Every couple of years this concern bubbles up. It seems to be established that sperm counts in males are going down. But I’ve yet to see substantial evidence about the possible causes. The effect of plasticisers e.g. were found in animal models usually with rather high doses. An increase of obesity over the last 50 years might also be a likely cause as obesity is linked with hormonal issues. Furthermore, the average age of first time parents has increased significantly. That could also explain why IVF got more popular as sperm counts (and egg „quality“) are age dependent as well.
AFAIK there is no empirical study today proving any link between environmental issues and sperm counts.
Apparently it's happening in dogs too: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160809095138.h...
But not necessarily in farm animals.
We know for a fact that phthalates have an effect on embryo development, and good luck avoiding those.
So while yes, for people it may be less of an issue, the same cannot be said for wildlife, where it becomes another nail in the extinction coffin.
You have my sympathies for going through a this procedure even though I never had to do that.
But I'm sorry you've put such an important emphasis on having kids in your relationship. The fact that you live in a society where that's reasonable is immensely sad, to me.
You should feel whole without children, and the fact that you don't is the real tragedy, IMO.
Are you always this antagonistic and reductive?
[0] https://www.greenpeace.org/aotearoa/publication/ghost-gear-t...
We leak it all over the place, with no plans to plug the holes. Instead we keep adding new piping all over.
Maybe this is just a joke that sailed over my head, but this is obviously false and doesn't mean anything of the sort. Existential for whom? All you can definitely conclude is that the Earth won't explode if the climate increases by 15 degrees. You can guess that life would survive, but there were no humans back (or large mammals at all) back then. There's no reason to think we would make it.
> The people controlling the media won’t allow it. This is common knowledge.
This is just rank conspiracism. I know of no evidence to suggest that the media are somehow controlling events (?), laws (?), the "narrative" (?), simply to prevent nuclear reactors from being built. How? For what purpose?
And claiming "this is common knowledge"? Maybe that was just another joke, because normally when one says a conspiracy theory is true, one also claims that this is secret information that has to be carefully mined out of various data sources, because if everyone knows something is happening it's usually not a very good conspiracy.
If a country has sufficient nuclear energy then they are immune from international energy politics.
Two, I see that the oligarch class is using global warming alarmism as the driving narrative to move everyone to a carbon credit system, where payouts go to an unaccountable transnational elite.
Ironically, I believe that once the incentive structure is in place, there will be institutional force to keep you buying carbon (offsets) credits… forever.
It's the flaw that makes reducing global warming a talking point vs an actionable item. It's a big elephant in the room.
Until that gets resolved many will think some are spinning your wheels.
I don't think you realise the VAST amount of energy density in one 1kg of coal vs 1 kg nuclear fuel. "Somewhat" is not nearly the correct comparison !
"8 kWh of heat (energy) from 1kg of coal vs 24,000,000 kWh from 1 kg of uranium-235" [0]
The caveat is of course that for 1 kg of coal you have to dig up a lot less material than you have to for 1 kg of fissile material - U235 is around 1 % of natural Uranium, and Uranium is around 1 % of the ore.
Nuclear waste is also extremely compact.
Unfortunately our world is not run without the consumption of resources. There are trade offs to everything.
If the CO2 levels spike, life on the planet (including many or maybe even most humans) will survive. If you look at historic levels, they were hundreds of times higher and the planet was the greenest it has ever been.
If/when that toxic waste leaks out and starts killing, NOTHING will survive.
And the thing is that these are actually harming the people who are near the area where they are disposed, so the harm is more direct. CO2 is more like a global problem, so not as worrisome for the local population.
Only if you're talking about Putin's Little Green Men, in which case most were last seen heading to their deathbed in Belarus after having exposed themselves to deadly levels radiation after occupying the area and trenching it, to the total dismay of local Ukrainians and Plant workers!
Life does indeed find a way, but not in the way most think.
> In a way radioactivity is one of the easiest contaminants to deal...
What an absurd statement, if that were the case you'd go live and work in Fukushima and take advantage of all the open area and low cost real estate, and all the plentiful food that comes from that region.
Radiation to this day still hasn't been cleaned up in Chernobyl, which happened almost 40 years ago, and an Evacuation Zone is still in place.
And by the way their is an ongoing fire in the area as we speak that is cause for concern [0].
0: https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/russia-ukraine-cris...
Plastic in a landfill is just... Stuck there. It's unnatural, sure, but it's not immensely harmful, not nearly on the same scale as CO2, and realistically, in the future, we'll be able to mine it out of there and refine it into something usable if we need it.