Dymaxion World: What do the Korean DMZ and Chernobyl have in common?

Monday, April 23, 2007

They're both basically nature preserves in all but name. That and more in my latest Gristmill post.

To put it another way, humanity's regular everyday presence on earth is more disruptive than the worst nuclear disaster in history.

Oberlinblogger said...: Hm. I can't comment over there, so I will here.

1) It's not surprising that the article linked doesn't provide details. I'd love to hear how an area producing 50 times the food of a regular farm with the same amount of sunlight is going to produce energy. Not to mention the idea that just because its indoors the plants won't need pesticides. (Read Eric Schlosser's Reefer Madness for the difficulties of keeping an indoor monoculture pest-free.)

2) Urbanization is great, I think, but not enough. I remember reading that pollution has caused the milk of women living in arctic regions far from any industrialized areas to be classifiable as toxic waste, just from consuming fish and seal regularly. Sealing ourselves off isn't enough if we don't make other changes as well.

3) Low foot-print polyculture has the advantage of (though its less efficient in terms of labor and cost) being much more efficient in terms of space. Which means replacing our mega-farms with the kind that us environmentalists like anyway would actually free up a lot of space, either for housing or for "natural" spaces.

-Sam L; April 23, 2007 5:04 PM
Oberlinblogger said...: Sorry, I missed the part about wind generation. Regardless, the pellets which they claim will power most of it aren't an energy source, that energy is coming indirectly from the sunlight. I don't see how this could be anything other than a huge energy drain.; April 23, 2007 5:13 PM

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