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Title details for The Vertical Farm by Dickson Despommier - Wait list

The Vertical Farm

Feeding the World in the 21st Century

by Dickson Despommier
Sean Runnette
Audiobook
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 4 weeks
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0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 4 weeks
When Columbia professor Dickson Despommier set out to solve America's food, water, and energy crises, he didn't just think big—he thought up. Despommier's stroke of genius, the vertical farm, has excited scientists, architects, and politicians around the globe. These farms, grown inside skyscrapers, would provide solutions to many of the serious problems we currently face, including:


—Allowing year-round crop production


—Providing food to areas currently lacking arable land


—Immunity to weather-related crop failure


—Reuse of water collected by dehumidification of the indoor environment


—New employment opportunities


—No use of pesticides, fertilizers, or herbicides


—Drastically reduced dependence on fossil fuels


—No crop loss due to shipping or storage


—No agricultural runoff


—And many more


Vertical farming can be located on abandoned city properties, creating new urban revenue streams. They will employ lots of skilled and unskilled labor. They can be run on wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal energy. They can be used to grow plants for pharmaceutical purposes or for converting gray water back into drinking water.


In the tradition of the bestselling The World Without Us, this is a totally original landmark work destined to become a classic. With stunning illustrations and clear and entertaining writing, this book will appeal to anyone concerned about America's future.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    October 12, 2010

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781400198290
      • File size: 176443 KB
      • Duration: 06:07:35

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Citing the pollution problems that traditional agriculture creates in the environment, the author proposes bringing crop and animal farms into the cities, stacking them into tall buildings like Lego blocks. Armed with dozens of reasons for concentrating food production in urban areas, Professor Despommier stays loose on the fine details of his proposal. Narrator Sean Runnette inflects his soft voice in response to the meandering message. While some nonfiction readers just plug on no matter what, he demonstrates a skillful sensitivity to the information, much of it sobering. Runnette neither hurries nor drags and enunciates every word, some of which would challenge a speaker less capable with technical terms. The writer avoids the trivialities of cost and admits that no one has ever built a vertical farm. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 9, 2011
      "We invented agriculture at least six different times across the entire globe," Columbia professor Despommier writes in a volume designed to build the case for vertical farms. Despommier's argument is not new, but he is compelling and concise as he weaves together global warming, the population explosion, and other factors encouraging us to explore new ways of feeding ourselves. He is particularly adept in helping readers understand how a well-designed and maintained vertical farm would be a self-contained ecosystem, and how that would lend itself to a more environmentally and economically stable world. However, Despommier is naively optimistic on the ability of large agrochemical companies to "do the right thing and get on board the global green movement" even without economic incentive. Less forgivable is his failure to explain how a vertical farm will actually work. The author says nothing on what plants to plant, or how they are grown, harvested, and distributed. Neither does he mention where these farms should be built, nor who will work them. These specifics are necessary to move his big idea from the concept to reality. Photos.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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