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https://priceschool.usc.edu/news/gas-stove-ban-public-health/
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Who could have predicted that gas stoves would be the latest hot topic to ignite the nation’s culture wars?

But here we are, watching as members of Congress post on social media that no one will take their gas stoves unless it is from their “cold dead hands.”

It started last month, when a member of the nation’s Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Richard L. Trumka, said the agency will consider regulating indoor air pollution from gas stoves, starting with a request for public comment. He followed up last week by saying in an interview that he had not ruled out banning them.

The ensuing firestorm over the common household appliances — used in 40 million American homes — prompted the chair of the agency to publicly clarify that he isn’t seeking to ban gas stoves and further, that the agency “has no proceeding to do so.”

But the controversy continues, with The Wall Street Journal editorial board recently opining: “When [progressives] can’t win the political debate, they resort to brute government force. They really are coming for your stove.”

Gas stoves and indoor air pollution
The residential sector accounts for 15% of total U.S. natural gas consumption, says Matthew Kahn, director of the Healthcare Markets Initiative at the USC Schaeffer Center, a partner institute of the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy. He is also provost professor of economics and spatial sciences at the USC Dornsife College.
“I actually think it’s small potatoes – one of one thousand things we need to do to mitigate climate change,” says Kahn, whose research focuses on urban and environmental economics.

He believes the more compelling argument for phasing out gas stoves can be found in new research linking natural gas use to public health risks.

Kahn is inspired by Kirk Smith, professor of global environmental health at UC Berkeley who pioneered indoor air quality research showing that millions of people in developing countries die each year from exposure to smoke from cooking and heating fuels like wood, charcoal, coal and dung.

“[Smith’s] research convinced me that we have to figure out how to move people in India up the income ladder so they can use natural gas and not these dirty fuels,” says Kahn. “Now, environmental science is making progress and we’ve learned that natural gas is dirtier than we thought.”

“I have a gas stove; my son’s bedroom was above our kitchen. What were we exposing him to as we cooked?” he asked.

Health hazards from gas stoves

Evidence is building about the potential health hazards of gas stoves. A new study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health estimates that 12.7 percent of childhood asthma is attributable to living in a household with a gas stove. Earlier research suggested that children living in a home with gas cooking have a 42% increased risk of asthma.
“People typically spend the majority of their time indoors, and while understudied, indoor air quality plays an important role in our health,” says Jill Johnston, an associate professor at the Keck School of Medicine of USC whose research focuses on exposures to harmful contaminants that affect the health of working poor and communities of color.
Johnston says gas stoves emit harmful pollution such as nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter, which can irritate the lungs and exacerbate asthma symptoms.

“Environmental justice organizations have long recognized the health hazards due to extraction and combustion of gas,” she says. “Electrification of stoves is poised to offer significant health benefits, especially for children and other vulnerable populations.”

Los Angeles, New York among cities to ban gas stoves in new construction

California is the state with the highest percentage of households – 70 percent – using natural gas for cooking. While a federal ban on gas stoves may not be imminent, the Los Angeles City Council voted in May 2022 to ban most gas appliances in new construction in the city. L.A. joins a growing list of cities to take this step, including New York City, which passed a ban on gas hookups in new buildings in 2021.

Kahn, the economist, isn’t convinced a ban on gas stoves in new buildings will help those who suffer the most from bad indoor air quality.

“Poor people are going to continue to live in older, cheaper housing built before the regulatory change,” he says. “If our goal is to help poor people contend with less indoor air pollution, this new rule won’t do much to help – unless they can be nudged through other incentives to upgrade their appliances.”

New incentives can be found in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which allows consumers to claim a rebate of up to $840 on a new electric cooking appliance and up to an additional $500 to help cover the costs of converting from natural gas to electric.

Americans might need more convincing before they ditch their gas stoves
“When we enjoy products every day without experiencing direct negative consequences, it may seem that they are harmless,” observes Wandi Bruine de Bruin, an expert on risk perception and communication and provost professor of public policy, psychology, and behavioral science at the USC Price School.
She says it can take decades to change those perceptions, pointing to the dangers of smoking as one example.
“More studies that reveal evidence of health concerns associated with gas stoves would very likely change people’s awareness over time,” says Dan Wei, a research associate professor at the USC Price School who researches the economic impacts of energy and climate change policies.
Wei notes that a 2022 survey conducted by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Education Fund and the Sierra Club found nearly three-quarters of consumers did not receive any information regarding potential pollution and health risks associated with gas stoves when they purchased the stoves from retailers. Two-thirds of consumers were not told of the need for good ventilation when using gas stoves.
A better understanding of both the risks of gas stoves and the benefits of newer electric technology will be the key, says USC chief sustainability officer Mick Dalrymple, who believes induction cooktops will eventually win consumers over. Ticking off the benefits, he says: “Induction cooktops are three times as efficient as gas, they cook faster, are more controllable, are easier to clean, are healthier, reduce the heat in your kitchen, and are safer.”
“They’re simply better technology overall while also addressing the climate crisis,” he continues. “If you conducted a poll, I believe you would find that, like drivers of electric vehicles, once people experience induction cooking, very few are likely to look back.”

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A Game to Change The World
USC Marshall student launches digital game that teaches teams how to tackle the most difficult problems facing organizations, governments and countries across the globe.
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Larissa Gurjao Pereira De Lima is a jetsetter. It’s not wanderlust, exactly, that inspires her sojourns, but a desire to learn, educate and impact. On one such journey to a small town in Thailand, Gurjao explored how education is approached in different settings, with different resource sets. As an English teacher there, she realized the limitations that can come from silos and, on the flip side, the power of technology to accelerate and deepen learning.

It was then that she knew she had an opportunity to make a greater impact.

Pivoting from a career in IT, Gurjao, a USC Marshall School of Business graduate student, set for on a daunting task: changing her career. Beginning at Amani Institute’s Social Innovation Management program in Nairobi, Kenya, Gurjao said she had a clear mission to change how businesses operated. “I already had a business background,” she said, “But I wanted to do something different–help businesses be more sustainable.” From there, she enrolled in the USC Marshall Master of Science in Social Entrepreneurship (MSSE) at Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab to build her own sustainable enterprise.

Over the last five years, Gurjao has founded several organizations–all aimed at social impact through innovation, self-development and empowerment. In 2017, she founded Trips Connection, which supported organizations to identify strategies for innovation through gamification. The organization’s goal was to facilitate direct actions in solving complex social problems. Most recently, in 2019, she founded SIB Impact, a board game aimed at building team’s ability to collaborate and innovate toward solving a big, challenging–often global–problem. To heighten its impact even further, the game’s latest release–set for December 12th–will take it digital.

Fundamentals of Gamification

Three years ago, Gurjao began building a prototype that would eventually become SIB Impact. Central to the game’s design are out-of-the-box troubleshooting, critical thinking and most important: collaboration. In the development phase, she did a lot of research about board games in general. “How do board games work,” she said. “What are their mechanics? How can they be fun and educational?”

Gurjao joined the MSSE program in June 2022, after a friend recommended several courses. “I knew I could connect with great people here,” she said, “and build my business.”

SIB Impact is an educational game that can be applied inside organizations, governments, startups, NGOs, private companies and universities alike. “The idea is to teach participants how they can create innovative solutions,” Gurjao said. “You have to help the other players solve the world’s biggest social and environmental issues.”

The game aims to create toolkits for individuals and teams to take theoretical solutions and transform them into tangible actions. In short, it aims at creating change and changemakers, effecting internal strategies and culture and more deeply integrating ESG into company missions.

“The tool can be applied to different teams within a single organization, for example helping work on the ESGs from the perspective of human resources and finance and marketing,” Gurjao said.

First shared with audiences in Brazil to test how audiences would engage with it and whether or not they would pay for it, SIB Impact is very-research heavy to develop, Gurjao said. Modules are based on location-specific data, as different solutions will work better in different contexts. This allows it to be specific, but also, players benefit from lessons learned across the world.

But Gurjao doesn’t want to stop there. From hunger and climate change to the war in Ukraine and the ongoing global pandemic, hopes to connect teams to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, a framework of 17 goals that are part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the UN in 2015. These goals aim to create a better world by improving health and education, ending poverty and inequality, and tackling climate change and other threats to our environment. Essentially if we can learn together and from each other, maybe we can collectively implement solutions from our areas of expertise to bring peace and stability to the world.

The digital game is just a small part of what Gurjao hopes to accomplish. The game already has been translated into Portuguese and Spanish, and Gurjao wants to see more languages added so it is truly accessible all over the globe.

“I hope to travel to all 80 cities included in the game and film my experiences, showing the problems the people of the world are facing and the possible, positive solutions that they can have,” she said.

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Assignment: Earth is on a trajectory to land in the heart of USC’s University Park Campus.

This spring, the university will open the USC Sustainability Hub — a coworking and collaboration space in the Gwynn Wilson Student Union building where students, researchers and sustainability staff can gather.

“Establishing the new Sustainability Hub at the center of campus means ensuring USC’s Assignment: Earth is at the heart of all we do at USC,” said USC President Carol L. Folt. “This new space will provide a dynamic home for Trojans to come together, share ideas and collaborate on solutions that will have lasting impact on our campuses and this beautiful planet we love.”

Given the undeniable impact of climate change — powerful storms, extreme drought, rising sea levels –sustainability is on many people’s minds. A survey conducted earlier this year revealed that nearly half of the university’s students, faculty and staff shared moderate to strong interest in getting involved with university sustainability efforts.

Across the university, significant sustainability initiatives are already underway. USC stopped purchasing single-use plastic beverage bottles in July and recently celebrated diverting 32 tons of plastic waste to landfills — or 1 million plastic bottles. USC faculty in public health, economics and architecture are looking for ways to decarbonize the health care industry. The USC Marshall School of Business is incorporating sustainability into the business curriculum.

In addition, a zero-waste team is greening up the USC tailgate tradition with a roving trailer of recycling bins. And $8.8 million in funds will support sustainability-focused research projects on alternative energies and pollution reduction as well as efforts to help shade L.A. neighborhoods.

USC Sustainability Hub: a place for positive change

“Environmental sustainability is a central priority for the university, and this new location will allow our staff to better engage and inform the USC community,” USC Chief Sustainability Officer Mick Dalrymple said. “The results of the university’s first sustainability literacy survey showed that increased engagement led to higher sustainability literacy and behavior scores. Through expanded services and informational resources, we hope this new location at the heart of campus will provide a platform to create positive change and grow our environmentally conscious students, faculty and staff.”

The Sustainability Hub also will become a workspace for the university’s first group of postdoctoral fellows who will focus on developing solutions to climate-related issues, ranging from the economic impact to the effects on human health.

The first fellows will arrive this spring.

Pharmacy space to become USC Sustainability Hub; new pharmacy in the works

The Sustainability Hub will fill a 1,500-square-foot space that was home to one of two pharmacies on the University Park Campus operated by the USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Pharmacy operations are expanding into a larger location in King Hall, close to USC’s Engemann Student Health Center, in late summer. The new location will allow the USC Mann School to serve more patients and offer additional educational opportunities for students. In the interim, services will continue through the pharmacy across from Student Health.

“Pharmacists play an increasingly important role in community health, and the new facility will help us demonstrate that for the USC community at large,” said Vassilios Papadopoulos, dean of the USC Mann School, which operates the campus pharmacy. “In California, pharmacists provide vaccinations, the COVID-19 antiviral treatment Paxlovid, nicotine replacement therapy, contraception and HIV prevention pills as well as distribute the opioid reversal drug naloxone. We also help older patients and patients in need to manage their medications safely.”

The pharmacy’s move to King Hall will double the space for the pharmacy and make way for more services, said Raffi Svadjian, the executive director of USC pharmacies who oversees the USC Mann School’s four community pharmacies and a specialty pharmacy.

Pharmacists play an increasingly important role in community health, and the new facility will help us demonstrate that for the USC community at large.

Vassilios Papadopoulos, USC Mann School dean

Still in the design phase, the new pharmacy will feature a larger waiting area — in the current space, windowsills serve as seating — as well as clinical space for pharmacists to meet with patients privately and discuss their health needs, Svadjian said. Branded carts will deliver prescriptions to longtime and new customers among USC faculty and staff.

Also in the spirit of expansion, the pharmacy school plans to place additional health-product vending machines around campus. One such vending machine, currently located in King Hall, stocks general and reproductive health products to provide access outside pharmacy hours. Antibiotic ointment and emergency contraception are among the offerings.

Svadjian said that until the new location opens, the pharmacy’s prescription-filling and other services, including delivery of prescription medications, will be offered through the other, smaller campus pharmacy that is near the Engemann Student Health Center.

The new University Park pharmacy is slated to open in summer 2023. Architectural sketches for another new USC Pharmacy, planned for South Los Angeles, offer a taste of the clean lines and open spaces in store; USC is using the same design firm for both locations.

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USC’s march toward “zero waste” by 2028 took a big step July 1, when the university stopped purchasing single-use plastic beverage bottles across its campuses and at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Since that time, the Trojan Family has avoided sending 32 tons of plastic waste to landfill — about a million plastic bottles. Instead, university entities — including Athletics, Auxiliary Services, Procurement, and Cultural Relations and University Events — are using more eco-friendly alternatives like glass and aluminum.

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This month’s COP27 summit is an event to rally nations together against a common enemy — climate change — but it may well be overshadowed by the humanitarian, economic and geopolitical crises wrought by Russia’s war on Ukraine.

On top of addressing an existential threat for all of humanity, world leaders must consider how to counter Russia’s provocations as it wields its golden hammer in the global economy: its fuel.

Just a few weeks ago, European officials discovered that the Nord Stream 1 pipeline had been severed in what officials suspect was an act of Russian sabotage to retaliate against Europe’s efforts to support Ukraine. Europe had been working to source its fuels from elsewhere amid political pressure to wean itself from Russian gas and oil.

The timing could not have been worse. Winter is coming, and now Europe must consider options that would inevitably derail its ambition to become climate-neutral by 2050.

From coal and nuclear options to stockpiles of timber and firewood, the choices are limited and consequential both for the health of the planet and its people, USC experts say. The usage of fossil fuels inevitably increases carbon emissions and other pollutants, and in the case of nuclear energy, challenges with disposing of harmful radioactive waste.

“Europe is importing more from North Africa and other African countries,” said Robert English, associate professor of international relations, Slavic languages and literature, and environmental studies at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “They’re also going back to using more coal, even though they’ve already phased out dirty coal. And Germany has delayed shutting down its nuclear reactors.”

COP27 convenes as demand for coal skyrockets

Shon Hiatt, an expert on global energy markets at USC Marshall School of Business, said the demand for coal is skyrocketing as natural gas prices surge.

“Globally, we’re seeing massive reuptake of coal because natural gas has become more expensive, and in the case of Europe, scarce. People need to heat their homes and keep the lights on. It makes sense that countries are moving to coal and petroleum. There’s no other choice,” explained Hiatt, an associate professor of management and organization. “Europe has another two years before they have the infrastructure in place to get by without Russian gas. And it sounds like Europe wants to stop depending on Russian gas, regardless of the Ukraine outcome.”

Hiatt said that due to their own limitations, solar and wind are unlikely to fill the energy gap left by Russia.

You can’t power an economy with wind and solar alone.

Shon Hiatt, USC Marshall School

“With wind and solar, the best complement is natural gas because they’re intermittent energy sources. We know when the sun is up and down, and the wind only blows occasionally. In order to maintain voltage and hertz, which are required to keep the grid stable, we need dispatchable gas generators. You can’t power an economy with wind and solar alone,” Hiatt explained.

A hard lesson amid COP27: diversify supply

The pain Europe is feeling now may have been self-inflicted. Steven Lamy, professor emeritus of political science, international relations and spatial sciences at USC Dornsife, said that Europe’s error is in its preference for cheaper, short-term contracts with Russian energy suppliers over long-term investments in developing its own infrastructure and supply chain networks.

Germany and other European nations could have built ports to bring in liquefied natural gas, or LNG, which can be cooled to a liquid state and used in areas too far for pipelines to reach.

But they didn’t. Instead, they relied on the Nord Stream pipelines.

“Now, countries like Germany that lack LNG terminals are going to spend billions storing the energy alternative on barges out at sea,” Lamy said.

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