I am writing my great grandchildren a book about my life that begins, “I lived in the time of gas stoves.” I will explain the steps I took to make a white chocolate coconut pound cake and how I slid it into a perfectly heated 325 degree gas oven, thought by cooks and bakers everywhere to be a superior form of heat, but that because of farting cows and children’s asthma, natural gas was banned in all the lands far and wide, replaced by electricity, of which at this point, no one has adequately explained how such a form of energy will be produced without polluting the earth, since so far, solar and wind power don’t seem to be the whole answer, despite the fact everywhere we look they are causing blight in our beautiful countryside here in Western New York.

And yes, that was a long but worthy sentence.

I’m sometimes accused of writing too often about politics in this lifestyle column, as if in this day and age politics hasn’t infiltrated every aspect of our lives–from what our children are learning in school to what kind of car you should drive, and what kind of pharmaceuticals you elect to have in your body, and yes, the way in which you will one day heat up your can of Campbell’s soup in your very own kitchen.

After exhaustive research for decades now, I haven’t fully come around to believing humankind is destroying the earth and that unless we join our Amish friends in the choices we make, we’re all going to die. There are plenty of renowned scientists who have questioned climate research, and accused it of becoming a religion or a new tax. But what I’m noticing is that we are moving ahead in reorganizing and vastly changing the world we live in, no matter if the facts add up or not, and since so few people seem to be outraged, here we go. Strap in for the ride. But never forget that silence is a form of permission, especially when dealing with so many of today’s politicians, who only pay you lip service and pretend to hear you, and then go ahead and do exactly what they want, which is to fulfill on a local level every wish of the liberal national, perhaps global, agenda.

When the police are called because a group of mothers show up at a school board meeting, impassioned about the sort of experience their children are having in school that their tax dollars happen to pay for, it’s fair to say that our county is moving toward a way of life that nobody here signed up for.

And I do know that Governor Hochul has not banned gas stoves in buildings where gas stoves already exist, except wait, starting in 2030, if your gas furnace breaks, you will be forced to replace it with an electric one. And if you build a house after 2025, you have to install an electric stove.

But critics are also pointing to a separate government recommendation to make the case that New York is considering a full gas stove ban.

The state Climate Action Council is a 22-member panel tasked with devising a plan to meet the state’s climate change goals. And in December, the council issued an 445-page “scoping plan” that laid out a path to reduce emissions.

That scoping plan includes a series of wide-ranging recommendations to make it happen. Among them is a ban on the replacement of gas-powered stoves, ovens and clothes dryers beginning in 2035. Politicians often float test balloons to gauge the public sentiment, then scale back their ambitions a bit, knowing full well they will implement their original scope in the long run.

Ah, 2035. I’ll be an old woman then, god willing. Since my generation is dying sooner than our parents from cancer and other diseases likely brought on by things having nothing to do with climate change, who knows what my fate is. It’s sad that Hochul is far more concerned with how I’m cooking my coconut cake instead of what’s in the ingredients I’m using. But that indeed is a story for another day.

There are far more important headlines than gas stoves, as liberals beat their war drums, birth rates drop in a long list of countries and the sudden deaths of young people all around the world are being blamed on everything from artificial sweeteners to climate change.

Here’s my takeaway: I’m not giving up my gas stove. As the famous American patriotic slogan goes, I say, “Come and take it.”

But then, I’m just a selfish American.