Turns out all we may need to stop climate change is 139 billion gallons of super-duper white paint::According to one professor, we may be able to stop climate change if we used a new super white paint to cover the entire United States

  • LemmyLefty@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I assume at least half of this needs to go down the throats of oil tycoons in order to have any real effect.

  • astropenguin5@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    according to this the total land area of built up human development and infrastructure is also around 1%, seems a hell of a lot easier to mandate every building have a white roof. Especially considering most buildings have black roofs, it will be even more of a difference. Also will reduce energy consumption from AC because, as said in the article buildings panted with it have reduced need for cooling.

    Roads could also maybe be painted or have a whiter material used, might make it harder to drive though

      • astropenguin5@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yep, that’s a great thing we need to be doing too. There is no silver bullet for climate change, we need to be doing everyb possible thing at once. Cutting all carbon output/using green energy, better agriculture and farming practices, etc.

    • Obi@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      Might not make it harder to drive per se but it would definitely mean I would need to wear sunglasses while driving at all times (during daylight).

      • astropenguin5@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah thats basically what I meant by harder to drive, definitely would have to wear sunglasses all the time in the day

    • Coolcoder360@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I think white roads could be a problem with snow, usually the only good way to find the road in a snowstorm is to look for the darkness, no darkness and you can’t tell the road from the ground covered in snow.

      • astropenguin5@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Oh yeah that’s a good point too. Probably not actually practical. Also the super special paint almost certainly would not take being driven on by thousands of vehicles very well.

    • PoliticalAgitator@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Even glossing over the more complex problems with the idea, sooner or later we’re going to run out of things to paint white.

      It’s another dead end idea thats being wheeled out by neoliberals so they can keep their snouts in the trough a little longer.

      • GreyBeard@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        There is no one solution to climate change, but requiring lighter roofs for all new builds/replacements would be a simple step to start with. It doesn’t just increase the amount of light reflected back out to space, but it also significantly reduces cooling requirements, meaning less power required during peak hours.

        When it comes time to change my roof, I will be considering lighter shades.

  • ghostBones@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Terrible article. It even leads with a photo to mock the idea.

    The benefits of painting a home’s roof with any white paint are enough to justify making it the standard. The article doesn’t even mention that the super white paint can reduce indoor temperature by 8 or more degrees. That’s a lot of energy not needed to cool the home. Even more effective is placing a second white roof above the roof on posts to shield it from solar heat. It would make sense to make a secondary roof solar panel ready. It would also extend the lifespan of the original roof.

    "The paint’s properties are almost superheroic. It can make surfaces as much as eight degrees Fahrenheit cooler than ambient air temperatures at midday, and up to 19 degrees cooler at night, reducing temperatures inside buildings and decreasing air-conditioning needs by as much as 40 percent.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/12/climate/white-paint-climate-cooling.html

    The article sounds like a hit job to ridicule a simple and effective idea.

  • _sideffect@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Reminds me of the Mr Bean episode where he wanted to paint his apartment white, but had no paintbrush, so he stuck a huge firecracker in the can of paint instead, lol

    • meeeeetch@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      As far as untested tech solutions to climate change go, I’ll gladly take artificial albedo over the “let’s blot out the sun” that they’ve been floating the last few years.

      • theneverfox@pawb.social
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        1 year ago

        Orbital mirrors. Artificial mangrove islands covering the southern Atlantic. Algae bioreactors in every commercial building.

        There’s lots of things to try, and… Ones a hell of a lot easier to throttle or reverse, and don’t involve making the air more toxic for humans by nature.

        Can we please start trying things, but not the one hard to stop where we purposely pollute the skies?

        • Shardikprime@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I mean you have people frothing from their mouths with indiscriminate hate against the booming space industry for maybe valid or not so valid reasons.

          If people really cared about the climate crisis, they be supporting this type of industry moving in a, maybe less than ideologically pure, but nonetheless positive direction instead of playing it down or mocking their spearheads.

          People will say that yes, they can complain and story at the same time but that’s the thing: if you truly and whole-wheat believe that we as a species don’t have much time on the climate clock, you should dedicate your effort en masse towards it. Because if you think it’s not worth it to go all in on it, then what was the worry in the first place?

          All in all, setting giant reflector mirrors in orbit, building them and controlling them would be a very fast way to benefit from that type of industry.

          If you need to build them, they need to be cheap. Sending mass from down here is costly but getting cheaper.

          Less expensive if we get to build it from orbit itself. Even more if we mine the materials from the moon surface.

          There is ways to ease out the energy requirements. There is thorium and hydrogen on the moon.

          Maybe after all it’s just a big virtue signaling campaign from people less than inclined to actually do something justifying themselves with the “I’m just one person, I can’t actually do anything about it” mentality.

          Or they just want us as a species to fail.

    • Peanut@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      i mean, what’s a more realistic solution? a small group that finds a high-tech development which can help us, or getting the majority of humanity to cooperate on what should be an obvious and necessary goal?

      my bet’s on the tech, at least with A.I. assisted research.

      something has eroded my optimism towards the reliable and cooperative nature of our species. if we’re putting our money on that, i consider us all doomed.

      • Wats0ns@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I don’t care about high tech solutions, because we already have the solutions.

        • transports: trains & cycles instead of Hyperloop or what not
        • Agriculture: biological agriculture combined with meat consumption reduction, instead of farming robots, lab grown meat and GMO crops …
      • Wats0ns@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I don’t care about high tech solutions, because we already have the solutions.

        • transports: trains & cycles instead of Hyperloop or what not
        • Agriculture: biological agriculture combined with meat consumption reduction, instead of farming robots, lab grown meat and GMO crops …
  • fraydabson@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    I’d much prefer a giant mirror in the sky. Not like anything can go wrong with that.

  • Candelestine@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Considering the recent advance in transmitting power from orbit to the surface in the form of microwaves, if I remember right, I think it’d frankly make more sense to set up an adjustable solar shade that would turn some of the sunlight into electricity up there. This could then be directed elsewhere and used.

    Venetian blinds for the Earth, basically. Except solar paneled.

    Until then, carbon capture is likely a better idea than painting things white. Hell, cloud seeding would be a better idea than painting things white.

    • MowFord@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      IIRC that was one of the catastrophic events in sim city. Microwave power plant had a chance for the angle to get messed up and essentially laser tornado lines of your city