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TUESDAYS — YOUR INBOX — ASSUREDLY
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CURATED ECOLOGICAL NEWS
Falling fertility rates in the United States
“Births and fertility rates have been declining in the United States for decades. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since 1990 the U.S. total fertility rate has fallen to 1.62 births per woman — well below replacement level.
“The drop in birthrates has garnered media attention and agitation from the right (and unfortunately prompted Donald Trump to call himself the ‘Fertilization President’). But many demographers see the birthrate decline as a success story. Reproductive health, rights, and justice are threatened by the same systems of oppression that overexploit the environment and drive the extinction crisis.
“Of course, the reasons for the falling birthrate are various and complex. Access to contraception is making it easier for people to delay pregnancy; climate concerns, the cost of living, and other social and environmental factors are pushing others toward not having kids at all.
“Population pressure is a root cause of the crises we face, especially in the United States, where the average person consumes more than most people around the world. Family planning and the education of women and girls are top climate change solutions — and greater access to reliable contraception and reproductive freedom of choice should be celebrated, not catastrophized.”
Overpopulation and over-consumption by rich society IS the problem
“Paul Ehrlich, who died on March 13th at the age of 93, was interviewed in 1980 by Johnny Carson. Ehrlich’s message was that overpopulation poses an existential crisis to humanity. In his 1968 book, The Population Bomb, he wrote that, if then-current trends continued, hundreds of millions would die of starvation in the 1980s.
“There are several reasons why this prediction, thankfully, didn’t come to pass. Part of the reason is the influence that Paul and others had among many different groups, including: environmental activists who made population and women’s empowerment their issue (and created educational organizations like Zero Population Growth); policy makers who funded programs to make birth control widely accessible; and among conscientious young people who decided to have fewer or no children.
“Overpopulation has become a forbidden topic even in some environmentalist circles. Concern over the impacts of human population is sometimes equated with racism — white people telling brown people to have fewer babies.
“Paul made it abundantly clear, especially over the last couple of decades, that overconsumption and inequity are serious components of humanity’s sustainability problem, noting in a co-authored 2022 paper that birth rates needed to be reduced ‘especially among the overconsuming wealthy and middle classes’.
“Today fertility rates in many countries have fallen to below the replacement rate. Mainstream economists are horrified, because population growth is one of the factors leading to economic growth. What those economists miss, however, is that the world is already seriously overpopulated with 8.3 billion humans. Climate change, resource depletion, biodiversity and habitat loss, and pollution are driving us toward a cliff, and rising population makes the foot on the accelerator heavier.”
Masculinity portrayed as procreator and dominator, rarely as nurturer
“Much of the contemporary advice directed toward men centres on individual success. A recent example is the work of Scott Galloway. A man, he suggests, should strive to become three things: a protector, a provider, and a procreator.
“These qualities are not without value. But the framework in which they are presented is often profoundly narrow. It assumes that the central task of a man is to optimise his own life trajectory. What is largely absent from this conversation is the social and ecological context that makes any individual life possible.
“No one succeeds alone. Every human life is sustained by systems that exist far beyond the individual: families, communities, institutions, landscapes, watersheds, soils, forests. Yet the dominant cultural narrative of success rarely acknowledges this interdependence.
“At the root of this narrowing lies the logic of the economic system in which modern life unfolds. Capitalist economies reward expansion, accumulation, and growth. They encourage individuals and firms alike to maximise profit, scale production, and secure advantage over competitors.”
Mycelial networks help reestablish soil after wildfires
“Ecologists have long studied how life returns after a devastating wildfire. Wildflowers, such as fireweed, and grasses are often the first plants to poke through the charred soil. Shrubs come next, then seedlings like aspens and willows.
“Yet in the grand succession of life after a wildfire, the first beings to appear are neither plants nor animals, but fungi. Species of pyrophilous fungi — from Greek for ‘fire-loving’ — thrive in the burned terrain. These fire fungi carpet the recently scorched earth with splashes of warm ocher, deep mauve, fleshy pink, and bright orange.
“Says Matt Traxler at UC Berkeley, ‘In an extreme forest fire, the top layer of soil and stuff basically burns and turns into pyrolyzed organic material. Very few organisms could just take that in to try to eat it’. This burned substance also contains toxic compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
“And yet, pyrophilous fungi seem to thrive in this otherwise unwelcoming soil. After the 2016 wildfires in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, researchers found networks of mycelial mats — tangled webs of the fine, root-like structures that many fungi use to absorb water and nutrients — which could help stabilize soils after a fire.”
Visions of revitalizing buried urban streams
“Thirty years ago, Mel Lehan wanted more than anything to ‘daylight’ Tatlow Creek, a stream buried near his home in Vancouver. A couple of summers ago, Lehan’s vision was realized: Vancouver’s Park Board restored a block and a half of stream through two small parks, and planted its banks with native species.
“Historically around the world, as countries developed increasingly large metropolitan centres, natural waterways were diverted, buried or culverted. If people could direct water through a pipe, they wouldn’t have to worry about erosion or surface water, explained John S. Richardson at the University of British Columbia.
“Waterways are now completely engineered in many of the world’s biggest cities. Tatlow Creek’s location was once a vibrant forest with towering old-growth trees and more than 60 miles (100 kilometres) of streams. Today, only a handful of streams remain uncovered in the city. Most of the nearly 50 waterways were redirected into pipes.
“A functioning creek requires a persistent, high-quality water source. It requires energy from sunshine and things like decaying leaves, seeds and cones. A living creek has to be in constant conversation with life — algae, bacteria, fungi and invertebrates.”
Parsons KS not thrilled with micro nukes prospects
“Following the recent commencement of drilling in Parsons, Kansas, local residents and advocacy groups voiced sharp concerns regarding Deep Fission’s ‘Gravity’ reactor during a heated community meeting. While the California-based startup has begun site characterization for its mile-deep nuclear borehole, the town remains divided over safety, regulatory oversight, and the project’s aggressive timeline.
“Marjorie Reynolds is a director of Prairie Dog Alliance, a local group that informs residents about the nuclear reactor project. ‘This is an experimental project that no one voted for, that’s untested and if there is a contamination or accident, we’re going to be living with this forever’, she said. Her colleague, Marjorie Reynolds, added that Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) oversight has been ‘streamlined’, potentially reducing the rigor of technical evaluations.
“Some residents have also expressed fear regarding the long-term integrity of the Kansas bedrock, questioning whether unforeseen seismic activity or groundwater shifts could compromise the borehole.
“Deep Fission’s Chief Operating Officer Michael Brasel claimed the reactor’s underground design is physically incapable of a traditional meltdown [because] the external water pressure matches the internal pressure of the vessel. The energy company has begun the preliminary steps for drilling exploratory holes and construction of the drilling site.
“Brasel also detailed a unique method for refueling. The entire reactor unit is pulled toward the surface via structural pipe strings — though kept underground — where it is swapped for a fresh unit that is lowered into the bedrock [every six years].
“It’s still not fully clear how this project would be regulated. The reactor is part of a pilot program by the Trump administration that focuses on new nuclear energy.”
Strait of Hormuz closure — glimpse of peak oil?
“Iran hosts the world’s second and third largest reserves of gas and oil, respectively. Even if deliberate actions are not being undertaken [that are] intended to control the outward flow of oil and gas, almost inevitably there are consequences.
“One is reminded of the finite nature of such natural resources. The day will come when they are no longer technically or economically viable to extract in quantity, and a new age will either have already emerged or be forced upon us.
“The severe restrictions in the flow of oil though the Strait of Hormuz, resulting from the recent US-Israeli attacks, may be seen as a stark rehearsal for a ‘peak oil’ crisis.
“Major energy providers have been compelled to put a brake on oil production as storage facilities begin to fill to capacity. Saudi Aramco has said the present crisis is ‘by far the worst the region has seen’, and warned of ‘catastrophic consequences’ to global oil markets, if the war continues to block shipping there.
“The Hormuz disruption has already raised fears of a 1970s-style energy crisis, with rising fuel costs expected to fuel global inflation, increase business costs, and bring recession. Since up to one-third of the world’s fertilizer trade also passes through the region, our economic and functional dependency on a single, fragile channel, is further highlighted.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg. If we look to the UK’s food system, we see it is massively vulnerable to supply chain failures, since we import more than half of the food actually eaten here, and much of what we do grow relies on imported fertilizers.
“There is a [debatable] ‘goldilocks’ window of between $50-$100, below which oil production is unprofitable, and above which costs of oil products become increasingly unaffordable. While Iranian oil is cheaper to produce, the ‘fiscal’ breakeven price is closer to $160 a barrel, and much higher than that for Saudi Arabia ($95).
“Charles Hall, Roger Bentley and Jean Laherrere have reckoned future global oil production using Hubbert Linearization techniques. Their results indicate that, while the exact timing of the ‘peak’ is shunted forward by the addition of natural gas liquids, extra-heavy oil, shale oil, etc., oil production will begin to decline over the next decade or so.”
Can Trump, Bessent pull this one out of a hat?
“The United States’ war on Iran carries echoes of 2008. I’ll argue here that a potential financial crash this year could actually be much worse.”
“The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008 was the biggest economic crunch since the Great Depression. Unemployment surged, topping 10% in the US. Global stocks lost trillions of dollars in value. How could another crash top that?
“Consider the causes. The 2008 Great Recession resulted from a confluence of three factors:
- Failed US wars in the Middle East, in that instance against Iraq and Afghanistan, fueled massive American budget deficits and worsening trade imbalances.
- Soaring oil prices, following the plateauing of world conventional oil production, with crude prices hiting $147 per barrel.
- A bursting financial bubble inflated by subprime mortgages in the US and financial derivatives traded worldwide.
“The resulting unwinding of debt and derivatives came within a hair’s breadth of turning into a massive bank run and general economic collapse. The GFC led to widespread housing foreclosures, a near-40-percent downturn in the S&P 500, and a substantial increase in the poverty rate.
“Now consider the following:
- Today’s AI financial bubble is four times bigger than the subprime mortgage bubble of 2008 and 17 times bigger than the dot-com bubble of 2000.
- The Iran war could possibly end up being more problematic than the Iraq invasion of 2003, resulting in real oil shortages and even higher prices. Additionally, more of the Middle East is now involved in hostilities, and oil and gas production and shipment infrastructure is being damaged.
- For the US economy, warning signs were already flashing before the war: stubbornly high inflation, a bad jobs picture, and worsening consumer sentiment were indicators of a looming recession.
“Would today’s US Treasury head be as successful at averting financial doom as was Henry Paulson in 2008? Then, the US was able to enlist government and business leaders from the world’s key countries to cooperate in fashioning a collective survival strategy. Would current US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have similar success, given the recent global collapse of trust in US leadership?”
Data points show acceleration of planet heating
“A recent study published in Geophysical Research Letters claims that warming has accelerated rapidly over the past decade, with temperatures rising almost twice as fast as they did between 1970 and 2015. Should warming continue on this trajectory, the latest study says, the planet could cross the 1.5 degree threshold before 2030.
“What the researchers found was that while the Earth warmed by 0.2 degrees each decade between 1970 and 2015, it has warmed by 0.35 degrees in the decade since — a 75% spike.
“The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation current appears to have been weakening in recent years as the Earth warms. Should it collapse, drought would spread across the Southern Hemisphere and the Eastern Seaboard of the United States would see catastrophic sea level rise.
“This puts us on a collision course with the climate’s tipping points, said Stefan Rahmstorf, an author of the study from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Scientists have warned that we’re entering a period of overshoot, in which the world pushes past the 1.5 degree Paris limit. If the planet reaches a tipping point, it will enter a feedback loop that’s impossible to stop — ultimately causing 24 feet of global sea level rise.”
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