Monday, December 6, 2010
Reflective Crops could Cool the Planet.
There are several components when it comes to the reflectivity of different crops. This could be from how hairy the leaves are to the composition of wax on the plants. But why should reflectivity matter when choosing which crops to plant? New research shows that reflective crops could reflect heat back into the atmosphere which could easily cool the earth a couple of degrees. This would reduce the impact of climate warming in these areas. This could have a significant effect on the earth as about eleven percent of the land on earth is devoted to crops. "That's one degree you don't have to turn up the air-conditioning," says John Shepard of the University of Southampton. A similar proposal is to paint roofs of buildings white to reflect light and heat. This would not be as effective as the crops though because the roofs don't take up as much space.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think this is a really good idea but this really makes me wonder how much crops it would actualy take to lower the climates temperature by atleast one degree. I'm guessing it would take thousands of acres of crops to do so. Is this proven or is it more of a theory?
ReplyDeleteI think that maybe the white painted roofs is a little bit underdeveloped considering it really hasn't been proven that way. But the idea of the crops sounds really effective considering that it helps cool the Earth. But yeah like Caleb I'm assuming that this is going to take thounsands of acres of cropland to do this and do we really have the land to do that and could it harm the development of land in any way and what about all the pesticides?
ReplyDeleteI never thought that reflecting light back into the atmosphere would cause any difference. Let alone a good difference. I would have thought that this would be a negative effect on the earth because it is changing the worlds temperature, which in consequence could harm many ecosystems. But, apparently this is a good thing to cool the earth. Wouldnt this be just like global warming except cooling? And wouldnt it have the same effects but in reverse? I would want to see more proof on this topic.
ReplyDeleteI’m interested in this concept but wondering how developed this idea is. I remember reading about the white painted roofs not long ago and I think it’s a cool idea but people are just so reluctant to environmental changes, and this makes me wonder if this will have the same effect.
ReplyDeleteI never knew about this and I didn't know that reflecting light could keep it cooler. But it's really neat that certain plants can do it and I wonder if many farmers will do this and if many people will paint their roofs white.
ReplyDeleteYeah I think it's a really cool idea too, but the amount of crops that would need to be planted to actually cause any sort of effect would be on the scale of around 11% of our land use. If we could also implement this method into different types of grasses i'm sure we could get even more positive effect.
ReplyDeleteI don't think this will reduce the temperature enough to make it worth it, the crops with a high level of reflectivity may not be the type of crops that are needed to support the population at a certain time. I don't think we can plant enough crops that are reflective to reduce the global temperature by very much
ReplyDelete