Center Paper 18, March 2001

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By the end of the 1990s, after three decades of spiraling immigration numbers, seemingly perpetual population growth, and defeat after political defeat, many long-suffering environmental and population activists despaired about ever reversing environmentalists’ paralysis on immigration: "After working on the ‘sustainable numbers’ problem for years, Judith Kunofsky is convinced that reducing immigration has become increasingly impossible politically — that we may have already reached the point where we can’t do anything about it," wrote behavioral scientist Diana Hull.²³⁴ This view holds that the snowball has already gathered so much momentum that trying to stop it is futile…and maybe even harmful to one’s own career prospects.

Perhaps nothing is more symbolic of the environmental establishment’s virtual abandonment of U.S. population stabilization than its complete disregard for the continuing population advocacy of two of its most venerated heroes — conservation trailblazers Gaylord Nelson and David Brower. Nelson, now a counselor to the Wilderness Society, is a former U.S. Senator, Wisconsin Governor, environmental leader in Congress, and the "father" of the first Earth Day back in 1970, an event he originally conceived as a "national celebration of the Earth." The late David Brower, who died in November 2000 at 88, was called "the archdruid" by nature writer John McPhee and an "uncompromising steward of the planet" upon his death.²³⁵ In his long and storied career as a crusader for the Earth, he was executive director of the Sierra Club, founder of the League of Conservation Voters, Friends of the Earth, and the Earth Island Institute, champion and savior of national parks and wildlands, and an influence on countless environmental pioneers in their own right, such as biologist/ population polemicist Paul Ehrlich and alternative energy innovator Amory Lovins.

Even as environmental groups increasingly distanced themselves from the population issue, Nelson’s concern with U.S. overpopulation through the years never wavered, and his speeches around the country on environmental sustainability spotlighted the U.S. population problem.²³⁶ A newspaper article describing an Earth Day 1998 speech began: "Senator Gaylord Nelson spoke to a standing-room only audience at Beloit College’s Richardson Auditorium [in his home state of Wisconsin], advocating the U.S. limit immigration before U.S. resources are depleted."²³⁷ Later that year, in a Washington, D.C., press conference, Nelson bristled at the idea that what really motivates attempts to limit immigration is racism. He said that such accusations only served to silence a debate that was long overdue: "We ought to discuss it in a rational way. We have to decide if we’re going to be comfortable with half a billion people or more."²³⁸ In a March, 2000 speech to a civic group in Madison, Wis., Nelson warned that if immigration and fertility rates continued, the U.S. could become as overpopulated as China and India. "With twice the population, will there be any wilderness left? Any quiet place? Any habitat for song birds? Waterfalls? Other wild creatures? Not much," he said.²³⁹ When he saw an earlier version of the present monograph, Nelson wrote one of the co-authors that its thesis that U.S. population growth was no longer being addressed primarily because of immigration and fears of being labeled racist was "right on target."²⁴⁰

Yet not even the Father of Earth Day’s irreproachable reputation, peerless stature, and acute concern swayed the environmental establishment and its avant-garde VIP friends. In April 2000 in Washington, D.C.’s historic Mayflower Hotel, Nelson was honored with a standing ovation by the organizers of the 30th anniversary Earth Day celebration on the National Mall, an event that drew celebrities and performers like Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, Edward James Olmos, Melanie Griffith, Clint Black, Carole King, Chevy Chase, James Taylor and David Crosby. One of the co-authors attended the celebration on the Mall, with the Capitol dome looming behind, and listened to numerous speeches and exhortations, none of which mentioned overpopulation. Gaylord Nelson is revered by mainstream environmentalists because of his seminal contributions to the movement and in spite of his position on population and immigration, not because of it.

David Brower first became concerned about population growth decades ago, in part under the "coaching" of his friend and Berkeley neighbor, scientist Daniel Luten.²⁴¹ In 1997, Brower was one of the original signatories of the Sierra Club ballot measure in favor of reducing immigration to stop U.S. population growth. He later withdrew his name, because as a member of the Sierra Club board of directors at the time, it conflicted with the board’s official position. However, he never endorsed Ballot Question B, put forth by the board in explicit opposition to Ballot Question A, the immigration-reduction measure. And immediately after the vote, he spoke out against the board’s position. "The leadership are fooling themselves. Overpopulation is a very serious problem, and overimmigration is a big part of it. We must address both. We can’t ignore either," he told Outside magazine.²⁴² In a dramatic gesture reflecting the depth of his disenchantment from the board of the organization to which he had dedicated so much of his life, David Brower resigned from the Sierra Club board of directors in May, 2000. "The world is burning and all I hear from them is the music of violins," he said. Brower added, "Overpopulation is perhaps the biggest problem facing us and immigration is part of that problem. It has to be addressed."²⁴³

Not only did the environmental establishment turn a deaf ear to the consistent pro-stabilization messages of its own legendary pioneers, but it also turned a blind eye to the January, 2000 demographic projections from the U.S. Census Bureau, the most ominous in decades.²⁴⁴ The Bureau’s "middle series" projection foresees a population of 404 million by 2050 (more than125 million larger than the current U.S. population) and 571 million by 2100, more than double the number of Americans today. And under this scenario, which, incredibly, assumes lower net immigration in 2100 than at present, the U.S. population would still be adding more people annually in 2100 than now. And what was the reaction of the environmental establishment to these alarming projections? No comment. The silence was deafening. It was as if the environmental significance of this staggering population growth were as trivial as fall fashions from Paris.

Since the unpleasantness and divisiveness of its 1998 referendum, the Sierra Club leadership has moved to suppress further debate over immigration and its implications for U.S. population growth. Its population list-serve on the Internet, an open forum for discussion, was closed down over one allegedly racist post. While many of the open-borders advocates on the Population Committee dropped off after their victory in the 1998 referendum, the revamped committee has shown no inclination to take up the issue of U.S. population policy. A filmmaker who interviewed scores of nationally-prominent figures on immigration, population, and the environment for a forthcoming documentary on how immigration is re-defining tomorrow’s America was unable to get the Sierra Club to talk to him on film.

Historians need to explain how an environmental issue as fundamental as U.S. population growth could have moved from center-stage within the American environmental movement to virtual obscurity in just 20 years. For the American environment itself, the ever-growing demographic pressures ignored by the environmental establishment showed no signs of abating on their own as the nation prepared to enter the 21st century.

Yet a ray of hope remains. "If the people lead, the leaders will follow" says an aphorism. The growing grassroots concern of numerous rank-and-file environmentalists and ordinary Americans with the multiple problems unavoidably aggravated by overpopulation and overimmigration may yet overturn their leaders’ stubborn denial of demographic and ecological realities. The hard work of Colorado activist Mike McGarry paid off in 1999 when the Aspen city council passed a resolution in favor of an immigration moratorium in order to achieve U.S. population stabilization. Since 1999, Craig Nelsen and his ProjectUSA have erected nearly 100 billboards in more than 10 states pointing out that immigration will double U.S. population within the lifetimes of today’s children. Nelsen and his allies have persevered in the face of strident denunciations and efforts to suppress their free speech (with no thanks to the American Civil Liberties Union, which was approached and turned down an appeal for assistance after New York City officials forced the removal of one of the first billboards).

In the face of unremitting hostility, demagoguery, and dirty tricks on the part of the Sierra Club bureaucracy, Sierrans who refused to accept their leaders’ acquiescence to rapid, unending U.S. population growth attained a respectable 40 percent showing. Since then, the indefatigable activists of Sierrans for U.S. Population Stabilization (SUSPS) have continued organizing and strategizing over the best means of forcing the Club to face up to an issue it would rather ignore, perhaps by means of the Club’s anti-sprawl campaign, which has assiduously avoided mentioning not only immigration but also population growth as a cause of sprawl.

Those truly concerned about the future environment and quality of life in these United States can only hope that endeavors such as these may yet portend a return to a realistic, comprehensive population policy within the mainstream environmental movement.