Fine, we're doing gas stoves

In this episode, climate communications expert Sage Welch gives
scientific and social context to the politicized brouhaha around
gas stoves.


(PDF
transcript)


(Active
transcript)


Text transcript:


David Roberts


Earlier this month, gas stoves exploded into the news. Overnight,
everyone had an opinion and Republican Congresspeople were
threatening violence if jackbooted government thugs arrived to
confiscate their stoves.


A great deal of this gas stove discourse has been lamentably
stupid, and some of it has been educational, but on all sides,
there's just been a lot of it, so I thought it was worth doing a
podcast trying to tease out the facts.


To help with that I contacted the Sage Welch of Sunstone
Strategies, a climate communications firm that's been supporting
electrification policies since 2018. Welch has spent years
tracking the science (which has been accumulating for decades),
public opinion, and regulatory action on gas stoves.


Together, we dig into how this controversy arose, the science
informing it, how the politics are shaping up, and what it
portends for the future of decarbonization.


Alright, here we go. Without any further ado, Sage Welch, welcome
to Volts. Thank you so much for coming.


Sage Welch


Thank you for having me.


David Roberts


So we're going to do this, we're going to get into stoves. Those
of us who have been following decarbonisation and electrification
have known about this for a while and probably have been cooking
with induction for a while, but Lordy, did it bust into the
popular consciousness in the past week or two and just cause a
frenzy of nonsense. So, we're going to try to walk through the
whole thing here, the background, the science, what's ahead.
We're going to try to get it all, God help us. Alright, so, Sage,
first of all, why now? What happened? Why is everybody talking
about gas stoves now?


Sage Welch


Yeah. So the roots of the past couple weeks debate is the result
of three different things that happened in December. So, in
December, the Public Interest Research Group held a webinar. The
webinar was to launch a report that they had done with the Sierra
Club based on a ten state survey of what information, if any, gas
stove shoppers were receiving at point of sale from the nation's
three largest retailers of stoves about the health risks and how
folks can protect themselves, et cetera. And the answer to that
was like, not very much information at all.


David Roberts


Yeah, I'm guessing none is approximately none.


Sage Welch


None and a lot of disinformation. Don't worry about ventilation.
And many folks just hadn't heard of it. And to be fair, the
retailers haven't been able to train their sales associates and
staff. This just hasn't been on the radar. But they thought it
was important to take a look and just see does anyone even get
any inkling of this information when they're shopping? And so
Richard Trumka, Jr., who is a consumer product safety
commissioner, joined that webinar and he used that time to
announce that the CPSC would be opening an RFI, a request for
information on gas stove pollution in 2023.


And he used pretty strong language. He said we need to be talking
about regulating gas stoves, whether that's drastically improving
emissions or banning gas stoves entirely. And this is pretty
surprising, even to health and consumer advocates who've been
urging CPSC to investigate this in recent years, but also going
back 40 years.


David Roberts


Sounds like it was pretty surprising to his own agency and to his
bosses. Sounds like it was pretty surprising to everyone.


Sage Welch


The world was not ready for Trumka Jr. to make this statement.


David Roberts


Do you know why? I mean, is he just the kind of guy who gets
excited and gets out over his skis? Do you hear any hint of
deliberate twelve-dimensional chess here? Or is this just Trumka
getting too excited?


Sage Welch


I mean, it was a PERG webinar, so I'm not sure that, like, there
was a lot of chess playing going on.


David Roberts


That's a lot of dimensions of chess if you're starting there.


Sage Welch


The sense I get about his position on this, and again at the CPSC
level and we'll get to this, this issue is like, not new. But the
sense I get is that he just takes his role and the role of the
commission quite seriously as far as duty to protect consumers.
And this question about whether gas stoves are safe or can be
made safe has been hanging around for a while. But when he says
banning gas stoves, I think maybe what he is getting at is like,
he made these follow up remarks to Bloomberg a month later on
products that can't be made safe can be banned. And I think,
again, what he's getting at is just like, there is a duty at the
commission to ensure safety of products. And as we'll jump into,
there is what EPA and many others deem a safe level of NO2
pollution. And jury's still out on whether gas stoves are safe in
that regard.


David Roberts


Or can be made safe in that regard.


Sage Welch


And can be made safe, exactly.


David Roberts


Okay, so Trumka says this on the webinar and then it didn't blow
up immediately, right?


Sage Welch


It didn't. Some folks actually did cover this. So the Hill
Chicago Tribune actually kind of technically broke this story,
but it doesn't blow up immediately. And then the following week,
I think just somewhat coincidentally, Senator Cory Booker's
office released a letter from 18 members of Congress calling on
the CPSC to investigate gas stoves, calling out the health harms.
And again, not the first time that a congressional body or a
subcommittee has made this recommendation. And actually the
Senate committee escapes me, but the head of a Senate committee
also made this recommendation last August as well. So this is
something that's been brewing in Congress in recent months and
years. And then that happens and there's a little bit of
coverage.


But then in late December, a new study was published in a
prominent medical journal from researchers at RMI Albert Einstein
College of Medicine and the University of Sydney. And this study
found that 12.7% of childhood asthma cases in the US are
attributable to gas stove use. And that in some states, like
Illinois, New York, California, where there's really high rates
of gas cooking, that number is actually much higher. In Illinois
and California, it's over 20%. So that study was fairly shocking,
although it's based on statistics that have been around for quite
a while that find that kids living in homes with gas stoves have
a pretty substantial increased risk of developing asthma
symptoms.


David Roberts


Right. Maybe we can touch on this again later, but just to be
clear, this new asthma study was not a direct...it's just sort of
a regression run on existing data from this 2014 study.


Sage Welch


Yeah, this 2013 meta analysis. And actually, they only focused in
this study on risk factors that had been established through
North American peer-reviewed published data. But it is basically
like a math problem. We know that this percentage that living
with a gas stove can increase risk of developing asthma symptoms.
And, therefore, when we look at the number of kids with asthma
living in homes with gas stoves, it's called like a population
attributable factor.


David Roberts


Yeah. Right. The point being, it's not new. It's just that
information was sitting there in that meta analysis basically
has...


Sage Welch


Exactly. It just helped them put a fine point on the number of
cases that could be linked.


David Roberts


And so those three happened, and then the Bloomberg story
followed up on that.


Sage Welch


Yeah. So Bloomberg reporter Ari Natter was covering that report
and then also thought to go ahead and do an interview with Trumka
just based on those statements made in the webinar earlier. And
so Trumka, in that interview, now utters what I feel like is just
kind of this infamous statement that "Gas stoves are a hidden
hazard. Any option is on the table, and products that can't be
made safe can be banned," which is true. And so the Bloomberg
piece publishes on Monday morning, and it just goes viral. Like,
within 12 hours, everyone starts covering this potential ban. I
think the language of the headline made it feel like this was far
more imminent.


David Roberts


Yes, I think he knew what he was doing here. So, just to be clear
about what Trumka is talking about—not that the truth of what
Trumka was talking about matters at all in this hysteria—but at
best, he's talking about launching a process that will
investigate things, that will go through rounds of whatever, that
may someday result in gas stoves being banned from new
construction. That is the worst possible—I mean, if you're scared
of this—that's the worst possible outcome here. No one at any
point was talking about going into existing homes and ripping out
people's stoves. Let's just get that out there.


Sage Welch


No, but the imagery is compelling.


David Roberts


The jackboots.


Sage Welch


Yeah. So for whatever reason, and obviously they'll find anything
they can I think, but the right-wing echo chamber just goes,
like, totally ballistic trying to paint this picture of a
full-blown midnight raids of, like, dark Brandon invading with a
crowbar, just like, pipes and all that...


David Roberts


Well, there's no mystery why they do that. They did the same
thing with beef around Green New Deal or whatever. They know that
this triggers all the right kind of resentment.


Sage Welch


Yes.


David Roberts


Okay, so these three things happen and then Trumka follows up
these three things with the big old bandword and then this all
explodes. Suddenly everyone's talking about it. This is one of
these funny experiences that people have in our world where we've
been talking about this forever. It's just fascinating,
sociologically fascinating to watch the vast bulk of people who
just have never thought about this at all, right. This is the
first they're hearing of anything about it at all. So it's
interesting to watch people sort of like untutored, spontaneous
reactions to this.


Sage Welch


Totally. I mean, this is, I just think, the best thing ever. I'm
loving every second of it. A, because we've been working to
create awareness about the health harms of gas stoves for a long
time. But also, and we can get into this, I think Republicans
think they've touched on this major kitchen table issue. But I
think this is a really shining and striking moment for the
climate movement and becoming relevant is not a bad thing.


David Roberts


Yes, we'll discuss the politics later. I think they're less
straightforward than people think. And I think you're right. But
first, so this is why it's on everybody's mind now, insofar as we
can do so in a reasonable amount of time. Let's talk about the
science. Everybody's arguing about the science now. What do we
know and how long have we known it? Give us sort of like a
capsule history of the science.


Sage Welch


So when you cook with methane gas, you're combusting a fossil
fuel, much like you do in your car, but you're doing it in your
home, and the pollution that's created goes directly into your
kitchen and kind of just like, straight into your face. And
ventilation can help disperse some of those pollutants.
Ventilation is super important, especially if that ventilation is
going outside. Unfortunately, a lot of ventilation circulates
straight back to you and/or no one uses it, and/or you may not
have a range hood, but we've actually seen ventilation not be
super effective at dispersing nitrogen dioxide pollution. And
that's the pollutant that we're really concerned about when it
comes to the health impacts of cooking and of combusting the gas.


David Roberts


Well—what about I'm going to jump in with naive questions here.


Sage Welch


Sure.


David Roberts


One thing I hear a lot is that one class of pollutants produced
by cooking is just from cooking the food, charring the food
itself, which is going to be produced by any cooking.


Sage Welch


Totally.


David Roberts


Any type of cooking. So what are the percentages here? If I'm
worried about those pollutants? Are those the main ones or is NO2
the main one? Where do they all kind of fall out?


Sage Welch


Okay, so when you cook, that process itself does produce
particulate matter like PM2.5, right. There is research that
shows that gas cooking produces like 50% more PM2.5. Or homes
that are cooking with gas does produce a bit more of that
particulate matter. And again, we'll talk more about this, but
the gas industry is really seized on this idea that all cooking
creates pollution. And it's absolutely true. Even electric
stoves. It's a good idea to try and fan some of this particulate
matter away from you and out the window.


David Roberts


Yes, ventilation is important in all cooking. Let's just put a
stake in that.


Sage Welch


But then the conversation that we're having in regards to asthma
and lung irritants, specifically, we really do need to zero in on
nitrogen dioxide and NO2, because NO2 exposure is just really
bad. This leads to aggravated respiratory symptoms, higher
susceptibility lung infections like COVID, increased risk of
asthma, as well as, like, IQ and learning deficits, increased
risk of cardiovascular effects. I don't think there's anyone
that's going to argue that NO2 pollution is not bad. We've
regulated NO2 levels outdoors for a very long time. And I
actually think that there's steady new research coming out that
NO2 is even worse outdoors than we ever thought.


But there's this funky little thing where no one actually gets to
regulate indoor air concentrations. But what we know about
cooking with gas is that in the time it takes to, like, bake a
pie, about an hour, 90% of all homes, specifically when you're
cooking with gas, will have an unhealthy level of NO2 pollution,
a level that EPA says is not acceptable in outdoor air. And EPA
research shows that homes with gas stoves can have up to 400%
higher NO2 concentrations than homes with electric stoves.


Because with an electric stove, you're not combusting a fossil
fuel. This pollution is very specific to that fossil fuel
combustion. And that, when it comes to NO2, kids are just really
at risk. And so are seniors, and so are pregnant people. There's
a lot of populations who, for whom, NO2 produces very bad
outcomes. So there's about 57, just by my team's count, peer
reviewed studies that have come out since 1976 that find links
between gas cookings and various health harms. And these are all,
again, peer reviewed journal published studies. And as we
mentioned, that latest asthma study is based on some really
important work that came out in 2013, which is a meta analysis.
It's like a literature review of more than 40 different research
papers looking at the effects of NO2 from gas cooking, and it's
linked to asthma.


David Roberts


A lot of what I'm seeing about the science goes back to this
2013-2014 meta analysis and some back even to, like, a study in
1991, I think. I guess my naive question is: why isn't there more
recent—especially given the rising sort of profile of this whole
issue—why is there not more recent empirical, direct empirical
research about this?


Sage Welch


I don't know exactly, but I'm not sure that my answer is I think
it's just firmly established. I mean, I think the purpose of that
meta analysis was to say the science on this is relatively
well-established as far as the gas cooking creates NO2, NO2
creates health hazards. And we'll talk about this, but there was
a flurry of research on this in the 70's and 80's by the gas
industry, but also by the National Academy of Sciences. There was
a 1981 symposium on indoor air pollution in Massachusetts and
there was no less than 15 papers introduced at that symposium on
pollution from fuel-fired appliances. We actually had this very
robust conversation about this in the 70's and 80's, and it just
kind of died down.


David Roberts


A couple of other naive questions. One is, like, my gas furnace
also has a pilot light, right? Is also combusting a fossil fuel,
in some cases people's water heater or whatever. Are all indoor
gas appliances producing NO2 or do other appliances handle it
better in some way?


Sage Welch


So those other appliances are also producing NO2 and a wide range
of pollutants. But the difference is they're vented outdoors
naturally. The stove is the only one that's not directly vented
outdoors. And I think it's important to bring this up, though,
because I don't think it's been underappreciated the role that
gas appliances play in smog formation. In California, where I'm
based, there's air quality management districts and also the
California Air Resources Board. These folks are required to meet
federal air quality standards. And what I see them focusing on
right now because actually there's some movement on this, we
can't actually meet these standards unless we do something at the
moment about these vented appliances.


David Roberts


So gas appliances in homes and buildings are a notable
contributor to outdoor pollution.


Sage Welch


The gas appliances in the Bay Area contribute more like more NOx,
which creates smog, than all of the passenger vehicles in the Bay
Area.


David Roberts


No s**t.


Sage Welch


In California, in total, these appliances are responsible for
more than four times the NOx pollution than our power plants.


David Roberts


That is wild.


Sage Welch


It's striking! Which, also helps put the stove in perspective
because you're just like, yeah, you're burning a fuel that
produces pollutants. There's not really any way around it. And
that's one of the reasons why the California Air Resources Board,
as a part of the state implementation plan, which is their plan
for how they're going to continuously meet these federally
mandated air quality standards, committed to basically a zero
greenhouse gas emissions standard for heaters and hot water
heaters by 2030, which effectively is going to end the sale of
those products here in California simply because they are key
contributors. And the Bay Area is also working on a rule on this,
a NOx rule essentially. But fortunately we have technologies like
heat pumps and others that don't produce any pollution. But yes,
really underappreciated contributors to smog.


David Roberts


Interesting. And second naive question: a lot of the criticisms
of the science you're seeing online are saying things like these
studies sort of like seal a room in plastic and then run the
stove and then of course you find nitrous oxides. But if you
ventilate properly, you're fine. Can you get to a safe indoor air
level if you are using proper ventilation? What's the story
there?


Sage Welch


Well, I think that's the question that CPSC is setting out
exactly to determine what is a safe level of NO2 and how can we
ensure that cooking products are meeting it or fossil fuel
appliances are meeting it. I think ventilation can help and it
is, again, it's super important, especially as we're having this
conversation. Let's talk about mitigating risk factors while also
talking about long-term policy solutions. And I'll probably speak
rather imprecisely and we can let people attack us on Twitter for
that. But my understanding is that ventilation is not entirely
or...I would guess I would use the word like "adequately
effective" against specifically that NO2.


My kind of silly understanding of it is that NO2 is like a
heavier pollutant and it's harder to disperse. There was a study
about whole home ventilation, which is kind of different than
super high-powered range hoods, but it's actually kind of
considered the gold standard in ventilation as we're learning
more about how to produce the healthiest indoor air possible. And
that found that that specific method is not effective against
NO2. And to be clear as well, you're going to have levels of NO2
in your home because that is the key pollutant that comes from
fossil fuel combustion.


So if you're living by a road, which we probably all are, you're
going to have some trace and ambient amounts of NO2. But you're
not going to have...I mean, the gas stove is a little mini fossil
fuel power plant. It is burning it right in your face. So it just
changes that concentration dramatically.


David Roberts


And also it's worth pointing out here that what studies we have
show that something it's like 20% of people, 30% of people report
actually using their hoods, using their ventilation at all, much
less on...And one of the reasons they cite they don't want to do
it, is it's too loud. And of course, it only works the way it's
supposed to work if you crank it up to the right level, right,
based on your cooking. So you need it to be kind of loud and kind
of running all the time if you want to even approach these sort
of top levels of safety.


Sage Welch


Yeah, if we ended this conversation with just ventilation, we'd
be doing ourselves like a pretty wild disservice. And yeah, not
only do folks not really use it and there are questions about how
effective it really is. It's also...my last apartment, we had a
gas stove with no range hood whatsoever. I can't even actually
remember living in a place, which maybe speaks to Bay Area
housing, but that has had ventilation paired with a gas stove.
And as a tenant, you're very stuck there.


David Roberts


We discovered when we remodeled our kitchen that our vent, which
we never used because it was loud and rattling, just vented up
into the attic. Like it didn't go outside at all. So it was just
recirculating. And I forget the exact figures on that, too, but
something like half of ventilation fans do that. They just
recirculate air in the home, which, of course, is doing next to
nothing for you. This is sort of my sign post around ventilation.
Like, if you approach it scientifically and set it all up exactly
right, you might be approaching safe levels of indoor air, but
that is just the wild exception.


And as you say, I want to return to this later, but we'll just
sort of put a pin in it here. Renters and low-income people are
the ones most likely to live in shitty setups with bad stoves and
bad ventilation.


Sage Welch


And smaller. And this is the other thing that really matters
here, is like the room size matters, the airflow matters. And
yes, it's the smaller households where this is just really highly
concerning. And it's also...I don't know, these could well be
folks who are living in areas that are already really
overburdened with pollution at the outdoor level. So the fact
that you can't find access to clean air, I mean, I'm a parent. It
just breaks my heart. It's not...yeah, it's terrible.


David Roberts


Okay, so this is the science. Is there more to say about there's
lots of studies about NOx. Virtually impossible to get a safe
level of NOx in your house if you're running a gas stove.


That's well established. And then there's this other—honestly,
really creepy—body of evidence that is coming out about what is
in the gas that's in our home and when and how we're being
exposed to that through leakage. So there's been a series of
three studies in the past year. The first one came from Stanford.
It came out in January of 2022. And that found that gas stoves
are leaking methane. I mean, unsurprisingly, because gas is
almost entirely methane around the clock while they are off.


This is the pilot light or just something else?


Sage Welch


No, this is like leakage from the fittings, from the stove
itself. I think there's just...like this is a gas that wants to
leak and it's going to find a way.


David Roberts


This is an echo of all the recent research about methane
pipelines, too, right. The whole methane infrastructure is
leaking all over the place.


Sage Welch


And for this reason, and you folks have been making this point,
like, gas stoves are a relatively small emissions impact, but
they're actually a much more potent climate hazard than we
thought. And that's what that research shows us. So that body of
research shows that not only are gas stoves leaking a bunch of
stuff well off, the methane side of that leakage is contributing
to the...it's like the emissions equivalent of 500,000 cars being
driven each year, totally separate from the combustion of the
fuel. But just that sheer methane leakage is pretty big climate
issue. And so that kind of established this point that these are
leaking.


And then researchers from Harvard and PSC Healthy Energy started
a project measuring and looking at what was in the unburnt gas
that was leaking from gas stoves. And they've done this in two
places so far. The first study was in Boston, and they found
nearly 300 chemical compounds, including 21 pollutants, that are
known to be toxic to humans, including benzene to the known
carcinogen linked to blood disorders and leukemia. And the Boston
study didn't measure concentrations, but just the presence. We're
like, "Okay, stoves are leaking, and they're leaking some really
harmful stuff." And I just think at the core of this, it's just
deeply fascinating that we don't know—and kind of have never
really known—all the different components that are in gas.


David Roberts


It's a little wild, right?


Sage Welch


It's totally crazy! It's coming into our homes. And this PSE
study that I'm about to mention, the title of the study is, "Home
is Where the Pipeline Ends," because it literally is. From
sourcing to transportation to distribution lines to your house,
gas is picking up all kinds of stuff, and we don't ever really
determine what is in that and how it could affect you. So this
PSE study did the same thing as the Boston study. They measured
what was in the gas that was leaking from kitchens in California,
but this time they measured the concentrations and they found
that in California, the benzene levels that were leaking were
just off the charts, up to seven times California's recommended
exposure limit.


But those exposure limits are saying...those exist because the
state kind of has to say something. But the World Health
Organization, any health authority, is going to tell you there is
no safe level of benzene exposure to the toxin that accumulates
in your body over time, and it gives you cancer in the long term.
So they compared this at the concentration level. The leakage in
homes in California was about the same level of the benzene
concentration that you'd see if you lived with an indoor smoker.
And that's kind of interesting because the most recent RMI asthma
study also found that that 12% childhood asthma link level is
about the same as secondhand smoke.


David Roberts


Interesting.


Sage Welch


So we have two different places where we're learning that the
health impacts are just quite strikingly similar to what it would
be if you were living with a smoker indoors.


David Roberts


Although I am extremely old, I did not actually live through the
arguments, or at least was not paying attention to the arguments
about indoor smoking. But from what I've read about them, they
took an oddly similar shape to all these arguments we're having
now. This is something I say about air pollution all the time, my
Volts listeners are probably sick of hearing it, but just, it's
been decades now that more or less every time scientists return
to the subject of air pollution and they discover the same thing:
"it's worse than we thought, it's worse than we thought, it's
worse than we thought."


That's consistent across decades, now, across pollutants.
Particulates are this way, NOx, et cetera. So you don't want to
sort of say, "Here's what we know today, and this is probably
final." It's just, like, intuitively things are probably going to
keep going in the direction they've been going. We're probably
going to keep finding out they're worse than we thought and worse
than we thought.


Sage Welch


Totally.


David Roberts


Okay, so NOx is super bad. The chemicals in gas are super bad.
Both are being leaked into the home. We've known about NOx for a
long time. We're learning about benzene and these new chemicals
more recently. So let's pivot from the science then to the
politics of this. So you say we've known these issues about
indoor air quality related to stoves have been around for a
while. Give us just a little bit of the history. Like when did
this first start coming into the sort of consciousness of
regulators and how has the gas industry responded over the years?


Sage Welch


Yeah, so this is super fascinating and I think has kind of been
missing from the discourse this week. So I'm really excited that
we get to talk about it. But the best snapshot I've seen of this
historical debate comes from a paper we found. The paper is
called the "Impact of Indoor Air Quality on the Gas Industry." It
was published in 1984. And let's just take a moment. Not the
impact of the gas industry or gas on indoor air quality.


David Roberts


Right!


Sage Welch


Yeah, this paper was commissioned by the gas industry. The
purpose was to provide an overview of the indoor air quality
issue to gas utility legal representatives.


And they say over and over, the reason that they are
commissioning this report and looking at this is due in large
part to the fact that the Consumer Product Safety Commission was,
at that time, undertaking a rather robust investigation into
fuel-fired appliances. And so scientists, federal authorities,
and the gas industry were all engaged in a very robust
conversation about this. The American Gas Association actually
set up something called the Gas Research Institute in 1976. Fun
fact: costs that were eventually passed on to ratepayers to
establish that institute through some fees that they were paying
for pipeline transportation.


And in 2000, that merged with the Institute of Gas Tech, or GTI,
and they're still producing research for AGA. AGA and the gas
industry kind of set up their own research. But what this paper
shows us that in 1974, the science of the health harms was not
only well-established, but there was like a lot of discussion
about this in media. The gas industry in the paper says the gas
industry has been researching this since the 70s due to Congress
and public concerns. And as I mentioned there was that 1981
symposium they mentioned this in the paper where there's just
like an explosion of papers and scientists really interested.


And this is also around the time where we were really focused on
energy conservation, so we were tightening up building envelopes.
And I think that's part of the reason why there was also an
expressed interest in what might be floating around inside
because we were steadily locking people into those pollutants.


David Roberts


Yes, the building ceiling I think you could probably view as like
the tail-end of the kind of oil crisis, Jimmy Carter, "Let's
preserve oil, let's do energy efficiency," tail-end of the 70's,
that movement, which then ran into the 80's and Reagan, which I
think our story does as well.


Sage Welch


Yes. And so yeah, in this paper they give you this really
fascinating snapshot, particularly of the media interest. So
they're noting that there's a lot of articles running in the Wall
Street Journal and Reader's Digest and Consumer Reports. They
have some quotes from Consumer Reports. I'll read this one from
1982: "Children from gas stove homes have a greater incidence of
respiratory illness and impaired lung function than those from
homes with electric stoves." And then in 1984 there's this
excerpt from a Consumer Reports article that says "The evidence
so far suggests that emissions from a gas range do pose a risk.
And if you're buying a new range and you can choose between
electric and gas, you might want to choose an electric one."


And that is just like verbatim what everything has said this week
and some new reporting that we're seeing from Consumer Reports.
So it's so interesting to me that we were having this
conversation and we just kind of developed collective amnesia. I
mean I think that's due in large part, and I'm sure we'll chat
about this, to marketing of gas stoves, but for everyone being
like this is coming out of the blue, it's being
manufactured...like no!


David Roberts


It's only about climate change.


Sage Welch


Right? Yeah, exactly. This is because we have this hidden agenda?
I guess, maybe it's a hidden agenda to keep people safe. But no,
we have long been...


David Roberts


So what happened in the 80's? All these questions pop up in the
early 80's. I remember other things about the politics of the
early 80's. Think about all the many things that we started in
the 70's that we just kept doing them, we so much better off
today. Yes, and it all came to a screeching halt in the 80's.


So during the 1980's, you have both EPA and the CPSC kind of
working on this. Congress created this interagency research group
on indoor air quality to coordinate research in 1979. And so that
included various EPA investigations, and then, as we said, the
CPSC was undertaking these investigations and offering reports
about fuel-fired appliances. In the spring of 1986, EPA
instructed CPSC, they're kind of exchanging dialogue about the
fact that they kind of think there's a problem here. So EPA tells
CPSC to identify the level of NO2 in homes that is coming from
appliances.


Sage Welch


So they're like, "Alright, this is your sort of wheelhouse,"
which I think this could also well be EPA's wheelhouse, but they
say, "You need to now go out and find out what level of NO2 is
coming from appliances and whether or not that's safe." And the
fact is that that just never happened. And that's exactly what
the RFI that Trumka's is referring to is going to do. So again,
this isn't some new thing. It's actually just fulfilling this
40-year-old request from EPA. And I should add that this doesn't
seem that uncommon on the consumer-product side.


Like, I'm pretty sure asbestos and baby powder and lead paint.
There was really well-established science for 50, 60, 70 years
before...


David Roberts


Leaded gas, too! 50 years we knew about leaded gas. It's wild to
look back now in retrospective how long all these things took.


Sage Welch


Yeah. And honestly, thanks to industry and the fact that no one
is really often is working on behalf of the American people, but
a lot of people work on behalf of industry.


David Roberts


Well, let's segue then into one of the explanations. This concern
was big in the late 70's and early 80's. It was moving forward
and then got sort of shut down at the consumer agency, probably
because they were not, the administration, was not big fans of
regulation at the time, and was big fans of fossil fuels at the
time. So one of the reasons that this got put on the backburner,
pardon the pun, and stayed there for decades, is that the gas
industry worked very hard to keep it on the backburner. So let's
talk about that then a little bit.


I think people are...there's a lot of information flying around
these days about the gas industry's current sort of propaganda
efforts, all its Instagram influencers and whatnot, but they've
been at it for a while, so let's talk a little bit about that
history.


Sage Welch


Yeah. So even while, you know, the gas industry is doing a lot of
research and kind of trying to work with regulators to control
the narrative on the pollutants, they're also undertaking really
aggressive marketing of gas stoves. But actually this goes back
much further. So like nearly 100 years. This has been coming up a
lot on the internet, and I'm so happy it's coming out, because I
think it's one of those things that illustrates just how
conditioned we've been. But this phrase, "cooking with gas," that
was a phrase that was developed by an executive from the American
Gas Association in the 1930's, and he happened to know some
writers for Bob Hope and some other radio show hosts.


And it starts to appear in these scripts and then just gets
picked up by other places and really becomes, like, ubiquitous,
this phrase and culture by the 1940's. Emily Atkins, in her
heated newsletter last week dug up an old AGA newsletter where
they're, like, reflecting on this, but pretending that they
didn't actually plant it, and it's just a super funny...I thought
that was hilarious. The newsletter is like, "Gasmen began to
listen as they had never listened before, not knowing whether to
be glad, mad, dazed, or dazzled by such widespread free
publicity." It's like, they know full well...


David Roberts


How did it happen? What's going on here?


Sage Welch


Totally.


David Roberts


One of the obvious sort of first questions to ask is, you know,
people who are familiar with the subject now know that gas stoves
represent a relatively small percentage of gas demand, right.
It's not a big piece of the gas industry puzzle. So what explains
their sort of obsessive focus on it for so long?


Sage Welch


Yeah. So, I mean, I think they recognized really early on that
this was the way that they were going to ingratiate themselves to
consumers and this was their way to get in the house and stay in
the house. This was the only possible appliance that one could
have an attachment to, right? It's the only one that's visible.
It's the only one that you kind of actively use.


David Roberts


Right. And it's cooking, it's family, it's caring for your
family. It's got all that whole web of associations.


Sage Welch


Yeah. And they begin to market it as a status symbol. There's
tons of marketing by the 50's and the 60's. It's how you're able
to cook better. It's how you make food that tastes better. And
they're really just, like, selling at the time to basically
women. Like, this is how you be a good wife and a good mother,
and this is how you feed your family. And they're especially
speaking to kind of like, major coastal urban areas just because
that's where gas demand was sort of emerging and that's where
they had the funds, essentially to put in the infrastructure. So,
as you referenced, gas residential use just really skyrockets,
very particularly in major coastal urban areas, so, New York and
California. And that's still today where we have the highest
rates of gas cooking and gas consumption.


David Roberts


Right. Well, let's just make a note of this because everybody
loves to laugh about this on the Internet. Gas stove use is much
higher in blue states than in red states. This sort of an
inversion of the culture war that we're having. Actual
distribution of gas use is almost opposite of that.


Sage Welch


Totally. And so to see, like, the right-wingers pick this up as
like this kind of populist kind of issue when it's actually been
like, you are much more likely to cook with gas if you are a
higher-income person, especially if you're in the Southeast,
because you paid a lot to get yourself gas service there. And so
there's a huge amount of consumer marketing through these
decades. But then there's other ways that utilities specifically
and when we talk about the gas industry, there's a web here, but
often we're talking about the gas utilities who sell the gas to
consumers.


David Roberts


Yeah, and let me just say by way of background, I mean, maybe
this is probably obvious to you, but to make sure it's clear to
everyone, an electric utility is involved in giving you
electricity. It is, at least in theory, neutral toward how to
generate that electricity, right. It can accommodate different
ways of creating that electricity. A gas utility is very
different. It's about the one fuel. And if we use less of the
fuel, then the utility shrinks and disappears. Gas is existential
for gas utilities in a way that none of these arguments are for
electric utilities.


Sage Welch


Totally. And so you see, gas utilities do this kind of
interesting thing where they set up, like, culinary centers and
test kitchens and they develop relationships with restaurant
associations, they sponsor scholarships, and they make gas, this
core curricula of culinary schools, which is obviously another
very clever way that you are embedding yourself in that culture
specifically for chefs and for folks who do cooking as a
profession.


David Roberts


Right.


Sage Welch


And as we now know, they begin to really lean into this
relationship and rely on that relationship with chefs and
restaurant associations to fight electrification. We're seeing
this across the board in states where we have policies moving,
but yeah, they've really relied on gas to be this wedge between
them and their kind of competitor, electricity. And then they
started to really double down on this in the past five years or
so when they perceived that electrification is going to be a
problem. We actually have some emails that came out through
discovery between the American Public Gas Association and
SoCalGas, and I find this particularly egregious because APGA
represents municipal utilities.


So these are like publicly-owned utilities. These are like even
more than investor-owned utilities who in my opinion, also should
be working for us because they're supposedly providing a public
good. But like, APGA and SoCalGas are trading emails about this
energy-efficiency proceeding in California and they're like, "Oh,
it's coming. Broad scale electrification is on the horizon and
it's a huge threat." And APGA actually launched the very
first...a lot of folks have been talking about these influencer
campaigns. APGA and AGA both had them. But APGA went first with
this gas-genius campaign that's like very targeted marketing at
Gen X, really trying to sell themselves to a particular
generation there.


And then AGA did the same with this "Cooking With Gas" campaign
where they're basically paying influencers on Instagram to gush
about their gas cooking. And as much as that got called out and
has been this kind of just public source of mockery. We're still
seeing them do this. Like, Southwest Gas did this just last year
with some really honestly hilarious videos of some folks in Las
Vegas, like, burning eggs and talking about how "you can only
burn eggs effectively with gas."


David Roberts


It's so cringy to us. This is one of those things where, like,
how do normal people process these things? I have no idea. It's
been so long since I've been a normal person on this subject.
It's very cringy to us. Do we know whether it works? Like, do we
know, if you're just an average Instagram schmo and you run
across one of these things, whether they're effective?


Sage Welch


Well, the one reason I would say that it probably is effective is
because it's a message that's echoed not just from an Instagram
influencer, but at this point, this has been incredibly
successful to manufacture a consumer preference for gas and to
truly believe that you can only cook better and that food tastes
better. And it's like, I can't not picture those chemicals now
when I see the blue flames. So this idea of, like...my partner is
like his method for cooking tortillas is like, he chars it
directly over the frame. But I'm just like, that is not seems
super safe or great right now.


David Roberts


Eggs are better with benzene.


Sage Welch


That is wild.


David Roberts


And we should also just note, as you noted before, but I want to
just put an exclamation point on it again. Very frequently gas
utilities are using ratepayer funds to do this propaganda! So
it's gas customers that are often paying for the sort of lobbying
and propaganda that we're seeing.


Sage Welch


Yeah, we unfortunately have to pay our gas company to prevent us
from accessing better options and prevent us from having a good
faith conversation about this. And this is what makes me
actually, like, very angry is, even this week, everyone acts
because this is the frame they set like a zero-sum game. We don't
get to have an honest, straightforward conversation about the
safety of what's in our home, how we can protect ourselves, and
just the benefits of doing so. And, yeah, it's frustrating.


David Roberts


Well, I mean, as you say, this is precisely the reason they honed
in on stoves so long ago, is, number one, stoves are very
emotional to people, very connected to a lot of emotion. And
number two, if you're trying to electrify and get rid of gas,
most people, I think, don't have a super strong preference about
their water heater or their furnace or whatever. So if you can
switch those out for electric, but you can't cut off the gas line
to the house as long as there's a gas stove, right? So as long as
there's that gas stove, there you are preserving the gas hookup
in the gas infrastructure. That's what this is about. That's why
they're focusing on stoves, even though stoves aren't that big a
consumer.


Sage Welch


Totally. They know full well that this conversation really is
about that infrastructure, but so long as we can keep people sold
on this idea and...one thing I think is a little bit wild, a lot
of folks feel strongly about their gas stove. It's becoming a
Republican thing, which I totally love. And we can talk about how
this is like pushing a target audience away from gas cooking, but
when people say, like, "We can't switch or gas is just better,"
like, a. that's been manufactured. But we also haven't been
cooking with gas for all that long.


Like, this is the 50's, 60's, and 70's, we transitioned from
like, coal stoves before. There's a chef that we work with, Chris
Galarza, and he just makes the point that we can still have
culture and tradition. It's not the fuel source. Cooking will
remain a wonderful way to unify families. We can learn, we can
change. We change to gas.


David Roberts


Food still heats...


Sage Welch


Right!


David Roberts


...and eats! And this is also—I don't know if it's the right time
to say this—but for some reason I see these people on Twitter
saying confidently, like, "I've used both and gas is so much
better." The way that makes me feel is always similar to how I
used to feel about the debate about marijuana legalization. Like,
you can go out in public and confidently say that "if you smoke
pot, you're going to be deranged and wreck your car," or
whatever, but I've smoked pot. Like a bunch of people have smoked
pot.


You could fool us about things we don't have direct experience
with, but...


Sage Welch


Totally.


David Roberts


We've experienced this and we know that's b******t! I've cooked
with both gas and induction and the idea that just your average
run-of-the mill Joe or Jane in their kitchen is so expert that
these fine distinctions of like, "Oh, I've got to get exactly the
right char." I'm so sure. Like, I'm so sure you're getting the
exact right char.


Sage Welch


You get takeout!


David Roberts


Yeah.


Sage Welch


You're eating 50% of your meals from the burrito shop. As am I!
It's fine! We could admit this, but it definitely became the
"smartest person in the room" response to the debate. But what I
don't like about that or what I would hope folks would understand
is, like, you're...I mean, it's just like with cars and massive
cars, you've been taught to believe that. That has been
manufactured. All consumer preferences.


David Roberts


People really do not like to hear that their own consumer
preferences have been shaped by socialization and by nefarious
forces. They really, really don't like to hear that. But it's
just true. All of us were born into this. We're shaped, we're
socialized, we're given messages, and then we grow up and
suddenly we have this passionate idea that gas stoves are better.
I just wish people would just take a step back and think a little
bit, like, really? Did you was that purely through your
experience of cooking on gas that you came to this weirdly,
passionate feeling about an appliance. Just consider.


What I, again love, about this week is you have these right-wing
representation—walking representations—of toxic masculinity now,
being like, this appliance is the thing that they care so much
about, right? I mean, yeah, God, guns, gas stove, but keep it up.
They should continue on this.


Let's talk about this. Let's talk about this. So we've got these
health concerns that go way, way back and are fairly well
established. We've got this long history of the gas industry
propagandizing around gas stoves, making these relationships with
chefs and culinary centers really working the idea that high-end,
your sort of more sophisticated consumer, of course, will only
cook with gas. And so you get this sort of high-end sheen. Your
thesis, I mean, I think a lot of people looking at this sort of
intuitively would think, "Oh, no, this is another culture war.
It's another backlash. This is another environmentalists are
shooting themselves in the foot by going after things people love
and they're only harming their own long-term goals." And all the
usual lecturing of the left is in full flower out there on
Twitter. But your thesis is that the political valence of this,
the political consequences of this, are going to redound in favor
of environmentalists. So tell us why.


Sage Welch


Yeah, so there's a couple of key reasons. One is just simply like
awareness raising. There has literally been close to 10,000 media
stories in the past two weeks about gas flows and asthma. Like,
bring it on, keep it up. This has been a phenomenal moment for
induction cooking, which the issue with induction in the US, not
in Europe or other markets, has just been sheer awareness. It's
like 3%, I think, of the market. And unfortunately, to date,
manufacturers haven't really pushed this technology super hard.
And so there hasn't been a lot of advertising of it.


David Roberts


Yeah, let's just say because this has been also coming out in
findings recently, too, and this was in the New York Times story
they did. The problem here is not passionate defenders versus
passionate haters of stoves. The vast, vast, vast majority of
Americans specifically don't know what any of this is about and
might not even be aware that induction is a thing that exists.


Sage Welch


Totally. So, yes, when everyone is worried about this, and
rightfully, we all understand, they're talking about those old
school coil-heated stoves that really take a long time to heat
up, and they weren't super powerful and do suck. I think new
electric models are kind of fine, but induction is not fine. It's
totally awesome.


David Roberts


It rules.


Sage Welch


It really is. But just quickly, on that kind of awareness
raising, I think it may not even seem like it today or in two
weeks, but my personal experience on this issue and again, I'm a
renter and have pretty much all our places have had gas stoves,
is that I learned about this about five years ago. I was like,
wow, that's interesting, but I'm obviously in no position to
change my stove. And then every time I clicked on the pilot light
and I saw the flame, I just started to get a little bit worried.
And then I started to realize that my five year old is fully eye
level with that or like, the baby is crawling towards the stove
and it's like alarm bells started to be raised and it's just that
sheer little bit of doubt that finally I was like, well, "I'm
tired of being stressed about this." So we just bought a Duxtop
single burner cooktop, and we cook all of our food for a family
of four on a little induction cooktop. And that's the other thing
that I think has been missing, in there's been incredible
coverage of induction. It's finally kind of coming into the
public consciousness, and folks are noting it can be a little bit
pricier, and I think there's a lot of cost competitive ranges.
But it is true if you're getting like a full blown oven, but you
don't need to do that. You can spend under $100 and you can use
that and your toaster oven and your instapot and your air fryer.


I think if you look around your kitchen, you'll probably find you
have a lot of electric appliances that can cover all of your
kitchen needs. And yeah, maybe this isn't the absolute five-alarm
fire from a health perspective, it's certainly worth a look, but
there's really easy solutions where we just don't even have to
think about whether or not we're getting exposed to NO2.


David Roberts


Yes, this is something I have kind of wanted to say about the
whole debate. I might as well say it here, but it's like, if
there were super, super compelling reasons to keep gas in your
home, then maybe they would offset these health concerns.
Because, like you say, there are other bigger health risks out
there in America for people to worry about. This is sort of like
an exacerbating factor on the edge, but there just aren't. If
there's any concern at all, induction is just better, so why not
do it? The idea that there are countervailing considerations here
is just kind of silly to me. Like, we're talking about a product
where literally a better, cleaner, more convenient product is
available.


Sage Welch


Totally.


David Roberts


So, it's like you don't need that much evidence to prefer the
latter.


Sage Welch


Yeah, top to bottom. And this isn't just true on the cooking
side. This is true for heating. Heat pumps are just a better
technology. You're going to get cooling access that you didn't
have before. You're getting rid of super inefficient
electric-resistance heating and inefficient cooling. And we're
going to help solve a lot of our grid demand issues every
single—and this is one reason I've been a little
frustrated—because I think the climate movement in general, we
get super scared when a fight happens. We're like, "Oh, my god,
I'm on the spot." But this is the most incredible opening we've
ever had. We have no reason to be ashamed of pushing electric
technologies because they are literally better at every single
level. And it's okay to fight for people's health. It's okay to
fight for things that are good.


David Roberts


Yes. And I particularly love the like, "Oh, you only care about
this because of climate change. I'm like, well, even if that were
true, it's kind of a big deal." It's true. I am concerned about
it. You got me.


Sage Welch


Totally. Don't let them push you into this idea that the hot seat
is a bad place to be.


David Roberts


Right.


Sage Welch


Use it. This is awesome.


David Roberts


And it seems to be shifting. So let's get back to politics a
little bit. You think by the sort of MAGA crowd claiming this as
a cultural symbol alongside their guns and their rolling coal and
whatever else...burgers? Or whatever else they've picked as sort
of their cultural touchstones, you think that's good for the
politics?


Sage Welch


I think this is near-fatal for gas utilities, this discussion. So
I think that this becoming a culture war, and again, I think gas
cooking being identified as a right-wing virtue pushes a really
important group of people to no longer or to think twice about
identifying with gas cooking as a key part of their identity.


David Roberts


Yes. Which, as we've noted, is mostly like most of the gas stoves
are in blue states.


Sage Welch


Exactly. Yeah. New York, California, Illinois, these states make
up 25% of gas demand in the US, and they have the highest rates
of gas cooking. Nine of the eleven highest gas consumption states
are either blue or purple. And electrification is happening in
blue states. So, as a lot of folks maybe know, about 20 states
pretty much across the Southeast are preempted. So Republicans
have run bill with support from their allies in the American Gas
Association and otherwise to prevent them from doing any kind of
a broad scale, like, local level electrification ordinance. But
in blue states where we need support for this, people are now
being told that cooking with gas, which has always been the
biggest hang up, right? This previous attachment to gas cooking,
even for climate-leaning folks, has been this lingering reason to
not support electrification or to feel a little worried about it.


David Roberts


Because it still has that sheen of like, sophistication and high
end.


Sage Welch


Totally.


David Roberts


So now we have MAGA people telling them... nope!


Sage Welch


Yeah, I personally don't want to be identified with those folks.
And I think a lot of the left-leaning folks don't. And these are
the exact folks that we actually needed. And honestly, in my
view, this is a total act of goddess. We never, ever could have
unwinded that 100 years of marketing to position it like this if
this week hadn't happened. This is incredible. There's a Yale
study where they asked folks what words come to mind in
association with natural gas. They use the word "natural." And
the words that came up for folks was "energy, clean, fuel and
cooking."


And after this week I think it's going to be like: "asthma,
harmful, health...


David Roberts


MAGA.


Sage Welch


...Republican," right? And also I just think the frenzy on it
makes that identification feel a little ridiculous and that the
folks who really are going to identify this are folks that
unfortunately—I care deeply about them. I wish they could also
have access to a pollution-free home—but that's a population we
were never ever going to reach on this issue. So there's broad
swaths of the people in this country that I think are normal and
seeing these other folks taping themselves to gas stoves and
making protection of a kitchen appliance the biggest thing in
their world, that's objectively funny and it's silly and
honestly, ultimately it's weak.


And it's showing us that a deep identification with just one
cooking technology is a little bit silly, especially if you're
going to ignore a huge body of science that says that cooking
technology could well be hurting your health.


David Roberts


It's funny, just that angle sort of hadn't occurred to me that
it's specifically now MAGA people telling the blue owners of most
of the stoves that ownership of those stoves is now a MAGA
right-wing thing. It is, exquisitely, sort of a counter to their
own interests. Kind of beautiful that way.


Sage Welch


Worst possible messengers. God, I would love to see group chats
on this from some other sides because I wonder...because how this
went down to Bloomberg started covering it, couple of the
right-wingers came out, and then it was like the next day you
have Joe Manchin and it really blew up. And part of me wonders if
the sending out of the talking points to get the right-wing
machine in gear was coming from the more established like Koch
brothers things. But I just wonder...and maybe the American Gas
Association and others threw up a call for help, but I think
probably pretty quickly realized that this was not going to turn
out well, again, in the electrification states where the gas
utilities are almost entirely dependent on selling their gas.


And it might be a while before we see how this all plays out, but
I just firmly believe that, again, this has been one of the most
incredible turning points that we could ever have even dreamed
up, or manifested, to help educate folks about the health harms
of gas cooking, but also to undo this conditioning, which has
barely been a barrier for us.


David Roberts


Yes, it's beautiful. So the politics seems like the most
predictable political effect of this is going to be in blue
states where gas bands are being discussed are on the table now,
or are a possibility. This is now going to sort of reframe those
gas bands as a way to stick your thumb in the eye of the MAGA
movement which is absolutely the best way you could sell those in
those states.


Sage Welch


Yeah. And also a way to protect your family and get access to
funding and everything else that we need to get access to folks.
I mean, I think one of the things that also could be going on and
folks just get...I think climate folks in general get afraid to
be vocal, but I think that this is just a really important time
to again bring up that this is like not a zero-sum game, that the
electrification movement gas bans or gas ordinances or all the
work that we're doing to try and bring folks into healthier,
better housing. That doesn't just have the super straightforward
winners or losers.


And I think one of the reasons why we're afraid of harnessing
this narrative is like, we're very conscious of organized labor
membership or people who don't have the means to electrify. But I
think this is just exactly that opportunity to get out there
right now and fight for those who have gas in their homes to get
that out, get them access to induction cooktops, let's expand IRA
funding. Let's use state budget to help supplement the cost here.
And I think workers who really do care about climate change, this
is our chance to tell folks that this is electrification is huge
for skilled labor. There are so many opportunities.


David Roberts


I keep reading and hearing stories about how we're short on those
workers, those basic trade workers, specifically electricians,
which we're going to need a bazillion of in coming years.


Sage Welch


Yes, this is a chance to revitalize vocational education in this
country and beef up unions. Like we need electricians across the
board. Also for the plumbers and the pipefitters. And this is
what bothers me is that the tops, the leadership and the
utilities, are going around telling everyone that, "Yeah, this
means your job, your job is over, you're done if we pursue these
electrification measures." When, really, we have thermal energy
networks coming up as a solution in states across the country,
plumbers and pipefitters are going to continue to work on pipes.
We're just going to pipe, like, clean energy and use heat pumps.


David Roberts


Hot water!


Sage Welch


Yeah, it's electrification. It's labor-lead electrification. And
even for the gas linemen and folks, who I would say probably know
better than anyone exactly how dangerous gas is, and we didn't
even touch on the fact that when you electrify, you're getting
rid of explosions and so much beyond just the health. But these
workers, if we all agreed tomorrow that we're going to retire the
gas system and move to 100% electrification for homes, that's 20
to 30 years of work in which that expertise...


David Roberts


I know!


Sage Welch


...is so central!


David Roberts


Of all things that would do, threatening jobs is just absolutely
on the bottom of the list. If there's one thing we know about
what that would take, it's a lot of work.


Sage Welch


So much work and an opportunity for solid family-sustaining,
long-term work, and the education pipelines. There's a really
innovative approach that's being proposed in New York right now
to very specifically go to communities where there hasn't been
traditionally opportunities and where it's overburdened—y'know
there's pollution burdens—and get folks into those pipelines
right now. And we can have this like an honest, real conversation
about electrification is really important. I think this is an
opportunity to have it, so long as we can push the fossil fuel
folks out of the way who are preventing us from speaking about
what's really at stake here, but also the sheer amount of
opportunity that we're presented with.


David Roberts


Right. And I think this gets at the politics too. The gas
industry would love for this entire discussion to be focused on
one asthma study. So the discussion is not just about the one
study. It's not just about the history of studies. It's not just
about the other risk. It's about all the risks of gas
infrastructure. And it's about the way that gas stoves are the
sort of cork in the bottle, you know what I mean? Like, once you
get them out of the way, the rest of electrification becomes
easier. Even though they themselves are a relatively small part
of demand for gas, they're a very big symbolic and sort of
political flag in the ground for the gas industry.


So they matter, broadly, for labor, for politics, for health, and
for decarbonization. Even though they are a small source of
greenhouse gases in and of themselves, they are part of the
larger picture of decarbonization. So, I just think we need to
keep pulling the lens back.


Sage Welch


Absolutely. And honestly, they've been accusing us of banning gas
stoves for four years, so we don't really have that much to lose
in this moment. Also, this was never: a. no one's banning gas
stoves, but this came from a regulator. This didn't come from
climate folks. So it's a super fascinating moment. But, yes,
let's harness this. There's like, so much education that can be
happening, and it's okay to fight for what's right, even if it's
uncomfortable. We still lack, like, climate pundits who can get
into the country.


David Roberts


I know! Well, it's all these sort of establishment, like the
disease of the left or the Democratic Party in the United States
is this posture of cringing presurrender and terror. This whole
idea that the power and the momentum is on the side of
reactionary forces, and I just don't think that's true. And just
confidence, right? Just confidence is what the whole friggin'
left, the whole Democratic Party and the whole climate movement
needs more of, like, "Yes, you caught us. We're trying to make
things safer and stop climate change. Busted."


Two more quick aspects of this before I let you go that I want to
get into. One is just the environmental justice angle, sort of
like one thing that reactionaries will say, "This is going to
hurt poor people worse because they can't afford these fancy,
expensive induction stoves, and so they're going to be hurt worse
by this." But another way to look at it is by locking in gas
stoves, we focus all our attention on sort of this upscale
suburban woman consumer but it's going to be poor people who
can't get away from gas stoves, right? I mean that's how it
always ends up. The poor people who work at the restaurants, the
poor people who are renting...insofar as we let guests hang
around, it's not suburban mom who's going to be the modal
consumer, it's going to be people who can't get away from it. So
how do you think about the justice, environmental justice and
sort of economic justice aspects of all this?


Sage Welch


Yeah, we are about to see in the next month or two this wave of
gas heating bills hit folks across the country. Like the price of
methane gas has been up every year. It's like doubling. But this
winter has been crazy for this. And I think it's like not fully
understood that you have this spot price of gas, methane gas that
is passed on by utilities who pushed for pipeline replacements
and all this other infrastructure that is also added to your
bill, but then claims no responsibility when that price goes
through the roof and you're hit with hundreds and hundreds of
dollars.


And a lot of the moratoriums that we had on utility bills shut
off have expired and I think we're about to see a really horrible
crisis. So when folks say that gas is the cheaper option, well,
right now it absolutely is not, and it's certainly not when you
look at the concept of as you're speaking to stranded assets. The
fact that a lot of folks are going to be left on a gas system
that steadily needs a huge amount of investment only just to keep
it safe, supposedly, let alone when utilities get their way and
pilot all these ludicrous like hydrogen for heating projects and
make us pay for renewable natural gas and stuff. So we have a
total crisis on our hands on energy affordability across the
board, but that's being driven—on both sides—from the fact that
we're exporting all of our natural gas and that prices are going
through the roof and that's driving up both the price of
electricity and the price of gas-heating bills.


And this is one area where there's folks who are really doing
interesting, like push the envelope, work on energy-burden stuff.
But we absolutely need to be more vocal and also just like
near-term focus on these bills and making sure that power does
not get shut off. But yes, beyond that, I think we're starting to
see this. So California had, we had close to a billion and it got
cut back a little bit and extended over years. So Governor Newsom
really would like to see our funding reinstated, but close to a
billion in california from last year's state budget to do
low-income whole home retrofits.


So this is, go to homes, get them heat pumps. And super important
point here on heat pump efficiency is that in most places that's
going to produce great kind of energy savings while offering
access to cooling. All across the I-5 corridor, Portland, Oregon
can hit 116 degrees for five days at a time. We need cooling
yesterday. And actually in Portland, there's another really
innovative program, this Portland Clean Energy Fund, that's
distributing 15,000 heat pumps to homes in need. I saw some super
sick legislation get introduced in DC to do these kind of
low-income retrofits. But right now, I think if we could just all
focus—and this is the goal, the kind of government funded and
incentivized electrification needs to be laser-focused on helping
lower-income folks. And folks without the means to electrify do
that.


That's a policy problem with a policy solution. There's a lot of
money changing hands floating around in the world and we can
absolutely make this happen. And in the process of doing so,
we're going to lock in better affordability, but we're also going
to clean up the air, get access to cooling, and solve a lot of
major kind of urgent crises that are coming with extreme heat.
And then we also need to have a discussion on the infrastructure
side. Like climate change is posing a very serious problem to all
of our energy systems.


And right now we pay for and we maintain two really complicated
energy systems, gas and electricity. We don't have a choice to
live without electricity, like that's not happening. So we need
to take all of our time and energy and shore up and safeguard
transmission, build more transmission, build more renewables. And
there's an economies of scale here. We need to focus on
systematic, organized, neighborhood-level retirement of the gas
system, work with those communities to electrify. And bit by bit
we have this really promising future of retiring that gas system
and just focusing on what we need to create community resilience,
which is like distributed clean energy neighborhood resource
centers where, you know you can go for air conditioning or
anything else.


And there's so many solutions. Again, which if we could just
focus our attention there and we weren't fighting on so many
fronts, we would be much better off.


David Roberts


Sage, you're singing my song here. You're singing the Volts. This
is like the Volts theme song you're singing. And this is what I
would say to people, too. The arguments about this tend to be so
narrow, like the cost of this stove versus that stove in January
2023, you know what I mean? Or like the number of electrical
brownouts and blackouts versus gas outages and all these sort of
narrow comparisons. But I just wish people would like step back
long-term on some timescale and on some geographical scale. We
have to electrify completely. We have to more or less get rid of
as much gas as we can get rid of.


And that's going to be, ultimately, safer for people, better for
their health, more reliable and cheaper in the long-term. So it's
not a matter of whether to do this stuff. It's just a matter of
planning how to do it right. And as you say, if we didn't have to
maintain two concurrent infrastructures, we could make the one
that we need and love and need long term a lot better and safer
and more reliable.


Sage Welch


Totally.


David Roberts


I just repeated everything you said, but that's my theme song, so
I got to sing it.


Sage Welch


It's an exciting proposition and I'm not sure that the kind of
end goal of electrification was ever really made clear. But
there's just so much about it that's going to be so helpful. I
mean, we're going to have extremely responsive energy demand
between vehicle-to-grid integration. They're building heat pumps
with batteries in them. There's so much innovative technology and
what folks are worried about is their own personal resilience.
And we can invest in that. There's a lot of solutions. But yes,
if we could just shove aside everyone who's trying to force us
into that zero-sum game thinking and these really bad faith
conversations, then I think that...if we can kind of speak to
what we are giving people, which is a s**t ton when it comes to
electric technologies, they're going to be on our side.


David Roberts


Well, this is my final question. The last thing I want to ask you
about: the environmental movement is often accused of only being
against things and constantly saying, "no, no, no" and constantly
wanting to take things away from you. And that is very much how
the people currently yelling at environmentalists are trying to
frame this whole thing. So I know that the anti-gas sort of
movement, the science organization, it's all underway and that's
great. But what about the pro-induction? Like, what about the
selling of the alternative? I wish that it seems to me that
that's a big missing piece of what's happening right now.


It'd be a lot easier to have these discussions if average
American consumers understood better, that what they're being
encouraged to get is better. It's just better. So when I hear
about giant propaganda campaigns to preserve fossil fuels or—I
talked to Michael Thomas on the pod a few weeks ago about the
sort of right-wing funding that's going into all these
anti-renewable energy groups and these NIMBY groups—I always come
back to the same question, which is, there are millions, billions
of dollars sloshing around on the left, sloshing around the big
"green groups." Where is the pro-electric appliances, generally,
but just pro-induction stove propaganda campaign? Who on our side
is funding...? All you need to do is you don't even need to lie
to anyone. Just tell them...


Sage Welch


Just show that.


David Roberts


....the truth about induction stoves. Is anyone doing that?


Sage Welch


Yeah, I think folks are doing this. So there's two tracks here.
One is that I think we did just open this incredible door for the
actual manufacturer. So if you are a stove manufacturer this week
and you make both gas and electric models but the New York Times
just called your product a kitchen pariah and The Atlantic said
it was doomed and House Beautiful said the era of gas stoves is
over.


David Roberts


And let's mention this too, Wirecutter the Geek, which all geeks
worship, has revised and now no longer says that it makes sense
to hold on to your gas stove if you have one. They've revised and
are basically saying replace this as soon as you can.


Sage Welch


As soon as you feel like it's feasible. That's huge, right? This
trusted consumer resource. If I was on these advertising teams, I
would very quickly be reapportioning my budgets to the potential
growth industry. I think your question is really interesting. I
think that the job of the climate movement on this very specific
topic is to sort of push the policy that shows the market exactly
where the growth industry is. And I think we're starting to do
that, so heat pump sales are through the roof, and, my hope, is
that this week will lead to induction.


David Roberts


I wonder.


Sage Welch


We just showed them this is how you market it. It's clean air,
it's pollution-free, it's worry-free technology for your kitchen.
And we have local news folks, actually. I saw two clips that I
just thought were adorable of going around to appliance showrooms
this week being like, "Are you getting a lot of questions about
gas stoves?" And all the appliance people are like, "Yeah, and
we're super psyched because we've been sitting on these induction
stoves that we're finally getting to tell people about." But my
hope is that we're going to see a huge influx in advertising
dollars just because also, right now, close to a quarter of the
population in this country is living somewhere where an
electrification policy is moving.


And if you make these technologies and a lot of the OEMs make
both, you should really start to invest in the product that has a
future, rather than the product that simply doesn't. I think it's
a little awkward to have climate folks necessarily selling
technology because I actually worry that would turn folks off.
What I want to see is the cool, sleek folks who know how to
advertise stuff to put money into this so that we can show them.
And I think the role of climate people honestly should be
continuing to push the policies that are going to push the
market.


And I think the OEMs are starting to come around on this. And I
also think the technology is improving so dramatically that I
guess my hope is that we're about to see a massive influx. But
speaking to your other question, or part of your question about
why, which I've heard you bring up before, like, why does the
climate movement or the folks who hold the big money, which tends
to be the big greens and or the funders, not put more money into
paid advertising? I think part of it has to do with a metrics
issue and part of it just has to do with being wholeheartedly
focused on our narrow view of hitting policymakers and that
policy line.


And I do see some general advertising TV spots starting to push
back and I think that we should actually be far more aggressive
in going after our enemies with those advertising dollars in
general. One thing that worries me is like popular opinion or
public opinion, like on climate change, for example, doesn't
necessarily translate to policy action. So I think funding for
paid-on really targeted kind of state-level advertising is a
really good idea basically, for lack of a better word, to take
down opponents and make very clear who is standing in the way of
what I think most people want. I don't think our goal is to shift
public opinion on climate so much anymore, is show exactly who is
standing in the way of that and overcome that barrier. Because
unfortunately just the politics of our country mean that even if
something is wildly popular with folks, it doesn't translate into
them getting access to that through policy.


David Roberts


Right. Yeah, I get all that. My instinct is that it just wouldn't
take that much money. It wouldn't take that much money to do what
I want is, sure the stove industry is going to advertise their
stoves and the car industry is going to advertise their EVs, but
I always think about this commercial for the Nissan Leaf. I don't
know if I'm the only person who remembers this commercial. It's
one of my favorite commercial in the friggin' world. But it shows
these people waking up in the morning and they go crank up like a
fossil fuel powered coffee maker, which starts sort of spewing
smoke in their home and then they go crank up their microwave.


The point being like, "Wouldn't it be ridiculous if your home
appliances were powered by fossil fuels and were spewing
pollution into your home? Wouldn't that be crazy? You wouldn't
want that. Why wouldn't you want electric and clean?" And this to
me is sort of like it's the gestalt of electrification that no
commercial entity is going to advertise that, but somebody needs
to be talking about how look, you got an induction stove with a
battery in it. You got your car with a battery in it, you got
your whole-home sort of software that's coordinating these things
so you can make it through a blackout and so there's no
emissions.


Just to sort of like a better world as possible kind of gestalt.
I just feel like that is something we know about. You and I and
people like us can envision. But that vision I think, is very not
well-known. Products are unsafe. It's a very familiar story to
American people, but this sort of, like, this electric utopia
that lies ahead of us in coming decades, I don't think any of
them know about that.


Sage Welch


Absolutely. And yeah, maybe only because I just don't necessarily
want to see the in-house comms teams at the big greens produce
those advertisements.


David Roberts


Just give money to someone who knows how to do it.


Sage Welch


Exactly. Let's bring in...and there's efforts underway. There's
the Clean Creative Projects that are working to get PR agencies
more engaged with climate and saying no to fossil fuel projects
and things like that. But, I totally agree. That kind of combo. I
would like to see our points and their messaging and advertising
expertise and also in part their advertising dollars. Because
even if we peeled off money from...I agree there's billions
floating around here, but I think it's usually a drop in the
bucket compared to what major companies put into their sort of
core advertising push to sell products.


But if we can create that alignment and, again, I think the
policy is showing them that at least if you want to salvage it.
And just what I would like to make clear is, just don't spend
your time trying to salvage the bad stuff. But yes, let's show
everyone how amazing the good stuff is going to be.


David Roberts


Yes, a lot fewer people will want to fight these rearguard
battles if they can see a positive vision ahead, not only for the
world, but for their stove company or whatever.


Sage Welch


Absolutely. And so all those big OEMs and others with
major...that pay a lot of lip service to climate, like, yeah,
maybe it's time to start embedding that in the advertising and in
the messaging that's going out from your companies.


David Roberts


Well, Sage, I really cannot thank you enough. The stove thing is
sudden and sprawling, is both sudden and sprawling. So it was
very helpful to walk through it like this and maybe we can do it
again in a year and see how induction stove sales are going. I
mean, this is such a fast-moving...and as you say, a huge, huge
opportunity for the good guys here, the people trying to solve
climate change, the people trying to improve public health, the
people working for environmental justice. A huge opportunity. So
thanks for emphasizing that, too. Thank you for all your time.


Sage Welch


Oh, thank you, yeah. Best week ever. Happy to do it.


David Roberts


Awesome. Alright, thanks. Bye.


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