Last year, Cold Earthers reacted with huge laughs when Energy Secretary Steven Chu proposed a program of moving to light-colored roofs as a way to combat global warming. Chu’s idea was that roofs with light coloring would reflect more solar enery back into outer space instead of absorbing it, but the industry-aligned pundits who don’t believe global warming is real declared the proposal to be merely spacey.
A commenter at the Global Warming Hoax site called Chu’s roof proposal “rather silly”. “It’s ridiculous,” said Cold Earther Steven Milloy.
The Cold Earthers didn’t have any particular scientific research to back their disdain of Chu’s proposal. They just glanced at the idea and dismissed it as a matter of reflex. They used any argument they could think of, no matter how absurd, to argue against Chu’s idea. Milloy even suggested that reflecting some of the sun’s energy back away from the Earth could damage the sun. He asked, “What if we do this, and solar activity decreases?”
Climatologists, on the other hand, didn’t waste their time with idle speculation. They dedicated themselves to empirical study of the premises of Steven Chu’s suggestion. This week, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory released the results of its research of the concept. Their work found evidence that Chu was on the right track after all – that light colored roofs could result in a cooling effect on a global scale. The impact could be enough to negate two years of current carbon dioxide emissions.
Not only will light-colored roofs help fight global warming, but they also help keep your house cooler in the summer. I have a metal roof on my home that is much more reflective than the standard black shingle roof. Currently, in the intense heat of the South Carolina summer, my attic is much cooler (probably by at least 20 degrees) than it would be with a black shingle roof. This cuts my cooling bills dramatically. I’m saving energy and money. When you also consider that I will never have to replace my roof (unless it gets damaged during a hurricane), the money I’m saving by having invested in a more expensive roof is dramatic.
What fraction of the planets surface is covered by roofs? Remember only about 29% of it is covered by land and part of that is permanently covered by snow and ice. Have you never been burned by a metal object exposed to the sun?
This is a very interesting concept on how to prevent global warming. I never thought of roof colors as an impact. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I a going to post a reply on my blog about global warming on this.