• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

All Healthy News

Clean Air. Pure Water. Healthy Home.

HEALTH BEGINS WITH:
Clean Air. Pure Water. Healthy Homes.

  • Home
  • About/Contact
  • HEALTH NEWS/TRENDS
  • CLEAN AIR
  • HEALTHY HOME
  • PURE WATER
  • Free Video Reveals

It’s Time to Take Big Government Off the Burner

January 18, 2023 by Staff Reporter

Family meals are a bedrock American tradition. From Independence Day to quinceañeras, Americans of all stripes celebrate with good food and good company. But, like an overbearing guest at a party, meddlesome politicians are trying to dictate how Americans cook. Their efforts to ban natural gas stoves are an excessive government intrusion into family life.

These schemes to scrap gas stoves have gained traction among elite coastal outposts in recent years. The cities of San Francisco and Berkley have already prohibited most new buildings from fitting natural gas appliances. Earlier this week, New York Governor Kathy Hochul similarly proposed a ban on natural gas heating and appliances in new buildings. And it seems that these unpopular ideas are creeping in from the fringes of the country. Federal regulators at the Consumer Product Safety Commission initially suggested that they toowould mull outlawing the humble stove, before the idea was put on ice amid public outrage.

If the objective is consumer and environmental protection, these bans are devoid of common sense. Supporters of the bans point to a recent report that claims gas stoves are the cause of 12.7% of childhood asthma in America. But the authors of the study, which presents no new data of its own, have been criticized for overlooking one of the largest single studies on the topic. That 2013 study assessed more than half a million children and found no association between natural gas use as a cooking fuel and “asthma symptoms or asthma diagnosis.” Even among the previous studies on the topic, as one economist puts it, “we do not see the kind of smoking gun in any of these data that would suggest a really consistent link.”

Despite questions around the headline-grabbing study, indoor air pollution remains a serious issue for consumer safety. The rush to outlaw whitegoods, however, is disproportionately heavy-handed. Self-cleaning ovens, frying food and toasters are all causes of indoor air pollution—whether powered by gas or electricity. And yet, only gas stoves remain in the crosshairs of government regulators.

This myopic focus on the family stove is most likely linked to broader efforts to curtail fossil fuel use. But policing how Americans cook meals at home in the name of combatting climate change is nonsensical. The electricity used to power electric hotplates has to come from somewhere, and natural gas remains the single largest source of utility-scale electricity generation in the country. Gas-powered electric stoves simply push the issue of emissions out of sight and out of mind. Meanwhile, coal is still used to generate around 22 percent of American electricity, and yet it produces roughly twice as much carbon dioxide as natural gas in the process. Forcing consumers to use electric stoves that run on coal cannot be chalked up as a victory for the environment.

In the scheme of global emissions, wrapping household appliances in regulatory red tape amounts to little more than a hairshirt policy. Carbon dioxide emissions from China are now more than double those of the United States, while China’s methane emissions are nearing double those of the US. It seems that the climate is in enough of a crisis to merit punishing American consumers in their own homes, but not enough of a crisis to mandate action from the world’s most prolific environmental vandal.

The American public does not need a nanny state, where bureaucrats capriciously allow or deny access to basic household appliances. Rather, the way forward has surprisingly been demonstrated by the California Air Resources Board. The usually heavy-handed board, which spearheaded efforts to mandate electric vehicle use in the state, has authored clear-eyed and level-headed consumer information on indoor air quality. By outlining both the risks and strategies to mitigate indoor air pollution, these resources arm consumers with the information they need to make the right choice for themselves and their families.

There is no seat at the American family dinner table for intrusive government regulators. Rather than trying to confiscate or outlaw household appliances, state and federal regulators should focus on providing objective information about risks and mitigation strategies.

It’s time to take big government off the burner.

 

Oliver McPherson-Smith is the Director of Energy, Trade, and Environmental Policy at the American Consumer Institute. 



Originally Appeared Here

Filed Under: CLEAN AIR

Primary Sidebar

Reduce 99.9% of airborne SARS-CoV-2 Virus

Vollara ActivePure Technologies


News from the EPA

First 88M 3D-Printed Pegasus Revealed by Jozeph Forakis

DTG will close public access to 80 acres and most Rocky Top trails | Local

QleanAir delivered 6.40 billion cubic meters of cleaned air at the end of the fourth quarter

Aldi and Lidl: What’s in the middle aisles from Thursday February 2

Mitsubishi Cement Pulls Out of Proposed Warehouse Project in Barrio Logan

How the Success of Wellbeing Apps Can Benefit Smart Home Control Systems

Air Pollution Around The World

These homes replaced their gas stoves – and saw a huge drop in indoor pollution | Gas stoves

How the Effects of Stress Can Diminish Your Skin Health

CCA Commends Governor’s Appointments to CARB

Privacy Policy | Terms and Conditions | About/ Contact
Copyright © 2023 · ALL HEALTHY NEWS . Log in