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What were the environmental consequences of the industrial revolution?

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The Industrial Revolution had significant environmental consequences, including increased pollution and resource depletion. The widespread use of coal led to severe smog and water contamination, particularly in urban areas. This period also saw a lack of awareness about the cumulative effects of pollution. As populations grew due to improved living standards, the demand for goods surged, leading to unsustainable exploitation of natural resources without consideration for environmental impacts.

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One of the unfortunate side effects of the great advancements made in the industrial revolution was an extraordinarily negative impact on the Earth's natural environment. With advances in living standards as well as medicine, there came a population boom due to increased life expectancy and reduced infant mortality. With such an increased population came an increased need for goods and services, and nations burned through natural resources with reckless abandon. Though the spirit of human advancement and innovation was in the right place, we often approached new and emerging technologies as miraculous new substitutes for labor without fully understanding the environmental ramifications.

For instance, the popularized use of coal devastated the living conditions in cities by producing smog and poisoning water supplies. During the time of the industrial revolution, human beings were not as acutely aware of global scale as we are today by being connected with the entire world...

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through the web. It was not as plain at the time to see that for every bit of coal an individual would burn, hundreds of thousands of others were doing the same. It was very easy to brush off a small amount of pollution as "no big deal." Of course, we see the consequences of this today.

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What were the economic consequences of the Industrial Revolution?

The Industrial Revolution radically changed the economies of most European countries. The first major shift was from agriculture to manufacturing. Where in earlier periods, most of employment and GDP was concentrated in agriculture, wealth in most countries now accrued to new industries. This also meant that investing in manufacturing became more profitable and that wealth was now earned by capital rather than land.

Another major shift had to do with urbanization. Labor and capital concentrated in the large manufacturing areas in big cities, draining labor and wealth from rural areas. Increases in the efficiency of agriculture meant that a far smaller portion of the population was needed to raise food, freeing labor for more productive industries.

The rise of the factory meant that the nature of labor changed. Before this period, workers were more independent, often taking work into their homes and being paid by the piece. Manufacturing and mining especially were industries where workers now gathered in locations near their places of work and were paid salaries to work under close supervision of employers.

New fortunes were made in industry, challenging the economic supremacy of the hereditary aristocracy. The need for skilled labor and knowledge workers led to a rise of the middle classes, especially in urban areas.

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