A Time For Reflection

As we enter a week of intensifying heat, during which temps could approach 130 degrees in some places, let’s pause for reflection. Not sober, ethical, personal reflection. It’s too late for that. I mean the kind of reflection that can bounce the sun’s rays away from the Earth’s surface. That goal drove researchers at Purdue to create the whitest of white paint. Now all we need to do is coat the planet in it. NYT (Gift Article): To Help Cool a Hot Planet, the Whitest of White Coats. “The paint’s properties are almost superheroic. It can make surfaces as much as eight degrees Fahrenheit cooler than ambient air temperatures at midday, and up to 19 degrees cooler at night, reducing temperatures inside buildings and decreasing air-conditioning needs by as much as 40 percent. It is cool to the touch, even under a blazing sun, Dr. Ruan said. Unlike air-conditioners, the paint doesn’t need any energy to work, and it doesn’t warm the outside air.”

+ American workers might want to apply this stuff like sunscreen, because according to WaPo (Gift Article), forcing people to work in deadly heat is mostly legal in the US. ” … Legislators in Florida, where 11 workers died of heat-induced causes since 2017, according to OSHA data, rejected legislation that required employers to implement outdoor heat exposure safety training programs, provide cool drinking water, shade and rest breaks in hot conditions … In Texas, lawmakers nullified heat safety ordinances in Dallas and Austin as part of a sweeping statute that stripped local governments’ rights to regulate workplace issues … [according to one lobbyist] ‘What was happening was we had some rogue cities that maybe stepped too far over their skis and ventured into some areas that they shouldn’t have ventured into.'” (If there’s one thing you don’t need in Texas this summer, it’s skis.)

+ Death Valley visitors drawn to the hottest spot on Earth during ongoing US heat wave. (Save the airfare. The heat will come to you, eventually.)