People who claimed the power to control nature and the energy resources around them saw the environment as a tool to be used for progress, historians say. Over hundreds of years, that impulse has remade the planet's climate, too — and brought its inhabitants to the brink of catastrophe. Tapping nature for its resources drove progress and productivity for some, but it's also been a major driver of emissions and environmental degradation. By the mid-19th century, steam power was adopted in manufacturing, cotton mills, steam ships and locomotives around the world, turning coal into a global trade. Centuries later, the United Kingdom has nearly weaned itself off coal, with weeks or months at a stretch where the national grid gets no coal power.

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Persons: ”, Luis Zambrano, it's, Anya Zilberstein, ” Zilberstein, Vera S, Candiani, Jan Golinski, “, ” Golinski, Deborah Coen, Andreas Malm, Barak, it’s, J.R, McNeill, ” McNeill, Victor Seow, Elizabeth Chatterjee, “ Indira Gandhi, Chatterjee, Joshua Howe, Howe, Yale's Coen, —, ” Howe, Fredrik Albritton Jonsson, Jonsson Organizations: National University Autónoma, Concordia University, Mexico City —, America, Princeton, University of New, Yale, Lund University, Tel Aviv University, Laboratory, Global, Project, Energy, Georgetown University, Communist, University of Chicago, Reed College, . Environmental Protection Agency, U.S, AP Locations: Nations, Mexico, Lake Texcoco, Montreal, Spanish, University of New Hampshire, Maui, Britain, Sweden, ”, India, Egypt, Nigeria, Ottoman Empire, United Kingdom, Cumbria, England, Wales, Scotland, China, Japan, U.S, Europe, United States, British, Portland , Oregon