'Four Degrees of Separation'

In this post, we have been asked to relate four new items to each other and to our readings and lecture. This week the subject topic was about how weather can affect a neighborhood, community, and even a culture, and how can the architects of the world today help not only rebuild destroyed communities, but possibly keep disasters from happening. The four items that we have to relate are a film ("Sideways"), a book (The BLDG BLOG Book), an innovation in science/ technology (Micro-Oxygenation), and a food item (a grape).
A grape is a non-climacteric fruit from the berry family. They can grow in many sizes and colors on woody vines. They can be eaten raw or used to make many things, such as wine. In the smart comedy "Sideways" staring Paul Giamatti, two old college roommates go on an adventure to California's Central Coast to attend several wine-tasting events for one of the roommate's bachelor party. During a serious part of the movie, Giamatti's character begins to explain how the climate can affect the growth and eventually the taste of a grape. He tells how the wind, temperature, amount of sunlight, and rain can all have an effect on the grapes. However, with recent developments in technology, wineries no longer have to account for these weather changes. Now wineries around the world are using what they refer to as micro-oxygenation, which can control the amount of oxygen a grape can receive and even enhance "better oak integration, and faster barrel aging" (www.practicalwinery.com/NovDec07/page1.htm). They have basically eliminated mother nature and are able to create the "perfect" bottle of wine. In Geoff Manaugh's The BLDG BLOG Book, he begins to play with the idea of architects designing machines and what not to create perfect climates for any region in the world. He begins to discuss the idea of scattering seeds of different plant species in regions that wouldn't normally be suitable for them to grow, and with these machines, creating the climate that it needs for the plant to grow. In a sense, this is what micro-oxygenation has begun to do, growing certain types of grapes in different regions all over that normally wouldn't be suitable for them.
What Manaugh is trying to get at is if we can create these machines like the one for micro-oxygenation, can we create machines that would ultimately protect our communities from natural disasters? I think that the technology is there, however I am not sure how that would begin to affect the rest of the planet and the atmosphere. Say we could protect one city from getting destroyed, however the storm causes even more destruction in another city than what it would in the one we saved. I believe that architects need to design with the fact in mind that natural disasters happen, for instance Morphosis's project the FLOAT House which is supposed to survive in case of a hurricane by being able to float on the water in case of flooding. If we begin to design like this we can begin to save communities from being wiped out and not affect mother nature or our planet at the same time.