What an interesting opportunity.

The National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) hosts this week “The Food-Energy-Water Nexus” its 16th National Conference and Global Forum on Science, Policy, and the Environment. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a NCSE university affiliate. Given this affiliation, I am feeling pretty lucky to be here at very little cost to me.

I have been only attending the meeting for a few hours now and I am quite taken by how broad this The Food-Energy-Water Nexus Nexus really is.

• How does two weeks of food security sound to you? This is mentioned by a panelist from Hawaii—at any given time there is a two week buffer of food within the archipelago.
• The education session was packed with folks standing in the back of the room. I don’t think I have ever been to a curriculum session that was so full.
• Venture capitalists hosted a panel. Data, models, and decision making are key for both organic and conventional systems. The lines between organic and conventional are decidedly blurred. I really appreciate hearing this.

From my view, on my first few hours at the conference, I am most looking forward to the NSF Director France Córdova and her remarks about the FEW Nexus. Luckily they rescheduled her talk as I would have missed it on Tuesday morning, as it was originally scheduled.