What part of the Earth needs to be painted white to stop global warming: scientists' answer is surprising
The global temperature on planet Earth could be stabilized if only 1-2% of the buildings on the planet were painted with high-tech white paint. This could help humanity stop global warming, which is fraught with serious problems.
This was stated by Jeremy Munday, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California at Davis (USA). He was referring to the paint, which in 2021 was presented by researchers from Purdue University.
Then it was announced that scientists managed to create the whitest paint on Earth, the color of which is so light that it can reflect more than 98% of light.
The inventors of the paint noted that its use on buildings would lower the temperature inside, as well as reduce the need for air conditioning.
Munday, on the other hand, suggested that the paint could be used for global benefit as well. Since the paint would prevent buildings on the planet's surface from absorbing the sun's heat, it would lower the overall temperature as well. Moreover, if a material like Purdue's paint covered 1-2% of the Earth's surface, much more light would be reflected and the Earth's temperature would stabilize to normal.
He also notes that such light reflection would not harm the planet or space.
"It would be like pouring a cup of ordinary water into the ocean," the scientist explained.
However, we should not forget how big our planet is and that even 1-2% of the Earth is a lot. According to calculations, we are talking about covering 3.2 to 6.4 million square kilometers with white paint.
For comparison, the total area of Ukraine is 603,700 square kilometers, and the land area of the United States of America is just over 5.6 million square kilometers. Thus, it would be necessary to cover the territory of the whole country or half of the countries of Europe!
You'd have to get a very, very large amount of paint. As Business Insider notes, just 1% of the Earth's surface would require more than 525 billion liters of paint.
At the same time, as journalists note, the "whitening" of the world with ordinary white paint has already begun. Still, this process may last for many more years until the impact will be visible.
Earlier OBOZREVATEL also shared the fact that scientists proposed to save the Earth from climate catastrophe thanks to catapults on the Moon.
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