Christine Anderson

GEOL 1005
Journal #3- Chapter 18- Global Climate Change
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200323132416.htm
University of California - Davis. ​"Concrete solutions that lower both emissions and air
pollution: Air quality and climate change intertwine in unexpected ways; a concrete example."
ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 23 March 2020.

Description

This article is an overview conducted by scientists of University of California-Davis (UC Davis),

studying the effects of concrete production and its contribution to climate change. As the demand
for concrete continues to grow (due to the rise of population and monetary growth), concrete
production is contributing to eight percent of global Greenhouse House gasses (GHG) that are
discharged from the earth. The scientists of UC Davis have discussed and evaluated various
strategies that can potentially help reduce GHG and for these plans to be implemented by policy
makers. They have identified the issues with concrete production and have worked hard to
discover the best solutions for this problem, ensuring that it will minimize the greenhouse issue
and protect the health of the people and the planet. In all, the final decision will be up to
policymakers to implement these strategies and take the necessary actions to reduce the problems
that concrete production causes globally. Implementing policies for efficient concrete production
will be the best solution resulting in lower financial burden, while protecting the environment
and preventing future side effects.

Impacts

In this study, the scientists of UC Davis reports that concrete production is causing an estimated
$335 billion per year in damages. Due to the high demand of concrete usage, places such as the
U.S. , China and Russia have contributed to a large amount of the concrete emissions burden.
The largest burden comes from the cement production for concrete, which causes half of the
climate and health risks. Other contributors like aggregate production and concrete mixing also
represent a large percentage of damages that create risks to the earth and its inhabitants . By
observing these statistics, UC Davis scientists ensure that their strategies on risk reduction were
efficient and would cover all the areas of the issue.

Mitigation/Improvement

Climate change and the Greenhouse Effect are becoming recognized as large global issues,
which the production of concrete has played a significant role in. The UC Davis scientists have
discovered solutions to the greenhouse gases emission and overall health risks that concrete
production creates. Solutions that were found to help this issue were cleaner combusting kiln
fuel, low-impact mineral additions to replace cement usage and producing with more reusable
energy. They recommended that by implementing these methodologies, there can be a large
increase to health and climate control. Although the effectiveness of these strategies vary by
region, using these strategies together may be able to reduce climate damage by 85% and health
damages by 19%. If countries can get to an agreement on these strategies, there can be
significant changes globally.

Analysis

As a civil engineering major and and and currently working at a construction company for co-op,
this article was particularly alarming. I know firsthand how necessary concrete usage is to the
construction industry. Before reading this article, I had no knowledge of the negative impact that
concrete production had on the greenhouse gas emissions. Since construction thrives on the
production of concrete , there needs to be changes on regulating how it is produced and how it
can be done efficiently. After reading this article, I hope more people in the construction industry
read this study and begin to become aware of how these productions potentially put ourselves
and our planet at risk.