Paint flat roofs white to save energy

http://green.yahoo.com/news/afp/20090526/sc_afp/climatewarmingusbritainchu.html



With the melting of not only the North pole by 2013 but the melting of most or all glaciers on earth by the same time more white reflective surfaces are needed to reflect the suns heating rays back up into space like ice and glaciers do. So U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu spoke of painting flats roofs white and finding ways to make the world's highways lighter more reflective colors to reflect back the suns heat and thereby reduce Global warming.

When we lose all or most ice from earth during late summers and early fall in the northern hemisphere one of the ways to replace the reflective quality of white ice glaciers and icebergs is to paint flat roof white and to make new roads lighter colors.

However, this might be counterproductive during the winter months during snowy icy times. During these times the black asphalt surfaces help to melt snow and ice and to store heat from any sun that hits them.

Energy Secretary Stephen Chu says:
Begin quote.""The industrial revolution was a revolution in the use of energy. It offloaded from human and animal power into using fossil fuels.

"We have to go to a different new revolution that can severely decrease the amount of carbon emissions in the generation of energy." end quote


So there are both active and passive ways to do this. The active ways I can think of are for example, solar cell arrays and wind and wave and geothermal generation of electrical power. And now, the passive ways of reducing earth heating up is to reflect back into space the suns heat using lighter colored highways worldwide and finding ways to make flat roofs be white or lighter colored or even reflective of the suns rays.