About those gas lamps . . .

You see gas lamps like this all over the place in New Orleans. On some blocks, like Uptown near Audubon Park, or in the Garden District, nearly every home has one or two. In fact, an 1870 home I looked into buying in the historic Holy Cross neighborhood has two of them.

But I wonder . . . how environmentally friendly are they? Does it make sense to burn gas day and night? At least with electrical light bulbs, you can turn them off during daylight hours. These things stay on all the time, like a pilot light.

I've read conflicting reports on whether gas lamps are big polluters or minor polluters. I'll report back as the situation becomes clearer in my mind.