(Image by Rebecca Macri.)

PROPOSAL: Harvest the metabolic energy of trees to power a maintenance-free, mesh-networked sensing system to predict and detect forest wildfires.


(Image by Rebecca Macri.)

COUNTERPROPOSAL #1: Harvest the metabolic energy of trees to power a remote arboreal border homeland security system.

COUNTERPROPOSAL #2: Harvest the metabolic energy of trees to power an apparatus which acclimatizes a parcel from its present northern climes to conditions last seen when the area was straddling the equator, thus enabling the survival of formerly native tropical flora and fauna.

COUNTERPROPOSAL #3: Harvest the metabolic energy of trees to power concealed speakers sculpting the extinct sonic landscapes of a former ecosystem.

COUNTERPROPOSAL #4: Harvest the metabolic energy of trees to power mobile telecommunication devices long enough for passing hikers, park rangers and loggers to send a couple of tweets.

COUNTERPROPOSAL #5: Harvest the metabolic energy of trees to power fog machines which can be used, depending on your artistic persuasion, to render non-classically the very much classical scene of an aerosolized Jupiter raping Io, or equally classical scenes of wars and heroes, for instance, napalm defoliation during the Vietnam War.

In the Archives:
Agro-veillance

(This is the fourth in a series of five time-saver nanoposts of somewhat related items.)