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Coverage of Forsaking Fundamentals: The Environmental Establishment Abandons U.S. Population Stabilization: The missing theme
The first Earth Day in 1970 was celebrated at a time when popular songwriters were very interested in environmental themes. Two of the songs from that period dealt with population growth. Joni Mitchell sang, "They paved paradise, put up a parking lot," while another folk artist wrote of "little boxes made of ticky-tacky," a scornful reference to the suburbs that by then encircled every major American city. The environmentalism of the time took special note of the long-term effects of population pressure. The purpose of Earth Day was "to preserve, protect and restore the natural and human environment by reducing the total human impact on ecosystems - on watersheds, forests, ambient air basins, wildlife and their habitats, wetlands, estuaries, wilderness and, last but not least, on human health and quality of life." Pretty simple stuff. Environmentalists wanted to deal with the impact of the individual on the environment and the number of people having such an impact. In the 31 years since the first Earth Day, the emphasis has changed. Few, if any, environmental groups today list population stabilization as a goal. Instead, attention has been focused exclusively on reducing individual environmental impacts. There is a problem here. The mathematics of conservation make sense only when individuals can see positive results. If the results are immediately obliterated by the arrival of new residents, the incentive disappears. Put another way, the population growth of 80 million that has occurred since 1970 can easily wipe out the gains achieved by reductions in individual impact. Because U.S. population is expected to double in the current century, there is no prospect that reducing individual environmental impacts will begin to offset the effects of increased population. So why don't environmental groups want to use Earth Day to talk about such things? The Center for Immigration Studies (www.cis.org) has published a paper on this topic. Authors Leon Kolankiewicz and Roy Beck listed five reasons for the dramatic changes since 1970. Drop in fertility rates. People may have assumed that, because the nation's birth rate had fallen, population was no longer a problem. This view, however, overlooked the effects of booming immigration rates since the first Earth Day (see below). Anti-abortion politics. The Catholic Church and the pro-life movement generally views population-stabilization efforts with suspicion and associates them with apologists for abortion. Feminist issues. The authors point out that the 1994 U.N. conference in Cairo produced hundreds of recommendations about women's rights, but made "no mention of the connections between population growth and environmental ills." A split between conservationists and the New Left. Environmentalism has come to be characterized by a general belief that population problems could be dealt with by modifying the economic system in a way that reduces consumption by the rich. This theme has been picked up by Ralph Nader, the presidential candidate of the Green Party. Immigration became the main generator of population growth. With fertility rates falling, 70 percent of the population pressure in the United States has been created by immigration, both legal and illegal. This has greatly affected the nature of the discussion about population growth. As Beck and Kolankiewicz point out, because recent immigrants have primarily been from Mexico, South America and Asia, it has become virtually impossible to discuss the effects of immigration without being accused of being anti-immigrant or, worse still, racist. Father Theodore Hesburgh, president of Notre Dame University, was among those who saw what was coming in the 1970s. He predicted immigration numbers would continue to rise because of two crucial factors: Conservative business interests would want to keep wages low and the consumer market growing; and liberal lobbies would support the higher rates as a way of increasing the voting power of various ethic goups. Each year since, Congress has affirmed Hesburgh's predictions, either by taking steps that actually increase the number of immigrants or by refusing to take other steps that might reduce the total. If that is the problem, then Earth Day as commemorated is no solution. ********
Dodging the population bomb
ON THE FIRST EARTH DAY, 31 years ago, the population explosion was everyone's chief worry. And a book, The Population Bomb, by Paul R. Ehrlich, was the environmentalists' Bible. An odd thing has happened to the panic over population. It has disappeared. But the problem has not. The U.S. population in 1970 was 203 million. Since then, it has grown 72 percent to 281 million. If current trends continue, today's population will double in the next 70 years. So why have mainstream environmental groups abandoned the issue? If anything, the crises associated with population growth have gotten worse: water shortages, suburban sprawl, destruction of natural habitats. The why of it has been explained in a Center for Immigration Studies paper written by Leon Kolankiewicz and Roy Beck titled Forsaking Fundamentals: The Environmental Establishment Abandons U.S. Population Stabilization. (The paper can be found at www.cis.org). Today's environmental groups won't go near the subject. The reason? Population growth is now almost entirely fueled by immigration from Third World countries. They are terrified of being tarred as racist. Back in 1970, the environmental movement had no difficulty grappling with the issue. In the 1950s and '60s, rapid population growth was the result of high birthrates among mostly white, native-born women. Environmentalists feared that the children of the Baby Boom would do what their parents did go out and have lots and lots of children. (Immigration levels at the time were a lower and largely uncontroversial 200,000 a year.) In 1969, the Sierra Club urged Americans to commit themselves to limit the total population of the United States . . . and to achieve a stable population no later than the year 1990. And these ideas resonated with ordinary citizens. In 1970, President Richard Nixon and Congress set up a bipartisan Commission on Population Growth and the American Future. The commission's chairman, John D. Rockefeller III, wrote that gradual stabilization of our population through voluntary means would contribute signifi-cantly to the nation's ability to solve its problems. Since then, birthrates among American-born wo-men have fallen close to the replacement rate. Had immigration been kept at traditional 1970 levels, the American population would probably have stabilized at 230 million by 2050. Sierra Club members have tried to bring up the matter, only to come under attack. In 1996, the group's national board ruled that no one speaking in the Sierra Club's name may call for a reduction in the immigration numbers. The board, however, was not without a population policy. Incredibly, it called on American women to do away with the two-child family. Only one child per family, please. Immigration levels need not be touched. (Frustrated members have organized their own group, Sierrans for U.S. Population Stabilization. For more information visit www.uscongress-enviroscore.org.) The Sierra Club's Web site is an exercise in intellectual cowardice. Check out New Research on Population, Suburban Sprawl and Smart Growth at www.sierraclub.org. The piece is heavy on footnotes but never utters the forbidden word immigration. The command stop sprawl is highlighted at the top. Oh, they're so tough. Meanwhile, serious environmental problems continue to march under the Sierra Club's nose. Sprawl in congested New Jersey threatens to engulf the last patches of farmland. The state expects to add a million people to its population in the next 20 years. Texas is suffering a terrible water shortage. It's so bad that some people want to pipe scarce water from the ranch and agricultural areas and into the cities. The state population of 21 million is predicted to double in 50 years. The environmental movement desperately needs new leadership - people who can talk about population in terms of numbers rather than colors. They can hark back to great liberals who have supported their cause: former Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm, former U.S. Sen. Eugene McCarthy, and the late congresswoman and civil-rights activist Barbara Jordan. And they must explain the importance of a stable population to all Americans. Whether newly naturalized or native-born, every one of us has an interest in maintaining our quality of life. This is no easy job. But the time has come for people of talent and courage to step up to the plate. Environmentalists must find forthright advocates.
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