Environmental and health impacts of gas stoves

We recently replaced our gas stove with an electric induction stove. We have a goal of getting off fossil fuels because of the climate crisis, and I have been scared of gas since the 2020 explosion in Farmington.

We were not thinking of health benefits when we made that switch, but after reading Rob Jackson’s “Into the Clear Blue Sky” (2024), I am relieved we did. I had not realized that gas stoves emit significant benzene and nitrogen dioxide. Benzene is a known carcinogen. His studies show elevated benzene levels and nitrogen dioxide throughout the houses even after the stove is turned off for several hours. He reports multiple studies demonstrating that children growing up in a house with a gas stove have a significantly higher incidence of asthma in childhood and throughout life. When gas stoves started to be extensively used in the early 20th century, an outside vent was required, but this is no longer the case. Often ventilation fans are not connected to the outside and even when connected they may be inadequate and are often not used. I admit we seldom used ours.

I was aware that burning natural gas or propane emits CO2 warming our planet. Natural gas is mostly methane and a lot leaks out during mining and transport and then from your stove. Methane warms the atmosphere 28 times more times more than CO2, although it does not persist as long. Just another reason to stop using gas if benzene and nitrogen dioxide do not motivate you. If you cannot transition to an electric stove, please consider opening your windows when you cook.

Nancy Hasenfus, M.D.,
Brunswick

Responding to Mr. Mendenhall’s response

Reality and truth, like beauty, is in the eye. I hope our disagreement can be amicable, but I find it interesting that you would spend the bulk of your letter not defending Trump but attacking Biden, for whom I have or had little liking. Biden tried his best and, yes, was found wanting.  However, having read about Trump for the past 25 years, I find him without any redeeming qualities either as a person, in business, in television, as a candidate or as president. I’ve read biographies of all our presidents and believe Trump the worst — even worse than Jackson because his stage is larger. So, we disagree and millions agree with you. However, I will continue to express concern about Trump as a danger to America, its values (as I interpret them) and to the stability of the world.

Hubbard C. Goodrich,
Harpswell

Chaos, threats and anxiety

Is this how we want to live? America is turning allies into adversaries and threatening to take down our economy and perhaps the world’s, too.

A pattern has emerged where President Trump appears to be attempting to shake down our allies and trading partners by imposing tariffs and then expecting those countries to bargain favorably with him. He is doing the same with law firms, universities and business sectors. This approach may make him feel powerful, but it is causing massive disruption, along with enormous anxiety.

However large countries, states, firms and organizations may be, they are made of humans. People don’t like to be shaken down or taken “hostage.” This is not how trust or prosperity is built. Genuine, lasting power is built on trust and cooperation.

Many of the tariffs are paused for 90 days but the threat remains. It seems improbable that anyone actually voted for this chaos. Groceries, housing and health care are already too expensive.

Please contact Sens. Collins and King and Rep. Chellie Pingree or Jared Golden, and ask them to stand up to this bullying. Please show your indignation through peaceful protest.

Lucy Hull,
Arrowsic

A universal health care solution to the crisis

Maine’s health care system is in crisis. Thousands of Mainers are facing the loss of MaineCare coverage and will likely become uninsured. Thousands more Mainers (many with insurance) are drowning in medical debt. A recent analysis shows that Maine’s largest hospitals are “collectively in dire financial shape.” Hospitals in Bar Harbor, Belfast and Houlton are closing their maternity units. Inland Hospital in Waterville is closing, and 10 other hospitals are at risk of closure. Medicaid cuts are threatening the futures clinics, medical practices, nursing homes and home health agencies.

There is a solution that is pending in the Maine Legislature this session: a universal, publicly funded health care system, which could save our hospitals and provide more and better care to ALL patients in Maine.

The money to fund universal health care in Maine is already in the system. It includes the taxes we already pay to fund Medicare, Medicaid and the VA, our taxes which pay for the health insurance for our teachers and our federal, state and municipal employees. It also includes our costly private insurance premiums and our often bank-breaking, out-of-pocket payments.

Unfortunately, the money we currently pay into our health care system is just not being used efficiently. Our publicly financed programs such as MaineCare and traditional Medicare are very efficient, with administrative overheads of between 3% and 6% compared to 17% for private insurance.

By eliminating administrative waste, eliminating administrative complexity and expense (think of billing and collections, advertising, doctors time wasted on prior authorizations, to name just a few); by negotiating ALL prescription drug prices for the entire population’ and by simplifying the payment system for hospitals, doctors and their patients, the money saved could be used to provide more and better care to all residents for about the same money we currently spend.

Further information about this proposed legislation and about universal health care can be found at MaineAllCare.org. Maine AllCare believes that Maine must finally move forward with publicly funded health care coverage for all Mainers. We cannot afford to wait.

Julie Keller Pease, M.D.,
Chairperson of the Maine AllCare board,
Topsham

Pushing back against a fascist agenda

People of varying age, socioeconomic status and political affiliation have been showing up together on Lincoln County bridges and town intersections to protest the Trump/Musk tariffs and assaults on libraries, post offices, food pantries, news media — the list goes on. The gatherings are orderly, numbering from a handful to over 400 citizens, their goal to raise awareness not militias, and often characterized by punning signs — “Fight Truth Decay” — and clever costumes.

Meanwhile, Maine’s governor is harassed over school rules by our president, who, while defunding all of U.S. education, daydreams publicly about annexing Canada and grabbing Greenland. Who’s in charge? Where are the grownups?

What do the mysterious super rich (thank you, John Roberts and Citizens United) who seem to be funding the collapse of our civilization want to see in this world their grandchildren will inherit? Can they guarantee infrastructure, nutrition, opportunity all alone — even for themselves — while 7 or 8 billion human beings live in misery? No dictator has pulled that off. Only the democracies with their force of informed, ambitious, culturally aware participants have offered periods of widespread decent life.

Yet the program snaking out of our White House and past a sleeping Congress and Supreme Court appears to be testing that limit once more. From the crippling of institutions that have fought ignorance and pollution in the face of corporate greed to the breaches of the national security that has kept us a top player in international politics, the Trump agenda attacks everything that empowers the people of this country — health, access to information, education — and controls on huge business interests that, “person” or not, have no conscience.

Do we have to collaborate? Why support a fascist agenda? Suppose we stopped sending money to Washington, all 300 million of us put our federal taxes in escrow until some sane alternative were offered. Our “justices” and “representatives” in the Capitol need to connect with reality and, like our governor, dredge up some courage. Otherwise, might they wake up some morning to find themselves irrelevant, unsalaried and, perhaps, obsolete?

Brooke Pacy,
Waldoboro

Mobile home housing becoming unaffordable

Let’s talk about the last affordable housing in Maine. The old mom-and-pop mobile-home parks owned and operated by them. They kept the rents reasonable and did most of the work themselves. The parks were community-oriented and most people actually were neighborly and willing to help others. That image changed dramatically when out-of-state corporations and investor groups started buying up mobile-home parks across the state.

COVID, the downfall of shopping malls and internet commerce, fueled the move to mobile home parks as a high-profit investment. Tenants are mostly low-income, retirees and young families with little or no political support. Overhead costs are much lower than apartment or office buildings. When parks were bought? The infrastructure was already in place and most tenants were only going to rent a land lot to set the mobile home on and hook up to utilities. In most parks, lot rent did not include any amenities such as water, sewer, trash, etc. The park was responsible for mowing common areas and plowing the private roads, but mowing or snow removal on the lots were the tenants responsibility. Corporations and investor groups were stuck with, “How do we give our investors the financial return we promised?”

There is only one way to increase your revenue in mobile home parks: reduce on-site employees, cut services, no preventative maintenance and constantly raise the rent. That is exactly what they are doing. One in 5 mobile home parks in Maine are owned by out-of-state corporations or investor groups. Absentee landlords who manage the parks by email or telephone. Maine laws were designed for mom-and-pop mobile home parks and not big corporations or investor groups. Their business model seems to be profit above people.

Legislation has been proposed in Augusta to counter the wealthy corporations and investor groups. State legislation for lot rent stability and tenant protections in mobile home parks in Maine is the only solution. We keep giving tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations because trickle-down economics helps all. Don’t you wish that was true? What actually trickles down to tenants in corporate or investor-owned parks? Lot rent increases, of course, and soon-to-be unaffordable housing. Act now and support rent stabilization and tenant protections in mobile-home parks in Maine or affordable housing in Maine will be just a memory.

Jerry Highfill,
Bowdoin