Climate Progress » Blog Archive » The best stimulus, Part 1: What is geo-engineering and adaptation and CO2 mitigation all in one?

What wildly underfunded climate solution can achieve all of these goals simultaneously:

* Slow global warming by increasing the reflectivity of the Earth (geo-engineering)
* Reduce local temperatures in the hottest cities (adaptation)
* Reduce fossil CO2 emissions (mitigation)
* Save U.S. consumers and businesses billions of dollars in energy costs
* DReduce urban smog and hence cardio-pulmonary disease
* Create more than 100,000 jobs in two years?

The answer is a major effort to make roofs (and pavements) whiter and/or more reflective, which should be coupled with a major urban tree-planting effort. This “urban heat island mitigation” (UHIM) may well be the single most cost-effective energy and climate strategy.

6-8 inches of new snow forecast for weary Spokane - USATODAY.com

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Another big storm is headed toward snow-weary Spokane, which already has had a record-breaking snowfall this winter.
...
After getting 61.5 inches of snow in December, Spokane has had 6.9 inches of snow in January, making the snow total for Spokane since Dec. 1 a whopping 68.4 inches.

The 61.5 inches was the highest snow total for any month in Spokane since the National Weather Service began keeping snowfall records in 1893.

UK: Yesterday was cold. Tomorrow is going to be positively Arctic - Times Online

Extreme cold such as this is often seen in the glens of the Highlands during winter, but is more unusual farther south. The coldest temperature in England last winter was minus 10C at Copley, Co Durham, in February, but the cold was not as widespread, nor as prolonged, as the present bout. [Via CO2 Sceptics]