The Industrial Revolution brought us many advances in technologies including advances in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology that were the cornerstones of many modern systems. The Industrial Revolution also, however, taught us many lessons that we are unfortunately not learning from.
Coal mining is one of the things that came out of the Industrial Revolution where we learned to harness some of the natural resources the earth has to offer. As with meat packing, where problems were exposed in Upton Sinclair's expose "The Jungle," coal mining has problems as well.
Today, we are completely at the mercy of coal, and depend on it for many things: plywood (binding resin), plastic bottles (acetic acid), and most commonly, electricity.
As health and sanitation issues were the focus of "The Jungle," today the focus with coal mining is on black lung disease, the effects on the miners and area residents, as well as the effects on the population as a whole.
Mining presents very real safety and environmental issues for the world to address, and the populous needs to be educated on its effects and ways to curb use and find alternatives.
Coal mining is one of the things that came out of the Industrial Revolution where we learned to harness some of the natural resources the earth has to offer. As with meat packing, where problems were exposed in Upton Sinclair's expose "The Jungle," coal mining has problems as well.
Today, we are completely at the mercy of coal, and depend on it for many things: plywood (binding resin), plastic bottles (acetic acid), and most commonly, electricity.
As health and sanitation issues were the focus of "The Jungle," today the focus with coal mining is on black lung disease, the effects on the miners and area residents, as well as the effects on the population as a whole.
Mining presents very real safety and environmental issues for the world to address, and the populous needs to be educated on its effects and ways to curb use and find alternatives.
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