The Feds Are Coming For Your Gas Stove!

Panic raced thorough Fox News like a white-hot flame: Big Government is coming for your gas stove! The simmering discontent on the MAGA menu boiled over after U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) member Richard Trumka Jr. told Bloomberg the agency was conducting a review of gas stove safety after studies indicated their use constributes to indoor air pollution, and disease, including childhood asthma.

So the CSPS is studying the matter. Nobody is talking about a gas stove ban, and safety measures are as simple as turning on the exhaust fan when you cook, but that didn’t stop Fox fearmongers and their outraged audience. Gas-happy MAGAheads will continue to stoke stove-ban outrage until they cook up their next spurious rage-and-resentment recipe.

More:

“Republicans turn up the heat on a new culture war target: gas stoves,” Alaina Demopoulos, The Guardian

“How the humble gas stove became the latest flash point in the culture wars,” Maxine Joselow, Washington Post

“Republicans Mocked Over Outraged Claims Government ‘Coming for’ Gas Stoves,”Aila Slisco, Newsweek

“5 myths about gas stoves, the latest culture war clash,” Rebecca Leber, Vox

Related:

“How the Fossil Fuel Industry Convinced Americans to Love Gas Stoves,” Rebecca Leber, Mother Jones

________________________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-CUs

Photo (Toy stove with pots and pans, left on the sidewalk for young aspiring chefs) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht,NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

What Santa and Putin Have In Common

Santa Claus and Vladimir Putin have something in common: They both live in Russia. If the UN says so, anyway.

Russia has submitted a formal bid to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) claiming more than 463,000 square miles of Arctic Ocean seabed, including the North Pole. Russia says that the underwater Lomonosov and Mendeleev Ridges under the Arctic are extensions of the country’s continental shelf. In December, Denmark claimed most of the same territory, saying the Lomonosov Ridge is an extension of Greenland. Norway and Canada are preparing similar claims. Russia made a symbolic stunt claiming the Pole in 2007, putting a titanium flag on the sea floor under the ice cap.

Why would anyone want the Arctic seafloor, anyway? Oil and gas. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates there are reserves of 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas there, 22 percent of the world’s unrecovered oil and natural gas, and with Global Warming it’s becoming more accessible.

Another nation with interests in the Arctic is ineligible to file a UN claim, since it’s not a signatory of the Convention on the Law of the Sea: The United States of America.

What Santa and Hamlet Have In Common

Santa Claus and Hamlet have something in common: They both live in Denmark. That is, if you accept Denmark’s claim to the North Pole.

The big, cold island of Greenland is in the Kingdom of Denmark, and Denmark says the island’s northern continental shelf has a ridge that includes 895000 square km (345561 square miles) of the Arctic seabed. Russia and Canada have claims in as well.

Why would any of these countries want to own the Arctic? In addition  to Santa’s Workshop, it’s got 22% of the world’s undiscovered, recoverable oil and natural gas. Global warming means it will become easier to get at these resources by boat.

Power Up with Bovine Burps

Argentina raises a whole lot of cows, and they raise a whole lot of burps. When you’ve got four stomachs and eat plants all day, gas happens. That gas is mostly methane, and each cow belches about 300 liters of it daily. It’s a polluting greenhouse gas, but it’s also fuel. Argentinos want to use all that gas to power up their cars — or maybe even cook up all that beef.

More:

“Argentine scientists tap cow burps for natural gas,” Maximiliano Rizzi, Reuters

“El gas de las vacas puede alimentar un motor,” INTA Informa

Reuters video here 

______________

Short link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-hFZ

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

 Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine