Of course I’m going to talk about the cheese 🧀!
I love cheese, how could I not talk about the cheese?
And how (some of it, particularly white Camembert and Brie) is going extinct as mutations in the cloned fungi used to culture the stuff are making it harder and harder to continue production.
(Let’s not mention for now how cheese is under attack from carbon hungry regulations too - apparently just about everything that makes life worth living from Parmesan to pets to parenthood to flying to Paris on a whim is bad for the planet. This is why we can’t have nice things.)
The foresight lessons regarding the trade offs between efficiency and resilience are obvious. As are the lessons about the insurance value of diversity.
But where else have you seen efficiency and homogeneity winning out to the detriment of both?
Read more :
Cheese : https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-gastronomy/how-a-cheese-goes-extinct / https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2024/2/10/24065277/cheese-extinction-camembert-brie-mold
And bananas : https://www.kcra.com/article/fungal-disease-bananas-extinction-experts/45645272#:~:text=The%20future%20of%20the%20most,the%20U.S.%20Department%20of%20Agriculture.
At least it’s good for the planet, I guess : https://slate.com/technology/2009/12/what-s-the-environmental-impact-of-cheese.html#:~:text=It%20turns%20out%20that%20cheese,ounces%20of%20carbon%20dioxide%20equivalent.
Out of cheese error