Kyoto II? Fuggedaboutit.

Posted By Elizabeth Dickinson Friday, September 12, 2008 - 11:14 AM Share

Stop the climate negotiations. There's a better answer. Two words: white roofs.

If stats from a paper by Hashem Akbari of the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory are correct, re-roofing 100 global cities could stop 44 metric gigatons from entering the atmosphere -- more than all the countries in the world combined emit now.

A white-out never looked so cool.

EXPLORE:ENVIRONMENT

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TEODORO

10:21 AM ET

September 12, 2008

Landfill Cost

I love scholar's solutions: they are so simple, and yet utterly devoid of connection to reality. There are so many questions that this solution raises, so I'll just ask one.

What do we do with the full landfills once all these roofs have been replaced? And what kind of CO2 omissions does the increased landfill size generate.

Ok, that was a two-part question.

DRAKE

10:40 AM ET

September 12, 2008

North

While I like the idea, you can see that researcher stick to their number. If you want a white roof in northen countries, you're going to have tons of fun in winter ( first by having to remove all the snow that will add faster and then by reducing the amout of sun heat transmited to the house (I’m not sure about the real impact of the later) )

The study as forgot that the weather tend to be different in other part of the world ( I use way more heating than A/C) It’s the same reason solar energy is not viable in most part of the world, unless combined with a secondary energy source.

It’s a nice idea. Now, take a shovel and go remove the snow in my driveway

ZUMBI

11:19 AM ET

September 12, 2008

Somehow I wonder if all the

Somehow I wonder if all the world's climate scientists overlooked this variable.

JGARZIK

12:23 PM ET

September 12, 2008

Urban heat island

I don't know about scientists, but the Urban heat island effect is often overlooked in media reporting on the climate.

Jeff @ Armchair FP

NONSERVIAM

6:04 PM ET

September 12, 2008

Wait, if 44 metric gigatons

Wait, if 44 metric gigatons is more than all the countries in the world currently emit combined, then how is it logically possible to stop that much from being emitted?

PHILLIP HUGGAN

1:35 AM ET

September 13, 2008

a good idea, maybe already factored by IPCC

These sorts of albedo shifts aren't as effective as direct GHG removal, but probably pretty close. I don't think the downsides (alters rains) of radical plans like orbital shades would be likely. For instance, a radical strategy a world experiencing runaway warming might consider is gentically engineering white weeds/trees with terminator genes or GE-ing white crop pigments even now. Seed companies (primarily American) may need tax incentives for this. A terminator gene that kicked in after a few generations could mean fast spread but no ecological collapse concerns assuming no mutation.

White roofs are probably the types of investments that repay themselves in 3.5 years: http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/environment/climate-summit/2007/clinton-16052007-factsheet.jsp
Much like double-paned windows, building insulation. The figures given are 100ft^2 of white roof "offsets" a tonne of CO2e. So a 1000ft^2 white roof is about $250 of emissions credits assuming $25/tonne. Pavement paint would wear; need new whiter pavement R+Ded. I guess the idea would be to have shingles be coated with white painted grit?
As for cost-effectiveness, painting is expensive. This is a quote that is tough to google as contractors keep secrets, but I'd guess painting a 1000ft^2 roof costs a couple thousands $$.
So, just like carbon pricing, and soon to be CO2e equated soot pricing, there could be some sort of albedo pricing market, introduced by federal policymakers not going down on big oil? I guess the idea would be to tax-shift an incentive for white roofs and mildly penalize darker ones. GWB introduced cosmetic changes to the DOE's incentives for new windows and stuff. These should be bolstered by Obama. In Canada the PM is running on an election platform of diesel tax breaks, jet fuel tax breaks, oil industry tax breaks...get ready to slap tarriffs on our exports if the USA geopolitical goal ever becomes homeland security.

ECOTRETAS

11:18 AM ET

September 14, 2008

Known for centuries...

It used to be a tradition in the most hottest parts of Portugal to paint the houses with white lime. Two ideas rise to my mind: they were pretty smart, and when they stopped doing that, worldwide temperatures started going up ;-)

Ecotretas
http://ecotretas.blogspot.com

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