President Obama’s energy adviser has suggested all the world’s roofs should be painted white as part of efforts to slow global warming.
Professor Steven Chu, the US Energy Secretary, said the unusual proposal would mean homes in hot countries would save energy and money on air conditioning by deflecting the sun’s rays.
More pale surfaces could also slow global warming by reflecting heat into space rather than allowing it to be absorbed by dark surfaces where it is trapped by greenhouse gases and increases temperatures.
In a wide-ranging discussion at the three-day Nobel laureate Symposium in London, the Professor described climate change as a “crisis situation”, and called for a whole host of measures to be introduced, from promoting energy efficiency to renewable energy such as wind, wave and solar.
The Nobel Prize-winning physicist said the US was not considering any large scale “geo-engineering” projects where science is used to reverse global warming, but was in favour of “white roofs everywhere”.
Just the beginning…Dvorak lampoons Britain as facist…Pelosi wants everything in our lives inventoried.
Its time to restore Federalism…the fanatics will change America into a third rate tyranny of the Greens…where every step you take, every breath you make, will be taxed severely for its carbon impact.
Dallas do all of those things, and still you get no change in world temperatures, according to the models.
An 80% emissions reduction from the US, would only achieve a .4 degree drop in temperatures.
Also, for 2 of your 3 ideas, if electricity/gas cost per use go down, then you will use more.
#33 hale-bopp…careful with the science discussion, you made a fundamental (and rather common) mistake. IR radiation and IR light are two very different things, and widely separated on the electromagnetic spectrum. IR light, near IR, is just at the outskirts of visible light. It’s nothing special. Use any crappy CMOS or CCD camera to see it.
OTOH IR radiation, far IR, is the beast associated with radiant heat. It is not easily visible, you need a minimum $1k device to get thermal IR images.
#68 -
What does air pollution have to do with big cars? Different subject. Cars today are an order of magnitude cleaner that a generation ago. If you insist on changing the power source that’s fine as long as the requirements of life are met: Vehicles cannot get smaller or more expensive. Hell, that would allow more SUVs on the road which would be a good thing.
If the planet doesn’t have enough resources, then we have to expand into the whole solar system.
If the way to save humanity is smart cars, the humanity would be better off extinct because there is no meaning to a life lived in high density housing and driving smart cars. If humanity has no meaning then the universe has no meaning and must go away with humanity.
God drives a SUV.
80,
I don’t have a problem with encouraging people to not p1ss in their backyards. I do have issue with government slamming global warming alarmist chants down everyone’s throats and wanting everyone to conform before we really know what the causes are.
I’m not saying that there’s no impact or a positive impact. I’m asking are those billions of tons you speak of enough to make our atmosphere flinch with respect to what we’re producing or exhaling?
Rise in temperatures on other planets do not have to be “modeled”…. modeling tries to explain the “whys”. The rise in temperatures of other planets are simply historical data. What we can gleen from the global warming of other planets is that humans certainly were not the cause of it…. but yet it occurs. Coincidence? Or are we barking up the wrong tree?
Wait a minute, if you live in a temperate to cold climate, would you not loose the benefit of positive solar gain in heat during the day if you have a dark roof and increase you burning of fuel for heat?
#84 – Appropriately Named Toxic Asshead,
Do you really think you made any points with this? I think you made my points by showing how stupid your own are.
“God drives a [sic] SUV”??!!?
#83, Mr. Baggins,
Thank you for that post. This is science I learned last century and had totally forgotten.
#86, Alphalfa,
No. Read the article.
What percent of the earth surface is covered by roofs? Painting every roof white wouldn’t affect global warming at all. I don’t have air conditioning, but I do have a furnace. Painting my roof white would mean my house would be colder and I’d have to heat more.
What I don’t understand is why the “green” movement is out to get rid of CO2. Plants need CO2 for photosynthesis. If it weren’t for CO2 in the atmosphere, every plant on the planet would die. A study was done on soy beans where they found that soy bean production increased when CO2 levels were high. Lower the CO2 and we would have less food. Get CO2 to zero and we have zero food. I think a more accurate color would be brown because of all the dead plants from lack of CO2. CO2 is 0.054% of the atmosphere. It’s a very minor green house gas. Water vapor is 1% and is a major green house gas. No one is talking about pulling all the water out of the atmosphere though.
When nukes first came on the scene, scientists started talking about a “nuclear ice age” which would happen if a lot of nukes were used at once. If you want to cool the planet, set off a bunch of nukes, fill the atmosphere with dust, and all that dust will reflect heat out into space. We need to pollute more, not less, to cool the planet.
Guyver (#26) is right. In the 70s, scientists were worried about global cooling. There was a prediction that in 10 years or so (which would have been in the 80s), we would have ice from pole to pole and the planet would freeze up into a big snowball. When I hear all the doom and gloom on the news, I just laugh. If reporters said we were going through a warming trend but it’s nothing to worry about, no one would watch. If they say it’s a catastrophe and we’re all going to die, that gets people’s attention and the press gets more revenue. It’s all hype people!!! The IPCC is looking at computer models, not at real data. Computer models can prove anything you want them to prove. They are not accurate predictors of weather trends. There is too many variables.
By the way, last winter was unusually cold, wasn’t it? We had a lot of snow here. New Orleans even had snow. A year ago, Bagdad had snow. Is it really getting warmer?
bull shit
Ok, prove me wrong. I tried to post links to sites to illustrate my point but it was regarded as spam so I’ll give Google searches instead.
CO2 needed for plants:
search for “PHOTOSYNTHESIS CO2″ You will see that plants require CO2 to live.
Find a CO2 generator for greenhouses by searching for:
“greenhouse supplies CO2 generator”
Nuclear winter:
search for “nuclear winter”
Global cooling:
search for “Newsweek 1975 global cooling”
New Orleans snow:
search for “New Orleans snow”. It was a very unusual event.
Snow in Baghdad:
search for “First snow for 100 years falls on Baghdad”
On what point was I wrong?