Re: [Phys-l] coal

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@mindspring.com>]

At 11:02 -0400 04/09/2009, Rick Tarara wrote:

> Consider where we would be if we never used coal--calculate that cost.  Most
> of us would probably never have lived--seeing that the industrial revolution
> and most of the technology and science (medicine) that flowed from that
> revolution would not exist.

This is, of course conjecture. We don't know what would have happened 
if someone hadn't figured out a way to use coal (although, I admit, 
that once we discovered this stuff you could dig up and it would 
burn, it's hard to imagine us not using it, given that we had not yet 
even learned that most diseases were caused by micro-organisms by 
then, and so would have been utterly incapable of predicting the 
consequences of using that stuff), But what if James Watt had been an 
Icelander, and had figured out how to use the steam from the natural 
hot springs that dot that island to run looms to weave the wool grown 
on Icelandic sheep? It wouldn't have been the same as tings turned 
out, but it's possible they could have been better for us now.

> Consider a 17th Century life style.  Even give
> yourself a reasonable amount of wealth.  How many here would choose to use
> the 'wayback machine' and live in those times.

This is a pretty unfair question. How many would ask to come forward 
in time from Elizabeth I's day? Of course to be honest with them, 
you'd have to tell them about the bad stuff we have now as well as 
the good stuff. I certainly agree that the good old days were not all 
that good, but today isn't all due to coal, some of it is due to 
things that have almost no relationship to energy. But I'll bet that 
few would opt to go forward in time, either, if they had the whole 
picture.

Besides, at least part of the good life we now enjoy (in the 
developed west) has been obtained off the labor of those in the third 
world, who enjoy almost none of the benefits we in the west consider 
the minimal necessities. Would an Elizabethan peer elect to come 
forward in time if he knew that he would exist as a coal miner here? 
Probably not. Would a coal miner here elect to become an Elizabethan 
peer? I could imagine that a good fraction would.

>  [Used to give a paper in my
> Gen-Ed course (all women).  You could be Queen Elizabeth the First, a rich
> woman in 1890, or yourself today.  Research the other two lifestyles and
> choose your preference.  Not surprisingly, no one wanted to change!]

I suspect that not many of your students come from sharecropper's 
cabins. I would imagine that trading a sharecropper's life today for 
a life in Buckingham Palace or The Beakers of those eras would be 
downright attractive. I don't know about today's young'uns, but I 
think I could learn to live without a blackberry or even a computer. 
I might even take the trouble to learn how to write legibly by hand.

> So, in my mind, the positive contributions of coal (to this point in
> history) far outweigh the negatives.  Your 'true costs' need to include the
> positives as well as the negatives.
Of course there have been positive contributions from coal, but the 
negative ones came right along in step with the positive ones. Deaths 
in coal mines, polluted air in cities, collapsing tailings piles 
burying houses and children, sweat shops created to enable wealthy 
entrepreneurs to exploit the advantages of using coal to power 
industry, while the workers in those mills existed in squalid 
poverty. That list can go on and on, too.

In my considered opinion, given the state of things right now, the 
negatives well outweigh the positives, and regardless of that, 
continued use of coal offers very little promise for tomorrow. We 
didn't know then what we know today, and we need to recognize that 
and take advantage of it. If we assume that coal will be as 
beneficial to society in the future as it may have been in the past, 
I think we are in for a huge disappointment, and maybe worse.

Hugh
--
Hugh Haskell
mailto:hugh@ieer.org
mailto:hhaskell@mindspring,.com

So-called "global warming" is just a secret ploy by wacko 
tree-huggers to make America energy independent, clean our air and 
water, improve the fuel efficiency of our vehicles, kick-start 
21st-century industries, and make our cities safer. Don't let them 
get away with it!!

					Chip Giller, Founder, Grist.org