30 stories…

Las Vegas the tourist mecca of the World is set to begin development of the World’s first vertical farm. The $200 million dollar project is designed to be a functional and profitable working farm growing enough food to feed 72,000 people for a year and provide another tourist attraction to the city that does everything in a larger than life way.

The World currently uses about 80% of the available farm land and 60% of the earth’s population lives near or in an urban environment so the logical choice for farming is to go up for land where the environment can be controlled and where distribution is local. Las Vegas is seen as the perfect location for this project by Nevada State officials who would like to demonstrate their sustainability and environmental awareness instead of projecting an image of waste and excess.

The inside?

Although the project initial cost is high at $200 million, with annual revenue of $25 million from produce and another $15 million from tourists the 30 story vertical farm would be about as profitable as a casino with operating expenses only being about $6 million a year.

There would be about 100 different crops grown ranging from strawberries to lettuce even miniature banana trees could be grown from each floors specially controlled environment. The products would go straight to the casinos and hotel properties and be a very visible and desirable addition to the overall Las Vegas experience. Design details should be worked out in 2008 and the project could open its doors by the middle of 2010.

Source: nextenergynews

This frog needs your help.

The year of 2008 has now been named among conservationists, the Year of the Frog in response to the impending doom in store for frogs, toads, newts, salamanders and caecilians across the planet. According to this article at Telegraph.co.uk, this is going to be the biggest mass extinction since the dinosaurs if something isn’t done about it soon.

“The spread of the parasitic fungus amphibian chytrid, which has proved deadly for hundreds of amphibian species, may have been made worse by the effects of global warming. The disease has so far proved unstoppable in the wild and can kill 80 per cent of native amphibians within months once it has taken hold.”

In the meantime, the Amphibian Conservation Action Plan (ACAP) is trying to find a way to protect the habitat of these threatened amphibious creatures. The biggest initiative proposed so far is the Amphibian Ark, which has a similar concept to Noah’s Ark, except instead of a “great flood,” it’s a deadly fungus.

“Widespread extinction of amphibians would be catastrophic,” said Jeffrey P. Bonner, chairman of Amphibian Ark and president and CEO of the St. Louis Zoo.

“In addition to their intrinsic value, they offer many benefits and are a critical part of a healthy world. They play an important role in the food web as both predator and prey, eating insects which benefits agriculture and minimizes disease spread. Their skin also has substances that protect them from some microbes and viruses, offering promising medical cures for a variety of human diseases.”

Conservation groups are hopeful these efforts will at least buy enough time to solve these issues before it’s too late. Ideally once the threats are removed, all the endangered amphibians would be reintroduced to their natural habitats.