Earth Day Update: From Splitting Wood to Splitting Atoms
Nicolas Loris /
Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner’s message, written five years ago, is still very much relevant today:
Almost all the settlers who arrived here hundreds of years ago were subsistence farmers. They cleared hundreds of millions of acres of trees. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, “A single household could consume 20 to 40 cords of wood annually.” Economic growth changed all that.
First, we progressed from wood to coal. This allowed us to begin replacing millions of trees. Plus, coal was more efficient and easier to transport than wood, so it took less to produce more energy.
But even coal is fairly dirty, and of course digging it out of the ground affects the environment. So the country moved on to natural gas. It was safer, easier to get and cleaner burning.”