[Richard_East]

"From 1973 to 2011, there was a decline of more than 50 percent in sperm counts among men living in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand."

"The researchers said that they cannot determine from their data what might have caused the decline, but it could be related to environmental or lifestyle factors."

https://www.livescience.com/59948-sperm-count-drop-western-m...

[longtom]

A link has been found to some household chemicals (diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) and polychlorinated biphenyl 153 (PCB153)) affecting dogs:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/fertility-problems...

[linuxftw]

The world is full of chemicals right now. One day, humanity will look back at the last 100 years (and probably the next 50) and wonder what we were thinking.

[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

Maybe, but I would have preferred to live in the last 100 years, than at any other time in the past.

Despite all those chemicals, we have had longer life expectancies, better quality of life, and less suffering.

[cortesoft]

The world is made up of ONLY chemicals, now and forever

[jagannathtech]

That's just pedantic. It is implied that the issue is 'synthetic chemicals'

[cortesoft]

That is still an overly broad category to be worried about in general... just because something is synthetic doesn't mean it is more or less dangerous than a non-synthetic thing.

[linuxftw]

Non-naturally occurring chemicals, or at least chemicals that we weren't traditionally exposed to in great abundance. Like laundry detergent and conventional shampoo. Those are probably terrible for the environment. When we ban one, companies just create another one.

[ArlenBales]

Easily correlated to other factors such as the surge in obesity and diabetes since the 1970s.