Page 78 - BBC History The Story of Science & Technology - 2017 UK

Heaven & Earth / Industrial revolution

Will we celebrate the

industrial revolution

in the future?

While the reputation of the industrial peaking at 397ppm,
revolution has gone from triumph to tragedy as measured at the
and back again, the positive postwar assess- Zeppelin research
ment may be on the verge of crumbling in the station in the Norwe-
face of current anxieties about climate change. gian Arctic (The Traffic in London: the advent of the
The long-running ‘standard of living Guardian, 28 April car stimulated the search for oil
debate’ has centred on the experience of those 2009), and now rising at
who bore the brunt of mechanisation and an unprecedented 2–3ppm per year, we Second, they crossed the oceans to settle on
urbanisation between 1760 and 1830. Scarcely appear to have little time to prevent levels other, much less densely populated conti-
anyone has doubted the long-term benefits reaching the 450ppm maximum advised by nents. Here they introduced new species,
for industrialised countries: life expectancy climate scientists. It is time to reinterpret the crops and techniques into farming, often
has doubled since the 18th century, thanks industrial revolution in the light of this employed slave labour, and tended to grow in
not least to massively reduced infant serious threat to our way of life, even to our numbers and wealth even faster than before.
mortality; ordinary people enjoy material survival as a species. International trade flourished under the
comforts previously available only to the very What marks industrialisation out from all stimulus of specialisation: Europeans began
rich, as well as free education, extensive previous periods of economic growth is that it importing vast quantities of food and
leisure and a safety net of health services and has allowed two previously incompatible industrial raw materials in exchange for
social welfare benefits. Few have hitherto phenomena to co-exist: increasing popula- manufactured goods.
explored the costs to the environment. tion and continuous improvements in the By 1900, humanity’s impact on the
The figure of 280ppm is regularly quoted as standard of living. Without such sustained atmosphere was still relatively slight: global
the concentration of carbon dioxide in the economic growth, human populations had population was only 1.6 billion, industrialisa-
atmosphere prior to the industrial revolution. grown at their peril – falling foul of the tion was confined to western Europe, the
That is, for every million molecules in the so-called ‘Malthusian trap’, in which United States and Japan, and even there levels
atmosphere before 1760 approximately 280 numbers were cut back by famine, war or of consumption remained modest. It was the
were carbon dioxide. With 2009’s figure disease (induced by food shortages). long, post-1950 economic boom that
From the mid-18th century, Europeans triggered a steep and accelerating rise in
escaped the ‘Malthusian trap’ by two greenhouse gas emissions.
Few have hitherto principal routes. First, they mined fossil fuels Soon industrialisation and urbanisation
in huge quantities. With timber stocks became global phenomena, and growing
explored the costs rapidly depleting, they turned to burning wealth entailed much higher levels of
coal in industrial processes and in the steam personal consumption, mobility and interna-
of the industrial engines that replaced water power and tional trade. This accelerated the demand for
horse-driven transport. By 1890, the car’s energy, and dietary changes that have led to
revolution on the introduction was stimulating the search for more intensive rearing of (methane-emit-
environment oil, and electricity generation was stoking the ting) livestock and extensive deforestation
demand for coal.
consequent on growing their feedstuffs.
A global population of over seven billion
multiplies humanity’s impact – and none are
having a greater effect on the climate than the
one billion of us who are the industrial
Icebergs that have revolution’s chief beneficiaries.
broken off the
Qooroq glacier in
Greenland. Climate Christine MacLeod is emeritus professor
change is forcing us of history at the University of Bristol, and the
to reassess the author of Heroes of Invention: Technology,
industrial revolution Liberalism and British Identity, 1750–1914
(Cambridge University Press, 2010)

DISCOVER MORE
BOOK
The Weather Makers: Our Changing
Climate and What it Means for Life on ALAMY/REX
Earth by Tim Flannery (Penguin, 2007)

78 The Story of Science & Technology