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We start with the fact that carbon dioxide concentrations are rising.
Figure 1.4 shows measurements of the CO2 concentration in the air from
the year 1000 AD to the present. Some "sceptics" have asserted that the recent increase in CO2 concentration is a natural phenomenon. Does "sceptic" mean "a person who has not even glanced at the data"? Don't you
think, just possibly, something may have happened between 1800 AD and
2000 AD? Something that was not part of the natural processes present in
the preceding thousand years?
Something did happen, and it was called the Industrial Revolution.
I've marked on the graph the year 1769, in which James Watt patented
his steam engine. While the first practical steam engine was invented in
1698, Watt's more efficient steam engine really got the Industrial Revolution going. One of the steam engine's main applications was the pumping
of water out of coal mines. Figure 1.5 shows what happened to British
coal production from 1769 onwards. The figure displays coal production
in units of billions of tons of CO2 released when the coal was burned.
In 1800, coal was used to make iron, to make ships, to heat buildings,
to power locomotives and other machinery, and of course to power the
pumps that enabled still more coal to be scraped up from inside the hills
of England and Wales. Britain was terribly well endowed with coal: when
the Revolution started, the amount of carbon sitting in coal under Britain
was roughly the same as the amount sitting in oil under Saudi Arabia.
In the 30 years from 1769 to 1800, Britain's annual coal production
doubled. After another 30 years (1830), it had doubled again. The next
doubling of production-rate happened within 20 years (1850), and another
doubling within 20 years of that (1870). This coal allowed Britain to turn
the globe pink. The prosperity that came to England and Wales was reflected in a century of unprecedented population growth:
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Eventually other countries got in on the act too as the Revolution spread.
Figure 1.6 shows British coal production and world coal production on
the same scale as figure 1.5, sliding the window of history 50 years later.
British coal production peaked in 1910, but meanwhile world coal production continued to double every 20 years. It's difficult to show the history
of coal production on a single graph. To show what happened in the next
50 years on the same scale, this page would need to be one metre tall!
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Figure 1.6. What happened next.
The history of UK coal production
and world coal production from 1650
to 1960, on the same scale as
figure 1.5.
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