Immigration a racial issue says Sierra Club

Issue 63: February 19, 2001

Studies show that by consuming cheap labor from developing countries, U.S. immigration policy encourages global population growth. http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/immigr/populate.htm

+== TIME OUT PROJECT ==+

To test a man for insanity, the story goes, put him in a room in which a water faucet is open and the sink is overflowing. Hand him a mop and tell him to clean up the flood. If he begins to mop without first turning off the faucet, observers should deduce the man is probably insane.

Which brings us to mainstream environmentalism’s approach to protecting the environment.

While environmentalists and caring citizens across the country are busy fighting pollution, sprawl, road widening, factory farming and other byproducts of exploding human population growth (see our chart: http://projectUSA.org/Arguments/doubling.html ), efforts to limit negative human impact are doomed by a government policy that now has our population growth rate exceeding that of China. http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbsum.html

But, like a man mopping the floor while the faucet continues to run, some environmental groups choose to address effects — "consumption" and "sprawl" — rather than causes — population growth and immigration.

We think the reason for this can be found in the comment we received by email from Steve Baru, who identified himself as the Chair of the Kansas Chapter of the Sierra Club:

"The Kansas Chapter thinks this (effort to reduce immigration to traditional levels) is inspired by racism and officially opposes this attack on our fellow human beings." (We wonder what Mr. Baru thinks about a November 1999 Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times poll, which revealed that "more than 40 percent of Hispanics — many but not all immigrants themselves — favor making it more difficult to immigrate legally." Are they "racist," too, Mr. Baru?)

And Mr. Baru is not the only one in the Sierra Club who thinks immigration is primarily a matter of the ethnicity of the individual immigrants themselves; linking immigration and skin color is official Sierra Club policy. In February, 1996, alarmed by the preponderance of white people in its own membership, the influential Club dropped its long support for sustainable immigration policies in order to reach out to minorities. http://www.capitolalert.com/news/old/capalert04_20001217.html

But there are serious consequences to this benighted fixation on "diversity."

As long as environmental activists continue to duck the real threat to the environment, they strengthen the hands of their political opponents. Rush Limbaugh, for example, said on his December 19 talk radio program that, since California’s population has doubled in just the last ten years (the actual figure is about 33 years http://www.dof.ca.gov/ ), the state must not let the "environmentalist whackos" prevent the construction of any more power plants.

Thus, in the battle to protect the environment, the well-funded Sierra Club is ensuring political failure (and its own marginalization) by focusing on consumption and "smart growth" rather than the "running faucet" of growth itself: record-breaking mass immigration.

On Friday, Sierra Club Press Secretary Joanie Clayburgh (415-977-5508), blaming the negative consequences of relentless growth on a "lack of planning," told ProjectUSA that the solutions to the power crisis now occurring in California were efficiency, cleaner plants and renewable energy sources. But she would not even discuss population growth.

"Consumption" (as opposed to consumerism) is not the cause of California’s predicament. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "the Golden State actually ranked a respectable 47th in total per capita energy consumption and 49th in per capita electricity use." (Naturally, the Chronicle then goes on to blame the 2% annual rise in California’s peak-time electricity consumption on "SUVs, air conditioners and two-refrigerator homes.")
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/02/11/MN182761.DTL

And the Sierra Club’s gimmicky "Smart Growth" plans will never succeed if we continue to see US population grow at its current rate. More "planning" simply won’t do it. http://www.sprawlcity.org/index.html

Immigration, if Congress does not act soon, will cause U.S. population to double within the lifetime of the average American child. Environmentalists and other caring Americans — of all races — must be brave enough to de-link race and immigration and advocate wise and sustainable immigration policies.

More readings:

"Green Gag"
Steve Sailer (Peter Brimelow’s VDARE)
http://www.vdare.com/green_gag.htm

"Reducing greenhouse gases: the vital immigration angle"
Steve Camarota (San Diego Tribune)
http://www.cis.org/articles/1997/sac11-28-97.html

"California’s Power Crisis: the Missing (As Usual) Immigration Dimension"
Scott McConnell (New York Press)
http://www.vdare.com/mcconnell_NYP_ca_power.htm

+== TAKE POSITIVE ACTION ==+

As a concerned citizen, and possibly an active member of an environmental group, you have a right to voice your opinion on the very important issue of immigration.

If you don’t want to see the population of this country soar past half a billion in the next 50 years or so, contact the organizations below, tell them about this shocking Census Bureau projection, and let them know that you don’t want US immigration policies contributing any more to national and global overpopulation.

This issue must be at the core of every environmentalist’s agenda — in America and abroad.

In addition, members of the Sierra Club should be watching the mailbox for your yearly ballot, which should arrive in early March. Be sure to vote YES on the sprawl-population question and mail your ballot back immediately. This grassroots initiative instructs the club to add information to its Sprawl Campaign about how population growth is a major component in the causes of sprawl — something the club has not done in five years of producing substantial reports and information on sprawl for the media.

Friends of the Earth Action
1025 Vermont Ave., NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20005
foe@foe.org
phone: 202-783-7400, fax: 202-783-0444

Sierra Club
85 Second Street, Second Floor
San Francisco CA, 94105-3441
information@sierraclub.org
Telephone 415-977-5500 Fax 415-977-5799

+==EMAIL OF THE WEEK==+

I never chose to overpopulate our state and I certainly do not choose "slightly dirtier" air. With unchecked population growth, it will be "only slightly" dirtier yet next year, and "only slightly" dirtier than that the next year, and so on and so on until it’s much, much dirtier.

–A Bay Area member of the Sierra Club (name withheld by request)

+== QUOTE OF THE WEEK ==+

"Overpopulation is perhaps the biggest problem facing us, and immigration is part of that problem. It has to be addressed."

David Brower, former Executive Director (twice) of the Sierra Club

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