so just out of curiosity what do you do with all the chemicals you get rid of.

The easiest thing to do is to contact your local waste disposal company or county hazardous waste disposal facility and ask what items they will properly dispose of. Since most of these chemicals are just as bad for the environment as for your health, they will take care of the vast majority of them.

While I entirely agree that most commercial chemicals are harmful to humans and especially the environment, I'm hesitant to believe they have much to do with decreasing fecundity in developed countries.
In my evolution class, we recently discussed how female empowerment has a massive impact on reproduction. Since most developed countries treat women and men more or less equally, women now have the ability to choose when and how many children they will have instead of being pressured by their partners. Also, with the high level of resources it takes to raise each child in a developed country (food, shelter, enrichment, education), it's not really beneficial to have more than two or three.
Back to the chemicals, though, some commercial products contain estrogen which can feminize males, and this could decrease their sperm count. On the other hand, this also leads to women hitting puberty at a much earlier age (8-10 years instead of 11-13). I'm not sure how this impacts human fertility on a large scale, but with fertility treatments, I wouldn't expect it to be too significant.

Just a quick question: Why would we want to INCREASE our fecundity? Does it not seem like our massive population size is damaging the environment and that we should be trying to decrease it?

Even with fertility treatments and massively expensive procedures such as in-vitro, there are many couples that can't successfully have children who want them. While adoption is always a great option, there are the black-market downsides of it (kidnappings, smuggling and human trafficking).

I found your last statement though-provoking, because while the carbon impact of a child born in the US is more than 160 times that of a child born in Bangladesh, shouldn't one of the benefits of living in a developed country be the ability to have a healthy child? And if we start restricting reproductive capabilities, either directly through laws limiting the number of offspring, or indirectly by promoting products that damage reproductive abilities, are we any better than countries that have such restrictive laws in place (China comes to mind)? Do we have the right to remove the choice from those individuals in developed countries who are all treated as equals and have career aspirations, but still want to experience parenthood?

I agree that overpopulation is and will continue to be a major issue, but how far can we go to battle it, and how far is too far? An interesting philosophical question.

Well, there will ALWAYS be people who want children but can't have them. I just don't think that number has grown significantly when compared to our population size.
I'd be really interested to see how much human trafficking in North America is impacted by adoption. Again, I don't really believe these numbers would be significant, but they would still be interesting...

Yes, I definitely agree that health is of utmost importance! I was not proposing that we promote "products that damage reproductive abilities." (I'm actually even opposed to chemical contraceptives, since they damage wild animal populations.) I just meant to point out that fears about fertility are not necessarily WHY we should be lessening our dependence on chemicals, since their relation is probably minute.

Personally, I HIGHLY support China's one-child law. I don't feel they really thought through the implications this would have on their population distribution in relation to age, which will likely cause some big social issues in 10-20 years. Overall, though, they're at least doing something to bring their population under carrying capacity, which may eventually bring about a sustainable population size.

i totally agree about the one child law. What we need is to tax the hell out of anyone with more than 2 children, rather than provide more and more support for them. Every person should get a license to have one kid, so 2 per couple. Kid dies, too bad - adopt. Divorced and lose the kid, too bad - adopt. Remarry and new partner also already used licence on first kid, too bad - adopt.

It disgusting to see people pumping out kids for the government baby bonus, the hubris of passing on their probably-flawed-all-to-hell genetic line "cause heck i turned out ok, a dozen more of me must be a GOOD thing!!", or for the pure hormone addiction of giving birth (i swear, there are actually people that get high off the hormones. A coworkers wife, in her 40s, is pumping out a kid a year because she is addicted to hormones. Its freaky)

We are literally screwing the world to death. It has to stop.

Anyone poor enough to be having kids purely for government handouts has a very low impact on the environment. And most of that impact is probably out of their hands.

But of course the massive welfare mother drain theory is a load of bullshit anyway.

I feel driven to try to find some numbers on changes in percent of the population without children over the past 4 generations, but I doubt there is actual data on whether it would be by choice or due to infertility, except recently since the trend is moving towards childless by choice. Although looking at the Baby Boomers and their parents, with the social pressure to have the family and picket fence life, I doubt many would be by choice.

In terms of the human trafficking stemming from adoption, think smuggling from Southeast Asia, not Mexico. Its actually much more common than you would expect, and is termed "Child Laundering" see http://www.humantrafficking.org/publications/542/ for more specifically or on the Human Trafficking website http://www.humantrafficking.org/ type adoption into the search engine to see all the impacts.

In terms of chemical's impact on fertility, I encourage you to check out the National Institute of Health's and National Library of Medicine's "Tox Town" http://toxtown.nlm.nih.gov/index.php It gives a very basic understanding of 32 toxic chemicals, including what it is, how you can be exposed, and how it can affect your health. Not counting chemicals that cause issues for pregnant women and/or their fetuses or general effects on menstrual cycles, 11 specifically list damage to reproductive organs or overall fertility. That's 1/3.

Or check out NIH's and the National Toxicology Program's Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR) http://cerhr.niehs.nih.gov/index.html. That's right, it is prolific enough to get its own national testing center. It has a list of 35 chemicals that have been nominated for testing, and 22 that have completed testing. For some bizarre reason, they don't have a test results by concern severity list; you have to go through the report on each chemical to find it. I don't have time for that now, but maybe later.

Suffice it to say, don't underestimate chemicals.

Have you thought about the implications of the one child law in relation to gender, or just age? You know that millions of potential parents abort their foetus simply because it turns out to be female? Have you thought about how this will impact the women who grow up vastly outnumbered by men, many of whom will have trouble finding partners?

Since you highly support the one child law I'm guessing not. And if you really think "developed" countries treat women and men more or less equally, at least you're consistent.

Actually, I AM aware of the infanticide induced by the one-child law as well as the age distribution issues. I actually said in my last comment, "I don't feel they really thought through the implications this would have on their population distribution in relation to age, which will likely cause some big social issues in 10-20 years," in regards to the age issue. The infanticide is, of course, a huge concern, and I do recognize it would likely occur in more developed countries, though likely to a lesser extent. I did not mean to say that the one-child law is perfect. It is clearly not. But I do believe it is a step in the right direction.

Also, in regards to the treatment of men and women: as a(n) female, asexual, agendered, atheistic feminist who has lived in both Canada and the US, I can say I have never been discriminated against for being female. I am, however, frequently discriminated against for everything else, but those are easier to hide.
Results, of course, may vary with age and locality.

I apologise for spouting feminist rhetoric at you (I did look at your journal/profile for a clue, but felt what you said seemed more like what a male might say, so went with my criticism). But, your self-quote still says "in relation to age" and nothing more. And I have a hard time reading "HIGHLY support" alongside saying it's clearly not perfect.

Well, I try to keep my online presence gender-neutral both because I'm agendered and because it's really interesting to see how many people accuse me of being male or female, as if either is a bad thing.
In this situation, I don't see how whether or not I have a penis/ovaries makes any difference in whether I support China's one-child law. The world is vastly over-populated and China is trying to do something to control its population. That's a hell of a lot better than anyone else, and I support the attempt even if it has glaring flaws.
Anyway, just because something isn't perfect, that doesn't mean it isn't a good idea. The theory of gravity isn't perfect, but I still HIGHLY support teaching it in school and using it in industry and science.

I will grant that I misread the article writer's intention; I read "Even with declining fertility rates in many countries..." as increasing infertility rates, but it can also be read as decreasing number of births. I've had infertility on the brain recently so I read it that way.

However, I stand by my point that in terms of reproductive ability infertility, chemicals play a major factor.

Socio-economic factors have a far larger impact on fertility rates than chemical causes of infoertility. The vast majority of developed nation families don't want 6 kids. First World don't necessarily have to reduce family size further (altho that would be a good thing) but we must reduce consumption/waste and support progressive policies in the developing world that will enable/encourage women to have the smaller families that they usually want. It is absolutely shameful that we still give <0.5% of GDP in aid to developing countries. If we held up to our responsibility then population growth would had slowed years ago.

Population is an enormous problem and we will probably reach a point within a few decades where draconian measures (like a 1 child policy) will become necessary. Most people aren't ready to consider that so we should be doing everything we can to reduce the need for extreme measures. That involves political change and government action. You and your fellow citizens demanding an end to dirty coal electricity will make a far bigger impact than raging at the neighbour who has 3 kids (but you should still encourage your friends and relatives to have 2 or fewer biological children). An end to oil and gas subsidies will impact fossil fuel prices in a way that will speed the shift to renewable energy mush faster than you riding your bike around town (which you should do anyway).