When you see a piece of coal, it is not obvious that you understand that it can burn, much less that it could cause climate change. But once upon a time, such a black stone must have ended up in a fire and ignited a first human appetite for fossil fuels, which has since grown into our modern times.
We visit the coal fields in the north of England where it all may have begun, and where there are clear traces that the Romans already mined and burned fossil coal in what the archaeologist Andrew Birley calls the industrial way. At Fort Vindolanda, the Romans also mined metals that they used to process coal, and Birley believes that fossil coal was even important in the construction of Hadrian’s Wall, which is still the largest structure in Britain today.
This is the first part of the series “The fossil trap – how we created the climate crisis”.
Participants: Arne Kaijser, Professor Emeritus of Technology History, KTH; Ray Hudson, Professor of Geography at Durham University, and Andrew Birley, Director of the Archaeological Site of Vindolanda.