Posted on 01/28/2004 1:51:30 PM PST by Benjo
Mark Twain said, "A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." It's astonishing how the North American press has been stampeded into a feeding frenzy by mostly one-sided stories charging that an army of racist, anti-immigrant, animal-loving vegetarians is about to take over the venerable Sierra Club. As a 35-year member of the club, I am pained to see such distortion, all because some members of our environmental movement have dared to suggest that over-immigration contributes to environmental decay.
The U.S. environmental movement has not managed to elect a good environmental president since Jimmy Carter nearly 30 years ago. To achieve political success, our movement must adopt an agenda that truly reflects the world situation. Sadly, our organization's current approach is to avoid the one issue that should matter most to us: namely, the endless population growth in our own country that is ravishing our lands. Because of our high levels of consumption, such growth is plundering environments elsewhere on Earth as well. We are stealing the resources of the world from other species and other peoples, and from future generations.
As a teenager in the 1950s, I recognized that the high fertility of American women, if continued, would lead to a catastrophic U.S. population explosion. Fast forward a half-century to the present -- the U.S. population has doubled to about 300 million and continues to explode with absolutely no end in sight. Another doubling or tripling is projected in the lifetime of people being born today. What has changed is the underlying cause of the rapid population growth -- from high fertility to massive immigration.
However, no one in the United States (and especially not in the Sierra Club, it seems) is allowed to talk about immigration without being labelled a racist. The deafening silence that results is especially devastating in a place like my home state of California, which has been recognized as one of the world's 25 biodiversity hot spots, and which is being relentlessly paved over -- wild lands, farmlands, wetlands, you name it.
As California goes, I hardly need add, so goes the United States.
Just this past Sunday, in the usually pro-immigration Los Angeles Times, the lead story in its magazine told it as it really is, as the Sierra Club never tells it: "A human wave is breaking over California. It's flooding the freeways and schools. It's bloating the cost of housing. It's disrupting power and water supplies. Ignoring reality has not worked."
The author refers to a recent study from an organization I am involved with, called Californians for Population Stabilization. The study shows that most of California's population growth since 1990 is attributable to migration from other countries, plus U.S.-born children of immigrants. Our state is heading for a train wreck and no one in charge has the foggiest notion of what to do.
If our present U.S. population doubles, the additional 300 million people will be the ecological equivalent of adding billions of persons in the developing countries. The last thing the world needs is more high-consuming Americans. But, as a consequence of some of us being labelled racist, the entire U.S. environmental movement has been cowed into silence.
True leaders are unafraid to speak the truth. In 2000, Sierra Club hero, the late David Brower, who was nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize, said: "Overpopulation is perhaps the biggest problem facing us, and immigration is part of that problem. It has to be addressed."
Some people, including Sierra Club Canada, argue that rather than opposing migration to Canada and the United States, the "ecological footprint" of people here should be reduced. Yes, we all should strive to reduce our consumption, but this is not an either/or situation; population and consumption should be addressed in a comprehensive program.
Support for current immigration policies seems to come from the well-to-do in our society. Such support may sound noble in principle, but it's too easy to be pious when one does not suffer the consequences; those are borne by society's weakest members. It is ironic that the organization that has launched the most strident attack on those of us sounding the population alarm is the Southern Poverty Law Center, which purports to act for the benefit of the poor. Studies by the National Academy of Sciences, the Center for Immigration Studies and the Rand Corporation all show that current U.S. immigration policies have a negative impact on the economic well-being of the poorest Americans.
Present trends will produce a society that no environmentally sensitive person should accept. My own calculations show that rates of population growth in some places, including California, are so rapid that even optimistic projected increases in the rate we are using renewable resources, such as wind and solar energy, can't keep pace, and increasing amounts of fossil or nuclear energy will be needed to fuel our society. More than that, indicators of quality of life are a function of population size and not of consumption -- for example, streets will be just as crowded whether each person drives a high-mileage hybrid car (as I do) or an SUV.
Present Sierra Club policy forbids all members from making any official public remarks about immigration policies and levels, using their official Club titles. So, let me be clear, these are my own opinions, not the Sierra Club's. I hope, however, that in the not-too-distant future, my fellow Sierra Club members will recognize the need to put our genuine environmental concerns ahead of misguided political correctness.
Ben Zuckerman, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles, is vice-president of Californians for Population Stabilization and a member of the Sierra Club's national board of directors.
Oh, they are! I have seen some quotes from Greenies that absolutely made my hair stand up, talking about the number of humans on our planet were hurting the ecology and how we had to bring down population levels :::shudder:::
Fortunately, there is hope. If enough immigrants have enough babies who drive enough SUVs, we will quickly run out of oil, Western civilization will come to a crashing conclusion, and Gaeia can begin her healing process that much sooner so that trees can once more be truely free! /sarcasm
Well shudder some more, because I agree.
Morris Dees pays himself nearly $300,000 a year. It files lawsuits left and right on behalf of a virulently leftwing (and anti-Christian) political agenda. According to press reports, it sidetracks 89% of charitable donations for internal "administration and fundraising". If the SPLC had any integrity it would put itself at the top of its own list of hate organizations and sue itself for fraud.
You are being overly simplistic. For one, the greens, in general are Luddites and wish to return to burning wood and dung for fuel, rather than deal with nuclear, hydro and fossil fuels. You hear about decreasing the levels of pollutants each year, yet immigration is forcing higher population densities in those targetted areas. For instance, Austin TX is considered to be on the edge of non-compliance, mostly in part due to tighter restrictions on air and water quality. (The air could actually be cleaner than last year, but due to changing standards, the air instantly is decreed to be unsatisfactory and thus merits punishment and restrictions on development). Another contributing factor is the huge influx of aliens who increase population densities; these folks are not taught from the cradle to worship the environment like natives are taught, and thus they don't and stop and think for a moment about pouring four quarts of motor oil down the storm drain.
Another thing about the increase in aliens has already been mentioned by another, their standard of consumption rises dramatically therefore producing more and more trash and filth. Those of us with relatively high incomes can afford the latest that the automotive industry has to offer in motor vehicles, thus we are using modern refrigerants, and high technology to moderate fuel combustion. Aliens, scoop up the cheapest transportation they can find and regularly dump literally millions of gallons of oil into the air and the ground on a regular basis. Go to a Walmart and check out the parking lot. Tell me where that stuff goes after the rain.
Check out the medians and shoulders of most roads and higways, do you see beer cans, diapers, junk food and cigarette wrappers or do you see empty Evian bottles? Lower class people of inferior cultures litter far more than those who have been propagandized into Gaia worship and consider tossing the Tropicana orange juice bottle out the window as the moral equivalent of a drive-by shooting.
People are going to have children, it is just that when a woman's sole ability in life is to pump out litters of children - and can do it knowing that every child will be handsomely supported for by Uncle Sugar, then why learn to assimilate when the welfare and WIC offices speak fluent Chinese and Spanish?
The increase in population, whether accomplished by native birth rates or inflated by hemorraging borders, taxes the already stressed infrastructure. Aliens that have no income (nor taxing) potential create more of a mess than higher income folks, yet are not paying "their fair share" into the upkeep and the inevitable upgrades to sewer systems, reservoirs, aquifers, power and utilities, street maintenance and garbage disposal system.
Either you dig down deeper into your pocket, demand that the Watermelons back off of their agressive agenda to make all air and water medical grade, or figure out some way to halt the most obvious and painful way that we are polluting more per acre than ever before.
The point the article was trying to make is that when the immigrants leave their lesser developed countries to come the US, they have a larger impact on the global environment because they consume and pollute more. It goes back to the old saw about Americans consuming 25% of the world's energy and being only 5% of the population. Of course they leave out the productivity portion of the equation.
That said, immigration, legal and illegal, is the principal factor affecting population growth in the US. Without immigration, we would remain about the same levels or a little less. The danger is that the massive influx of illegal immigration over the past few decades beyond our ability to assimilate them will change the very nature of our culture and overwhelm our social infrastructure. If we can elist the environmentalists to stop illegal immigration, so be it.
So like Paul Erlich, he saw the world coming to an end which will be solved by abortion and birth control. Next was immigration reform and sustainable environments. These social engineers ARE THE PROBLEM. They think science and computer models are more accurate than the natural order. Paul Erlich and all the great scoiety people have been proved wrong, but they keep coming and that is what conservatives must work against.
So true. Too bad "acoomplice" is in the plural.
You know, everyone worries so much about the price of oil and availability of gas. Here in Los Angeles the cost of gas (even if it were doubled) isn't so much a problem as finding a place to drive (or park your car once you arrive). If they made cars that got 120 miles per gallon, that still wouldn't alleviate the street and freeway congestion. I have friends on the other side of town I hardly ever see because if we want to go out to dinner or the movies I have to wait till 9 pm before I can even leave the house due to bumper to bumper traffic in all freeway lanes.
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