“Natural” Methane Gas is A Horror Show
If you’ve got “natural” gas appliances in your home, the call really is coming from inside the house.
Despite decades of industry advertising telling us that their product is safe and clean, the reality is that “natural” gas is methane gas, and it poses some very horrifying threats to your health, safety and the climate.
Gas stoves give kids asthma!
There is a lot of research which will chill anyone with gas appliances to the bone. More than 50 scientific studies dating back to the 1970s show that having a gas stove in the home is associated with increased risk of health problems in children, including respiratory disease, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and asthma. Gas stoves release an array of air pollutants, including nitrogen dioxides, carbon monoxide and cancer-causing benzene, and research shows that they’re leaking all the time, even when they’re turned off!
The gas industry downplays these threats and has even hired Tobacco industry “experts” to undermine the scientific consensus on the harms of their product. But research shows that they’ve known about the health impacts of gas stoves for decades.
Gas explodes ALL THE TIME
Just like a horror movie jump scare, gas has a nasty habit of exploding. Between 2010 and 2020, a gas pipeline accident causing major damage, injury, or deaths occurred nearly once every two days. And that doesn’t even count accidents “behind the meter” – the gas company blames you if your house blows up. Gas stoves and furnaces are also a leading source of carbon monoxide poisoning, which kills more than 430 Americans every year. A truly horrifying reality.
Gas comes from fracking, which gives children cancer!
The horrors of methane gas are not just inside the house. A majority of methane gas in the United States comes from fracking, an environmentally destructive process of shooting pressurized water into the ground to extract oil and gas. Fracking releases vast amounts of planet-warming methane and other toxic pollutants into the air. Studies have found that children who grew up near fracking sites in Pennsylvania were two to three times more likely to be diagnosed with leukemia.
Gas is worsening extreme weather!
There is a horrifying result of methane gas that none of us can escape: extreme weather. Methane is a massive contributor to the warming climate and extreme weather disasters. Methane is a powerful pollutant, more than 80 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and it leaks constantly: from fracking sites, gas pipelines and gas appliances in your home. When all this pollution is taken into account, research shows that “natural” gas is as bad as coal power for the climate.
There’s a safer path: clean electricity!
Clean electricity produced by wind and solar power is affordable, reliable and available right now, without posing the same threats to our health, safety and climate. We need to quit building new polluting plants that burn gas for electricity, and transition our homes, schools and businesses to ultra-efficient all-electric appliances like heat pumps and induction stoves.
