High-tech vertical farms: fresh produce with a fraction of the water and energy

Plenty CEO Matt Barnard, 44, grew up on a 160-acre apple and cherry orchard in bucolic Door County, Wis., a place that attracts a steady stream of fruit-picking tourists. Now he and his four-year-old startup aim to radically change how we grow and eat produce.  See High-Tech Vertical Farm Promises Whole Foods Quality at Walmart Prices:

With the backing of SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, Plenty has the capital and connections to accelerate its endgame: building massive indoor farms on the outskirts of every major city on Earth, some 500 in all. In that world, food could go from farm to table in hours rather than days or weeks.

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More than prayers needed to redress climate harm

We have friends and family that have been suffering through the hurricane impacts in the Caribbean, Mexico and southern US of late.  We have great sympathy and concern for everyone involved and, of course, send well wishes and best hopes to all.

Most of all though, my hope is that we all are inspired to do much more than just pray for damage minimization.  We must find the strength and conviction to change our habits and choices to earth friendly products and procedures to reduce human inflicted harm on the natural world.

This means eating mostly plant based food, walking, biking, taking public transit and electric vehicles as well as lowering energy use and waste and supporting the shift to renewable energy, new technology and net zero buildings. We need to do it all.

On Friday, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, declared that it was not appropriate to discuss the issue of climate change in the midst of a major set of hurricanes hitting the United States.  Others rightly point out that this akin to government officials declaring the discussion of counter-terrorism strategy, taboo in the aftermath of a terrorism attack.  See:  Donald Trump hasn’t faced a single climate change question since the hurricanes hit.

Praying is fine, but it’s far from sufficient here.  If we are to redress the grave harm we are inflicting on our world today, if we truly give a damn about the suffering, we individuals each need to take ownership and active steps to change.

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Status quo in flux on Federal Reserve Board

Last week Fed vice-chair Stanley Fischer announced that he will leave the board of governors next month for personal reasons and eight months before his term was to expire. The timing opens up an unprecedented fourth vacancy on the Fed board of governors. In addition, Chair Janet Yellen may not be reappointed when her term ends in February based on her stated aversion to rolling back financial-crisis-instigated bank regulations.

This could open up 5 of 7 governor seats to be filled by new Trump picks in 2018: a record amount of members in flux at one time. See: Trump handed rare opportunity to reshape Federal Reserve.

Trump will probably end up picking from the usual add-debt and stir advocates, but for a finance sector used to heavily influencing and populating its own regulators, the number of moving parts here is unsettling.  Especially since finance-friendly monetary policy has been so critical to the sector’s profits and influence for the past three decades.  They certainly won’t want true reformers in the mix.

Stanley Fischer is resigning and Danielle DiMartino Booth is back to tell us what that means for the Fed! Here is a direct video link.

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