Vertical farming…imagine it…a 30 or 40 storey building of mostly windows topped off by a solar panel that sustainably harvests energy to run the irrigation system that sustainably harvests water from naturally occurring rain. Indoor fields planted with crops, or with an environment suitable for raising small herds of livestock. And all of this done in the middle of New York city.
That’s what the BBC asks us to imagine in this article reporting on the ideas of Columbia University Professor Dickson Despommier.
While I’m all for greenhouses, which is what it sounds to me like this is, I can’t help but think that we’re mere decades away from Silent Running.
Some days I hope I’m not around to see it when humanity’s general tendecy to Do Stupid Things comes back to bite it in the ass. This is one of those days.
It’s hardly stuff of future science – it’s what criminals are doing in Deptford right now – this is how they are growing marijuana these days. Take over a building, have huge growbags and heatlamps in the room and put in hoses and make-shift irrigation systems to keep it humid and watered. They are doing constant busts in London and finding loads of these places. Funny how criminals came up with it first, really but at least it’s a use for all these vacant buildings that are never demonlished and never refurbished – although it would be better if i was less illegal produce, obviously.