Global warming news: Road salt from brutal winter will cause infrastructure decay

SEIU protester

This story on the surface seems wonkish, but it's a beauty for liberals who love to pick our pockets. To battle so called human-caused global warming, they want to add all kinds of taxes, including a cap-and-trade scheme.

But most of the nation was clobbered by our last winter, which was brutally cold and snowy. To fight slippery and dangerous roads, road salt is used.

But there is a downside, as CBS 2 Chicago tells us.

Last winter, the city used 436,000 tons of salt. That's more than three times the amount used 145,000 tons used the winter before, 145,000 tons, and more than four times the 102,000 tons used for the 2011-2012 winter.

The salt eventually seeps through the concrete and corrodes the steel inside.

"When the steel corrodes, the structure gradually loses its capacity," said [civil engineer Dr. Gongkang] Fu. "Eventually it will cause significant failure of the structure."

"If we used to say this structure can be there for another 20 years or so, then it might become 10 or 15."

Falling chunks of concrete might come much earlier.

But here's how this story plays for libs. On one end they demand tax scams to wean us from fossil fuels. Yet they are always whining that our roads are falling apart and our bridges are about to collapse so they can raise our taxes, although the money goes who-knows-where. Yes, we need to repair bridges and resurface bad roads. But the so-called progressives win on both ends--whether it's hold or cold.

Related posts:

• Global warming news: Coldest Chicago winter ever
• Global warming news: Lake Michigan sets record for most ice cover

Technorati tags: winter climate change environment global warming weather snow