Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

As soon as it's summer, global warming denialists go into hibernation.

India's roads melt as record-breaking heat wave continues

I'd figured they probably used better heat-resistant asphalt in warmer climes.

To be fair to Russia, it does get a lot colder and warmer than here. It can't be easy to make an affordable material that deals well with both circumstances. I guess melting a little in summer is a better trade-off than breaking in winter.

I'd figured they probably used better heat-resistant asphalt in warmer climes.

To be fair to Russia, it does get a lot colder and warmer than here. It can't be easy to make an affordable material that deals well with both circumstances. I guess melting a little in summer is a better trade-off than breaking in winter.

October 10 – The state of Russia’s road system, which now ranks 136th out of 144 countries evaluated, is so bad that even Vladimir Putin, who recently has been given to upbeat statements about the country, has had to change his tone. But his comments in Novosibirsk yesterday suggest that he won’t or can’t change the main underlying problems.

According to commentator Aleksandr Ivakhnik, Putin’s public statements in recent times have seldom featured any critical comments about the situation in Russia. Instead, the Kremlin leader has preferred to stress his confidence about the basic stability of the economy and its good future prospects.

But at a meeting of the presidium of the State Council on the day after his birthday break, Putin changed his approach and spoke about the real problems of what he said was “a vitally important” sector of the Russian economy, one that other participants painted in even darker colors than he.

Rustam Minnikhanov, the president of Tatarstan and head of the State Council working group on roads, told the Novosibirsk meeting that 53 percent of federal highways and 63 percent of regional ones are substandard and that the situation is growing worse: Every year, the number of cars in Russia rises by six percent, but the highway system expands only 2200 kilometers.

In his speech, Putin said that the road sector remained “a difficult and problematic issue,” with any resolution of current problems being a matter for the future. He suggested that the quality of existing roads had not improved despite massive spending and that the size of the network is insufficient to support economic growth.

Har du en solig sommarbild du vill dela med dig av?

What summer? It's still spring

An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes the BBC:
The US and China -- together responsible for 40% of the world's carbon emissions -- have both formally joined the Paris global climate agreement... It will only come into force legally after it is ratified by at least 55 countries, which between them produce 55% of global carbon emissions. Before China made its announcement, the 23 nations that had so far ratified the agreement accounted for just over 1% of emissions. This will put pressure on G20 nations over the weekend to move faster with their pledge to phase out subsidies to fossil fuels...

There's a G20 summit starting on Sunday, and the BBC's environmental analyst reports that the accord "will just need the EU and a couple of other major polluters to cross the threshold." Its ultimate goal is to stop global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius -- "well above the aspirational 1.5C heating that the UN accepts should really be the limit" -- though U.K. researchers report that already 2016 temperatures may be rising 1.1C above pre-industrial levels.
(source: Slashdot.com… )

Oy!    It's 19° C here today

Just to shut up Oakdale's "models".