![more than just the two of us more than just the two of us](http://www.animals-zone.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/16.jpg)
In real elections, neither of those two parties has ever come close to the level of support these polls indicate: Libertarians peaked at about 1 percent in 1980 (with David Koch on the ticket) and again in Johnson's previous run in 2012. In the New York Times/CBS poll released September 15, those candidates' combined 12 percent share was boosted by support for Johnson from more than a quarter of voters ages 18 to 29.
![more than just the two of us more than just the two of us](https://c-cl.cdn.smule.com/rs-s-sf-2/sing_google/performance/cover/a1/bb/b9268cf7-6756-47f9-b323-d9d3b70284db.jpg)
Guardian Concrete Week investigates the shocking impact of concrete on the modern world.Perhaps the most surprising result in presidential polls since the conventions is that more than one in 10 voters say they would support candidates not named Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton: Libertarian Gary Johnson and Jill Stein of the Green Party. It is a feat of engineering, constructed from 176 individual 3D printed concrete units.Īs Xu Weiguo, the architect of the 3D bridge, says: “It’s very easy to get and widely used in construction projects.” After all, he adds, “concrete is the cheapest construction material in China”. On a more humble scale, the world’s longest 3D-printed concrete bridge was unveiled in Shanghai earlier this year. High-rise apartments are constantly being added to the cities’ edges to accommodate the never-ending flow of migrants from the countryside, and headline projects such as the new Beijing airport or the Hong Kong bridge are considered prestigious achievements. Photograph: Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty ImagesĬhina’s concrete mania shows little sign of abating. Others have called it a “ white elephant” and an unfair burden on Hong Kong taxpayers.Ī section of the 55km Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, the world’s longest sea bridge. Eddie Chu, a pro-democracy lawmaker, said last year that the bridge was a “politically driven mega-project without urgent need”, given the existing transport links between Hong Kong and the mainland. The million cubic metres of concrete also represent mainland China’s growing reach into the supposedly autonomous regions of Macau and Hong Kong.
More than just the two of us free#
Ray Chan, a Hong Kong lawmaker, said the scandal “created a crisis of trust in the government’s ability to monitor and ensure the credibility of large-scale construction projects”, reported the Hong Kong Free Press.īut the crisis of trust was not just about safety standards. In December 2017, a Hong Kong laboratory technician was jailed for eight months for falsifying concrete compression test results for the bridge. The first hiccup in the mega-bridge was a specifically concrete-related one. In China, where concrete goes, controversy follows. This discrepancy is accounted for by thousands of unused or underused cement factories that litter China’s industrial heartlands, a relic of years of rampant supply-side investment, supported by cheap loans to state-owned companies that disregarded profits in favour of growth, employment and kickbacks. But China’s total capacity for cement, the main ingredient in concrete, is closer to 4bn tonnes. It is a demand that has been easily met by the country’s cement supply: in 2017, China produced 2.4bn tonnes of the stuff, more than the rest of the world combined. Such ambitious infrastructure projects require a ready and vast supply of concrete. The project ultimately aims to transport fresh water a distance of more than 4,300km. In the first phase alone, it has used more than double the amount of concrete in the Three Gorges Dam: 65m cubic metres. The waterway has already cost around $80bn (£61bn), making it the most expensive infrastructure project in the world. The project is a multi-decade plan to divert the water from China’s lush south to its arid north, where water scarcity is an acute problem. In 2013, the eastern route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project opened, connecting the Grand Canal in China’s east with the capital in the north. Li only had to wait seven more years to be outdone by yet another Chinese feat of concrete. None of this prevented Li Yongan, general manager of the Three Gorges Corporation, from declaring in 2006 that the dam was “the grandest project the Chinese people have undertaken in thousands of years”.
![more than just the two of us more than just the two of us](https://d29ci68ykuu27r.cloudfront.net/items/21562303/cover_images/cover-medium_large_file.png)
More than 100 workers died in the construction process, and archaeological and cultural sites were flooded. Around 1.4 million people were displaced by the project, and there were complaints that the rehousing settlements were inadequate or that compensation money disappeared into local government coffers.
![more than just the two of us more than just the two of us](https://c-cl.cdn.smule.com/rs-s77/arr/95/de/5f1e699b-b84a-4994-90cb-29b09fc6451e_1024.jpg)
Like all of China’s concrete achievements, the Three Gorges Dam has been mired in controversy.