The Czar is starting to think that DoE Sec Steven Chu may not be the, um, intellectual giant he was presented as.

Heard this one? The way to combat the Eeeeevil Global Warming is to paint your roof white. Yeah, and also, we need to paint roads a lighter color. Seriously, says Dr. Chu.

This will raise the Earth’s albedo, which will increase its apparent whiteness from space and thereby reflect sunlight back into space, cooling the earth.

The Czar cannot even begin to describe how lunatic this is. Sigh. All right, it’s like this: even if you painted every roof white, every road white, and every parking lot white, and even painted every thing white that you could, you would not raise the albedo of Earth enough. Presently, Earth’s albedo is 0.367. Following Secretary Chu’s bit of mad science, you might get it up to 0.36701. This would be like shoveling snow with a toothpick.

Fact is, the Earth has two massive sources of albedo in operation, and has had them for some time: any photo of the earth shows them… massive swirls of white clouds and highly reflective ocean water. Even if you painted every man-made object on Earth white, you would see no change from space. The clouds and water would dwarf your best efforts. Look at the photo there. See any roads? Any rooftops? No. See clouds and shiny water? That is how it works.

Is Chu really this ignorant about science? The Czar cannot believe this is not some bizarre joke. Chu should not be making any recommendations on the earth sciences if he lacks the basic comprehension to do so.

Thanks to the Mandarin for spotting this one.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.