Before the Industrial Revolution, coppicing, a method of harvesting wood on a multi-year cycle by cutting trees back to a stump, helped meet Britain’s energy needs. After the tree, usually hazel, hornbeam or oak, is cut, new shoots spring to life. …Shadow Woods, a coppice in West Sussex, England, was largely abandoned after the second world war and many of the trees are now “overstood” … shading the ground and preventing the growth of any new saplings. …Since early humans first kindled firewood until Britain’s Industrial Revolution, energy typically came from renewable sources like wind, water and the sun, not from fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. Vertical windmills were used to grind flour in ancient Persia. Chinese water power pulped paper and hammered iron. The Romans combined their aqueducts with complexes of watermills. All of this was renewable. [A subscription to the Economist is required to access the full story]