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France Decrees New Rooftops Must Be Covered In Plants Or Solar Panels

An anonymous reader writes: A law approved in France Thursday now requires all new rooftops in commercial zones to be covered in plants or solar panels. "Green roofs have an isolating effect, helping reduce the amount of energy needed to heat a building in winter and cool it in summer. They also retain rainwater, thus helping reduce problems with runoff, while favoring biodiversity and giving birds a place to nest in the urban jungle, ecologists say." The law was actually watered down from its original version — businesses only have to cover part of their roof. In other solar power news, reader SpzToid notes that despite earlier worries, the European power grid handled the solar eclipse just fine

3 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. Part of their roof? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It better be a minimum percentage of the roof otherwise the law will be useless.

  2. Re:Pointing out the stark, bleeding obvious... by MickyTheIdiot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This remind me of "sun sets, wind dies" billboards that get placed in coal mining towns. Only affective if you choose not believe in things like batteries and/or you have pushed the argument to full false dilemma status.

  3. Re:Decrees everywhere by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sure are a lot of decrees coming from our masters who know what's best for us. Solar panels from the French. Regulated bullets, fracking, coal, networking, and healthcare policies here in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.

    You're right. Companies should be able to polute the rivers, pump toxins in the soil, everyone should have 50 cal machine gun nests with armor piercing bullets, coal plants should spew as much sulphur as they want, and we should let people die in the street if they can't pay for healthcare.

    Hyperbole is fun!

    I'll explain it to you, and I'll use small words: We all have to live together on the same planet. So people (and companies) are not allowed to do things to hurt other people. We can disagree about where to draw the line, but some of the examples you gave were stupid.