Turning the clock back on Watt’s Industrial Revolution

IT was the city where James Watt had his “eureka moment” to improve the steam engine – and drive forward the Industrial Revolution.

But now Glasgow wants to turn the clock back on the pollution that industrialisation has caused … and become the UK’s first city to achieve a “net zero” level of emissions.

Writing in the Herald newspaper, Glasgow City Council leader Susan Aitken said: ” . . . there’s a compelling case, often made, that what was unleashed by Watt’s invention went way beyond industrialisation. It has now really begun to alter the makeup of our planet . . . . I don’t think anyone would disagree that there is an urgent need to atone for the sins of the carbon age, to repair the damage we have inflicted upon the planet.”