Earlier this year, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to warn his followers: “We should be much more worried about population collapse.”
Musk added that if there weren’t enough people for Earth, then there definitely won’t be enough people for Mars.
So, is population collapse something we should be seriously worried about?
Musk referenced United Nations numbers that estimated nearly 10 billion people on the planet by 2050. Musk called these numbers nonsense. Birth rates have declined in a lot of developed countries, including the U.S. But birth rates are cyclical and declined in large part during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Musk also chimed in recently about the COVID-19 baby "bust" and of lack of children as issues.
Related Link: Elon Musk Tweets On Pandemic Baby Bust: Why A Lack Of Kids Is The Real Problem
There Are Some Concerns: Shanna Swan is an environmental and reproductive epidemiologist and professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Swan’s book “Count Down” hit the shelves in February 2021.
In "Count Down," Swan outlined the various ways chemicals and endocrine disruptors have lowered sperm counts throughout the last century, threatening humanity’s chance of survival. These chemicals are found in common aerosols and plastics. By some measures, sperm counts in the West have dropped as much as 50%, Swan said.
So this all sounds very concerning, right?
“Doomed is kind of an emotional word. It’s not a scientific word, right?” Swan said in an interview with GQ. "But let me tell you what I think. I think that sperm counts are really low in many places in the world, and people should be very concerned. Yes, I take it seriously. Am I panicking? No.”
So Why Isn’t She Panicking? Swan explained that while there are products and habits which have decimated the population’s sperm count, the reverse was also true. Swan suggested there are things we can do to alleviate, and even reverse, the harmful effects of chemicals.
Swan wrote about one man who was a regular sperm donor. One day he was told his sperm count didn’t pass the threshold for him to be a donor.
“He was one of their prime donors, and then suddenly he didn’t make the cut, and they said, 'What’s up?' And he said, 'Well, let’s see: I changed jobs; it’s more stressful. I have a new girlfriend, she smokes,' and so on. And so he went back and he cleaned up his act, and then after a couple of months, his sperm count returned,” Swan explained.
Now, this is very anecdotal and not the same as reversing a sociological effect that impacts millions of people. With that said, there is plenty of evidence that cutting out smoking, improving diet and increasing exercise are all real ways that one can increase sperm count.
Should you be worried about population collapse? Yes, but not panicked. There is little to no evidence indicating we are facing an imminent collapse of the population. But we should be more mindful of some of the negative effects associated with the products we use every day.
Photo; Courtesy Of Unsplash
This Article Was Originally Published In April 2022
