We should all grow our own food and do our own waste processing

Host: The sky above the city was heavy, a dull iron-gray that pressed down on the rooftops. A thin mist hung over the streets, blurring the edges of buildings and neon signs, like a painting left too long in the rain. It was the kind of evening that made people hurry home, but Jack and Jeeny weren’t most people.

They were standing on the roof of an old apartment block, overlooking the maze of concrete, smokestacks, and flickering lights. Around them were rows of small planter boxes, filled with tomatoes, lettuce, and herbs—a garden clinging to life against the urban cold.

Jack wiped the dirt from his hands, leaning against a metal rail, the faint smell of compost in the air. Jeeny was crouched beside a barrel, her fingers mixing the soil, her hair tangled by the wind.

Host: It was an unlikely Eden—half industrial, half hopeful—and it was here that their latest argument began, sparked by a line Jack had read on his phone:

"We should all grow our own food and do our own waste processing, we really should." — Bill Gates.

Jack: Chuckling softly. “Bill Gates says we should all grow our own food and process our own waste. You hear that, Jeeny? The billionaire preaching backyard self-sufficiency. The irony writes itself.”

Jeeny: “You always see irony where I see truth.” She smiled, not looking up from the soil. “He’s not wrong, you know. We depend too much on systems that have no face. We eat food we didn’t touch, flush waste we don’t want to see, and call it civilization.”

Jack: “That’s the point of civilization. Division of labor. Efficiency. You really think the world’s eight billion people can all turn into farmers and composters? We can’t even get them to recycle properly.”

Jeeny: “Maybe because we’ve taught them not to care. We made the world so convenient that people forgot it’s alive.”

Host: The wind shifted, lifting a plastic sheet that flapped against a rusty pole. The city hummed below—cars, advertisements, the machinery of modern life still turning.

Jeeny: “Every time you buy a bag of lettuce wrapped in three layers of plastic, you’re paying to forget where it came from. And every time you flush, you’re pretending what you waste disappears.”

Jack: “And yet it does disappear, thanks to sewage systems and farmers who know what they’re doing. That’s the beauty of specialization.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. That’s the tragedy of disconnection.”

Host: Her voice shook slightly—not with anger, but with something deeper, something almost like grief. She stood, wiping her hands on her jeans, and looked out at the skyline—a horizon of smoke and steel.

Jeeny: “Do you know why people used to plant gardens during wars? Not just to eat—but to feel part of something alive. To resist despair. Growing food is the most radical act of faith left in this world.”

Jack: “Faith doesn’t fill grocery stores. Industry does. I’m not saying gardens aren’t nice, but they’re symbolic at best. Romanticism for people who have time.”

Jeeny: “You call it romanticism, I call it survival. The soil remembers what we forget—that everything we take, we owe back.”

Host: Jack watched her for a moment, his face unreadable. He lit a cigarette, the flame briefly illuminating the tired lines beneath his eyes.

Jack: “You really believe a rooftop garden will change anything? Look around. The city’s choking on its own ambition. A few planters won’t stop the storm.”

Jeeny: “No, but they remind us we’re still capable of balance. You can’t rebuild the world overnight, Jack. But you can start by taking responsibility for a square meter of it.”

Host: The smoke from his cigarette drifted upward, merging with the city’s haze. For a moment, neither spoke. The silence was not empty—it was full of the hum of unseen machines, the whisper of leaves, the faint pulse of electricity underfoot.

Jack: “You sound like those permaculture idealists. ‘Return to nature.’ ‘Live simply.’ But you know what happens when people try that? Poverty. Disease. History proves it. We left the soil for a reason.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack—we abandoned it for greed, not progress. There’s a difference. Technology should’ve helped us live with the earth, not apart from it.”

Host: Her words struck like quiet thunder. The air seemed to thicken, charged with the tension between two visions of the same future.

Jack: “You want everyone to farm, process their own waste, build local systems? That’s utopian. You can’t scale it.”

Jeeny: “It’s not about scaling, it’s about remembering. The more we forget the cycles of life, the easier it becomes to destroy them. When we throw something away, we act like ‘away’ exists.”

Jack: “Maybe that’s the real cocoon then—our illusion of convenience.”

Jeeny: Smiling faintly. “Now you’re getting it.”

Host: The moon had begun to rise, a pale coin behind the smog, casting a faint silver light over the rooftop. The plants shimmered softly, their tiny leaves trembling in the night breeze.

Jeeny: “Every seed is a lesson in humility. You put it in the ground, you wait, and you remember that you don’t control life—you collaborate with it.”

Jack: “That sounds poetic until the crops fail. Then what?”

Jeeny: “Then you learn again. Failure’s part of the cycle too. That’s what we’ve forgotten—cycles. We only understand production and disposal, not renewal.”

Host: Jack tossed the cigarette to the ground, crushing it beneath his boot. He looked down at the garden, at the small, stubborn green leaves sprouting through city dust. Something in him softened.

Jack: “You know… when I was a kid, my grandfather had a small farm. He’d wake before dawn to water the field. I used to think he was wasting his life. But now—” He stopped, staring at the soil. “Now I wonder if he understood something I don’t.”

Jeeny: Gently. “Maybe he just understood gratitude.”

Host: The wind quieted. Even the city’s roar seemed to fade for a heartbeat. The two of them stood, side by side, watching their small garden sway in the night.

Jack: “You think we could really live like this? Grow our food, handle our waste, keep things local?”

Jeeny: “Not all at once. But piece by piece. A city of millions starts with one roof. A culture of respect starts with one act of care.”

Jack: “And what about people who don’t have the luxury of soil or time?”

Jeeny: “Then the rest of us grow for them. The point isn’t to retreat—it’s to rebuild connection. Every handful of compost, every tomato that comes from your own effort, reminds you that the world isn’t a machine—it’s a body.”

Host: The moonlight deepened, glinting off the steel rails, painting their faces in pale silver. A train passed in the distance, its lights like a slow river of fire.

Jack: “Maybe Bill Gates was right after all.” He smiled faintly. “Maybe we should process our own waste. At least then we’d know what we’ve been dumping on the world.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The moment we face what we discard, we start to change how we live.”

Host: The night breathed—softly, evenly. Somewhere below, the city kept turning, unaware that two people on a rooftop were quietly redefining civilization.

Jeeny: “You know, Jack, maybe the future isn’t about grand technologies or perfect systems. Maybe it’s just about remembering the simplest truth—that what we take, we must give back.”

Jack: “And that every garden is a rebellion.”

Jeeny: “A peaceful one.”

Host: The camera of the scene pulled back, rising above the rooftop—past the glinting metal and the humming transformers, past the restless glow of windows and headlights. From above, the garden looked like a small patch of green fire in a sea of gray—fragile, luminous, defiant.

Host: And as the city breathed, somewhere between machines and moonlight, a quiet idea began to take root again—
that the earth is not a resource to be owned,
but a conversation waiting to be remembered.