Illumination in Five Years

This week has been the 5th annual World Science Festival, and one way to look at 5 years of science festivals is to look at what has changed in science in the last five years. This is so much harder than for a technology conference, because in general science moves slowly, but thinking back those 5 years a lot has happened. The LHC, Genetic-based cancer therapy, discovery of thousands of exoplanets and my favorite “something from nothing”, though again we will get into the debate of whether that discovery is really indeed nothing. But I have one story that I was a witness to from the first year, which serves as a nice vindication for a very enthusiastic Columbia University Scientist Dickson Despommier.

The first WSF five years ago started with an event which has not been repeated, which was the World Science Summit. This was held at Columbia, and was a very high level interdisciplinary discourse among top scientists. I was of course just an observer, and was involved in the planning. Those on the panels however included 12 Nobel Laureates. This was a humbling room to be in for anyone. The panels were on a range of topics from climate change to cosmology. The panel that I remembered today when I entered a talk by Professor Despommier, was one regarding the future of agriculture. Despommier is the author of “The Vertical Farm”, published 3 years after that Summit, but that he was already teaching and consulting about. It was a form of hyper-local food, which would be grown in city center buildings using hydroponics and other technologies. His ideas were exciting and wild. Some involved the concept of beautiful buildings constructed by Frank Gehry or IM Pei, others were the use of old warehouses and factories, and still others were the use of vast basements lit by LEDs where produce could be grown. It seemed like one of these great futuristic ideas to me, especially as I have never bought into the Michael Pollan version of local organic farming which I find wasteful and deceptive, even though the food is tasty. Despommier once said on a panel with Pollan that he loved food from Michael’s garden, but that he harvested it only once per year. It is not likely to feed India, or even Scranton, or something to that extent. So this idea seemed great, and even though I already had a Ph.D. in Applied Physics, I saw nothing fundamentally wrong with the idea. That was until we sat down to lunch where I picked the most Nobel prized packed table in the building. Though I won’t mention many names, I will say that the consensus at the table amongst the group was that Despommier’s ideas, especially concerning LEDs were physically wrong. One name that I will mention was the now Energy Security in the Obama administration Steven Chu. Chu is brilliant, and I knew this not only because of the Nobel. So I deferred on the debate and rather sadly dismissed the idea that the future would be filled with vertical farms.

Well Dr. Chu, and the rest were wrong to my delight. Five years later Despommier reported back with a presentation today about several incredibly successful vertical farms. It is not surprising I guess considering Chu’s current role that they are not located in the United States, but rather in Korea, Sweden, Singapore and Japan. That is just a start though. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel who is of course no longer running the White House, but instead running Chicago, loves Vertical Farming, and has led the effort to convert old slaughterhouses into Urban farms. They are set to open soon. Brooklyn will be next to follow, as well as Milwaukee.

So while science moves slowly, and cynicism can slow things down even more, advances do occur when they are ready. I realized something about myself too in those five years. That is that I should have spoken up. I was more cowardly than undereducated. These days I have a company that does among other things LED inspection. From the first meeting I had with a potential LED customer I realized how wrong Chu et al. were, and how I could have made an argument as a physicist even then.

Stuart Firestein has a new book called “Ignorance”, about embracing and challenging those things on the fringes of our knowledge. LEDs were not an expertise of mine, but materials were. I did understand enough to “ignorantly challenge” these guys. So I look forward to yet another meeting of minds more refined, and recognized than my own, where I can stand up rather than sit back, whether it is for a brighter future, or just one where a tomato is grown downstairs.