Well that information is a little late.

I’m not normally the kind of person who watches the interviews on The Daily Show.  I normally like the sharp, acerbic humor of Jon Stewart’s opening monologue, and usually the little “bit” they do in the second segment of the show.  But when it comes time to the interview, I very rarely watch.  Normally it’s the fear that the guest is just not going to be able to keep up with Stewart’s wit and surprisingly probing questions.  There have been interviews that I’ve watched that have gone over like a lead balloon.

But sometimes I do watch.  And I happened to be watching the other day when Dr. Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy, popped up on the show.  And he was surprisingly good.  He kept up.   I don’t regret watching the segment.

He said one thing in particular that caught my attention during the course of the interview.  Basically he asserted that if people installed light or white-colored roofs, we could effectively offset something like the carbon emissions of all the cars on the road today.  I don’t remember the exact upside he quoted, but it was enough to make my eyebrows go up in surprise.

I probably would have forgotten all about that part of the interview had I not seen an article yesterday on LifeHacker talking about how having a light colored roof could cut your air-conditioning use by nearly 20%.  Given how much of our monthly utility bills goes towards establishing a comfortable climate in the house, this notion becomes compelling.  Save the planet and save the dough, all at the same time.

These kind of ideas linger in my mind.  And I was mulling these notions this morning as I was walking the dogs when a third notion came to me:

When we moved up to Wisconsin two years ago, one of the first things we did was to replace our roof.  We chose a nice, deep green shingle, to match the trim on the house.   So…no earth-saving energy efficiency for me.  Furthermore, the contractor was bragging to me that barring anything unforeseen, this roof would last for 30+ years.  So no earth-saving energy efficiency for me for quite some time.

The thing that occurred to me as I watched both dogs explore a three square inch patch of ground for five minutes at five in the morning was that this is one of those ideas that just is never going to happen on the large scale.  I thought, maybe the government could do a cash for clunkers type program.   Incentive-ise the replacement of older dark roofs with newer white ones.  But given how infrequently people re-roof their homes, it’d have to be a loooooong running incentive program.  And who in Washington has the patience for something like that.

Anyway…it’s a Friday night.  I’m just expressing random, tired thoughts at this point.

Stop reading.  Go to sleep.