If industrial civilisation collapses due to climate change there is just not enough coal to reindustrialise so the human race will be stuck oppressing itself in feudalism forever.
There’s a theory that coal is a prerequisite for the industrial revolution, that trying to do an industrial revolution with just charcoal and windmills/watermills might be impossible.
The lack of coal limits the kinds of steel that can be smelted, which then limits the kinds of machines that can be made. The reliance on renewable energy limits the amount of power that can be generated away from fixed power sources, giving feudal lords unending monopoly over power generation rather than giving way to trade and private property and capital.
So, if society has to rebuild itself 10,000 years after a total collapse that pushes us to near extinction we might not be able to get past feudalism.
We have the capacity to create biodiesel and methane from sources that fully integrate into the carbon cycle.
Also we really shouldn’t be putting much stock into resource-based determinism. Coal was not a sine qua non for successful revolutions in Russia, China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, or Cuba.
We have the capacity to do that now, with our current level of technology. The question is if we could have reached the capacity to do these things without first burning coal; a hypothetical world where we have to somehow escape from feudalism without coal.
And don’t dismiss steel. We’re only just now figuring out how to eliminate coal from the process, making steel just from charcoal using iron-age technology is technically doable but so resource intensive and the resulting quality of steel so low that it might never have been able to fuel industrialization. This then limits the extent of mechanization and firearms and railroads etc etc
It’s harder than you’re giving credit. Revolutionaries in the 1900s didn’t have to overthrow feudalism using guns made from steel forged with charcoal and milled on machines turned by water wheels. We really might have needed coal to get this far.
I’m not convinced of this persons seriousness
There’s a theory that coal is a prerequisite for the industrial revolution, that trying to do an industrial revolution with just charcoal and windmills/watermills might be impossible.
The lack of coal limits the kinds of steel that can be smelted, which then limits the kinds of machines that can be made. The reliance on renewable energy limits the amount of power that can be generated away from fixed power sources, giving feudal lords unending monopoly over power generation rather than giving way to trade and private property and capital.
So, if society has to rebuild itself 10,000 years after a total collapse that pushes us to near extinction we might not be able to get past feudalism.
We have the capacity to create biodiesel and methane from sources that fully integrate into the carbon cycle.
Also we really shouldn’t be putting much stock into resource-based determinism. Coal was not a sine qua non for successful revolutions in Russia, China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, or Cuba.
We have the capacity to do that now, with our current level of technology. The question is if we could have reached the capacity to do these things without first burning coal; a hypothetical world where we have to somehow escape from feudalism without coal.
And don’t dismiss steel. We’re only just now figuring out how to eliminate coal from the process, making steel just from charcoal using iron-age technology is technically doable but so resource intensive and the resulting quality of steel so low that it might never have been able to fuel industrialization. This then limits the extent of mechanization and firearms and railroads etc etc
It’s harder than you’re giving credit. Revolutionaries in the 1900s didn’t have to overthrow feudalism using guns made from steel forged with charcoal and milled on machines turned by water wheels. We really might have needed coal to get this far.