Prominent Conservationists Call for Immigration Reductions in New Book

Some of the most prominent immigration-reduction voices in the country are featured in a new book titled Life on the Brink: Environmentalists Confront Overpopulation.  The new book, a collection of essays about the environmental consequences of overpopulation, includes some significant voices for reducing immigration in order to stabilize U.S. population.  Many of Life on the Brink’s contributors have also been advisors to the series of sprawl studies published by NumbersUSA.  These authors confront challenges posed by mass immigration and overpopulation that others in politics, the media, and many environmental organizations refuse to acknowledge.  This book is particularly important as the U.S. environmental community has abandoned U.S. population stabilization as goal.  The fact that immigration is a large contributor to unsustainable population growth has driven many environmental organizations to completely drop U.S. population from their agendas — a far cry from the first Earth Day when population stabilization was central to the national environmental agenda.Life on the Brink editor Phillip Cafaro is the president of Progressives for Immigration Reform’s Board of Directors, one of the few progressive organizations that calls for an end to mass immigration in an effort to stabilize population and preserve a sustainable quality of life for future generations.  Cafaro is a professor of philosophy at Colorado State University and co-editor Eileen Crist is a professor of environmental studies at Virginia Tech.  Both hope to re-ignite the overpopulation discussion in this country, including addressing immigration’s contributions to the problem. When speaking about immigration policies, Cafaro notes the lack of thought U.S. lawmakers give to the population component, questioning whether Congress is listening to the voices of its constituents.  He says Washington is considering new immigration laws that could add tens of millions more people to the U.S. in the coming decades without any discussion of whether more population growth is smart, or fits into the wishes of Americans.    One of the book’s contributors, Leon Kolankiewicz, has co-authored many studies published by NumbersUSA that quantify the role of immigration-driven population growth in the urban sprawl in the U.S. that causes major loss of open spaces and deforestation along with overcrowding of cities and highways.    Kolankiewicz provided this excerpt from the book description:  “Life on the Brink aspires to reignite a robust discussion of population issues among environmentalists, environmental studies scholars, policymakers, and the general public. Some of the leading voices in the American environmental movement restate the case that population growth is a major force behind many of our most serious ecological problems, including global climate change, habitat loss and species extinctions, air and water pollution, and food and water scarcity. As we surpass seven billion world inhabitants, contributors argue that ending population growth worldwide and in the United States is a moral imperative that deserves renewed commitment.”Contributors include Paul Ehrlich, Captain Paul Watson (of “Whale Wars”), former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm, environmental activists Dave Foreman, Stephanie Mills, Tim Palmer, former and current Worldwatch Institute presidents Lester Brown and Robert Engelman, and thirteen others. They explore the whole range of difficult moral and political issues surrounding population policy sparingly addressed in today’s mainstream dialogue.If mass immigration policies are not changed, the U.S. population is expected to reach 618 million people by 2100, almost doubling our current population. “Pursuing environmentalism without addressing our ever-increasing population is an exercise in politically-correct futility,” states Cafaro. “If environmentalists refuse to engage with population issues, we are going to have to say goodbye to most of what we have worked to protect.”You can read more about the book or oder a copy for yourself from University of Georgia’s Press website. You can also order a copy of Life on the Brink: Environmentalists Confront Overpopulation from Amazon.  
MELANIE OUBRE is the Local Activism Coordinator for NumbersUSA