Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: On Cooking With Gas, published by Zvi on January 13, 2023 on LessWrong.

Research meta-analysis says gas stoves give off unsafe N02 levels and increase risk of childhood asthma by 34% and are responsible for 12.7% of childhood asthma.

None of this is new. The way safety panic works is that you focus on a particular risk this week and an attempt is made to make everyone’s life worse in its name.

Emily Oster takes a deeper dive on the original studies. She is not impressed.

For the most part, the other papers in the meta-analysis have similar features. They tend to show positive correlations between asthma and gas stove exposure, but the effects are a bit noisy and they do not necessarily paint a consistent picture. A 2013 paper finds, for example, a link with asthma for girls but not boys, and no links with other respiratory issues.

What to take from this? We know that gas stoves emit nitrogen oxides and that, in general, those are not good. We know that air pollution, in general, is bad for respiratory symptoms, including asthma. So it seems very plausible that there is some link here. However: the magnitude is likely small. In most of the estimates, it’s small. And, beyond that, we do not see the kind of smoking gun in any of these data that would suggest a really consistent link.

Another way to put this is that there are clearly many, many factors other than gas stoves that explain asthma. Some of these may also be environmental. But I’m skeptical that gas stoves play a huge role, as would be suggested by the new paper.

The link on the state-wide level runs the other way.

I am confident gas stoves do not prevent asthma because physics. One still notes that if this graph had been reversed it would be part of the case to ban such stoves.

One explanation for the reversed correlation is that gas stoves cost more and positively correlate with income. This also suggests they are a superior good. Rich people choose to cook with gas. The spike at the top of the income distribution supports this. As does 80% of restaurants, who care the most about quality, choosing gas stoves, versus 40% of households. Alternatively, some of this could be because richer people live in older and more expensive buildings that happen to have gas stoves. If new construction is restricted in the most expensive areas, and old construction has more gas stoves, that could create this effect as well.

Emily’s practical advice seems solid, if one is concerned:

Can I do anything now?

Assuming you are not replacing your gas stove now, is there anything you can do?

Yes.

First, run the hood fan on your stove when you use it. It’s not clear how much this matters, but on the margin it should help.

Second, use a HEPA filter with an activated carbon filter. At least one study showed that installing such a filter in the kitchen lowered nitrogen dioxide levels by half as much as replacing the stove. This is a lot more effective in the data than the hood fan.

As for me, even if the full effect in the meta-analysis was real? I. Do. Not. Care.

There is a reason the expression ‘now you’re cooking with gas’ stuck. Electric stoves are not good. Gas stoves are a Nice Thing.

You can attempt to pry my nice thing from my future no longer functioning asthmatic hands. I am so done with taking the Nice Things in life and ruining them in the name of marginally better health. They also increase resiliency in a blackout.

We had an electric stove in Warwick. We adapted, but it was clearly worse. Neither me nor my wife ever fully adjusted, and she grew up with an electric stove. I have been in otherwise quite nice Airbnbs with electric stoves so slow and terrible that they made me not want to cook breakfast. I have yet to see a good one.

There are those who disagree with my cooking preference for gas stoves. They say that no, you...