Probably not the right place for this topic, but the truth is...

Probably not the right place for this topic, but the truth is that humans (as entrepreneurs & slaves) have been melting metal ores for thousands of years using non-green methods, but in all innocence of knowing nothing better. I'm no metallurgist. Gold was probably our first small foray into smelting. Charcoal, made from forest trees by "charcoal burner" blokes, was the first obvious hot burning fuel, enough to melt ores like gold & copper starting the Copper Age of millennia, then add some tin to bring in the Bronze Age, then stuff around with slaves forcing more air through better furnaces to burn charcoal hotter to melt iron ore around 1200 BC, for the Iron Age that we are in now. Forest shortages caused charcoal shortages in countries like UK where Industrialization emerged in 1800's, so emerged a need to fiddle around with a new form of charcoal, Coal. Somewhere in all this, like every other commodity, people had to exchange gold or money. Hence the arrival of Banks.
I'm in my 80's now, & the world is not as dirty & Polluted as it used to be. But bring in the huge increase in humanity, & we are what we are, today. Better off in all ways & reliant on our banks to keep the fires burning. If "cleaner" fuels emerge, then our banks will be in the forefront, because they will be first know. Lifting humanity out of ignorance takes money. Cheers, Japes