One of the rules of understanding climate fundamentalism (and other forms of environmentalist fundamentalism) is that, as is the case for most fundamentalisms, the quest for purity never stops.
“Degrowth” is one example of this. Its central proposition is that humanity should turn away from economic growth, and, at least in the West, be prepared to reduce the size of our economies in (supposedly) the interests of the planet. What that would mean in practice can vary, but can we see in this tweet by Aashis Joshi a sign that one day the war against gas stoves might be overtaken by the war against kitchens?
When it comes to preparing & consuming food, communal kitchens would eliminate the need to have refrigerators, stoves, ovens, & other kitchen appliances in each home. They would reduce the consumption of materials & energy, & also food waste, by a lot.
In a later tweet, he explains that changes such as these would “require a radical reorganization of our societies & a shift of values, especially from individualism to collectivism.”
Indeed. And the methods by which this “radical reorganization” and “shift of values” would be arranged is unlikely to be either peaceful or democratic. And the methods by which they would then be maintained would be repressive.
None too coincidentally, the communal kitchen would be an ideal instrument of social control (that was why they were imposed by the Communist Party throughout much of rural China in the late 1950s).
Depending on how mandatory they became (and degrowth is all about compulsion), communal kitchens could be used to ration or eliminate the “wrong” sorts of food — meat, for example. They could also be used to limit food supplies to the politically disfavored. They would also disrupt the family, typically regarded as a potentially subversive element by totalitarian regimes (one reason the Bolsheviks favored communal kitchens, too) and, by removing a space where friends could be invited round, they reduce the possibility that people might get together and say frowned-upon things.
Degrowth or democracy, choose one.