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This regulation feels quite frustrating to me, and several comments in this thread illustrate why. This change is being promoted as a critical step in the figh

This regulation feels quite frustrating to me, and several comments in this thread illustrate why. This change is being promoted as a critical step in the fight against climate change. (See most news articles over the past two years covering this.) But when you dig into the details, it seems like the regulation may not have much effect on climate change at all. When you point this out to advocates, you'll get an entirely different argument, this time about personal health. I don't think the personal health justification stands up to scrutiny, for two reasons: 1. If you buy a home and want it to have a gas stove, why is it the state government's place to say that you can't do so, for your own health? 2. According to research I've seen, vented fume hoods seem to mitigate any health effects; if that's true and a state government really wants to intervene, why not spread awareness or perhaps mandate that newly constructed buildings with gas lines also have venting for fume hoods? (Incidentally, requiring venting for fume hoods would be a nice baseline for New York.) I haven't seen any well-reasoned debate on this topic, possibly because the rationale for the regulation is, in fact, incoherent.

greedo 3y ago
For the same reason that they can say not to use lead paint, or asbestos siding...
- superbaconman 3y ago
  Right but is the particulate matter from burning natural gas any more harmful then the particulate matter from searing protein?
  - toss1 3y ago
    It is not only particulate matter but gaseous combustion products that are the problem, and gas stoves are used for a LOT more than only searing protein, starting with heating tea water. Also, just because searing protein produces bad indoor pollution, doesn't mean that any other pollution should therefore be automatically ignored. It is purely optional whether you want to use your stove to sear protein (e.g., you won't find any vegans using it for that purpose), but you don't really have an option if the only thing installed is a gas stove to heat your tea water or saute your onions...
    - iamdamian 3y ago
      > but you don't really have an option if the only thing installed is a gas stove to heat your tea water or saute your onions... A cheap electric kettle or standalone burner is an option, isn't it? And doesn't the research indicate that fume hoods help regardless?
      - toss1 3y ago
        Sure, if you are into buying extra appliances when you already paid for one. And what about when you want to bake or broil something? & yes, fume hoods do help, with "help" doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. They also need to be turned on to work (not likely every time you heat a pot of tea), and are noisy, and waste even more heat, blowing out cubic meters of already heated/cooled air to exhaust milligrams of pollutants. Always better to never generate the pollutants in the first place. And for the societal-level goals of reducing climate change and improving public health, it is best to do it at a societal scale, not making every individual go and spend resources to redo and workaround the work that has already been done. Far better to just not install the polluting infrastructure in the first place.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Basic chemistry, burning methane cleanly produces water and CO2. Neither is anywhere near as dangerous as lead or asbestos.
  - dschuler 3y ago
    It does produce a little bit of CO and NOx as well, but newer furnaces control the air mixture to keep those pretty low.
  - pathartl 3y ago
    Yes, but natural gas isn't pure methane and CO2 isn't good for the brain. Burning something without a vented hood in a closed space can be incredibly dangerous. Especially if you're talking about high rise apartment buildings where... well... hot gas rises.
    - engineer_22 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - otterley 3y ago
        Can you please make arguments in good faith? You’re being a jerk all over this thread.
        engineer_22 3y ago
        I am only a mirror, you see what is reflected unto you.
  - bhickey 3y ago
    The real world isn't basic chemistry and we shouldn't flippantly pretend it is. Stove gas also contains nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde. In a study of (approximately) all children in asthma, researchers found that stove gas explains 14% of all asthma cases.
  - 3y ago
seanalltogether 3y ago
> But when you dig into the details, it seems like the change may not have much effect on climate change at all. Are you saying that if we got rid of all gas burning appliances in homes, that would not have much effect on climate change?
- iamdamian 3y ago
  > Are you saying that if we got rid of all gas burning appliances in homes, that would not have much effect on climate change? Yes. (Also, I welcome strong evidence to the contrary.)
  - zbrozek 3y ago
    Space heating matters and everything else is basically noise.
  - rlg2161 3y ago
    For the average American, 4 devices in their home - water heaters, furnaces, stoves and gas powered clothes driers - account 95% of residential emissions [1]. Residential energy use accounts for ~20% of US annual carbon emissions [2]. The 2nd figure accounts for carbon footprint of electricity generation used in the home as well as gas combusted in the home. The 4th chart from [1] suggests this is about a 50/50 split (if we bring grid emissions to 0 but don’t exchange these natural gas devices, carbon intensity remains at half of what it is today). Therefore, we can conclude that these 4 appliances in residential properties account for 10% of US carbon footprint. You could potentially make an argument that stoves are not the lions share of those emissions - but even if they only represent 10% of residential building emissions, that’s still 1% of US carbon emissions annually (which is a huge number when expressed in tons of CO2) [1] https://www.rewiringamerica.org/policy/bringing-infrastructure-home-report https://www.rewiringamerica.org/policy/bringing-infrastructu... - Chart 4 [2] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1922205117 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1922205117
    - iamdamian 3y ago
      I appreciate you digging up this information, this is exactly what's been lacking in press coverage of the issue. If you're telling me that fully eliminating gas stoves in the U.S. (something that will not happen in our lifetimes and will come at great political and personal cost) is going to reduce U.S.-specific emissions by just 1%, I think I'm even more convinced that this regulation should not have been passed. What am I missing?
MagicMoonlight 3y ago
1. Because destroying the planet affects everyone and injuring yourself costs everyone else in state spending. We also don’t allow asbestos or releasing poison gas in your garden. 2. Would you consider spreading awareness a suitable solution to knife crime? No? I wonder why.
- stevehawk 3y ago
  i don't follow your argument on #2. i also dont understand why we can't have legislation that says "you can only have a stove cooktop if its properly vented".. In the winter, when i lose electricity, i can run my house on a small amount of power because i have natural gas heat, cooktop, clothes dryer, and two natural gas fireplaces. I'm not particularly interested in giving up that safety or luxury.
  - IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
    this is extremely important to highlight. Monoculture is risky in all domains. Heating is not exempt
  - brewdad 3y ago
    Good thing you won’t have to. No one is talking about forcing you to rip out your gas fireplace. You simply won’t be able to replace it when it breaks down 30 years from now.
    - stevehawk 3y ago
      I'm not sure why you think that makes me feel any better? The problem still exists, you've just kicked the can down the road. I'm also not excited about ripping out walls in a fairly large house just to run 10/3 so i can get a 240v connection to an electric cooktop at some point in the future.
- iamdamian 3y ago
  I haven't seen evidence that this regulation will prevent the planet from being destroyed. Also, personal health is not something that's generally regulated by the government, despite the potential to cause additional state spending.
chongli 3y ago
It’s a lot easier to just ban stuff than to regulate things so they’re done properly. I’m sure if building inspectors did an unannounced tour of 100 random apartment buildings in New York they’d find a list of code violations a mile long.
- dmix 3y ago
  That doesn't make banning suddenly better because regulation/codes are so broken.
  - brewdad 3y ago
    Yes it does. Unless you think reforming regulators will somehow be easier.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      Banning turns enforcement from a "is this gas stove properly vented, when inspected before either are installed" to a "is that a gas hookup for this building? wtf"
      - mercutio2 3y ago
        Every new building already has a raft of inspections. Banning something at construction time has by far the least regulatory impact of any intervention. If anyone was proposing turning off existing methane infrastructure, that would be quite different.
    - dmix 3y ago
      There’s still a 3rd option
jnwatson 3y ago
I don’t buy the climate argument. However, banning gas appliances comes from the same place as banning lead paint. Gas appliances are a major source of indoor pollution. Gas heating leaks pollution inside the home, especially as furnaces age. Plus, many residents don’t own their own property. This helps protect renters.
- iamdamian 3y ago
  Yes, but this regulation targets everyone in the state of New York, not just renters, and the research I've read seems to indicate that fume hoods protect against this indoor pollution.
  - azemetre 3y ago
    I have never seen an actual fume hood in any residential home in my life (close to 800 homes across the South and New England. I have seen plenty of faux hoods that do absolutely nothing. Maybe it's something they only add in luxury homes.
    - iamdamian 3y ago
      These are common in New York and may even be required by residential building code: https://up.codes/viewer/new_york/irc-2018/chapter/15/exhaust-systems#M1503.2.1 https://up.codes/viewer/new_york/irc-2018/chapter/15/exhaust... (Note: I'm a New Yorker but not an expert in building code.)
      - azemetre 3y ago
        ah that makes more sense, like those 15+ story buildings? I should have clarified my comment was in regards to SFH or triple deckers. I would honestly think it would be easier to implement in SFH but I'm guessing it's mostly due to developers cutting costs and that there is no regulation to actually make a viable one.
        3y ago
ahoy 3y ago
I _rent_ a home, as do a full half of new york state residents. I'd love an electric stove. Every rental I've ever lived in has a gas stove and no fume hood. The full half of new yorkers who rent - almost 20 million people - mostly get whatever theirlandlord picked. So when I read posts like this, decrying government overreach, I wonder if you've ever been poor? Have you ever lived here? Do you know what youre talking about at at all? Because the government has never been my problem. It's always a person a few rungs on the economic ladder above me. A boss, a landlord, making my life just a little worse in order to make theirs a little wealthier.
- ravenstine 3y ago
  Uhhh... woe is you? Plenty of non-poor people live with gas stoves, often without fume hoods, and even prefer gas. Not once have I ever felt ill or victimized because I had to cook on gas.
  - crooked-v 3y ago
    I have a nominally expensive home with a gas stove with one of those terrible recirculating hoods, and at absolute best I feel a kind of lingering regret and annoyance about it. It pumps out so much waste heat that I'd be opening the windows while cooking even if I wasn't also mildly concerned about the whole combustion thing.
  - JakeAl 3y ago
    Love my gas stove, won't live without one, and it keeps my home warm in the winter even when the power goes out. Gas is much more cost effective than electric as well. Also lobe my gas water heater for the same reason. Hot baths during blackouts. This whole "gas is bad for the environment" is bunk when fossil fuels are required to generate al that electricity and that doesn't even get to the cost and efficiency of storing it.
    - lostlogin 3y ago
      > This whole "gas is bad for the environment" is bunk when fossil fuels are required to generate al that electricity and that doesn't even get to the cost and efficiency of storing it. Probably depends where you are, as this is very much not the case for everyone.
pipodeclown 3y ago
You gotta start somewhere mate, might as well start with a rule that says, if you're gonna build something new and put a new stove in, might as well make sure it's electric. Really don't see you're point here. So because the impact of a single measure is not that big it means we shouldn't do it? You could apply that reasoning that a shit load of individual measures, what you fail to point out is that all those individual measures add up to a Significant reduction, even if any single one doesn't by itself.
dvzk 3y ago
> When you point this out to advocates, you'll get an entirely different argument This is a very common argumentation tactic, and it usually exposes that the first argument(s) are just a front for our actual axiomatic belief (which hasn't been disclosed). The core principle is often something that we know is much more controversial.
- op00to 3y ago
  You just pointed out that people have multiple reasons for things. Very astute.
paulcole 3y ago
> But when you dig into the details, it seems like the regulation may not have much effect on climate change at all. The truth is that when you dig into the details, nothing is going to have much effect on climate change at all. People alive today with any ability to affect change aren’t bothered enough by climate change to make any meaningful changes.
cassepipe 3y ago
About the argument over climate change : The thing is that although stoves don't represent much not in proportion to total consumption of gas, it acts as foot in the door for the gas industry.
- iamdamian 3y ago
  That's a fine strategy, but practically speaking, if you're looking for a foot in the door, I'd start with something that doesn't anger more than half of your constituency.
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
> But when you dig into the details, it seems like the regulation may not have much effect on climate change at all. When you say "dig into the details", do you mean read some libertarian propaganda funded by fossil fuel interests that can barely acknowledge the existence of climate change and hate every single policy ever proposed to deal with it? We are phasing out fossil fuels. Some, like airplane fuel are hard to phase out, and we're still going to do it. Phasing out gas for cooking and heating is a no brainer.
GuB-42 3y ago
There are actually several reasons. Climate change is one. Induction stove powered by the latest generation of gas plants are actually more efficient than gas stoves. Of course, they can run off renewable or nuclear energy too. For health, it is not great, and not all building are equipped with proper ventilation. And yes, it matters to the government, because even the US government will spend money to keep you alive if you are sick, and in the case of gas stoves, it is not just you, it will impact everyone who lives with you, possibly including your children. And the last one is safety. I don't know the relative fire hazard of electric devices over open flames, but I'd go with the open flame. And sometimes entire buildings blow up because of (sometimes voluntary) gas leaks. All these may be small effects, but they are real. And electric stoves are good now, especially induction. Gas stoves still have a few advantages, but not as much as they once had. I've even seen clever battery powered stoves, the batteries allowing them to have greater burst power than what the electrical installation can supply, they can even be used as a backup power supply. Note that I have a gas stove, and I like it very much. But the reason I have it is that we already had gas. If they banned gas for the entire building, I would have no problem switching to something else (induction).
boplicity 3y ago
> This change is being promoted as a critical step in the fight against climate change. 27 years from now, when we're supposedly going to be "net zero", do we really want to be supporting a bunch of natural gas infrastructure? Or should we start making that expensive infrastructure not necessary? 1. Most homes built now will be around in 27 years, and still in good shape. 2. Building and maintaining natural gas infrastructure to homes is expensive. 3. Gas heating is easily replaced by heat pumps, even in cold climates. It should be difficult to justify any gas heat installs in new homes. (Though, more support should be provided in terms of power redundancy in very cold climates.) 4. It's just not worth it to support gas infrastructure just for gas stoves. If you look at the big picture, and the medium to long term is just doesn't make sense to build out gas-dependent housing. And it really doesn't make sense to build out all of that infrastructure just for gas stoves.
- poslathian 3y ago
  Why is this downvoted? This whole thread is scratching it head as to the “real reason” behind this. Here you go. Infrastructure is way too expensive to maintain for stuff you don’t really need.
- matwood 3y ago
  > 4. It's just not worth it to support gas infrastructure just for gas stoves. My oven/cooktop is gas, along with my on-demand hot water heater, and fire place. I also have a connection outside that I use for my grill. I think my heatpump has gas backup for when it's really cold. Gas powers a lot more than just stoves.
  - fundad 3y ago
    Gas won your business and government picked gas as the winner. Government didn’t run a gas line to my home.
- bombcar 3y ago
  I'm sure we can find cities/new developments where gas lines were not run, but have we examples where existing infrastructure was finally shut down?
jutrewag 3y ago
> But when you dig into the details, it seems like the regulation may not have much effect on climate change at all. So you’re going to handwave away the justification for the main crux of your argument.
- iamdamian 3y ago
  When I say "dig into the details", I mean "look for evidence". I looked for evidence that this would have a substantial effect on the climate and was unable to find any. In fact, the most anyone has come up with in this thread is the number 0.0028 (or about 0.3%): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35757522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35757522 If you have more compelling data, please share it.
  - jutrewag 3y ago
    [dead]
nullc 3y ago
Great comment but a point you missed is that the cooking itself produces the vast majority of the indoor air pollution. It would be reasonable to start using building code to push for real venting of ranges gas AND electric, ... of course once you've done that then the gas indoor air quality issue is moot.
anonu 3y ago
> venting for fume hoods would be a nice baseline for New York. Yes! This would probably raise the air quality in buildings in general. I've seen studies showing that air quality has a direct correlation to test scores in school buildings. Imagine the benefits across a large city like NYC...
simplotek 3y ago
> If you buy a home and want it to have a gas stove, why is it the state government's place to say that you can't do so, for your own health? This is the wrong question to be made. You should ask what should be the safety standards you need to adhere to ensure health risks are mitigated. The reason why this sort of thing must at all times be regulated, without any exception, is that the personal interest of a corporation investing in real estate by selling it off right away are not aligned with the interests of those who actually have to be exposed to the health risks created by said corporation. To put it more broadly, just because you are ok with your home causing health problems to its occupants, that doesn't grant you the right to subject everyone around you to them, or even whoever will live in that house after you live. To make it clear, let's consider doors. You might feel you have no use for a wide corridor and you're ok with custom narrow, submarine like doorways. Except that a wheelchair or a stretcher can't go through. Therefore thanks to your shortsighted and ignorant "why should the government tell me how to be safe" point of view, you needlessly screw over your future self and/or everyone that may possibly live there. Regulation is not a conspiracy. Regulation reflects hard lessons learned with pain and suffering, and ensures that easily avoidable problems can be avoided easily. We learned lessons from fires and mobility constraints, and thus we have regulation ensuring each and every utility in your home is safe. Instead of having to reinvent the wheel each time anyone needs to build something, we only need to check what's the regulation and what are the constraints. Air quality is starting to be noticed as a major health problem, specially with higher occupation densities, and thus we have safety lessons that need to be learned to avoid these issues. And no clueless naive spur of the moment bootstrappy individual has a clue about them. Hence the need to impose regulation, because these arrogant morons think they know best when they know nothing. I mean, does it make sense to risk our health just because an amateur didn't even wanted to bother doing his homework?
- goodluckchuck 3y ago
  First, obviously regulation is a conspiracy. It will is a coordinated activity by multiple individuals. Second, none of this is an argument to ban natural gas appliances. what is the harm? Is the harm acceptable? Should a person be allowed to except the harm? Can the harm be mitigated by education or change in behavior? And who has the jurisdiction to implement these regulations even if natural gas stoves are in unreasonably dangerous to the occupants who are you to tell me that I can’t do that to myself?
elif 3y ago
I hooked up my house with indoor air quality monitoring during covid to keep track of CO2 levels as a representation of ventilation levels. There have been many unintended consequences to what this experience taught me including dehumidifiers, indoor plants, air filters, ventilation schedules, and yes, eliminating natural gas. NO2, CO2, CO, PM2.5, and VOC would go up to unhealthy levels even with a hood vent and windows open. It would persist for hours even if I opened 5-6 windows, and would permeate the entire house even though I use a Japanese door hanger to keep air in the kitchen isolated. There was simply no choice other than to go electric. As an aside, i switched from a high end $3k American gas stove to a $80 Japanese induction unit and $500 Toshiba steam/convection oven with automatic recipes and infrared sensors and my control over cooking and cooking speed have both been so much better.
- danny_codes 3y ago
  Induction stoves use less energy, have no emissions, are safer, and cook Better than gas. The gas lobby has been working for decades to trick Americans into thinking gas is somehow better. Idk how these people sleep at night knowing they are unnecessarily subjecting people to greater expense, greater pollution, and an inferior cooking experience. But maybe most gas company employees drank the koolaide
Aloha 3y ago
I'm one of those people who weirdly likes resistive electric cooktops - but yeah, I 100% agree with you. I'd rather people install heat pumps in new construction, and I'd agree that you should discourage use of natural gas for heating, I think there are ways to do that with market incentives, not by bans.
slashdev 3y ago
Banning gas for heating has a reasonable climate change argument. In Vancouver heating systems in new buildings will have to be zero emission soon. That makes some sense at least. Banning it for cooking seems to be another case of focusing on things that don’t move the needle. Meanwhile coal power plants continue to operate. There are less than 2500 major coal power plants worldwide. Why don’t we band together, mass produce 2500 nuclear plants that are at least as large, and make an actual difference. Yeah there’s lots of details there about fuel, construction and engineering, proliferation, etc. But that is all solvable with current technology. No leap of faith required, just the will, the money, and execution. Yet nobody seems to talk about real solutions and we’re content to focus on stupidly useless things instead. I find it frustrating. Are we really in a crises? If yes, then fucking act like it and let’s see some ambitious solutions. In the movies and books you see something threaten the survival of the human race and the whole world comes together and engineers something impossibly amazing to save the world. I think in reality we’d argue about plastic straws, or who pays for it, or gas stoves until the apocalypse kills the species too dumb to save itself.
- lenkite 3y ago
  [flagged]
- junofan 3y ago
  [flagged]
- NeverFade 3y ago
  > Why don’t we band together, mass produce 2500 nuclear plants that are at least as large, and make an actual difference. Because the same climate activists who keep harping on the "climate crisis" and successfully push policies like in OP, are also irrationally opposed to nuclear energy. Since these folks are calling the shots, we're heading into an energy crisis in which: 1. More and more demand is placed on our power grid due to moves like banning natural gas for heating. 2. This same power grid is rendered less and less capable and reliable due to being increasingly based on unreliable energy sources like wind and solar.
  - 3y ago
kerkeslager 3y ago
> But when you dig into the details, it seems like the regulation may not have much effect on climate change at all. [Citation needed]
- iamdamian 3y ago
  The issue is that I’ve been unable to find any convincing data showing that this will have meaningful impact relative to its cost. This thread has a relevant discussion and citations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35758192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35758192
  - kerkeslager 3y ago
    So using your "evidence" which is another citationless Hacker News post: > Agreed that 1% of the United States' 28% of global CO2 emissions is negligible in the grand global scheme. This is incredibly ignorant of the "death by 1000 cuts" issue of climate change. 1% or 28% of global CO2 emissions, if this statistic is even true, is huge. Very few climate change interventions are this effective. The more effective climate change interventions include strict supersets of this, like "banning all new fossil fuel construction", which, if implemented in the US, still only gets you a few percentage points on the larger problem, and would get much greater pushback from people who don't care about climate change and will always cite government overreach for any regulation. What do you think would be a non-negligible difference? Do you even believe in human-caused climate change? I'll be happy to provide more, real citations, but it's hard to tell what level of burden of proof I should be taking on if I don't know what you think I need to prove.
    - iamdamian 3y ago
      > 1% or 28% of global CO2 emissions, if this statistic is even true, is huge. 1% of 28%. If we trust that number, that means that the best we can hope for from this change is 0.0028 (0.3%, rounding up) of global emissions. That number is a ceiling: it assumes that not only do new buildings not have gas stoves, but that all old gas stoves in the United States are removed as well. This negligible (IMO) improvement comes at the cost of 1) being vulnerable during power outages, 2) having a far worse cooking experience on a daily basis, according to many, and 3) generating significant political backlash that will hinder changes that will actually make a difference. One of my favorite climate change books is How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, by Bill Gates, in which he outlines where the biggest opportunities lie. His approach seems far more practical and likely to make a dent in the problem.
fundad 3y ago
Government picked fossil fuels and the winner for decades. The subsidies, infrastructure and regulations favorable to selling fossil gas and fossil auto fuels (and heating oil) was structurally important to government earlier. Now it’s less important than saving money and improving the electric grid.
animitronix 3y ago
It's only about personal health from the emissions in your house, anyone that tells you otherwise is a liar. Natural gas has been billed as a cleanen alternative for decades.
carabiner 3y ago
1. Numerous regulations dictate safe home building. You can't legally build a home with faulty wiring. We accept these rules as part of a society, unless you are libertarian / sob citizen bent, which it sounds like you are. 2. Gas stoves leak when turned off. These leaks equaled 76% of their total methane gas emissions. These are pollutants that are harmful to humans and the atmosphere. Many fume hoods just recirculate air into the living space.
- iamdamian 3y ago
  I mentioned above that I would love to see true fume hoods required for new buildings, as a regulation. I'm not libertarian or even conservative and am surprised at an ad-hominem attack like this.
michael_vo 3y ago
It's not just your own health though. Kids can develop asthma partially due to gas stoves and the toxic fumes that stay in the apartment for hours/days after. Some studies estimate 1/8 of all asthma cases for kids is due to gas stoves in USA. I don't see this policy as having much of an effect against climate change but it is another step in making people aware of climate issues. Congress does not have the ability - right now - to ban cow meat or eating fish, but this would be a much better policy to aim for.
danny_codes 3y ago
1. Gas stoves emit CO2 and likely Methane due to leaks. In fact, methane (natural gas is just methane) is a very potent greenhouse gas and the methane industry leaks a significant percent every year. So having lots of gas infrastructure basically guarantees a bunch of methane will leak into the atmosphere. I doubt the stove-only emissions are an appreciable percent of global emissions, but I'll take a 2% reduction. However, there is a follow on effect. Each utility we transition off of direct fossil fuels results in economiesof scale moving away from fossil fuel to electricity (and hopefully clean power generation). So in the medium-term the effect could be multiplied. 2. Burning methane in your house is going to cause some pollution. Methane isn't pure, so other stuff is likely getting burned too. I mean, just logically lighting a fire in your house is probably not going to be good for your health in general. As for "should we regulate this". It depends on perspective. The gas lobby has worked hard and spent a lot of money to trick people like you into to thinking gas stoves can compete with induction ranges. They cannot. Induction ranges are cheaper, more energy efficient, safer, and healthier than gas stoves. Installing a gas stove in 2023 is using an inferior technology either because of ignorance or Nostalgia. Now, you could argue that it's the right of each citizen to choose to make bad decisions. In this case, however, that bad decision perpetuates an unsustainable energy apparatus. So I would argue the public good outweighs the homeowner's (or more likely, corporate landlord's) ability to make bad decisions.
browningstreet 3y ago
How things are discussed and reported in media may not have a direct correlation to how that thing is. If people want the natural gas debate to be about climate change but it’s really about personal health and a city’s right to govern risk in that place, that itself doesn’t change because other people are saying, or blogging, “climate change” for this given thing.
Aerbil313 3y ago
Climate change is unmitigatable at this point. It's an irreversible exponential function with many positive feedback loops. Even IPCC is lobbied by governments to make it seem less severe than it is [1]. Human population has overshot [2] in 1971, now we'll see the consequences. Brace for the biggest famine history has ever seen, it is coming fast (most definitely before 2030). [1] https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2021/10/21/leaked-climate-lobbying-ipcc-glasgow/ https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2021/10/21/leaked-climate-l... [2] https://medium.com/@CollapseSurvival/overshoot-why-its-already-too-late-to-save-civilization-e834cb4ec694 https://medium.com/@CollapseSurvival/overshoot-why-its-alrea...
Tiktaalik 3y ago
> But when you dig into the details, it seems like the regulation may not have much effect on climate change at all. When Vancouver banned natural gas hookups in new buildings in 2022 the justification was that they pointed to the fact that 54% of CO2 emissions in the city came from home heating. The next biggest source was transportation, I think 39%ish. It's a clear reasonable move, as just like when you're trying to improve performance of a computer program, you start with the biggest numbers and see if you can make it smaller. Presumably other cities in areas that use natural gas for home heating as much as Vancouver are also seeing home heating be a very large percentage of their CO2 emissions. If we can trivially, simply through some minor regulations cut over time the emissions of every city in NA by 50% that's clearly a massive improvement and well worth doing? If this is not worth doing in an effort to tackle the climate change problem I do not know what is. To me this feels like one of the easiest low hanging fruit things we can do there is.
Deeedioo 3y ago
And venting those fumes into the city is okay? Oo
banannaise 3y ago
Those two reasons fall victim to the fact that a lot of homes are owned by landlords, who have a very long history of creating setups that are unsafe for their tenants, whether immediately or over time through failure to maintain the property. Regulating ventilation is far less effective than simply making ventilation no longer an issue (by disallowing gas stoves in the first place).

greedo 3y ago

For the same reason that they can say not to use lead paint, or asbestos siding...

superbaconman 3y ago
Right but is the particulate matter from burning natural gas any more harmful then the particulate matter from searing protein?
- toss1 3y ago
  It is not only particulate matter but gaseous combustion products that are the problem, and gas stoves are used for a LOT more than only searing protein, starting with heating tea water. Also, just because searing protein produces bad indoor pollution, doesn't mean that any other pollution should therefore be automatically ignored. It is purely optional whether you want to use your stove to sear protein (e.g., you won't find any vegans using it for that purpose), but you don't really have an option if the only thing installed is a gas stove to heat your tea water or saute your onions...
  - iamdamian 3y ago
    > but you don't really have an option if the only thing installed is a gas stove to heat your tea water or saute your onions... A cheap electric kettle or standalone burner is an option, isn't it? And doesn't the research indicate that fume hoods help regardless?
    - toss1 3y ago
      Sure, if you are into buying extra appliances when you already paid for one. And what about when you want to bake or broil something? & yes, fume hoods do help, with "help" doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. They also need to be turned on to work (not likely every time you heat a pot of tea), and are noisy, and waste even more heat, blowing out cubic meters of already heated/cooled air to exhaust milligrams of pollutants. Always better to never generate the pollutants in the first place. And for the societal-level goals of reducing climate change and improving public health, it is best to do it at a societal scale, not making every individual go and spend resources to redo and workaround the work that has already been done. Far better to just not install the polluting infrastructure in the first place.
SoftTalker 3y ago
Basic chemistry, burning methane cleanly produces water and CO2. Neither is anywhere near as dangerous as lead or asbestos.
- dschuler 3y ago
  It does produce a little bit of CO and NOx as well, but newer furnaces control the air mixture to keep those pretty low.
- pathartl 3y ago
  Yes, but natural gas isn't pure methane and CO2 isn't good for the brain. Burning something without a vented hood in a closed space can be incredibly dangerous. Especially if you're talking about high rise apartment buildings where... well... hot gas rises.
  - engineer_22 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - otterley 3y ago
      Can you please make arguments in good faith? You’re being a jerk all over this thread.
      - engineer_22 3y ago
        I am only a mirror, you see what is reflected unto you.
- bhickey 3y ago
  The real world isn't basic chemistry and we shouldn't flippantly pretend it is. Stove gas also contains nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde. In a study of (approximately) all children in asthma, researchers found that stove gas explains 14% of all asthma cases.
- 3y ago

seanalltogether 3y ago

> But when you dig into the details, it seems like the change may not have much effect on climate change at all. Are you saying that if we got rid of all gas burning appliances in homes, that would not have much effect on climate change?

iamdamian 3y ago
> Are you saying that if we got rid of all gas burning appliances in homes, that would not have much effect on climate change? Yes. (Also, I welcome strong evidence to the contrary.)
- zbrozek 3y ago
  Space heating matters and everything else is basically noise.
- rlg2161 3y ago
  For the average American, 4 devices in their home - water heaters, furnaces, stoves and gas powered clothes driers - account 95% of residential emissions [1]. Residential energy use accounts for ~20% of US annual carbon emissions [2]. The 2nd figure accounts for carbon footprint of electricity generation used in the home as well as gas combusted in the home. The 4th chart from [1] suggests this is about a 50/50 split (if we bring grid emissions to 0 but don’t exchange these natural gas devices, carbon intensity remains at half of what it is today). Therefore, we can conclude that these 4 appliances in residential properties account for 10% of US carbon footprint. You could potentially make an argument that stoves are not the lions share of those emissions - but even if they only represent 10% of residential building emissions, that’s still 1% of US carbon emissions annually (which is a huge number when expressed in tons of CO2) [1] https://www.rewiringamerica.org/policy/bringing-infrastructure-home-report https://www.rewiringamerica.org/policy/bringing-infrastructu... - Chart 4 [2] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1922205117 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1922205117
  - iamdamian 3y ago
    I appreciate you digging up this information, this is exactly what's been lacking in press coverage of the issue. If you're telling me that fully eliminating gas stoves in the U.S. (something that will not happen in our lifetimes and will come at great political and personal cost) is going to reduce U.S.-specific emissions by just 1%, I think I'm even more convinced that this regulation should not have been passed. What am I missing?

MagicMoonlight 3y ago

1. Because destroying the planet affects everyone and injuring yourself costs everyone else in state spending. We also don’t allow asbestos or releasing poison gas in your garden. 2. Would you consider spreading awareness a suitable solution to knife crime? No? I wonder why.

stevehawk 3y ago
i don't follow your argument on #2. i also dont understand why we can't have legislation that says "you can only have a stove cooktop if its properly vented".. In the winter, when i lose electricity, i can run my house on a small amount of power because i have natural gas heat, cooktop, clothes dryer, and two natural gas fireplaces. I'm not particularly interested in giving up that safety or luxury.
- IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
  this is extremely important to highlight. Monoculture is risky in all domains. Heating is not exempt
- brewdad 3y ago
  Good thing you won’t have to. No one is talking about forcing you to rip out your gas fireplace. You simply won’t be able to replace it when it breaks down 30 years from now.
  - stevehawk 3y ago
    I'm not sure why you think that makes me feel any better? The problem still exists, you've just kicked the can down the road. I'm also not excited about ripping out walls in a fairly large house just to run 10/3 so i can get a 240v connection to an electric cooktop at some point in the future.
iamdamian 3y ago
I haven't seen evidence that this regulation will prevent the planet from being destroyed. Also, personal health is not something that's generally regulated by the government, despite the potential to cause additional state spending.

chongli 3y ago

It’s a lot easier to just ban stuff than to regulate things so they’re done properly. I’m sure if building inspectors did an unannounced tour of 100 random apartment buildings in New York they’d find a list of code violations a mile long.

dmix 3y ago
That doesn't make banning suddenly better because regulation/codes are so broken.
- brewdad 3y ago
  Yes it does. Unless you think reforming regulators will somehow be easier.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Banning turns enforcement from a "is this gas stove properly vented, when inspected before either are installed" to a "is that a gas hookup for this building? wtf"
    - mercutio2 3y ago
      Every new building already has a raft of inspections. Banning something at construction time has by far the least regulatory impact of any intervention. If anyone was proposing turning off existing methane infrastructure, that would be quite different.
  - dmix 3y ago
    There’s still a 3rd option

jnwatson 3y ago

I don’t buy the climate argument. However, banning gas appliances comes from the same place as banning lead paint. Gas appliances are a major source of indoor pollution. Gas heating leaks pollution inside the home, especially as furnaces age. Plus, many residents don’t own their own property. This helps protect renters.

iamdamian 3y ago
Yes, but this regulation targets everyone in the state of New York, not just renters, and the research I've read seems to indicate that fume hoods protect against this indoor pollution.
- azemetre 3y ago
  I have never seen an actual fume hood in any residential home in my life (close to 800 homes across the South and New England. I have seen plenty of faux hoods that do absolutely nothing. Maybe it's something they only add in luxury homes.
  - iamdamian 3y ago
    These are common in New York and may even be required by residential building code: https://up.codes/viewer/new_york/irc-2018/chapter/15/exhaust-systems#M1503.2.1 https://up.codes/viewer/new_york/irc-2018/chapter/15/exhaust... (Note: I'm a New Yorker but not an expert in building code.)
    - azemetre 3y ago
      ah that makes more sense, like those 15+ story buildings? I should have clarified my comment was in regards to SFH or triple deckers. I would honestly think it would be easier to implement in SFH but I'm guessing it's mostly due to developers cutting costs and that there is no regulation to actually make a viable one.
      - 3y ago

ahoy 3y ago

I _rent_ a home, as do a full half of new york state residents. I'd love an electric stove. Every rental I've ever lived in has a gas stove and no fume hood. The full half of new yorkers who rent - almost 20 million people - mostly get whatever theirlandlord picked. So when I read posts like this, decrying government overreach, I wonder if you've ever been poor? Have you ever lived here? Do you know what youre talking about at at all? Because the government has never been my problem. It's always a person a few rungs on the economic ladder above me. A boss, a landlord, making my life just a little worse in order to make theirs a little wealthier.

ravenstine 3y ago
Uhhh... woe is you? Plenty of non-poor people live with gas stoves, often without fume hoods, and even prefer gas. Not once have I ever felt ill or victimized because I had to cook on gas.
- crooked-v 3y ago
  I have a nominally expensive home with a gas stove with one of those terrible recirculating hoods, and at absolute best I feel a kind of lingering regret and annoyance about it. It pumps out so much waste heat that I'd be opening the windows while cooking even if I wasn't also mildly concerned about the whole combustion thing.
- JakeAl 3y ago
  Love my gas stove, won't live without one, and it keeps my home warm in the winter even when the power goes out. Gas is much more cost effective than electric as well. Also lobe my gas water heater for the same reason. Hot baths during blackouts. This whole "gas is bad for the environment" is bunk when fossil fuels are required to generate al that electricity and that doesn't even get to the cost and efficiency of storing it.
  - lostlogin 3y ago
    > This whole "gas is bad for the environment" is bunk when fossil fuels are required to generate al that electricity and that doesn't even get to the cost and efficiency of storing it. Probably depends where you are, as this is very much not the case for everyone.

pipodeclown 3y ago

You gotta start somewhere mate, might as well start with a rule that says, if you're gonna build something new and put a new stove in, might as well make sure it's electric. Really don't see you're point here. So because the impact of a single measure is not that big it means we shouldn't do it? You could apply that reasoning that a shit load of individual measures, what you fail to point out is that all those individual measures add up to a Significant reduction, even if any single one doesn't by itself.

dvzk 3y ago

> When you point this out to advocates, you'll get an entirely different argument This is a very common argumentation tactic, and it usually exposes that the first argument(s) are just a front for our actual axiomatic belief (which hasn't been disclosed). The core principle is often something that we know is much more controversial.

op00to 3y ago
You just pointed out that people have multiple reasons for things. Very astute.

paulcole 3y ago

> But when you dig into the details, it seems like the regulation may not have much effect on climate change at all. The truth is that when you dig into the details, nothing is going to have much effect on climate change at all. People alive today with any ability to affect change aren’t bothered enough by climate change to make any meaningful changes.

cassepipe 3y ago

About the argument over climate change : The thing is that although stoves don't represent much not in proportion to total consumption of gas, it acts as foot in the door for the gas industry.

iamdamian 3y ago
That's a fine strategy, but practically speaking, if you're looking for a foot in the door, I'd start with something that doesn't anger more than half of your constituency.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

> But when you dig into the details, it seems like the regulation may not have much effect on climate change at all. When you say "dig into the details", do you mean read some libertarian propaganda funded by fossil fuel interests that can barely acknowledge the existence of climate change and hate every single policy ever proposed to deal with it? We are phasing out fossil fuels. Some, like airplane fuel are hard to phase out, and we're still going to do it. Phasing out gas for cooking and heating is a no brainer.

GuB-42 3y ago

There are actually several reasons. Climate change is one. Induction stove powered by the latest generation of gas plants are actually more efficient than gas stoves. Of course, they can run off renewable or nuclear energy too. For health, it is not great, and not all building are equipped with proper ventilation. And yes, it matters to the government, because even the US government will spend money to keep you alive if you are sick, and in the case of gas stoves, it is not just you, it will impact everyone who lives with you, possibly including your children. And the last one is safety. I don't know the relative fire hazard of electric devices over open flames, but I'd go with the open flame. And sometimes entire buildings blow up because of (sometimes voluntary) gas leaks. All these may be small effects, but they are real. And electric stoves are good now, especially induction. Gas stoves still have a few advantages, but not as much as they once had. I've even seen clever battery powered stoves, the batteries allowing them to have greater burst power than what the electrical installation can supply, they can even be used as a backup power supply. Note that I have a gas stove, and I like it very much. But the reason I have it is that we already had gas. If they banned gas for the entire building, I would have no problem switching to something else (induction).

boplicity 3y ago

> This change is being promoted as a critical step in the fight against climate change. 27 years from now, when we're supposedly going to be "net zero", do we really want to be supporting a bunch of natural gas infrastructure? Or should we start making that expensive infrastructure not necessary? 1. Most homes built now will be around in 27 years, and still in good shape. 2. Building and maintaining natural gas infrastructure to homes is expensive. 3. Gas heating is easily replaced by heat pumps, even in cold climates. It should be difficult to justify any gas heat installs in new homes. (Though, more support should be provided in terms of power redundancy in very cold climates.) 4. It's just not worth it to support gas infrastructure just for gas stoves. If you look at the big picture, and the medium to long term is just doesn't make sense to build out gas-dependent housing. And it really doesn't make sense to build out all of that infrastructure just for gas stoves.

poslathian 3y ago
Why is this downvoted? This whole thread is scratching it head as to the “real reason” behind this. Here you go. Infrastructure is way too expensive to maintain for stuff you don’t really need.
matwood 3y ago
> 4. It's just not worth it to support gas infrastructure just for gas stoves. My oven/cooktop is gas, along with my on-demand hot water heater, and fire place. I also have a connection outside that I use for my grill. I think my heatpump has gas backup for when it's really cold. Gas powers a lot more than just stoves.
- fundad 3y ago
  Gas won your business and government picked gas as the winner. Government didn’t run a gas line to my home.
bombcar 3y ago
I'm sure we can find cities/new developments where gas lines were not run, but have we examples where existing infrastructure was finally shut down?

jutrewag 3y ago

> But when you dig into the details, it seems like the regulation may not have much effect on climate change at all. So you’re going to handwave away the justification for the main crux of your argument.

iamdamian 3y ago
When I say "dig into the details", I mean "look for evidence". I looked for evidence that this would have a substantial effect on the climate and was unable to find any. In fact, the most anyone has come up with in this thread is the number 0.0028 (or about 0.3%): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35757522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35757522 If you have more compelling data, please share it.
- jutrewag 3y ago
  [dead]

nullc 3y ago

Great comment but a point you missed is that the cooking itself produces the vast majority of the indoor air pollution. It would be reasonable to start using building code to push for real venting of ranges gas AND electric, ... of course once you've done that then the gas indoor air quality issue is moot.

anonu 3y ago

> venting for fume hoods would be a nice baseline for New York. Yes! This would probably raise the air quality in buildings in general. I've seen studies showing that air quality has a direct correlation to test scores in school buildings. Imagine the benefits across a large city like NYC...

simplotek 3y ago

> If you buy a home and want it to have a gas stove, why is it the state government's place to say that you can't do so, for your own health? This is the wrong question to be made. You should ask what should be the safety standards you need to adhere to ensure health risks are mitigated. The reason why this sort of thing must at all times be regulated, without any exception, is that the personal interest of a corporation investing in real estate by selling it off right away are not aligned with the interests of those who actually have to be exposed to the health risks created by said corporation. To put it more broadly, just because you are ok with your home causing health problems to its occupants, that doesn't grant you the right to subject everyone around you to them, or even whoever will live in that house after you live. To make it clear, let's consider doors. You might feel you have no use for a wide corridor and you're ok with custom narrow, submarine like doorways. Except that a wheelchair or a stretcher can't go through. Therefore thanks to your shortsighted and ignorant "why should the government tell me how to be safe" point of view, you needlessly screw over your future self and/or everyone that may possibly live there. Regulation is not a conspiracy. Regulation reflects hard lessons learned with pain and suffering, and ensures that easily avoidable problems can be avoided easily. We learned lessons from fires and mobility constraints, and thus we have regulation ensuring each and every utility in your home is safe. Instead of having to reinvent the wheel each time anyone needs to build something, we only need to check what's the regulation and what are the constraints. Air quality is starting to be noticed as a major health problem, specially with higher occupation densities, and thus we have safety lessons that need to be learned to avoid these issues. And no clueless naive spur of the moment bootstrappy individual has a clue about them. Hence the need to impose regulation, because these arrogant morons think they know best when they know nothing. I mean, does it make sense to risk our health just because an amateur didn't even wanted to bother doing his homework?

goodluckchuck 3y ago
First, obviously regulation is a conspiracy. It will is a coordinated activity by multiple individuals. Second, none of this is an argument to ban natural gas appliances. what is the harm? Is the harm acceptable? Should a person be allowed to except the harm? Can the harm be mitigated by education or change in behavior? And who has the jurisdiction to implement these regulations even if natural gas stoves are in unreasonably dangerous to the occupants who are you to tell me that I can’t do that to myself?

elif 3y ago

I hooked up my house with indoor air quality monitoring during covid to keep track of CO2 levels as a representation of ventilation levels. There have been many unintended consequences to what this experience taught me including dehumidifiers, indoor plants, air filters, ventilation schedules, and yes, eliminating natural gas. NO2, CO2, CO, PM2.5, and VOC would go up to unhealthy levels even with a hood vent and windows open. It would persist for hours even if I opened 5-6 windows, and would permeate the entire house even though I use a Japanese door hanger to keep air in the kitchen isolated. There was simply no choice other than to go electric. As an aside, i switched from a high end $3k American gas stove to a $80 Japanese induction unit and $500 Toshiba steam/convection oven with automatic recipes and infrared sensors and my control over cooking and cooking speed have both been so much better.

danny_codes 3y ago
Induction stoves use less energy, have no emissions, are safer, and cook Better than gas. The gas lobby has been working for decades to trick Americans into thinking gas is somehow better. Idk how these people sleep at night knowing they are unnecessarily subjecting people to greater expense, greater pollution, and an inferior cooking experience. But maybe most gas company employees drank the koolaide

Aloha 3y ago

I'm one of those people who weirdly likes resistive electric cooktops - but yeah, I 100% agree with you. I'd rather people install heat pumps in new construction, and I'd agree that you should discourage use of natural gas for heating, I think there are ways to do that with market incentives, not by bans.

slashdev 3y ago

Banning gas for heating has a reasonable climate change argument. In Vancouver heating systems in new buildings will have to be zero emission soon. That makes some sense at least. Banning it for cooking seems to be another case of focusing on things that don’t move the needle. Meanwhile coal power plants continue to operate. There are less than 2500 major coal power plants worldwide. Why don’t we band together, mass produce 2500 nuclear plants that are at least as large, and make an actual difference. Yeah there’s lots of details there about fuel, construction and engineering, proliferation, etc. But that is all solvable with current technology. No leap of faith required, just the will, the money, and execution. Yet nobody seems to talk about real solutions and we’re content to focus on stupidly useless things instead. I find it frustrating. Are we really in a crises? If yes, then fucking act like it and let’s see some ambitious solutions. In the movies and books you see something threaten the survival of the human race and the whole world comes together and engineers something impossibly amazing to save the world. I think in reality we’d argue about plastic straws, or who pays for it, or gas stoves until the apocalypse kills the species too dumb to save itself.

lenkite 3y ago
[flagged]
junofan 3y ago
[flagged]
NeverFade 3y ago
> Why don’t we band together, mass produce 2500 nuclear plants that are at least as large, and make an actual difference. Because the same climate activists who keep harping on the "climate crisis" and successfully push policies like in OP, are also irrationally opposed to nuclear energy. Since these folks are calling the shots, we're heading into an energy crisis in which: 1. More and more demand is placed on our power grid due to moves like banning natural gas for heating. 2. This same power grid is rendered less and less capable and reliable due to being increasingly based on unreliable energy sources like wind and solar.
- 3y ago

kerkeslager 3y ago

> But when you dig into the details, it seems like the regulation may not have much effect on climate change at all. [Citation needed]

iamdamian 3y ago
The issue is that I’ve been unable to find any convincing data showing that this will have meaningful impact relative to its cost. This thread has a relevant discussion and citations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35758192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35758192
- kerkeslager 3y ago
  So using your "evidence" which is another citationless Hacker News post: > Agreed that 1% of the United States' 28% of global CO2 emissions is negligible in the grand global scheme. This is incredibly ignorant of the "death by 1000 cuts" issue of climate change. 1% or 28% of global CO2 emissions, if this statistic is even true, is huge. Very few climate change interventions are this effective. The more effective climate change interventions include strict supersets of this, like "banning all new fossil fuel construction", which, if implemented in the US, still only gets you a few percentage points on the larger problem, and would get much greater pushback from people who don't care about climate change and will always cite government overreach for any regulation. What do you think would be a non-negligible difference? Do you even believe in human-caused climate change? I'll be happy to provide more, real citations, but it's hard to tell what level of burden of proof I should be taking on if I don't know what you think I need to prove.
  - iamdamian 3y ago
    > 1% or 28% of global CO2 emissions, if this statistic is even true, is huge. 1% of 28%. If we trust that number, that means that the best we can hope for from this change is 0.0028 (0.3%, rounding up) of global emissions. That number is a ceiling: it assumes that not only do new buildings not have gas stoves, but that all old gas stoves in the United States are removed as well. This negligible (IMO) improvement comes at the cost of 1) being vulnerable during power outages, 2) having a far worse cooking experience on a daily basis, according to many, and 3) generating significant political backlash that will hinder changes that will actually make a difference. One of my favorite climate change books is How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, by Bill Gates, in which he outlines where the biggest opportunities lie. His approach seems far more practical and likely to make a dent in the problem.

fundad 3y ago

Government picked fossil fuels and the winner for decades. The subsidies, infrastructure and regulations favorable to selling fossil gas and fossil auto fuels (and heating oil) was structurally important to government earlier. Now it’s less important than saving money and improving the electric grid.

animitronix 3y ago

It's only about personal health from the emissions in your house, anyone that tells you otherwise is a liar. Natural gas has been billed as a cleanen alternative for decades.

carabiner 3y ago

1. Numerous regulations dictate safe home building. You can't legally build a home with faulty wiring. We accept these rules as part of a society, unless you are libertarian / sob citizen bent, which it sounds like you are. 2. Gas stoves leak when turned off. These leaks equaled 76% of their total methane gas emissions. These are pollutants that are harmful to humans and the atmosphere. Many fume hoods just recirculate air into the living space.

iamdamian 3y ago
I mentioned above that I would love to see true fume hoods required for new buildings, as a regulation. I'm not libertarian or even conservative and am surprised at an ad-hominem attack like this.

michael_vo 3y ago

It's not just your own health though. Kids can develop asthma partially due to gas stoves and the toxic fumes that stay in the apartment for hours/days after. Some studies estimate 1/8 of all asthma cases for kids is due to gas stoves in USA. I don't see this policy as having much of an effect against climate change but it is another step in making people aware of climate issues. Congress does not have the ability - right now - to ban cow meat or eating fish, but this would be a much better policy to aim for.

danny_codes 3y ago

1. Gas stoves emit CO2 and likely Methane due to leaks. In fact, methane (natural gas is just methane) is a very potent greenhouse gas and the methane industry leaks a significant percent every year. So having lots of gas infrastructure basically guarantees a bunch of methane will leak into the atmosphere. I doubt the stove-only emissions are an appreciable percent of global emissions, but I'll take a 2% reduction. However, there is a follow on effect. Each utility we transition off of direct fossil fuels results in economiesof scale moving away from fossil fuel to electricity (and hopefully clean power generation). So in the medium-term the effect could be multiplied. 2. Burning methane in your house is going to cause some pollution. Methane isn't pure, so other stuff is likely getting burned too. I mean, just logically lighting a fire in your house is probably not going to be good for your health in general. As for "should we regulate this". It depends on perspective. The gas lobby has worked hard and spent a lot of money to trick people like you into to thinking gas stoves can compete with induction ranges. They cannot. Induction ranges are cheaper, more energy efficient, safer, and healthier than gas stoves. Installing a gas stove in 2023 is using an inferior technology either because of ignorance or Nostalgia. Now, you could argue that it's the right of each citizen to choose to make bad decisions. In this case, however, that bad decision perpetuates an unsustainable energy apparatus. So I would argue the public good outweighs the homeowner's (or more likely, corporate landlord's) ability to make bad decisions.

browningstreet 3y ago

How things are discussed and reported in media may not have a direct correlation to how that thing is. If people want the natural gas debate to be about climate change but it’s really about personal health and a city’s right to govern risk in that place, that itself doesn’t change because other people are saying, or blogging, “climate change” for this given thing.

Aerbil313 3y ago

Climate change is unmitigatable at this point. It's an irreversible exponential function with many positive feedback loops. Even IPCC is lobbied by governments to make it seem less severe than it is [1]. Human population has overshot [2] in 1971, now we'll see the consequences. Brace for the biggest famine history has ever seen, it is coming fast (most definitely before 2030). [1] https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2021/10/21/leaked-climate-lobbying-ipcc-glasgow/ https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2021/10/21/leaked-climate-l... [2] https://medium.com/@CollapseSurvival/overshoot-why-its-already-too-late-to-save-civilization-e834cb4ec694 https://medium.com/@CollapseSurvival/overshoot-why-its-alrea...

Tiktaalik 3y ago

> But when you dig into the details, it seems like the regulation may not have much effect on climate change at all. When Vancouver banned natural gas hookups in new buildings in 2022 the justification was that they pointed to the fact that 54% of CO2 emissions in the city came from home heating. The next biggest source was transportation, I think 39%ish. It's a clear reasonable move, as just like when you're trying to improve performance of a computer program, you start with the biggest numbers and see if you can make it smaller. Presumably other cities in areas that use natural gas for home heating as much as Vancouver are also seeing home heating be a very large percentage of their CO2 emissions. If we can trivially, simply through some minor regulations cut over time the emissions of every city in NA by 50% that's clearly a massive improvement and well worth doing? If this is not worth doing in an effort to tackle the climate change problem I do not know what is. To me this feels like one of the easiest low hanging fruit things we can do there is.

Deeedioo 3y ago

And venting those fumes into the city is okay? Oo

banannaise 3y ago

Those two reasons fall victim to the fact that a lot of homes are owned by landlords, who have a very long history of creating setups that are unsafe for their tenants, whether immediately or over time through failure to maintain the property. Regulating ventilation is far less effective than simply making ventilation no longer an issue (by disallowing gas stoves in the first place).