Thank God this thing had so many pictures! Just kidding! In all seriousness though, this was an interesting read and the urban heat island effect was something I came across in my own research with air pollution. It’s actually connected because UHI causes more pollutants to be produced and released into the air. Or something like that, I’m no expert. So really it’s kind of in our best interest to know more about UHI. Another correlation I found between the two subjects is that they really hurt low-income Latino and African-American communities such as the Bronx. A lot of the studies I read about concerned that borough. It’s mad true that the South Bronx isn’t getting the TLC it deserves.
So what the heck are urban heat island mitigation techniques? My grandmother likes to yell at me for wearing lighter jackets when I go to school, but she doesn’t believe me when I tell her that it is just hotter in the city. Well this article proves her wrong and she can stop driving me crazy (I love you Oma, disregard that last thought). The city’s buildings have greater heat retention and without lots of trees to help cool the area down, it gets hot in herrrrre (please tell me someone just sang that line when they read it). This is the UHI effect and today I learned how to fight it. Cue superhero theme music.
Okay so first up, increasing urban vegetation such as green roofs, which is a no-brainer because that’s one of the solutions to air pollution. They mentioned planting trees and I’d recommend deciduous trees (an obvious answer). Although coniferous trees have larger filtering capacity, deciduous trees are less sensitive to pollutants so they can keep cooling the area down. They’re also better at absorbing gases. Then we have cool roofs which are coated with SRI that reflects the heat/light. I don’t know if any of you guys have worked on roofs before, but every couple of years my dad and I coat the roofs with an SRI based coat (or something similar to that). It’s silver color/ whatever the heck is in it, reflects the heat and keeps our building cooler in the summer which in turn lowers our AC bills. Cool stuff man, but don’t get it on your jeans. And wear sunglasses (but not at night). The cool pavements thing is kind of similar to thirsty concrete, so maybe we should mix the two ideas?
I don’t know about you guys, but I’m a summer weather type of gal. I like it when it’s 90 out and there’s a breeze. But the UHI effect isn’t fun and games and actually exacerbates a lot of things that already suck: energy usage levels, air pollution, increased ozone levels. These, in turn, make people get sick. It makes even more sense that mortality levels are especially high in hot weather. Working to reduce UHI is beneficial in reducing so many other types of pollution that I’m surprised the city is still dragging it’s feet about it.
