Just curious. Did you read the entire article? Osterholm addresses this. If so, what precisely do you disagree with?
BTW, I hadn't heard that about the NO termites, but I'm not surprised.
The New Orleans termites is a scare put out on the internet that is almost entirely fiction, as discussed by snopes. The idea that we would be clueless as to the possibility of termites being in mulch, and therefore would let them get shipped all over the country and sold in bags to people with great negative consequences, is silly.
Anyway, I'm just poking fun at people who panic over specific but unrealised threats, when there are so many real threats around which aren't sexy enough to get noticed.
I always joke that one day we will spend trillions of dollars, and drive all civilization back to the stone age, because of the then-certain threat of global warming. Our efforts will be successful. At the cost of living like those in the 17th century, we will have cleaned up all our pollution, warming will stop, and all will be right with the world.
And then we will get hit by an asteroid and be wiped off the face of the universe.
It goes back to that fitness guru who spent years telling us we have to stop having fun and instead work at keeping ourselves healthy -- and then he had a heart attack at I think ag 50 while exercising.