Science

I hate to be that person, but...yes. Yes you should. Hubris got us on the precipice again. Loosing nutrients is a massive problem. As the article lays it out, our food is basically turning to useless shit. That's a big issue. But it's one issue on top of another one that's looming just over the horizon. Tipping points. Mainly around fungus, disease, and insects. If you want to get a picture of what that looks like, you need to look at two crops. Oranges in Florida. Coffee (Arabica specifically) almost anywhere. I'll use coffee because it's what I know.

Coffee is a gentle plant. It likes a bit of sun, but not too much. Decent soil, not too acidic not to alkaline. A good temperature and humidity range. It does not like disruptions and does not fair well in events that push past it's tolerances. At the moment, every tolerance is being pushed back. As climate changes raise ambient temperatures, does weird stuff to humidity, and we fail to take care of the soil, coffee is getting hit hard. What's interesting is that it's normal enemies, coffee borer beetle and coffee leaf rust, are climbing to higher and higher altitudes. New diseases and insects are getting to it when they never did before. And the specialty coffee industry is talking about loosing Arabica as a viable commercial product within 50 years.

That's what we are looking at.

With Oranges in Florida, the state literally paved over their orange groves to put in gated communities, shopping plazas anchored by a Publix, and a sprawling entertainment ecosystem on citrus land. The growth in Florida since WDW went in is mind boggling and absolutely devoid of anything than be called "sustainable growth" let alone sane growth. Anyways, I digress. Early 2000s and things are getting wonky with weather already. Florida Citrus is not what it used to be as land gets sold and younger generations show no interest in carrying on the family tradition. So it's already in trouble. Then a nasty disease Huanglongbing (yes, a disease bacteria associated with the presence of a proteobacteria, see my response below) wrecked it into oblivion. 95% decrease in yields since it showed up in the early 2000s. The story is incredible. Here's a podcast from NPR about it. https://www.npr.org/2026/05/10/nx-s1-5771748/florida-farmers-struggle-to-adapt-as-disease-and-climate-take-toll-on-citrus-industry

But that's what I think we're going to see happen across agriculture. One tipping point too many and poof. A whole crop gone. It'll be a slower burn than the dustbowl. But it's coming.