Climate Change vs. Design - heat island effect

At the recent Califiornia Climate Change Conference

One of the interesting topics covered was the possibility of utilizing white roof technology in urban environments to offset heat island effect. The premise of the main argument is "Increasing World-wide Urban Albedos to Offest CO2". Roughly translated implementation of higher albedo surfaces (such as pavement and roofs) on a large scale in urban environments directly cool the globe by reflecting solar radiation (in a similar manner to polar ice). In this manner higher albedo surfaces can offset a specific CO2 emission (10 meters squared of white roof offsets 1 ton CO2) by directly cooling the planet's surface area independent of CO2 emissions.

Besides decreasing the operational costs of specific buildings and cooling urban environments increasing comfort the proposal to offset carbon emissions via high albedo requirements for urban environments on a grand scale could help alleviate the burden of greenhouse gases until technology can catch up with lower (or hopefully non) emission solutions.

Happily the cost of white roofing has dropped dramatically to be cost effective for new and replacement construction however it may fall to municipalities to create and enforce requirements for higher albedo pavement (parking and sidewalks).

Global Cooling: Increasing World-wide Urban Albedos to Offset CO2 .pdf