Increasingly, we are seeing news about the use of fungi—edible and otherwise—as an element in our fight to save the planet during this climate crisis. In our informative, educational, and always fun Around the Web feature on WhatTheyThink on Fridays, our talented Managing Editor, Richard Romano, quoted The Face in his January 15, 2021, edition of this fascinating feature, which called 2020 the year of the mushroom. The article cited many things, like mushrooms printed on apparel and phone cases, and the potential for psychedelic effects from consuming certain mushrooms.

But more importantly, much research and development is being done to determine how various types of fungi can be used as a substitute for more damaging petroleum-based products and as a replacement for meat from livestock.

Back in the 60s, I read the book Diet for a Small Planet, which is, by the way, still available on Amazon. While it didn’t turn me into a vegan, it was a startling revelation about how damaging those doe-eyed cows and other livestock are to the environment, and how inefficient they are as a food source. According to an article in The Humane League, “when [cows] are farmed at an industrial scale, they can cause as much (if not more) environmental pollution as cars.…As of 2019, Sentience Institute estimated that 99% of farmed animals in the US live on factory farms. For cows, over 70.4% of them live on factory farms.”