Z-Axis Urban Agriculture: The Vertical Farm Project

The Problem

By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth's population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use. Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices. What can be done to avoid this impending disaster?

A Potential Solution: farm vertically

The concept of indoor farming is not new, since hothouse production of tomatoes, a wide variety of herbs, and other produce has been in vogue for some time. What is new is the urgent need to scale up this technology to accommodate another 3 billion people. An entirely new approach to indoor farming must be invented, employing cutting edge technologies. The Vertical Farm must be efficient (cheap to construct and safe to operate). Vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world's urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.

www.verticalfarm.com/index.htm

Big Ideas: Precarity

Over the past couple of years, an intriguing new movement has been emerging from the chaos of Europe's new left. Abandoned by unions and corporations, forsaken by the shrinking welfare state and increasingly vulnerable to the whims of the market, people have started to organize around the concept of precarity: the condition of living without stability or even the assurance of survival.

Both celebrated and vilified, precarity is a lifestyle created by the new reality of casual, flexible, temp and contract work. It has been brought on by the erosion of traditional safety nets—the dole, public healthcare, pensions, lifetime corporate jobs, unions, and so on. Most are forced into it. But still others choose to live precariously, rather than scramble to survive in the collapsing old system. To them, precarity is an identity, and they're fighting— collectively—to make it work.

At least, that's what's happening in Europe and parts of South America, where precarity activists are building sophisticated networks of squats and collective housing co-ops, independent production and distribution networks, and worker-run factories. It's all a means of protecting against the volatility and uncertainty of the system around them. In recent years, they've even organized massive days of action—paralleling traditional May Day protests to "activate new forms of social cooperation, new abilities to share skills, experiences and resources, in order to construct and live a new imagery of social radicalism."

http://adbusters.org/blogs/Big_Ideas_Precarity.html

Ontario must spend $40B fixing nuclear plants, $30B more on wind power, report declares...

Toronto: A provincially appointed body is recommending Ontario refurbish or replace its fleet of 12 nuclear power plants at a cost of $30 billion to $40 billion, according to a report released yesterday.

It also recommends transforming Ontario into a North American leader in the use of wind technology, bringing the total projected cost to about $70 billion.

The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) report warns Ontario will face a massive energy shortage when the government makes good on a promise to phase out Ontario's four remaining coal plants by 2009. At the same time, existing nuclear plants will also have to be taken out of service if they are not upgraded in about 10 years, leaving Ontario with an energy gap of about 24,000 megawatts by 2025, equivalent to 80 per cent of the province's current capacity.

www.energyprobe.org/energyprobe

An ambitious Japanese-led project to dig deeper into the Earth's surface than ever before will be a breakthrough in detecting earthquakes including Tokyo's dreaded "Big One," officials said Thursday.

The deep sea drilling vessel Chikyu made a port call Thursday in Yokohama after ending its first training mission at sea since being built in July at a cost of 500 million dollars. The 57,500-ton Chikyu, which means the Earth in Japanese, is scheduled to embark in September 2007 on a voyage to collect the first samples of the Earth's mantle in human history.

http://www.physorg.com/news9073.html

"Water will be the coal of the future,"
French science-fiction writer Jules Verne predicted in 1874.

More than a century later in a world seeking clean alternatives to fossil fuels, Dutch and Norwegian scientists believe they can help turn Verne's dream into reality.

The Dutch Center for Sustainable Water Technology or Wetsus, and Norway's independent research organization SINTEF, working with power company Statkraft, have invented devices that generate electricity by mixing sea and river water.

It might seem like an exercise in scientific theory destined only for high-tech laboratories, but the process' creators and the European Union, which funds the Norwegian research, believe the idea's time might have come.

"There is huge potential in Europe to use this new way of producing electricity," Philippe Schild, scientific officer at the European Commission's energy directorate, told Reuters.

"It's a renewable source which does not cause any environmental damage and we think it can play a big role in helping meet our target to increase renewable energy," he said.

http://today.reuters.com/news

Skydiving from the Edge of Space

This is pretty amazing .. and daring .. and brave and .. well the list goes on. In 1960, Joe Kittinger was the first man in space. He lifted from earth in a hot air balloon (experimenting effects of high altitude on the human body) and rose about 30 KM above earth in the emptiness of space. Once he reached the edge of space .. he did something amazing .. he JUMPED (with a video camera) .. see the video! ..

http://video.google.com/videoplay?