Wikipedia: Charcoal

Historically the massive production of charcoal (at its height employing hundreds of thousands, mainly in Alpine and neighbouring forrests) has been a major cause of deforestation, especially in Central Europe, but to a lesser extent even before, as in Stuart England. The increasing scarcity of easily harvested wood was a major factor for the switch to the fossil equivalents, mainly coal and brown coal for industrial use.

This is terrible: the switch to coal happened because we run out of wood...

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