HALF THE STORY
The Smithsonian Magazine recently engaged in fear mongering: “Gas Stoves Are Poisoning Americans by Releasing Toxic Fumes Associated With Asthma and Lung Cancer.”
In the article they quote a co-author, Robert Jackson, of a study on gas stoves, “We’ve spent billions of dollars cleaning up our air outdoors and nothing to clean up our air indoors, As our air outdoors gets cleaner and cleaner, a higher proportion of the pollution we breathe comes from indoor sources.”
But that’s only half the story. Our indoor air originates outdoors, doesn’t it! (That was proved by a study of electric stove apartments in New York City where the indoor pollution was higher because of traffic pollution in the streets.) If we have cleaned up the outdoor air, then using the same gas stove we were using before the reduction of outdoor pollution becomes SAFER, doesn’t it!!! If 50% of previous pollutants came from outdoors (and 50% from indoors) and we have cleaned up the outdoor air by 37% (we have), then the amount of pollutants we are breathing NOW indoors has improved by more than 18%. That’s science! We are better off than before, dude!
The other half of the story that was not mentioned in the article is that gas stoves cost far less to operate than electric stoves. That’s economics! We are better off with gas, dude!
The other half of the story is that far less energy is used to cook foods with a gas range. The creation, transportation, and delivery of natural gas wastes far less than electricity does, plus the stove heats up faster and more reliably than electric. I can cook a hamburger a minute sooner. And I don’t have to cool the house as much when doing so. More economics! That’s energy savings, dude!
The other half of the story that was not mentioned in the article is that electric stoves have a higher risk of causing a fire than gas stoves. Just ask your local fire department which one is more likely to result in a kitchen fire. That’s safety, dude!
That’s 4 halves of a story not mentioned in the article.
Oh, did I mention that gas combustion has never been cited as the CAUSE of asthma or lung cancer? They could be contributing factors, but so are marijuana smoke (thanks Cheech), wild fires (thanks California and Canada), scented candles (thanks Yankee stores), and dust particles in the air (thanks natural wind storms). Eliminating gas stoves would not eliminate those.
To put this subject into perspective, this is a first world problem. Many places in the world people heat food over dung or wood stoves (thanks India and Asia). The amount of toxins in the air in third world homes due to cooking fires is an absolute nightmare . We are worrying about a tiny fraction of that BECAUSE we are a first world country. Second perspective of this first-first world problem is the obvious push by the article that we MUST reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The US has eliminated 37% already (even though we grew by millions of people). Even if we eliminated ALL gas appliances today the total reduction in emissions would not improve by even a whole percentage point. It is grape-sized potatoes!
So, exactly how much bad air that contributes to these ailments would we eliminate by switching? (Asking for a friend.) Be honest! That’s like trying to squeeze more MPG from your car by vacuuming the seats. (Yes, it would improve MPG by the tiniest fraction.)
OTHER HALF STORIES
SILENCERS. In the movies and on TV the bad guys use a “silencer” which nearly eliminates all sound from the firing of a bullet. It is TV folks! That means FAKE. In the real world there are major factors to take into account. First, pistols (the most common TV fake) make lots of noise even without the sound of the exploding gunpowder. There is the chamber cycling (recoil, ejection of casing, and reset sounds). That alone would be far louder than the “pffft” you hear from the TV screen. Second, there really is no such thing as a “silencer.” The devices shown are “suppressors.” A suppressor, according to one expert who is talking generalities, “The use of a silencer can reduce the deafening sound of gunfire for hunters and shooters by 30-40dB.” Of course, there are other factors including air temperature (huge factor, by the way), length of barrel, length of suppressor, etc., etc.
The TRUTH is that a suppressed gunshot is still loud. Wear ear protection when firing a weapon with a suppressor on it. By the way, a pillow will not muffle the sound much either.
POISONS. Again, movies and TV are FAKE. “In the TV series Hogan’s Heroes, for example, Sylar was allegedly drugged with a curare-laced drink. As we now know this poison is only effective when it enters the body via the bloodstream, so Sylar should not have been affected.” It takes quite a bit of this poison, delivered directly to the bloodstream, to kill … and it is not instantaneous. It is “safe” to ingest if you don’t have an ulcer.
Of the five most deadly poisons, none kill in less than HOURS. However, a bee sting can kill quite quickly (if you have an anaphylactic shock reaction), but the material injected from the sting itself is not very toxic.
Anyway, the instantaneous “deaths” portrayed by TV and movies are 99.999% FAKE. (And car tires don’t squeal out when driving on gravel).
TARIFFS vs INFLATION. Tariffs matter very little to consumers like you, but you’re seeing lots of news stories about them. Tariffs matter if your business imports products or parts from outside the country, but many businesses have already transitioned to locally sourced parts, and packaging. What really matters? Inflation is always the answer. There are two basic rules of inflation. Rule #1: Prices ALWAYS increase (yes, there are a few outliers). Rule #2: Inflation below 3.2% is GOOD. The average over the last 40 years is, you guessed it, 3.2%. Forget the hoopla over tariffs; pay attention to inflation.
My advice: Do your own research. It won’t take long before you develop a healthy “Fake-O-Meter” in your brain. Look for the half of the story being left out.
Copyright 2026 Donald Whelpley
[PLEASE NOTE that Don is always open to discussing the thoughts and opinions he shares here and welcomes comments as shared in the comment section. He doesn’t use other social media platforms and won’t see whatever you’d like to share with him if you post it elsewhere.
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