Environment

We are told that reforming immigration policy and combating climate change are two key policy goals of President Obama as he begins his second term. But there is no evidence that the Obama administration sees any connection between them. This despite the fact that the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has identified population growth as one of the two key drivers of climate change; and that most of the increase in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in the past two decades has occurred due to population growth, while per capita emissions have remained relatively flat.

The Census Bureau came out with its predictions on U.S. population this month.  In response, Federal Departments including the Departments of Interior and Agriculture released reports on how this growth will affect our country’s natural resources including open space and water supply.  The U.S. will add over 100 million people by 2050 due to mass immigration policies.   Also to be expected by 2050 are severe water shortages and major losses of forests and open space.  When will America realize that population stabilization is the answer to our sustainability dilemma?

One man loudly told me that I should be ashamed of myself for advocating U.S. population stabilization at an Earth Day festival -- and indicated that the founders of Earth Day were shamefully selfish if they advocated what NumbersUSA is advocating. But much more common at this Dallas event was a teacher who had her full class stand in our booth for me to give them a 10-minute population lecture about our "Wall charts."

The House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense, and Foreign Operations along with the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forest, and Public Lands hosted a joint hearing Friday titled “The Border: Are Environmental Laws and Regulation Impeding Security and Harming the Environment?”

Cairo, Egypt is a city of approximately 18 million people within the metropolitan area. That’s more than twice the population of New York City. Cairo is also a city of extreme pollution. It is said that living in Cairo is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, as the average resident ingests more than 20 times the acceptable level of air pollution a day. I can easily see how any city in the United States growing too fast is destined to suffer similar environmental concerns.

Take a look at our special Earth Day Report Cards, with grades for all 535 Members of Congress. On this 40th Anniversary of Earth Day, a lot of politicians will claim to be champions of environmental sustainability. But many of them are actually champions of high immigration which is driving a U.S. population explosion that experts have said makes environmental sustainability impossible to achieve. Come look at those grades . . .

No, I'm not suggesting that immigrants deliberately or inadvertently destroy more green space than U.S.-born residents. In fact, each immigrant on average destroys a bit less. But the numbers of immigrants (4 times the traditional average) are resulting in the clearing, scraping and developing of nearly a million additional acres of natural habitat and farmland every year. Is this not a crisis demanding urgent attention on this week of the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day?

Veteran journalist Stephen Dinan this weekend published the most informative and balanced report to date on the environmental issues at stake along the border. While most environmental groups fight the building of fences along the Mexican border, Dinan found caretakers of the environment down there who said the building of a fence has allowed the desert to sprout back to life.

The president has talked a lot since taking office about creating new energy guidelines, and the White House paid the usual lip service to Earth Day. But I’m wondering: How does this president square his energy and environmental concerns with his apparent willingness to continue fueling our population growth with a reckless immigration policy that benefits only vote-hungry politicians and companies fearful of losing their abundant supply of cheap foreign labor?

I was dining in downtown Boston with a long-time acquaintance of Teddy Kennedy at the very time the Senator died a week ago. We had discussed what had caused Kennedy to pursue immigration policies that so fundamentally changed America. When I awoke the next morning to the Massachusetts TV stations doing their eulogies, I decided to wait until after burial to share my thoughts. . . .