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Trees, Mycelial Networks and Community

If you have watched Avatar, the movie's magical tree of souls that connects with the nerves of the local indigenous people must have impressed you. The movie also implied that the soul tree can communicate with the entire forest life through the underground root network. In fact, a similar mysterious tree underground communication network in real life also has a "prototype": a mycorrhizal network, but the members involved in the construction of the network are not only plants but also fungi. Of course, this network is not as metaphysical as in the movie, but it also has wonderful biological/ecological properties.

"Trees live amid an orchestra of organisms. Whispering, gossiping, eavesdropping, all working together in symphonic harmony. Recent research shows that trees are in constant communication with one another through an underground biological neural network made of mycorrhizal fungi."

--Suzanne Simard in The Guardian

To understand the mycelial network, we need to know what mycorrhizae are and why they form a network, followed by a brief explanation of the function of the mycelial network and the solution to the most curious and most publicized function of the subject: transferring substances/information. Mycorrhiza mycorrhizae is a symbiotic relationship between plants and fungi, similar to the symbiotic relationship between algae/cyanobacteria and fungi like lichens. This symbiosis is very "intimate": in mycorrhizae, plants and fungi develop "specialized" structures with each other, which are not found on individual plants/fungi. Plants and fungi have a long symbiotic relationship, and early plants were helped by ancient mycorrhizae in the process of coming ashore from the sea. Today, under natural conditions, most plants rely on mycorrhizal supplies for nutrient uptake.

Plants can use this network to do some interesting things besides transmitting small molecules of signaling substances. The most famous example is the transmission of organic carbon from the mother plant to the offspring. For example, in Suzanne Simmer's TED talk, her research results suggest that plants can pass photosynthetic products through the mycelium, which may help young trees under the forest canopy that do not receive sunlight to survive. This has led to the concept of "core mother trees": some old trees in the forest may be the core of a mycelial network that supplies many trees in the forest.

I personally do not have any specific memories of trees, but there is no better toy from my childhood than nature. Dirt and gravel land, rivers, grasses, trees, water vapor, clouds, light and shadow. And those who fly in the sky, run on the ground, the creatures that burrow in the earth. How can plastic compare to warm wood, to the softness of the grass, to the hand into the wind, slowly blowing every inch of my skin. In my childhood, there are not many electrical toys, but looking back on it, I still spent a really good time. I remember when I was little, I always went to the garden of my house, there was a shrub full of yellow flowers, and hiding in the branches and boughs of the tree hole made me feel safe. I think of running around the garden in the summertime just to look for cicada molts. I have always believed that people are also a part of the spirit that draws energy from nature, it is necessary to have a quiet, natural environment to stretch and disperse.

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Women Issue Underestimated By The General Public: Period Poverty

Even when there's no Pandemic, there are millions of women around the world who cannot afford one thing that directly influences them to go anywhere without it: Sanitary Napkins.

Before, I never knew that women are not only facing the issue of social status equity. Until June 2020, an incident involving bulk sanitary napkins for sale on a Chinese social media suddenly broke out brought attention to the fact that some women are more neglected than we think about even the basic rights of life in this society.

"Period poverty" refers to the continued poverty of women who cannot afford to receive adequate sanitary products during their periods, and 40 million women worldwide are experiencing menstrual poverty. In low- and middle-income countries, more than 50% of women choose homemade menstrual hygiene products.

These women are unable to afford sanitary products because they are poor, they are unable to go to school because they cannot afford sanitary products, and they continue to be poor because they cannot attend school regularly, thus creating a vicious cycle.

It has been calculated that women spend an average of 2,353 days of their lives on their periods, which translates into 7 years. If women use 3 to 4 daily pads and a night tampon each day, they would have spent tens of thousands of dollars more than men just for the cost on sanitary napkins.

This statistic fact is not enough to draw much attention to most women each month, but for some women, it is a real "unspeakable" issue. 

The incident drove my attention started with two screenshots a netizen posted Weibo, which was of "bulk package maxi pads" from an online store, priced at 21.99 Chinese Yuan (around 3.26 USD) for 100 pieces, while a netizen asked, "How dare someone use such cheap product, Even for private part?", and two buyers replied "life is difficult" and "I have difficulties."

The maxi pads sold on the picture are not the usual ones sold in supermarkets, with full packaging. Instead, it is a large bag of bulk sanitary napkins in random colors. These sanitary napkins do not have the cost of making the outer packaging and are quite a bit cheaper than the price on the market.

A simple comparison of prices shows that the price of a pack of a well-known brand of daily sanitary napkins, 34 pieces, is 21.99, which is comparable to the price of 100 pieces in the picture. It naturally has become the choice of many girls who want to save money. Many people can not see this bulk sanitary napkin, and a large part of them feel that this wholesale price dump must be three or nothing products, to the buyers of these bulk sanitary napkins education: "what is this little money to save for?", "do these girls not know to love their own bodies?"

Also, the discussion of "bulk sanitary napkins" quickly rushed to the popular search on social media like Weibo. According to the screenshots, some netizens found out that the information about the bulk maxi pad was counterfeit from a genuine brand, so the bulk maxi pad online store had been canceled.

However, the incident has not yet ended. Some netizens say that although the bulk sanitary napkins are off the shelves, the poor girls face a bigger problem: there are no cheap sanitary pads for them to buy. Perhaps they will have to find other ways, and the new methods may harm their bodies even more.

The incident caused a lot of controversy throughout the network. Behind the "bulk sanitary napkin" controversy, the long-neglected topic of "period poverty" was exposed to the public.

What struck me most was the understatement of a certain Internet user who said, "If you could drink fewer cups of milk tea or Starbucks drinks, you will be able to afford it."

However, for the poverty group of people, they may not even know what milk tea and Starbucks taste like, for their daily consumables are never quite the same as what we think of as everyday items.

The question is: Who wants to risk their health to get cheap products? 

I believe nobody would like to do that. It's just a force to the necessity of life: everyone knows that infrequent changes of maxi pads can affect the reproductive system maxi pads with irritating ingredients are harmful to health, and lying in mothers, teenage middle and high school students, and even intersex and transgender people need to use a lot of maxi pads. 

When the depths of real poverty are so deep that these individuals cannot even guarantee their dignity in the present, then would they ever think about future health and hygiene? There answer is: No. 

All these doubts and incomprehension appeared because many of us have never been in such desperate circumstances and using pads when we have our period is as simple as drinking and eating. 

This is period poverty, an issue that affects millions of people but is still not fully understood by the public yet.

The key to breaking this cycle is to stop them from missing school or losing their jobs because of menstrual poverty. The two things that need to be done to eliminate menstrual poverty are to de-stigmatize menstruation and to provide poor women with easy access to inexpensive and affordable sanitary products.

We often think that menstrual poverty exists only in a few underdeveloped countries and regions, but in fact, menstrual poverty is a problem for women not just at the bottom society of the world.

In some developed countries, tampons are luxury goods. What people cannot imagine is that in many developed countries in Europe and the United States, tampons are not considered a "necessity" by the men who make laws, and therefore tampons are heavily taxed at rates far beyond those of luxury goods, making them unaffordable for poor women.

The following chart is an example:

(from theperiodcollective.org)

In many states outside of New York, feminine hygiene products are still considered unnecessary "luxuries" under local tax laws. Although there is no longer a "luxury tax" in the U.S., sanitary napkins are still taxed at 30 to 56 percent.

According to a survey conducted by the sanitary napkin brand Always, one in five girls in the U.S. is forced to miss school or even drop out of school because they cannot afford menstrual hygiene products.

All these women have to find ways to get through the humiliating days they must face each month, some stealing toilet paper from public toilets to put in their underwear, and some even have to sell their bodies for these necessities.

From this point on, whether women live in the highly developed economy of the United States or far away in Kenya, the poor women at the bottom of the society have never had many options.

[wingwaiyuen]

Street Art

Graffiti was first born in North America in the 1960s, and after a short period of development, it quickly spread around the world, becoming widely popular as street art and loved by young people around the world. Graffiti culture is a form of rebellion for contemporary young people to declare their inner self, and is also a catharsis of their attitude towards life, but ultimately it is a spiritual product of rebellion against traditional culture. When this form of painting was accepted by most people, it became a branch of art and culture, and gradually moved from vulgarity to elegance. Street artists abandoned the original rebellious spirit and focused more on the expression of patterns, evolving from monochrome painting with words to the colorful and interesting images of today. In the process of its development, society's perception of this culture is also polarized, some feel that it is a pollution of the urban environment and social climate, while others feel that it is the most authentic artistic aesthetics. Cities around the world have graffiti sites that have attracted countless graffiti enthusiasts to create, and have become a wonderful sight on the streets, leading to many film and television shoots, and also becoming a great place for many young people to take pictures and photographs.

Street art represents the voice of the modern era.

It can be any form of drawing one can think of and create the most beautiful graffiti work as one wishes. It can be people, animals, words, or anything whimsical.

All of this street art has been taken since moving to New York in 2019. Since I am a photo major student, I often go out to street photography for inspiration, and there is a lot of interesting street art under my lens:

2019 October East Village

This photo was taken while I was out looking for inspiration for our Zine Project with my freshman Studio class group collaboration. The image captivated me: a big heart made up of colorful little hearts. The motivation for taking it was probably because the hearts on it made me feel the warmth of love.

November 2019 SoHo

I took this photo with a friend in front of a store, and the stark red, white and black contrast of the wall immediately caught my eye.

The reason I took it was because of the big letters on the wall: "WAR IS HELL", as if the manifesto of the brand was swearing to the people. I suppose it is a message to warn people in times of peace.

2019 November Lower East Side

I stumbled upon this street art again while exploring the streets of New York. It oval shape colorfulness immediately caught my eye, and looks like a rainbow, especially in the dark against the light, it gave me a feeling of light in the darkness bringing me hope, so I framed the moment I found it in my camera to record it.

2020 September Lower East Side

This photo was taken for the first time during the summer since the pandemic began with a home quarantine. The blue sky and white clouds painted on top of the buildings gave me a feeling of being on cloud 9. When I was very sad, I would always take pictures of the blue sky and white clouds in front of the window to bring me solace. It was also like being outdoors again under the anxious feeling of the epidemic, feeling the relaxation that the blue sky and white clouds brought me.

2021 September At the Door of Whitney Museum of Art

Nothing in particular. The color of this mailbox is my favorite color: pink and the graffiti art with the stickers on it makes it very interesting to me.

2022 April Hudson Riverside

This photo is of a  pole I saw while walking home along the Hudson River's shoreline. Seeing the dynamic and colorful graffiti on it made me feel like it was a pole with a lot of personalities. It shines even brighter against the setting sun.

I don't know who the street artists are who created these interesting pieces, but whenever I come across interesting street art, I cannot help but document them in my life.

[wingwaiyuen]

My Octopus Teacher Review

My Octopus Teacher" is the story of Craig Foster, who lives in a small hut by the sea in South Africa and has been in doubt about his life for a long time.

For too long we have seemed to underestimate the emotions and intelligence of marine life. Those creatures we know so well have never been truly understood. Before this documentary, the octopus' impression of humans was appearing at the dinner table. Without it, we may never know that the octopus has such an unknown side.

As the highest IQ animal in the invertebrate, she is too smart. In order to survive, she will constantly adjust her shape, or flat, or bumpy, or red, or red, as a way to adapt to the surrounding environment. Sometimes she cunningly uses the smooth seaweed as a cloak, blending in with the environment. She shrinks into a ball at other times and disguises herself as a rock on the seafloor. She also has a knack for mimicking the walk of other animals. Most of the time, she will march in the sea, but occasionally, will also stretch out two feet, slowly walking.

These, all of them, are her efforts to survive. But even if she spared no effort to blend into the environment, in the underwater world of the weak and the strong, the danger is still everywhere. This day, the shark found her. The first move, flee. But, even if she made every effort to flee in disarray, but also can not be faster than the speed of the shark. The second move, hide. She desperately hid in a gap made by a pile of rocks, life saved, but a tentacle, the shark from the gap in the dead bite, tearing and raw off. She became extremely weak, through the screen you can feel the luck of surviving and the pain of the body was torn raw. She was in pain and seemed to be unable to hold on, almost on the verge of death.

Surprisingly, a week later, reappearing in front of Foster, she was a whole new look. Above the torn tentacle, another super miniature tentacle had grown and was greeting him. At that moment, death and new life, despair and hope, fragility and tenacity, life's bleakness and poetry, were interpreted to the fullest.

Seeing this octopus being chased and injured by a shark, hiding in its own cave, its body turning white and its eyes slightly open, I thought that was the end of life, but seeing it grow back its tentacles a few days later, it returned to this biological contest and even defeated the shark, playing with some small fish.

From the encounter with the octopus to the octopus' broken leg, to the octopus' rebirth. What is displayed in front of us is the charm of life. In particular, at the moment when the octopus is about to become a portion of shark food, the director hesitated, and should not help the octopus once. But in the end, he chose to respect it all.

Foster suddenly realized that, compared with the scene in front of him, those earthly hardships, have long been worthless. Until, once again, the shark violated again. Can the Octopus escape successfully this time? I did not expect that this time, she turned the tables and quickly across to the shark, which is the safest and can control the situation.

In this scene, you can fully feel how the life intelligence of a small life is released from the desperate situation, release. What many people do not know is that the octopus has a life span of only one year. This year, she fights to live. The octopus also lived each day as gloriously as a child in her short life in Foster's eyes. Even if she was close to death, she lived a leisurely and happy life. She would coldly fling her tentacles around the fish as they passed by, scaring them into a frenzy as she frolicked with them in this innocent and childish way.

For this documentary I was deeply touched, that whether octopus or human, nature can not shelter you, the world does not have a point mechanism or game mechanism that can keep you from dying, defeat or starting over, each creature is ultimately armed with self-will and wisdom, you can not rely on any kind of inaction to live. Even every relaxed gesture requires the support of great power within. But even though you have temporarily become a warrior in nature, you still cannot overcome death. The octopus begins to calculate the time of its own death when it conceives a new life, and after completing the transmission of life, it is so weak that it allows small fish to gnaw on it, and eventually the remains of its body are still eaten by sharks.

In it, I can see life to another life of understanding and reverence. We often talk about the fear of life. Fear of life, so you can not take everything for granted, so you can always be enthusiastic. Fear of life is why we are in the food chain, and is closely connected to the natural cycle. At the end of the documentary, Foster says, "You feel that every life on earth is equally important but fragile and that you are a member of this place, not a visitor. Read it over and over again, the aftershocks are still there.

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Sustainable Fashion: Innovators and Outliers

While people know that plastic cannot degrade when buried underground for 200 years, they don't necessarily know that the same is true for clothing.People know that car exhaust is toxic and harmful, but they don't necessarily know that the fashion industry is the second-largest polluter in the world, after the oil industry.

Although many modern people are slowly becoming aware of the environmental pollution caused by fashion, most young people are still students and they don't want to spend a lot of money on clothes, so fast fashion is still their first choice. So, what price does fast fashion bring to the table? There is a documentary called "The True Cost", it mentions that many fast-fashion brands such as H&M, have a cheap skirt for $7. And what is the minimum monthly wage of the workers who make them? It's an unimaginable $10, even after factoring in different levels of consumption.In order to win the price war, businesses seek all the ways to squeeze costs. So they outsource the production process to the country with the lowest processing prices, and press the price down again and again. And this exploitation is eventually passed on to the bottom of the workers. They go to the factory to work, endure the heat and toxic chemicals, and only gained a really little amount of profit.

Today, 80 billion pieces of clothing are produced in the world every year, four times more than 20 years ago. In the past, clothing stores only sold two seasons of clothes per year; today, fast-fashion stores are updated 52 times a year, which means you can go shopping every week and see the same clothes. At the same time, all kinds of dressing tutorials, clothing ads, runway shows are sparing no effort to tell us what is in season, what iss on sale recently, as if not wearing it is out of fashion, not buying it is a loss, and spend money to buy happiness.

But the question is, do we really need so many clothes? Of course not. The Consumer Theory divides products into two categories: those that last like houses and cars, and those that are constantly consumed like chewing gum and cigarettes. Clothing is not easily damaged, it can be reused, but fast fashion merchants continue to use exaggerated advertising and low prices to induce us to treat it as a consumable product. Thus, even if their closets are already full, people still feel as if they are missing a piece of clothing.

In the quest for sustainability, many famous brands have started their investigation in sustainable fashion. There are two types of brands that are currently practicing sustainable fashion: one is the selection and control of raw materials and the use of more environmentally friendly and renewable materials at the source to produce fashion products. The second type is the secondary use of old materials. In the field of high fashion, Stella McCartney is one of the most devout pursuers and pioneers of sustainable fashion. She says that her motivation to start was not so much about the design, but the focus on the use of sustainability. For more than a decade, she has been developing new sustainable and eco-friendly fabrics. Also, In the year of 2019, Prada and fabric producer Aquafil launch recycled nylon made from discarded plastic, fishing nets and textile fiber waste from the ocean. Gucci has launched 100% recyclable eco-friendly handbags and shoes made from biodegradable plastic stopping the use of PVC materials. 

However, for most brands, cowhide is still a widely accepted material, and it is difficult to assess the impact of switching from animal leather to artificial leather on profits at this time, as production volumes are still very small. What is more, traditional leather production is usually resource-intensive, so here comes the problem: is bio-based artificial leather necessarily environmentally friendly?

In fact, their transportation and tanning processes still produce carbon emissions, but the main challenge is still waste disposal, especially if additional materials (sometimes synthetic) are embedded in the mycelium. Mushroom leather enhances product performance by embedding other materials; some bio-based materials also use solvents, coatings or plasticizers in order to have a solid joint. In addition, while bio-based materials can certainly replace some of the most polluting materials in the fashion industry, it is important to avoid the problem of overconsumption. That is, bio-based materials are not the same as biodegradable, and animal-friendly does not guarantee eco-friendly.

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Animal Rescue: From Jane Goodall to Cher

It is true that celebrities like Cher can bring more awareness and attention to the problems of endangered animals, but in reality, the impact goes far beyond the problems facing the animals themselves, and it's very difficult to address the root causes. Take the NBA l superstar Yao Ming for example, he once made a public service announcement to resist eating shark fins to protect wildlife. But after Yao's endorsement of the ad, sharks became increasingly endangered. In China, especially in wealthy households, there is a long-lasting habit of drinking shark fin soup, especially in high-end restaurants. This terrible social phenomenon has led to a rising consumption of shark fins in China, with a peak in 2004. The main source of shark fins is the fins of sharks, which fishermen specialize in catching, while others are more cruel, cutting off the shark's fins and throwing them back into the sea. Sharks cannot live long in the sea without their fins, so Chinese consumption of shark fins is also believed to be the main reason for the world's dwindling shark population. For this reason, Yao shot a special public service announcement in the year of 2009. This ad was so widely seen  that  it was everywhere while watching TV. In the image I remember, facing a bowl of shark fin soup waiting to be served by the waiter, and Yao pushed it away without hesitation and uttered the most well-known quote: "No trading, no killing.” Yao's effort on it was influential that it soon spread across the nation, with more and more people consciously boycotting the habit of eating shark fins. Also during that time,  the largest shark processing base in China. A reporter quietly visited the local shark processing enterprises, and soon, a photo of shark being processed with blood everywhere was released, and the "blood economy" sparked an outrage all over the social media. With the intense force from the netizens, the State Council explicitly banned the consumption of shark fins for official receptions. It stands to reason that since the Chinese don't eat much shark fins anymore, so there should not be many sharks being killed. Unfortunately, the fact is, according to the UNAFO, the world shark catch has so far stabilized between 700,000 and 800,000 tons per year, almost unchanged from previous years. 

The overfishing of sharks continues in the range of the worldwide. Therefore, this is not a problem that can be solved by one celebrity or one country alone, but the whole world must work together to protect animals.

The Holocene extinction is a widespread and sustained extinction or cluster of extinctions that occurred in the present Holocene and is widely regarded as the sixth mass extinction event, hence the name Sixth Mass Extinction. The extinction clusters involved include plant and animal families, such as mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and arthropods, with most extinctions occurring within rainforests.

Among the many incidents of endangered animals, the one that impressed me the most and saddened me the most was the dolphin that was cruelly slaughtered by the Japanese fishermen in the documentary “The Cove”. In the bay of Taiji, dolphins were killed for making profit from their industry chain of dolphins: turning them into considerable food, and sending them to aquariums to perform in front of tourists. Every year, from September to March, thousands of dolphins gather in the waters around Taiji-cho because of the rich resources of fish there, but what they do not know is, death is their final fate.

But even if the documentary had been broadcast, it would not have changed it completely, because the reality is as long as there would be supply, as long as the demand to them still exists, and this brutality shall not end easily.

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Vanessa Nakate and Climate Change

Vanessa Nakate is a climate activist from Uganda. Her photograph is important because she's one of the few female activist to stand up for justice. she is the only person who was cropped from the photo, and she happens to be the only black individual from the picture, and the cropped picture remains with white individual. It is important to know, erasing a picture of a black man in a group of white people is the same as erasing the continent of Africa according to Nakate herself. When she happened for her sovereignty, people were interested in revaluing racial awareness at the same time, making people feel pathetic about racism.

In response of the statement "Nakate is conscious of the power her voice wields, and the world would benefit from listening”:

In the magazine Finance and Development, climate activists openly and honestly presented their recommendations to senior officials at the UN Climate Change Conference, Nakate mentioned that, "The new epidemic has taught people that nature rules. But we are still destroying our fragile ecosystems and climate at an accelerating rate. The new crown epidemic is a warning from nature to humanity.”

Combining the two things mentioned above, Nakate’s quotes brings me back to the time when the pandemic was just started, and people were unconscious of the seriousness of the virus, so they did not treat it importantly, until it was widely spread, people tried to blame it on people that “it was all Asian people’s fault”, what most horrifying was not the virus itself, but the discrimination people provoked intentionally on innocent individuals into victims. People get beaten up in faces, verbally abused. Which actually brought more harm than the virus itself does.

The Rise up movement is important For most of the time, female individuals had been were ignored by the African society. While they still face many challenges in achieving gender equality in all areas, we have seen a glimmer of hope: in Africa today, more girls are enrolled in primary and secondary education and more women are beginning to take leadership positions in their respective jobs than they did two decades ago. Until the goal of gender equality is achieved, there is still a long way to go to increase the political participation and economic empowerment of women and girls in Africa.

While people use instagram to share their selfies and entertaining messages, Nakate uses it as a medium to call attention to the climate in Africa. Almost all of her posts feature her holding a banner with her ”manifesto“.

The banner reminds me of the time Bill Gates mentioned on the Jimmy Fellon Show that he was investing money in research to turn polluted water in Africa into drinkable mineral water. And to help children in Africa to prevent more deaths. Nakate's voice will be heard, and as it grows, more people like Bill Gates will come forward to contribute to climate change in Africa.

The UN video remind me that climate change has always been much underestimated by the general public in terms of magnitude and severity, but to call for the total extinction of humanity at every turn is an overestimate. One of the reasons why the general public underestimates the problem is the large number of machine posts on the internet that are questioning global warming - according to big data analysis, such posts can account for 25% of the mentions of global warming on Twitter-Facebook. The rate of temperature rise since the Industrial Revolution is something that humans can be proud of: our ability to alter the Earth's surface environment rivals that of ancient cyanobacteria and ancient plants. Human activity has reversed the gradual slide in the Earth's temperature over the thousands of years.

Here is an statistics of it:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-020-0530-7

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Celebrity Baby Boom, Human Population and Climate Change

As a part of Generation Z, I find that more and more of my peers are resistant to having children and starting a family. From my own point of view, as a new generation young female, I also maintain a pessimistic attitude towards childbirth. Once women have their own children, they would’ve gradually lose themselves over time and can't take care of themselves. In terms of having children, it's an obstacle to school and career, and there is barely any job that is friendly to women who already have children. Also, because of various prejudices and stereotypes women in this society is too difficult to make everyone happy. For example, if a woman has children too early, people will say that she is not enterprising, and if a woman does not want to have children, people will say that such a woman is selfish.

As mentioned above, I personally support women to have their own rights on their fertility decisions. This society is still more difficult to achieve in terms of affirmative action. A woman's career path is inherently much more arduous than a man's. According to the annual average income survey statistics, men with the same job are always paid more than women. The fact is that many women encounter emotionally irresponsible men and some rape factors that lead to pregnancy, and women should have the right to choose to have or not to have their children in such non-consensual situations. In our recent decade with the prevalence of the #metoo culture, more and more women have been victimized to share their deepest secrets of abduction. Before that, we do not know how many women get suffered from shame and drama. There are also many women who commit suicide every year because of it. As a result, I feel that it is necessary for their freedom to choose what they want for their own life.

Moreover. I am not that surprised about the fact that having fewer children is way more effective for the planet than vegan because, for instance, in the case of China today, the country was originally limited to one child because of its large population, and families who had more than one child were fined. At the time of our birth, many families were denied the opportunity to have more children just for a better environment and to save natural resources. Later on, people realized the importance of human resources and waived the restriction, and opened up the two-child policy, and those families who only had one child made up for it more than a decade later. It's interesting to note that when those only children saw their younger siblings, they felt their love was divided among them, so they more or less resisted their siblings. The older children in these families became free babysitters and tutors for their siblings. As most people realized the torturing process of bringing up younger siblings, they started to hold a negative attitude on fertility and began to resist having children. Therefore when China opened up the policy of having three children in order to encourage the youth today to have children, sarcastically that no one wants to have children anymore. I feel that if more and more people stop having children, it might slow the climate changes down a bit for less waste on natural resources.

The case of the fertility of China also gets me to consider the Pope’s comments. I can understand why Pope Francis would think that people who don't have children are selfish, but I don't share his view. First of all, the Pope is a religious man, so his opinions are inherently imbued with traditional views. His environment is surrounded by the Catholic Church, so his thought is based on what the Bible has taught to him. It has the same reason that older generations accuse young people of being irresponsible for not having children. In traditional Chinese culture, there are also many rules of adults like carrying on the family’s name by having as many children as possible. It is really ridiculous to think about from our modern perspective. However, as time changes, people's perceptions are constantly being updated with the values of the new era.

Switching to another topic, the celebrities, as public figures, may be able to bring a wave of fertility to young people who love them, but there is no need for people to feel stressed out because they don't have children while celebrities do. Celebrities have the freedom to have children because of their financial and influential backgrounds so even if they do have children there is a lot less worry about raising them than there is for ordinary people. Like the Kardashians have a lot of children because they don't have to worry about money and they don't have to worry about good resources. For instance, Kylie Jenner has her first baby at the age of 19-20, because she has nothing to worry about to bring up her baby with her wealth, fame, and influence, and to be honest, 19-20 years old is the age I am still worrying about college. Not even to imagine being a parent with nothing prepared. These celebrity children are from the birth of better than normal innate conditions, and the fact that we were born from a different starting point determines the inequity of this society.

Finally, I hold a wait-and-see attitude on Elon Musk's statement that depopulation will lead to the collapse of human civilization. Maybe yes, the decrease in population would decrease in human resources, and new inventions from intelligent people would be less. On the other hand, human civilization has been created by the flow of time from ancient times to the present. The population in ancient times is so much less than now, and they have created many powerful cultures that still shock us nowadays. Thus, I don’t think there would be any huge impact just because of the fewer population in only a short amount period of time.