In a recent post I posed the extinction question in light of the revelation that fertility-reducing chemicals and microplastics are increasingly ubiquitous on our planet. The answer is undeniably yes.
In “Is the Human Race Going Extinct?” I did not set out to convince the reader of any one answer, only to argue that the question was more legitimate and worthy of exploration than had been previously thought. Even most climate realists generally concede that while our way of life is definitely about to change whether civil society voluntarily changes it or not, the human race itself would remain intact, however scattered and miserable it might be. The discovery of PFAS chemicals (exposure to which leads to a number of health issues including infertility) in rainwater throughout the world sparked the question: if every inch of our planet is being drenched in such chemicals, and similarly-damaging substances (such as microplastics) are already found throughout the human body, would the resultant drop in fertility combine with the other stressors of environmental destruction and social breakdown to dangerously lower the birthrate, which is already, at this relatively early stage of warming, below replacement levels in most developed countries (and falling fast even in poorer nations)? The dangers of PFAS in general are only now beginning to be understood by researchers:
Rainwater almost everywhere on Earth has unsafe levels of ‘forever chemicals’, according to new research.
Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a large family of human-made chemicals that don’t occur in nature. They are known as ‘forever chemicals’ because they don’t break down in the environment.
They have non-stick or stain repellent properties so can be found in household items like food packaging, electronics, cosmetics and cookware.
But now researchers at the University of Stockholm have found them in rainwater in most locations on the planet - including Antarctica. There is no safe space to escape them.
Safe guideline levels for some of these forever chemicals have dropped dramatically over the last two decades due to new insights into their toxicity.
“There has been an astounding decline in guideline values for PFAS in drinking water in the last 20 years,” says Ian Cousins, lead author of the study and professor at the Department of Environmental Science, Stockholm University.
For one well-known substance, the “cancer-causing perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)”, water guideline values have declined by 37.5 million times in the US.
“Based on the latest US guidelines for PFOA in drinking water, rainwater everywhere would be judged unsafe to drink,” he says.
The harms caused by PFAS chemicals are not limited to directly ingesting rainwater. Leaving aside the obvious problem that animals drink rainwater and will suffer further reduction in numbers as a result (adding another strain to an already teetering food supply ravaged by drought and record heatwaves), studies show that PFAS can be absorbed by the skin, with similar detriments:
Exposure through the skin to the toxic fluorinated chemical once used to make Teflon could pose the same health hazards as ingesting the compound in water or food, according to a new animal study from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH.
The study, which will appear in next month’s issue of the peer-reviewed journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, examined the effects of the chemical PFOA on the immune systems of mice exposed to high levels of the compound through the skin. The chemical is one of thousands in the family of fluorinated compounds known as PFAS.
NIOSH found that after four days of heavy exposure to PFOS through their skin, rodents’ spleens showed significantly reduced levels of antibodies. The researchers also noted a significant decrease in the weight of the spleen and thymus, indicating PFOA was absorbed through the skin and caused immunosuppressive effects. Studies in humans have shown that exposure to low levels of PFOA, and other PFAS, can harm the immune system of children and adults.
PFOA is one of the most studied compounds of the PFAS family. The chemicals are used to make water-, grease- and stain-repellent coatings for a vast array of consumer goods and industrial applications.
Known as “forever chemicals,” PFAS build up in our bodies and never break down in the environment. Even very small doses of PFAS have been linked to cancer, reproductive and immune system harm and other diseases.
Until now, studies of PFAS have focused on exposure to animals in a laboratory or exposure to people who consumed contaminated drinking water. EWG estimates that that up to 110 million Americans may be drinking PFAS-tainted water. But PFAS are also found in other sources, including some cosmetics, carpets and clothing.
PFOA was once used by DuPont to make Teflon. Dupont knew for decades that it was harmful to humans. News first erupted in 2001 about contamination of drinking water at a Teflon plant in West Virginia. The fight to combat PFAS contamination was captured in the movie "Dark Waters," about attorney Rob Bilott’s years-long lawsuit against Dupont, one of the primary sources of PFAS contamination.
The birthrate around the world continues to drop, in large part due to the increasingly popular choice not to reproduce but undoubtedly also a partial result of the proliferation of fertility-reducing chemicals and substances (microplastics have also been found in rain) in our world; in fact, a stunning half of all pregnancies throughout the world are unintended, heightening the impact of such outside factors on the process of reproduction:
Nearly half of all pregnancies, totalling 121 million each year throughout the world, are unintended. For the women and girls affected, the most life-altering reproductive choice—whether or not to become pregnant—is no choice at all, explains the State of World Population 2022 report, released today by UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency.
The groundbreaking report, “Seeing the Unseen: The case for action in the neglected crisis of unintended pregnancy,” warns that this human rights crisis has profound consequences for societies, women and girls and global health. Over 60 per cent of unintended pregnancies end in abortion and an estimated 45 per cent of all abortions are unsafe, causing 5 – 13 per cent of all maternal deaths, thereby having a major impact on the world’s ability to reach the Sustainable Development Goals.
In China, for example, the birthrate has been consistently below replacement level in recent years:
In a statement published by state-run Qiushi magazine on Aug. 1, the country’s National Health Commission said, “China’s Total Fertility Rate (TSR) was lower than 1.3 in recent years,” showing a continued “decline” in “women’s willingness to have children.”
The statement reported women of childbearing age having 1.64 children on average in 2021, 1.73 in 2019 and 1.76 in 2017, once again emphasizing the downward trend in childbirths.
This article disingenuously blames China’s Covid policies as the cause of the drop, which was observed to a similar degree in more open countries, and quotes an obvious propagandist who states “China’s zero-COVID policy has led to a zero economy, zero marriages, zero fertility.” While lockdown measures might thwart some pregnancies, the real reasons behind the drop in births generally include financial concerns (raising a child is expensive, and will only become more so as resources are further strained by climate change), anxiety about the future (which will increase as climate change impacts more and more lives), and increasing education and independence for women (explaining the accelerating drive to end abortion rights and reproductive freedom in general in the US). Only the last of these causes might be addressed by an authoritarian government which, grasping at a power that will wane alongside civilization and order, might continue down our current path of treating women as little more than brood mares and successfully force some number of them to give birth in a bid to hold on to power, but this will be temporary in the face of worldwide climate-driven chaos and disorder.
It was also recently revealed that climate change heightens risk of disease, both communicable and otherwise:
Climate hazards such as flooding, heat waves and drought have worsened more than half of the hundreds of known infectious diseases in people, including malaria, hantavirus, cholera and anthrax, a study says.
Researchers looked through the medical literature of established cases of illnesses and found that 218 out of the known 375 human infectious diseases, or 58%, seemed to be made worse by one of 10 types of extreme weather connected to climate change, according to a study in Monday’s journal Nature Climate Change….
In addition to looking at infectious diseases, the researchers expanded their search to look at all type of human illnesses, including non-infectious sicknesses such as asthma, allergies and even animal bites to see how many maladies they could connect to climate hazards in some way, including infectious diseases. They found a total of 286 unique sicknesses and of those 223 of them seemed to be worsened by climate hazards, nine were diminished by climate hazards and 54 had cases of both aggravated and minimized, the study found.
The disease amplifying effects of climate change will only continue to accelerate, adding yet another factor which will decrease birthrates. Food insecurity also plays a major role in declining birthrates and infant mortality; starvation is already a major issue and will also only increase in the coming decades:
This year, about 300,000 people in Somalia and South Sudan are projected to face the highest level of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification scale - level 5, meaning an extreme lack of food – with the risk of famine occurring in eight areas of Somalia, should widespread crop and livestock production fail.
The 2022 situation marks a dramatic increase from last year, when 42 million people suffered from high levels of acute food insecurity.
In 2021, the IGAD region accounted for nearly 22 per cent of the global number of people in crisis or worse (IPC Phase 3 or above), with an estimated 10 million children under five, suffering from acute malnutrition.
In addition, 24 per cent of the world’s 51 million internally displaced were also in IGAD countries, mainly Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan.
Further reading from climate journalist and meteorologist Eric Holthaus’s Currentlyweather service:
This is the everyday reality of rural Africans in the era of climate change, where a La Niña-induced historic drought continues to ravage East Africa — namely Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and northern Uganda, causing extreme water scarcity and mass livestock death. These countries form the Horn of Africa, one of the most conflict-affected regions in the world, and are experiencing what experts have called the “world’s worst acute food insecurity emergency of 2022”.
For the fourth consecutive time, the rainy season has failed in East Africa and is likely to fail yet again in the short rains period from October to December this year.
The locust infestation that swept across the Horn of Africa in 2020 added to the food crisis. Over 20 million people are reeling from the effects of the drought, with many areas on the brink of localized famine. Over 1.8 million children are facing life-threatening malnutrition. To make matters worse, food prices are soaring due to global inflation.
Britain is on the brink of a vegetable shortage as crops are ravaged by the summer heatwave and the chaos at Dover makes importing supplies from Europe more difficult.
Jack Ward, chief executive of the British Growers Association, said Britain “could be in a major deficit position”, where domestic supplies cannot meet demand.
He said: “The temperatures we are seeing here are being replicated around Europe so European production sites are facing similar challenges. This could lead to less product and less choice.”
Extreme heat and strained water supplies stunt the growth of many vegetables, reducing the size and quality of the crop. Retailers could normally find alternative sources in Europe but its farmers also faced a brutal heatwave and delays at Britain’s ports threaten to reduce supply from the Continent.
Thirsty crops such as onions, potatoes, carrots and lettuces are likely to be affected badly.
Mr Ward said: “At this late stage of the season, finding growers with surplus production may not be that simple – plus the cost of transport has escalated in the past few months even if you can get hold of it.
According to the Panama canal authorities, 2019 was the fifth driest year in Panama for 70 years with rainfall down 20% compared to the historic average.
But it is not only dry years that cause difficulties - heavy rain can also create problems as it can cause the artificial lakes to overflow.
As dry years and storms become more common, the canal needs to find fresh sources of water and new ways to store it.
Every time a ship goes through the locks, 55m gallons (250m litres) of fresh water is used, then released into the sea. On average, 37 ships go through the locks every day, using more than 2bn gallons (9bn litres) of fresh water.
The vice-president of water projects at the Panama Canal, John Langman, says they are working on finding solutions to ensure the canal does not run out of water.
The Rhine River is set to become virtually impassable at a key waypoint in Germany, as shallow water chokes off shipments of energy products and other industrial commodities along one of Europe’s most important waterways.
The marker at Kaub, west of Frankfurt, is forecast to drop to the critical depth of 40 centimeters (just under 16 inches) early on Aug. 12, according to the German Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration. At that level, most barges that haul goods from diesel to coal are effectively unable to transit the river. It’s set to continue dropping, to 37 centimeters the following day.
With an already dropping birthrate, the average age of the population will increase, which strains healthcare systems as well as curbs the ability of younger people to make time to raise a family—this time will be spent caring for aging relatives instead of having children of their own, resulting in yet another environmental vicious cycle. Punctuating this lifelong obligation will be other climate-related strains on the healthcare industry which will complicate such routine medical care (as was seen with Covid); climate anxiety already factors in strongly to many couples’ decisions regarding procreation, and as disasters become more common and severe, this will only become a more central question:
Americans are changing their views on the need for climate change action as severe weather events caused by global warming are landing in their backyards with more frequency, according to a new report.
The vast majority of adults in the U.S. have reported being personally affected by extreme weather events in recent years, according to new research released Tuesday by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
For now, the first world will continue to externalize its economic predation onto poorer countries, whose high birthrates will continue to fall in the resulting bloodbath. Though the human population is estimated to climb in the coming decades, the combination of these myriad factors will inevitably grind it to a halt globally. An increase in fertility-reducing factors across the board will ensure that no one rationale for having children will be sufficient to pick up the slack, no one region will be able to make up for the overall decline, no one policy or program will recast the idea of bringing another child into this world as anything other than irresponsible recklessness. The many unintended pregnancies worldwide will become less common as fertility drops and will soon effectively vanish alongside the intended ones. Our end will be a mix of noble voluntary abstinence and the consequences of shortsighted, unexamined choices such as those which led to our late stage population boom and the wealth inequality that concentrated population growth in exploited countries in the first place.
If we conceptualize fertility as a series of dice rolls, these future constraints have effectively taken a six-sided dice for which the lowest possible chance of successfully reproducing is 1/6 and replaced it a dodecahedron or worse. All of these environmental stressors will lead to a decreasing population; none will encourage reproduction or even behave neutrally and allow it to take place unburdened. It will not happen quickly, barring some cataclysmic disaster such as a nuclear war (a more likely prospect given the breakdown of the political order and security at nuclear silos and reactors), but it will happen: the human race has poisoned and consumed itself into oblivion and will assuredly march to an early grave, a victim of its shortsightedness, avarice, and inability to rise above its baser violent instincts.
