Section 52

Social Issues

The subject area Social Issues deals with trends in society that are related to or influenced by energy use. A companion category is Transitions which appears under the Effects theme; it includes significant changes from one type of energy use to another and thus also describes energy’s effect on society. The section Public Attitudes (which follows this one) is also closely related.

Social milestones in energy use tend to reflect whatever is the dominant energy use at a given time. Thus many of the earlier entries here deal with issues in the coal industry, such as grueling and hazardous working conditions and measures to ameliorate this problem, or efforts to unionize mine workers and management’s resistance to these ...

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