Last week we complained about misuse of “scorched” to describe places that got warm in summer as usual, noting that scorching required things to be blackened and perhaps broken. So on the latter point we think it only fair to note a story that “Germany will carry out emergency repairs on its autobahn this weekend after extreme heat in recent days blew up large chunks of concrete along key stretches of the highway. Temperatures of up to 39C caused the material to expand and crack open roads in various parts of the country, leading to hours-long traffic jams.” So heat broke their Autobahn? Well no. Not really. Temperatures of “up to 39C” are certainly not sufficient to destroy cement or there would be precious little of the stuff anywhere. What really happened is that the same governments not looking after energy infrastructure are also neglecting transportation infrastructure and deflecting blame to the climate change ogre.

As that National Post story goes on to admit:

“The phenomenon known as ‘blow-ups’ occurs when concrete expands and has nowhere to go, leading to sudden fractures or cracks. It mostly affects older, heavily used or previously repaired highways during high temperatures, especially ones that aren’t layered with asphalt.”

So “Worn-out road cracks” would be a more realistic headline, if less scary. But one of the nasty habits of climate alarmism is to mix and match, as for instance a Daily Mail story headlined “Bees are losing their buzz! Warmer weather reduces frequency and pitch of wing vibrations, researchers warn”.

Now in fact researchers warn nothing of the sort, and not only because it’s not about warmer weather or bees would buzz down every summer. It’s about the mysterious “climate change” and “it could be bad news for the nation’s tomatoes, blueberries and honeysuckle plants” unless it’s not. But the key point of preposterousness is “Analysis showed that bees were affected by both increased temperatures and exposure to heavy metals, with their muscles contracting less during buzzing.”

Heavy metals? What, did the thermometer blow its top and spray them with mercury? Or are you blaming “climate change” for genuine toxic pollution quite unrelated to it?