White Paint Cuts Global Warming

By Staff

Friday, January 23, 2009, 11:20

A unique but simple method to reduce global warming is to paint the town white, according to geo-engineer, Hashem Akbarie from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, US.

"Turn enough of the world's black urban landscape white, and it would reflect enough sunlight to delay global warming, and grant us some precious breathing space in the global struggle to control carbon emissions," he said.

The idea is old as the white washed homes that scatter the scatter the hills of southern Europe and North Africa and now Akbari is ready to paint the world white.

The scientist want the major cities of the world to unite and replace the dark coloring used for the roof tops and roads to more light-reflecting colors. This appears to be simple yet effective method to fight against global warming.

Study has proved that white painted roof tops stay cool at summer, reducing heat accumulation and can also cut down on the air-conditioning utilization. Darker colors reflect 10-20 percent of the light, white light colors reflect nearly half.

"Roofs are going to have to be changed one by one and to make that effort at a very local level, we need to have an organization in place to make it happen," said Akbari.

Various groups in cities like Houston, Chicago and Salt Lake City, are on board with his plan, and he is promoting the idea to others. Akhbari is confident that his plan is more practice than other geo-engineering plans. The science behind this application is simple, that the reflected light is not a part of the Green house affect.

However, this plan does not, and does not address the other environmental issues like growing acidification of the oceans, caused as extra CO2 dissolves, but cooling and energy saving does form the main part of the plan.

"We can give the atmosphere time to breathe," he said. "I just don't see a downside to this idea. It benefits everybody and you don't have to have hard negotiations to make it happen," he added. He also stated that he does not intend to replace efforts to cut carbon emissions, but to work alongside them. AGENCIES