Time to 1.5 E3: Coalbrookdale

Season 4 | Episode 3

Coalbrookdale

Britain was the first place in the world to go through what we now call the Industrial Revolution, a transformation of an agricultural, rural society into a manufacturing powerhouse that kicked off the mass migration of ancient carbon from the ground to the atmosphere.

This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we explore the mass acceleration of nearly every process on earth that began in Britain in the 1700s and continues to this day, a multi-century fossil-fuel binge that knocked the climate out of whack.

Original illustration by Sally Deng © 2021.

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Guests

Featured

Dr. Matt Thompson

Dr. Matt Thompson trained as a field archaeologist and spent several years working in commercial archaeology before moving into museums and heritage sector. He has experience working in a number of regional and national museums in a curatorial and managerial capacity. He was previously Director of Collections and Education at the Ironbridge Gorge Museums Trust and is currently the Head Collections Curator for English Heritage.

Dr. Malcolm Dick

Dr. Malcolm Dick was born in Lichfield, lives in Sandwell and works in Birmingham.

He is Director of the Centre for West Midlands History in the School of History and Cultures at the University of Birmingham, where, amongst other things, he convenes the MA in West Midlands History and runs various public day schools.

Featured

Engineering Places: Ironbridge

Article published in Engineering & Technology

Global Temperature Change 1880-2021

The global temperature anomaly for every single month since 1880 updated to end of 2021

Fossil Fuels

Research article published in Our World in Data

More than half of all CO2 emissions since 1751 emitted in the last 30 years

Research article on CO2 emissions published in Institute for European Environmental Policy

The History of Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Article published by the World Resources Institute

Time to 1.5

Coalbrookdale is episode three in Threshold Season 4, Time to 1.5

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Credits

This episode was reported, written and produced by Amy Martin with help from producer Nick Mott and managing editor Erika Janik. Fact checking by Sara Sneath and Nick Mott. Original music by Todd Sickafoose. Episode art by Sally Deng. Cover art by Maggy Contreras at Bahía Design.The rest of the Threshold team is Eva Kalea, Taliah Farnsworth, Shola Lawal, Caysi Simpson, and Deneen Wiske. Thanks to Hana Carey, Dan Carreno, Luca Borghese, Julia Barry, Kara Cromwell, Katie deFusco, Caroline Kurtz, and Gabby Piamonte. Special thanks to Adam Reed and David Nye.