DEVON GRANDY (Honolulu, Hawaii)
It’s been a while since Break Out The Oreos featured its normally-commonplace Ivy League coverage. It’s summer, so, in our minds, stories about the insanity of Ivy League students are attributed to their own deficiencies of character rather than their respective universities. It is important to note, however, that while the students frequently engage in unproductive and irresponsible behavior during the time off, our professors usually do not (or at least we assume so until an intrepid reporter reveals their predictable ethical and sexual deviations).
We came across Dr. Dickson D. Despommier, who, in addition to possessing the Quadruple Crown for consistency of initials, also may lay claim to having the least-streamlined job title in history by nature of being the “Professor of Public Health in Environmental Health Sciences (and Microbiology)” at Columbia. Due to our deep respect for Dr. Despommier, BOTO will refrain from making the inevitable jokes about his speculative breast sizes (hint: count the D’s) or the fact that the parenthetical in his title deserves to be ended with an exclamation mark.
Dr. Despommier’s design for development, after the jump:
The good Doctor has been making the rounds of late to promote his “vertical farms” concept, which is essentially a sort of skyscraper that uses wind, the Sun, and hydroponics to produce a 30-story farm. The concept capitalizes on efficiency of land use (as farmland would extend upward rather than outward), but also carries some nice perks such as reduced pollution and carbon emissions (no farm equipment or fertilizers), reduced transportation costs (the food is grown very near to where it is distributed), and urban employment opportunities. Also, the architectural designs are some very pretty eye candy.
Of course, no groundbreaking concept is fully vetted in this day and age until its creator has been heckled by Dr. Stephen Colbert.
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2 comments so far...
oh yes! The famed Columbia scientists at the Earth Institute! My environmental science teacher told us about this guy who has developed these huge carbon capture and sequestration machines (http://www.earth.columbia.edu/news/2007/story04-24-07.php)
At Brown we think, “large cylinders that suck carbon out of the air and store it… hmmm, sounds a lot like trees! But sure spend millions on that…”
But seriously, vertical farming is really cool! It has a lot of potential!
Every day it seems, experts from Columbia are interviewed and quoted in the media, including BOTO. Keep up the PR!
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