"And 50 years down the road, when your progeny can't get enough water or enough food because we didn't take action when we still could..."

This is completely and solely superstitious.
You would have more rational basis to say this 50 years ago, or 100 years ago, in fact the further you go back in the past generally speaking the more rational this concern would have been. And in numerous instances in the past of actually have this prediction come true [depending upon the degree of what you mean by "can't get enough water or enough food", i.e, I live in LA, which without human "interference" would be a desert, and as a fairly constant condition, we can't get enough water [though in brief periods we can have a foot of water flooding our roads]. Though this doesn't mean we dropping dead from the lack of water, though it could mean at various times that we could have and have had water rationing in various forms.

A bigger concern is not having enough electrical power in the next 10, 20, or 30 years. In California within last few years we have had little bit of those rolling blackouts. This has little to do with fundamental and general shortage of available energy sources, but instead is due to poor govt management. And considering the state of current politics, everyone could face this kind of thing and possible in a more severe form- but again this will not be due to a lack of available energy sources, but rather be due to the public foolishly *demanding* that less powerplants and other infrastructure is built and the general incompetence of elected officials.

"You don't know how much I would LIKE you to be right. I could quit worrying about it. But my interpretation of events and reading tells me you're not right."

You shouldn't quit worrying about it regardless of whether Tom is right or wrong. Too many Americans aren't paying attention. The idea that windmills and solar power can resolve our energy needs is completely and utterly foolish. If we don't build nuclear energy powerplants, then we will need to have more coal or oil powerplants. Without either we will have blackouts and the economic consequence of these can be quite severe.