saving the planet, one cigarette at a time

Good news for amphibians, jaguars, chimpanzees, toucans, elephants, whales, chipmunks, orchids, and assorted other critters; bad news for Homo erectus asphaltus – “As many as one in five healthy young men between the ages of 18 and 25 produce abnormal sperm counts. Even the sperm they do produce is often of poor quality.”

What’s going on here? Are we to believe that the “family jewels” have lost their luster? Could the human species be on the fast track to extinction?

According to The Independent [UK], one possible clue is that a “man who smokes typically reduces his sperm count by a modest 15 per cent or so, which is probably reversible if he quits. However, a man whose mother smoked during pregnancy has a fairly dramatic decrease in sperm counts of up to 40 per cent – which also tends to be irreversible.”

Good ole mom.

Another, perhaps more fun, reason for our sudden loss of viable squigglies is indicated by the results of a study, which found that “women who ate large amounts of beef during pregnancy, a diet rich in potentially damaging chemicals called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), had sons with relatively low sperm counts. But eating beef as an adult man shows no similar impact.”

Now the writing is clearly on the proverbial wall: If you seriously want to “save the planet” and see the Earth achieve that ever illusive quality we casually refer to as “sustainable,” there’s a simple path towards those lofty goals – smoke lots of cigarettes and eat more beef. Lots more.

The irony overwhelms – Marlboros and Big Macs to the rescue!

posted by Mudd