Then you would be wrong. The work of the likes of James Watt, Richard Trevithick, Carl Benz and Rudolf Diesel and many others made the institution of slavery uneconomic. Many societies before the mid-19th relied on either slavery or bound labour to do the menial and heavy work needed. The invention of machinery powered by fossil fuels changed that, and I can't see the estate owners of the southern US able to resist the increased profits that mechanisation would bring.
BTW Did you know that the Scottish Parliament in the late 17th passed legislation that bound colliers, and their male children, to the mine owners they worked for?
]]>In a technological world where all the social progress for the last 200 years has been based on the availability of relatively cheap and abundant energy, to say that the abundance of energy should be curtailed because of some perceived risk in the future is neither progressive nor demographic. The future will always carry risks and to wish it otherwise is a delusion.
Bill
]]>As for the 'vampire' peak in about 1995, is this a Buffy effect?
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