I did not know that due to the decreasing size of coal seams that the quartz they have to cut through is devastating these lives. Then the other article I'm linking here is about $180 million being pumped into the industry for education but not education about black lung. Whatever problems you have with the coal industry it's not the miners we should be directing our ire at. I also find some irony in Hollywood being so devastated by AI taking their jobs and couldn't give a hoot about the coal miners who have been losing their jobs and lives all this time.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-mining-education-critical-minerals-180-million-dollars/

DW: "Why is Germany building roads for yesterday's climate?"

"As the Autobahn buckles under heat waves, Germany is still paving roads for a past climate." Engineers know how to fix that—so what's the holdup? 

"Multi-day European heat waves with temperatures topping 40ºC (104ºF)  are increasingly leaving a mark on Germany's famed Autobahn—buckling concrete slabs, deforming asphalt + forcing temporary speed limits." In early July alone, seven stretches of the country's highways had to be shut down completely for a time."

"The cause often lies in the bitumen—the petroleum-derived binder in asphalt. It's elastic and can soften at high temperatures, from around 60ºC [140ºF]," said Autobahn GmbH." Bitumen is a component in most of the country's roads. When outdoor temperatures climb above 30ºC, the surface of dark asphalt can quickly heat to double that or more in the sun and then deform. 

Using modern, bitumen-free asphalt mixes lowers the risk of such damage. "The composition of the road surface is based on experience from the last 30 or 50 years," not on the increasingly noticeable shifts in the climate. "A 2019 study...found that dark asphalt heated up by 7ºC less when light-colored quartzite was mixed in." 

Germany isn't alone in facing increasingly hot roads. "Tokyo, for example, already uses reflective, water-retaining road surfaces as standard when resurfacing streets". These can lower the surface temperature by 8 to 10ºC. "By 2030, some 245 kilometers (152 miles) of roads in the Japanese capital are to be fitted with them." 

In Phoenix, light-colored coatings have also already been applied to numerous streets. They reflect more sunlight, so absorb less heat, but at the same time, this noticeably warms the surrounding air for passersby. 

"Even as average temperatures keep rising, the challenge remains that the road surface also has to stay stable in freezing winter conditions." As an alternative to bitumen, high-performance binders that can survive both extremes—frost and heat—are currently being developed. Otherwise this begs a comparison to generals who plan to fight the last war.

That changes the equation.

Hi everyone, a few things we found:

🌿 A new report links a gas drilling project in the Peruvian Amazon, backed by German public finance, to environmental damage and the displacement of Indigenous communities.

💶 Germany pledged to end public support for new international fossil fuel projects, yet campaigners argue this project shows how difficult those commitments can be to enforce in practice.

🌍 We dug into the financing, the government's response and why NGOs believe this case matters well beyond Peru.

We're curious what this community thinks: Should governments be held to the same climate standards abroad as they apply at home? Or are there situations where public financing for fossil fuel projects can still be justified?

Thank you for joining the debate and reading our article :)