Humble Beginnings

Coal can be seen as the reason why the Industrial Revolution happened. It was first mined and burned on a large scale in Great Britain for the simple reason that the wood that kept the cities warm and enabled them to produce products was running out. An added benefit is that coal burns much more sustainably than wood, which was a reason why large-scale factories could be brought into operation.

Coal was everywhere, not just in factories — people burned it in their own homes for heating — to the point that it caused massive air pollution events. The Great Smog of London, for example. It lasted only four days — from December 5 to December 9, 1952 — but it was estimated that up to 4,000 people died as a direct result of the smog and another 100,000 became ill. More recent research suggests that the total number of fatalities was considerably higher, with estimates of between 10,000 and 12,000 deaths.

A Get Rich Quick Scheme

Yet all this industrialization also has a positive side, some people and countries become incredibly rich from it. And when they finally got rich — and perhaps feeling the pressure from the ordinary people who only experienced the disadvantages — the countries that had grown rich on coal could afford to get rid of it.

But this is just something that is affordable for the countries that have already gotten rich from it. Countries that are still developing, like China, cannot afford to drop coal. The amount of coal that Europe and North America have reduced has in fact been taken over by China. And who can blame them? They are simply leveling the playing field.

But it is not the case that Europe and North America have completely stopped using coal either. The current war in Ukraine has caused many European countries to stop using Russian gas and are simply burning coal again as never before. Currently, one third of Germany's energy is generated from coal.

The Foreseeable Future

It is no longer a secret that the Earth is warming up. Coal created the modern world, but it will probably also be the end of the modern world. The reason for this is — it's easy to make a Pandora's box analogy here — that in today's economy there is no other way to make money on a large scale. It's a way to make a buck and in a world where many countries have been doing this for centuries, you can't afford to lag behind.

So, how do I see the foreseeable future? Can companies and countries stop using fossil fuels? Of course. Will they? Of course not. The earth will probably get much warmer and change for the worse, at least for us humans. Scarcity, lack of food and drinking water and desertification. Countries and companies would rather throw the whole world into ashes than lose profits.