A candle produces roughly the same amount of energy as a resting human

I live in a newer house which is air sealed to improve energy efficiency. With all the talk of indoor pollutants like CO2 and NOx, I often wonder if the air quality is worse than it would be in an older, drafty house. When I research it, most of the results on google are from companies that perform sealing, making it difficult to get unbiased answers.

people like Carmack...not candles.

"I'm smart - tax candles" -

It's not so simple anymore. Now you have a 60W (equivalent) bulb outputting 9 watts.

If you ignore the numbers you can still easily feel the heat, but it's not so easy to translate into human equivalents.

> Most range hoods in single family homes are externally vented,

I wish this were true, unfortunately it's not. Most homes in the US, including freestanding SFHs, use recirculating range hoods.

> that gas stoves result in CO and other harmful emissions that electric stoves don't, independent of what is being cooked.

This is true. It's also a negligible difference, and mostly immaterial if you are externally venting fumes when using the stove. The biggest issue is not the carbon monoxide and other emissions, it's the particulate matter that is given off when cooking, which happens quickly during cooking and irrespective of heat sources. Consistently breathing in high levels of PM2.5 has severe health consequences, including increasing risk for lung diseases and cancer, even when the particulates themselves are not carcinogenic. What's worse, many particulates given off when cooking /are/ carcinogenic, such as when searing meats.

Ventilation is the most critical aspect here. There are more important safety reasons why people should avoid open flames and direct heat in favor of electric induction, as well as environmental reasons as all-electric homes can be powered using exclusively renewable energy sources, these are much better arguments against using a gas stove than the air emissions, which are insignificant compared to cooking fumes themselves and both need resolved via ventilation.

> there is a behavioral problem, which is that most people use the kitchen hood vent as a way to exhaust smoke odors only

Agreed. One of the challenges in the US is that because most range hoods are recirculating and not vented, especially in rental/cheaper properties, people become effectively trained to not use it because they are very loud and not effective. Externally vented range hoods are both quieter and are actually effective, and train people to use them once they're exposed to them.

> many people end up disabling the smoke alarms near their kitchen rather than taking it as an indication that there is an air quality problem.

This is a real issue, and a big issue for fire safety as well. Most American homes also don't have carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide monitoring, both of which are major issues. We also have significant exposure to radon in the US, and no state currently legally requires landlords to provide mitigation and testing for radon.

There are myriad indoor air quality issues in the US, and proper ventilation can solve or mitigate almost all of them, and when it's present it does not train bad habits and may untrain bad habits.