Comments on: The Living Skyscraper

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 04:48:50 +0000

Vhan is a cock. I didn’t know if any of the rest of you knew that.

By: Vhan Wolfe

Vhan Wolfe — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:59:07 +0000

Thank you for finding me!

By: Justin

Justin — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:11:23 +0000

@Vhan - Vhan I organize a group that is working on getting a vertical farm to portland and would love for you to join, http://www.meetup.com/FarmUP/

By: Vhan

Vhan — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:52:08 +0000

I’ve been looking into Vertical farms for over a year now. It seems like the best way to get it here in Portland is for us to do it ourselves. It would also put more money back into Portland then to some business man in another state/country. This can be done, it just needs a lot of work. Which is another thing Portlanders need. I’ve been researching this a lot, and would love to be apart of the project!

By: Stephen

Stephen — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:01:07 +0000

I really want to see this project succeed because I think this is could be a solution to are rising food shortage…I am trying to get the first working tower built: http://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/vertical-farm-in-new-york-city

By: anonymous

anonymous — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 01:45:31 +0000

Agree with the aspect of supporting local economies. I suspect that in many cases organic farming is *less* efficient, simply due to lower yields.

Not that yields should be the only measure of success. I buy organic because I’d rather not ingest unnatural chemicals.

One takeaway from the article is that if one’s goal is to reduce the carbon footprint, the place to start is minimizing meat and dairy. Though I would like to see a measure of “carbon footprint per calorie” for different foods. Even then, I suspect red meat would lose out to fruits and veggies. And fruit trees are prettier to look at than cows.

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:40:14 +0000

Interesting article. I wonder if the study distinguishes between conventional and organic crops. While both use carbon producing machinery to plant and harvest I can’t help but wonder if the organic farming practices which rely more on nature are more efficient.

Even if they are not, there is an added benefit of supporting your local community by buying organic, and that wonderfully fresh taste when you bit into produce that was picked fresh and consumed.

By: Tricia

Tricia — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:19:47 +0000

@anonymous – I’m not *just* concerned about food distance – although, when your food comes from 7030 miles away, maybe you should be. It’s just one contributing factor to greenhouse gas emissions, as the study you point to says (thank you, by the way, for the reference – the more studies we have out there the better in my opinion).

My perspective is that we have to look at all of the ways we are impacting the earth in the choices that we make, not just the obvious ones.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:39:42 +0000

Oops the 4% citation comes from here:

http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/esthag/2008/42/i10/abs/es702969f.html

“We find that although food is transported long distances in general (1640 km delivery and 6760 km life-cycle supply chain on average) the GHG emissions associated with food are dominated by the production phase, contributing 83% of the average U.S. household’s 8.1 t CO2e/yr footprint for food consumption. Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%. “

By: anonymous

anonymous — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:36:58 +0000

I’m curious why you’re so worried about the food distance? I’ve read that only 4% of food’s carbon footprint comes from travel from grower to seller. That means that the overall carbon footprint is likely much lower if food is grown where it is most efficient to grow it, then shipped.

http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2008/apr/science/ee_foodmiles.html