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Disinfo Outlets Defend Gas Industry for Yet Another Gas Stove News Cycle [1]

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Date: 2023-02-08  

The recent fracas about gas stoves has clearly riled up the methane gas industry, and its conservative supporters are still determined to defend gas stoves.

We showed that the methane gas industry has internally recognized the health risks of gas stoves since at least 1907 . Now, in 2023, these harms are dominating news cycles and leading to new proposed incentives to switch from gas stoves to electric stoves as well as new proposed Energy Conservation Standards from the Department of Energy (DOE), which would “save a significant amount of energy,” “yield significant environmental benefits,” and result in “health benefits from SO2 and NOX emissions reductions.” In response to these proposals, the industry is relying more than ever on conservative news outlets and think tanks to cook up opposition to gas stove regulations.

Late last week, The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board published another one of its woeful editorials, which accidentally illustrated why the DOE’s new efficiency standards are necessary: “Twenty of the 21 gas stove-top models that the Energy Department tested wouldn’t comply with its proposed standards.” Thanks, WSJ, for letting everyone know that most gas stoves on the market are dirty, energy-wasting, and unable to meet a basic government standard that protects human health!

Similarly, The Daily Caller , which receives funding from multiple climate-change-denying and climate-action-obstructing sources in the Koch network , recently posted two articles in two days opposing gas stove regulations. On February 4, Koch-trained climate denier and Daily Caller News Foundation Managing Editor Michael Bastasch wrote an opinion piece that quoted multiple gas industry leaders who are oh-so-sad about the possibility that their products might be more strictly regulated. The next day , the Caller ran an op-ed by Deroy Murdock which compared regulations of natural gas to the US Civil War and continued to push the term “ gasophobia .” (Deroy, stop trying to make “gasophobia” happen! It’s not going to happen!)

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) , an ExxonMobil-funded libertarian think tank and climate change denial superspreader, also stoked right-wing fears about gas stove bans. CEI made its fossil-fueled motives very clear by sowing doubt about the viability of renewable energy and expressing concern about the DOE’s assertion that “addressing the effects of climate change is a top priority.” The climate denial organization even went as far as to publish a short video declaring, “The war on natural gas is a war on consumer choice.”

But as much as these disinformation spreaders would like you to believe otherwise, the gas stove issue is not about consumer choice or personal freedom, two phrases which are used to ensure that companies are free to keep selling dangerous and polluting products.

The gas stove debate isn't about protecting your right to inhale noxious emissions every time you cook—it’s about fossil fuel industry profits. The fossil fuel industry only cares about what stove you use because it affects their bottom line. It doesn’t care if your child develops asthma because of its product. It doesn’t care if its actions push us closer to climate catastrophe . All the fossil fuel industry cares about is making sure you continue to contribute to their record high profits and stay unsure about climate policy. When regulators move to protect public health and the climate, the fossil fuel industry mobilizes conservative outlets and think tanks to try to convince you that your freedom, rather than their power and profits, is what’s really at risk.

Methane gas industry concern about gas stove regulations does reveal one good thing, though: Regulatory action and public concern about fossil fuel products do make a real impact. After all, if the industry didn’t feel threatened, it wouldn’t be freaking out right now!

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/8/2151794/-Disinfo-Outlets-Defend-Gas-Industry-for-Yet-Another-Gas-Stove-News-Cycle

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