Economic History and the Environment: New Questions, Approaches and Methodologies - The Basic Environmental History - page 50

Table 2.1 A rst rough estimates to some components of ecological footprint entailed by the
British Industrial Revolution (1801 - 1831)

1801 1811 - 1815 1827 - 1831

Coal Millions of tonnes burnt 13.9 n.a. 22.6

Equivalent woodland area as total surface
of England and Wales a

92.7 % n.a. 150.7 %

Sugar Footprint hectares (thousand) 436.3 464.6 604.8

As percentage of contemporary cropland
in England and Wales b

9.5 % 9.6 % 13.4 %

Cotton Footprint hectares (million) n.a. 9 23

As percentage of contemporary cropland
in England and Wales c

n.a. 154.4 % 322.8 %

Timber Footprint hectares (thousand) 666.5 n.a. n.a.

As percentage of contemporary cropland
in England and Wales d

18.5 % n.a. n.a.

Source our own, from Sieferle ( 2001 , pp. 14 - 15), Pomeranz ( 2000 , pp. 313 - 315) and Grigg ( 1982 ,

p. 38)
a Estimated translating the energy content of coal burnt into cubic meters of rewood, and then
assessing the woodland area needed to annually grow this amount of rewood in England and
Wales
b Estimated assuming that the average caloric intake with sugar imported from the colonies had to
be replaced by cereal cultivated in England and Wales
c Estimated assuming that average cotton imports had to be replaced from wool produced by
sheep bred in the pastureland of England and Wales
d Estimated assuming that average timber imports from America and the Baltic had to be replaced
by woodlands of England and Wales

Table 2.1 shows the approximate ghost acreage of English consumption of coal,
sugar, cotton and timber during the rst half of the 19th century:

As can be seen, in spite of the initial tiny amounts of GDP which they might
have represented before 1800, 56 the access to these four key natural resources
would have immediately outstripped the biological carrying capacity of any
'

particularly cotton and coal, which together with
iron formed the basic triad of the English Industrial Revolution. The only way out
of these land-related constraints was the unique combination enjoyed by the United
Kingdom of coal mined from the underground with the

advanced organic economy '—

' ghost acreage ' provided

through an exceptional network of worldwide trade ows nucleated into a single

European region. No other nation or region of the world could have had such access
to analogous natural resources, until railroads and steam vessels diminished travel
costs and opened the way to the

fl

rst globalization from 1870 onwards. 57 It is worth
remembering, as William McNeill pointed out, 58 that this was a very exceptional

56 Van Zanden ( 2009 ).
57 Williamson ( 2006 ).
58 Mc Neill ( 1982 ).