Urban Heat Island Mitigation

From Climate Progress (always worth looking at) comes another idea for the Obama green global stimulus program.

Part 1: What is geo-engineering and adaptation and CO2 mitigation all in one?

What wildly underfunded climate solution can achieve all of these goals simultaneously:

* Slow global warming by increasing the reflectivity of the Earth (geo-engineering)
* Reduce local temperatures in the hottest cities (adaptation)
* Reduce fossil CO2 emissions (mitigation)
* Save U.S. consumers and businesses billions of dollars in energy costs
* DReduce urban smog and hence cardio-pulmonary disease
* Create more than 100,000 jobs in two years?

The answer is a major effort to make roofs (and pavements) whiter and/or more reflective, which should be coupled with a major urban tree-planting effort. This “urban heat island mitigation” (UHIM) may well be the single most cost-effective energy and climate strategy.