STS Colloquium - Fredrik Jonsson

Infinite Coal: How Britain Became the First Fossil Fuel Economy

Despite the warnings of climate scientists, the world remains dangerously addicted to fossil fuel. Why has it been so difficult to break this habit? In his new book, Fredrik Albritton Jonsson suggests that the planetary emergency has profound historical roots reaching back to the making of the first fossil fuel economy in eighteenth century Britain. Rather than look for a single dramatic rupture centered on the steam powered factory system, Albritton Jonsson uncovers the gradual and multidimensional development of the first coal economy, stretching from the deep mine and ironworks to the household and the global food system - what he calls the Fossil Ratchet. Albritton Jonsson explores not only the material forces behind the British energy path but also how ideas about fossil fuel energy reoriented politics and society towards a new ideal of growth. Fossil cornucopianism was the most important legacy of Britain’s early fossil fuel economy —the idea of a bountiful, never-ending energy source which still haunts modern politics and economics.

Fredrik Albritton Jonsson is associate professor of British history and history of science at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Enlightenment’s Frontier: The Scottish Highlands and the Origins of Environmentalism, Green Victorians: the Simple Life in John Ruskin's Lake District with Vicky Albritton and Scarcity: A History from the Origins of Capitalism to the Climate Crisis, with Carl Wennerlind.