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Painting The World's Roofs White Could Slow Climate Change
Hugh Pickens writes "Dr. Steven Chu, the Nobel prize-winning physicist appointed by President Obama as Energy Secretary, wants to paint the world white. Chu said at the opening of the St James's Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium that by lightening paved surfaces and roofs to the color of cement, it would be possible to cut carbon emissions by as much as taking all the world's cars off the roads for 11 years. Pale surfaces reflect up to 80 percent of the sunlight that falls on them, compared with about 20 percent for dark ones, which is why roofs and walls in hot countries are often whitewashed." (Continues, below.)
"An increase in pale surfaces would help to contain climate change both by reflecting more solar radiation into space and by reducing the amount of energy needed to keep buildings cool by air-conditioning. Since 2005 California has required all flat roofs on commercial buildings to be white and Georgia and Florida give incentives to owners who install white or light-colored roofs. Put another way, boosting how much urban rooftops reflect would be a one-time carbon-offset equivalent to preventing 44 billion tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere. 'For the first time, we're equating the value of reflective roof surfaces and CO2 reduction,' says Dr. Hashem Akbari. 'This does not make the problem of global warming go away. But we can buy ourselves some time.'"
Maybe we could selctively paint them to form graffiti. That would at least make global warming more entertaining on Google Maps. You could use multiple roofs to form dot matrix ASCII characters, then at a larger scale use those ASCII characters to form nudes. The first pr0n visible from space! Finally, a welcome that would truly impress aliens!
Beavis and Butthead creator has a new show airing on ABC. It should be funny.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
how about white clothes, and white wings attached to our backs and little golden rings on the head, wait a minute.
-- It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -- Aristotle
...which begs the question...
No, I'm afraid it really does no such thing...
Sorry about that. I actually know the difference, but I still say the wrong thing sometimes. I don't do a lot of work with concrete, but for things like setting fence posts. I've only fixed decorative/privacy fence for friends for a while, but when there's a gate, it helps that the fence doesn't move. Here in Florida, we have very soft sandy soil, so things move without reinforcement. When I set up for 8 55 gallon rain barrels, the footing had to be firm on the structure.
I wasn't aware that all cement was exothermic. I just knew about quick dry. 1.5 tons falling can tend to hurt someone.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
ad logicam: Claiming an advertisement is false because it was presented using a webcam.
Fixed it for you.
Maybe he's not racist... but I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference.
http://newsone.blackplanet.com/obama/top-10-racist-limbaugh-quotes/
You can't spout comments like this without people getting the impression that you're a pretty racist guy. If a friend of yours introduced me to you, and I said some of these things... you'd probably think I was a pretty racist guy. I could say "But I've interviewed a black guy and let a black guy host my show" but your fist impression of me will probably stand. Rush can talk to a few black people all he wants, but saying comments like these, playing songs like "Barack the Magic Negro"... it's pretty easy to see why so many view him as racist