U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s off-beat idea of painting roofs white all across America is an initiative he has been promoting eagerly, the Voice of AmericaNews.com reported Sept. 21. A coat of white paint on a roof can lower both carbon emissions and cost, Chu has contended. The concept he espouses is this: as sunlight beams down on us, roughly half the energy shines as light. The light heats our rooftops. If the roof is white, the sunlight will reflect off the roof instead of heating the roof’s surface. By reducing the need for energy that cools our homes and offices, tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions could be saved, slowing global warming.

There’s no reason to restrict cool roofs only in America, in Chu’s thinking. At a Nobel laureate symposium in London, he suggested that the world’s roofs should all be painted white as part of the effort to control the climate. He described climate change as a “crisis situation,” calling also for “wind, wave and solar” to supply energy for the globe. His own Energy Department has compiled statistics showing the lack of promise for such renewable energy sources at any time in the calculable future.

The Sunday London Times also reported that Chu said building regulations “should insist that all flat roofs [be] painted white,” and visible tilted roofs could be painted with “cool-colored” paints which absorbed much less heat than conventional dark surfaces. He also recommended that roads could be lightened to a concrete color so they would not dazzle drivers in bright sunlight. “I think with flat-type roofs…yes, I think you should regulate.” Spoken like a true-blue patron of bureaucratic control.

In his passion for cool roofs on government buildings, Secretary Chu directed all Energy Department offices to install white roofs during new construction, when replacing old roofs and whenever an installation is cost-effective over the lifetime of the roof, The New York Times reported in January. In a news release July 19 he urged other federal agencies to follow suit. The Energy Department (DOE) has 10,500 buildings. The Federal government owns or leases 500,000 buildings. That’s a lot of white paint.