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.
they’re in the positions they are because of capitalism.
More specifically, they are in them because of human nature. Those who don’t care about others gravitate towards positions of power. That is not exclusive to capitalism. Any hierarchy is prone to sociopaths rising to positions of power. They seek them no matter what the economic system is.
In other words, power corrupts. People without power who get power inevitably start to act like sociopaths.
But feel free to blame capitalism if you like. It is the cause of many problems with our society. Any change that decreases its power should be welcomed at least in the context of American society.
It isn’t exclusive to capitalism or caused by it, but it is exacerbated by it. It is a system that rewards the worst parts of humanity. I never claimed it to be the cause, only part of the issue.
If it’s inherent to hierarchy, how about we work to remove as much hierarchy as possible. That’s my preference.
There are other forms of political economies without hierarchies. I once thought human nature was the problem like you, until I discovered David Graeber. David Graeber dismisses the notion that humans are inherently selfish. Society and culture shape our selfishness due to material needs. Capitalism shapes society and culture.
The recommended book The Dawn of Everything looks interesting. I’ll have to add it to my reading list.
There are other forms of political economies without hierarchies.
Would you mind giving some examples of them?
I was using human nature as a catch all term for how humans act on a population wide scale in our current society. I think the term status seeking fits better than selfish. Status seeking behavior is essentially seeking power within a hierarchy. It often is selfish, but isn’t necessarily.
Most people in a society and in an organization aren’t status seeking or selfish, but those few who are status seeking are rewarded by the going up the hierarchy faster relative to their peers.
