I, too, used to believe that somehow cooking with gas was superior even though it seems pretty obvious that it’s not pure methane burning into pure CO₂ and water. And of course the pipes have leaks. All this time, however, I did not realize that I was following a plot laid down by the industry with ads and lobbying to avoid regulation.
From the transcript of a recent episode of 99% Invisible:
“You see a lot of parallels here between the gas industry and tobacco industry and how it delayed and disputed decades of scientific concerns around the risks of smoking. And the gas industry did something pretty similar to dispute the effects from these emissions–from gas cooking and just burning gas at large. And you see a lot of focus from them on the uncertainty and that there are questions that need to be answered. But even when we get those studies and we learn more of those answers, the industry has really pounced on that as the lack of regulation is proof that this is a product that’s safe.”
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/cooking-with-gas/transcript