{"id":55442,"date":"2020-10-27T06:47:08","date_gmt":"2020-10-27T11:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55442"},"modified":"2020-10-27T06:47:08","modified_gmt":"2020-10-27T11:47:08","slug":"concrete-our-future-is-anchored-in-the-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55442","title":{"rendered":"Concrete: Our Future Is Anchored in the Stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"article__header\" data-dev-object-descrip=\"organisms\/article\/article__header\" data-dev-status=\"IN-PROGRESS\">\n<div class=\"container-fluid\">\n<h3 data-bind=\"title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thetyee.ca\/Culture\/2020\/10\/27\/Concrete-Future-Anchored\/\">Concrete: Our Future Is Anchored in the Stuff<\/a><\/h3>\n<p data-bind=\"teaser\"><strong>The modern world is made of a wondrous, terrible product of human ingenuity. A new book tells the story.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<section class=\"featured-media\" data-dev-object-descrip=\"02-organisms\/article\/featured-media\">\n<div class=\"container-fluid\">\n<figure class=\"figure \" data-dev-object-descrip=\"01-molecules\/blocks\/figure\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-img\" src=\"https:\/\/thetyee.ca\/Culture\/2020\/10\/26\/ConcreteConstructionBuilding.jpg\" alt=\"ConcreteConstructionBuilding.jpg\" width=\"960\" height=\"627\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption\">An apartment building under construction in Chile. Concrete, author Mary Soderstrom tells us, is a building material urgently needed to protect us against the climate change it helps to cause.\u00a0<span class=\"caption__media--credit\">Photo: Wikimedia.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<article class=\"article__body main-col-container\" data-dev-object-descrip=\"organisms\/article\/article__body\" data-dev-status=\"IN-PROGRESS\">\n<div class=\"container-fluid clearfix \">\n<p><i>Concrete: From Ancient Origins to a Problematic Future<\/i><\/p>\n<aside class=\"aside hide-on-narrow-vp\" data-dev-object-descrip=\"01-molecules\/blocks\/aside\" data-dev-status=\"IN-PROGRESS\"><\/aside>\n<p>University of Regina Press (2020)<\/p>\n<p>When something is everywhere, we stop seeing it: air, tap water, electricity. And concrete.<\/p>\n<p>Concrete is everywhere, but many of us still call it \u201ccement,\u201d which is just one of concrete\u2019s components. We take it for granted, unless we\u2019re using it in some DIY project and it sets too soon. Using it right is almost as much art as science: Roman concrete still survives in places, but the concrete in the Samuel de Champlain Bridge disintegrated in a matter of years.<\/p>\n<p>In this very readable book, Mary Soderstrom takes us from the chemistry of concrete though its long history as a kind of artificial stone to its present status as a fatal necessity \u2014 a building material urgently needed to protect us against the climate change it helps to cause.<\/p>\n<p>Soderstrom\u2019s narrative returns often to the new\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mcinniscement.com\/\">McInnis Cement<\/a> plant on the Gasp\u00e9 coast in eastern Quebec. It\u2019s one of the latest producers in an industry that\u2019s thousands of years old; it has an extensive market and bills itself as \u201cecologically sound.\u201d But it also needs heavy government support, and inevitably contributes to the carbon dioxide emissions driving climate change.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Concrete: Our Future Is Anchored in the Stuff The modern world is made of a wondrous, terrible product of human ingenuity. A new book tells the story. An apartment building under construction in Chile. Concrete, author Mary Soderstrom tells us, is a building material urgently needed to protect us against the climate change it helps [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[3193,20791,30510,5499],"class_list":["post-55442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-carbon-dioxide","tag-concrete","tag-mary-soderstrom","tag-the-tyee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55443,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55442\/revisions\/55443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}