(CBS4)– Researchers in Boulder and beyond are finding gas stoves can cause a host of health problems, particularly for kids, and are emitting harmful greenhouse gases, even when they’re turned off. CBS4 hears from a CBS4 expert that children who live at home with gas stoves are at risk similar to those who smoke.
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“A gas stove in home releases a lot of the same pollution and pollutants that come from our car exhaust,” says Brady Seals, who has studied gas stove impacts extensively. “So these are things like carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, formaldehyde, and nitrogen dioxide is a particularly worrisome pollutant.”
Seals is a manager with RMI, a Boulder nonprofit dedicated to clean energy. Her organization published This studyLast year, gas stove effects
Seals states that children are more susceptible to the toxic gasses gas stoves emit. This is because the gases can cause learning disabilities, cardiovascular problems, respiratory problems, and learning difficulties. She says that asthma is 42% more likely for children who live in homes with gas stoves.
“Exactly over a third of us cook with gas, it’s common, and I think gas stoves should probably come with warning labels,” Seals said. “We should require ventilation everywhere where gas stoves are installed.”
Englewood’s new parents, Katy and Daniel Jones, saw the dangers of gas stoves from afar.
Cooper Jones was born with lung problems. They used an indoor air quality monitor for safety.
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“After the wildfires in 2020, we were really concerned about our swamp cooler pulling in wildfire smoke,” Katy Jones said. “So we started to monitor it in the kitchen and then found out that actually the spikes were coming every time we ran our gas stove… while our infant son you know was in the kitchen, and we were really concerned.”
But gas stoves aren’t only harmful for human health. Stanford University researchers recently published a study. Environmental Science and TechnologyShowing gas stoves can still emit methane, which is a greenhouse gas, when they are turned off. Check out the You can read the full study here.
“Using a 20-year timeframe for methane, annual methane emissions from all gas stoves in U.S. homes have a climate impact comparable to the annual carbon dioxide emissions of 500 000 cars,” Stanford researchers wrote.
Seals says legislators shouldn’t ignore the growing body of research regarding gas stoves, and should make critical policy changes to benefit residents and the climate.
“So for policymakers, by helping to switch out gas appliances, you’re having really a triple win. It’s a climate win. It’s a health win. There are also real equity considerations. We know that we don’t all breathe the same air indoors or outdoors, and so I think for policymakers, there’s a great opportunity in making sure that overburdened communities overburdened by air pollution and other climate justice issues can receive these benefits first,” Seals said. “In California, some utilities, you can find $100, $500, up to $700 to replace your gas stove with an induction stove. So I would love to see the same incentives being offered by Colorado policymakers.”
The Jones family monitored indoor air quality for six month and decided to replace their gas stove with an Induction Stove. This stove cooks food faster and uses less energy.
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“Just made us think, what is the safe place in your own home,” Katy Jones said. “It was just eye-opening for us as young parents, trying to get it right.”
If you have a gas stove, but it’s not feasible to replace it with a new one, there are some free options Seals recommends to protect yourself:
- Use your range hood
- Cook on the back burners, where the range is better
- Cooking? Open a window
- Some of your cooking can be moved to smaller electric appliances such as a portable electric stove, a rice cooker or an electric tea pot.
Seals advises that gas stoves should be replaced with electric or induction stoves when they become inoperable.
“If you have one, it’s about learning about some of these evidence based health and climate risks, and then when your gas stove dies or when it’s time to replace it, is to consider electric and specifically induction models,” Seals said. “By replacing gas appliances with electric appliances, we can really cut down on our carbon impact and also the air pollution like ozone smog that in Denver, and other parts of Colorado, we suffer.”
