The City of Austin Texas has commenced a program to promote "cool" surfaces to reduce extreme heat. The city is coating asphalt to make "cool pavement." The city is asking home owners to build only light colored roofs and to put up shade structures.

Unfortunately, the city's flyer fails to point out that the shade structures should be made with light colored cloth rather than dark colored cloth. Both light and dark cloth will provide shade but the light colored cloth will reflect more solar energy to space rather then heating up and warming the surrounding air.