[pdm55]

Can it be argued that the cause of the Industrial Revolution was man's insatiable appetite for using our planet's resources? A recurring theme in our history!

Great Britain was an island. By about 1500, its residents had denuded most of its forests for fuel for cooking and heating. So, they turned to using coal. This spurred the need to pump water out of coal mines. The Industrial Revolution represents the uses of these steam-driven pumps for other tasks, such as textile manufacture and steam trains.

"[M]ost of Great Britain’s forests seem to have been cleared for agriculture in antiquity; by 1000 only about 15% of England (as a geographic sub-unit of the island) was forested, a figure which continued to decline rapidly in the centuries that followed (down to a low of around 5%). Consequently wood as a heat fuel was scarce and so beginning in the 16th century we see a marked shift over to coal as a heating fuel for things like cooking and home heating. Fortunately for the residents of Great Britain there were surface coal seems in abundance making the transition relatively easy; once these were exhausted deep mining followed which at last by the late 1600s created the demand for coal-powered pumps finally answered effectively in 1712 by Newcomen." https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-indus...

[vixen99]

This 'recurring theme' is common to every single organism on Earth. It's only capability that limits life forms other than mankind. It was man's insatiable appetite for survival that got factory workers into the 'dark satanic mills' described by William Blake. Awful conditions there indeed (in many cases) but they worked there in preference to starving to death in the fields. As you point out, they had used up natural energy resources (food & heating) and had no alternative.