Will Shiny Plants Save Us From Global Warming?

Damn there are some ignorant comments in response to this post.

wow
shiny plants
what a thought
they're crazy enough to even put that disgraceful thing up there
why try it out??
we are either going to accomplish this feat...
or die trying

I think people should be educated in the physics surrounding the subject of global warming and draw their own conclusions. They should question even the most good intentioned scientific research and ask themselves whether the explanations make intuitive sense.

A lot of those that propose such solutions, or on the other side of the spectrum those that deny the problem exists speak in half-truths like politicians. I hate politicians.

wait if the polar ice caps reflect heat then why are they melting?

I know we can not do anything to stop global warming until the shiny plants grow so big from all the carbon dioxide that they make a canopy over the whole earth which not only will reflect the suns rays but also give us shade

I'm such a Genius

Just paint the roads white!

THE ANSWER IS NO. NO MATTER WHAT SHINES THE HEAT DRIES OUT AND BURNS UP, ANY SHINNY OR SHINNY GREEN WONT DEFLECT. EVEN ARTIFICIAL HEAT UP BURN UP. NICE TRY.

Maybe we don't need to geo engineer our world.Maybe we just need to unengineer this great CiviLIEzation.Return to the earth is the only way to save our race.The earth certainly does not need us and we certainly do need the earth.

Sure, we can fuck up the planet as much as we want as long as we eat lots of soy.

I agree that there is a lot of ignorant ranting here – but also some sincere concern.

White roads may be a problem but white roofs and parking lots not so.

Electromagnetic radiative energy changes in intensity & wavelength due to the temperature of the emitting entity. The Sun is hot (~6000K) and therefore mostly coats us with visible wavelength energy that penetrates through the atmosphere. Objects at ambient temperature on earth’s surface (~270K) radiate mostly in the infra-red wavelengths – wavelengths that can’t pass back through our atmosphere. Painting things to be reflective should bounce the incoming, transmissible wavelengths back out of the atmosphere before they warm the surface and contribute to overall heating. While some incoming radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere (as heat or thermodynamic molecular motion), surely some of the reflected energy will be absorbed also – but the net result will be a reduction in energy absorption by the earth. The physics of this albedo affect is well understood.

And give the earth some shades.

i find cool that first world nations are working in ways of preventing global warming, because they are mostly the ones involved with it. but they have to make shure theyre solutions will be helping all the other nations that are being affected. because the us and europe are more responsible for the consecuences in south america and africa than south americans and africans themselves.

I still don't fully understand. I mean the atmosphere already filters a certain percentage of the light that comes through. Wouldn't reflecting the light be wasting time as it would already be inside the atmosphere? Please explain

give earth 50-100 more years before it hurts to breath.

I'm a bit speculative about this but I do know there is one thing I can do to this year. I'm going to a free conference tomorrow in SF called Energy Camp and its all about how you can reduce your carbon footprint at home and at work. They have a legit panel coming and I feel like its going to be more fact-driven than speculative. Check out www.openeco.org/energycamp

For all of you who are dismissing this idea outright, please educate yourselves on Albedo.

Global warming has been occurring in cycles for billions of years. This is not a man made issue nor does it require us to "fix" anything.

Global warming has been occurring in cycles for billions of years. This is not a man made issue nor does it require us to “fix” anything.

It's be nice to live through it though.

Global warming has been occurring in cycles for billions of years. This is not a man made issue nor does it require us to “fix” anything.

It is true that climate change has been occurring in cycles since the birth of this rock; however, there is NO DOUBT that the consequences and byproducts of industry have further perpetuated and enhanced this period of climate change that we are going through at time. So yes, we should be taking preventative measures.

Global warming has been occurring in cycles for billions of years. This is not a man made issue nor does it require us to “fix” anything.

So Chris is correct when he says that global temperatures have been fluxuating in a cyclical pattern for as long as we can look back in our atmospheric records. However, if you look at readings since the industrial revolution, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere sky rockets above any previous natural level and continues to rise. So yes while there is a cyclical nature to CO2 in the environment we as humans have also introduced new CO2 by burning once subterainian deposits of carbon in the form of coal and oil. This CO2 cloud in the atmosphere returns radiant heat that is reflected off of the earths surface, resulting in higher atmosperic temperature. That is where this article comes in (Sev). Our polar ice caps serve as a reflector of energy, as global temperature increases, the ice caps melt, decreasing the surface area of our reflective ice, decreasing the amount of energy reflected, resulting in higher temperatures. Artificially increasing our surface reflectivity or albedo should counter this polar loss of reflective area. However, the reflective effects are most effective at polar ends of our planet due to the angle of light recieved from the sun. While this idea of incrasing albedo with soy crops is novel, it would require a massive amount of surface coverage to make up for the losses of ice at the polar caps.

Global warming has been occurring in cycles for billions of years. This is not a man made issue nor does it require us to “fix” anything.

Thank you Chris. "Global Warming" is a farce and a scare tactic (wait... why is every political party and politician trying to scare us into something?)

It is a natural occurrence that is a result of the Atlantic currents melting ice and volcanic activity. The earth constantly goes through ever growing and shrinking ebbs of change. These are set in motion by much larger picture. Stop the Ocean currents... stop the magma from pushing to the surface.

Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. Had the dinosaurs been 100 times smarter than we are today they still could not have prevented their fate.

We can make the world we live in a better place by reducing our footprint and being better stewards of our planet but this “global warming” can not now nor ever be stopped by us.

What an arrogant species we are to honestly believe that we can change an event that has been millions of years in the making.

1) Albedo works in the arctic and antarctic where pollution and greenhouse gases are minimal. Where the atmosphere is already choked with the stuff in lower latitudes I don't see how it's going to make much of a difference. The point about anthropogenic global warming is that those gases reflect photons that would otherwise escape into space back at the earth. Once the light is IN it doesn't matter how many mirrors you have sitting on the ground pointing up, most of it is just going to get rereflected back at the earth.

2) The genetically engineering plants idea stinks. Using the DNA of crops we depend on for experimental reasons like this is playing with fire. When's it going to backfire on us? We have no idea of the consequences. Plants are the way they are for a reason. And why should we be giving the likes of MONSANTO any authority to screw around with nature for their own benefit. To them it's all a greedy big game.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsanto

How much of the solar energy absorbed by plants are converted to heat anyway? The green part of the spectrum gets reflected back to space and surely most of the rest is used for photosynthesis. Won't plants that are genetically engineered to be shiny be less effective at photosynthesis, the very thing that takes CO2 from the atmosphere?

I agree that in warmer climates where more energy is spent annually on cooling than heating it makes sense to paint rooftops white to keep buildings cool and save energy.

White roads are a very bad idea because of glare and they probably won't stay white for long. For any other surface the CO2 footprint of the paint production process will probably outweigh the cooling effect it provides.

I still don’t fully understand. I mean the atmosphere already filters a certain percentage of the light that comes through. Wouldn’t reflecting the light be wasting time as it would already be inside the atmosphere? Please explain

Most of the energy from the sun is contained in the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum from which very little energy is absorbed by the atmosphere. By reflecting visible light back into space through the atmosphere the energy absorption from those sun rays are limited to the small percentage that the atmosphere catches. White things on earth's surface such as polar ice are ideal reflectors. Black things on the other hand absorb the visible light, turning it into heat.

Heated (darker) objects also radiate energy outwards but this energy can't easily escape to space because it is not in the visible part of the spectrum that passes through the atmosphere with relative ease. Instead the energy it radiates is in the infrared part of the spectrum which greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane tend to trap, keeping earth warm.

I like this solution, it's doable. In concert with other solutions, like lowering carbon emissions and moving to eco-friendly solar, wind, nuclear and geothermal energy, this is one part of the solution. We still need to reduce global resource consumption, and be AWARE of what PRODUCTS we purchase, but these small changes add up to something big. No one proposal is the be all, end all fix for the problem.

The Earth has withstood huge catastrophies before, with a 90% loss of species when the dinosaurs became extinct. It is tragic that the natural world we know and love is facing collapse, but nature rebounds. Different creatures evolve, maybe not the charismatic animals we know and love, if we want to keep those we have to protect them. It's important to reverse as much of the damage as possible so we can keep as much biodiversity on Earth as we can. Unfortunately we are facing a global species collapse of something like 50%. The Earth has about 100 million years of amicable climate left to evolve life. That's not enough time for a new complex group of organisms to evolve. We are Earth's last shot, so, let's make it a good one, live in balance with nature, because we have no idea how biodiversity may benefit us in the future.

Don't think the idea is completely correct as leafy plants don't reflect thermal energy. In fact they do the opposite. Plants absorb thermal energy and us it during photosynthesis. The leaf cools itself using a process called transpiration. People use plants like ivy and other plants that will grow on building faces to keep it cool not based on the idea of reflecting thermal energy, but with the natural abilities of plants leaves and processes.

Interesting article, but when are people going to stop coming up with ideas to fix global warming that aren't a public hazard? The plant idea is interesting, but painting the roads? Great idea! Now we can count on dying because of the equivlent of snow blindness because somebody left their sunglasses at home. Not to mention that painting the entire surface will make it more slick and will cost a fortune.

Save the whales but not the planet. (Rolling eyes)

Actually, the theory is sound. The plants would reflect more visible light rather than absorbing it, which is then converted to heat.

Wow! That was a blog about something involving the earth I didn't find extreamly boring! :) (not that I'm not extreamly interested in the consept of global warming. It just most are very scientific and well, boring) I'm only elevan years old and my class is doing a progect on this consept with six teams. Two causes of global warming, two on efects, and two on solutions. (of which I am involved in) I have choses the solution of plant life for the earth. I origanly expected doing alot of talking about trees. But this was something else!
THANKS!

How the f@#k are plants suppose to save us from global warming?

This is a stupid article. What is white? Ice, and that won´t prevent the poles from melting. Furthermore, to paint all the roads white is silly because that will have high costs of manteinance and guess what, a reflective surface in a road is very dangerous to drive on!.

This is a stupid article. What is white? Ice, and that won´t prevent the poles from melting. Furthermore, to paint all the roads white is silly because that will have high costs of manteinance and guess what, a reflective surface in a road is very dangerous to drive on!.

Actually it's known that ice being white is providing a cooling effect on the poles. Just not enough to stop all melting. That's one of the major concerns... when the ice melts this cooling effect disappears, giving positive feedback to global warming.