I’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.

Got to ban it for everyone to be fair.

I 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.

But 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).

Drafts do not move quickly (or evenly). A "drafty house" could still take an hour or more to exchange all that air.

I 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.

How many low income people can afford Viking ranges? They are ubiquitous in wealthier households, at least those with good taste.

How many of those have exterior stove vents? Probably a disproportionate number given the installation cost.

Maybe exterior vents should be required? Does cooking on electric not impact indoor air quality?

Compared 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.

It 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.

Can you quantify this?

And, how does it compare to say water heaters and other sources of indoor gas use?

My understanding is that it’s a negligible concern. So I’d love actual numbers if you have them or know where I can find them.

> And, how does it compare to say water heaters and other sources of indoor gas use?

They're required to vent outside.

> My understanding is that it’s a negligible concern.

You're responding to an article saying that it isn't a negligible concern.

So no?

It doesn't feel like you're trying to have a good faith discussion. There's no point in my restating what the linked article says nor multiple of the other sources provided all throughout this thread.

I’m truly interested in data about the relative quantity of no2 produced by stovetop vs other sources. If that information is contained in the featured article I missed it.

My understanding, from something I’d read previously, was that no2 was not a big concern, and that amongst sources of no2, gas ranges were less of an issue than heaters and water heaters.

What I know is that no2 is higher outdoors. I just wonder if the danger isn’t being overstated, relative to other dangers.

For the record I favor a law requiring venting in rental units and new home construction. I wish that was what got passed because it seems like the health impacts of nonventilated cooktops of any sort, including electric, is a larger concern.

I 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.

> 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).

The 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.

You 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.

What's the term for someone who is motivated by putting things into a racial context? A racist?

It'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.

"People are being harmed!"

"Yawn, what color are they?"

"White."

"Oh that's a serious issue then!"

I 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.

Induction 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.

> 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.

"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.

All Clad is made in the US:

https://www.all-clad.com/d3-stainless-7-piece-cookware-set.h...

That sentence made me lose some of my braincells

The 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.

Here's a different article that links to sources to support the claim: 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.

>… lawmakers including…

(Emphasis mine.)

Here is the full list of signatories:

Cory A. Booker United States Senator

Donald S. Beyer Jr. Member of Congress

Jared Huffman Member of Congress

Shontel M. Brown Member of Congress

Alan S. Lowenthal Member of Congress Chair, Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources

André Carson Member of Congress

Dianne Feinstein United States Senator

MARK TAKANO Member of Congress

Ted W. Lieu Member of Congress

Martin Heinrich United States Senator

Barbara Lee Member of Congress

Edward J. Markey United States Senator

Jeffrey A. Merkley United States Senator

Elizabeth Warren United States Senator

Stephen F. Lynch Member of Congress

Eleanor Holmes Norton Member of Congress

Gwen S. Moore Member of Congress

Patty Murray United States Senator

Bernard Sanders United States Senator

Katie Porter Member of Congress

I strongly suspect that Sen. Booker’s name was highlighted to provoke a response about race and not about the substance of the proposal. Which, BTW is just a proposal at this point: Nobody’s coming for your stove.

The full letter is here: https://www.booker.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/booker_beyer_lea...