Tuesday, August 9, 2011

When Software Meets Sorrel: Brave New Garden?


I think it would be cool to have my name spoken in the same breath as brilliant futurists like Stephen Hawking, Alvin Toffler, and Buckminster Fuller.

Futurists predict global trends, emerging markets, and plausible scenarios that will affect everyone on the planet. They show up on cool PBS science shows, and school kids write reports about them. If they're smart, they make predictions with 200-year lead times, so their critics can't beat up on them for getting it bass-ackward.

I might well be a futurist too! Consider this exchange with my soul brother, Owen Dell. We were talking about the fabulous food exchange networks sprouting up around Santa Barbara, like pre-germinated radish seeds.

The idea is simple: People who grow food at home exchange their surplus with neighbors, sharing eggs, fruits, veggies, flowers, herbs, recipes, seeds, seedlings and secret potions. At the same time, they build community by meeting their neighbors. There are twelve exchanges in our area, under the umbrella of Santa Barbara Food Not Lawns.

What does this have to do with me becoming a legend? Well, as Owen and I were praising the value of food exchanges, I wondered aloud what would happen to them if there were no surplus. "What if everyone's garden provided exactly the amount of produce they needed, exactly when they wanted it?"

A good question to ponder, don'tcha think? Well, let's see how this ends up at my Edhat.com blog, shall we?

1 comment:

Cassy said...

First time to visit your site and I believe you are a futuristic man.... am i right?

Nice to have found your site. Keep posting.

Cassy from Acoustic Guitar Lessons