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> I can’t believe that actual people are that invested in burning hydrocarbons. Yeah, it's weird, right? Why _are_ people so invested in burning natgas and coa

> I can’t believe that actual people are that invested in burning hydrocarbons. Yeah, it's weird, right? Why _are_ people so invested in burning natgas and coal and other hydrocarbons for large-scale power generation when a plethora of proven near-zero-emissions alternatives exist? From a climate-change perspective, banning natgas cookstoves is a few pennies saved on like a thousand dollar expenditure. It's similar to the performative "charging for plastic takeaway bags" and "not bringing out table water" nonsense that California likes to do from time to time... it's way easier than making a real dent in the underlying problem, it inconveniences a ton of people (so they know you're doing something), and because "something" has been done, enough of those people don't bother finding out about and loudly and continually agitating for making a real dent in the underlying problem.

kibwen 4y ago
Forget burning, even pumping gas to residences is itself a big source of emissions, because of how leaky the pipes are. Between two to seven percent of all gas put into the system is lost directly to the atmosphere, and it's a very potent greenhouse gas. One way or the other, it needs to go away. It's not performative, it's necessary for achieving long-term emissions goals, and it's low-hanging fruit.
- simoncion 4y ago
  > One way or the other, it needs to go away. Sure, agreed. > It's not performative... Right now it very much is because, as you say: > ...it's low-hanging fruit. As I said: > ...banning natgas cookstoves is a few pennies saved on like a thousand dollar expenditure. and > [Low-impact, high-visibility stuff like that is done because] it's way easier than making a real dent in the underlying problem If you'll pardon the mixed metaphors: When it comes to environmental stuff, a lot of the time, the low-hanging fruit isn't worth picking because the high-hanging fruit is the thing that's the immediate wildfire hazard.
  - rhaway84773 4y ago
    Setting aside the validity of your claim that it’s just a “few Pennie’s on a thousand dollar expenditure (which I strongly disagree with…banning natural gas hookups would be worth it even if climate change wasn’t a problem). Your argument basically boils down to “I’m in debt and need to start spending thousands of dollars less. Cutting out this completely unnecessary expenditure will only save me a few dollars so I shouldn’t cut out this completely unnecessary expense because it won’t save me all the thousands I need to save”.
    - Scalestein 4y ago
      I'd say a more accurate metaphor would be "I'm in debt and decided to ignore my biggest high interest loan in order to fully pay off my smallest low interest loan so I feel good about something" Sure it's good you have less debt but while you were resolving the small loan you were racking up massive interest on the big one
    - BeFlatXIII 4y ago
      If I ordered the non-avocado toast at my weekly brunch, I'd be able to afford a house.
  - dd36 4y ago
    How is residential natural gas use not high-hanging fruit? Precluding new residential infrastructure is high-hanging fruit. It precludes leaky infrastructure.
- cma 4y ago
  > and it's a very potent greenhouse gas. It is still good to fix if it contributes to a significant amount of warming, but it isn't cumulative like CO2: it eventually degrades in the atmosphere.
  - jwilk 4y ago
    It degrades to CO₂.
    - cma 4y ago
      A much less potent greenhouse gas, same thing as if it had been burned and not leaked.
  - margalabargala 4y ago
    > it eventually degrades in the atmosphere. ...into CO2
vostok 4y ago
I don't have any statistics on this, but I feel like I see far fewer plastic bags littering the streets these days. That alone is a win for me personally.
- bluefirebrand 4y ago
  Give it time and you'll be seeing plenty of the reusable bags littering instead In theory they are supposed to be reusable but in practice I think they are going to wind up being single-use for most people. Maybe we'll start using them as garbage bags as they accumulate around the house.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    I live in an area that's banned plastic bags. Given enough experience, grabbing a reusable bag out of the car before going into the store became an unconscious programmed action.
    - bluefirebrand 4y ago
      Unless you empty your groceries in your car to leave the bags there, at some point bags need to make it from your house to your car, so that you have some to take into the store. That's the part I struggle with. Also, if you order groceries for delivery, they bring your order in reusable bags. Which you then keep. My point is these re-usable bags have a tendency to accumulate over time. Maybe not at the same rate as plastic bags would otherwise, but once you have dozens of these bags at home it starts to be tempting to just use them as bin liners and toss them, just like we did with plastic bags Which sort of defeats the whole purpose, right? The ideal is people would buy as many as they need and use them for years. But that isn't going to happen any time soon imo. If ever.
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        You build up enough bags and you can keep a supply in the car. They're also useful for other tasks. My biggest problem is feeling awkward when I take a bag from store X into store Y.
rhaway84773 4y ago
There will be no “real dent”. You have to make small changes along with big changes. And banning natural gas piped infrastructure is an easy win. 1. No one is banning natural gas stoves. You can still use a natural gas stove. You just need to bring your own cylinder like most of the world and half the food YouTubers already do. 2. Natural gas stoves have significant indoor pollution impact. It’s a huge benefit even outside the climate change side. 3. Natural gas infrastructure is expensive, dangerous and unnecessary. Cities will benefit from the removal of all those pipes from under their streets even if climate change wasn’t a thing. Banning gas hookups is such an obvious win (again, for those who want, gas stoves are still available with a cylinder), it’s remarkable to see the level of status quo bias that exists.
- theK 4y ago
  That would be a good way to actually make a difference because it not only makes using gas for cooking less attractive but it also makes gas heating and gas powered industry significantly more inconvenient! EDIT: would probably be a political nightmare to implement though…
- oceanplexian 4y ago
  > Natural gas infrastructure is expensive, dangerous and unnecessary. It’s been used and operated safely for hundreds of years in cities on the East Coast. The idea that it’s dangerous is simply FUD to scare people into spending $1000 on a future piece of e-waste to cook their food.
  - oblio 4y ago
    Do you mean induction stoves are e-waste? Why? They should be perfectly durable, no moving parts, simple operating principle. They aren't even super expensive and their price is going down.
    - phatfish 4y ago
      Far more things that can go wrong with them though (at least compared to a standard gas stove). "Repairability" for electronics is considered a competitive disadvantage where companies want to force you to buy a whole new device instead of fixing the blown capacitor (or whatever the issue is). Although the right to repair movement seems to be making some headway recently, so maybe all is not lost. Touch screens (with no alternative), and subscription service shoehorns need the same treatment, ban them.
VintageCool 4y ago
The point of the natural gas stove ban in new construction is to stop building additional natural gas infrastructure. Building new pipes to new housing will lock us in to decades of additional natural gas use. I expect natural gas for heating will be the long pole of greenhouse gas emissions. Eventually we'll have to disassemble what we already have. For some areas, it may make sense to do that soon. Boston, for example, has old and leaky natural gas pipes that have been found to be leaking tons of methane into the atmosphere and causing occasional explosions. The city will probably have to invest billions of dollars into repairing its natural gas distribution pipes in the next 10-20 years, which would remain in use for 50-60 years more. Or, they could spend a bit more money, convert everyone to induction cooktops and heat pumps, and get rid of the natural gas altogether.

kibwen 4y ago

Forget burning, even pumping gas to residences is itself a big source of emissions, because of how leaky the pipes are. Between two to seven percent of all gas put into the system is lost directly to the atmosphere, and it's a very potent greenhouse gas. One way or the other, it needs to go away. It's not performative, it's necessary for achieving long-term emissions goals, and it's low-hanging fruit.

simoncion 4y ago
> One way or the other, it needs to go away. Sure, agreed. > It's not performative... Right now it very much is because, as you say: > ...it's low-hanging fruit. As I said: > ...banning natgas cookstoves is a few pennies saved on like a thousand dollar expenditure. and > [Low-impact, high-visibility stuff like that is done because] it's way easier than making a real dent in the underlying problem If you'll pardon the mixed metaphors: When it comes to environmental stuff, a lot of the time, the low-hanging fruit isn't worth picking because the high-hanging fruit is the thing that's the immediate wildfire hazard.
- rhaway84773 4y ago
  Setting aside the validity of your claim that it’s just a “few Pennie’s on a thousand dollar expenditure (which I strongly disagree with…banning natural gas hookups would be worth it even if climate change wasn’t a problem). Your argument basically boils down to “I’m in debt and need to start spending thousands of dollars less. Cutting out this completely unnecessary expenditure will only save me a few dollars so I shouldn’t cut out this completely unnecessary expense because it won’t save me all the thousands I need to save”.
  - Scalestein 4y ago
    I'd say a more accurate metaphor would be "I'm in debt and decided to ignore my biggest high interest loan in order to fully pay off my smallest low interest loan so I feel good about something" Sure it's good you have less debt but while you were resolving the small loan you were racking up massive interest on the big one
  - BeFlatXIII 4y ago
    If I ordered the non-avocado toast at my weekly brunch, I'd be able to afford a house.
- dd36 4y ago
  How is residential natural gas use not high-hanging fruit? Precluding new residential infrastructure is high-hanging fruit. It precludes leaky infrastructure.
cma 4y ago
> and it's a very potent greenhouse gas. It is still good to fix if it contributes to a significant amount of warming, but it isn't cumulative like CO2: it eventually degrades in the atmosphere.
- jwilk 4y ago
  It degrades to CO₂.
  - cma 4y ago
    A much less potent greenhouse gas, same thing as if it had been burned and not leaked.
- margalabargala 4y ago
  > it eventually degrades in the atmosphere. ...into CO2

vostok 4y ago

I don't have any statistics on this, but I feel like I see far fewer plastic bags littering the streets these days. That alone is a win for me personally.

bluefirebrand 4y ago
Give it time and you'll be seeing plenty of the reusable bags littering instead In theory they are supposed to be reusable but in practice I think they are going to wind up being single-use for most people. Maybe we'll start using them as garbage bags as they accumulate around the house.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  I live in an area that's banned plastic bags. Given enough experience, grabbing a reusable bag out of the car before going into the store became an unconscious programmed action.
  - bluefirebrand 4y ago
    Unless you empty your groceries in your car to leave the bags there, at some point bags need to make it from your house to your car, so that you have some to take into the store. That's the part I struggle with. Also, if you order groceries for delivery, they bring your order in reusable bags. Which you then keep. My point is these re-usable bags have a tendency to accumulate over time. Maybe not at the same rate as plastic bags would otherwise, but once you have dozens of these bags at home it starts to be tempting to just use them as bin liners and toss them, just like we did with plastic bags Which sort of defeats the whole purpose, right? The ideal is people would buy as many as they need and use them for years. But that isn't going to happen any time soon imo. If ever.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      You build up enough bags and you can keep a supply in the car. They're also useful for other tasks. My biggest problem is feeling awkward when I take a bag from store X into store Y.

rhaway84773 4y ago

There will be no “real dent”. You have to make small changes along with big changes. And banning natural gas piped infrastructure is an easy win. 1. No one is banning natural gas stoves. You can still use a natural gas stove. You just need to bring your own cylinder like most of the world and half the food YouTubers already do. 2. Natural gas stoves have significant indoor pollution impact. It’s a huge benefit even outside the climate change side. 3. Natural gas infrastructure is expensive, dangerous and unnecessary. Cities will benefit from the removal of all those pipes from under their streets even if climate change wasn’t a thing. Banning gas hookups is such an obvious win (again, for those who want, gas stoves are still available with a cylinder), it’s remarkable to see the level of status quo bias that exists.

theK 4y ago
That would be a good way to actually make a difference because it not only makes using gas for cooking less attractive but it also makes gas heating and gas powered industry significantly more inconvenient! EDIT: would probably be a political nightmare to implement though…
oceanplexian 4y ago
> Natural gas infrastructure is expensive, dangerous and unnecessary. It’s been used and operated safely for hundreds of years in cities on the East Coast. The idea that it’s dangerous is simply FUD to scare people into spending $1000 on a future piece of e-waste to cook their food.
- oblio 4y ago
  Do you mean induction stoves are e-waste? Why? They should be perfectly durable, no moving parts, simple operating principle. They aren't even super expensive and their price is going down.
  - phatfish 4y ago
    Far more things that can go wrong with them though (at least compared to a standard gas stove). "Repairability" for electronics is considered a competitive disadvantage where companies want to force you to buy a whole new device instead of fixing the blown capacitor (or whatever the issue is). Although the right to repair movement seems to be making some headway recently, so maybe all is not lost. Touch screens (with no alternative), and subscription service shoehorns need the same treatment, ban them.

VintageCool 4y ago

The point of the natural gas stove ban in new construction is to stop building additional natural gas infrastructure. Building new pipes to new housing will lock us in to decades of additional natural gas use. I expect natural gas for heating will be the long pole of greenhouse gas emissions. Eventually we'll have to disassemble what we already have. For some areas, it may make sense to do that soon. Boston, for example, has old and leaky natural gas pipes that have been found to be leaking tons of methane into the atmosphere and causing occasional explosions. The city will probably have to invest billions of dollars into repairing its natural gas distribution pipes in the next 10-20 years, which would remain in use for 50-60 years more. Or, they could spend a bit more money, convert everyone to induction cooktops and heat pumps, and get rid of the natural gas altogether.