sassenach

Yeah, it is an ultimate cause I suppose, with other factors mentioned above my post as proximate causes. One needs to know how to utilize the resource, and to have the incentive to use it, economically and culturally. A lot of knowledge was lost after the Romans retreated, and coal is, even if more energy dense, more polluting than wood, for ordinary urban heating purposes and thus in less use.

Looking forward, Germany started industrializing some time after, and China is now reducing their coal-dependence. Now we are asking how India will industrialize without coal - underlining the importance of energy in industrialization.

I think this is the relevant paragraph in the document (page 27 in http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/commissions/imco/inag/...) linked from the article:

"3. Competent authorities shall have at least the following enforcement powers:

(e) where no other effective means are available to bring about the cessation or the prohibition of the infringement including by requesting a third party or other public authority to implement such measures, in order to prevent the risk of serious harm to the collective interests of consumers:

- to remove content or restrict access to an online interface or to order the explicit display of a warning to consumers when accessing the online interface;

- to order a hosting service provider to remove, disable or restrict the access to an online interface; or

- where appropriate, order domain registries or registrars to delete a fully qualified domain name and allow the competent authority concerned to register it;"

Seems similar to already existing measures against infringement of copyrights, except that thing about circumventing the courts, as Reda writes. Could this possibly mean websites such as Facebook could be blocked on the grounds of protecting consumers? The document defines 'widespread infringement' as

"(1) any act or omission contrary to Union laws that protect consumers' interests that harmed, harms, or is likely to harm the collective interests of consumers"

On Android I am using Flym, though it doesn't seem to get old entries upon subscription. It is built on the sparse rss app, it is GPLv3 and it has a newer relative spaRSS https://github.com/Etuldan/spaRSS which is more recently maintained.

One factor often overlooked is energy availability (the link touches it somewhat). EDIT: Wikipedia on coal, for instance, states "The development of the Industrial Revolution led to the large-scale use of coal" - rather than coal being the enabler what, with forests probably being exhausted at the time...

Important in automation is work done by a machine, enhancing or replacing labor. Machines require energy, both for running, and for construction and processing of the material in their constituent parts. Energy was present in the English Midlands in the form of coal. By burning this coal in a glorius steam engine, of which models were improved on from the 1600s and onwards, wonders arose.

Perhaps this book on economic growth would be of interest on the importance of energy for economic growth: The Economic Growth Engine, by Ayres and Warr. Excerpt at https://books.google.no/books/about/The_Economic_Growth_Engi...