Food, energy, and water were once abundant in America and throughout the world.  No longer.  Food shortages threaten the livelihood a billion people, food and energy costs have reached their highest point in history, and water is seen as Òthe next oilÓ as climates change and droughts spread.   Appreciation of the rising scarcity of food, energy, and water has still not brought sufficient scrutiny to their interconnectedness.  Food, energy, and water represent dwindling and interdependent resources, requiring new political and economic structures to fully utilize them.  

         Food - The Green Revolution of the 1950Õs and 60Õs shifted a globe facing persistent starvation into a planet easily accepting rising population.    Malthus never imagined a world with 6.7 billion people, which the UN expects to reach at least 9 billion by 2050.

         Today the growing economies of Asia and Latin America require that their populations not only get fed, but are fed Òwell.Ó They are eating the chicken, pork, and beef that developed countries generously consume.  It takes eight pounds of grain to create one pound of beef.

         Food has now morphed from body fuel to motor fuel, with up to 30% of American corn used in gasohol.  Despite numerous studies that biofuels are disastrous for global warming, particularly through deforesting the Amazon, the headlong rush into biofuels now provokes food cost increases which pinch pocketbooks everywhere while setting up millions to starve. Increased energy costs also increase food prices and lead politicians to further decrease the global trade of foodstuffs, a new, harmful protectionism.

         Energy Ð Would America be fighting in Iraq if we and the rest of the global economy were not addicted to oil?  What happens if someday the US bombs Iran, the Straits of Hormuz are closed, and 40% of world oil exports cease?

         Our fossil fuels literally cook the planet, leading to climate change whose dramatic droughts in Africa and Australia radically shift what kinds and how much food can be grown Ð the Australian rice industry now hardly exists.   We fertilize our fields with natural gas fertilizers, using the dead plants from the Jurassic to create the new plants of the twenty first century.  As American oil production declines, new drilling techniques bring hope that gas shale will become a major new source of domestic energy. Yet shale  ÒfractureÓ techniques require giant quantities of water pulled from the same Midwestern aquifers necessary for agriculture and homes.  The same requirements exist for horizontal drilling.  Acquiring fossil fuels now requires colossal water resources.
        
         Water Ð What we used to take for granted is our Ònew oil,Ó with billions of water bottles consumed yearly by people who no longer trust what comes out their taps.   Water wars will embroil the Southwest, as Phoenix and Los Angeles fight with farmers for riverine sources that decline year by year, yet our problems are tiny compared with much of the world.  Whether itÕs Israel-Palestine or Darfur, people are today fighting and dying over water.  China flirts with ecological disaster, stealing the water of the Yangtze to feed thirsty Beijing.

         Water hydropower used to be a major source of energy, but global warming diminishes glaciers and reservoirs.  In our country new fights about water rights are just beginning, as multinationals buy up sources of bottled water, while across the earth billions do not have clean water to drink.

         Food, energy, and water have always been critical to our survival but never before has each been so dependent on the other.  Nationally, we do not have a food policy, though our obesity-friendly Òfarm billÓ powerfully affects the health of every American.  Our energy policy remains wedded to fossil fuels, while a national water policy does not even exist, though most recognize that without water we do not exist.

          We need national leadership on FEW, with food, energy, and water seen as parts of a whole.  Different government agencies, like Energy, Interior, and Agriculture should come together to create a new Resources Advisory Board.  We need national, systemic decision making of a high order, and we need it now.

         As America embarks on choosing a president, we can recognize that our political system is witnessing a fight between new and old economies.  The old industries of agribusiness, oil, tobacco, drugs and insurance have pushed their lobbying power to create political bottlenecks preventing the new economy of knowledge industries, information technology and alternative energy from getting their chance to remake the American economy.  How this battle turns out may determine whether we become a "has been" of history or the worldÕs industrial and technological exemplar.  Coordinate Food, Energy, and Water, and we may have that shot.

Dr. Matthew Edlund practices sleep medicine and psychiatry in Sarasota.  His new book, Designed To Last, is available online. He can be reached at 365-4308 and via his Web site at doctoredlund.com.