Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
that the use of crops to produce renewable
biofuels could compete with land used for
the production of food. Indeed, this is a
serious ethical concern relevant to other
forms of biofuels as well.
surfaces would be high, but white surfaces
could easily be phased in over the next few
decades by incorporating them into new
structures rather than repainting all exist-
ing structures. Also, businesses and homes
could realize savings in air-conditioning
costs if they opted for a “cool roof ” when
repairing or replacing their roofs.
Another possibility, which is even cheap-
er and has the potential to cover a greater
area of the Earth's surface, is to plant re-
flective crops and grasses. Doing this would
require caution and could be detrimental to
plant and animal diversity if employed on
a large scale. Other ideas include covering
desert surfaces with a reflective surface,
which might be good for reflecting solar ra-
diation but certainly could not be good for
desert ecology. Another novel idea is cur-
rently being employed in the mountains of
Peru, where the inventor Eduardo Gold is
painting the top of a mountain peak white,
using a mixture of lime, industrial egg
white, and water in an effort to cool the lo-
cal environment and encourage the growth
of glaciers, which like most glaciers world-
wide are now in retreat.
The potential for cataclysmic climate
change has not escaped the attention of
Bill Gates, who reportedly has provided
$4.5 million to the researchers David Keith
and Ken Caldera, two of the biggest names
in climate research. The
Vancouver Sun
reports that $300,000 of Gates's money
has gone to fund research on another po-
tential solar radiation method of cooling
solar radiation Management
The other major geoengineering scheme
is solar radiation management, or making
the Earth reflect more of the sun's rays back
into space. The principal measures aim to
increase the Earth's albedo by either bright-
ening the surface or by increasing reflective
materials in the atmosphere.
steven chu's bright idea
Steven Chu, United States secretary of en-
ergy, has proposed painting roofs white and
creating white highways to reflect more of
the sun's radiation back to space. His com-
ments have sparked the “cool roof ” indus-
try, which promises not only to help com-
bat global warming but also to cut down
on energy use by keeping houses cooler in
the summer. White roofs do not heat up as
much as traditional darker roofs, and nu-
merous companies have saved money by
resurfacing their roofs in white material.
Of course, for there to be any significant
cooling effect, resurfacing would have to be
done on a grand scale. But Chu's proposal
at least represents a relatively simple way
to combat warming. The cost of repainting
