Wolverine
Uncanny Pompadour
Setting aside for a moment the diversally-insensitive argument that white roads are somehow superior to black roads (a position I will boldly declare the majority of Americans do not ascribe to), I would like to propose that the Energy Secretary is perhaps a moron.
[SIZE=12pt]Energy Secretary's White-Paint Proposal Puzzles Climate-Change Experts[/SIZE]
Energy Secretary Steven Chu stunned the audience at a London scientific conference Tuesday with a radical but simple proposal to combat global warming: Paint all the roofs of all the buildings in the world white.
If we did so, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist said, and if we also made sure the world's roads and sidewalks were light-colored, it would have the same effect on global warming as taking all the cars in the world off the world's roads for 11 years.
But at least one science expert thinks Chu is nuts.
"It's past simplistic -- it's ridiculous," says Steven Milloy, publisher of junkscience.com and an avowed climate-change skeptic.
But Dr. Gordon Bonan, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., says there's a kernel of truth in the science behind Chu's idea.
"That's been a pretty standard idea many for many years now," says Bonan. "It's related to the idea of an urban heat island -- that a big city will generate a large amount of heat. In urban planning and urban design, the idea is that painting roofs white will absorb less solar radiation and keep the city cooler."
"You could try to extend this idea to the entire planet, but I've never seen any numbers on how much impact this would have on the Earth's surface temperature," says Bonan. "The urban [surface] area of the world is pretty small.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,522411...test=latestnews
Better yet, let's put MIRRORS on all the roofs and roads - that will reflect the heat.
[SIZE=12pt]Energy Secretary's White-Paint Proposal Puzzles Climate-Change Experts[/SIZE]
Energy Secretary Steven Chu stunned the audience at a London scientific conference Tuesday with a radical but simple proposal to combat global warming: Paint all the roofs of all the buildings in the world white.
If we did so, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist said, and if we also made sure the world's roads and sidewalks were light-colored, it would have the same effect on global warming as taking all the cars in the world off the world's roads for 11 years.
But at least one science expert thinks Chu is nuts.
"It's past simplistic -- it's ridiculous," says Steven Milloy, publisher of junkscience.com and an avowed climate-change skeptic.
But Dr. Gordon Bonan, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., says there's a kernel of truth in the science behind Chu's idea.
"That's been a pretty standard idea many for many years now," says Bonan. "It's related to the idea of an urban heat island -- that a big city will generate a large amount of heat. In urban planning and urban design, the idea is that painting roofs white will absorb less solar radiation and keep the city cooler."
"You could try to extend this idea to the entire planet, but I've never seen any numbers on how much impact this would have on the Earth's surface temperature," says Bonan. "The urban [surface] area of the world is pretty small.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,522411...test=latestnews
Better yet, let's put MIRRORS on all the roofs and roads - that will reflect the heat.
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