Republicans: Really, ban gas stoves? Outrageous! Intrusive!
Democrats: We’re not really proposing to ban gas stoves. Well, at least not right away.
The Republicans’ outrage is performative. The Democrats’ response is weak, unconvincing, entrapped.
What causes this? It’s not just the Democrats’ messaging, as bad as it’s been. We’re working from a bad paradigm, an outdated framework for our understanding.
The paradigm for environmental health, and environmental protection, posits an ideal, “healthy” condition. The news is almost always about a departure from the ideal.
Like the effect of gas stoves on asthma. The story? One in eight cases of childhood asthma are caused by gas stoves.
Start with the Democrats’ well-meaning initiative. Yes, gas stoves contribute to indoor air pollution. Indoor air pollution disproportionately affects children in disadvantaged households and disadvantaged communities, because they are also affected by other sources of air pollution and respiratory stress. Facts.
But the narrative is based in grievance. Children ought to be protected from harm. They are not protected, and something must be done.
What if we placed the facts in a different narrative? Like:
“Technology for cooking at home continues to improve. Not that long ago, houses burned wood or coal for cooking. Piped-in gas was a big improvement: better air quality, fewer fires. Now we have hoods and ventilation and better yet, electric induction stoves that cook better and faster, and are safer and more convenient. Research shows that these technologies are very effective in protecting children’s lungs.
“It’s unfair and concerning that, while many families are investing in new technologies, others are unable to enjoy these benefits to their safety, to their health, and especially children’s health. We are looking for ways to accelerate the transition to healthier indoor air that everyone can enjoy.”
Same facts, but a different story—one that celebrates and motivates progress. And is much harder to oppose.
Why are “progressives” resistant to the narrative of progress and so immersed in our narrative of threat and grievance?
My take: Our privileged intelligentsia, even the most liberal of us, have a class-based bias against progress and change. The epoch of our privilege is waning. The demise of our privilege is hastened with each shift to new modes of producing and living: globalization, automation, and free flow of information. We tend to deny the massive progress in the overall human condition in recent decades, and substitute our own fears, when telling the story.