A former meat-packing plant, once part of Chicago's legendary Union Stockyards, is trading in its stun line for a stunning new line of thinking. The Plant is billed as a vertical farm that operates using a plethora of sustainable practices. Used grain from the building's microbrewery feeds its fish farm, whose waste in turn feeds its mushroom farm (and other plants), which in turn cleans the water so it can go back to the fish farm. Any waste not actively being used goes into an anaerobic digester, which creates methane for use in generating the building's heat, electricity and steam for brewing.
So what's the point to all this? The Plant could provide plenty of positives:
But there's more. According to Dickson Despommier's "The Vertical Farm" site, anticipated population growth will require us to increase our farmland by 20 percent to keep pace. But this is problematic, since we're estimated to already be using 80 percent of land suitable for farming, and traditional land practices lay about 15 percent to waste. The math is not encouraging.
Enter vertical farming. Despommier cites statistics projecting about 80 percent of Earth's population to be urbanites by mid-century. By using their multi-level structure to create multiple acres of farm land on the footprint of one, vertical farms essentially create farmland out of thin air, grow crops sustainably within the regions that need them most and do so year-round. There are claimed to be other benefits as well, such as the virtual elimination of weather-related crop failures, pesticides, agricultural runoff and more.
While vertical farms are relatively new on the scene, urban farming started making noise in the 1990s and can be found in places ranging from New York City to Tokyo to Caracas, Venezuela.
Read more about The Plant at Grist and Fast Company. See an entertaining and informative video from Today's Green Minute (and while you're at it, see TGM's video about "What on Earth").
And to those who saw today's comic strip and anticipated a blog about beer-drinking ghosts from the Roaring 20s... my apologies.
Like "What on Earth?" on Facebook.
Become a Fan here at The Huffington Post.
Libelium Unveils the Top 50 Internet of Things Applications
An area the size of the State of Rhode Island will not be planted this year in just one region of California due to the lack of water. Part of the issue relates to fresh water that's being diverted by Court order to protect the Delta Smelt. The bigger issue relates to the lack of desalination plants.
The Zetas And The Surfriders
Extremism In Defense Of Environmentalism Can Be A Catastrophic Vice.
http://hbfreshwater.com/uncategorized/the-zetas-and-the-surfriders
excerpt:
If the country has so hamstrung itself with regulatory process and tolerance for greens gaming the system that public agencies responsible for the water supply think that contending with the Zetas in Mexico is a more attractive option than contending with the Surfrider Foundation in California, are we facing an environmental crisis of existential proportions — or a governance crisis of existential proportions?
I'd love to see what readers think of this one.
Interior Looks to Expand Permits for Killing Bald Eagles to Accommodate Wind Energy
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/05/09/interior-looks-to-expand-permits-for-killing-bald-eagles-to-accommodate-wind-energy
I was going to joke, "It's a marathon, not a sprint," but, unfortunately, climate change is turning it into a sprint.