New York City Targets Pizza In The Name Of Fighting Climate Change

New York City is famous for its pizza. But a new rule by the city government may make that next pie even more expensive.

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection is ordering historic pizzerias to cut their carbon emissions. These pizzerias use either coal or wood-fired ovens to cook their pies.

From the New York Post:

Historic Big Apple pizza joints could be forced to dish out mounds of dough under a proposed city edict targeting pollutant-spewing coal-and-wood-fired ovens, The Post has learned.

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection has drafted new rules that would order eateries using the decades-old baking method to slice carbon emissions by up to 75%.

“All New Yorkers deserve to breathe healthy air and wood and coal-fired stoves are among the largest contributors of harmful pollutants in neighborhoods with poor air quality,” DEP spokesman Ted Timbers said in a statement Sunday. “This common-sense rule, developed with restaurant and environmental justice groups, requires a professional review of whether installing emission controls is feasible.”

The rule could require pizzerias with such ovens installed prior to May 2016 to buy pricey emission-control devices — with the owner of one Brooklyn joint saying he’s already tossed $20,000 on an air filter system in anticipation of the new mandate.

This rule is a part of New York City’s push to cut carbon emissions from food. One of the goals of the campaign is to encourage New Yorkers to go vegan.

There is a reason why people like these historical pizzerias. Pizza cooked from a coal-or-wood-fired oven tastes better. The fire creates a char on the crust that an electric oven cannot duplicate. It also imparts a flavor.

Also, wood and coal-fired ovens are not major polluters. The New York Post found that a pizzeria would have to burn their stove 849 years to equal one year of emissions from John Kerry’s private jet.

This is yet another example of the working class paying for the elite’s climate change obsession. When do you hear of an elite making a sacrifice? Instead, working people have to sacrifice the little things that make life enjoyable.

Next time when you go to New York City and enjoy a pizza, it will likely be more expensive. You can thank the city government for that.