you can research a new car, and then test drive it and see if its for you.  You also have warranty on the car so that if it stops working due to manufacturers error then you can get a refund.  All these ways are to help people feel safer and more secure about making a massive purchase so that if anything goes wrong you don’t lose all the money you invested.

I thought it was really interesting when we applied all these ideas to selling stoves in Uganda.  Most people use these three stone oven to cook all their foods and the smoke inside their houses are very damaging to the lungs.  In addition to that the stoves they use also only use about 25% of the energy from the heat to cook and the rest is just lost to smoke.  Now you would think that by just telling people this information they would change immediately to something that was better for them but sadly that is not the case.  The most effective way to introduce people to new technology is to implement the same things that the car industry does like financing and risk reduction so that people can make a safe investment.  It’s saddening to know that people still live without some of the basic technologies that are viewed as necessities.

I don’t know what the best thing to do in this situation is but hopefully someone can figure out a way to help people be more open to changes like this to benefit their health and also just make their lives easier.  This was a very thought provoking lecture and it definitely left me with a better appreciation of all the things I take for granted.

Professor Blalock’s talk on barriers to technology adoption in the context of cooking stoves in Africa got me thinking about product adoption more generally. I was able to draw connections to two interesting fields: behavioral economics and design thinking. Having read several books on behavioral economics such as Freakonomics and Thinking Fast and Slow, I was not at all surprised by the observations Professor Blalock reported. He enumerated all the strong, evidence-based reasons that the people in Africa should prefer the new cook stove technology he was trying to get them to adopt. From a rational and objective perspective, there is no doubt that the technology is superior for health and wellbeing than the traditional fire pit method of cooking. However, Professor Blalock and his colleagues observed that even using education and economic incentives, they were not able to change the people’s way of life and get them to make a permanent switch to the technological method.

Since Professor Blalock’s team already tried the economic approach to changing these people’s behavior, I think it would be interesting if they repeated the study using a design thinking methodology where the design of the cook stove is based on empathy for the user right from the beginning. Before deciding what the solution is, or even what the true problem is, design thinking stresses the importance of observing the user and understanding their perspective. Only then can the problem even be framed and can the steps of brainstorming a solution, prototyping, testing, and iterating be completed.

Yesterday our very own house professor-dean Garrick Blalock spoke to us about his work in East Africa regarding the clean cook stove. He spoke to us about  the projects he has implemented to better the lives of the poor in this region be demonstrating various personal pictures that he took as records of the lifestyle and location these people were living in. It was interesting to see how communicating was an issue in terms of explaining to the inhabitants of the area that their way of cooking was causing them more harm in the long run. Once they seemed to get an idea of trying to trying out another person’s invention, the next step was to teach them how to assemble the stove and use it properly. It so happens that after various attempts, and various stoves were given to families for trial purposes, about half of the families had done away with their stoves, leaving them no where to be found.

The irony, or disappointment,  is that the three stone stoves that these families originally used were releasing carbon dioxide in to the air. When cooking is done inside the home, with children playing around the house all day, and this smoke leaving a black tar like residue on the walls were the smoke hits, it makes sense that it would negatively impact their bodies. About 8 million people die each year due to respiratory issues; that is double the amount the die due to malaria. So this invention was supposed to improve the lives of these people who are considered destitute, but it appears that was not the case.

Perhaps the lack of knowledge that these people have in regards to understanding the affects that the toxic air has on them is the reason why they do not attempt to alter their way of life. It could also be that their pride in maintaining their way of life is coming between making a better overall decision. Perhaps a more affective approach would be to personalize the issue by focusing on the relationship between mother and child, or mother and family, and hope the best thing for them would be to implement this new technology. Overall, it was a fabulous lecture, and more importantly it sparked all of the Rose Scholars interests – I would like to believe – in trying to better understand why this is happening.

Last night’s Rose Café focused on the problems associated with three stone stoves and potential solutions to the problem. Currently, about half of the world’s population uses three stone stoves to cook. This method is harmful to both health and the environment because of the smoke that is created during the process.

Even though clean modern cooking devices are being offered to people who use three stone stoves they are not being adopted at a high rate. Substantial discounts also have had not convinced people to use the stoves. As a result, people are sickened by older stoves and use much of their free time gathering wood for fuel.

The current solutions seem to come with too many compromises. Modern stove heat cannot be changed during cooking and once the fuel is consumed the food quickly becomes cold. Even though the new stoves are much cleaner, they may seem like at inferior product to people who have been using three stone stoves for generations. More research and development should be done to produce a cleaner stove that does not compromise on important features.

Until a time when a satisfactory no-compromise product is developed, I think an innovated and novel approach to stimulating adoption may be needed. Maybe encouraging people to use the stoves outside of their homes would go a long way to improving health. Perhaps people could be encouraged to cook food for themselves and their friends at the same time to reduce health and environmental impacts.

Putting myself into the shoes of someone using a three stone stove I would view the new stoves with skepticism. From the view of a native: A foreigner that I have never seen before wants to sell me an expensive stove that does not have the capabilities that I am used to. They say that it is safer, but how would I know? I have been using it for my entire life and I feel healthy.

I think the solution to the problem will come in one of two forms: a low-cost efficient stove that does not compromise on important features or an out-of-the-box idea that helps convince people that the benefits of modern stoves outweigh the lack of features.

I found the Rose Cafe this week quite interesting. House Professor Garrick Blalock gave a talk about technology and its role–or lack thereof–in the lives of underprivileged people in our society. Something I found particularly intriguing was how interactive Professor Blalock made the cafe series. For example, he opened up the discussion by first asking how many of us in the audience owned/drove cars that weren’t electric (most of us raised our hands), then went on to ask if we agreed that greenhouse gases (such as those emitted from our cars) are bad for the planet. Everyone did. “There seems to be a disconnect,” Professor Blalock said then. And he was right: if we all believed that emitting harmful gases into our atmosphere was horrible, then why weren’t we making an effort to reduce our impact on Earth by driving more eco-friendly cars?

Going off of this, Professor Blalock discussed the process that usually goes into buying a car, starting with online research and on-site test drives and ending with signing the contracts and paying for insurance. But what about those individuals who don’t have access to computers or the Internet or a way to get to the car dealership to test drive the car at all? How do they make the best, most informed decision about purchasing the right vehicle, nevertheless a vehicle that will have the least damaging impact possible? By posing this question, Professor Blalock really made me think about how things that we, as individuals from well-to-do families, often take for granted, and how different life could be for other people if they had access to the things that we do, such as certain types of technology.

Further, in my Anthropology of Food and Cuisine class (ANTHR 2450 for anyone interested), we recently read a few articles about the difference in diets between poorer and middle-class families. While the latter usually don’t have to worry about where the next meal will come from, members of the former demographic don’t always have access to the best foods, let alone the most nutritious and sustaining foods. By combining what I’ve heard in both the Rose cafe and in my anthropology class, I want to make it a personal goal of mine to stop taking everything that I am lucky enough to have access to for granted and start thinking more about others.

Last night, I attended the Rose Café where house professor Garrick Blalock presented about the challenges he has faced in getting people in Uganda to adopt new, cleaner, cookstoves which would benefit their own health and the health of the environment.  4 million people die from the smoke created by the traditional three stone cookstoves every year.  So why are people still choosing to continue cooking the traditional way when their health and the health of their children is at stake?

There is no clear answer to this question, but Prof. Blalock and his fellow researchers have been working on this issue, and have found ways to increase adoption of newer cookstoves. However, fours years after introducing the technology to families, 50% of the families no longer had the cookstove and 0% were still using them.  They had reverted back to the traditional three stone cookstoves.

Prof. Blalock used the analogy of buying a car to clarify this problem.  In the US, most people want to make the world a better place and know that driving a car is damaging to the environment.  Most people also understand that driving a Prius is better for the environment, but very few people actually own a Prius. For Ugandans, these newer stoves cost more upfront, even though they save money on fuel in the longterm, just like the Prius. Even when the economic barrier is reduced and people are allowed a free trial and financing, there is no longterm adoption of the technology.

As an engineering student, when I think of the problem of women and children dying from lung damage due to stoves that produce a lot of smoke, I automatically think of designing a cleaner stove and making it available to these people.  However, in this case, a technological solution is not sufficient.  It is not a lack of technology that is the issue, but cultural and economic factors that are preventing adoption of the technology.

Tonight’s Rose Cafe was especially exciting, as we were able to hear from our own House Professor Garrick Blalock. I enjoyed how Professor Blalock began his talk by asking the audience a series of questions, immediately drawing us into the discussion and also setting a tone of self-reflection for the entire cafe. We first discussed how most Americans agree that protecting the environment is important, and that driving a Prius reduces harmful emissions. Why, then, do most Americans not drive this carbon footprint – reducing vehicle? Is it that a Prius is too expensive, or not fashionable enough? Similarly, Ugandans are unlikely to adopt the use of modern stoves, despite their knowledge that doing so would greatly improve their health. Professor Blalock emphasized the concept that a product must fit the needs of the consumer. Just as a Prius is not large enough to fit American families with several children, a modern stove might not be large enough for a Ugandan to cook multiple dishes at once — both the Prius and the stove can thus be considered inconvenient. And though one might jump to the conclusion that Ugandans are reluctant to buy an expensive modern stove, Professor Blalock assured us that the stoves could be payed for in installments of small amounts of money. If Ugandans, then, are both aware of the health benefits of the modern stove, and able to afford this new technology, then it certainly must be the shortcomings of the product that prevents its full adoption? If the stoves and Priuses were larger, would Ugandans and Americans be willing to switch to these products? As Professor Blalock emphasized, in order to create change, we need engineers who design modern technologies to be working alongside sociologists and anthropologists who seek to understand human behavioral patterns. After all, what good is the most breakthrough modern technology if it is not adopted by society?

Today’s Rose Cafe featured our very own House Professor Garrick Blalock and a discussion about the problems that prevent people from adopting a new and useful technology. Although Professor Blalock’s research focused on Africa and stoves, it is interesting that very similar situations take place in both third and first world countries. Here in the United States, for example, we all know that Prius’s will save their drivers money in the long term and help to reduce their carbon footprint, and we all want to save the planet, yet a very small percentage of people own the hybrid automobile. This problem persists even though many barriers to buying a car have been answered with smart solutions, such as offering warranty, financing, insurance, and test drives. Similarly, in Uganda, the majority of the population is preparing food with inefficient stoves that release a large amount of toxic smoke into the air. However, even though more efficient, cleaner-air stoves have been invented, they have not been adopted by the people of Uganda.

Although there are some differences in the two situations that we focused on, the big picture is the same: the action of one person will not make a significant difference (i.e. one person buys a Prius), but if the majority were to change their behavior (i.e. everyone drives a Prius), there would indeed be a big impact. However, based on Professor Blalock’s experience and research in Uganda, economic incentives and solutions, such as a trial period and financing, are not enough to effect a change in the long term. Returning to homes in Uganda with the cleaner, more efficient stoves 4 years later, Prof. Blalock found that 0% still used them. This unfortunate results leads to the thought that perhaps purely economic incentives are not enough to inspire collective action.

Professor Blalock closed his talk Wednesday night with the idea that it does not make slightest difference if new technology is better than old technology if people do not adopt it, and, while that may sound obvious, I think it was the most important takeaway. Professor Blalock explained this idea with the example of his work with trying to implement a new type of stove technology in Uganda. He described how the current method of cooking food using a “3 Stone Fire” has a wide variety of negative side-effects, most significantly that the smoke it produces caused the same effect on the lungs as four packs of cigarettes. In order to solve this problem engineers at the University of Illinois developed a new cooking apparatus that eliminated all the bad smoke from the process. While that sounds the perfect solution, Professor Blalock surprised us all when he said almost all Ugandans would choose the old cooking device when given the choice between the two. The reason for the choice was simply that despite the energy-efficiency and smoke-elimination, the engineered stove had no way to control temperature or enlarge surface area and, above all, had a high upfront cost.

For me this was the point in the discussion where I really took a step back to consider. As a CS major I spend a lot of my time in the realm of computer theory or attempting to optimize the performance of this or that program, and very little time thinking about real software products. I realized then that the point Professor Blalock was making clearly applied to this. No matter how much time I spend perfecting some aspect of a program, it does little good if it’s difficult to use or hard to understand. Also, as Professor Blalock described, there are much more problems than just meeting all the needs of the consumer, including availability, advertising, and price among others. Furthermore, Professor Blalock said that even when considering all these concepts and developing a new stove concept, it was still very difficult to get people to switch from the old stoves. Moving forward, I certainly hope that if I go on to design consumer products I will always keep Professor Blalock’s message in mind and others do as well because I am sure it will lead to better products and more success.

Today the Rose House Dean, Professor Garrick Blalock, gave a discussion that was very interesting. In the beginning of the discussion he asked a series of questions, including:

Do we think that we should leave the planet in a same or better state for future generations?

Do we think that cars emit greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming?

How many of us own a car?

He then led us through a discussion, which included the voluntary carbon market, which is a carbon-credit trade. I had never heard about this concept and decided to further inform myself of this concept. The questions I explored and the answers I found follow:

Where do carbon credits come from?

Carbon credits come from GHG emission reduction projects that deliver measurable reductions in emissions by either replacing the use of dirty fossil fuels with renewable energy; reducing the use of fossil fuels through energy efficiency; or capturing and storing already released carbon in trees and other plants. Professor Garrick Blalock mentioned that capturing and storing already released carbon in trees and other plants is known as carbon sequestration and requires the protection of existing forests or the planting of additional trees and plants. The atmosphere has no national boarders and does not care where GHGs are emitted or prevented. The most important factor in terms of fighting climate change is reducing the total amount of emissions worldwide.

How does carbon offsetting provide a solution to climate change?

Carbon offsetting on its own will not provide a solution to climate change, it will need a multi-layered approach with different schemes working in conjunction. However, carbon offsetting does have a large role to play in the overall approach to carbon management. Reducing emissions internally takes time and money; carbon offsetting is a quick and cost effective way to balance a carbon footprint. At the same time, the emission reduction projects paid for by offsets introduce clean technology and investment into developing countries, helping communities to improve their economy and industry but not at the cost of the environment.

Are carbon credits just permission to pollute?

Carbon credits are not permission to pollute, because even with the clean technology we continue to develop, our society as a whole is going to carry on polluting the atmosphere. It is not possible to not pollute, but one thing we can do is regulate it. Under Emissions Trading Schemes there is a maximum amount of CO2 that countries, or companies, are allowed to release into the air every year. Countries and organisations can buy or sell carbon credits, that is, the allowance to put more carbon into the air, from other countries and organisations. Where one might lose a carbon credit, the other is gaining it. In fact, having carbon credits is believed to help reduce pollution as it encourages companies to continually reduce emissions. Buying obligatory carbon credits is an additional cost to a company, it therefore motivates companies and countries to look for ways to internally reduce the amount of CO2 they emit. Likewise, there is an incentive to pollute less than the allocation as selling the surplus carbon credits is also lucrative.

Tonight I had the eye-opening chance to listen to Garrick Blalock speak about why technology isn’t helping the poor. He started off the presentation by asking the audience if they know that Priuses are better for the environment, if they own a Prius, and if not, why not. When put like that, the answer seems simple: emissions from normal cars are contributing to global warming, but Priuses have lower emissions, so of course everybody should buy a Prius. However, this becomes a more complicated, moral dilemma once you factor in money. Priuses also happen to cost a lot more up front. So even though they ultimately help you save on gas money and save the environment, there is still that initial price hurdle to clear. This symbolizes the larger issue that going green and saving the environment are luxuries that less affluent people can afford. Organic grocery stores like Whole Foods are well known to be exorbitantly priced. Solar panels are more expensive than traditional forms of energy. All electric vehicles – not just the Prius – tend to be in a higher price range. Thus, when people do not live in the most environmentally friendly way possible, this may not be because they are selfish and enjoy their consumerist lifestyle; in fact, they simply cannot afford to live any other way.

When I was thinking about the issue of the expensive Prius, this also brought to mind for me the issue that the rich get richer, while the poor get poorer. The people who are rich enough to afford a Prius are the ones that get to save money on gas. The people who are rich enough to afford tutoring and elite educations are the ones that get to make more money. The people who are rich enough to invest in stocks are the ones that get to earn more dividends. And the list goes on.

With all these things in mind, when Professor Blalock talked about how the type of cook stove that is used in Uganda causes emissions that are harmful to breathe, this made me realize how imperative it is that they start adopting new, healthier cook stoves. And according to Professor Blalock, the new cook stoves aren’t even more expensive, so money is not a factor.

Tonight at the Rose Café, Professor Blalock shared some startling statistics with us from his research on the effects of inefficient cook stoves on low-income Ugandans. While I was aware that the search for firewood could be very taxing on women who had to carry it for long distances, I was not aware that the smoke produced by burning this wood is also dangerous and leads to 4 million deaths every year. Professor Blalock noted that solutions exist in the form of more efficient stoves designed by U.S. universities, however the problem is that most Ugandans choose not to adopt these technologies even after they are educated about their benefits.

Before this lecture I would have found this fact very confusing, but Professor Blalock explained that reluctance to adopt new technologies is present in the United States as well. To illustrate this he asked for a show of hands as to how many people believed the environment was endangered by fuel-inefficient cars and everyone raised their hands. When he asked how many people actually drove fuel-efficient cars like Priuses, however, only four people in the room raised their hands. Professor Blalock then suggested that techniques that have been applied to the car industry could perhaps also be applicable to the problem of stove adoption, for instance offering financing and warranties. Hopefully, some of these strategies will have an impact in the future on this serious problem.

Today our House Dean, Professor Garrick Blalock, gave a talk at the rose cafe.  He started off the talk by pointing out the hypocrisy between our thoughts and actions when it comes to cars and the environment.  He then led us through a discussion explaining why we wouldn’t purchase a environmentally friendly car if we care about the environment.  The arguments against purchasing a environmentally friendly car made sense, but one thing seemed odd to me.  What did a Prius have to do with the claimed topic of the talk, “Barriers to Adoption: Why Technology Isn’t Helping the Poor and What Can We Do About It?”  It wasn’t until he began talking about the village that I realized that the discussion about the cars was to get our minds going and thinking the way it is necessary to think when discussing technology and why choosing the more technologically advanced and healthier/environmentally beneficial option is not always best.  It was sad to hear how the women in these small villages were using a method that was slowly killing them.  When he began to talk about the new, mechanical engineers design, cooking stove, I was surprised at how quickly we were able to determine its impractical nature.  While it would be healthier, it was in no way practical, like the environmentally friendly cars are for some people.