Gas stoves emit potentially harmful pollutants, but utilities and their trade group avoided regulation with tactics perfected by the tobacco industry to cast doubt on science showing health problems.
Dr. Carl Shy, a public health researcher, cooks on his electric stove at his home. In 1970, he published a study showing that families exposed to greater levels of the air pollutant nitrogen dioxide outdoors had higher rates of respiratory illness than families in less-polluted areas.The gas utilities called Operation Attack their"most ambitious advertising and merchandising program ever.
The documents show that AGA and utility companies funded studies that countered the emerging research on health risks, sometimes without disclosing their financial support. The industry-backed studies focused on uncertainties in the health research and magnified them, leaving the impression that the science is not clear, even as evidence has accumulated about a link between using gas stoves at home and greater risk of respiratory illnesses.
The natural gas production and supply system leaks the powerful greenhouse gas methane during drilling, fracking, processing and transport. Richard Darrow led Hill and Knowlton's tobacco accounts, and he was also a key player in its work for the gas industry, documents included in the Climate Investigations Center report show. In 1972, at an AGA conference at Disney World in Florida, Darrow explained that he had long consulted for the industry andutilities they needed to respond. He told them to"mount the massive, consistent, long-range public relations programs necessary to cope with the problems.
The company says it doesn't have access to records for this project, conducted more than 40 years ago."We have no reason to believe that the GRI report wasn't conducted with the same high standards of rigor and objectivity with which Arthur D. Little approaches all client engagements," Etienne Brumauld des Houlières, global marketing and communications director, wrote in an email.
"Over my career, there are people who felt that I waited too long before perhaps saying that X causes Y. But that's because I don't think we want to have false positive determinations," Samet told NPR. Scientists say accomplishing that in epidemiology can be tricky because often there are multiple factors present that could be causing a health problem.
Morton Lippmann chaired the EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee at the time, which reviewed the research the agency used to reach its conclusion. Lippmann, 91, is a professor emeritus of environmental medicine at the New York University School of Medicine and confirms that"the data were too fragmentary" to reach a certain conclusion. He says the EPA's decision to keep the existing standard was a judgment call for the agency.
Since then, independent scientists have continued to produce studies that provided more detail and evidence about how gas stoves affect human health.by Duke University and EPA researchers found that children in a home with a gas stove have about a 20% increased risk of developing respiratory illness. AThe weight of evidence is starting to shift again, away from the gas utility industry's interests.
The gas utility industry is ramping up rhetoric and openly talks about fighting to save its business. In 2021, Harberton the issue."If the goal is to reduce emissions, we're all in," she told NPR."If the goal is to put us out of business, not so much."Gas utilities face another kind of pressure beyond health concerns, and it raises questions about the future viability of their business: the significant contributions natural gas makes to climate change.
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