Population and the Environment - We DO have to choose.

[Coexist]

Way back in 1997 Progressives and Liberals were trying to have a discussion on how our country couldn’t support a growing population forever. But guess what happened?

What better way to push away news we don't want than to discredit the messenger? An Internet message on "how to argue effectively" recommends: "Compare your opponent to Adolf Hitler." A variation on this would be to call your opponent a "racist xenophobe."

Xenophobe and Racist. Two terms that litter every thread on which someone doesn't believe in blanket amnesty for illegal immigrants. Imagine that. The argument is almost a decade old, and the name-calling remains the same. Last time we chose an Amnesty Program in 1986, "by the beginning of 1997 those former illegal aliens had been entirely replaced by new illegal aliens, and that the unauthorized population again stood at more than 5 million, just as before the amnesty." A huge population increase.

Now I know that our economy likes a growing population, but our planet doesn’t. Fact.

The same article goes on to discuss the findings of Population Growth Commissions that included Father Hesburgh:

Two population commissions--the President's Commission on Population Growth and the American Future, headed by John D. Rockefeller 11I; and the Select Commission on Population, headed by Father Theodore Hesburgh, a Notre Dame president--concurred that U.S. population needed to be stabilized. Its 1972-level of 205 million was already threatening the environmental legacy for future generations. The Rockefeller Commission noted that, immigration policy would have to respect this demographic reality. Father Hesburgh agreed.

Immigration advocates say the question is one of consumption; not population. But many of the 2,000 Sierra Club members who signed the petition forcing the poll support the ecological equation that environmental impact is a function of three variables: population, consumption, and technology.

Endangered wetlands, global warming, congestion, and human encroachment upon open habitat: how are these problems improved by a population that has grown from 150 million in 1940 to 265 million today? If numbers do not matter, is the experience of living in a city of 1 million the same as that of living in one of 5, 10, or 20 millions?

Now – relating to the argument that they come here for a better life because they can’t find one at home, I empathize, but - whenever someone discusses their frustration and politics within the United States on this board, and declares that they are thinking about moving to another country - or even switching political parties - people crawl out of the woodwork exclaiming, "don't leave - work from within to change what you don't like - it will take time, but you are leaving your children a better legacy."

So why is it racist to suggest that people should work from within to change their own countries that are NOT the United States, instead of exporting their problem across the border? Our resources cannot support unchecked immigration forever. Immigration limits are supposed to help us control that. I feel for someone who wants to better their life, but I cannot see my way clear to risking the little that remains of our environment to do so. In fact ALL countries with large population growth need to consider their finite resources. Amnesty for those here will NOT END the problem of ridiculously porous borders.

Back during the 2000 Campaign there was a discussion of world population.

At the most basic level, there are "liberals" who dismiss population's intertwining with all other environmental concerns, and those of us who would mandate population be a requisite variable in any policy formulation. Another split divides those with a short time horizon - five, ten, maybe twenty years - and those who look at least 100 years into the future. Note that many in the EAG have a long time horizon, yet wish to evade overt consideration of population change.

Liberals are not divided between Democrats and Greens/Progressives. They are divided between those who view the globe as a finite sphere and those who believe that mankind alone of all Earth's species is exempt from rules of mathematical growth and progression. I term this the division between pragmatists (realists?) and utopians. As long as the latter have the upper hand, politicians will lead us down the path to ecological - and national - destruction.

Apparently, a discussion on population control and the environment will never be politically correct. The reaction to this problem will show up in the form of a knee-jerk over-the-top one, when the last forests have been clear cut and people are shooting each other over food and water. But don’t worry, maybe we call all just move to Canada in search of a better life for our children.

[Igel]

1. No, such a discussion will never be accepted by some people.

The two groups, broadly speaking, have ranked their priorities differently.

On the other hand, it's unclear if immigration, legal or otherwise, significantly affects global population growth. While it may mean greater environmental degradation in the US, it plausibly decreases it in Mexico and other immigrant source countries.

But only 'plausibly.' Because what happens is that the environment degrades to the point where people simply can't tolerate it. If they're wealthy enough, that limit comes fairly soon; they may limit growth, or migrate. It was in the 1950s in this country that this level was reached, the Clean Water Act was a latecomer; some areas were getting worse, but many areas were also getting better because of local outrage and laws, and those areas were increasing.

If the population is poor enough, or the government authoritarian enough, the degradation has to be worse--possibly much worse--before they demand something be done. I don't know if Mexico would go to environmental collapse (a bad thing for the US, to be sure) or not. But by siphoning off population, it's also plausibly keeping things from getting worse enough that they need to get better (in more than one way).

There was a hard science guy at UCLA that routinely used immigration and a model of illegal immigration in the Southland in his course when it dealt with the environment. His point: US population growth would be at a standstill, and nearly every kind of environmentally harmful consumption (power, water, etc.) in Southern California would have reached steady-state or have been declining through improved technology and conservation, if not for illegal immigration. Legal immigration was excluded from the model. This directly pitted the pro-environment people against the pro-immigration (a term I find distasteful for what it doesn't imply).

The activists response wasn't based on the merits of the argument; each term he taught his course, they would simply go and either parade through his lecture hall, shouting that he was racist and blowing whistles to prevent his offensive speech; or, when the administration finally got irritated with the protesters, they'd picket outside to get students to not attend his class that day. They had no legitimate response; editorials in the paper dealt with human rights and rough ideas of social justice, not his points. Since they couldn't actually answer his speech, they could only resort to intimidation and ad hominem attacks.

[Coexist]

2. I find it sad that students did that at the Professor's class

it reminds me of the "la,la,la,I can't hear you" lady that debated Randi Rhodes.

You can't have civil debate and find sensible solutions if people won't listen to the discourse.

I found this sentence of yours to be interesting, ""But by siphoning off population, it's also plausibly keeping things from getting worse enough that they need to get better (in more than one way)."

Why is there no government sponsored population control program in Mexico, if they are indeed reaching critical mass? Why wouldn't they address their over-population instead of hoping immigration will take care of it? What many Communist states did to control populations was barbaric, but at least they attempted to address it, albeit in a sick, controlling way.

(on edit: This quote from The Matrix kept coming to mind while I was putting this post together - so I just had to add it, for what its worth)

Agent Smith: I'd like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species, and I realised that humans are not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not. Instead you multiply, and multiply, until every resource is consumed. The only way for you to survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern... a virus.