Elsewhere concrete instead of asphalt is suggested as a way to cool hot cities. Yeah right—making concrete means baking limestone to turn it into quicklime—this process of course releases bulk CO2.

Much better way to cool hot cities and not increase atmospheric CO2: plant trees.

By trees i mean trees that will grow a significant canopy. The trees can be planted in nature strips or peoples’ gardens. Cost of managing large mature trees on private residential land—lopping diseased or otherwise unwanted branches—to be at least partly met by government—the trees provide a public benefit.

In Adelaide at least a fashion has started of knocking down a house with light colored brick walls and replacing them with brick veneer units with BLACK bricks on the outside. You just could not make this crap up! Roofs tend to be dark grey corrugated iron! Then run BIG a/cs to keep the units habitable—and this is being done in the 21st century! Madness!

Making paving and roads light colored by means other than making them out of cement will be good. Cement cracks and the slabs of paving become unequal because of tree roots (even when the trees have been removed) or movement of clay soils (Adelaide!) and this presents a tripping problem. Mum was brought down by one such uneven slab—hit her forehead and got a cut there. XRays revealed—no other injury! Not bad for a person in her 80s—good strong Dutch skull fortified by plenty of dairy—Mum loved cheese!


Posting this here for reasons explained in a post below.

Trees put moisture in the air by transpiration through stomata (openings in the underside of the leaves) so a bit more rain will fall, assuming reasonably dense planting, not just a tree here or there.

When I visited Holland in 78/79 I had a few errands to do for Mum, meet some of her aunts and friends and give them a little present etc.

One friend lived in Bergen op Zoom in a MASSIVE block of flats. Quite high—people came from all over Holland to throw themselves off the roof of this block—a favorite suicide spot! The block appeared to me to be like 300m long? Anyway—massive.