I found a pretty awesome article awhile ago. Apparently, painting your roof white can greatly reduce summer cooling costs and, if adopted by enough homeowners, could greatly reduce the spread of global warming.

The U.S. Secretary of Energy, Dr. Steven Chu, is a strong advocate for improving roof reflectivity. While speaking in London just before an international summit on reducing climate change, Dr. Chu strongly encouraged people everywhere to paint their roofs white. He said that the simple act of painting a roof white could have a dramatic impact on the amount of money and energy used to keep the building comfortable.

From the original article:

“The EPA reports that $40 billion is spent annually in the United States to cool buildings. That’s an extraordinary amount of money,” states Tom Black, executive director of the non-profit Metal Roofing Alliance (MRA). “We applaud Dr. Chu’s intent. However, in reality, white roofs aren’t feasible for most homeowners. Curb appeal rules. The good news is that highly reflective residential metal roofing is available in a wide variety of styles and colors to suit any home.”

Although a white roof is great, a highly reflective metal roof is even better. In fact, new technologies allow even darker colored metal roofs to absorb less heat through the use of highly reflective pigments in the paint that reflect solar energy. Studies from Oak Ridge National Laboratory show that a reflective metal roof can reduce summer cooling costs by about 40% — that’s great news for homeowners everywhere!

You should probably check out the full article.

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While on The Daily Texan‘s website I came across an article about at-risk and disadvantaged youth that are finding a way to contribute to their society and can useful on-the-job training. I was intrigued by the head and decided to read on.

The youth are representatives of a organization called American YouthWorks. Through this program, youth receive both a high school education and the opportunity to learn about construction, and more specifically, green construction. The ability for these youth that have a had a rough time before now to learn valuable working skills is amazing. Not only do they now have the knowledge to perform these jobs but they also receive pay to use towards future schooling or to make a decent living.

This was a great story to see how green home design is not only good for the natural environment but it has its benefits in the social aspect. The article is definitely worth your time and will show you what going green can do for the world.

HousePlans.Info: The latest trends, observations and opinions on all things related to house plans, home design and home building.