Don’t threaten my parmesan! My olive oil! My coffee. My maple syrup. I love a good food commodity story line to highlight the climate disaster, delivered with a humourous punch. Many of us do. It’s financial and climate news in a relatable headline. It’s economic news for everyday life. Of course it’s no laughing matter.

This August we learned that the punishing heatwave this summer is affecting the Italian $4.7-billion-euro parmiagiano market. The story immediately captured our attention not only because – well parmagiano – but because the wheels of parmesan are so reliably valuable that a regional bank accepts them as loan collateral, aging in climate-controlled vaults. Cheese as gold for the gold of cheese. Now the warming climate is threatening this financialised arrangement.

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