It’s Going to Get Hungry in Here

Photo by Jonathan Bowers on Unsplash

My age and my health mean this discussion takes place from the cheap seats in the sense that I do not personally have to live with my errors. My four kids and nine grandkids, however, give me a sense of urgency. They do not give me scientific competence. Like Will Rogers, all I know is what I read in the papers, so if you think it’s all fake news, you should place your bets accordingly.

My grandkids should see the planet’s population top ten billion souls. This means we would need 50 percent more food even before climate change is factored in.

First, the good news. I think North America is the very best place on the planet to ride out the coming crises. We should have enough water in spite of the amounts wasted on tar sands oil and fracking with no requirement that the water be recycled. There will come a point when the water will be more valuable than the oil the water is used to produce.

I think most of us will look back on disposing of fracking water in injection wells like most of us look back on flaring off natural gas. We are already at a point where one captured regulatory agency after another has had to give up denying that the injection wells cause earthquakes.

I do hope I live to see the day when “it’s not economically feasible to recycle this water” translates to “this method of production is not…