It took 20 nobel prize winners...

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Riot

I don't know if you've ever re-roofed your house, but choice in roof color is influenced greatly by where you live - light colors often chosen in southern areas to reflect the heat and keep the attic cooler (thus the house), dark in the north (helps heat the house in winter, etc)

Most city roofs have flat, black, asphalted roofs. Trouble is, there's not a good substitute for black roofing asphalt. So another "thing" becoming very popular is roof gardens - even things like planting a whole acre of roof in short wildflowers. Stops the heat reflectivity of the black roofs. Keeps the building insulated all seasons. Helps with rain runoff/flooding locally, too

way back when, when i was in high school, i used to do construction work, including roofing. we just had ours redone last year, it's a lighter brown color. can't answer for everyone, but my roof color was based on the color of the brick exterior. my point was that i don't think you can paint shingles.
we installed attic fans to help keep the attic a bit cooler, and help ventilate it. also had a top of the line heating/air unit installed when the compressor went tits up a few months back.

as for whether our country matters as far as helping with emissions....there are a lot of other countries who spew a lot more pollution than we do, since a lot of other countries can be as populated or moreso, without all the epa regulations that we face. i think as a country we're doing our part, but some others (cough, cough China, india, etc) may not be doing theirs. but they still point at us since we're such a popular target.