An inexpensive way to stave off global warming?

How white roofs could have a green impact

David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post
Sunday, June 14, 2009

Could climate change be staved off by making the United States look like the set of "Mamma Mia!"?

That was suggested in a recent talk by Energy Secretary Steven Chu -- although, because he was speaking to Nobel laureates, he did not mention the ABBA musical set in the Greek Islands. He said that global warming could be slowed by a low-tech idea that has nothing to do with coal plants or solar panels: white roofs.

Making roofs white "changes the reflectivity ... of the Earth, so the sunlight comes in, it's reflected back into space," Chu said. "This is something very simple that we can do immediately," he said later.

Chu has brought increased attention to an idea that -- depending on your perspective -- is either fairly new, or as old as Mediterranean villages, desert robes and Colonel Sanders' summer suit. Climate scientists say that the reflective properties of the color white, if applied on enough of the world's rooftops, might actually be a brake on global warming.

(More here. Related articles: "How white roofs shine bright green" (CS Monitor), "Obama's climate guru: Paint your roof white!" (The Independent, UK), "Obama's green guru calls for white roofs" (The Telegraph, UK), "Steven Chu: White Roofs to Fight Global Warming" (Wall Street Journal.)