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Alex covers the last 500-odd years of cheese and climate: how settler colonialism and capitalism shaped today’s cheese industry and our contemporary climate crisis, how industrialization changed the scale of food production, the rise of alternative food movements like organics and the American artisan cheese renaissance, and recent economic and political developments in the US that are affecting efforts to protect cheesemaking traditions and slow the climate crisis. All this history sets the stage for the second half of this series, where we’ll talk about climate mitigation, adaptation, and resilience for cheese production and the world at large.  Get more cheese and climate content from Alex at Milkfed.news. SOURCES:  2022 Census of Agriculture Highlights: Black Producers, USDAA Brief History of Milk Hygiene and Its Impact on Infant Mortality from 1875 to 1925 and Implications for Today: A Review. Journal of Food Protection, Volume 81, Issue 10, 2018.The father of climate change, The GuardianPoor Proles AlmanacThe Oxford Companion to Cheese, ed. Catherine DonnellyOrganic Production - Documentation, USDARising Consumer Demand Reshapes Landscape for U.S. Organic Farmers, USDANew Study Highlights Changes in U.S. Artisan and Specialty Cheese, American Cheese Society

How did we get to a point in human history where food production could become one of the main drivers of an existential crisis for our planet? Scholars theorize that humanity’s “discovery” of fermented dairy products thousands of years ago played a key role in our survival as a species. Alexandra looks at the essential role cheese played in human history; how climate change has affected agriculture, dairying, and cheesemaking since the Neolithic period; and how the emergence of European settler colonialism and capitalism set the stage for the climate crisis. Featuring dairy scientist and historian Paul Kindstedt. Get more cheese and climate content from Alex at Milkfed.news. SOURCES:  Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and Its Place in Western Civilization by Paul KindstedtThe Medieval Optimum, The College of Wooster Tree Ring LabMedieval Warm Period, BritannicaLittle Ice Age, BritannicaLittle Ice Age, Encyclopedia of Global Environmental Change: Volume 1, The Earth system: physical and chemical dimensions of global environmental change. 2002.Adapting to the Little Ice Age in pastoral regions: An interdisciplinary approach to climate history in north-west Europe. Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitive and Interdisciplinary History. 2023, Vol. 56, No. 2.Why Did Greenland’s Vikings Vanish?, Smithsonian MagazineThe Vikings abandoned Greenland due in part to sea-level rise, study finds. PennState

This is the story of how I arrived in a complicated position: A cheese lover and cheese professional who’s questioning how the industry I love contributes to and is impacted by the climate crisis. You'll learn who I am, how this podcast came to be, and the roots of my own climate anxiety—plus what you can expect over the next 5 episodes. LINKS: My websiteMy book, Stuff Every Cheese Lover Should KnowMilkfed: Notes on Cheese, Culture, and Climate newsletterEssay: What my family lost in the Eaton FireThe Uninhabitable Earth, New York Magazine

I'm Alexandra Jones, food writer, recovering cheesemonger and creator of the new limited series Milkfed: A Podcast About Cheese, Culture, and Climate. Two years ago, I began researching the relationship between cheese and climate change. I wanted to better understand how the industry I've worked in for more than 15 years fits into the climate crisis, how the people who make move, buy and sell cheese are being affected, and what they're doing to reduce their climate impact.  Over six episodes, we'll learn how Earth's climate and human activities like food production have shaped each other for millennia. We'll look at how capitalism and colonialism helped transform cheese into fuel for our current crisis. We'll dig into the data to understand how food systems fit into the bigger picture of greenhouse gas emissions; learn about ways to incorporate climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience into cheese production; and hear from farmers, makers, historians, scientists and other experts along the way. If you make, buy, sell or eat cheese, I hope you'll join me. New episodes of Milkfed drop every other Tuesday starting January 13. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.