Also, I agree that white roads would be a horrible idea for safety reasons. Roofs, yes — roads, no. Better to spend that money repairing our rail system and getting people off the roads altogether.

Frankly, it’s insane not to do put silver coating ( for ex.: http://www.gardner-gibson.com/linedetails.aspx?id=57) on flat roofs.

If you’ve ever see tar roofs bubble under heat, you’ll notice that after the bubbles rise, they pop. At that point the integrity of the roof is violated and its a matter of time.

Roofs are not cheap from an owner’s perspective. Silver coatings will prolong the life of the roof significantly. New roofs are not environmentally friendly either. This is a sensible idea from every perspective.

…. when I see this coming to every American city and town
south of the Mason Dixon Line. Until then, it’s just a convenient
crisis for advancing a political agenda. Even then, I’d like to see the
data. The real data — not showing that the clima…

Also, what Homer says is true everywhere. Black top roads are not actually black for their whole lifespan. Only at the beginning and then traffic wears off that top layer of asphalt. Overall they mirror more the color of the rock that makes it. Look at your local road, most likely it looks gray. Painting roads or any other costly additive will negate the whole point of asphalt surfacing (is this the real issue?, the evil oil usage?) in the first place and that is a cheap method of making an easily navigated surface.

Boghie and John are also correct in their assessment of the roofing area. Most areas of the world that would see actual benefits from this already employ it.

Want to do something smart? Educate, then let the free market take it’s course. And quit looking for practical solutions from an institutionalized jackass in an ivory tower that seems more keen on forcing others to do their will than actually helping people.

The March of Dimes was organized to find a solution to polio. When the solution was discovered and the threat of polio abates, the MOD didn’t declare victory and disband, it chose a new threat to campaign against being careful to choose one that could be solved by something as simple as developing a vaccine, birth defects. Thus newly repurposed, the MOD will always be with us, as will some sort of dire environmental catastrophe. Global Warming has already been changed to Global Climate Change and since that includes either warming or cooling, an easy solution has already been taken off the table, since nobody really knows how mankind causes or can undo it. They’re keeping it vague for a reason.

The assumption of the article is that reflective material and technology is not currently used. It is. I look out of my window in SoCal and note that the roofs are light colored and likely selected with their reflective properties in mind. Like John stated, you don’t have to be a Harvard PHD to want to stay cooler in the summer.

As far as a highly reflective surface (high glare) being used, think of the problems it will cause aircraft. Thus, even flat roofs should not use ‘mirrored’ surfaces.

A nice middle ground could be found - and, probably has in SoCal.

The simple fact is that sun;light is the arch enemy of most roofing materials, so coating the roof (large flat ones) wit reflective material is standard procedure to lengthen the life of the roof. Torch down rubberoid is now the most common flat roof material. Its fact sheet tells you clearly to coat it with aluminum roof coating on 5 year, or less, cycles. The hotter the clime the more often you coat.

Before rubberoid, the most common flat roof surface was built up roll roofing (essentially heavy tar paper). After that was applied, using tar, a thin layer of fine, bright, gravel would be applied, to a light tar surface for bonding, to reflect the sun and protect the roof. That is not as common today, as silver roof coating is cheaper and easier.

Roll roofing also comes coated, like standard roof shingles. The reason for that gravel like coating is to repel sun, Coated roll is usually used of low pitch surfaced.

As for more northern areas, the reflective coating is of little consequence for heat retention in the winter (for large flat roofs mentioned in the article). The simple fact is that a LARGE surface is exposed to the cold air, and buildings like big box stores, etc, don’t have that much, if any insulation in the roof. The foam that may or may not have been applied over the corrugated metal only has moderate R value.

For homes, insulation, with a proper vapor barrier, means a heck of lot more that the color of a roof.

This idea would hurt way less than strangling the few industries that know how to make money, but it wouldn’t ‘feel’ as green; Feeling green, feeling like you’re making a difference, is the whole point of all of this crap. Well that and terrorism against un-unionizable big business…

“Simple solutions aren’t good enough, because they don’t warrant sufficient interventions in each other’s affairs. It’s not the problem that matters, but the solution - only the right solution will do.”

Bingo! I think Kristo has nailed it. Global warming has become such a huge (and lucrative - e.g Al Gore), politicized ideological campaign that there is no tolerance by GW priesthood for rational discussion/dissent (see Koblog comment) or micro-solutions.

Improving rooftop reflectivity would not feed the priesthood. Cap’N Trade, however, will suck enough money to keep the ideological parasites well-fed for a while … until the host organism dies.

First, you quit drinking the Kool Aid.

Then you have to prove that a gas all living creatures breathe out and that plants require for them to live is bad.

Then you have to prove there is “Global Warming” in the first place.

Then you have to prove that such warming is bad.

Then you have to prove that whatever CO2 production human activity creates is even close to what active volcanoes and other natural processes generate.

Then you have to make up your mind: is it “Global Warming” or “Climate Change?”

Then you have to prove that the Earth’s climate is naturally static and any changes need to be addressed by painting things white.

This whole manufactured “crisis” is lunacy.

I noticed when I replaced my roof after the hurricanes a few years back, using very light gray, almost white, shingles, my AC bill dropped about 20% (the shingles which were replaced were medium gray, and had darkened with age). A friend in the roofing biz says he sees similar results from very light colored standing seam metal roofs, and my father never tired of recounting how much difference it made in the summer in our old Virginia farmhouse by painting the metal roof with highly reflective aluminum paint. It would seem that the greatest benefit from painting roofs white would come in a warmer climate - Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Arizona, southern California, etc. so why not start there?

And, if my experience is typical (I don’t know that it is), and there is a 15% - 20% savings possible from changing the roof color from gray to white, why haven’t business owners in the warm, sunny states already done it? Why do we need the brain dead idiots in government to facilitate such savings?

This actually represents a good market for offsets. Plant a forest? Why? Just go paint a parking lot!

In fact, if the stimulus or Obama’s civil corps went a-paintin’ without offering credits for sale, it’d be like burning an asset with no return.