A young girl, home alone, wakes up in the middle of the night and walks over to her neighbor’s house. She opens the front door and encounters a horrific scene: a zombified grandma committing an act of cannibalism. Instead of teeth in the woman’s mouth, it’s long tendrils of fungus. 

That’s one of the first scenes in The Last of Us, the HBO show about a global fungal pandemic that gripped viewers this past winter. The premise is pure fiction. The fungus depicted in the show, cordyceps, is harmless to humans. But the world’s susceptibility to fungal pathogens is genuine. When the real fungal pandemic comes, it won’t look like anything you’ve seen on screen.  

In her new book Blight: Fungi and the Coming Pandemic, author, professor, and researcher Emily Monosson unravels the expansive and unsettling history of fungal invasions across the globe and how they have shaped our lives in both visible and invisible ways. A fungus called batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd, has wiped out more than 200 species of frogs and other amphibians. White-nose syndrome, a fungal illness in bats, has killed millions of the winged critters across North America. A fungal pathogen wiped out the world’s most popular banana, the Gros Michel, in the first half of the 20th century. Fungi are now coming for the Cavendish, the banana we bred to replace the bananas we lost. 

And, of course, fungi threaten humans, too — not just by decimating the biodiversity of the world around us, but also by infiltrating our bodies and causing new illnesses. Candida auris, a drug-resistant yeast, emerged in 2009 on three continents simultaneously. The disease, Monosson writes in her book, “seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.” C. auris quickly started claiming lives, particularly in hospital settings, where it preys on the immunocompromised. The pathogen kills roughly one-third of hospitalized patients, according to an analysis of hospital data collected between 2017 and 2022, and that’s likely an underestimate. 

Some researchers theorize that C. auris has always lived among us, unable to survive inside the human body due to our species’ high internal temperature. But as global temperatures have risen over the decades, the fungus may have evolved to adapt to a warmer climate. Climate change, the theory goes, has trained C. auris how to infiltrate our bodies. And global warming could help other fungal pathogens spread, too.

“Over the past century fungal infections have caused catastrophic losses in other species, but so far we have been lucky,” Monosson writes. “Our luck may be running out.” She calls for better prevention measures — regulations on the import of foreign flora and fauna, better testing technologies for plants and animals that cross borders, and more funding for conservation work that protects wild species in their existing habitats. Blight: Fungi and the Coming Pandemic is available this week in bookstores and libraries. 

This Q&A has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

Q.Readers might pick up your book and assume it is entirely focused on the impact of fungal disease on human health. But Blight is about so much more. Can you speak to your approach here? What overarching story were you trying to tell? 

A.The thing that got me started thinking about the book was a paper that was written years ago by a group of different scientists across disciplines. They were in medicine, ecology, agriculture, and a few others. That’s kind of unusual, to see a review written by so many different scientists. The focus of the paper was fungi, and they were trying to get people more aware. They felt that people didn’t really appreciate the potential consequences of large fungal infections.

For a lot of us, once in a while in the news we’ll hear, “Oh, we’re not going to have our bananas anymore,” or “The frogs are dying,” or “The bats are dying.” But you hear those warnings and then it goes out of the news cycle and seems like, oh, OK that was a weird thing.  

If you talk to somebody who’s in any of these fields, you’ll see that it’s not so odd that this is happening, because fungal pathogens can be really catastrophic when they strike. So the purpose of the book was to put all of this together, to say that these aren’t just one-offs. We need to think about the potential of fungal pathogens and the breadth of impact that they have across species.

Q.Blight is about fungi, yes, but it’s also about facets of modern life that researchers have been worried about for quite some time — globalization, biosecurity, climate change. How are all of these things connected?

A.The first epidemics and pandemics that I write about, the decline of the chestnut and pine blister rust in forests, started about 100 years ago. And for forever before that there were fungal pathogens in agriculture —- probably ever since humans started doing agriculture. But most of the book focuses on the past 100 years. And that’s because there’s been an increase in fungal pandemics or epidemics across species in the last 100 years. That’s because we have been moving plants and animals around, and ourselves around, at a rate that is really unprecedented in our long history on Earth.

Every time you move something around, there’s all sorts of other things on them. And when we take them to another place, they have the opportunity to find a new host. And if that host is susceptible, then you’ve got a problem. So between trade, travel, and the changing climate that you mentioned, there’s potential for fungi to adapt to changes in crops and agriculture, and adapt to warmer temperatures and drought conditions faster than, say, a crop can. Fungi are adaptable. And there’s a pretty good chance that fungi will be able to adapt to a changing temperature or changing climate.

Q.This book is publishing at a moment when a lot of people are thinking about pathogenic fungi thanks to recent news reports about Candida auris and the success of The Last of Us. Cordyceps is a harmless fungus, but there are very real fungal threats out there. Can you talk about Candida auris and why you chose to feature it in the beginning of your book?

A.To be honest, I hoped that Candida auris might draw readers in and then they’d read about all the other problems across other species. But it is also one of the newest emergent fungal diseases. It was kind of unknown until 2009 or 2010, and then the CDC issued its first warning about Candida auris in 2016. So it’s really pretty new, and we don’t often get a really new emergence, except for something like COVID. But COVID is viral — that’s almost to be expected. To have a newly emergent fungal pathogen was something different. 

What was most interesting about Candida auris, and I think what was most frightening to public health workers and doctors, is that it emerged in many different places at once, within a couple of years. And when it emerged, it was different strains of the fungus, which means that it wasn’t like COVID where it could be traced back to one patient zero. So that was something odd, and I don’t think anyone really knows why. 

One thought is maybe climate change: Maybe this fungus was just out living in the environment, as many do, and not bothering us. And it couldn’t really survive in our warmer bodies. It didn’t tolerate our internal temperature. But with warmer and warmer days over time, that fungus eventually evolved to be able to tolerate our temperature and could live in us. And when it did, it became a problem. 

I should qualify that humans are pretty well protected against fungal pathogens. We have our temperature, for one, but we also have a pretty robust immune system that can fend off most fungi. We’re all breathing spores right now. And for most of us, it’s not a problem. But if you’re immunocompromised, and there are a growing number of people who are immunocompromised, then the threat of a fungal pathogen is more important.

Q.You’ve written books on a number of topics, including chemicals, genes, and germs. Why did you choose to focus on fungi this time?

A.It was a personal experience of having a fungus-like organism kill my tomatoes. Just seeing that happen, I got interested in it. So I thought I’d write a little article about it. And that’s around the same time that paper I mentioned came out. It was curiosity at first, because I didn’t really think about fungal pathogens back then. 

I started this in 2019, before COVID. When it was clear that COVID was something really big and bad, I actually emailed my editor and I was like, “Should I keep writing this? Because who is going to want to read about a pandemic after we get through this pandemic?”

Q.But you kept going. Is that because there’s light at the end of the tunnel?

A.I think the hopeful thing is there’s a lot of really passionate scientists working on these problems. We should support them, the policies that may come out of the science, the conservation organizations that are trying to do prevention work. Really the goal here is prevention, and that involves all of us. 

We need to take responsibility for our actions. I know that’s trite. But maybe if we are even a little more thoughtful about how we do things, what we think we “need” in our lives, and how that impacts the world around us — we might do less harm to the natural world and to other humans. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The author of ‘Blight’ explains how humans supercharged fungal pathogens on Jul 17, 2023.

This story was originally published by Modern Farmer and is republished with permission.

It starts out as unnoticeable, lying dormant for two or even four years. It’s undetectable. But slowly, the signs come out. Individual branches on a tree point to signs of a nutrient deficiency or perhaps overwatering. Branches will start to yellow and weaken, turning shriveled. Then, the fruit will turn, becoming small and refusing to ripen and, sometimes, dropping early. The fruit is safe for human consumption, but it tastes like battery acid. 

And once the tree reaches that point, there’s no coming back. The tree will die within a few years no matter what intervention you try. That’s why when growers see trees infected with Huanglongbing, known as HLB or citrus greening, they immediately look to remove the tree. There’s no other option. 

“We’re destroying all the trees that get infected. We’re monitoring and eradicating those where we can. We’re using biological controls with the loss. We’re using every tool in the bag,” says Jared Plumlee, senior vice president of farming at Booth Ranches, in Orange Cove, CA. Plumblee oversees about 7,000 acres in the central San Joaquin Valley, growing navel oranges, valencias, mandarins and even some lemons and grapefruits. There’s no sign of HLB in the Booth orchards yet, and Plumlee aims to keep it that way. The ranch also has its own packing house onsite, where they pack only their own product. That’s both to foster trust with consumers, so they know every piece of fruit in a Booth box came from that farm, and to keep potentially infected fruit out. 

HLB is a disease spread by the insect Asian citrus psyllid, which infects trees with a slow-growing bacteria while it feeds on their shoots. It’s commonly spread as the insect travels across borders in fruit or tree cuttings, but a warming climate is speeding things along. The transmission of citrus greening depends on temperature—both to ensure that the psyllid survives and that the host trees are at their most vulnerable. Temperatures between 60 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit allow the disease to thrive. Research has shown that areas that stay within that range for at least half of the year have the most cases of HLB. 

As global temperatures rise, citrus greening infestations can—and will—move further north. Tracking the spread of HLB is, in some ways, tracking the warming climate. 

Growers can often, unknowingly, graft an infected tree limb onto their otherwise healthy stock. That’s how citrus groves in Texas, and most especially Florida, fell victim to the disease. HLB was first discovered in Florida in 2005, where it promptly tore through the state’s orange and grapefruit groves, infecting close to 90 percent of the citrus. Nearly 20 years later, last season’s orange production is a mere 16 percent of the yield in 2003. And overall citrus production continues to fall, every year for the past five years. This year’s orange yield is predicted to be 25 percent lower than last years’ final production. 

Across the country, California growers have paid close attention to what their colleagues in Florida experienced, and they have no desire to go down the same road. “We see those numbers [from Florida], and it’s very, very frightening,” says Plumlee. As California’s annual temperatures fall squarely in the range for optimal HLB transmission, growers are as proactive as possible, even getting state legislation passed that allows citrus growers to essentially tax themselves and put the money towards research and eradication programs. “We’ve been fairly successful thus far; it still hasn’t been found in commercial orchards,” says Plumlee. 

California is home to roughly 300,000 acres of citrus production across the state. There have been infected trees found in California, throughout Los Angeles and Orange counties and along the coast near San Diego. But, so far, the bacteria has stuck to residential trees or others easily removed. 

“Last year, some nursery stock was sent from South Carolina from a nursery that had citrus canker,” says Victoria Hornbaker, director of the Citrus Pest and Disease Prevention Division at the California Department of Food and Agriculture. “But our team was able to react incredibly quickly to get out to those locations, collect that nursery stock, destroy it and do a one-mile survey of all citrus around those locations to make sure that we didn’t see any symptoms of citrus canker in the environment. So, that is a good example of how quickly we can mobilize and respond to potential issues regarding citrus.”

The citrus industry isn’t just important within California but across the country. Florida may be known for oranges, but it’s primarily grown oranges for juice. California has historically been the home of fresh citrus, growing 85 percent of the nation’s table fruit. “If we lose California citrus, we also lose our national and international market,” Hornbaker says. That means importing more citrus from outside the country, raising prices, and losing a tremendous amount of revenue all around. 

That’s why California growers have such a focus on proactivity, and why there’s an incredible amount of research into citrus greening coming out of California institutions. University of California, Riverside is working on a treatment that effectively kills the bacteria, although it’s still being tested within industry. Growers are experimenting with higher-density planting, putting more trees in the ground per acre, to get a higher yield in a shorter amount of time. Although, as Plumlee explains, that also has a significant drawback. “The longevity of planting like that might not be 50 years; it may only be 25. Because once the trees fill in, you kind of hit this plateau on what your production level can be. So, in the face of HLB, you’re going to turn the ground over faster.”

Breeders are also working to find new varieties that are less susceptible to HLB. The Sugar Belle mandarin, the hybrid of a clementine and a Minneola, has shown promising resistance. The new variety was born out of research from the University of Florida and released to growers across the state in 2009. More than a decade later, the Sugar Belle is among the top-grown varieties in the state.

Oddly, there does seem to be a correlation between the size of the citrus and the resistance to the bacteria, although it’s not clear if size is a determining factor or simply a coincidence. But Neil McRoberts, a professor of plant pathology at University of California, Davis, says that grapefruit and large oranges are less resistant to the disease, with smaller mandarins showing more disease resistance. “Because our citrus comes from so few different progenitor lines, they don’t have any natural resistance to the bacterium. So, none of our favorite citrus types and varieties have much resistance in general,” McRoberts explains. 

There could be a cure out there. But it won’t be on the horizon in five years or even 10. “I can see that, maybe in 20 years, we’ll be in a position where, if we don’t actually have a cure, we’ll at least have citrus that is able to stand up and keep producing a crop,” says McRoberts. “There are some promises out there, but it’s slow work.”

In the meantime, Plumlee and other growers have no choice but to keep going and keep growing. “You can’t just throw up your hands and quit. You keep doing the science and the trials and try to solve this puzzle. But, in the short term, there’s not a whole lot that you can do that we haven’t already done.” Growers like Plumlee have a crop that’s vital to the state and the nation and a disease that they are fighting to keep at bay. For now, they simply have to hold on—for a decade or two—until more effective methods are available. 

“That is the scary part,” says Plumlee. “If we had something today, right out of the lab that works, we’re still 10 or 15 years from proving it out that it actually works. And then another 10, probably before it’s all implemented out in the industry. So, we know that time is not our friend.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline There’s no cure for citrus greening. California growers have no choice but to keep going. on Jul 16, 2023.

This story was originally published by Canary Media and is republished with permission.

Mark Begansky loves his electric grill. This isn’t your indoor, panini-press-style electric grill; this is an outdoor grill fit for sumptuous summer cookouts on the Fourth of July. Begansky loves to cook mouthwatering kebabs and barbecue chicken, corn and asparagus, getting the edges crisp and making those characteristic sear marks where the food’s caramelized. The look, and, more importantly, the taste are ​“the same as what you’d get from a gas grill,” said Begansky, who works in the healthcare industry and lives in New Jersey.

Switching to an electric grill is a way to jettison yet one more foothold of the fossil fuel industry out of people’s homes and lives. Yet despite their climate advantages and on-par performance, electric grills haven’t yet broken into the public imagination in the U.S. Of grillers surveyed every two years from 2015 to 2021 by the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association, only 3 to 4 percent owned an electric grill.

Most people instead cook with grills that burn something: usually charcoal or fossil fuels, namely fossil gas (mostly methane, or CH₄) or propane (C₃H₈). Grills that consume methane gas require owners to keep a gas line to their homes that they can run out to the grill. For propane grills, cooks purchase propane tanks and switch the gas connection every time the tank runs empty.

As carbon-based fuels, burning methane and propane releases planet-warming CO₂ into the atmosphere. What’s worse, fossil gas lines that are fitted incorrectly can leak their methane, a greenhouse gas that’s shorter-lived than CO₂ but has a climate impact that’s a striking 84 to 87 times more potent over a 20-year timeframe.

Instead of that pollution, Begansky’s choosing clean energy and electrifying his lifestyle — including, of course, his love for grilling. In 2019, Begansky signed on to an energy plan with 100 percent wind and solar through his utility, Jersey Central Power & Light. Since then, he’s switched to an electric vehicle, gotten a home energy audit and replaced his old propane Char-Broil grill last year with an electric Weber Q 2400. It plugs into a standard 120-volt outlet and ​“looks just like a regular grill,” he said. 

Begansky said he uses his electric grill once or twice a week when the weather’s warm. It’s perfect for his family of four, spacious with enough room to cook 12 burger patties at a time, and can heat up to 550˚F, albeit in about 20 minutes. Begansky is thrilled he doesn’t have to lug around a 37-pound propane tank anymore and can ditch the worries that come from using gas: that he might accidentally burn something down or run out of fuel when the chicken’s half done.

The electric grill he bought was more expensive upfront — it’s currently listed for $399, whereas the comparable Weber Q 2200 propane gas grill costs $329. But the operating costs are lower. Begansky doesn’t have to spend $50-plus on propane for a summer of grilling, and, at the same time, said he hasn’t seen any increase in his electric bill. That fits what Weber, the best-selling U.S. grill maker, has found: that it only costs about 10 to 14 cents to run one of its electric grills for a 45-minute cooking session.

Though outdoor electric grills might sound obscure, manufacturers abound, including Char-Broil, Kenyon and George Foreman — maker of the 1990s’ wildly popular ​“lean, mean fat-reducing grilling machine.” For its part, Weber has been making electric grills since 1972 and today has three lines, including one launched just this February called the Lumin. And while electric grills may be less popular than gas grills, there are still — of course — many listicles weighing the strengths and weaknesses of the models available.

Electric grills match on flavor, take up less space

Despite electric grills’ small market share, sales are ticking upward. The market grew 21 percent from September 2021 to 2022, according to U.S. retail sales information from analytics firm Circana.

Still, despite growing interest and its new electric grill design, Weber plans to continue to sell gas and charcoal models, according to Director of Product Brian Atinaja. The company declined to share specific sales targets for its electric grills, but Atinaja said he thinks they will get a lot more popular in the U.S. — if they can overcome two big hurdles, that is.

First, few people know they exist. Second, those who do know about electric grilling think only of the small, indoor options that don’t deliver the ​“flavor experience that people associate with gas grills.”

But he (and enthusiasts like Begansky) claims electric can deliver that characteristic grilled goodness. What makes grilled food so delicious? With gas grills, Atinaja explained, it’s the food’s juices and grease falling into the flame, sizzling and vaporizing. Inside a closed grill, this smoky cloud bathes the food in flavor.

Electric grills can be tuned to create this flavor sauna too, according to Atinaja. Weber’s engineers, he said, have tweaked the electric grills’ designs in pursuit of this effect, including figuring out the grate spacings to let the right amount of juice drip onto the heating element and how fast to ventilate away the vaporized drippings so they don’t make the food too greasy.

And beyond matching on taste, electric grills tend to take up less space, Atinaja said, making them a better fit for people who live in dense cities or lack a backyard. And for families who live in apartment buildings or condos that don’t allow cooking on an open flame, electric might be the only way to grill. These reasons, along with more expensive fossil fuel costs, have in fact already made electric grills much more popular in Europe than in the U.S., according to Atinaja.

Still, electric grills can’t get as big as gas ones can, he noted. Electric versions are currently limited by an electrical outlet’s power. While a Weber Genesis gas grill can operate with an input of about 44,000 Btus per hour, a Weber electric grill drawing on a 120-volt socket can only pull an equivalent of 6,000 Btus per hour, according to Atinaja.

“Unless you use that power very efficiently, it’s not going to cook your food as you would expect it to. So that’s why we’ve focused on being super-efficient about the energy,” he said. Weber uses double-wall insulation on the top and the bottom of its newest electric grill to trap in the heat, he said.

But Weber is toying with additional solutions, including adding batteries. That’s a route some companies are already pursuing for induction stoves.

For Begansky, though, the difference in power isn’t an issue. As he sees it, the electric grill’s ease of operation and clear climate advantage outweigh its limitations. Plus, he underscored that electric grills deliver on arguably what matters most — flavor: ​“The food tastes just as good.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Your next barbecue could feature an electric grill on Jul 15, 2023.