{"id":56979,"date":"2021-03-04T19:32:43","date_gmt":"2021-03-05T00:32:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=56979"},"modified":"2021-03-04T19:47:35","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T00:47:35","slug":"declining-sperm-counts-natures-answer-to-overpopulation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=56979","title":{"rendered":"Declining sperm counts: Nature’s answer to overpopulation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Declining sperm counts: Nature’s answer to overpopulation?<\/a><\/h3>\n
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Epidemiologist Shanna Swan projects that on current trends\u00a0sperm counts will reach zero by 2045<\/a>. That shocking conclusion comes from a\u00a0new book<\/a>\u00a0by Swan and her colleague Stacey Colino. Is this nature’s way of bringing human population under control? (More on that later.)<\/p>\n

In\u00a0a 2017 study<\/a>\u00a0Swan and colleagues looked at “244 estimates of SC [sperm concentration] and TSC [total sperm count] from 185 studies of 42,935 men who provided semen samples in 1973\u20132011” in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Men elsewhere may fare better, but the causes of this trend suggest that it is worldwide.<\/p>\n

Swan told\u00a0The Guardian<\/em><\/a>\u00a0that she blames so-called “‘everywhere chemicals’, found in plastics, cosmetics and pesticides, that affect endocrines such as phthalates and bisphenol-A.” She also pointed to unhealthy lifestyle choices including use of tobacco and marijuana and to rising obesity.\u00a0Obesity itself has been linked to increasing human endocrine disruption<\/a>\u00a0from these same chemicals.<\/p>\n

<\/a>In fact, Swan’s warning is not new even though her study makes it more urgent. The issue of endocrine disruption from toxic chemicals burst into public view in 1996 with the publication of\u00a0Our Stolen Future<\/em><\/a>\u00a0which detailed the research on endocrine disrupting chemicals for a lay audience.<\/p>\n

There have been some minor victories. Bisphenol-A has been largely removed from food containers voluntarily by food processors. But it is still found in many products and\u00a0the U.S. Food and Drug Administration still claims it is “safe.”<\/a><\/p>\n

I asked at the beginning of this piece whether declining sperm counts is nature’s way of limiting human population. The current trend would not just reduce population, but lead to extinction within a century. It is as if the 2006 film\u00a0Children of Men<\/a><\/i>\u00a0has been remade with a slightly different plot line.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n

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Declining sperm counts: Nature’s answer to overpopulation? Epidemiologist Shanna Swan projects that on current trends\u00a0sperm counts will reach zero by 2045. That shocking conclusion comes from a\u00a0new book\u00a0by Swan and her colleague Stacey Colino. Is this nature’s way of bringing human population under control? (More on that later.) In\u00a0a 2017 study\u00a0Swan and colleagues looked at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4752,606,12729,4967,30999],"class_list":["post-56979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-kurt-cobb","tag-overpopulation","tag-population-decline","tag-resource-insights","tag-sperm-count"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56979"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56983,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56979\/revisions\/56983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}