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To start, remember that in the 50s and 60s, the Gros Michel banana went extinct due to a blight that killed the entire strain because it was genetically homogeneous (there's the lack of biodiversity you asked for), and now what we see in supermarkets is the Cavendish. Now, imagine if instead of a fruit, a blight did similar devastation to rice. But not just any of the 22 species of rice grown, no, let's get rid of one of the two that's predominantly consumed across the world. One rice species fails and everyone relying on it as the staple carbohydrate/energy source in their diet is at risk of famine. Rice is what allowed Asia to become the most populated continent. Wheat can't compare. The diversity of grains humanity enjoyed in prehistory was already whittled down before this imaginary scenario started. Even if you rush in aid from around the world, even if you drop everything trying to figure out ways to successfully replace the lost rice strain with one of the others, people need to eat every day. There will be a starvation event, period. There have been plenty of events that dropped population throughout history and it's always rebounded, like Black Death. COVID really messed up supply chains for a while. But losing an important strain of rice forever isn't a temporary setback like a disease. Civilization now is so complex that permanently losing a staple crop and population to starvation has a very real risk of undermining infrastructure to the point that there's not a critical mass of either physical or knowledge workers that can keep things running, especially if people are fighting over scraps, fleeing a breakdown of social order, or retreating into their family home hoping to weather the storm. Cascades are bitches. And the world already has heightened tensions in other areas, Russia v Ukraine, Israel vs Hamas, Iran, China, India and Pakistan. Plus with other resources like oil and water already hotly contested, and the need to keep face against geopolitical rivals, could lead to all sorts of strange things. If China is particularly devastated by a loss of rice, would Xi be desperate enough to move into Siberia for more resources, or finally poke the Spratley Islands hard enough for them to ignite? If India's particularly plagued, maybe Pakistan will take advantage of that? The US will find itself drawn in. How long until someone is driven to use the football? And, here's an extreme example: what if all biological matter on Earth was human? You think we could handle the "biodiversity loss" well? |