20 ms·

Top reader comment seems apt w/r/t the pollution aspect anyway: As a scientist (an immunologist) who leads a research lab on lung inflammation including asthma

• cperciva 5y ago
  not a scientist. Note the lack of PhD. The lack of a PhD doesn't make someone "not a scientist". Science is what one does, not what one is. I have a doctorate from Oxford, but I'm less of a scientist now than I was as an undergraduate student.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • ekianjo 5y ago
    > Science is what one does, not what one is. yes but someone who has a MBA is definitely NOT a scientist but a salesman.
    • th3iedkid 5y ago
      Wouldn’t it make sense to ask them for citations than use their last/latest educational qualifications? Isn’t it possible, a sales person is aware of something better than someone having an educational degree over it, esp when selling?
    • Throckmorton24 5y ago
      After years of lurking I created an account just to reply to this. While in the context of this article I agree with you - this author clearly has an agenda - the general MBA hate on HN amuses me so I thought I would share my anecdote. Also, Melissa Clark, the author, has a BA and an MFA. Maybe we need to hate on artists doing science? People’s lives take them down many paths. I am a “scientist” insofar as I have done science - and am an author on two publications in a respected journal (Annals of Botany). The research from my MS in Biology continues to get cited in evolutionary biology and population genetics studies years later. I also have an MBA and am a senior sales leader in a cybersecurity scale up (at some point years ago I decided I wanted to make more money than academia could provide and I made a major pivot). I’m still equally comfortable discussing herkogamy and phenotypic integration as I am GTM strategy and compensation models.
      • ekianjo 5y ago
        > the general MBA hate on HN amuses me MBA graduates are by far used in companies in the Marketing and Sales departments, so interpreting my comment about them being salesmen as "hate on MBAs" is quite funny, because that's precisely how the hiring market sees them. Sure, there are scientists who happen to also have MBAs. That's a huge exception, so you won't win points by finding someone who happens to have that profile. MBAs should typically not be trusted to talk about Science because: - unless they happen to have a multiple education background, they have NEVER been exposed to serious science and the scientific method. Blame it on the fact that Science outside of higher studies is badly taught if you'd like. - their education is mostly about how to understand the market and optimize how to exploit it through market research, targeting, and marketing. The second point makes them suspicious from the get go on any topic they touch publicly. Are they acting as naive actors trying to debate or advance one's understand of the subject, or acting as MBAs trying to push a specific agenda for other reasons?
        • Throckmorton24 5y ago
          Lots of assumptions here. I’m not prepared with data on where MBAs end up but far more of my classmates went into finance than went into sales or marketing. Second place is consulting. Sales (not marketing) is a profession where your base income is typically a fraction of your total comp and additional income only comes from results. Many can’t stand that instability / unpredictability. Contrast that with finance which is perceived as “guaranteed money” if you have the quantitative skills, and does not require one to possess a range of non-technical skills / attributes like charisma, public speaking, empathy, relationship building, etc. My MBA program - and most I’m aware of - do not have a class or curricula on sales, specifically. Baylor is fairly renown for being one of few dedicated sales programs. MBA is a broad, not deep degree. Marketing and strategy are significant parts of the curriculum, but no more so than finance, accounting, economics, and HR. The MBA did not teach me how to negotiate contracts with F500 corporate counsel, or how to navigate the complex, varying procurement models across the enterprise space, or how to get a meeting with a CIO who has never heard of me or my company. I see MBAs among sales leadership but it’s definitely the minority among individual reps (even the ones earning seven figures). I would venture to say your view on MBAs is a bit misinformed. I have much criticism and ire to levy against the MBAs of the world, but I would focus it toward those who are financializing every sector of the economy to the point that Verizon doesn’t want to sell me a $500 phone without a credit check and payment plan.
• amluto 5y ago
  Citation needed please for the health effects being bogus. NOx emissions from gas stoves seem to be consistently reported as quite high indeed. For example: https://jacksonlab.stanford.edu/publication/methane-and-nox-emissions-natural-gas-stoves-cooktops-and-ovens-residential-homes https://jacksonlab.stanford.edu/publication/methane-and-nox-...
  • dillondoyle 5y ago
    Also doesn't take into account greenhouse gas/global warming affects on human and global health. (this assumes using more green energy in future to power induction electricity).
    • dehrmann 5y ago
      Natural gas for cooking is a negligible contributor to climate change. 2.8% of natural gas in the US is used for cooking. On a per-BTU basis (which isn't fair because natural gas has fewer carbons), the natural gas/oil split of US consumption is around 40/60. You're looking at around 1% of CO2 emissions in the US coming from natural gas used directly for cooking.
      • stellar678 5y ago
        The thing is "I absolutely must have gas installed in my house for cooking" turns into "well let's buy the gas water heater, and the gas central heating, and the gas dryer" and all of a sudden you're using was more piped-in gas for for non-cooking things than you are for cooking, but "cooking with gas" was the hydrocarbon foot in the door at your house. Otherwise you might opt for an electric tankless water heater, a heat pump HVAC system, and just an electric dryer.
        • dillondoyle 5y ago
          Yes! I've read that the gas industry uses the cooking specifically in advertising and lobying to keep this toehold for the even bigger emissions. [1] And 2-3% isn't nothing either. Such an easy win. we desperately need to rack up easy points yesterday... Relatively as in compared to say utility scale production/storage or hell even replacing home heating like you mention. I wish we could replace our 110 year old giant cast iron steam heater thing. Would have to either replace all the radiators with electric board things (i hate them) or find an electric boiler (which would have to plasma cut apart the old boiler to get it out lol). Heat pumps sound cool too but all those options have upfront costs which some of my hoa neighbors can't afford. We couldn't get a loan for other repairs we did with longer term than 3 years. [1] https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2021/06/how-the-fossil-fuel-industry-convinced-americans-to-love-gas-stoves/ https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2021/06/how-the-foss...
• firecall 5y ago
  Thank you! I'd previously seen reports on the studies about gas stoves being harmful even when off, and wondered about the credibility.
  • oh_sigh 5y ago
    I guess stoves have electric pilots these days, but many installed gas stoves/cooktops have a constantly burning pilot light.
    • worik 5y ago
      ...that goes out
    • kwhitefoot 5y ago
      > many installed gas stoves/cooktops have a constantly burning pilot light. Not for many decades surely. I'm 66 and I haven't used a gas stove that had a pilot light for at least forty years, all have had piezo-electric or mains electric ignition. But then again, I live in Norway now and formerly England not the US.
    • coryrc 5y ago
      In the US, that's forbidden in residential, so I doubt you'll find many in people's homes. They are common in commercial.
• netsharc 5y ago
  The article gets weird a few paragraphs in: people like cooking with gas because it's primal and sensual? Really? Is that the best you can come up with, in an NYT article?
  • galangalalgol 5y ago
    I like cooking with gas because when my power goes out I can use a match to boil water when the boil water orders go into effect because mains keep bursting. Also I can make smores when I don't feel like getting a fire going. I do have an induction plug in hot plate and for actually cooking its really quite good. It boils water faster than all but my 21k btu burner on just 110v, dumps no heat into the room, cools down when I lower the temp as fast as gas, and did I mention it dumps no heat into the room? As far as air quality taking anything above boiling temperatures inside is super bad for your lungs no matter how you do it. The NO isn't nearly as bad as the particulates created by searing or frying.
    • axiolite 5y ago
      > when my power goes out I can use a match to boil water A generator is a small investment to fix this and many other problems, without causing indoor air pollution.
      • mmcgaha 5y ago
        Maybe we have a different opinion on what small is but to run a stove, you will need a whole house generator and the starting point is about $10k and most folks will end up spending twice that.
    • worik 5y ago
      When I put a log burner in my house I choose one with a flat top for this reason. I get your point. But many things that cause electricity to go out (floods, earthquakes... Russian invasion) will put out the gas too
      • 5y ago
• Zenbit_UX 5y ago
  Before anyone reads this and decides, "oh ya the NYT is lying to me and gas is fine", it's not. Gas in your home is objectively bad for your health, the environment and is overall worse than induction when it comes to the cooking experience in just about all ways. That being said, It might not be as bad as living with a smoker (as the NYT asserted) but it is bad for you. The YouTuber Climate Town did an excellent video on gas cooking which exposed some very nasty truths of the gas lobbyists and the negative health effects it has on the population. Citations are in the description: https://youtu.be/hX2aZUav-54 https://youtu.be/hX2aZUav-54
  • primax 5y ago
    In my experience induction is wildly worse than gas for the cooking experience in just about every way. I'm very surprised to see the opposite suggested. It's slower, less flexible, makes some styles of sauce making impossible, and probably worst of all - invisible. Has there been some quantum leap in induction cooking I haven't experienced?
  • DeathArrow 5y ago
    I would rather want to see what reputable scientists have to say than some random youtubers and activists.
    • ekianjo 5y ago
      Reputable scientists from the Lancet published hoaxes not too long ago. You cant trust anyone.
      • acdha 5y ago
        Here’s the difference: bad publications happen but when they’re discovered that leads to retractions and other professional consequences. For example, Andrew Wakefield did get a bad paper into The Lancet but it was retracted and he’s now a former doctor.
      • wolverine876 5y ago
        You can't trust anyone completely, not even one's Mom. But you can trust some people a lot more than others. If I have cancer, I trust my doctor a lot more than random people on Youtube.
• ummonk 5y ago
  As someone who cooks with gas, I have a hard time believing that any dormant emissions from the stove when not in use are more significant than emissions from searing food itself… especially since natural gas has odors added to it to ensure we smell it.
  • throwaway09223 5y ago
    Absolutely. My high heat cooking produces a good deal of particulate emissions and always sets off the kitchen air filter, but it's all from the food in the pan. It has nothing to do with the burner technology. I know this because it doesn't happen when I'm boiling.
    • tomcam 5y ago
      If you’re boiling you have worse problems than particular emissions Sorry, couldn’t resist
  • pengaru 5y ago
    The problem with this thinking is you're referring to a constant factor; you'd be cooking the same foods either way, searing all the same. These effects are cumulative, it's not some threshold you cross where the other negatives are no longer relevant because you do something far worse. It's like people who rationalize eating a pint of ice cream before bed because they had mcdonalds and a beer for lunch already. The appropriate action would be to skip dinner and dessert altogether, but they're doing the opposite due to such wrongheaded thinking. You should really be thinking "hey, my cooking produces a lot of particulates, I wonder if I can clean up the process elsewhere at least"
    • throwaway09223 5y ago
      I think your analogy is missing the scale. In this case, I think it's likely that the equivalent scale would be worrying about eating a tic tac, when lunchtime is beer and burgers.
    • neuralRiot 5y ago
• ksec 5y ago
  So they are lying, again? ( Edit: Apparently not, refers to the context here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30658022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30658022 ) What are normal people suppose to do without expertise on any subject. Not against induction cooking but It is very common for these type of reporting that for induction cooking to succeed they must get rid of every single gas stove. And make gas stove cooking as evil. Start a movement, conjure a trend, make hype.
  • worik 5y ago
    Induction cooking has been around a very long time, competing with gas. What has changed? I am getting one when I get a new stove, but then again I do not have reticulated gas here. My mother had one and it was great
    • dtgriscom 5y ago
      For the others about to Google this: "Reticulated gas is LPG distributed by a network of pipes. These pipes are connected to a storage vessel away from the customers site and multiple customers are serviced from one storage vessel."
  • wutbrodo 5y ago
    > So they are lying, again? What are normal people suppose to do without expertise on any subject. This is unfortunately just how the world is. Epistemology is hard, and there are a ton of people out there who make it harder (Three guesses as to whether the author of this article, or any other crappy prestige-publication journalist, thinks they're lying). It's a scary and confusing world! At some level you just have to internalize that, build the most accurate model that's worth the overhead, and accept that you'll be wrong a lot.
    • golem14 5y ago
      Off-topic, but another area where it seems hard to get good answers is what cooking oil is actually best. E.g., palm oil / coconut oil gets hyped lately, but is it really healthy (in a meaningful way)? Is it gentle on the environment (very likely not). The industries (merchants of doubt) are so active, it's absolutely nontrivial for a well meaning layman not wanting to invest oddles of time to get to good conclusions.
• Module_compile 5y ago
  Just curious, if we are discussing cooking, safety, health and the environment, why did the author not discuss Teflon™ pans and how "unsafe" and damaging this is not only to health but also the environment? If you want to make certain forms of energy "illegal" because of some "lung-irritating pollutants", I mean why not start with the unsustainability and cancer risks of these poly type chemicals, no? Especially ones coming in direct contact with your food, and your water supply (a.k.a Dish Washing?)? Never mind the actual environmental damage of manufacturing chemicals like these?
  • kergonath 5y ago
    > If you want to make certain forms of energy "illegal" because of some "lung-irritating pollutants", I mean why not start with the unsustainability and cancer risks of these poly type chemicals, no? This is a fallacy. Regulations can be improved even without being perfect and your pet peeve not being addressed in a specific discussion does not make the discussion useless. Gas is harmful, as well as some antiadhesive coatings. Saying we should not do anything about either because the other would still be bad is not particularly smart. It is also the contorted logic that lobby groups use when they know they are on the wrong side of a public health issue.
    • Module_compile 5y ago
      This is a fallacy. All materials and compounds are harmful, in certain degrees. Along with gas, anti-adhesive coatings and potentially maybe even some of those glass ceramic compounds those induction cookers use (especially at high heat)? It's a slippery slope. I didn't say we shouldn't do anything about either, but banning natural gases that are found in nature because of "lung-irritating pollutants" is not particularly smart. I'm not in any lobby groups. I care about freedom and energy independence. Some NYT article pushing an agenda of "all electric" and climate change is contorted logic. Put all of your trust in some on-grid electric power utility company where in some cases are not stable(cough cough PG&E), all the while power grids are huge targets for foreign "attacks", and even a solar EMP (Nuclear bomb? Solar flare?) could render all electronics useless. All the while, you make cooking with natural gas illegal? I suppose at that point, we could rub sticks together and cook by a wood fire (since the dawn of Man)? Or that is illegal now too? Uh...Yea, no thanks.
• jonas21 5y ago
  The article is just as bad on the climate aspect. It asserts that cooking with gas "has been shown to be catastrophic for the environment." What's the basis for this assertion? They link to another NYT article that cites a study that says, "annual methane emissions from all gas stoves in U.S. homes have a climate impact comparable to the annual carbon dioxide emissions of 500,000 cars." [1] That might sound like a lot until you realize there are 280 million cars in the U.S. In other words, the total impact of all gas stoves in U.S. homes is equal to 0.18% that of cars. [1] https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04707 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04707
  • joshuajill 5y ago
    Yes, induction cooking is in par with a typical open fire in terms of electric efficiency. https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/06/thermal-efficiency-cooking-stoves.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/06/thermal-efficiency-c...
    • cameronh90 5y ago
      This article is conflating all kinds of things. It says traditional cooking "outperforms" modern but is using a metric that essentially nobody cares about (thermal efficiency). It's just motivated reasoning to argue against electricity. > The main discrepancy with these figures is caused when one doesn't take into account that electricity first needs to be produced in power plants which sometimes convert less than a third of the primary energy into electricity That is, induction stoves are about 90% efficient at converting electricity to useful heat, but your electricity generation may not be depending on where you live. It's the same argument people make against electric cars and heat pumps. As the grid decarbonises, electric cooking will become far more favourable than combustion cooking in terms of CO2 until eventually, hopefully, it is entirely zero emission. Indeed the article doesn't seem to focus on what could have been its strongest argument: wood/biomass already IS carbon neutral, provided it's sustainably farmed. That does, however, exclude the fossil fuels used in production and distribution which may be significant or zero depending on source, but are usually quite low, albeit human resource intensive. If you want to go one layer deep you should aggregate up the carbon output of all the labour going into the production system but I digress. Thermal efficiency only matters if you consider the carbon intensity of the source of the energy. Besides, the major problem with combustion cooking is the particulates anyway, which are immensely better on an electric stove. And the article seems to consider convenience as an irrelevance rather than the primary motivating factor of essentially all technological development.
• trabant00 5y ago
  I wonder who would push anti gas ideas and why. /s My dilemma as I catch more and more propaganda: should we support it as it is our side or should we try to expose it as it is not true?
• ekianjo 5y ago
  > But that doesn't fit the agenda the Times is pushing with multiple induction stove articles lately the NYT has always been agenda driven. even for the iraq war they were spreading the WMD bullshit to lead the US into war.
• Panoramix 5y ago
  This whole comment is simply an appeal to authority fallacy. Could be right or wrong, but it does not support any of their claims with hard data which makes it suspect or low quality. "I have a PhD and I know better" is not a compelling argument.
• chrisseaton 5y ago
  > And Brady Seals is not a scientist. Note the lack of PhD. Why do you think you need a PhD to be a scientist? Many famous scientists, even some distinguished professors, don’t have a PhD. A PhD isn’t even the only type of doctorate!
  • Aeolos 5y ago
    > Many famous scientists, even some distinguished professors, don’t have a PhD Examples? I'm really not aware of anyone, so I'm curious.
    • chrisseaton 5y ago
      Are you in tech? Then an obvious example is Simon Peyton Jones. Full professor, Fellow of the Royal Society, ACM Fellow, Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research. No doctoral degree of any kind. Really think he can't claim to be a scientist?
      • Aeolos 5y ago
        Scientist yes, in the same way that anyone who follows the scientific method can be a scientist. Professor however, no, except as a honorary title. I know exactly zero tenured professors who do not have a PhD.
• eternityforest 5y ago
  Journalism in general seems to be in trouble and people take real problems and add embellishment. I'd still rather not breathe any harmful agents at all though, when better tech exists.
• ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  So, just to be clear, you've copied in a comment from a random anonymous source, highly voted by other random anonymous people. You're not actually an immunologist that posts on HN (which would probably raise people's likelihood of trusting the comment), the message is actually from a random newspaper commenter, who thinks that bad air in NY when you go outside is a good argument for not increasing air quality inside? And that the NY Times has an agenda to promote induction stoves? It's weird that they use their immunologist credentials to specifically attack it being worse than second hand smoke (which doesn't seem particularly controversial) as it seems very commonly accepted that it's bad, which you'd think an immunologist would know. Like if you look up any asthma charity for advice on your child's asthma, they're going to have this in the list of avoidable triggers. Why such venom because a reporter has (though probably hasn't) mildly exaggerated a real threat? https://www.thoracic.org/patients/patient-resources/resources/burning-indoor-fuels.pdf https://www.thoracic.org/patients/patient-resources/resource... > Anything that burns inside the house will create smoke that can damage your lungs. There are many things you can do to help protect you and your family’s health from air pollution inside your home: > Use the cleanest burning fuel you can find and afford. Electricity is the cleanest and does not create any household air pollution