Highlights: A study this summer found that using a single gas stove burner on high can raise levels of cancer-causing benzene above what’s been observed from secondhand smoke.
A new investigation by NPR and the Climate Investigations Center found that the gas industry tried to downplay the health risks of gas stoves for decades, turning to many of the same public-relations tactics the tobacco industry used to cover up the risks of smoking. Gas utilities even hired some of the same PR firms and scientists that Big Tobacco did.
Earlier this year, an investigation from DeSmog showed that the industry understood the hazards of gas appliances as far back as the 1970s and concealed what they knew from the public.
It’s a strategy that goes back as far back as 1972, according to the most recent investigation. That year, the gas industry got advice from Richard Darrow, who helped manufacture controversy around the health effects of smoking as the lead for tobacco accounts at the public relations firm Hill + Knowlton. At an American Gas Association conference, Darrow told utilities they needed to respond to claims that gas appliances were polluting homes and shape the narrative around the issue before critics got the chance. Scientists were starting to discover that exposure to nitrogen dioxide—a pollutant emitted by gas stoves—was linked to respiratory illnesses. So Darrow advised utilities to “mount the massive, consistent, long-range public relations programs necessary to cope with the problems.”
These studies didn’t just confuse the public, but also the federal government. When the Environmental Protection Agency assessed the health effects of nitrogen dioxide pollution in 1982, its review included five studies finding no evidence of problems—four of which were funded by the gas industry, the Climate Investigations Center recently uncovered.
Karen Harbert, the American Gas Association’s CEO, acknowledged that the gas industry has “collaborated” with researchers to “inform and educate regulators about the safety of gas cooking appliances.” Harbert claimed that the available science “does not provide sufficient or consistent evidence demonstrating chronic health hazards from natural gas ranges”—a line that should sound familiar by now.
In your opinion where did it go wrong? How should it have been prevented? What should the government/country do to get out the current crisis?
1985… when the National Party decided to commercialise and deregulate everything in the hopes of causing socio-economic chaos in the country - which it did. They, for instance, knew perfectly wll deregulating the taxi industry would cause chaos - they literally commissioned White Papers to research the outcomes - and they did it not in spite of the findings of that research, but because of it.
Same thing with Eskom - commercialised in 1985, and by 2002 Eskom was disconnecting more households than they were connecting - I literally have the UKZN research papers on my desktop to prove it - because Eskom was now being “run like a business.” The outcome we see today shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, but because the media has been lying to us about the root cause of our problems we are all making surprise Pikachu faces while whining about “corruption” and “incompetence.”
The ANC took one look at this state of affairs and went, “Oh, we’re fine with this” and they’ve been doing the bog-standard “living it up while the rich gets richer and the poor get poorer” neoliberal shuffle ever since. Don’t get me wrong… the ANC is as corrupt as fuck - but that doesn’t make them unique here in South Africa or the rest of the world. But they are not the root cause… it’s the socio-economic system that enables this shitfuckery that is.
We already know how… the same people that now applaud the DA or ActionSA every time their talking heads use the word “privatisation” are the very people who remember (or rather, selectively forgets) how well our public infrastructure worked when they were actually run as public infrastructure and not profit-making “businesses.” That’s what the country needs to do - reclaim our public infrastructure. But don’t expect the snivelling racketeers (whether they be ANC, DA, EFF or any of the parasites squatting in parliament) in our political establishment to push that idea any time soon…