Coal by Barbara Freese

Coal: A Human History by Baraba Freese is a fascinating little read.  It's not exactly a "human history," since it really only talks about Coal in the UK, US, and China, but if you think about as Coal: A Look at Three Countries Industrializing, it'll be just fine.  There was rarely a page that I didn't make one of those "hmmmm" sounds and make my husband stop whatever he was doing so that I could read him something I found interesting.

As happy as Britain was to embrace steam technology, it resisted another form of technology that would have greatly reduced its pollution problems: the stove...The British...couldn't bring themselves to adopt the abhorrent devices. They hated to lose sight of the cheery flames in their hearths, and it's likely that the smokier and darker the city grew, the more attached they grew to the brightness of their fires.  (96-97)

Dr. BB and I formed a whole human history from the above quote. There's a technology that's terrible for human health and the environment, but that does provide some important life maintaining function.  Humans use it, they go all in on it. Then someone develops a technology that does something similar to the original technology, but better, but humans are resistant to use it because it's too expensive or because of some superstitious reason. And that's the story of technology.

Anyway, Freese is an environmental attorney and, as such, has a definite political point of view. I agree with her political point of view, so I didn't think it is too much a part of the book, but based on the Goodreads reviews, climate change deniers do think it is. 

If you, like me, believe in science but don't know very much about the coal industry, outside of stereotypes about canaries and headlamps, this might be the book for you.  It certainly wans't a laugh a minute, but there are definitely interesting pieces to it.