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IRA Flatow, host: You're listening SCIENCES Friday. Ira Flatow I am.
(SoundBITE of the song "Big Yellow Taxi")
Joni Mitchell, SINGER (singing) They paved paradise, put up a parking lot with a pink hotel, a boutique and a swinging hot spot.
Flatow: 1970 was the year of Earth Day, the same year of Joni Mitchell wrote her environmental lament "Big Yellow Taxi", about paving over paradise and put up a parking .When Joni Mitchell sang about paving paradise to put up this parking lot, I guess she did not cement permeable, pervious concrete, a more sustainable type of concrete already in use throughout the country. The water flows through it. Yup. It is strong enough to pave the parking lots and walkways, but if porous, like a feast of crispy rice. Thus, the rainwater runs right through it, towards the ground below, rather than running out of storm and flood drains and sewers.
