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T he greenhouses that sprawl across the coastline of southeastern Spain are so bright that they gleam in satellite photos. Since the 1970s, farmers have been expanding this patchwork of buildings in Almería province to grow produce such as tomatoes, peppers and watermelons for export. To keep the plants from overheating in the summer, they paint the roofs with white lime to reflect the sunlight.That does more than just cool the crops. Over the past 30 years, the surrounding region has warmed by 1 °C, but the average air temperature in the greenhouse area has dropped by 0.7 °C (ref. 1).It's an effect that cities around the world would like to mimic. As Earth's climate changes over the coming decades, global warming will hit metropolitan areas especially hard because their buildings and pavements readily absorb sunlight and raise local temperatures, a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect. Cities, as a result, stand a greater chance of extreme hot spells that can kill. "Heat-related deaths in the United States outpace -over the last HOW CITIES CAN BEAT THE HEAT

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