BERLIN — In 1709, an English metalworker discovered that coal was suitable to replace wood and waste as a fuel for smelting furnaces. However, it took until the end of the century for this to develop into the revolutionary industrial revolution — and another two centuries for coal to overtake wood and waste as the world's leading fuel. And after the first oil discoveries in Pennsylvania in 1859, it took another century for oil to replace coal as the world's most important energy source. Measured against this history, the changes that climate change seeks to force will require dramatic speed.
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