Sunday, January 4, 2009

Urban Heat Island Mitigation: Go to Green

Filed under: Climate Change | Environment — by Will Kirkland @ 7:37 pm

From Climate Progress (always worth looking at) comes another idea for the Obama green global stimulus program.

Part 1: What is geo-engineering and adaptation and CO2 mitigation all in one?

What wildly underfunded climate solution can achieve all of these goals simultaneously:

* Slow global warming by increasing the reflectivity of the Earth (geo-engineering)
* Reduce local temperatures in the hottest cities (adaptation)
* Reduce fossil CO2 emissions (mitigation)
* Save U.S. consumers and businesses billions of dollars in energy costs
* DReduce urban smog and hence cardio-pulmonary disease
* Create more than 100,000 jobs in two years?

The answer is a major effort to make roofs (and pavements) whiter and/or more reflective, which should be coupled with a major urban tree-planting effort. This “urban heat island mitigation” (UHIM) may well be the single most cost-effective energy and climate strategy.

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Words for Acts

Perhaps an honest world will never exist. But what's to keep us from dreaming? If each one of us tries to change, maybe we'll succeed.

Rita Atria -- The Sicilian Rebel



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