Fixing the world's albedo
Nope, not libido, albedo.
Specifically, whitening the worlds cities.
And before you start thinking crazy thoughts, no, this is not going to be about race either.
Albedo is the measure of light reflectiveness. The more light Earth reflects, the cooler we are (its why you put the shiny Garfield sunshade on the dash of your Buick).
And a new study shows that unless we all start buying Toyota Priusis, eating food from Whole Foods, and wearing Bono approved jeans, the world is going to end.
Err, no. Actually, the study showed that if you covered the roofs of all the buildings in the cities of the world (and the city streets), you would... well... they said it best:
"If all roofs were converted to white or cool colors, they would offset about 24 gigatons (24 billion metric tons) of CO2, but only once. But assuming roofs last about 20 years, the researchers came up with 1.2 gigatons per year. That equates to offsetting the emissions of roughly 300 million cars, all the cars in the world, for 20 years."
Hahhaha
I'm sorry, but that is freaking hilarious. We make such a big deal about cars, about "greener" cars, about spending gajillions of dollars on making and buying cars with 10 more MPG's or rare-earth battery packs and solar panels which light the built in halo, and it turns out that all you need to do to offset all of those cars for 20 years (20 years!!), is cover the roofs of the cities lighter colors. Not even white:
"Researchers used a conservative estimate of increased albedo, or solar reflection, suggesting that purely white roofs would be even better. They increased the albedo of all roofs by 0.25 and pavement by 0.15. That means a black roof, which has an albedo of zero, would only need to be replaced by a roof of a cooler color -- which might be more feasible to implement than a snowy white roof, Berkeley Lab says."
Freaking hilarious. I have always thought that human inginuity and engineering were the solutions to global warming - and that seeing the big picture does not mean buying organic chai tea after driving into town in your Prius. Stay home, and cover your roof in white plastic sheets, you mother-nature hater you.
I would like to take a moment to again point out that conflating global warming and saving the environment is a stupid thing to do. We are in the middle of one of the greatest mass extinctions of all time, and the issue is not global warming. It is deforestation, pollution (there is a lot of pollution other than CO2e gasses), and abusing the world's oceans.
The big picture folks, its out there, just open your damn eyes.
Specifically, whitening the worlds cities.
And before you start thinking crazy thoughts, no, this is not going to be about race either.
Albedo is the measure of light reflectiveness. The more light Earth reflects, the cooler we are (its why you put the shiny Garfield sunshade on the dash of your Buick).
And a new study shows that unless we all start buying Toyota Priusis, eating food from Whole Foods, and wearing Bono approved jeans, the world is going to end.
Err, no. Actually, the study showed that if you covered the roofs of all the buildings in the cities of the world (and the city streets), you would... well... they said it best:
"If all roofs were converted to white or cool colors, they would offset about 24 gigatons (24 billion metric tons) of CO2, but only once. But assuming roofs last about 20 years, the researchers came up with 1.2 gigatons per year. That equates to offsetting the emissions of roughly 300 million cars, all the cars in the world, for 20 years."
Hahhaha
I'm sorry, but that is freaking hilarious. We make such a big deal about cars, about "greener" cars, about spending gajillions of dollars on making and buying cars with 10 more MPG's or rare-earth battery packs and solar panels which light the built in halo, and it turns out that all you need to do to offset all of those cars for 20 years (20 years!!), is cover the roofs of the cities lighter colors. Not even white:
"Researchers used a conservative estimate of increased albedo, or solar reflection, suggesting that purely white roofs would be even better. They increased the albedo of all roofs by 0.25 and pavement by 0.15. That means a black roof, which has an albedo of zero, would only need to be replaced by a roof of a cooler color -- which might be more feasible to implement than a snowy white roof, Berkeley Lab says."
Freaking hilarious. I have always thought that human inginuity and engineering were the solutions to global warming - and that seeing the big picture does not mean buying organic chai tea after driving into town in your Prius. Stay home, and cover your roof in white plastic sheets, you mother-nature hater you.
I would like to take a moment to again point out that conflating global warming and saving the environment is a stupid thing to do. We are in the middle of one of the greatest mass extinctions of all time, and the issue is not global warming. It is deforestation, pollution (there is a lot of pollution other than CO2e gasses), and abusing the world's oceans.
The big picture folks, its out there, just open your damn eyes.
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