Letters to the Editor

by Sheet Staff
in Letters to the Editor
— 3 Jun, 2011

Hammer time!

Dear Editor:

“The Mono County Search and Rescue Team (SAR) is about to hang up its homeless hat and settle down into some permanent digs; that is, if the color of the roof of its new home can be worked out. … (SAR) originally wanted to use a light, even white roof… [Planning Commissioner] Tenney feared that a white roof would make the building stand out in a garish manner.” -The Sheet, May 25

Five hundred units up to five stories high at Old Mammoth Place in the middle of a quiet residential neighborhood — a benefit to the community. A white roof at MCWD — garish.

Elizabeth Tenney is quoted as saying, “…It’s about being competitive…” Is the competition for the Golden Hammer Award — for being dumb as a bag of?

Does she imagine people turning around at the sight of a white roof and driving back to L.A. because they cannot abide a white roof? Seems that would make it hard to enter a ski area in the winter — snow — white — roofs — etc.

Good Grief! Isn’t there anybody in our town government who can spell Google?

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Global Cool Cities Alliance will accelerate a world-wide transition to highly reflective, cooler, healthier cities. Its mission is to advance policies and programs that increase the solar reflectance of our buildings and pavements to promote cool buildings, cool cities, and, most importantly, to mitigate the effects of climate change through global cooling.

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The Energy Department said a white roof can knock 10% to 20% off a building’s electric bill. To that end, it is encouraging anyone replacing or building a roof to take advantage of $2 billion in tax credits available under the stimulus plan.

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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

Reduce 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.

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How do these people even find their way to Suite Z for meetings?

Ken Warner
Mammoth Lakes