June 14th, 2009
Going blond
Is white the new green? There’s a mini-engineering suggestion coming from some federal officials. Get a white roof. Save energy, reflect that pesky sunlight back into space. This is at the opposite end of the engineering spectrum from the mega-ideas about geoengineering. This homestyle, small scale change.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chus has been vocally pushing this idea for awhile now. Greek villages have long used white to reflect away some of that glaring Med sunlight. And India’s Taj Mahal? Very much tomorrow’s color scheme. Could this white-roofing be done on a global scale big enough to matter? That’s where mini-engineering would have to grow to become almost geoengeering in scale. They could start by white-washing all those stone buildings in D.C.
So does this mean somebody’s gonna declare all that white plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean is actually a good thing?
A newsman since 1969, Harry Fuller has worked for CBS, ABC, CNBC Europe, CNET and was founding news director at TechTV. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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