Garland, Ever hear of harvesting dew? Other than by Richard Dean Anderson on a raft in the middle of an Ocean.
Bill, The irony has not escaped me. Thanx. BTW, What's the best set of Par 4's in the county you live in?
Adam,
Yes. I can't necessarily recall the details, but I think some of the primitive societies without our modern mechanisms (and without our medicine to allow population growth) have developed simple mechanisms for harvesting dew, along with things like harvesting water from roots, holes in the ground, cactus, etc.
If you were to enquire of the people that provided this inverse tent concept, they may actually point to the origin of the idea with some primitive society.