I like the Science News excerpt I saw, but the naysayers are heavily quoted in it.

We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18

We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18

per the SA article:

Operating costs are an issue, of course, including winter heating and harvesting. But the fertilizer and fuel consumed for traditional farming is expensive, too; witness the run-up in food prices this year. Governments also pay out billions of dollars annually to rescue farmers who lose crops to drought and floods such as those that ravaged the Midwest this past June.

Seems to me that a new WPA/CCC could help turn urban blight (abandoned/dilapidated multi-story buildings) that already exist into places where such indoor gardens could do a lot of good -- providing fresh food, lowering the carbon footprint for shipping, creating jobs.

But then again, I'm known to be impractical and idealistic.

We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18

of inspired, uplifting, hopey-changey letters addressed to Uncle Obie - as if he were the Claus himself. Written by actual adults, in fact. Liberal intellectuals. Slurpy, wide eyed, angst-filled letters.

If you ask him to spy on you you may actually get your wish. But don't expect him to snake down your chimney with a periscope. More likely he'll just tap your phone or read your email like Bush.

Not to nay say the facts and sentiments of the letters themselves. But the Oval Office will not become the new North Pole - no matter how good a boy or girl you were last year.

This thread is about food and production thereof.
Your dismissiveness is at best discourteous, at worst sour grapes.

We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18

it could be seen as discourteous, and for that I would apologize. But a comment about the proliferation of people writing hopeless, and at times pathetic wish letters to Obama as if he had ears to hear, seemed most appropriate in a situation that exemplified it. No discourteousness intended, as I indicated that I was not nay saying the facts and sentiments, just criticizing the form.

but making good suggestions for those who do have attention to pay is never wasted effort, makana44.

We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18

wholeheartedly.

This may have escaped your notice, makana44, but the election has not yet taken place.

But a comment about the proliferation of people writing hopeless, and at times pathetic wish letters to Obama as if he had ears to hear, seemed most appropriate in a situation that exemplified it.

Except 'the situation,' i.e. Pollan's thoughtful and idea-and-fact-filled op ed, doesn't exemplify what you want it to exemplify.

The letter was written to whomever finds himself as the president-elect, which means it was an argument meant to be placed in front of both McCain and Obama, and of course, in front of the citizens who will be electing them, and, one would hope, will continue to play a role in the politics of the nation, even, no, especially after the election of the President.

What is most discourteous about your comment is that clearly you didn't bother to read the op ed which was the basis for Lambert's post. Since you didn't, you might have had the courtesy not to comment.

If you tell me that you did read Pollan's article, I think I would have a problem believing you, but it it were true, I'd be even more depressed, that from the richness of ideas presented in that sizable op ed, all you could see in it was a springboard to hop onto that favorite hobby horse of yours - what a total zero Barak Obama is, and what fools anyone who doesn't see the political situation the way you do are.

You use the word pathetic in reference to Michael Pollan? You think it's pathetic to write books which change the fundamental way millions of people view the world? And Pollan hasn't been afraid to take on those aspects of liberalism, a sometimes too credulous belief in big government, for instance, that have led many of us in the wrong direction in some cases, as, for instance, in our acceptance of nutritional science as the road to better ways of producing and consuming food.

Like Naomi Klein's work, Pollan's books provide an almost revelatory experience, and I don't mean by that anything like the claim of cultist adoration I see here attributed to all Obama supporters. I mean revelatory in the sense that something that you knew but couldn't quite get hold of is revealed to you in a way that doesn't close down discussion, it opens it up, opens up the reader's mind and encourages us all to go ahead and make even more connections. Klein and Pollan and many others of our best political commentators on the left do this because they are genuinely radical, in the sense of cutting back to the roots. What they are able to reveal are the often hidden underlying structures of our politcal and cultural reality. They are intellectuals who inspire action.

You may find that pathetic, markana44, I find your impulse to think that way pathetic.

if you really believe that this wasn't being addressed to the expected-to-be president elect Obama. In any case, I haven't seen anyone addressing letters to McCain, just Obama. And as I stated unambiguously, it is that phenomenon which I was addressing, not the subject of the letter itself. And I've already apologized for being o/t on this, so kindly stop beating this horse...your continuing comments are no less o/t and distracting than was my original one.

Let's talk first about the costs of lighting huge crops inside a building, with either HID sodium lighting or even fluorescent; the difficulties in maintaining equipment in a closed environment due to humidity (and the skyrocketing fungal, bacterial and viral diseases that love a contained environment); the utter lack of pollinators in a glass box and the greenhouse pests that adore a closed climate; the increased difficulty in harvesting and moving produce--even down freight elevators.

To grow grains for example, while wind-pollination could be simulated with fans, combining & threshing would have to be done by hand or with some yet to be invented combine that was small enough to fit in a skyscraper. And then the bizarre idea of raising hogs or other livestock---animals need the sun, the real sun, and to be outdoors. Besides the diseases that flourish in confinement, there is the mental stress animals also suffer in confinement--which even if you are indifferent to that, contributes to decline in animal physical health and thence end product.

Oh, and if you've ever worked on or near a hog or turkey farm, even just an outdoor one, you'd know why all that 'aroma' in a confined space would not be conducive to a happy work environment.

at all to me.

Hydroponics works.

CAFO as currently practiced is a rotten business, but we're not talking about multi-hundreds of animals in small confined areas (particularly so confined the pigs' teeth must be pulled and the chickens' beaks amputated, as is common practice in today's "ag industry").

Yep, sunlight's needed. You can get it with windows and solar tubes.

Yep, you'd need to keep the barn (levels) clean.

But you know what? You could keep chickens and rabbits and goats, and you could use the sort of "living system" recycling that the articles talk about.

And yes, I've raised turkeys. They have a lot tougher time staring up open mouthed and drowning in the rain if they're indoors.

We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18