Painting Rooftops White Would Slow Global Warming
Study: If we painted every rooftop in 100 major cities white, it would offset the entire planet’s carbon dioxide emissions for one year. That’s nearly 44 metric gigatons.
It makes sense. We all know white reflects heat (that’s why we wear white shirts and dresses on hot days), and we even knew that painting rooftops white lessens the need for air conditioning. But until now, we didn’t know that changing dark-colored surfaces to white would help fight against global warming.
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The news broke yesterday at California’s Climate Change Research Conference. Hashem Akbari, attending the conference from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, announced that replacing dark shingles on an average-sized household rooftop with a lighter color would offset 10 metric tons of carbon dioxide—comparable to taking two mid-sized cars off the road for a year.
Speaking of roadways, they’re part of the problem too. Because of its cheap nature, most roads are paved with black asphalt instead of light grey concrete, which causes roads to absorb an inordinate amount of heat. Repaving roads with lighter-colored materials would have a similar impact to painting rooftops.
California already mandates that newly-built large buildings have light-colored rooftops, but the law was intended to decrease air conditioning costs. Akbari hopes to enlist the United Nations in an effort to convince major cities to make their roadways and rooftops more pale.
Read a full summary of the report here.
Photo Credit: Robert Whitlock on Flickr under Creative Commons license.
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Wow..Someone thought it intelligent of them to post criticism of climate change, several times, as if to create census on the issue.
Most scientists agree that climate change is happening; almost all of them agree that we’re the problem.
I’d like to see some nonbiased sources about these claims of temperature dropping. I really would. What with the heatwaves in Europe, the heatwaves in the West a few years ago..Yeah, you’re going to need to prove that.
As for ‘economic catastrophe’, I’d like a denier to explain to me this: After the massive socioeconomic and ecological collapse caused by climate change, what are you planning on doing?
-Cokehead
I’m also going to wear a big white chef hat around to reflect even more UV. Seriously though, has the author of this piece thought about all the implications of the extra paint/roof production, the transportation carbon that gets used, etc.? Of course not. Plus, it’s effing WHITE. it’s going to get DIRTY, which means that it will no longer be white, it’ll be brown, unless you scrub it all the time. it’s good that people are thinking on their feet about possible solutions, but the solutions need critical thought applied.
Well, I don’t know about places in warm climates, but darker roadways where icy roads can be an issue are a better plan. Warmer pavement means less icing.
This is misguided. Where will the reflected heat go? … back into the atmosphere. So, it won’t really slow down “global” warming cuz the heat will still be in the atmosphere.
yea whatever……lets paint them all white so ones in cooler climates that benefit from winter solar gaines from a dark roof will spend alot more on heating cost, what about better insulation to reduce cooling demands on biuldings and homes, that would benefit us all.I live in a hot climate and insulation and ventilation is key.If we could just get rid of humans……….maybe blinding white roads would be the answer….
[...] itself. But don’t think that the damage that caused the snow to melt in the first place will be reversed any time soon merely by trees making more clouds. If only it were so [...]
haha. paint the roads white? that’s not at all what was said. make the roads out of lighter colored concrete. *smacks head in disbelief*
Test in Saudi Arabian desert proved that white vs. black tee shirts on Marines with thermostats on body showed absolutely no difference at all. White cotton does not reflect more HEAT than black cotton (more light, of course).
O Aquecimento Global, é sim uma realidade, a cada dia q passa vai piorando. Temos como evidência disso alguns animais (bioindicadores) como por exemplo os anfíbios, que estão entrando em extinção, pois necessitam de lugares úmidos para sobreviver, e esses ambientes estão ficando cada vez mais escassos. A medida de pintar os telhados de branco é muito boa, no entanto, tem que ser mais efetiva, não apenas com propagandas na TV ou no rádio, mas com pessoas nas praças, Shopping Center’s, praias, passando nas casas alertando distribuindo folhetos e tudo o mais.Dessa forma talvez tenhamos resultados mais efetivos.Tudo o que passa só na TV, a população acostuma, e daí não dão bola pra isso, é como se fosse mais uma propaganda de liquidação de alguma loja de roupas ou ferramentas. Uma idéia que acho interessante, em se tratando de pintar os telhados das casas de branco, seria escolher ruas e sortear moradores que terão seus telhados pintados, e daí os escolhidos darão uma pequena colaboração para o gasto com a tinta. Temos que fazer essas idéias serem executadas de fato, temos que lutar contra o aquecimento global antes que seja tarde demais, porque nesse planeta, a natureza sempre vai conseguir se renovar, mas e a nossa espécie???
Hey Dumb@$$e$. In the winter less heat will be absorbed, thereby requiring you to run your heater more, thereby offsetting any benefit of this completely stupid idea.