Timeline for What aspect of planet Earth must be changed to prevent the industrial revolution?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 9, 2019 at 6:23 | comment | added | Maksim Turaev | There is famous science fiction novel by Soviet writers "Hard to Be a God". It describes society that stopped advancing in medieval age. | |
| Apr 14, 2019 at 7:21 | comment | added | Sonvar | Countries, such as Haiti deforested about 98% of their forest and are in very direct situation now environmentally. They never learned to manage their forests and their economy stagnated due to their dependence on wood for heating, cooking and power | |
| Apr 13, 2019 at 15:52 | comment | added | fishinear | I agree here. At least capitalism and the rule of law play a large role in the industrial revolution. That is, the confidence that if you invest in something big, that you can reasonably expect a profit from that many years later. Urbanisation also plays a role, making sure that there are enough labourers around. | |
| Apr 13, 2019 at 10:07 | comment | added | Jan Hudec | @Sonvar, the larger deforestation would cause a couple more collapses than it did, but people would still realize they need to manage the forests as they did, and the limited resources would slow down the progress, but they would not get anywhere close to stopping it. | |
| Apr 13, 2019 at 2:00 | comment | added | John | @Sonvar that would not have stopped people from using charcoal, many countries deforested their land anyway. Really the big invention that kick starts the industrial revolution is the invention of the metal lathe which creates the ability to make precision machinery. | |
| Apr 12, 2019 at 22:44 | comment | added | Sonvar | Charcoal would have become prohibitively expensive also. As the demand for charcoal rose without coal replacing it, many countries would have deforested their landscape. Eventually, they would have to rely on water or wind power, but with devastated ecosystems. | |
| Apr 12, 2019 at 19:37 | comment | added | pluckedkiwi | @TimB Not only was the industrial revolution well under way before steam engines (whole factories were built around waterwheels and it took a long time after their invention for steam engines to replace waterwheels), but coal is not necessary. Had coal not been available, industrial processes would have shifted form rather than been impossible. In the United States, where trees were certainly plentiful, charcoal was preferred until the mid 19th century and at least one charcoal blast furnace lasted until the end of WW2. | |
| Apr 12, 2019 at 17:26 | comment | added | Gnudiff | @TimB I don't see this argument work in light of what the answer says about wind and water power. There is possiblity of moving from water to gas, for example, bypassing coal. Obviously you would have limitations due to coal used extensively in heating things, but the problem doesn't appear insurmountable. | |
| Apr 12, 2019 at 16:39 | comment | added | Tim B | I have to disagree. You can sustain limited industrialization with sources such as water wheels, charcoal burning engines, etc. There just is not enough space to grow enough trees to replace coal as a fuel source. Obviously it will not stop it completely but progress will stall once it is not possible to kick-start it with millions of years worth of stored solar power in the form of fossil fuels. | |
| Apr 12, 2019 at 14:42 | history | answered | pluckedkiwi | CC BY-SA 4.0 |