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Opinion

When black roofs cost more and most negatively affect our health, why are we installing them?

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We are into construction season and summer and the heat is starting to be an issue. We will have some heat waves and we will notice the “Urban Heat Island Effect”.
The city will seem hotter than the county, but we will also notice differences in temperature between light coloured vehicles and darker coloured vehicles, and even the coolness of a white fence.
During heat waves some of the most vulnerable people are those living on the top floor of a building with a black roof.
My biggest question is why are we still putting black roofs on our buildings? Black roofs do not absorb heat in the winter under a foot of white snow. They absorb heat during the hot days making it hotter.

Let’s start at the beginning, by hitting the Google button.

What is the Heat Island Effect?
The elevated temperature in urban areas as compared to rural, less developed areas is referred to as the urban heat island effect. As cities grow and develop, more buildings and people are added. The process of urban development leads to this phenomenon.

What are the Implications of Heat Islands?
Heat islands are considered a form of local climate change as opposed to global climate change. The effects of heat islands are confined to specific areas, and do not have a larger impact on climate change. Despite being confined to a certain locality, heat islands can still make a significant impact.
Of course, one of the most noticeable impacts on urban dwellers is an increase in hot, summer weather. On particularly clear and hot days, when the heat island effect is at its worst, inhabitants of larger cities will notice hotter and more uncomfortable temperatures. When people are hot, they often crank up their air conditioners. Increases in air conditioning use not only results in more heat being released into the air, this also contributes to air pollution, as more greenhouse gas emissions are discharged. This negatively impacts air quality and can also lead to a surge in urban smog.
How Can We Reduce the Heat Island?
Since the impact of heat islands is mostly negative, scientists and researchers are searching for ways to reduce and reverse the effects. Dark roof surfaces are one of the major culprits of temperature increases. One popular technique for combating the heat island effect is installing green roofs on urban buildings. Green roofs, which are lined with soil and certain types of vegetation, can actually help cities regain some of the cooling and evaporative effects that the natural landscape once provided. As this idea becomes more popular, there is more and more scientific evidence that green roofs can reduce heat in urban areas.
Dark building surfaces that absorb more heat account for some of the rising temperatures in urban areas. One simple method for reducing this effect is to paint buildings with light or white colors that do not absorb nearly as much heat. Some cities are also using paint treatments that reflect light to combat the heat island effect. White, Green or Black Roofs? Berkeley Lab Report Compares Economic Payoffs
Looking strictly at the economic costs and benefits of three different roof types—black, white and “green” (or vegetated)—Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) researchers have found in a new study that white roofs are the most cost-effective over a 50-year time span. While the high installation cost of green roofs sets them back in economic terms, their environmental and amenity benefits may at least partially mitigate their financial burden.
A new report titled “Economic Comparison of White, Green, and Black Flat Roofs in the United States” by Julian Sproul, Benjamin Mandel, and Arthur Rosenfeld of Berkeley Lab, and Man Pun Wan of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, provides a direct economic comparison of these three roof types. The study will appear in the March 2014 volume of Energy and Buildings and has just been published online. “White roofs win based on the purely economic factors we included, and black roofs should be phased out,” said study co-author Rosenfeld, a Berkeley Lab Distinguished Scientist Emeritus and former Commissioner of the California Energy Commission
The study analyzes 22 commercial flat roof projects in the United States in which two or more roof types were considered. The researchers conducted a 50-year life cycle cost analysis, assuming a 20-year service life for white and black roofs and a 40-year service life for green roofs.
A green roof, often called vegetated roofs or rooftop gardens, has become an increasingly popular choice for aesthetic and environmental reasons. Rosenfeld acknowledges that their economic analysis does not capture all of the benefits of a green roof. For example rooftop gardens provide storm water management, an appreciable benefit in cities with sewage overflow issues, while helping to cool the roof’s surface as well as the air. Green roofs may also give building occupants the opportunity to enjoy green space where they live or work.
Berkeley Lab Distinguished Scientist Emeritus Art Rosenfeld
“We leave open the possibility that other factors may make green roofs more attractive or more beneficial options in certain scenarios,” said Mandel, a graduate student researcher at Berkeley Lab. “The relative costs and benefits do vary by circumstance.”
However, unlike white roofs, green roofs do not offset climate change. White roofs are more reflective than green roofs, reflecting roughly three times more sunlight back into the atmosphere and therefore absorbing less sunlight at earth’s surface. By absorbing less sunlight than either green or black roofs, white roofs offset a portion of the warming effect from greenhouse gas emissions.
“Both white and green roofs do a good job at cooling the building and cooling the air in the city, but white roofs are three times more effective at countering climate change than green roofs,” said Rosenfeld.
White roofs are most cost-effective
The costs and benefits difference stack that has the highest net present value shows the roof type that is most cost-effective.
The 50-year life-cycle cost analysis found that even the most inexpensive kind of green roof (with no public access and consisting of only sedum, or prairie grass) costs $7 per square foot more than black roofs over 50 years, while white roofs save $2 per square foot compared to black roofs. In other words, white roofs cost $9 per square foot less than green roofs over 50 years, or $0.30 per square foot each year.
The researchers acknowledge that their data are somewhat sparse but contend that their analysis is valuable in that it is the first to compare the economic costs and energy savings benefits of all three roof types. “When we started the study it wasn’t obvious that white roofs would still be more cost-effective over the long run, taking into account the longer service time of a green roof,” Mandel said.
Furthermore while the economic results are interesting, it also highlights the need to include factors such health and environment in a more comprehensive analysis. “We’ve recognized the limitations of an analysis that’s only economic,” Mandel said. “We would want to include these other factors in any future study.”
Black roofs pose health risk
For example, black roofs pose a major health risk in cities that see high temperatures in the summer. “In Chicago’s July 1995 heat wave a major risk factor in mortality was living on the top floor of a building with a black roof,” Rosenfeld said.
For that reason, he believes this latest study points out the importance of government policymaking. “White doesn’t win out over black by that much in economic terms, so government has a role to ban or phase out the use of black or dark roofs, at least in warm climates, because they pose a large negative health risk,” he said.
Rosenfeld, who started at Berkeley Lab in the 1950s, is often called California’s godfather of energy efficiency for his pioneering work in the area. He was awarded a National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President Obama in 2012, one of the nation’s highest honours.
Rosenfeld has been a supporter of solar-reflective “cool” roofs, including white roofs, as a way to reduce energy costs and address global warming. He was the co-author of a 2009 study in which it was estimated that making roofs and pavements around the world more reflective could offset 44 billion tons of CO2 emissions. A later study using a global land surface model found similar results: cool roofs could offset the emissions of roughly 300 million cars for 20 years.
So if black roofs are detrimental to our health, contribute to the issue of Urban Heat Island Effect and costs more, why are we still building black roofs?

2025 Federal Election

‘Coordinated and Alarming’: Allegations of Chinese Voter Suppression in 2021 Race That Flipped Toronto Riding to Liberals and Paul Chiang

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“There were Chinese officials following Bob Saroya around.” The Bureau investigates claims of voter intimidation in the Toronto-area riding now at the centre of Canada’s election.

As Canada’s snap election unfolds under the shadow of foreign interference—following the resignation of a Liberal MP accused of suggesting his Conservative rival could be handed to Chinese officials for a bounty—The Bureau has uncovered new allegations that Chinese agents attempted to intimidate voters and the Conservative incumbent in the same Markham–Unionville riding during the 2021 federal campaign. The revelations raise urgent concerns that similar tactics may be resurfacing in Toronto-area ridings with large communities of immigrants from China and Hong Kong.

Paul Chiang, a former police officer who unseated longtime Conservative representative Bob Saroya to win Markham–Unionville for Team Trudeau in 2021, stepped down as a candidate late Monday after the RCMP confirmed it was reviewing remarks he made to Chinese-language media in January. During that event, Chiang reportedly said Conservative candidate Joe Tay—a Canadian citizen wanted under Hong Kong’s National Security Law—could be taken to the Chinese Consulate in Toronto to claim a bounty.

Tay, a former Hong Kong broadcaster whose independent reporting from Canada has drawn retaliation from Beijing, rejected Chiang’s apology, calling his comments to Chinese-language journalists “the tradecraft of the Chinese Communist Party.” He added: “They are not just aimed at me; they are intended to send a chilling signal to the entire community to force compliance with Beijing’s political goals.” His concerns were echoed by dozens of NGOs and human rights organizations, which condemned Chiang’s remarks as an endorsement of transnational repression.

There is no indication Chiang was aware of the intimidation campaign alleged by senior Conservative sources during the 2021 vote. He has described his January remarks as an ill-considered joke, a serious lapse in judgment, and emphasized that he intended no harm or wrongdoing.

According to multiple senior figures from Erin O’Toole’s 2021 Conservative campaign—who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of intelligence disclosures—O’Toole’s team was briefed by Canadian intelligence that Chinese officials were actively surveilling Saroya during the election. One source recalled being told that “there were Chinese officials following Bob Saroya around,” and that “CSIS literally said repeatedly that this was ‘coordinated and alarming.’”

“Bob lost because the Chinese vote abandoned him,” the source added.

When asked to respond, O’Toole—who stepped down after the 2021 loss—acknowledged awareness of voter intimidation reports but did not say whether CSIS had informed his team about alleged Chinese surveillance targeting Saroya.

“Our candidate Bob Saroya was a hardworking MP who won against the Liberal wave in 2015,” O’Toole wrote. “He won in 2019 as well, but thousands of votes from the Chinese Canadian community stayed home in 2021. We heard reports of intimidation of voters. We also know the Consul General from China took particular interest in the riding and made strange comments to Mr. Saroya ahead of the election. It was always in the top three of the eight or nine ridings that I believe were flipped due to foreign interference. The conduct of Mr. Chiang suggests our serious concerns were warranted.”

A third senior Conservative campaign source confirmed Chinese interference was a concern in multiple ridings. “The concern was related to China… we had candidates that were being intimidated,” the source said.

Speaking specifically to Saroya’s campaign, the source said that in the early stages of the 2021 election, Saroya and a close family member believed they were performing well. “He said he had never had such a good reaction at the doors, and he assumed he was getting the Chinese traditional vote,” they recalled.

But the campaign later learned from CSIS that Saroya was allegedly being followed by suspected Chinese security personnel. Intelligence assessments reportedly indicated that these actors were shadowing Saroya’s canvassing team and visiting the same homes shortly after campaign stops. While The Bureau has not confirmed CSIS’s exact conclusions, the conduct appears consistent with voter suppression tactics—paralleling public warnings issued this week by Canada’s SITE Task Force.

The source added that CSIS interviewed Saroya. “He was convinced he was being tailed at times,” they said. The Bureau has independently confirmed with two sources that Saroya was interviewed by CSIS.

Saroya has declined to comment.

While Saroya is not named among alleged victims, a January 2022 “Special Report” from the Privy Council Office—sourced from over 100 CSIS documents and reviewed by The Bureau—stated that a small number of MPs in 2021 reported concerns for their families, reputations, privacy, and re-election chances due to “targeted” CCP activity.

Another section of the report details threats and coercion strongly resembling the emerging picture in Markham. It stated that Chinese diplomats, public security officers, and intelligence officers had monitored Canadians, including one case in which agents threatened the parents of a student in Canada.

The Privy Council Office report also suggested that concerns about forced repatriations—or even covert renditions—of dissidents are plausible. It noted that in 2020, a Chinese police liaison worked with a Canadian law enforcement officer to repatriate an economic fugitive in the Fox Hunt campaign. Another coerced repatriation involved Chinese police bringing a fugitive’s brother and father to Canada, and the relatives could not return to China unless the fugitive returned with them.

The report also noted that “Chinese intelligence officers have discussed that Canadians can be ‘messed with’ in person and online because they are critical of China.”

Although SITE officials have not directly addressed Joe Tay’s statement that he contacted the RCMP for protection in relation to his candidacy, they acknowledged under repeated questioning from Canadian reporters Monday that the spread of Chiang’s comments through Chinese-language media fits a broader pattern of foreign interference aimed at silencing dissidents and influencing voters.

In a public statement, a SITE official said the task force is aware of ongoing efforts by authoritarian regimes to target dissidents, critics, journalists, and other members of diaspora communities. “Please remember two things. First, your vote is secret and secure—it will not be possible to find out who you vote for. And second, it is an offense to threaten someone so that they change their vote,” the official said Monday.

Canadians experiencing intimidation or threats were urged to write down the details—such as the person, location, and nature of the event—and report to local police or contact the RCMP National Security Information Network.

Though Saroya has not spoken publicly about the matter—despite repeated interview requests from The Bureau—parliamentary testimony suggests he raised his concerns within Conservative leadership. During a 2023 hearing of the House Procedure and Affairs Committee, Conservative MP Michael Cooper asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Chief of Staff, Katie Telford:

“Ten weeks before the 2021 election, Bob Saroya, then member of Parliament for Markham–Unionville, received a cryptic and threatening text message from Beijing’s Consul General in Toronto, suggesting that he would no longer be a member of Parliament after the 2021 election. Were you, the Prime Minister or anyone in the PMO briefed or otherwise have knowledge about that text message?”

Telford replied: “I can’t speak to that information.”

Meanwhile, a review of September 2021 campaign materials shows at least one controversial appearance in Markham featuring Paul Chiang, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and then–Public Safety Minister Bill Blair.

In a Facebook post, Chiang wrote: “Today I hosted Justin Trudeau here in Markham–Unionville. It’s time for Erin O’Toole to come clean with Canadians, and for Bob Saroya to do the same. Their commitment to re-legalize 1,500 models of assault-style firearms will put the safety of our community at risk.”

That message echoed attack ads against O’Toole displayed on a digital screen inside a Chinese grocery store in Toronto’s Scarborough–Agincourt riding, according to evidence presented at the Hogue Commission.

Even after Chiang’s resignation, Prime Minister Mark Carney has faced renewed scrutiny for expressing confidence in him just hours before the RCMP announced its investigation. Carney characterized the controversy as a “teachable moment.”

Dennis Molinaro, a former national security analyst and author of the forthcoming book Under Siege: Interference and Espionage in China’s Secret War Against Canada, criticized Carney’s handling of the issue.

“The threats the community faces are real and longstanding,” Molinaro said. “Carney’s reference to Chiang as a former police officer—as if that’s a valid reason for him to remain in the race—is ludicrous.”

“Carney has continually said next to nothing on China,” he added. “It’s one of the most significant political and geopolitical issues of our time, and he has nothing to say? Why? China is a major concern for the United States, and yet he remains silent—even after the execution of four Canadians?”

The Durham Regional Police Association—which represents officers in one of the three Ontario forces where Chiang served—issued a statement condemning Carney’s actions. “We are disappointed in the clear lack of integrity and leadership displayed by Mark Carney to stand by this candidate rather than act after such egregious actions,” the association wrote, adding that Chiang’s conduct “would be held to a higher standard for an active officer in Ontario.”

The group also rejected Carney’s defense of Chiang’s law enforcement background: “The fact that Mr. Carney used Chiang’s policing career as a shield for his actions undermines the great work our heroes in uniform do in their communities each and every day.”

Chiang’s policing career spanned nearly 30 years. He began with the London Police Service in 1992, later served with the Durham Regional Police, and retired in 2020 as a sergeant with York Regional Police. In 2013, he worked as a diversity officer in York’s Diversity and Cultural Resources Unit.

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2025 Federal Election

Don’t let the Liberals fool you on electric cars

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CAE Logo Dan McTeague

“The Liberals, hoodwinked by the ideological (and false) narrative that EVs are better for the environment, want to force you to replace the car or truck you love with one you can’t afford which doesn’t do what you need it to do.”

The Liberals’ carbon tax ploy is utterly shameless. For years they’ve been telling us that the Carbon Tax was a hallmark of Canadian patriotism, that it was the best way to save the planet, that it was really a “price on pollution,” which would ultimately benefit the little guy, in the form of a rebate in which Canadians would get back all the money they paid in, and more!

Meanwhile big, faceless Captain Planet villain corporations — who are out there wrecking the planet for the sheer fun of it! — will shoulder the whole burden.

But then, as people started to feel the hit to their wallets and polling on the topic fell off a cliff, the Liberals’ newly anointed leader — the  environmentalist fanatic Mark Carney — threw himself a Trumpian signing ceremony, at which he and the party (at least rhetorically) kicked the carbon tax to the curb and started patting themselves on the back for saving Canada from the foul beast. “Don’t ask where it came from,” they seem to be saying. “The point is, it’s gone.”

Of course, it’s not. The Consumer Carbon Tax has been zeroed out, at least for the moment, not repealed. Meanwhile, the Industrial Carbon Tax, on business and industry, is not only being left in place, it’s being talked up in exactly the same terms as the Consumer Tax was.

No matter that it will continue to go up at the same rate as the Consumer Tax would have, such that it will be indistinguishable from the Consumer Tax by 2030. And no matter that the burden of that tax will ultimately be passed down to working Canadians in the form of higher prices.

Of course, when that happens, Carney & Co will probably blame Donald Trump, rather than their own crooked tax regime.

Yes, it is shameless. But it also puts Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives in a bind. They’ve been proclaiming their intention to “Axe the Tax” for quite some time now. On the energy file, it was pretty much all you could get them to talk about. So much so that I was worried that upon entering government, they might just go after the low hanging fruit, repeal the Carbon Tax, and move on to other things, leaving the rest of the rotten Net-Zero superstructure in place.

But now, since the Liberals beat them to it (or claim they did,) the Conservatives are left grasping for a straightforward, signature policy which they can use to differentiate themselves from their opponents.

Poilievre’s recently announced intention to kill the Industrial Carbon Tax is welcome, especially at a time when Canadian business is under a tariff threat from both the U.S. and China. But that requires some explanation, and as the old political saying goes, “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.”

There is one policy change however, which comes to mind as a potential replacement. It’s bold, it would make the lives of Canadians materially better, and it’s so deeply interwoven with the “Green” grift of the environmentalist movement of which Mark Carney is so much a part that his party couldn’t possibly bring themselves to steal it.

Pierre Poilievre should pledge to repeal the Liberals’ Electric Vehicle mandate.

The EV mandate is bad policy. It forces Canadians to buy an expensive product — EVs cost more than Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles even when the federal government was subsidizing their purchase with a taxpayer-funded rebate of $5,000 per vehicle, but that program ran out of money in January and was discontinued. Without that rebate, EVs haven’t a prayer of competing with ICE vehicles.

EVs are particularly ill-suited for Canada. Their batteries are bad at holding a charge in the cold. Even in mild weather, EVs aren’t known for their reliability, a major downside in a country as spread out as ours. Maybe it’ll work out if you live in a big city, but what if you’re in the country? Heaven help you if your EV battery dies when you’re an hour away from everywhere.

Moreover, Canada doesn’t have the infrastructure to support a total replacement of gas-and-diesel driven vehicles with EVs. Our already-strained electrical grid just doesn’t have the capacity to support millions of EVs being plugged in every night. Natural Resources Canada estimates that we will need somewhere in the neighborhood of 450,000 public charging stations to support an entirely electric fleet. At the moment, we have roughly 30,000. That’s a pretty big gap to fill in ten years.

And that’s another fact which doesn’t get nearly as much attention as it should. The law mandates that every new vehicle sold in Canada must be electric by 2035. Maybe that sounded incredibly far in the future when it was passed, but now it’s only ten years away! That’s not a lot of time for these technological problems or cost issues to be resolved.

So the pitch from Poilievre here is simple.

“The Liberals, hoodwinked by the ideological (and false) narrative that EVs are better for the environment, want to force you to replace the car or truck you love with one you can’t afford which doesn’t do what you need it to do. If you vote Conservative, we will fix that, so you will be free to buy the vehicle that meets your needs, whether it’s battery or gas powered, because we trust you to make decisions for yourself. Mark Carney, on the other hand, does not. We won’t just Axe the Tax, we will End the EV Mandate!”

A decade (and counting) of Liberal misrule has saddled this country with a raft of onerous and expensive Net-Zero legislation I’d like to see the Conservative Party campaign against.

These include so-called “Clean Fuel” Regulations, Emissions Caps, their war on pipelines and Natural Gas terminals, not to mention Bill C-59, which bans businesses from touting the environmental benefits of their work if it doesn’t meet a government-approved standard.

But the EV mandate is bad for Canada, and terrible for Canadians. A pledge to repeal it would be an excellent start.

Dan McTeague is President of Canadians for Affordable Energy.

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