The Rise, Reign, and Fall of American Coal
What drives Trump’s politics is nostalgia for the age of coal, when dirty fuel and no environmental regulations created his version of a great America.
Arguably, no technology freed the world from the drudgery and cold of premodern times more than coal. It fueled the Industrial Revolution and rising standards of living that transformed what a human life meant after 1800.
The cost of this freedom soon meant slaughtered workers, rising carbon dioxide levels, and the threat of planetary ecological catastrophe.
Today, arguably no technology dooms the world’s future more than coal, with its environmental destruction, pumping of carbon dioxide into the air, and dangerous working conditions that still kill from work, pollution, and climate change.
What drives Trump’s politics is nostalgia for the age of coal, when dirty fuel and no environmental regulations created his version of a great America.
Author summary: Coal's impact on America.