Hello from Maryland. The other day, I got into a comment battle on Heated’s latest post about the co-opting of COP28 (see what I did there?) by fossil fuel interests. It devolved into an endless loop of talking points and misinformation and projection. While somewhat satisfying, it was also pointless. At best, I could practice my rebuttals, but to what end?
Inspired by the reminder in
’s latest post, “We only get to do this once,” I resolve to use my precious time to write, not arguing with trolls about climate action.Sunday, I’ll be posting December’s Talking Back to Walden. It’s about the senses, rain, and a magnificent triple poplar tree in West Virginia. Subscribe so you don’t miss it.
Today, I’m trying something a bit different. I wrote this as part of a course with the talented, funny Belina Raffy, creator of Sustainable Stand Up. (Someday, there may even be a zoom video of our class showcase performances, but I’ll never tell.) Enjoy.
In my day job, I teach ecological design to architecture students.
My writing explores the possibilities inherent in this time of climate collapse and environmental reconciliation.
And I’ve cooked with methane my whole life. Here, we call it “natural” gas. Does that make it okay?
I love cooking on my gas stove. I turn the knob and: click-click-WHOOSH! That beautiful blue flame roars to life. It’s satisfying on at least two levels:
The Cave Woman in me loves fire! Boiling a pot of spaghetti is a great excuse to fire up my big stove burner to maximum inferno. So hot it could torch the patriarchy.
And my Inner Control Freak can boss those burners around. To sear a tuna steak? Turn that baby UP. For delicate basmati rice, I can turn it waayyy down till the fire caresses the pot with feathery blue fingertips.
Yeah, even though I teach ecological design and have been known to hug trees, I love cooking with gas.
That’s even a saying, right? “Cooking with gas.” It’s like “Good for you” or “Way to go.” Turns out that expression was invented nearly a hundred years ago by fossil fuel execs for housewives to lobby their husbands for a new stove. I hate that we’ve been so manipulated! Just the other day, I caught myself saying to my husband Peter, “Now you’re cooking with gas.” Which he actually was, because he does most of the cooking in our family.
The problem is . . . We recently learned that our gas stove, in addition to searing ahi tuna and simmering delicate basmati rice, also pumps nitric oxide, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde into our house. Gross! I don’t need my lungs to be embalmed while I’m still alive, sipping a glass of wine and watching my husband cook for us. And I don’t want my husband to be stove-embalmed either.
All those toxic pollutants—from our stove, not my husband’s cooking—can contribute to childhood asthma. Which is a parent’s worst nightmare.
When our son was four years old, we discovered his asthma was partly caused by a severe allergy to our cat, Coco. Here, I bet you’re wondering how it took us FOUR YEARS to diagnose his cat allergy. Mind your own business! This is about stoves, not parenting. Even with our wheezing son as motivation, giving our old cat Coco to my friend Mary was wrenching. She was at least twelve years old by then—the cat, not the friend—and she never did adjust to her new home. At least our son’s asthma improved.
It never occurred to us to give our stove away, too. For one thing, Mary already had a stove. Also, we weren’t really talking by then, because Coco had peed in every corner of her apartment. It would be wrong to add nitric oxide, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde to the ammonia-tinged air.
To get all those toxins out of our lives, and completely cure our son of asthma, we COULD switch to an electric stove.
Can I be honest? I don’t love electric stoves. They are deeply unsatisfying to cook on. My encounters with them typically go like this: Here’s a tiny little red light to tell you that . . . SOMEwhere on this slick black surface it’s really HOT. Where? You’ll just have to guess! If I put a kettle on the right rear, five minutes later it’s still cold. But watch out! The empty left front is hot as Satan’s balls.
It turns out that the methane that fuels our gas stove is 100 times better at warming the earth than carbon dioxide. And here in North America we are blessed with millions of miles of methane pipes feeding our furnaces and stoves. Baltimore alone has 7,500 miles of methane pipes—some over two hundred years old. What could go wrong?
Glad you asked. All those old joints and valves leak a lot of methane. Which goes straight to warming the atmosphere. Move over fracking sites. Baltimore is here, quietly contributing to climate catastrophe.
I just want my husband to sear my tuna, not cook the planet.
I’m coming around to the harsh truth: we need to phase out the gas stove in our house. While we’re at it, we should shut off the methane and tear out all of Baltimore’s whole damn infrastructure.
I do worry, though: revamping our centuries-old energy system is bigger than our single household’s choice of stove. Personal responsibility can only go so far.
We didn’t land men on the moon by asking middle-school boys to build better and better bottle rockets in their backyards.
We didn’t expect that if Baltimore’s women tossed their hairspray and sacrificed their beehive hairdos, that would fix the ozone layer.
And we don’t rely on corgis to do our climate marching for us. For one thing, they’re too short—who would notice? And how would they hold the signs?
People say it’s too hard to change big systems quickly, but during the pandemic, overnight, we all moved all of our teaching online. In my ecological design course, the students still managed to go outside and hug a tree or converse with a stream. Really. I asked them to do that stuff. One student even sat a jar of stream water on the windowsill near his desk, to keep him company during a lonely time. I’m glad he made that personal connection, but that’s dangerous. What if he drank from it accidentally? I would totally do something like that.
For the sake of my wheezing son and hopeful students, I’m considering giving up cooking with gas. My husband and I are looking at induction stoves. They’re electric but with the responsiveness of gas and none of the methane or formaldehyde. Turns out my inner Cave Woman CAN torch the patriarchy—by refusing to burn methane. And Control Freak me can still boss those burners around—once I figure out which one is on.
Instead of cooking with gas, we can choose to design our lives more in harmony with our earth’s amazing ecology. If even I—or, more likely, my husband—can cook on an electric stove, imagine what all of us can do together.
Julie, this was a joy to read, with your humor and wit, on an important topic that we can often feel bored by or even defensive about. I really enjoy our 8 burner 48 inch gas range, and though we looked at induction ranges, access to high quality ones was a factor when we built out kitchen. I would love to know how you end up liking yours.
I also know a thing or two about methane from my investing days, and I think its an area that's getting attention but needs that full force push that only a dedicated effort like the moon landing can achieve. We should recap every oil well ever dug, because even the ones that were sealed don't seem to be holding. And then rethink all of our infrastructure that's leaking. There are solutions out there, but relying on the markets hasn't worked thus far.
Great post. I'll get off my high horse now. Thanks for letting me stand up here for a minute.
"I do worry, though: revamping our centuries-old energy system is bigger than our single household’s choice of stove. Personal responsibility can only go so far." Each of us is but a drop in the ocean, but if each drop changes, the whole ocean can produce a new wave - a new wave of the Rise of the Divine Feminine we can all surf together 😁 I love your Sub-heading Juie 🤷♀️🙏🥰
and p.s. when we bought this decades-old log cabin we live in, we renovated the kitchen and installed an electric Aga cooker with the intention that we will eventually install solar to power it. And I have to tell you that I LOVE cooking with it. People get obsessive about Agas and I understand why!