There cannot be any doubt that the Industrial Revolutio and the advent of global use of fossil fuels changed the face of the earth. Prior this time, pollution was pretty much isolated to the large cities in the world. Once you left the urban area and traveled into the rural regions, the countryside was mostly pristine. This changed radically as not only industrialization became all too common throughout the world so did the world population started to increase. The world population increased from 1 billion in 1800 to 7.9 billion today.
With this increased population and urban sprawl and until just recently the absolute indifference to conservation our planet is gasping for air. There is no reason that improvement in the quality of our lives should adversely affect our environment. Unfortunately the incredible profits that industrialization brought to the world, superseded conservation and any thought of the rampant levels of pollution that were becoming all too prevalent. Resources were depleted with no thought given to sustainability. The use of chemicals and fuel in factories resulted in increased air and water pollution and an increased use of fossil fuels. It also seemed that call of the all mighty dollar caused many animal species to be eradicated from the face of the earth. Though to be honest the Romans in their endless search for increasingly extravagant forms of enterainment also devastated the animal population in Africa. We will discuss this subject in subsequent chapters.
Industrial Revolution is characterized as the process of change from an agrarian and handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacturing. These technological changes introduced novel ways of working and living and fundamentally transformed society. This process began in Britain in the 18th century and from there spread to other parts of the world. Although used earlier by French writers, the term Industrial Revolution was first popularized by the English economic historian Arnold Toynbee (1852–83) to describe Britain’s economic development from 1760 to 1840. Since Toynbee’s time the term has been more broadly applied as a process of economic transformation than as a period of time in a particular setting. This explains why some areas, such as China and India, did not begin their first industrial revolutions until the 20th century, while others, such as the United States and western Europe, began undergoing “second” industrial revolutions by the late 19th century.
Around 1850, steam power was invented as a way to use coal energy more efficiently, and soon steam engines were used to power trains, ships, and industrial machinery of all sorts. These inventions spread throughout Europe, the United States, and other regions, bringing enormous changes in society and commerce. Later in the nineteenth century, scientists learned how to generate electricity, and the discovery of oil led to the invention of the internal combustion engine, both technological developments that further changed the way humans lived and worked around the globe.
Around 1850, steam power was invented as a way to use coal energy more efficiently, bringing enormous changes in society and commerce. Here, a worker operates a steam engine in 1854.
By the end of the twentieth century, the world was completely dependent on and rapidly depleting the planet’s fossil fuels— resources such as coal, natural gas, and oil that are formed from the decomposed remains of prehistoric plants and animals. As Hillman explains, “Fossil fuels contain the energy stored from the sun that took hundreds of thousands of years to accumulate, yet within the space of a few generations—a mere blink of the planet’s life so far—we are burning it.”
The result of this rapid burning of fossil resources, many scientists believe, is rising concentrations of greenhouse gases that may be overheating the planet. Scientists have determined, for example, that concentrations of carbon dioxide have been increasing
since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. In 1750, there were 280 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but by 2005, the levels of carbon dioxide had risen to 380 ppm, an increase of over one-third. And much of this increase has occurred in recent years, since 1959, as world energy usage has expanded dramatically. The United States is responsible for almost a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and China is the second-largest emitter. Other countries with high emissions include members of the European Union, while the lowest emissions come from various nations in Africa.
The major source of human-produced greenhouse emissions— accounting for approximately 65 percent—is the use of fossil fuels to power industry, transportation, home heating, electricity generation, and cooking. However, carbon emissions are also increased when carbon-absorbing forests are cut down to make way for human developments and woodlands, grasslands, and prairies are converted into farmland for agriculture. As geography professor Michael Pidwirny explains, “Rural ecosystems can hold 20 to 100 times more carbon dioxide per unit area than agricultural systems.”6 Together, these human activities are believed to account for at least 28 percent of the Earth’s total greenhouse emissions, with the balance produced by natural sources.
Characteristics of the Industrial Revolution
The main features involved in the Industrial Revolution were technological, socioeconomic, and cultural. The technological changes included the following: (1) the use of new basic materials, chiefly iron and steel, (2) the use of new energy sources, including both fuels and motive power, such as coal, the steam engine, electricity, petroleum, and the internal-combustion engine, (3) the invention of new machines, such as the spinning jenny and the power loom that permitted increased production with a smaller expenditure of human energy, (4) a new organization of work known as the factory system, which entailed increased division of labour and specialization of function, (5) important developments in transportation and communication, including the steam locomotive, steamship, automobile, airplane, telegraph, and radio, and (6) the increasing application of science to industry. These technological changes made possible a tremendously increased use of natural resources and the mass production of manufactured goods.
There were also many new developments in nonindustrial spheres, including the following: (1) agricultural improvements that made possible the provision of food for a larger nonagricultural population, (2) economic changes that resulted in a wider distribution of wealth, the decline of land as a source of wealth in the face of rising industrial production, and increased international trade, (3) political changes reflecting the shift in economic power, as well as new state policies corresponding to the needs of an industrialized society, (4) sweeping social changes, including the growth of cities, the development of working-class movements, and the emergence of new patterns of authority, and (5) cultural transformations of a broad order. Workers acquired new and distinctive skills, and their relation to their tasks shifted; instead of being craftsmen working with hand tools, they became machine operators, subject to factory discipline. Finally, there was a psychological change: confidence in the ability to use resources and to master nature was heightened.
The first Industrial Revolution
In the period 1760 to 1830 the Industrial Revolution was largely confined to Britain. Aware of their head start, the British forbade the export of machinery, skilled workers, and manufacturing techniques. The British monopoly could not last forever, especially since some Britons saw profitable industrial opportunities abroad, while continental European businessmen sought to lure British know-how to their countries. Two Englishmen, William and John Cockerill, brought the Industrial Revolution to Belgium by developing machine shops at Liège (c. 1807), and Belgium became the first country in continental Europe to be transformed economically. Like its British progenitor, the Belgian Industrial Revolution centred in iron, coal, and textiles.
France was more slowly and less thoroughly industrialized than either Britain or Belgium. While Britain was establishing its industrial leadership, France was immersed in its Revolution, and the uncertain political situation discouraged large investments in industrial innovations. By 1848 France had become an industrial power, but, despite great growth under the Second Empire, it remained behind Britain.
Other European countries lagged far behind. Their bourgeoisie lacked the wealth, power, and opportunities of their British, French, and Belgian counterparts. Political conditions in the other nations also hindered industrial expansion. Germany, for example, despite vast resources of coal and iron, did not begin its industrial expansion until after national unity was achieved in 1870. Once begun, Germany’s industrial production grew so rapidly that by the turn of the century that nation was outproducing Britain in steel and had become the world leader in the chemical industries. The rise of U.S. industrial power in the 19th and 20th centuries also far outstripped European efforts. And Japan too joined the Industrial Revolution with striking success.
The eastern European countries were behind early in the 20th century. It was not until the five-year plans that the Soviet Union became a major industrial power, telescoping into a few decades the industrialization that had taken a century and a half in Britain. The mid-20th century witnessed the spread of the Industrial Revolution into hitherto nonindustrialized areas such as China and India.
The technological and economic aspects of the Industrial Revolution brought about significant sociocultural changes. In its initial stages it seemed to deepen labourers’ poverty and misery. Their employment and subsistence became dependent on costly means of production that few people could afford to own. Job security was lacking: workers were frequently displaced by technological improvements and a large labour pool. Lack of worker protections and regulations meant long work hours for miserable wages, living in unsanitary tenements, and exploitation and abuse in the workplace. But even as problems arose, so too did new ideas that aimed to address them. These ideas pushed innovations and regulations that provided people with more material conveniences while also enabling them to produce more, travel faster, and communicate more rapidly.
The second Industrial Revolution
Despite considerable overlapping with the “old,” there was mounting evidence for a “new” Industrial Revolution in the late 19th and 20th centuries. In terms of basic materials, modern industry began to exploit many natural and synthetic resources not hitherto utilized: lighter metals, rare earths, new alloys, and synthetic products such as plastics, as well as new energy sources. Combined with these were developments in machines, tools, and computers that gave rise to the automatic factory. Although some segments of industry were almost completely mechanized in the early to mid-19th century, automatic operation, as distinct from the assembly line, first achieved major significance in the second half of the 20th century.
Ownership of the means of production also underwent changes. The oligarchical ownership of the means of production that characterized the Industrial Revolution in the early to mid-19th century gave way to a wider distribution of ownership through purchase of common stocks by individuals and by institutions such as insurance companies. In the first half of the 20th century, many countries of Europe socialized basic sectors of their economies. There was also during that period a change in political theories: instead of the laissez-faire ideas that dominated the economic and social thought of the classical Industrial Revolution, governments generally moved into the social and economic realm to meet the needs of their more complex industrial societies. That trend was reversed in the United States and the United Kingdom beginning in the 1980s.
7 Negative Effects of the Industrial Revolution
While the Industrial Revolution generated new opportunities and economic growth, it also introduced pollution and acute hardships for workers.
While the Industrial Revolution created economic growth and offered new opportunities, that progress came with significant downsides, from damage to the environment and health and safety hazards to squalid living conditions for workers and their families.
Here are a few of the most significant negative effects of the Industrial Revolution.
1. Horrible Living Conditions for Workers
As cities grew during the Industrial Revolution, there wasn’t enough housing for all the new inhabitants, who were jammed into squalid inner-city neighborhoods as more affluent residents fled to the suburbs. In the 1830s, Dr. William Henry Duncan, a government health official in Liverpool, England, surveyed living conditions and found that a third of the city’s population lived in cellars of houses, which had earthen floors and no ventilation or sanitation. As many as 16 people were living in a single room and sharing a single privy. The lack of clean water and gutters overflowing with sewage from basement cesspits made workers and their families vulnerable to infectious diseases such as cholera.
2. Poor Nutrition
In his 1832 study entitled “Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes Employed in the Cotton Manufacture in Manchester,” physician and social reformer James Phillips Kay described the meager diet of the British industrial city’s lowly-paid laborers, who subsisted on a breakfast of tea or coffee with a little bread, and a midday meal that typically consisted of boiled potatoes, melted lard and butter, sometimes with a few pieces of fried fatty bacon mixed in. After finishing work, laborers might have some more tea, “often mingled with spirits” and a little bread, or else oatmeal and potatoes again. As a result of malnutrition, Kay wrote, workers frequently suffered from problems with their stomachs and bowels, lost weight, and had skin that was “pale, leaden-colored, or of the yellow hue.”
3. A Stressful, Unsatisfying Lifestyle
Workers who came from the countryside to the cities had to adjust to a very different rhythm of existence, with little personal autonomy. They had to arrive when the factory whistle blew, or else face being locked out and losing their pay, and even being forced to pay fines.
Once on the job, they couldn’t freely move around or catch a breather if they needed one, since that might necessitate shutting down a machine. Unlike craftsmen in rural towns, their days often consisted of having to perform repetitive tasks, and continual pressure to keep up—“faster pace, more supervision, less pride,” as Peter N. Stearns, a historian at George Mason University, explains. As Stearns describes in his 2013 book The Industrial Revolution in World History, when the workday finally was done, they didn’t have much time or energy left for any sort of recreation. To make matters worse, city officials often banned festivals and other activities that they’d once enjoyed in rural villages. Instead, workers often spent their leisure time at the neighborhood tavern, where alcohol provided an escape from the tedium of their lives.
4. Dangerous Workplaces
Without much in the way of safety regulation, factories of the Industrial Revolution could be horrifyingly hazardous. As Peter Capuano details in his 2015 book Changing Hands: Industry, Evolution and the Reconfiguration of the Victorian Body, workers faced the constant risk of losing a hand in the machinery. A contemporary newspaper account described the grisly injuries suffered in 1830 by millworker Daniel Buckley, whose left hand was “caught and lacerated, and his fingers crushed” before his coworkers could stop the equipment. He eventually died as a result of the trauma.
Mines of the era, which supplied the coal needed to keep steam-powered machines running, had terrible accidents as well. David M. Turner’s and Daniel Blackie’s 2018 book Disability in the Industrial Revolution describes a gas explosion at a coal mine that left 36-year-old James Jackson with severe burns on his face, neck, chest, hands and arms, as well as internal injuries. He was in such awful shape that he required opium to cope with the excruciating pain. After six weeks of recuperation, remarkably, a doctor decided that he was fit to return to work, but probably with permanent scars from the ordeal.
5. Child Labor
While children worked prior to the Industrial Revolution, the rapid growth of factors created such a demand that poor youth and orphans were plucked from London’s poorhouses and housed in mill dormitories, while they worked long hours and were deprived of education. Compelled to do dangerous adult jobs, children often suffered horrifying fates.
John Brown’s expose A Memoir of Robert Blincoe, an Orphan Boy, published in 1832, describes a 10-year-old girl named Mary Richards whose apron became caught in the machinery in a textile mill. “In an instant, the poor girl was drawn by an irresistible force and dashed on the floor,” Brown wrote. “She uttered the most heart-rending shrieks.”
University of Alberta history professor Beverly Lemire sees “the exploitation of child labor in a systematic and sustained way, the use of which catalyzed industrial production,” as the worst negative effect of the Industrial Revolution.
6. Discrimination Against Women
The Industrial Revolution helped establish patterns of gender inequality in the workplace that lasted in the eras that followed. Laura L. Frader, a retired professor of history at Northeastern University and author of The Industrial Revolution: A History in Documents, notes that factory owners often paid women only half of what men got for the same work, based on the false assumption that women didn’t need to support families, and were only working for “pin money” that a husband might give them to pay for non-essential personal items.
Discrimination against and stereotyping of women workers continued into the second Industrial Revolution. “The myth that women had ‘nimble fingers’ and that they could withstand repetitive, mindless work better than men led to the displacement of men in white collar jobs such as office work, and the assignment of such jobs to women after the 1870s when the typewriter was introduced,” Frader says.
While office work was less dangerous and better paid, “it locked women into yet another category of ‘women’s work,’ from which it was hard to escape,” Frader explains.
7. Environmental Harm
Pollution from copper factories in Cornwall, England, as depicted in an 1887 engraving.
The Industrial Revolution was powered by burning coal, and big industrial cities began pumping vast quantities of pollution into the atmosphere. London’s concentration of suspended particulate matter rose dramatically between 1760 and 1830, as this chart from Our World In Data illustrates. Pollution in Manchester was so awful that writer Hugh Miller noted “the lurid gloom of the atmosphere that overhangs it,” and described “the innumerable chimneys [that] come in view, tall and dim in the dun haze, each bearing atop its own pennon of darkness.”
Air pollution continued to rise in the 1800s, causing respiratory illness and higher death rates in areas that burned more coal. Worse yet, the burning of fossil fuel pumped carbon into the atmosphere. A study published in 2016 in Nature suggests that climate change driven by human activity began as early as the 1830s.
Despite all these ills, the Industrial Revolution had positive effects, such as creating economic growth and making goods more available. It also helped lead to the rise of a prosperous middle class that grabbed some of the economic power once held by aristocrats, and led to the rise of specialized jobs in industry.
The Industrial Revolution and Rising Pollution
Water pollution was a major concern for industrialized cities as more and more people moved from rural areas into denser cities. Due to the overpopulation caused in these cities, water contamination allowed cholera to flourish. There was a lack of knowledge around sanitary practices in these industrial cities which led to sewage and other waste being mixed into the city’s drinking water. From 1848-1849, around 15,000 people died from cholera in the city of London.
At the start of the Industrial Revolution, coal-fired factories began spewing more and more soot into the air. Coal was primarily used to power the newly developed steam engine at the time. Because of industrial cities and their factories, air pollution greatly increased in these areas, leading to the formation of smog. A famous example of the impacts of this particulate matter is the led to a change in the physical characteristics of peppered moths. Soot covered birch trees and surrounding areas in England, turning them black. This new habitat color no longer provided camouflage to the peppered moths, and they became easy pickings for birds. This began the rise of the dark peppered moth – the darkened environment gave darker colored peppered moths an advantage in terms of hiding themselves from predators.
Until recently, humans did not significantly affect the much larger forces of climate and atmosphere. Many scientists believe, however, that with the dawn of the industrial age—and the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas, and oil—humans began to significantly add to the amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, enhancing the planet’s natural greenhouse effect and causing higher temperatures.
Fossil Fuels and the Environment
I have made reference to the effects of fossil fuels have on the environment, now I will elucidate the matter a little more. When fossil fuels are burned, they release large amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the air. Greenhouse gases trap heat in our atmosphere, causing global warming. Already the average global temperature has increased by 1C. Warming above 1.5°C risks further sea level rise, extreme weather, biodiversity loss and species extinction, as well as food scarcity, worsening health and poverty for millions of people worldwide.
What are fossil fuels?
Fossil fuels are formed from the decomposition of buried carbon-based organisms that died millions of years ago. They create carbon-rich deposits that are extracted and burned for energy. They are non-renewable and currently supply around 80% of the world’s energy. They are also used to make plastic, steel and a huge range of products. There are three types of fossil fuel – coal, oil and gas.
How big is the impact of fossil fuels on climate change and our planet?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has found that emissions from fossil fuels are the dominant cause of global warming. In 2018, 89% of global CO2 emissions came from fossil fuels and industry.
Coal is a fossil fuel, and is the dirtiest of them all, responsible for over 0.3C of the 1C increase in global average temperatures. This makes it the single largest source of global temperature rise.
Oil releases a huge amount of carbon when burned – approximately a third of the world’s total carbon emissions. There have also been a number of oil spills in recent years that have a devastating impact on our ocean’s ecosystem.
Natural gas is often promoted as a cleaner energy source than coal and oil. However, natural gas is still a fossil fuel and accounts for a fifth of the world’s total carbon emissions.
Can we keep burning fossil fuels?
The IPCC warns that fossil fuel emissions must be halved within 11 years if global warming is to be limited to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
In 2015, the world’s governments signed up to the Paris Agreement committing to reduce carbon emissions. However, a recent report by the UN Environment Programme shows that globally, we are on track to produce more than double the amount of coal, oil and gas by 2030 than we can burn if we are to limit global warming by 1.5C. So more needs to be done.
Fossil fuels and climate change: the facts
What is the link between fossil fuels and climate change?
The use of fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas—results in significant climate, environmental, and health costs that are not reflected in market prices. These costs are known as externalities. Each stage of the fossil fuel supply chain, from extraction and transportation to refining and burning, generates externalities. This fact sheet provides a survey of some of the externalities associated with fossil fuels.
When fossil fuels are burned, they release large amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the air. Greenhouse gases trap heat in our atmosphere, causing global warming. Already the average global temperature has increased by 1C. Warming above 1.5°C risks further sea level rise, extreme weather, biodiversity loss and species extinction, as well as food scarcity, worsening health and poverty for millions of people worldwide.
What are fossil fuels?
Fossil fuels are formed from the decomposition of buried carbon-based organisms that died millions of years ago. They create carbon-rich deposits that are extracted and burned for energy. They are non-renewable and currently supply around 80% of the world’s energy. They are also used to make plastic, steel and a huge range of products. There are three types of fossil fuel – coal, oil and gas.
Oil
Oil is the energy source of our time. We refine the crude extracted oil into different products like gasoline, jet-fuel, diesel and even plastics. This fossil fuel has promoted global commerce and is behind many of the greatest technological and social innovations of our day.
However, the environment is paying a serious price for our unbridled consumption of fossil fuels and our climate is warming at a rate that may cause irreversible consequences. Oil spills, ecological damage, pollution and human health risks are just some of the negative impacts of oil exploration, development and use.
Dependence on oil as an energy source is a real danger to our national security, our environment and our economy. Promoting domestic renewable energy sources instead will provide green jobs, safeguard our health and break our reliance on unstable foreign governments and oil cartels. In addition, mining for oil destroys natural habitats and poses dangers to both workers and residents. The refining process requires the use of toxic chemicals and high amounts of energy. Transporting and burning oil emits CO2 and other pollutants into the air that we all breathe.
Coal
Of all the coal used in the United States, 92% is burned to generate electricity. The Valmont coal-fired power plant in Boulder allows us to turn on our lights at night. As well as run many other kinds of equipment and technology. Coal has also provided many jobs and helped to raise people’s standard of living all around the world.
So, what’s the big deal? The environmental effects of coal-fired power generation can been seen everywhere. Mining coal is extremely dangerous to human health and to the environment. Mercury contamination, ozone pollution and acid rain also stem from the firing of coal. Did you know that Boulder is considered an at-risk group for lung disease, and received an F in the American Lung Association’s 2016 State of the Air Report for our ozone levels? Burning coal also emits CO2, a major cause of climate change. Since coal is so heavy it is incredibly energy intensive to transport to where it needs to go, thus adding to the total CO2 emissions of the energy extraction and delivery process.
Natural Gas
A quarter of the U.S. energy consumption comes from natural gas, a mixture of mostly methane and a smaller amount of other hydrocarbons. When natural gas is burned, one of the products is CO2. We use this fossil fuel to heat our homes and to make products like paints, plastics, steel, glass, paper, clothing, and brick.
The extraction of this fuel source has huge environmental impacts, though. Hydraulic fracturing (aka fracking), is a controversial means to an end, and often negatively impacts everyone involved with the construction process of the gas rigs and pipelines and the extraction of the gas.
We have seen this debate heat up locally as municipalities try to place bans on fracking in their communities. Fracking protestors site the many ecological impacts, such as water contamination and increased rates of disease. However, many argue that it’s development is necessary to support the variable capacity of renewable energy generation. It is a transition fuel with lower carbon output when compared to oil and coal.
How big is the impact of fossil fuels on climate change and our planet?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has found that emissions from fossil fuels are the dominant cause of global warming. In 2018, 89% of global CO2 emissions came from fossil fuels and industry.
Coal is a fossil fuel, and is the dirtiest of them all, responsible for over 0.3C of the 1C increase in global average temperatures. This makes it the single largest source of global temperature rise.
Oil releases a huge amount of carbon when burned – approximately a third of the world’s total carbon emissions. There have also been a number of oil spills in recent years that have a devastating impact on our ocean’s ecosystem.
Natural gas is often promoted as a cleaner energy source than coal and oil. However, natural gas is still a fossil fuel and accounts for a fifth of the world’s total carbon emissions.
Can we keep burning fossil fuels?
The IPCC warns that fossil fuel emissions must be halved within 11 years if global warming is to be limited to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
In 2015, the world’s governments signed up to the Paris Agreement committing to reduce carbon emissions. However, a recent report by the UN Environment Programme shows that globally, we are on track to produce more than double the amount of coal, oil and gas by 2030 than we can burn if we are to limit global warming by 1.5C. So more needs to be done.
What’s the role of fossil fuel companies in the future of our planet?
Fossil fuel companies remain huge polluters, producing and selling fossil fuel products while scientists say we need a mass switch to renewable energy and efficiency. In 2019, BP spent millions on an advertising campaign about its low-carbon energy and cleaner natural gas. While its advertising focused on clean energy, in reality, more than 96% of BP’s annual expenditure is still on oil and gas. And it is definitely not just BP – it’s an industry-wide problem.
Climate Externalities
When fossil fuels are burned, they emit greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide that trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere and contribute to climate change. In 2019, fossil fuels accounted for 74 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Nearly 25 percent of emissions in the United States come from fossil fuels extracted from public lands. Some of the climate externalities of fossil fuels include:
–Ocean acidification: At least a quarter of the carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuels is absorbed by the ocean, changing its chemistry (pH). The increased acidity makes it harder for marine organisms to build shells and coral skeletons. Over the last 150 years, ocean acidity has increased by 30 percent, posing threats to coral reefs, fishing, tourism, and the economy.
–Extreme weather: According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, climate change, brought upon by burning fossil fuels, is contributing to more frequent and severe extreme weather events that lead to disasters costing at least a billion dollars each. The cost of extreme weather events, including wildfires, hurricanes, wind storms, flooding, and droughts, between 2016 and 2020 in the United States has been estimated at $606.9 billion.
–Sea level rise: Oceanic and atmospheric warming due to climate change is melting glaciers and land-based ice sheets, resulting in global sea level rise. Sea levels have risen about 9 inches since the late 1800s, causing more frequent flooding, destructive storm surges, and saltwater intrusion. With 40 percent of the U.S. population living along the coasts, it is estimated that defending coastal communities from sea level rise could cost $400 billion over the next 20 years.
Environmental Externalities
Fossil fuels have significant environmental externalities including:
–Air pollution: Fossil fuels produce hazardous air pollutants, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and mercury, all of which are harmful to the environment and human health (as discussed in the health section below). Air pollution from fossil fuels can cause acid rain, eutrophication (excessive nutrients that can harm aquatic ecosystems by lowering oxygen levels), damage to crops and forests, and harm to wildlife.
–Water pollution: From oil spills to fracking fluids, fossil fuels cause water pollution. Each fracking well uses between 1.5 million to 16 million gallons of water, and the resulting wastewater can be toxic, often containing substances like arsenic, lead, chlorine, and mercury that can contaminate groundwater and drinking water.
–Plastic pollution: Over 99 percent of plastics are made from fossil fuels. Globally, 300 million tons of plastic waste are produced each year, 14 million tons of which end up in the ocean, killing wildlife and polluting the food chain. Plastics also have climate consequences: the U.S. plastic industry produces 232 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, and the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions are expected to surpass those of coal-fired power plants by 2030.
–Oil spills: Fossil fuel extraction, transportation, and refining can lead to oil spills that harm communities and wildlife, destroy habitats, erode shorelines, and result in beach, park, and fishery closures. The largest oil spill in history, the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon spill, released 134 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people and countless birds, turtles, fish, marine mammals, and plants—and cost BP $65 billion in penalties and cleanup costs.
Health Externalities
Air pollution from burning fossil fuels can cause multiple health issues, including asthma, cancer, heart disease, and premature death. Combusting the additives found in gasoline—benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene—produces cancer-causing ultra-fine particles and aromatic hydrocarbons. Globally, fossil fuel pollution is responsible for one in five deaths. In the United States, 350,000 premature deaths in 2018 were attributed to fossil fuel-related pollution, with the highest number of deaths per capita in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. The annual cost of the health impacts of fossil fuel-generated electricity in the United States is estimated to be up to $886.5 billion.
The environmental and health impacts of fossil fuels disproportionately harm communities of color and low-income communities. Black and Hispanic Americans are exposed to 56 and 63 percent more particulate matter pollution, respectively, than they produce. In a predominantly Black and low-income area of Louisiana known as “Cancer Alley,” the cancer risk is nearly 50 times higher than the national average due to 150 nearby chemical plants and oil refineries.
Policy Mechanisms to Reduce Fossil Fuel Externalities
Several policy mechanisms have been proposed to reduce fossil fuel externalities, including:
–Eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, which could generate $35 billion in taxpayer savings over the next ten years. To learn more about policy mechanisms to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, check out EESI’s fact sheet.
–Increasing the social cost of carbon (SCC), which estimates the often-uncounted economic damages that result from carbon dioxide emissions. The federal government uses SCC to evaluate the climate impacts of policies.
–A federal clean electricity standard, which would require a percentage of the electricity sold by utilities to come from clean electricity sources. Such standards already exist in several states and usually require the share of clean energy on the electric grid to increase over time.
–A carbon price, which sets a price on carbon dioxide emissions that is paid by emitters. Carbon price policies can be structured in different ways, including as a carbon tax. Cap-and-trade programs like the Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, in which the market determines a carbon price, have existed at the subnational level for many years, reducing emissions and creating new revenue streams for clean energy investments.
Resources
britannica.com, “Industrial Revolution.” By The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica; history.com, “7 Negative Effects of the Industrial Revolution: While the Industrial Revolution generated new opportunities and economic growth, it also introduced pollution and acute hardships for workers.” By PATRICK J. KIGER; mrfarshety.net, “Environmental Impact of the Industrial Revolution.”; populationeducation.org, “Understanding the Unintended Consequences of the Industrial Revolution.” BY KYRAN WILLIAMS-ROBERTS; climate-policy-watcher.org, “The Warming Effects of the Industrial Revolution.” By James Gustave Speth; clientearth.org, “Fossil fuels and climate change: the facts.”; eesi.org, “Fact Sheet | Climate, Environmental, and Health Impacts of Fossil Fuels (2021).” By Savannah Bertrand; colorado.edu, “Fossil Fuels.”;
Addendum
The Industrial Revolution and the Expansion of Slavery
Over time, the Industrial Revolution extended beyond Great Britain. The Industrial Revolution in America led to many inventions, including the infamous cotton gin. Because the cotton gin made the harvesting of cotton much easier, it increased the demand for slave labor in an effort to increase the profits produced by cotton growing. The cotton gin, and the increased slave labor it created, strengthened the American economy.
As a result of the economic boost the cotton gin provided, America stole more land in order to increase space for cotton crops and production. For example, the Timucuan people in present-day Florida were conquered by the settlers, introduced to their diseases, and after their forced displacement, their lands were turned into a slave plantation. Largely, the principles and values that originated from the innovations of the Industrial Revolution valued profits above people and their rights.
The Industrial Revolution’s impact on the world is more far-reaching than anyone could have expected. Presently, there are still negative cycles, related to the Industrial Revolution, that continue to influence society as many countries still rely on cheap goods from countries with dangerous working conditions.
While it is important to understand the unintended negative consequences that we have dealt with previously, progress that has been made in human rights since the Industrial Revolution. But it is equally important to realize that there is still much work to be done and that it is necessary to engage ethically when striving to innovate, evolve, and advance.