The world is awash with greenhouses growing fresh vegetables year-round for health-conscious urbanites. There are so many of them that in places their plastic and glass roofs are reflecting sufficient solar radiation to cool local temperatures — even as surrounding areas warm due to climate change.
The extent of this accidental climate engineering is becoming ever more apparent as analysis of satellite images dramatically increases estimates of the area of the planet swathed in greenhouses. From southern Spain to northeast China and the Rift Valley in East Africa to Mexico, millions of acres of former scrub and marginal farmland are being replaced by glistening reflective surfaces.
The intensive agricultural methods employed within greenhouses may often damage local environments by overtaxing water supplies and polluting rivers…
Read the full article originally published at e360.yale.edu.