http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-roofs10-2008sep10,0,1149905.story

Such roofs and reflective pavement in the world’s 100 largest cities would
have a massive cooling effect, according to data released at California’s
annual Climate Change Research Conference.

By Margot Roosevelt, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 10, 2008

Builders have known for decades that white roofs reflect the sun’s rays and
lower the cost of air conditioning. But now scientists say they have
quantified a new benefit: slowing global warming.

If the 100 biggest cities in the world installed white roofs and changed
their pavement to more reflective materials — say, concrete instead of
asphalt-based material — the global cooling effect would be massive,
according to data released Tuesday at California’s annual Climate Change
Research Conference in Sacramento.

Since 2005, the Golden State has required that flat commercial structures
have white roofs. Next year, new and retrofitted residential and commercial
buildings, with both flat and sloped roofs, will have to install
heat-reflecting roofing, as part of an energy-efficient building code.

But the state has yet to pass any rules to encourage cooler pavement on its
roads, which are largely coated with heat-absorbing asphalt, a cheap
byproduct of oil refining.

According to Hashem Akbari, a physicist with the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory, a 1,000-square-foot roof — the average size on an American home
– offsets 10 metric tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions in the
atmosphere if dark-colored shingles or coatings are replaced with white
material.

Globally, roofs account for 25% of the surface of most cities, and pavement
accounts for about 35%. If all were switched to reflective material in 100
major urban areas, it would offset 44 metric gigatons of greenhouse gases,
which have been trapping heat in the atmosphere and altering the climate on
a potentially dangerous scale.

That is more than all the countries on Earth emit in a single year. And,
with global climate negotiators focused on limiting a rapid increase in
emissions, installing cool roofs and pavements would offset more than 10
years of emissions growth, even without slashing industrial pollution.

Akbari’s paper, “Global Cooling: Increasing Worldwide Urban Albedos to
Offset CO2,” to be published in the journal Climatic Change, was written
with his colleague Surabi Menon and UC Berkeley physicist Arthur Rosenfeld,
a member of the California Energy Commission. All three have been associated
with the laboratory’s Heat Island Group, which has published extensive
research on how roofs and pavement raise urban temperatures.

Akbari and Rosenfeld said they will mount an effort to persuade the United
Nations to organize major cities to alter their roofing and pavement.

“I call it win-win-win,” Akbari said. “First, a cooler environment not only
saves energy but improves comfort. Second, cooling a city by a few degrees
dramatically reduces smog. And the third win is offsetting global warming.”

Came across a link to the National Geographic Greendex Survey. It’s basically a survey about environmentally sustainable consumption among consumers in 14 countries. It threw up some pretty interesting results. The Greendex Map has a nice interactive pop-up screen that explains the survey results from each country. Interesting results from India and Brazil.

Let’s just hope that its not too late to save the world!

Since 1970, April 22 has marked the celebration of Earth Day, started by Gaylord Nelson, an American Senator who sought to put the environment on the national agenda.

The first Earth Day saw 20 million Americans take to the streets to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment.

Earth Day went global in 1990 mobilising 200 million people in 141 countries, giving a huge boost to recycling efforts that paved the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Since then, Earth Day has gone from strength to strength, linking people across the planet in the fight for a clean environment. Now it’s your turn. Think green and find ways to save energy, recycle used items and clean up your environment - be it at home, at school or at the office.

(Excerpt from 7Days.ae)

From the same article, here are a few ways to participate and make our Earth a better and safer place:

Green your school>> Say NO to Plastic Bags Get your school art class to start a project where students design a reusable cloth shopping bag. Get out the paint jars and print a personal environmental message on your own reusable bag and don’t forget to take it along with you when you hit the shops.>> Start Recycling - If your school doesn’t have one already, organise a recycling programme that will reduce waste and recycle materials. Hold elections to vote in classmates to become ‘governors’ of school recycling, in order to make sure the job gets done.

(Excerpt from 7Days.ae)

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/apr/03smoke.htm

A new study by an Indian-origin neurosurgeon has shown that cell phone use could kill more people than smoking, because of its possible association with brain cancer.

Dr Vini Khurana, a staff specialist neurosurgeon at the Canberra Hospital and an associate professor of neurosurgery at the Australian National University, said heavy usage of mobile phones might turn out to be a greater threat to human health than smoking and even asbestos.

To support his finding, Khurana conducted a 15-month ‘critical review’ of the link between mobile phones and malignant brain tumours, and said that using mobiles for more than 10 years could result in more than double the risk of brain cancer.

In order to curb this danger, he has urged for ‘immediate and decisive steps’ by industry and governments to reduce people’s exposure to invisible electromagnetic radiation emitted by handsets.

He has also asked to begin a ’solid scientific study’ observing heavy mobile phone users for a period of at least 10-15 years.

‘It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking, and directly concerns all of us, particularly the younger generation, including very young children,’ the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Khurana, as saying.

However, he added that it is not that smoking was better for people than using mobile phones, but mobile-phone related health issues were a lot more dangerous and affected a far greater number of people.
He pointed out that currently there were 3 billion mobile phone users worldwide, and the number is growing with each passing day. In fact, people started using them as young as three.

He underlined that mobile phone radiation could result in heating up the side of the head or potentially thermoelectrically interact with the brain, while Bluetooth devices and ‘unshielded’ headsets could ‘convert the user’s head into an effective, potentially self-harming antenna’.

Khurana indicated that there had been increased reports of brain tumours linked with heavy and prolonged mobile phone use, particularly on the same side as the person’s ‘preferred ear’ for making calls.

However, Chris Althaus, chief executive of the industry body, the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association, rejected Khurana’s conclusions, saying handsets were designed, built and tested to comply with strict science-based guidelines.

He also pointed out to a 2000 World Health Organisation fact sheet, which said no recent reviews had concluded that exposure to the radiofrequency fields from mobile phones and their base stations caused any adverse health consequences.

But this was denied by WHO, saying that there were ‘gaps in knowledge’ that required further research to better assess health risks, which would take several years to complete. Even Khurana said that the WHO fact sheet was irrelevant in this instance because ‘most of the worrisome data has been surfacing in the last 12-24 months’.

Another fact sheet on the NSW Cancer Council’s website said stressed for further research as not much was known on the long-term effects of electromagnetic field exposure.

Khurana said there is a time-gap of 10-20 years between the starting of regular mobile phone usage to the diagnosis of a malignant solid brain tumour. And the link between mobile phones and brain tumours had not yet been ‘definitively proven’ because widespread mobile phone usage started in the mid-1980s and solid tumours might take several years to form.

‘In the years 2008-2012, we will have reached the appropriate length of follow-up time to begin to definitively observe the impact of this global technology on brain tumour incidence rates,’ said Khurana.
However, he stressed that there was already enough evidence to warrant industry and governments taking immediate action to reduce mobile phone users’ exposure to electromagnetic radiation and inform them of potential dangers.

‘Worldwide availability and use of appropriately shielded cell phones and hands-free devices including headsets, increased use of landlines and pagers instead of current mobile and cell phones, and restricted use of cellular and cordless phones among children and adults alike are likely to limit the effects of this physically invisible danger,’ said Khurana.