Our paper is looking down the barrel of a strike.
What’s the secret of comedy, as the old joke goes? Timing. The funny part comes when you say “timing” before the other person gets a chance to answer the question, thereby you have no concept of the secret of comedy at all. Yet the horrible timing is funny in itself, like a comet hitting a planet just as it starts an intercontinental thermonuclear war. Jeff Jarvis, declaiming from the Throne of Googlympus, said today we should use the chance to bust the contracts, kill print and go digital. (It’s like my novel is writing itself in my daily actual life.) Perhaps, but in a town that has another newspaper, I prefer to wave to the door and say “you first.”
Stay tuned.
Did you know the Chinese character for “Crisis” is the same as the one for “Opportunity?” Also the same as the one for “rammed up the fundament with a 36-spiked hot pole dipped in lemon juice and battery acid.” True.
So get this. The story of The Kind Shadow, discussed here yesterday, was sent back by the teacher with request for more detail. She had to make the story longer. It’s about a girl who falls out a window, is caught by a Shadow, taken through a dark forest to a castle, where he plies her with treats before attempting to steal her soul. Since we needed more, we had a story conference over dinner. I just asked questions. So: what more do you want to add?
The shadow is really a prince who’s had a spell cast on him.
Why does he take the girl?
To help him break free of the spell. She has to kill the witch who cast the spell.
How does he tell her this? He’s a shadow.
(I thought: he has a magic mirror that shows his true self when others look into it.)
(Pause)
He has a mirror, and when she looks in it she sees him as he is in reality!
(Oy.)
Why does he send her to kill the witch? Why doesn’t he do it?
She is the Chosen One with a pure heart.
So how does she do it?
With a magic sword only she can use.
Sorry, the witch will see her coming a mile away. Witch is sitting on the porch, kid walks up with a sword, witch knows something is up.
She brings . . .a guillotine.
A guillotine?
Well I was going to put it in the story but I couldn’t spell it.
Okay, I don’t think we’re going to have a Chosen One with a pure heart dragging a guillotine through the forest. Try again.
She has . . . Candy! But it’s poison. She says it’s from the witch’s demon friend.
Interesting. And what if the witch is suspicious and asks what the demon’s name is?
It’s Bob.
(Sudden shuddery Fear of Bob)
No, not Bob. What else?
Cornelius.
Okay, Cornelius. How does Ella know the demon’s name?
Because it’s the Shadow’s brother. He went to the dark side and made the witch curse his brother.
Why didn’t he do it himself?
Because there was still some good in him, and he still loved his brother. He gives the Shadow the poison candy.
And that was it. I just took a look at what she’d written – and TELL NO ONE, since she’ll be peeved if she knows.
While she was eating, the Shadow came over with a coral decorated mirror. What? A mirror? Ella thought. The shadow set it down and stared deep into it. Ella gasped. The reflection – it wasn’t a shadow at all. It was a prince! His suit was pure white and his cuffs were sun-gold. His eyes were leaf green and his hair was as brown as soil.
Superstition, feudal class systems – man, I thought we’d left this stuff behind years ago. 
Maybe not. I enjoyed this story: maybe we should paint all our roofs white to forestall the inevitable climate catastrophe. And oil up the barn doors, while we’re at it.
I’d be curious to see what percentage of the United States consists of roofs. I think it’s rather small. But it’s an interesting idea, inasmuch as it isn’t going to happen, but will be talked about in serious tones. These things invariably lead to excitable public servants coming back – via jet, of course – from a really exciting convention where there was just a lot of positive energy about change, and then the officials commission a White Roof Study, which leads to someone commissioning a White Roof Commission, which leads to outreach, consciousness raising, and a total of 145 white roofs in town – and this leads to a newspaper story about the Growing Trend towards white roofs. A few city buildings are painted; the mayor is on hand for each. They look filthy after six months. One day in July passersby are treated to the site of city workers hosing down the roof in the middle of a drought.
Reminded me of this story from Blighty. It helps if you imagine John Cleese delivering the news, and Jim Royle shouting BURPING SHEEP MY AHSS at the telly:
Government advisers are developing menus to combat climate change by cutting out “high carbon” food such as meat from sheep, whose burping poses a serious threat to the environment.
Excuse me: burping sheep are the environment. Burping sheep are natural. Ah, but we raise too many to eat, so they’re not natural. But it would be natural, I guess, if there was a parasite that flourished at the expense of sheep’s predators, leading to a temporary increase in gross sheepage until the situation rebalanced. But everything that rebalances the old unbalances the new. There is no balance in the long run. Balance is an illusion you get when you don’t live to an age of 125 million years.
Once again I say: any planet whose ecosystem can be wrecked by burping sheep deserves it. Darwin on a galactic scale. Man up, Mother Earth. But the article raises some other foes:
Out will go kebabs, greenhouse tomatoes and alcohol. Instead, diners will be encouraged to consume more potatoes and seasonal vegetables, as well as pork and chicken, which generate fewer carbon emissions.
Well, I like chicken, and I don’t care much for lamb, so HOLD ON A MINUTE, ALCOHOL?
Alcoholic drinks are another significant contributory factor, with the growing and processing of crops such as hops and malt into beer and whisky helping to generate 1.5% of the nation’s greenhouse gases.
China will vomit out in perpetuity enough greenhouse gases to make a Venusian suspect he’s having an asthma attack, and wee Britain will be filled with nothing more than small pale people sitting in shabby rooms having a wee dram with the shades down, lest the neighbor’s Karbon Kid Patrol Member does a spot-check of the bins for whiskey bottles. You get one per year. It’s registered to you, so don’t think you can break it and hide the pieces. Each bottle has a unique signature in the glass, tied to your carbon account.
(Yes, I know, reducto ad ridiculouso – but the people who roll their eyes when I tease them with these scenarios usually turn out to be the ones who think there should be carbon accounts. But somehow it’s paranoid to take them at their word.)
More:
The Carbon Trust, a government-funded firm, is working with food and drink companies to calculate the “carbon footprints” of products – sometimes with surprising results.
Sorry, but after reading “The Carbon Trust, a government-funded firm,” nothing will surprise me.
Today: Lance Lawson over at buzz.mn, and if all goes well, Black and White World will make a late appearance. As I said, everything’s delayed this week. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a column to write. See you soon.
Pass it along, if you wish
79 Responses to Thursday, May 28
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When I first read about 20% of the earth is roofs, I kept thinking only 20% of the population had a roof over their head, so everyone else lives in the open? Then i realized earth’s surface that was being talked about. My meds are as little too effective today.
We need to nuke the Sun.
Let’s see now. We need to paint all roofs to 1. Bounce the sun’s rays back into space. Oops They are already under the greenhouse gasses so they would actually be trapped by said gasses and make things worse. That is if the roofs could somehow be kept perfectly perpendicular to the suns rays so that the rays were bounced upward. Fail ! 2. White roofs will reduce the energy required to cool the buildings during hot weather. Oops It takes more energy to heat buildings in cold weather than it does to cool them in hot weather. Proper insulation reduces energy consumption both in hot or cold conditions. Fail ! In some instances having all roofs a light color will reduce the ambient temperature of the area. Such as in heavily built up areas. IE large cities or industrial areas. Just more Moon Battery from our elite socialist betters. Obama Knows
Why the sudden need for ‘smilies’? It’s so incongruous.
Are sheep really a major food source? I mean, lamb now and again, but I can’t recall ever eating an actual adult sheep. Plus, while I don’t think sheep are a major source of food (at least in the US) they are a major source of renewable clothing material (wool) however, so less sheep means more goats, or more cotton cultivation, which requires more water usage, pesticides, fertilizer, and of course more gas for tractors and harvesters. So really, less sheep really doesn’t help the environment.
“Did you know the Chinese character for ‘Crisis’ is the same as the one for ‘Opportunity?’”
If you’re Homer Simpson, that’s a “crisitunity!”
Officials of “The Carbon Trust, a Government-funded Company”, Government Officials, and Inner Party Members are doubleplusexempt from these regulations, of course.
“We don’t watch our Carbon Footprint! Only the Little People watch their Carbon Footprint!”
– Leona Helmsley
P.S. I live in a hot climate, and light-colored roofs DO make sense. During the summers we get, you want to bounce as much as possible of the sun heat BEFORE it gets inside — light-colored roofs, shadecloth awnings, window film, etc. Reduces your A/C load a bit.
Roofs globaly are a very small percetage of total area so it would do almost nothing. But since the earth is actually cooling right now they can say it worked. — Wisconsinite
The Party Is Never Wrong.
The Party Can Never Be Wrong.
Ees Party Line, Comrade.
Can I say how happy I am that the heroine in your daughter’s story is named Ella? I’ve always been fond of my name. Glad it’s getting some love.
Sorry to intrude with…you know…facts and stuff. Is the reality-based community welcome here?
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/environmentandenergy/archive/2009/05/27/bust-out-the-white-paint.aspx
What the hey. Snark trumps science for some people I guess.
Steven Chu won the Nobel for physics, and the white roofs idea is the sort of thing a physicist thinks of. The Earth’s average temperature has to do with how much radiation it absorbs from the sun. Putting carbon dioxide in the air increases the absorption, and painting roofs white would lower it, because the Earth would be a little more reflective. There is a very simple equation that describes this (the Stefan-Boltzmann law) and it applies to anything that receives and emits radiation, it’s not a complicated climate model. Depending on where you are on the reflectivity-temperature curve, you could change temperature a lot, or a little, by a small change like painting roofs white (reflectivity is proportional to the 4th power of temperature).
It’s kind of like saying that if you add more cream to coffee the coffee gets more white. But for a long time the cream is going to swirl around in the coffee–and this is like what climate modellers are trying to calculate, and this is why they need the complicated models. But nobody needs a complicated model to tell them that EVENTUALLY you will have a uniform cafe-au-lait color that depends on how much cream you put in.
So you steered her away from a demon’s name with solid “literary” underpinnings (Twin Peaks: Bob) to the name of the rebellious “monkey” in Planet of the Apes? Or maybe you guys just really hate the Vanderbilts. Either way, kind of a letdown.
I am for placing a fart limit on vegans. Instead of giving the “carbon credit” money to Al Gore (so he can jet around in his private plane – hypocrite), we can fund a study to produce “low methane” veggies!
I love it when you go off on the idiotocracy.
[...] read the whole thing. It’s masterful. And, of course, right. [...]
If there’s a more tiresomely self-flattering term than “reality-based,” I’m sure we’ll hear it eventually – but yes, differing opinions are always welcome. As for snark trumping science – the article says “To give an easy example, just refitting the 30 billion or so square feet of commercial roof space in the United States would be the equivalent of taking roughly 75 million cars off the road for a year.”
I’m sure there’s actual science behind that assertion, but would it be science-trumping unreality to ask for the particulars? (IF anyone’s interested, the paper is here.) The linked article – another Vine entry, but nevermind – says:
“As Hashem Akbari at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimated last year, if we took all the roofs and pavement in the world’s large urban areas, and either painted them white or replaced the black asphalt with brighter material, thereby increasing their solar reflectivity, the global cooling effect alone would be enough to offset 44 metric gigatons of carbon-dioxide.”
Not 43? Not 45? “Brighter” material results in exactly 44 metric gigatons of offset? How “bright” does it have to be to hit 44 gigatons – or would somewhat duller material only offset 40.09254 gigatons? S Even if that’s so, is it . . . annually? Every ten years? Every century? I’m sure there’s an answer, but if you’re gong to offer facts ‘n’ stuff, it would be helpful to have details.
I don’t mean to dismiss it all out of hand, but your “facts and stuff” seem shy on the former and heavy on the latter. The TNR article, by the way, says the offset would be “roughly equivalent to taking all the world’s cars off the road for eleven years.” This article says it would be “equivalent to taking the world’s approximately 600 million cars off the road for 18 years.” Perhaps that’s a different, all-white approach that doesn’t use dimmer asphalt.
Mr. Akbari appears to make his living from cool-roof advocacy, and that’s fine; good for him. Is anyone allowed to wonder whether his science is influenced by money? I’d say “that’s a silly question,” but that might sound like snark. And stuff.
Is the reality-based community welcome here?
This is the reality-based community.
Sorry to intrude with…you know…facts and stuff.
Well shoot, if an assistant editor at The New Republic says it’s true, that’s the end of the debate.
This may be a dead thread, and Lileks’ final summary was pretty definitive, but it continues to raise questions in my mind. What are the environmental impacts of that much paint? What kind of paint will actually last on rooftops? I’m guessing Sherwin-Williams white latex is not up to it. And what lighter materials can replace asphalt roads? The only one I know of in broad use is concrete – which has big maintenance costs in northern states with freezing, especially with heavy truck use. Also “lighter materials” is a cheat – all the estimates of wonderful impacts are based on an albedo obtained from white surfaces. As far as I know, an actual white pavement is entirely impractical (“unreality-based”).
Just how much would all this cost, and how could it possibly be coordinated? Inquiring minds want to know. In the meantime, if you want to paint your own roof white, good for you. Solutions which require “All the in the country(world)” to do this or that are generally not realistic.
Hmm – edited out my brackets. Solutions which require “All the [fill in the blank] in the country(world)” to do this or that are generally not realistic.
hpoulter – Well put.
Usually it’s the solutions that require that all the US citizens that are put forth. Since we’re apparently the font of all environmental evil in the world.
I must reject the premise that global climate change (formerly called global warming, formerly called global cooling) is significantly influenced by mankind. There is enough anecdotal evidence in addition to many qualified scientists disputing it that makes it at least necessary to continue research in the scientific arena and the debate in the political arena before people like Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi start to dictate policies that force everyone not part of the political class to lower their standard of living. And these are policies which will undoubtedly have unintended consequences and dubious benefits.
I think the maxim “When you are unsure do what to do, do nothing” applies here.
Sorry to intrude with…you know…facts and stuff. Is the reality-based community welcome here?
followed with a weak cite and then immediately by
What the hey. Snark trumps science for some people I guess.
Ahh, the irony.
Irritable Bear is now gonna go fart in the woods before the environmentalists notice and pass a law restricting bear farting.
My guess is that the calculation of the benefit of white roofs incorporates the energy savings coming from having to run the air conditioners less. As someone else mentioned, the benefit only accrues in hot, sunny climates. Still sounds really ugly, expensive, and impractical, however.
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[...] the correct link, for those who were scratching their [...]
My guess is that the calculation of the benefit of white roofs incorporates the energy savings coming from having to run the air conditioners less.
No, the benefit comes from increasing the reflectivity of the entire planet. It has nothing to do with local climate or whether you run air conditioning. If the Earth is a little more reflective because some parts of are painted white, less solar radiation is absorbed and the average temperature eventually drops somewhat. Since putting CO2 in the air increases absorbed sunlight, white roofs offset that somewhat. Because reflectance goes as the fourth power of temperature it can be a surprisingly large offset.
Exactly what, as James Lileks points out, is hard to say. But journalists (not meaning James) seem never to have heard of the concept of error bars, and so when a journalist says “44 megatons” you don’t know if the number was quoted was really 44 +/- 10 or 44 +/ 1 or what.
I have seen newspaper articles that say things like “The proposed road will be about 1 kilometer (1.609344 miles)’, which is absurd. The “1 kilometer” is an estimate, it wasn’t measured to the thousandth of a millimeter.
Anyway, if you are interested, the equation is
(1 – a)/(1 – a0) = (T / T0)^4
a is the reflectivity of the Earth, and a0 is the reflectivity right now (about 0.3). T is the average temperature of the Earth, and T0 is the average temperature right now (288 K, the equation doesn’t work in Fahrenheit or Celsius).
So if you want to reduce the temperature by 1%, you increase the reflectivity by 12%. (1% is way too much to drop the temperature by, btw, that’s about 6 degrees Fahrenheit, which is many times the total amount of global warming so far.)
However, I don’t know how many roofs you have to paint to increase the reflectivity by a given percentage, because at the same time the carbon dioxide in the air is increasing, and every increase reduces the reflectivity by some percentage.
As I understand this, painting X roofs white would be like taking Y tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere, one time. (Don’t ask me what X and Y are, because I don’t know.) If people keep putting CO2 in, they’d have to keep finding more things to paint white.
So roof-painting isn’t a long term solution, it’s more of a one-shot mitigation.
Gabriel: I stand corrected. I guess I just figured that no one could be so stupid (or mendacious) as to quote a one-time benefit as a continuing effect, or that anyone could believe that the amount of roofing in the US would be anything more than a rounding error on a global scale.
I read, a while ago, that everyone on earth could be given an acre of land, and the entire population of the earth could still fit inside the continent of Australia, with room left over. Since on my own parcel the roof space accounts for less than 2% of the total square footage, I’m guessing that globally the amount is more like .2%…yes?
HT, as I said, it depends exactly on how much the extra reflectance of the white roofs compensates for the extra absorption of the carbon dioxide–and you don’t know the answer to that. You think it can’t amount to more than a “rounding error”, but have you done the math? Is your intuition about a subject, in which you are not expert, to be trusted? You may not think it’s plausible that time slows down for people moving faster than you; but the GPS satellites have to correct for it, or they give you the wrong position.
I haven’t done this math, because I don’t study carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; I study noble gases, and I don’t have time enough to take away from my own field to become in another. But I know enough about general physics to understand how blackbody radiation works. It wasn’t something dreamed up by environmental activists to justify state control over the economy–the arguments for which I am just as skeptical of as you may be. It was worked out a hundred years ago for a reasons having nothing to do with climate science. It merely says that for any thermally isolated object, temperature is a function of the net power absorbed.
I for one am thankful that experts do think painting roofs could help out the climate significantly. That is far cheaper and far less bother than some of the stuff environmental activists think we should do.
Sorry-this comment is way late, but I’m catching up on your posts from last week.
I believe that, at this point, Natalie is a better writer than I am. (And I do business writing for a living.) Her stories are wonderful, and so well-written for an eight-year-old. I don’t blame you a bit for wanting to share them…you must be very proud.