Highlights: A study this summer found that using a single gas stove burner on high can raise levels of cancer-causing benzene above what’s been observed from secondhand smoke.
A new investigation by NPR and the Climate Investigations Center found that the gas industry tried to downplay the health risks of gas stoves for decades, turning to many of the same public-relations tactics the tobacco industry used to cover up the risks of smoking. Gas utilities even hired some of the same PR firms and scientists that Big Tobacco did.
Earlier this year, an investigation from DeSmog showed that the industry understood the hazards of gas appliances as far back as the 1970s and concealed what they knew from the public.
It’s a strategy that goes back as far back as 1972, according to the most recent investigation. That year, the gas industry got advice from Richard Darrow, who helped manufacture controversy around the health effects of smoking as the lead for tobacco accounts at the public relations firm Hill + Knowlton. At an American Gas Association conference, Darrow told utilities they needed to respond to claims that gas appliances were polluting homes and shape the narrative around the issue before critics got the chance. Scientists were starting to discover that exposure to nitrogen dioxide—a pollutant emitted by gas stoves—was linked to respiratory illnesses. So Darrow advised utilities to “mount the massive, consistent, long-range public relations programs necessary to cope with the problems.”
These studies didn’t just confuse the public, but also the federal government. When the Environmental Protection Agency assessed the health effects of nitrogen dioxide pollution in 1982, its review included five studies finding no evidence of problems—four of which were funded by the gas industry, the Climate Investigations Center recently uncovered.
Karen Harbert, the American Gas Association’s CEO, acknowledged that the gas industry has “collaborated” with researchers to “inform and educate regulators about the safety of gas cooking appliances.” Harbert claimed that the available science “does not provide sufficient or consistent evidence demonstrating chronic health hazards from natural gas ranges”—a line that should sound familiar by now.
A climate-focused approach can be built into any economic system. This isn’t really an argument for ditching the economic system that has led to the least human suffering.
Saving the planet and endless expansion are simply not compatible. The way we are living is going to kill us all, and it’s just a fact. There are finite resources and the pollution and by products are not going away.
I mean you ever think about how much waste there is from regular everyday things like junk mail? From having to spend fuel on a tractor to plant trees to harvest paper and then process it into paper to then print the bullshit ads on the junk mail and then it has to be delivered and that causes more pollution and then you just put it straight in the garbage.
Or how about the plastic bag they give you with every purchase at literally any store? Those things don’t go away. And we are endlessly producing them, because that’s how capitalism works. You have to increase profits. That’s the whole point.
You can’t reconcile capitalism and the environment.
Seems like cradle to grave pricing would address the issues you mention.
We are still back at what’s the alternative? Planned Economies are notorious for not being able to predict the right things to produce, and that tended to massively misallocate resources too, arguably worse, but at best in a different way.
Corruption also just seems to be a human thing and in planned economies people still snuggle up to politicians in corrupt ways, just with a different veneer.
We also have tried regulation on capitalism - capture happens. We tried liberalization of communism and we got modern China.
I think tribe based society might be the only ones I’ve heard of that focus on sustainably living, but that loses out to larger societies force / power, and I haven’t seen a way to scale that up.
I really don’t think you can just point at China and completely rule out a system as a concept. It’s also worth noting that communism is the antithesis of capitalism. Why do you think that America aggressively attacked every country that’s ever tried it? If we didn’t attack them straight on, we ran a proxy war against them.
And just because the like 78 people that will see this thread don’t have the answer doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. This is obviously a massive and complex issue that will likely only be solved by all of the worlds power working together.
You can’t just say “Oh we don’t know what to do about this, so I guess we shouldn’t change anything at all”. We can still be taking smaller steps.
Just simple things like better public transit will do a lot. Stronger EPA restrictions on just about every industry would go a really long way.
We haven’t tried the one thing everyone’s asking for. Why is it that every time someone mentioned something like this, your minds immediately go to China, the Soviet Union, etc. And not any of the successful social democracies in Europe? Programmed much?
You do realize that capitalism itself is only a few hundred years old. There have been any number of other systems throughout history. And objectively capitalism hasn’t been any better than many of them. There’s been lots of differing circumstances under which they’ve all operated. It’s also arguable that capitalism enables and demands the worst of human nature.
It’s the basic premise of capitalism that it values capital over everything else. It’s in the very name. Socialistic theories of which there are so many outside leninism. Values, society and people more. You can still have markets. You can still have currency. Those things all predate capitalism and are not tied to it in any way. But having a robust social safety net and basic provisions for society always goes much better than leaving everyone to fend for themselves as the oligarchs gorge themselves on stolen wealth.
Also popping in to say you might get some mileage out of a book like The People’s Republic of Walmart, it’s neat, barring the stinky economist bullshit that pops up from the fucking cato institute as soon as you look it up on google.
That’s worked super well so far
I feel like least human suffering is a rather insane statement with for-profit healthcare a thing. Or, you know, slavery.
How many people die every year to housing insecurity? To inadequate access to healthcare? How many people suffer because they can’t afford not to?
Absolutely ludicrous.
Or all the suffering that has been and will be caused by climate change on behalf of the shareholders