Theory Thursday: Urban Farming

National Geographic had an interesting article in a recent issue talking about how some urban centers are transforming their rooftops into green rooftops and the positive environmental impact this might have. You can read the article here.

While reading this article, a thought occurred to me regarding farming and how I had also recently read that we might not be able to grow enough food if the world population keep growing at its current rate. And with all the recent issues with food-borne illnesses, how eating local might become more important now. But where would we get enough farmland to tackle these issues? I have a theory: Urban Farming.

I don't know about you, but in my town I have quite a few developed areas (shopping centers and the like) that have been abandoned for one reason or another. Why not reclaim this land and turn it back into farms? This would do 3 things: 1) employ people and 2) green up otherwise wasted and ugly space, and 3) would also allow more folks to eat locally grown food.

Is this solution perfect? Probably not, but it's a start and I think it would be beneficial to everyone while helping Mother Earth out a bit too.

Theory Thursday: Shrinking Attention Spans Cause Expanding Waistlines?

Ok, not a design related topic this time around, but it's my blog and well, I can do whatever the hell I want! :P Promise to get back to design next week!

I have a theory. Not sure what exactly prompted this one, but it sorta popped into my head one day. Could it be that the shorter our attention spans get, the larger our waistlines get?

It sounds contradictory, I know, as you'd think all the running around people do nowadays we'd all be skinny as rails. But think about it: we run around, faces glued to our Blackberries or iPhones or whatever and we don't have time to eat a meal, so we go for the high-fat fast food that we wolf down in as few bites as possible. Some folks don't "have time" to excercise, so they skip it. When we do sit, we sit for hours glued to TVs, computers, or some other device. So all that high-fat food just gets added on to, well, us.

I'm sure there are holes in this theory, and I'd love to hear what you think about this topic!

(hmm. it appears that today is not Thursday, whoops!)