The future of our food is evolving with technological innovation. Plants and open minds are key.
What if we could grow delicious, nutrient-dense food, indoors anywhere in the world? Caleb Harper, director of CitiFARM at the MIT Media Lab, wants to change the food system by connecting growers with technology. Get to know Harper’s “food computers” and catch a glimpse of what the future of farming might look like. Here is a direct video link.
Climate change has been a political topic for more than 20 years and has only gotten more severe. A Dutch lawyer realized this meant many executive and legislative branches of government are not up to effecting policy changes needed. He decided to ask for assistance from the nation’s judicial branch:
“Look at our neighbours: Germany and Denmark are leading the world on this issue. They have very strong economies, they innovate, they have thousands of people working in the green business. They are about to reduce 40 per cent of their emissions by 2020. Netherlands needed to be held to account.”
Last June in a landmark decision, a Netherlands court agreed and ordered the state to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25% over the next five years in order to fulfill its duty of care to protect its citizens from the harmful effects of climate change.
Now the same lawyer is consulting with environmental advocates around the world to prepare similar suits. He thinks the Canadian government is a prime target and spoke at a conference here last week to help lawyers get started. After all what are Charter rights and freedoms without a viable biosphere to live in?
“Canada will be 26 per cent above the 1990 emission levels in the year 2020. For a developed nation, that is just shocking, it’s unbelievable. I did not know (Canada) was so far. I would hope that the legal community here would look into the possibility (of) a similar litigation.”
Pablo Tittonell is professor ‘Farming Systems Ecology’ at Wageningen University and one of the worlds most famous experts in the field of agriculture and ecology. He advocates intensification of agriculture by making optimal use of natural processes and the landscape to meet the worlds growing demand for food. Here is a direct video link.
“Nature doesn’t have waste. Waste is a human invention”.
