Jim East @ wolfyvegan @slrpnk.net

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Not even fair to compare to 2024. This year is on track to be the warmest non-El Niño year on record.

Some highlights:

Far-right authoritarian pundits and political actors, from Matt Walsh to Elon Musk, all seem to have gotten the same memo instructing them to fixate on “low” fertility and birth rates. Musk has claimed that “population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming” and that it will lead to “mass extinction.” Some liberals are flirting with this narrative, too.

In her Atlantic piece, Bruenig argues that the left should claim the right-wing birth-rate rhetoric in order to justify putting forward modest welfare policy increases. Well, at least for those who have children. But at the same time, instead of taking a moment to wonder if Millennials having fewer kids will really lead to human extinction, she unfurls her banners and from the parapet declares triumphantly: “humankind is excellent—the paragon of animals”! This is a pretty unequivocal reinforcement of a particular human supremacist ethic. This ethic, also gleefully championed by fascists like Matt Walsh, is central to the value system currently annihilating life on earth and is apparently shared by every commentator on this issue. This idea can be found running through not just Bruenig’s leftism and Walsh’s rightism, but through Ezra Klein’s centrism as well. His “abundance agenda” espouses spreading human development and quietly accepting the demise of all the wildlife that would have otherwise inhabited the land being developed, or whose habitat will suffer the consequences of expanded fossil fuel energy systems, like catastrophic climate change.

But the bigger problem with Walsh’s argument is that it only makes sense if you care about the quantity of human life more than the quality of human life. Sure, it is technically low cost to impregnate someone. But in the U.S., providing a stable, healthy, safe, and enriching upbringing for a child has become increasingly difficult due to rising costs of living, stagnant wages, and disinvestment in public goods and services. When someone is making a choice about whether to have a child, they ought to be anticipating loving that child and wanting the best for them. So a rational person should look at the conditions in which the child would be raised and make an educated judgment about whether they would be able to provide safety and stability. The world as it is simply contains a scarcity of these things, and they are diminishing thanks primarily to the actions of leaders committed to Walsh’s ideology.

When authoritarians bemoan falling birth rates, they’re not really concerned about children’s health and well-being or about imminent human extinction. They’re concerned with maintaining a certain system of production that is dependent on cheap, abundant, and disposable labor.

Essentially, Cowen is suggesting eliminating programs for the elderly and the poor and diverting that money to subsidize childbearing people. His mention of Christian Science is telling, as adherents of this sect tend not to live as long as the general population. He doesn’t say it explicitly, but by focusing on eliminating welfare for older and poorer citizens, he is advocating for a demographic strategy of producing lots of offspring and letting the ones he deems less evolutionarily fit, mainly the older and poorer, die off. This is called "r-selection" among other species. It’s a strategy used by creatures, like some rodents, fish, and insects, often when there is environmental scarcity of resources. Apparently it’s a strategy that Cowen sees fit for humans. We need to call this what it is: a clear example of 19th-century social Darwinism and a grim case of, like Walsh, another far-right authoritarian advocating for quantity of human life over quality of life. It is a view of life that is fundamentally incompatible with maximizing well-being, health, and happiness for all.

Whether delusion or propaganda or both, “demographic collapse” is a false problem. The fact is, the human population will absolutely never disappear due to a low fertility rate, unless there is some environmental impact on the physiological ability to reproduce.7 This is not impossible, given all the known and unknown effects of chemicals and plastics permeating the environment, which are already negatively impacting hormones and reproductive health.8 Microplastics have been found in every human testicle—and region of the planet—where they’ve been looked for. But even with these pressures, the human population continues to grow (while wildlife continues to decline).

If the quantity of human life does one day stop growing and actually starts to decrease, it is likely that, in many places, if history is any guide, the quality of human life will be fine and could even increase with it. Perhaps more importantly today, the quality and quantity of non-human forms of life—which, unlike Musk’s mass-human-extinction lie, are in a state of actual mass extinction—would receive a vital respite. More forms of life would have more good opportunities to exist. As with many other issues, if the right wing’s greatest fears were to come true, it would almost certainly be fine for everybody… except, maybe, a few oligarchs.

Some highlights:

Far-right authoritarian pundits and political actors, from Matt Walsh to Elon Musk, all seem to have gotten the same memo instructing them to fixate on “low” fertility and birth rates. Musk has claimed that “population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming” and that it will lead to “mass extinction.” Some liberals are flirting with this narrative, too.

In her Atlantic piece, Bruenig argues that the left should claim the right-wing birth-rate rhetoric in order to justify putting forward modest welfare policy increases. Well, at least for those who have children. But at the same time, instead of taking a moment to wonder if Millennials having fewer kids will really lead to human extinction, she unfurls her banners and from the parapet declares triumphantly: “humankind is excellent—the paragon of animals”! This is a pretty unequivocal reinforcement of a particular human supremacist ethic. This ethic, also gleefully championed by fascists like Matt Walsh, is central to the value system currently annihilating life on earth and is apparently shared by every commentator on this issue. This idea can be found running through not just Bruenig’s leftism and Walsh’s rightism, but through Ezra Klein’s centrism as well. His “abundance agenda” espouses spreading human development and quietly accepting the demise of all the wildlife that would have otherwise inhabited the land being developed, or whose habitat will suffer the consequences of expanded fossil fuel energy systems, like catastrophic climate change.

But the bigger problem with Walsh’s argument is that it only makes sense if you care about the quantity of human life more than the quality of human life. Sure, it is technically low cost to impregnate someone. But in the U.S., providing a stable, healthy, safe, and enriching upbringing for a child has become increasingly difficult due to rising costs of living, stagnant wages, and disinvestment in public goods and services. When someone is making a choice about whether to have a child, they ought to be anticipating loving that child and wanting the best for them. So a rational person should look at the conditions in which the child would be raised and make an educated judgment about whether they would be able to provide safety and stability. The world as it is simply contains a scarcity of these things, and they are diminishing thanks primarily to the actions of leaders committed to Walsh’s ideology.

When authoritarians bemoan falling birth rates, they’re not really concerned about children’s health and well-being or about imminent human extinction. They’re concerned with maintaining a certain system of production that is dependent on cheap, abundant, and disposable labor.

Essentially, Cowen is suggesting eliminating programs for the elderly and the poor and diverting that money to subsidize childbearing people. His mention of Christian Science is telling, as adherents of this sect tend not to live as long as the general population. He doesn’t say it explicitly, but by focusing on eliminating welfare for older and poorer citizens, he is advocating for a demographic strategy of producing lots of offspring and letting the ones he deems less evolutionarily fit, mainly the older and poorer, die off. This is called "r-selection" among other species. It’s a strategy used by creatures, like some rodents, fish, and insects, often when there is environmental scarcity of resources. Apparently it’s a strategy that Cowen sees fit for humans. We need to call this what it is: a clear example of 19th-century social Darwinism and a grim case of, like Walsh, another far-right authoritarian advocating for quantity of human life over quality of life. It is a view of life that is fundamentally incompatible with maximizing well-being, health, and happiness for all.

Whether delusion or propaganda or both, “demographic collapse” is a false problem. The fact is, the human population will absolutely never disappear due to a low fertility rate, unless there is some environmental impact on the physiological ability to reproduce.7 This is not impossible, given all the known and unknown effects of chemicals and plastics permeating the environment, which are already negatively impacting hormones and reproductive health.8 Microplastics have been found in every human testicle—and region of the planet—where they’ve been looked for. But even with these pressures, the human population continues to grow (while wildlife continues to decline).

If the quantity of human life does one day stop growing and actually starts to decrease, it is likely that, in many places, if history is any guide, the quality of human life will be fine and could even increase with it. Perhaps more importantly today, the quality and quantity of non-human forms of life—which, unlike Musk’s mass-human-extinction lie, are in a state of actual mass extinction—would receive a vital respite. More forms of life would have more good opportunities to exist. As with many other issues, if the right wing’s greatest fears were to come true, it would almost certainly be fine for everybody… except, maybe, a few oligarchs.

Veganic permaculture food forests using syntropic methods can provide individual and community food security and sovereignty without the bullshit.

In the Amazon especially, some people are already reforesting with fruit trees and other beneficial vegetation, and they invite others to join in the effort.

archived version (Wayback Machine)

Partly because many recently deforested areas (mainly in Mato Grosso) were "legally" reclassified from Amazon to Cerrado. Either way, there is still massive deforestation going on, no matter how anyone manipulates the statistics.

Are you sure that the trees aren't Dunstan chestnuts?

Hamilton added that it’s also unusual for two North Atlantic right whales to stick together unless they’re mother and calf, which Koala and Curlew are not. Researchers have been tracking Koala since her birth in 2009 and Curlew since hers in 2011; the pair have been seen swimming together for the last several months.

The reason for this will probably never be known except to those two whales, but... it's possible that some whales are gay. And that's okay.

Planting native flowers couldn't hurt, but as with their Annona relatives, a decent yield of pawpaws will most likely require hand-pollination. People do it, and it works. The flowers are protogynous (effectively female first, then male), so you'll need to collect pollen from the flowers that are in the male stage and use it to fertilise the flowers still in the female stage, then repeat each day until all flowers have been pollinated. Your devotion shall be rewarded.

EDIT: Thank you for the informative post. Anyone in pawpaw territory would do well to research the plants that you linked.

My immediate concern is what a sufficiently large asteroid might do to the durian trees. Mangosteen survived Krakatoa by becoming a lesbian, but I wouldn't gamble with durian. Can't some aliens just sterilise the humans instead? (Non-violently, of course.)

Veganic permaculture food forests using syntropic methods can provide individual and community food security and sovereignty without the bullshit.

In the Amazon especially, some people are already reforesting with fruit trees and other beneficial vegetation, and they invite others to join in the effort.

For the longest time, when I would see "AMAB" in someone's profile anywhere online, I thought that it stood for "All Men Are Bastards."

Not making so many babies would also help, with or without the apartment buildings.

Here is the actual phys.org article.

So go vegan. If not cows, they would graze some other animals there.

Is there no chestnut blight in your area?

Even better!

Would you be able to prune the house? I don't know the layout of your place, but that might make more room. Otherwise, the neighbour's land is always an option.

That's awesome. Please post back with an update on how it goes! Would you ever get fruit from the mulberries, or do the birds eat them all where you are?

Yes, convert that lawn! Two plants worth considering are Prunus persica 'Kernechter vom Vorgebirge' and Amelanchier × lamarckii. I've heard great things about them, but they were growing in SW Germany, so do your own research first. What do you use for a ground cover? Clover can be a valuable ally in the fight against the grass.