Feeling the Heat? Blame Concrete

If your city was slammed by record-shattering heat this summer, you can partly blame the stuff the city itself is made of. The scorching temperatures across Europe and the U.S. in July were made worse by one of humanity’s most widely used but least-loved inventions: concrete. To most people, concrete is just the ugly stuff used to pave paradise and put up a parking lot. But concrete is an invention as transformative to humanity as fire or electricity. Since it came into widespread use around the turn of the 20th century, this man-made stone has changed where and how billions of people live, work and move around. Concrete gives us the power to dam enormous rivers, erect buildings of Olympian height, and travel from place to place with an ease that would astonish our ancestors. Concrete hospitals and schools can be built and repaired far more quickly than their counterparts of adobe, wood, or steel. Concrete roads help farmers get their crops to market, students to get to school, and sick people to get to hospitals in all weathers. It’s an almost supernaturally cheap, easy way to quickly create sturdy housing for huge numbers of people. Concrete is strong, capable of holding thousands of tons worth of people, furniture, and water. It won’t burn or get infested with termites. And it’s incredibly easy to use. A single person can mix a batch of basic concrete and slap together a serviceable shelter. A well-financed contractor can pour the foundation of a t...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized climate change Source Type: news