new uncovered documents reveal that the gas industry understood that its stoves were pollute the air inside homes 50 year ago — and then moved to hold in that information . It stands in stark contrast to the diligence ’s denial of the wellness dangers gravel by gas stoves today .
In a draft report on natural gas and the environment in January 1972 , the American Gas Association included a plane section on “ Indoor Air Quality Control ” that detail its concerns with pollution from gas contraption like carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides . The document show that the trade group was in the outgrowth of researching solutions “ for the function of determine the levels of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide in household air . ” But all that information vanish from the last text , agree to report bythe climate accountability land site DeSmogon Thursday .
Thatdraft reportwas send to the National Industrial Pollution Control Council , what was then a regime advisory council made up of 200 concern executives representing industrial heavyweights , include utility . When the council’sfinal reportwas publish in August 1972 , those utilities had removed the section on air defilement headache , according to the DeSmog article . Arguing that the fuel should supplant the coal used for power , heating , and cooking in homes , the report foreground the befoulment problem of burning coal while background the dangers of innate gas .
Photo: Scott Olson (Getty Images)
In response to DeSmog ’s investigation , Karen Harbert , the CEO of the American Gas Association , pointed to “ a 1982 review of the available enquiry that discover no causative link between gas stoves and asthma , a finis shared by regulative agencies . ”
The concerns about indoor atmosphere lineament in the report ’s cancel section presage those held by health experts today . In late months , study have found that petrol - sunburn stoves are responsible for for nearly13 percentage of childhood asthmacases in the United States , and that theyleak methane , a potent greenhouse accelerator , andbenzene , a cancer - stimulate chemical substance , even when they ’re exclude off . before this week , the Union Consumer Product Safety Commission made a formalrequest for information on the hazards of gas pedal stoves . This is often the first step toward make a regulation — although the direction has said it does n’t plan on censor gasoline stoves entirely , after the mention of it sparkedheated repercussion .
The gas industry has pushed back against the peer - review inquiry show that gas stoves increase the jeopardy of childhood asthma . In January , the American Gas Association argued that the findings were “ not substantiated by sound science ” and that even discussing the bronchial asthma allegations would be “ reckless . ”
But the fresh unveiled documents show that the gun industry itself was once concerned about the pollution come from gas stoves — which the National Industrial Pollution Control Council call “ the NOx problem”in 1970 , referring to nitrogen oxide , a family of poisonous gases . accelerator companies were even cognisant of the trouble tenner before , with the chairwoman of the Natural Gas Association admonition of the risk of emissions from gas stoves as far backas the former 1900s .
This clause originally appeared inGristathttps://grist.org/accountability/gas-stove-hazards-documents-utilities-1972/. Grist is a nonprofit , sovereign media organisation dedicated to telling stories of climate solution and a just future . Learn more atGrist.org
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