halophyte

To be able to adequately feed ourselves, conserve our biosphere and transition away from fossil-fuels and release carbon that albeit isn’t without consequence but was only not sequestered for millions of years and so have a zero-sum effect on the atmosphere, we are going to have to be willing to cede lands back to Nature and no longer encroach on wildness.
One solution, as Æon magazine puts forward, is to expand into those brackish, liminal lands and coastal deserts and bring with us those few, little studied salt-water tolerant plant varieties to raise food crops or bio-fuels. Whereas most plant-species that we are familiar with a cultivated, agricultural sense wither and die in the presence of salt—sowing tracts of land with salt was from ancient times a way to discourage re-settlement, dying the death that’s on one level equivalent to the effects of carbon-monoxide poisoning for mammals. Interest is building slowly, but with limited fresh water supplies also creeping upwards in salinity, hopefully a new approach to farming could help prevent further injury to both flora and fauna.