It's not just about millions of people heading out with a ladder and a brush, though that could certainly help.

Akbari is careful to say that emission curbs are also needed, but that making urban areas more reflective could buy us some time. Like other geoengineering schemes, such as mirrors in space and dumping iron in the ocean, it counteracts the symptoms of global warming – the warming – without addressing the carbon emissions at the root of the problem. It won't solve the problem of climate change. Turn enough rooftops and roads a whiter shade of pale, he says, and enough extra sunlight will be bounced back into space to cool the planet. The opinions expressed are his own.Should we paint the world white to tackle the impact of global warming? Hashem Akbari, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in California thinks so, and is launching a worldwide campaign to brighten up our cities. Contact him at and connect with him on Facebook: Click here to read previous columns. Dennis Mammana is an astronomy writer, author, lecturer and photographer working from under the clear dark skies of the Anza-Borrego Desert in the San Diego County backcountry. Get out there later this week, and make some wonderful new memories under the silvery light of the harvest moon. OK, enough of all this science and history stuff. 1, but it will appear nearly full to the eye on the night before this as well.

This month, the moon officially achieves its “full” phase at 2:05 p.m. Some early sky watchers believed these were lunar oceans and named them “mare” or “seas,” a name they still carry today, even though we know the moon is a dry and barren world. We know the lighter areas of our moon as mountainous or heavily cratered highlands the darker areas are roughly circular in shape and are large plains of solidified magma.

Pale moon crisis lighter