4 ms·

> The environment would be in much worse shape if industrialization had been fueled with wood rather than coal Wouldn't a wood-powered industrialization period

• dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Wouldn't a wood-powered industrialization period have incentivized the growing of trees? A wood-powered industrialization would have led to mass deforestation and then fallen over hard. (Or, more likely, switched fuels.)
  • ncmncm 6y ago
    > (Or, more likely, switched fuels.) That, in fact, occurred. Steel was produced using wood charcoal for millennia, denuding huge swaths of forest, which often became desert rather than growing back. Such deserts can sometimes be reclaimed by careful stewardship.