This is just as the Rev Thomas Malthus predicted forty years ago in 1800. The Irish, ignorant Roman Catholics, multiplied faster than their food supply. As Malthus commented, “The population should be swept from the soil.”
There could be more far reaching effects. As plague jumped from rats to people, P. infestans could affect other members of the Solanaceae family: eggplants, tomatoes, and tobacco. Not only that, in half a century, it could affect all agricultural crops. We just don’t know what kind of Black Swan event might occur. When world agriculture fails, so will humanity. Human extinction is possible by 1900!
Well, all that could have happened, but how much to worry about something depends on the probability of it happening. An asteroid could fall on my house, my house could burn down, or a tree could fall on it. I get homeowner’s insurance, but not asteroid insurance, since there’s only an asteroid landing big enough to create a crater only every five thousand years or so.
Be reasonable!
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