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Comment by hermannj314 | Hacker News Reader

Who is pushing to ban gas stoves?

First it was adding catalytic converters in cars, then regulating tobacco, banning asbestos, removing contaminants from drinking water. It never stops.

This is nothing more than one more rung in a decades long campaign of using the democratic process to hold companies accountable for pollutants and slowly improve the health and well-being of millions of Americans. Sure, air is cleaner and these interventions have all been amazingly effective, but qui bono?

Who are these people? What do they have to gain from all these laws?

I'm worried my grandchildren are going to have to grow up in a healthy, well regulated world where when they buy products in stores they don't have to worry about how it will impact their health or the health of their community.

Being American means slowly killing yourself and your neighbors for the greater GDP. I don't want us to lose that.

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Natural gas is the most common energy source for winter heat in America, do you believe that should be banned?

Berekely, SF and NYC have banned gas hookups in new developments, and yes, I agree with that.

If we were talking in 1923, you would have told me coal was the most common.

The world is allowed to change with new data and new technology.

Not exactly certain of the history, but embracing natural gas after WW2 and through the 1950s was an easy choice for most Americans.

I imagine, someday, the world will change again.

> coal was the most common

Coal was shifted from the home to the energy plant.

Is this better because the negative effects of coal burning were removed locally and moved to a central location? Or maybe because the local locations can no longer control their own consumption?

Yes, we absolutely have to figure out a way to transition away from it and both here an in other countries around the world. An outright ban probably isn't achievable or effective in the short term. We could tax it to raise the cost (discouraging use), and use those taxes to fund transitions away from gas to heat pumps or other solutions that don't involve pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

I don't know it strikes me as reactionary. If this comes down to CO2 there are bigger fish to fry, no?

> I don't know it strikes me as reactionary.

Why is that a problem? At this point in the game most things that need to be done to address climate change and pollution are reactionary.

> If this comes down to CO2 there are bigger fish to fry, no?

You can say that about almost anything. There's always "bigger fish to fry", but that doesn't mean we should only ever deal with the "biggest fish". We regulate car emissions even though ships and airplanes are arguably the "bigger fish". We prosecute thefts even though most people would consider prosecuting murders the "bigger fish".

We have to fry multiple fish if we're going to mitigate things. Lots of fish.

Not disagreeing there, but I think if we satiate the need to do something right now by cutting the rings on our six packs then we might not ever get to the other fish.

In my northern jurisdiction heating is the largest contributor to CO2, more than transportation, industry or agriculture.

The president is pushing this

No he isnt.

I often see people writing responses without even reading the post they are responding to. Why not read more than the 1st sentence?

No; one of five CPSC commissioners gave an interview in which he indicated they're thinking about potentially doing something about the impact of gas stoves on interior air quality, in which he noted (generally) that the CPSC has the authority to ban products that can't be "made safe".

There's zero indication gas stoves can't be "made safe".

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