Middle and high school students in the California town are urging officials to tell residents about the harms of gas stoves and the benefits of cleaner cooking.
At a recent city council meeting in Palo Alto, California, Erin Pei stepped up to the podium. Clad in an Arctic Circle sweatshirt, the 11th grader presented hair-raising facts about the health impacts of gas stoves and other appliances that burn fossil fuels.
The Bay Area Air District has found that gas water heaters and furnaces cause premature deaths and create hundreds of millions of dollars in health costs in the region each year. A peer-reviewed meta-analysis found that children living in homes with gas stoves face up to a 42% increased risk of asthma. And according to the Public Law Health Center, cooking with gas releases similar pollutants to smoking cigarettes, including nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and the carcinogens benzene and formaldehyde.
“The city has an obligation to alert residents to these dangers,” Pei said…