The phrase and song “Yes, we have no bananas” became popular during a previous ecological collapse, when the Gros Michel banana, the industrial go-to before Cavendishes, were especially hard hit by a fungus, Fusarium oxysporum, and there was a shortage.
“Big Mike” bananas, btw, tasted like fake banana flavor still does, so I’m sure it was quite an adjustment for people in 1922 to start peeling the relatively tasteless Cavendish. Since all domestic bananas have no seeds, they’re propagated by cloning, so all those of one variety are genetically identical and thus if over-planted, very susceptible to disease, climate change, disease spread by climate change, and other variations in perfect growing conditions. That’s why Cavendishes may also disappear soon; they’re in trouble now, too. It’s a lesson in diversity many people and corporations still haven’t learned. Holy split! what has to happen for global civilization to get it that ecology is The Most Important Science, (and psychology is right behind)?
Very interesting article. When I was a toddler in the early 1940’s, we lived for a VERY short period in a two family house owned by a grocer that stored some of his fruits and vegetables in the basement, including bunches of bananas. Some neat spiders came up to visit from the bananas, and for some reason that freaked my mother out, so we moved.
This article almost sounds like a spoof, considering the headline: “Family flee their home after finding dozens of spiders in bunch of Asda bananas whose bite brings four-hour erection then death”. (Didn’t know bananas had teeth, either).
1. A sea wall won’t help Miami, the ground is too porous and water will just seep under it. Miami is finished. The end is close enough now that all it will take is somebody sneezing to create a real estate panic that throws the city into a crisis, from which it and most non-rich people who live in and around it may never recover. Without a radical change in policies we’ll be experiencing this a thousand times in the next generation.
2. When a train is rushing toward a cliff, the point at which the brakes have to be applied is not at the cliff, it’s before the cliff.
To go along with the right wing’s lying distortion of the IPCC’s and Ocasio-
Cortez’s statements about what’s likely to happen over the next 12 years is a mistake. The right has constantly used the confusion between when we have to do things and when the effects of our doing or not doing them will be felt (applying brakes vs. stopping before the cliff or going over it); we need to do everything we can to correct that lie every chance we get. I’ve been fighting it for a decade; the false expectations–even unconsciously when we know they’re lying–created by their assumptions of fake predictions are inexplicably tied up with their insistence that nothing is happening. Because denying delayalists can point to distorted statements like this without being called it on every time, they’ve been able to spread lies about the reality of climate catastrophe. NOT repeating the lie is step 1.
Well said, but as a railfan and model railroader, I must object to the idea of the TRAIN going off a cliff. Trains go only where there are railroad tracks, and NO one has ever built a railroad leading to a cliff.
Cars can do it (a la Thelma and Louise), but NOT trains. May I suggest using “car running into a brick wall” or “plane crashing into a mountain” instead?
LOL Not a cliff, but maybe a useful metaphor—-“The fossil fuel train speeding to the end of the half-finished bridge to the future that renewable energy holds out to us—-will it crash into the gorge of climate catastrophe”?
Excellent! Maher and his writers really get it! As grim as what he’s saying may be, it’s still good to be able to chuckle about it for 5 minutes.
https://assets.atlasobscura.com/media/W1siZiIsInVwbG9hZHMvYXNzZXRzL2QzNmE1OGVlOWE0NzYwNmE0Y18xNzk1NHYuanBnIl0sWyJwIiwiY29udmVydCIsIiJdLFsicCIsImNvbnZlcnQiLCItcXVhbGl0eSA4MSAtYXV0by1vcmllbnQiXSxbInAiLCJ0aHVtYiIsIjEyODB4PiJdXQ/17954v.jpg
The phrase and song “Yes, we have no bananas” became popular during a previous ecological collapse, when the Gros Michel banana, the industrial go-to before Cavendishes, were especially hard hit by a fungus, Fusarium oxysporum, and there was a shortage.
“Big Mike” bananas, btw, tasted like fake banana flavor still does, so I’m sure it was quite an adjustment for people in 1922 to start peeling the relatively tasteless Cavendish. Since all domestic bananas have no seeds, they’re propagated by cloning, so all those of one variety are genetically identical and thus if over-planted, very susceptible to disease, climate change, disease spread by climate change, and other variations in perfect growing conditions. That’s why Cavendishes may also disappear soon; they’re in trouble now, too. It’s a lesson in diversity many people and corporations still haven’t learned. Holy split! what has to happen for global civilization to get it that ecology is The Most Important Science, (and psychology is right behind)?
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/gros-michel-bananas
Very interesting article. When I was a toddler in the early 1940’s, we lived for a VERY short period in a two family house owned by a grocer that stored some of his fruits and vegetables in the basement, including bunches of bananas. Some neat spiders came up to visit from the bananas, and for some reason that freaked my mother out, so we moved.
This article almost sounds like a spoof, considering the headline: “Family flee their home after finding dozens of spiders in bunch of Asda bananas whose bite brings four-hour erection then death”. (Didn’t know bananas had teeth, either).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3799718/Spiders-bunch-Asda-bananas.html
PS I think the loss of coffee and beer are going to be a much bigger problem.
If we don’t have maple syrup, we can use motor oil like in the image.
BTW,
1. A sea wall won’t help Miami, the ground is too porous and water will just seep under it. Miami is finished. The end is close enough now that all it will take is somebody sneezing to create a real estate panic that throws the city into a crisis, from which it and most non-rich people who live in and around it may never recover. Without a radical change in policies we’ll be experiencing this a thousand times in the next generation.
2. When a train is rushing toward a cliff, the point at which the brakes have to be applied is not at the cliff, it’s before the cliff.
To go along with the right wing’s lying distortion of the IPCC’s and Ocasio-
Cortez’s statements about what’s likely to happen over the next 12 years is a mistake. The right has constantly used the confusion between when we have to do things and when the effects of our doing or not doing them will be felt (applying brakes vs. stopping before the cliff or going over it); we need to do everything we can to correct that lie every chance we get. I’ve been fighting it for a decade; the false expectations–even unconsciously when we know they’re lying–created by their assumptions of fake predictions are inexplicably tied up with their insistence that nothing is happening. Because denying delayalists can point to distorted statements like this without being called it on every time, they’ve been able to spread lies about the reality of climate catastrophe. NOT repeating the lie is step 1.
Well said, but as a railfan and model railroader, I must object to the idea of the TRAIN going off a cliff. Trains go only where there are railroad tracks, and NO one has ever built a railroad leading to a cliff.
Cars can do it (a la Thelma and Louise), but NOT trains. May I suggest using “car running into a brick wall” or “plane crashing into a mountain” instead?
“NO one has ever built a railroad leading to a cliff”
Half built?:
http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/postcards/PC004171.html
LOL Not a cliff, but maybe a useful metaphor—-“The fossil fuel train speeding to the end of the half-finished bridge to the future that renewable energy holds out to us—-will it crash into the gorge of climate catastrophe”?
Reblogged this on AGR Daily 60 Second News Bites.