Opposition to the new fuel usually comes from the wealthy. In Britain, elites called coal the “devil’s excrement,” something that many people believed to be literally true, given its sulfuric smell.96 Coal smoke smelled bad against the sweet smell of wood-burning. The upper-class of Victorian England resisted the transition from wood to coal as long as they could.97 It was educated elites who similarly waged the war on fracking. The key antagonists were The New York Times, Bill McKibben, and well-financed environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council.
