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"In a letter to the agency in December, lawmakers including Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and Representative Don Beyer of Virginia, both Democrats, urged ac
by wankle 4y ago
"In a letter to the agency in December, lawmakers including Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and Representative Don Beyer of Virginia, both Democrats, urged action and called gas-stove emissions a “cumulative burden” on Black, Latino and low-income households that disproportionately experience air pollution. "
Most of my life I've live in homes with gas stoves, I'm white, what does race have to do with it? I'd guess > 90% of the entirety of stoves in Texas are gas.
- throwaway82388 4y agoI’m fairly certain that I’ve yet to visit an upper middle class household without a high end gas range, albeit hooded. Surely this disproportionally affects the foodies and amateur chefs of the world.
- slowmovintarget 4y agoGot to ban it for everyone to be fair.
- nivenkos 4y agoThe Democrats have to bring race-based politics and IdPol in to everything. But I think the bigger issue is whether current users even want to make the switch, since gas is often cheaper than electricity. This slowed down adoption of induction cookers a lot in the UK for example.
- Spivak 4y agoYou have it backwards. The Dems aren’t bringing race into it, they’re framing the issue in a way more likely to garner support from their fellow Democrats and base who care about helping marginalized communities. You see this a lot with Supreme Court cases where the legal teams form their arguments specially to be persuasive to a specific swing judge.
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- willcipriano 4y agoWhat's the term for someone who is motivated by putting things into a racial context? A racist?
- Spivak 4y agoIt's like you tried to find the worst faith interpretation of what I said. A: You have a group of people who, broadly speaking, are motivated to address systemic racial and economic inequality. B: You will have better luck getting someone on-board with your piece of legislation if you frame it in the context of an issue they care about. A + B: Hello senator, this bill I'm proposing about gas ranges will help address systemic racial and economic inequality because... The idea that you think A is talking about a group of racists is quite literally insane.
- willcipriano 4y ago"People are being harmed!" "Yawn, what color are they?" "White." "Oh that's a serious issue then!"
- derekp7 4y agoI grew up cooking on gas stove. The house I'm in now came with an ancient coil electric range (1979 harvest gold color model). I can't wait to redo the kitchen to put back in a gas stove again. I also looked into induction, but only my cast iron skillet would work -- the stainless steel cookware I have apparently is the non-magnetic type (a magnet doesn't stick to them) so they won't work with induction.
- nivenkos 4y agoInduction is great though, just replace the old stuff. It's very fast and so much easier to clean. I wouldn't want to go back to gas really.
- Steltek 4y ago> Induction is great though, just replace the old stuff. Not all "old stuff" has an induction compatible replacement. Induction does not work for everyone, even if you're willing to replace all of your pans.
- slowmovintarget 4y ago"Just replace the old stuff" doesn't work very well when all the manufacturers have outsourced to China, which produces unsafe cookware. Eliminating all non-stick cookware to avoid forever chemicals was hard enough. I'll keep my gas range with real vent hood, thank you.
- xxpor 4y agoAll Clad is made in the US: https://www.all-clad.com/d3-stainless-7-piece-cookware-set.html https://www.all-clad.com/d3-stainless-7-piece-cookware-set.h...
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- spamizbad 4y agoI think the operative word is “cumulative” — there are probably communities where there are other sources of pollution and gas stoves are a layer on top of already bad air quality. With that said, electric alternatives can be a fire hazard in their own right if the home’s electrical is sub-par. I’m guessing any law just tries to phase them out over time but existing ones are grandfathered in (which means low income families will be at the tail end of the adoption curve) Overall a good idea but it’s going to be like de-leading gasoline it’s not going to be some immediate triumph of environmental justice.
- Scoundreller 4y ago> electric alternatives can be a fire hazard in their own right if the home’s electrical is sub-par. I guess it’s possible, but they’re usually on a dedicated circuit and it’s incredibly rare for someone to turn all burners on max and preheat the oven simultaneously, and plug something into the accessory socket. 240V really does solve a lot of problems (and a lot of multi-residential buildings only feed 208V into 240V appliances, effectively derating them). (All of the above is from the North American perspective of course).
- lastofthemojito 4y agoI suppose it's possible to infer that Black and Latino folks in the US tend to be lower-income and thus they tend to live in smaller homes (more inhabitants per sqft) and perhaps thus have worse indoor air quality overall compared to their White or Asian counterparts. But yeah, I still don't think it's necessary to bring race into it. If your science holds up and gas stoves are significantly linked to childhood asthma, you've got a good argument for phasing them out. If the science doesn't hold up, then you don't.
- derekp7 4y agoBut the low income housing is also typically more drafty too, isn't it? So that would lead me to believe that there would be less indoor pollution built up from the range. Unless it is turned on for heating purposes (i.e., boiling a pot of water to get humidity in the air, etc).
- falcolas 4y agoDrafts do not move quickly (or evenly). A "drafty house" could still take an hour or more to exchange all that air.
- IIAOPSW 4y agoI believe the keyword here was "disproportionately". No one is denying that many white people also own gas stoves or for that matter breath exhaust fumes from a nearby highway or have an unfortunate encounter with a police officer or any number of commonplace societal ills. As a corollary, no one is suggesting to apply a fix to non-whites only.
- 2devnull 4y agoHow many low income people can afford Viking ranges? They are ubiquitous in wealthier households, at least those with good taste.
- deepsquirrelnet 4y agoHow many of those have exterior stove vents? Probably a disproportionate number given the installation cost.
- 2devnull 4y agoMaybe exterior vents should be required? Does cooking on electric not impact indoor air quality?
- falcolas 4y agoCompared to burning gas, no. Burning natural gas produces a lot of byproducts of that combustion - many of which are not healthy for humans in concentrations produced by gas burners - which is why it's a problem.
- Someone1234 4y agoIt does. The difference is what they're both contaminating air with. You can improve air quality from cooking food using common PM2.5 filtering (e.g. "fake vent hoods", air purifier, furnace filter, etc). Natural gas, when burned, releases gas/VOC byproducts that PM2.5 filters cannot remove and while Activated Carbon can remove some of it, it doesn't scale well enough to be a solution (just in terms of cost alone, but also in terms of Activated Carbon's lifecycle). I'm all for outdoor vents to be clear, even for electric/induction. I'm just pointing out that natural gas cooking has all the same downsides as any other food cooking does but with a whole host of additional ones that are far harder to mitigate.
- westmeal 4y agoThat sentence made me lose some of my braincells
- yellow9 4y ago[dead]
- tantalor 4y agoThe point is those communities have higher rates of asthma and pollution exposure, and banning gas stoves (might) reduce it, by reducing the risk for everyone. That's easier to do than fix the underlying problem that causes that increased asthma risk.
- UtopiaPunk 4y agoHere's a different article that links to sources to support the claim: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/5/7/21247602/gas-stove-cooking-indoor-air-pollution-health-risks https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/5/7/21247602... ============== Lower-income households are more likely to have more people living in smaller spaces, with less ventilation. That puts them at greater risk of unsafe NO2 exposure, as does the heartbreaking practice among low-income homeowners, uncovered in several studies, of using their gas stoves as a source of heat to supplement weak or broken furnaces. Lower-income, African American, and Hispanic children already suffer asthma at higher rates than the national average, mainly because they are more likely to live near sources of outdoor air pollution (like roads and industrial facilities), which makes them more vulnerable to sources of indoor air pollution. Another 2018 study found that asthma costs the US $82 billion a year in “medical expenses, missed work and school days, and deaths,” all of which fall disproportionately on the most vulnerable.
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