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2009-05-28 Home Front: Culture Wars
Obama's green guru calls for white roofs
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Posted by tu3031 2009-05-28 00:00|| || Front Page|| [4 views ]  Top
 File under: Egyptian Islamic Jihad 

#1 Remember back in the 70s when these same people wanted to spread coal dust over the polar ice caps to speed melting which would help us avoid the coming ice age?
Posted by AzCat 2009-05-28 01:40||   2009-05-28 01:40|| Front Page Top

#2 lightening roofs and roads in urban environments would offset the global warming effects of all the cars in the world for 11 years.

Given the infinitesimal percentage of the earth's surface covered by roads and roofs, I am...sceptical. Let's see the numbers, even just a back of the envelope calc.

On the other hand, this may be an admission that auto emissions have little or no impact on 'global warming'.
Posted by SteveS 2009-05-28 02:06||   2009-05-28 02:06|| Front Page Top

#3  Remember back in the 70s when these same people wanted to spread coal dust over the polar ice caps to speed melting which would help us avoid the coming ice age?

Anyone who might remember that died off in the world-wide overpopulation famines and resource shortages of the 80s. We've been doomed pretty much forever. Just ask Mr. Malthus!
Posted by SteveS 2009-05-28 02:16||   2009-05-28 02:16|| Front Page Top

#4 The white washers are coming! The white washers are coming! Sorry, I just couldn't contain myself. It would help me if the greens weren't so funny.
Posted by Richard of Oregon 2009-05-28 02:56||   2009-05-28 02:56|| Front Page Top

#5 Obama's green guru calls for white roofs.

Racist.
Posted by Excalibur 2009-05-28 04:54||   2009-05-28 04:54|| Front Page Top

#6 I don't want to sound like a rascist, but white roofs all look alike to me.
Posted by whatadeal 2009-05-28 06:10||   2009-05-28 06:10|| Front Page Top

#7 You can forget white roofs. Some Homeowners Associations have rules against roofs that are not approved colors. If white is not an approved color, the white roofs won't happen.
Of course, someone will probably come up with something showing that making white paint is environmentally unfriendly, as well.
Posted by Rambler in Virginia">Rambler in Virginia  2009-05-28 06:53||   2009-05-28 06:53|| Front Page Top

#8 I did the calculation a few years back and concluded painting roofs white would be more effective than Kyoto and save about a trillion dollars.

BTW, how reflective the roof surface is more important than the colour. A reflective grey is better than a matt white at keeping heat out.
Posted by Phil_B 2009-05-28 08:04||   2009-05-28 08:04|| Front Page Top

#9 Look, it's hard to find somebody less interested in greenwashing and ecological moral panics than yours truly, but I honestly can't see what's the harm in shifting over to white roofs. There may be a glare problem with brighter asphalt on roads, but who cares about rooftops? It can't hurt, and it ought to help with air conditioning in the summer. In northern cities, it wouldn't be a brilliant idea - heating in winter's a more important goal than cooling in summer - but a hell of a lot of energy's used in the global south on necessary air conditioning.

Anyways, this was a "right-wing" brain-bug from about six-seven months back. Jonah Goldberg and Glenn Reynolds were talking about it back then. It's a good thing when the green fanatics start taking relatively free-market, practical suggestions from the skeptic side of the aisle.
Posted by Mitch H.">Mitch H.  2009-05-28 08:04|| http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/]">[http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/]  2009-05-28 08:04|| Front Page Top

#10 I hope China will follow...

Foreign Policy, 0bama style.
Posted by Parabellum 2009-05-28 08:15|| http://sidemeat.wordpress.com/]">[http://sidemeat.wordpress.com/]  2009-05-28 08:15|| Front Page Top

#11 This was tried once before by the British and the Dutch as they tried to paint Africa white in the 1700-1900's. Someone from Kenya would know all about it.

Why waste paint most mobile homes are white already?
Posted by airandee 2009-05-28 08:24||   2009-05-28 08:24|| Front Page Top

#12 Paging Mr. Tom Sawyer to the 'white' courtesy phone.
Posted by Procopius2k 2009-05-28 08:29||   2009-05-28 08:29|| Front Page Top

#13 Kinda seems like an OK idea to me. I dreamed up with the same concept over 30 years ago, when I was a wee lad.

Black asphalt shingles in the summer = hellish hot.
Posted by Scooter McGruder 2009-05-28 08:32||   2009-05-28 08:32|| Front Page Top

#14 White paint uses an awful lot of titanium oxide.
Posted by Deacon Blues 2009-05-28 08:45||   2009-05-28 08:45|| Front Page Top

#15 more reflective surfaces cools the planet directly

reducing CO2 only cools the planet indirectly (and possibly does so only minimally)

and, except in very cool climates, more reflective roofs save the owner on heating and cooling

give Chu some credit here.
Posted by Lord garth 2009-05-28 10:27||   2009-05-28 10:27|| Front Page Top

#16 He's not completely nutso on this. My old house back in Phoenix has a white roof, and we pretty much only had white cars because it was a little easier on the a/c. Even the kiddies' school buses had white roofs on them, for exactly the same reason.

I don't think it will give the kind of savings back that he claims, though.
Posted by Cornsilk Blondie 2009-05-28 13:00||   2009-05-28 13:00|| Front Page Top

#17 When I first moved to the sunny South a few decades back, I painted my car roof white - don't know how much it helped. Now all the school buses around here have white roofs.
Posted by Glenmore 2009-05-28 13:34||   2009-05-28 13:34|| Front Page Top

#18 I thought I read somewhere that a glossy blue roof tile was the most energy efficient?
Posted by AllahHateMe 2009-05-28 14:10||   2009-05-28 14:10|| Front Page Top

#19 But what about folks (like me) who live in relatively cool or cold climates? The black asphalt roof on my home keeps it warm throughout the entire windswept, fog-bound year (think San Francisco in the summer). We don't even own a fan, much less an air conditioner. In addition, our house is well-insulated and our gas/electric bills are usually quite low. I'd match our "carbon signature" against anybody's. Seems to me that a white roof would negate many of these current advantages.
Posted by Gabby 2009-05-28 14:43||   2009-05-28 14:43|| Front Page Top

#20 That's not important, Gabby. What's important is that the lefties feel good about your roof.

**spit**
Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut  2009-05-28 15:21||   2009-05-28 15:21|| Front Page Top

#21 What are we gonna do about all the blinded pilots? Oh, that's right, "Universal Health Care"(tm) will take care of them.
As for those unpatriotic "housing associations", it'll depend if they're mostly Republican contributors then they'll just have to abide with official government policy. Now, Democrats will get special dispensation. Just like car dealerships.
Posted by AlmostAnonymous5839">AlmostAnonymous5839  2009-05-28 18:42||   2009-05-28 18:42|| Front Page Top

#22 Imma way ahead. I already gots a white roof. Neener-neener.
Posted by Deacon Blues">Deacon Blues  2009-05-28 19:07||   2009-05-28 19:07|| Front Page Top

#23 raaaaaccciissstt!
Posted by Frank G">Frank G  2009-05-28 19:17||   2009-05-28 19:17|| Front Page Top

#24 It really does make scientific sense to have white roofs. White reflects 90+% of the energy while black absorbs 90+%. White is much better than blue because it's reflection spectra is much wider. You want a roof that highly reflects sunlight to about 900 or 1100 nanometers. Anything more and the organic compounds in paint, dyes, whatever all look black in the infrared spectrum.

Solar spectra

That said, I just spent $12K for new dark roof shingles. There was no way a light color roof would match the brickwork, instead would produce an eyesore. Instead I went for a few more roof vents.
Posted by ed 2009-05-28 19:22||   2009-05-28 19:22|| Front Page Top

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