00:00In an attempt to combat scorching temperatures, Arizona is putting sunscreen on its roads.
00:06Reuters reports the city of Phoenix is using a gray coating designed to reflect heat and sunlight away from the
00:12surface.
00:13The hope is it would help beat the urban heat island effect.
00:17The atmosphere is heated from the bottom up, and when we look at satellite imagery of where hot surfaces are
00:23in our city,
00:24it's very clear two features stand out, roofs and roads.
00:27Here we're looking at a strategy to make our road surfaces a little less hot that will ultimately produce benefits
00:33for residents in these neighborhoods where we're applying the cool pavement.
00:36In a 2021 study, the Arizona State University found that cool pavement has an average surface temperature 10.5 to
00:4412 degrees Fahrenheit lower than traditional asphalt.
00:47But the heat in Arizona this summer is such that residents in the area doubt the cool pavement is helping
00:54reduce temperatures.
00:55Masavi Perea, deputy director for Chispa Arizona, a climate justice organization, said the city should focus on things with more
01:03immediate impact, like planting trees and having cool corridors.
01:08We need to do more things that we know that are already that are working, right?
01:13We need to plant trees.
01:14We need to fix our parks.
01:15We need to have cool corridors.
01:16We need to have water.
01:18We need to have, I mean, if you see, right, like people want to work, there is no where they
01:23want to, they are going to fit.
01:24The new technology is welcome, of course, right, because we need to try something different because what we have been
01:29doing is not working.
01:30But we need to also invest in the fundamentals and what we know that is working.
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