Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

Last week the internet exploded with outrage over the federal government’s proposed banning of gas stoves.  The justification for this contemptible behavior is the same tired excuse all of the petty Coronavirus tyrants used to justify the trampling of everyone’s rights and freedoms. As you can see from this Chicago Tribune article, they claim to be doing this for our health.

Gas cooking in the home was linked to a 42% higher risk that children would have asthma, in a 2013 study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology. The study, a meta-analysis combining the results of 41 previous studies, also suggested a 24% increase in children’s lifetime risk of asthma.

A subsequent study found that longer use of gas stoves caused higher nitrogen dioxide levels, which in turn were linked to increased nighttime inhaler use in children with asthma.

Homes with gas stoves have nitrogen dioxide concentrations 50% — 400% higher than homes with electric stoves, according to a report by the clean energy nonprofit RMI.

A 2022 study in Environmental Science and Technology found hazardous air pollutants, including the carcinogen benzene, in natural gas used in Boston-area homes, and a 2020 report by RMI found that gas stoves often create indoor levels of nitrogen dioxide that exceed EPA standards for outdoor air.

Just as with climate change and the Coronavirus tyranny, the proposed gas stove ban is based on junk science.  The authors of the study used to justify this outrage are climate change fanatics.

Several listed coauthors are affiliated with groups pushing net-zero and decarbonization. Talor Gruenwald is a research associate with Rewiring America, a self-described “leading electrification nonprofit, focused on electrifying our homes, businesses, and communities.” Another listed author is Brady A. Seals, manager of the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Carbon-Free Buildings program (a backer of the study). Seals isn’t a scientist or health professional. Her RMI department advocates constructing zero-carbon buildings, retrofitting 5% of buildings each year, and ensuring “electric and efficient appliances.” 

The authors used fabricated data and dishonest methods such as this.

 another expert told a separate media outlet that the researchers had encased the kitchens in a Mylar tent to “trap and concentrate the emissions, and then measure the concentration. ” No one cooks in a kitchen like that! He said it would “incorrect” to draw any health conclusions from the paper.

Thankfully for us, the outrage generated by the proposed gas stove ban was so overwhelming that the ban was rescinded, for now.

The federal government created by the US Constitution was never granted the authority to regulate the commercial activity of businesses and individuals in any way.  It was never granted the power to ban any product, let alone gas stoves. 

In the 1940s the federal government granted itself the authority to micromanage all aspects of the United States economy by rewriting the plain meaning of the Commerce Clause.  As you can see from this excerpt from the Preface from the transcripts of the debates that occurred during the writing of the Constitution, the Interstate Commerce Clause was written only to prevent the States from imposing taxes and tariffs on the large-scale transportation of goods between the States.

The want of authy. in Congs. to regulate Commerce had produced in Foreign nations particularly G. B. a monopolizing policy injurious to the trade of the U. S. and destructive to their navigation; the imbecility and anticipated dissolution of the Confederacy extinguishg. all apprehensions of a Countervailing policy on the part of the U. States.

The same want of a general power over Commerce led to an exercise of this power separately, by the States, wch not only proved abortive, but engendered rival, conflicting and angry regulations. Besides the vain attempts to supply their respective treasuries by imposts, which turned their commerce into the neighbouring ports, and to co-erce a relaxation of the British monopoly of the W. Indn. navigation, which was attemted by Virga. the States having ports for foreign commerce, taxed & irritated the adjoining States, trading thro’ them, as N. Y. Pena. Virga. & S–Carolina. Some of the States, as Connecticut, taxed imports as from Massts higher than imports even from G. B. of wch Massts. complained to Virga. and doubtless to other States. In sundry instances of as N. Y. N. J. Pa. & Maryd. the navigation laws treated the Citizens of other States as aliens.