Doom Today: Climate Crisis Could Threaten Apples Or Something

This is so horrible. No more apple pies. No more apples fritters. No more apple donuts. No more Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. No more apple sauce. No more apples in pig’s mouths

Michigan apple growers see threat of climate change crisis through spread of fire blight

Patrick and Sara McGuire have been growing apples since they were married 25 years ago. Their 150 acres in Ellsworth in northern Michigan— dubbed Royal Farms — are a mix of sweet apples and the bitter varieties suited for making hard cider.

Last spring they put in a new crop of Honeycrisps, one of America’s favorite apples, only to discover an unwelcome visitor just a few weeks later: a bacterial menace known as fire blight.

“We actually removed about $10,000 worth of trees by hand,” Patrick McGuire said. “It might’ve been 25 percent of that lot.”

Fire blight is a bacterial pathogen that spreads easily during blooming season. It has the potential to kill not just individual trees but entire orchards. Though not a new problem for apple growers, it’s been looming larger as the climate crisis brings longer, warmer and rainier springs that expand the window for it to infect trees. (snip)

But it’s not just cider apples that are at risk. Increasingly, all apples as well as other fruit crops such as pears are in danger from such climate-induced afflictions.

ZOMG! This is so bad it was reprinted in the Seattle Times. What are we going to do? How did apples survive during previous Holocene warm periods, many of which were warmer? And it really is your fault. It might even be a crime!

David Attenborough calls climate change ‘a crime’ committed against the planet

Naturalist and “Planet Earth” narrator Sir David Attenborough says that his new Netflix film isn’t just a documentary — it’s a witness statement.

“A crime has been committed,” said Attenborough, 95, in a “60 Minutes” interview with Anderson Cooper on Sunday. “And it so happens that, I’m of such an age, that I was able to see it beginning.”

A crime against apples!

Attenborough said that he doesn’t relish being the harbinger of doom and gloom, however. “It isn’t that I enjoy saying, ‘Doom, doom, doom.’ On the contrary, I’d much rather enjoy, take thrill, excitement, pleasure, joy, joy, joy, joy. But if you’ve got any sense of responsibility, you can’t do that,” he said.

Yes, this harbinger of doom and gloom who uses lots and lots of fossil fuels to travel the world making his (mostly) great documentaries.