Painting 2% of Earth’s Area White Could Be a Game-Changer for Climate Crisis, scientists say

In 2021, researchers at Purdue University announced they had developed the whitest color on earth.

The color is so white that it can reflect over 98% of light. This is particularly useful because light generates heat – and we’re pretty hot here on Earth these days.

When applied to a building, the researchers said the paint would lower surface temperatures, lower internal temperatures and reduce the need for air conditioning. But what if there were an even bigger application, like reducing the temperature across the planet?

According to Jeremy Munday, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Davis, who studies clean technology, if a material like Purdue’s color were 1-2% of the Earth’s surface would reduce the amount of heat absorbed by the planet enough to stabilize global temperatures.

In other words, it could do a lot to solve climate change. Besides, Munday said The New York Times, the amount of light reflected back into space would not do much damage to the cosmos. “It would be like pouring a cup of regular water into the sea,” he said The times.

But how big is 1-2% of the earth’s surface? The total surface of the earth is about 197 million square miles (and most of it is water), so the color would need to cover about 2 to 4 million square miles.

To put this in perspective, the total land area of ​​the United States is just over 3.5 million square miles, so we would need to cover the land in white paint from the sea to the paint-stained sea.

That would be a lot of color. A LOT.

If we assume that the new paint acts like commercial paint, as the Purdue researchers suggest, one gallon would cover about 400 square feet, then it would take about 139 billion gallons of the super-white paint to cover just 1% of the Earth’s surface.

Of course, this number doubles when we need to cover 2% of the area. And none of this takes into account how difficult it would be to paint oceans, deserts and trees.

Painting things white to cool down temperatures isn’t a new concept. Just drive through my home state of Texas and see how many cars are white.

Many places around the world are already painting surfaces white, and Purdue’s new paint will help with that. But it shows that we still have a long way to go before the problem is solved.

This article was originally published by Business Insider.