It turns out, pushing unrealistic green energy schemes onto low- and middle-income people at the expense of a safer fuel source was not only bad science, it was dangerous propaganda.
Posted by Leslie Eastman
Legal Insurrection readers may recall that in 2023, the Biden administration seriously considered a nationwide ban on gas stoves, blaming “pollutants” released by the appliances.
One of the studies cited was published in Scientific American. We documented the narrative science and agenda-driven conclusions that the publication offers.
The “study” involved 53 households, all in California. As I reported at that time, the findings that asserted gas stoves contributed to increased risk of asthma were based on bad science.
Now, a review of the data from 116 separate studies that was recently published in The Lancet and funded by the World Health Organization shows that heating and cooking with natural gas stoves is not associated with asthma in children or adults.
The study conducted an extensive meta-analysis and examined the health risks of cooking or heating with natural gas compared to other fuels and electricity. It found no significant association between natural gas and asthma, wheeze, cough or breathlessness, and a lower risk of bronchitis when compared to electricity. When compared to other household fuels including kerosene and solid fuels, natural gas was associated with a lower risk of several health conditions.
The study’s conclusion that there is no association between the use of natural gas and asthma contradicts prior claims of population incidence of asthma attributable to gas, which are only valid where a causal relationship exists.
In fact, the Lancet study (Estimated health effects from domestic use of gaseous fuels for cooking and heating in high-income, middle-income, and low-income countries: a systematic review and meta-analyses) shows that the use of gas stoves has a very positive effect on human health, as follows:
- Pneumonia: 46% risk reduction.
- Wheeze: 58% risk reduction.
- Cough: 56% risk reduction.
- Breathlessness, COPD, Other Adverse Respiratory Impacts: Substantial risk reductions.
- Preterm Birth and Low Birth Weight: Significant reduction in risk.
It’s important to note that when natural gas burns, it mainly produces carbon dioxide (CO₂, a life-essential gas) and water vapor, with smaller amounts of nitrogen oxides (NOₓ), carbon monoxide (CO), and very little particulate matter. In contrast, coal and kerosene are more complex fuels. For example, burning coal releases high amounts of particulate matter, sulfur dioxide (SO₂), nitrogen oxides, mercury, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, all of which are linked to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.
Therefore, pushing unrealistic green energy schemes onto low- and middle-income (LMIC) people at the expense of a safer fuel source was not only bad science, it was dangerous propaganda.
This study shows a lower risk for key health outcomes when switching from polluting solid fuels and kerosene to use of clean gaseous fuels for cooking or heating. Our study also identifies a modest increase in risk from use of gaseous fuels compared with electricity for a few health outcomes, including acute lower respiratory infections and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (although not statistically significant when focusing on evidence from higher-quality studies).
For LMICs reliant on polluting solid fuels and kerosene, transitions to gaseous fuels for cooking or heating can potentially produce substantial health benefits.
The risk of asthma associated with gas cooking was often inflated in prior studies that failed to adjust adequately for other factors (e.g., smoking, area air pollution). The Lancet meta-analysis showed that with proper adjustment for possible contributing factors, any association between gas use and child asthma was not statistically meaningful.
What are the chances the elite media will give the new Lancet publication the same about of attention it gave the bogus study?
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Yeah but methane is 83.2 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat. So we need to feed the world’s cattle herd Bovaer in order to save the planet.
Methane is irrelevant as a greenhouse gas, because water vapor absorbs the same wavelengths of longwave infrared as methane does, and there’s one thousand times as much water vapor in the atmosphere as there is methane. In an imaginary atmosphere with no water vapor, methane would be a potent greenhouse gas; in the atmosphere we actually have it is not.
It’s probably more complicated than that but yeah
The concentration of CH4 in dry air is 1.93 ppmv. (cf. NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory). One cubic meter of this air has mass of 1.29 kg and contains 1.4 milligrams of CH4 at STP. The reason for the low concentration of CH4 in air is due to the initiation of its combustion by discharges of lightning (Mother Nature’s spark plug). Everyday there are millions of discharges of lightning especially in the tropics (cf, Wikipedia). Discharges of lightning generate ozone which would readily oxidize CH4. CH4 is slightly in cold water. The polar cold water remove large amounts of CH4.
Shown in Fig. 7 is the IR absorption spectrum of sample of Philadelphia inner city air from 400 to 4000 wavenumbers (wns). Methane absorbs at 1300 wns under the large H2O absorptions. However, there is very little out-going long wavelenght IR emanating from the earth’s in the region. The greenhouse region of the spectrum is from 400 to 700 wns. CH4 has no IR absorptions in this region.
The bottom line is we do not have worry about CH4 because there is little of the air, and we do not have to feed cows chemicals to inhibit CH4 emissions.
The Fig. 7 was taken from the essay: “Climates Change Reexamined” by Joel M. Kauffman. The essay is 26 pages and can be downloaded for free.
PS: If you click on Fig. 7, it will expanded and become clear. Click on the “X” in the circle to return to comment text.
Nice stuff, really it is. However in all of that there’s no mention of how much methane is going to run-up global temperature. Left wing reporters (that’s all of them ) never ask and climate scientists never say. Some where around 0.05 degrees Celsius by 2100 is about right and nobody’s going to be concerned about that.
In the spectrum there is no absorption due to methane. It would be just slightly left of the small triplet of H2O peaks.
Since June 24, 1988 and thereafter, how is it that the chemists and physicists have not come forth and denounced the claim by Jim Hansen, the IPCC and the unscrupulous collaborating scientists (aka the welfare queens in white coats c.f., quip by Rustum Roy) that the greenhouse gas CO2 causes globe warming. I really don’t know. However, the recent paper by the CWG (See article just posted here) and the announcement by EPA’s of the recission of the 2009 CO2 Endangerment Finding will put an end to the great green scam.
Notice in the spectrum the very small and narrow CO2 peak at 650 wns. It was absorbing little IR energy. I999, the concentration of CO2 in dry air was ca. 370 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air contained a mere 0.73 grams of CO2. There is too little CO2 in the air to have any effect on weather and climate. At 28 deg C and 76% RH, one cubic meter of air contained ca. 22 g of H20, the one and the only one greenhouse of importance.
“Now, a review of the data from 116 separate studies that was recently published in The Lancet”
It sets off alarms when the link provided, which looks like it leads to the Lancet study, instead leads to a page of the American Gas Association. If you do reach the Lancet study, it tells a different story. Most of the advantages of gas are relative to primitive cooking methods. On comparing gas with electricity, they say:
“Implications of all the available evidence
This study shows a lower risk for key health outcomes when switching from polluting solid fuels and kerosene to use of clean gaseous fuels for cooking or heating. Our study also identifies a modest increase in risk from use of gaseous fuels compared with electricity for a few health outcomes, including acute lower respiratory infections and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (although not statistically significant when focusing on evidence from higher-quality studies).”
Sounds a lot like they are associating gas stoves with asthma.
Sounds a lot like they are associating gas stoves with asthma.
Why, exactly? Neither ALRI’s nor COPD are the same thing as asthma are they?
Kinda need to use the word “asthma” when referring to, you know, asthma. Asthma ain’t COPD, which is a disease that mostly comes from breathing lots of cigarette smoke directly into one’s lungs. A disease that all smokers are fully warned about, yet they still smoke.
“including acute lower respiratory infections and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (although not statistically significant when focusing on evidence from higher-quality studies)“. Says it all really. 😉
You highlighted the wrong part.
What it doesn’t say is that
“Gas Stoves Pose No Increased Risks of Asthma”
So what? It also doesn’t say that gas stoves pose no risk of increased house fires. But of course they do, because all ignition sources increase the risk of house fires.
Exercise and allergies also increase the risk of asthma. So, stop jogging and sit on your couch inside a bubble if you are that worried. I’ll be cooking gourmet meals on my gas stove and not worrying about it.
Life is full of risk. Net zero ain’t gonna bring us Paradise.
You can’t prove a negative, even you should know that.
Nothing poses “no risk”.
I have cooked (domestically only) on both, and much prefer electricity. Modern glass hobs are quick, easy, safe and clean. The old ones were very slow to respond. Modern ones that isn’t an issue any more.
But there is one curious reason why you might choose gas in the UK. That is, you can’t turn off the gas supply, because turning it on again is too dangerous without extensive checking. If a hob is on at cutoff, it will still be on at turn-on, and so you have build up of gas. So the authorities will do everything in their power not to interrupt domestic gas.
Electricity blackouts are quite possible, and happen occasionally, the power just comes back on and nothing too terrible happens. Gas boilers its not an issue, because they cut off without electricity.
The UK is headed to a regime of frequent electricity blackouts, as they persist in their crazy effort to move power generation to wind and solar without providing any way of making the supply dispatchable. And while increasing demand from heat pumps and EV charging.
One of these winters, at the 5-8pm peak, on a calm cold day in December or January, its all going to go pear shaped, and for more than a few hours. You have a gas hob, at least you can cook and make tea and fill a hot water bottle while you listen to your battery powered radio and hope you have enough batteries for your torches.
A high capacity 12 volt battery, a trickle charger to keep it topped up, and a low power light that will run off it, and a couple of rechargeable torches.
Most gas hobs and cookers in the UK, unless very old, have Flame Failure Devices fitted, usually a thermocouple. If the flame goes out, the thermocouple cools and operates a safety valve to switch off the gas to the burner.
Gas control knobs are spring-loaded and have to be pushed down to be turned and held until the gas is lit. If the gas does not light, the knob springs shut when released.
In fact decomissioning the gas grid as part of the “decarbonising” charade is never discussed because it would mean all storage, gas pipes, mains, consumer delivery pipes would have to be completely voided of all gas otherwise explosions or leakages would result. The cost of this would by huge, and to be added to the Net Grifto bill, which is why it is never mentioned.
Best hobs are undoubtedly induction hobs. Instant on, instant off, automatic simmer control by setting temperature level so the hob powers on/off as appropriate to maintain it.
It is possible to “associate” all day long, it is not proof.
My youngest son has been involved with research on indoor air pollution and his comment was that the particulates and various volatiles coming off the food being cooked are worse than the combustion products of a gas stove. A related point is that a ventilating fan should be running any time a gas stove is lit to prevent carbon monoxide build-up.
Leslie,
You are correct to criticise studies that include or rely upon a dose of imaginative association – but then you write that burning coal releases items like Mercury ” … linked to respiratory and cardiovascular disease”.
Might I suggest your article would be improved if you either left this loose association out, or referenced a paper finding that Mercury in coal does or does not cause significant identifiable human health problems.
There is a current widespread journalistic fervour to demonise metals like Lead, Mercury, Cadmium, Cobalt, sometimes to demonise mining, leading to casual throw away lines like “Lead is a toxin. There is no safe Lead concentration.” Which is scientifically incorrect. Geoff S
Many decades ago, I recall a report on the TV about a man who developed the systems of mercury poisoning because he gave up eating meat and start eating ocean fish in particular tuna fish. Several years ago “Tuna Helper” disappeared from the food stores. I recall there was a directive that a person should limit the consumption of tuna fish. Apparently the makers of “Tuna Helper” wanted to avoid any liability that might arise from claims of mercury poisoning.
China large system coal-fired power plants are probably emitting large amounts mercury which ends up in the Pacific ocean. Are they using clean coal technology which is required for power plants in the US?
Geoff,
It is not “scientifically incorrect”. It is pure rubbish.
Meta analysis is often an attempt to
find a risk out of insignificant studies.
There is no surprise here, the CAGW clowns will say anything to gain more power and control.
And money.
You gotta keep your finger on the pulse with dooming and slushfunding so I’d get into subglacial lakes right now-
Buried Lake Erupts Under Greenland’s Ice, Unleashing A Colossal Crater
Always get those grant proposals in early to be at the cutting edge of dooming.
Any “pollutants” in a house using gas or electric comes from what is being cooked.
I have a AirVisual Pro air quality monitor that tracks CO2 and pollutant particle count. We have a gas stove and when we boil potatoes the CO2 which is normally in the 500 to 600 ppm, with the windows closed will go up to about 700 ppm, meanwhile the particle count is usually between 10 and 20 might go to 30.
When we cook any fried foods the the particle count will go up into the red zone which is over 150. The worst I have ever seen it is over 1000 and that was from burned toast in an electric toaster.
That’s pretty much what my son said about the brouhaha concerning gas stoves. He’s been part of a group researching indoor air pollution using a variety of instruments including a mass spectrometer.
Here in Wokeachusetts, the forestry haters complained about wood burning as a major cause of asthma. The city of Springfield supposedly has one of the worst asthma problems in the nation. But, a colleague did some research on this- and it turns out Springfield is full of “migrants” and other low income people. Many have filthy homes and smoke cigarettes. And, Springfield is still an industrial city- and the state turnpike goes right through it- so, the air ain’t too clean. To say forestry and wood burning is a major cause of asthma is nuts. My nephew has asthma- and his father smoked 3 packs/day until his massive heart attack brought on by that smoking. Most likely the smoking caused the asthma.
“It’s important to note that when natural gas burns, it mainly produces carbon dioxide (CO₂, a life-essential gas) and water vapor, with smaller amounts of nitrogen oxides (NOₓ), carbon monoxide (CO), and very little particulate matter. In contrast, coal and kerosene are more complex fuels. For example, burning coal releases high amounts of particulate matter, sulfur dioxide (SO₂), nitrogen oxides, mercury, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, all of which are linked to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.”
This set of generic claims, frequently repeated, needs qualification. Beware casual demonizations.
When natural gas is burned, the NO produced depends on the N content of the gas which varies depending on treatment. It is not true that NO/NOx produced by cooking flames is created from atmospheric N2 (thermal NOx) as is often assumed. The cooking flame is too cool to do that, though it is produced in furnaces with well controlled excess air. So there may be NO, there may not be. Gas stoves are supposed to have externally vented fans over them so the amount in the house is potentially zero.
Natural gas only produces CO when it is not burned properly. CO is a product of incomplete combustion (PIC) and varies from device to device. In a furnace it can be extremely low – a few ppm. With a domestic cooker it has be be below 0.8% of the CO2 (in N America, 2% in the EU).
Coal does not “emit high amounts” of PM if the burner is designed properly. PM is a PIC. It is unburned fuel. There is no inherent PM contained in coal, it is the result of bad combustion. There are quite simple methods of burning coal that produce extremely low levels of PM. A high efficiency low emissions (HELE) coal stove can be purchased from street welders in Bishkek for $190. The technology has been available for 15 years.
The emission of SO2 depends on the S content of the coal which can vary from 0.1% to >4%. For domestic coal use, the problem is not SO2, it is H2S and H2SO3, both of which are PIC’s from bad combustor design or operation.
Kerosene is essentially long chain methane and is easily burned just as cleanly as natural gas. It has been pilloried since 1999 due to defective speculations rooted in work published by Berkeley. These false claims for it being “a dirty fuel” have been adopted by the WHO without any investigation at all, and forced into the World Bank agenda as a fuel not to be supported, even when it is a bio-kerosene fuel. Biodiesel, which is almost identical in every respect, is promoted while its shorter-chain cousin is ignored. Most aircraft run on kerosene. You see all that black smoke? No? OK… ’nuff said.
The last sentence is a mix. SO2 is an inherent emission because the S in is the fuel. Ditto for mercury, which varies with source – a lot. NO/NO2 is not an inherent emission. It is possible to build a low-NOx combustor, the primary requirement being to keep the NO above 830 Deg C for 250 milliseconds. This destroys it producing N2 and O2. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH’s) are not inherent emissions, they are are PIC’s and destroyed (or not produced at all) by good combustor design.
There is no relationship between coal and kerosene, as implied by the author. Kerosene is short chain diesel (they overlap a lot). Kerosene is the main potential competitor to LPG and has been successfully demonized via the WHO and WB which embeds a “clean fuel/dirty fuel” paradigm into all its documents even though the concept is baseless.
There are 500m people in cold Asia completely dependent on coal for heating and cooking. They do not need far more expensive gas, they need far better stoves for the local fuels they can afford. One example report on new coal burning tech, now manufactured in 4 countries, is available for download at:
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/31282
The social impact was assessed in the following report:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41533-019-0144-8.epdf
Same raw coal fuel, different burner technology, completely different emissions, huge positive health impact, plus it saves money.
If you can understand Kyrgyz you can listen to this:
Great meme of “below zero” from GOT … I immediately thought of the associated, “Winter is coming … for the warmunists”.