Letters to the Editor
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Also environmentalists are split on immigration
How come environmentalists abandon their "think globally, act locally" slogan when it comes to overpopulation? I'd think the true environmental response to immigration would be to call for the complete end to immigration to the country, except to keep population levels steady. However, strangely many if not most environmentalists appear to be pro-immigration. The reasons you mostly see given is that stopping immigration would be impractical or uneconomic. It's funny that environmentalists of various stripes can advocate replacing all fossil fuels with renewable energy, replacing all commercial agriculture with organic methods, advocate everyone on Earth becomming vegan, advocate running the entire world auto fleet on ethanol or bio-diesel, advocate strict laws limiting greenhouse emmisions, advocate vast swaths of land be put off-limits to economic development--all of which I favor by the way--but when someone advocates ending population growth in the country, all of a sudden environmentalists are concerned with what is "impractical" or "uneconomic."
Environmentalists are constantly being hit by criticism from right-wingers that their proposals are uneconomic, impractical, or that me simply recycling, or buying organic, or eating less meat, or driving less, won't have an effect when others continue to do so. I am pointing out that it is shocking to see those same criticisms that the right-wing like to haul out against environmentalists, being hauled out BY environmentalists on this one issue. Sometimes you will see someone reply be saying that it does not matter in the overall picture of world population growth if the US controls population since population growth continues in other countries. This "why bother when others will continue increse population" is the exact attitude environmentalists have been fighting against for decades when it comes to recycling, energy conservation, pollution, and a host of other environmental problems. Environmentalists do not have a problem calling for the end of logging in a North American forest even if it will not have an effect on overall deforestation since logging continues in, say, Indonesia. "Think globally, act locally" is our answer to such arguments, and I think it is horrible to see it abandoned on this issue, it makes us look like hypocrites. I am all for women's education, birth control, economic development, etc., in all countries. But on this issue, few are apparently thinking globally and advocating acting locally.
If a fishery was being overfished environmentalists would mandate that the overfishing stop; if a strand of redwoods were threatened with logging, they would stop the logging; if a factory was spewing pollution across the landscape, they would demand the factory stop polluting. Then we can begin to build communities where we get by without doing these things, but that should be only after we stop the harmful practice. The greatest successes of the environmental movement--the clean water act, the clean air act, the endangered species act--all succeed by having strict rules in place which mandate that the environmentally destructive practice end. We should take the same approach when it comes to overpopulation--demand the the practice stop, then begin to build communities where we get by without the destructive process.
I even see environmentalists using the corporatists claim that the US needs large numbers of immigrants in order to "do the work that Americans wont." But I thought environmentalists were in favor of solving environmental problems, and economics came second. Animal rights activists don't care about the economic effects of ceasing meat consumption, forest defenders don't care if some loggers must lose their jobs, fish advocates don't care about the effects on fishermem, but now all of a sudden we're concerned with "labor shortages"? It is true that in many cases we are helping fishermen in the long run by limiting catch, or loggers by protecting forests, but we've always been willing to accept short-term hardships in favor of long term sustainability. Limiting immigration is no different than the above cases--short term hardships must give way to long-term sustainability, and just as in the long-term we are doing everyone a favor by stopping logging or overfishing, in the long-term we are doing everyone a favor by taking a stand on overpopulation.
Actually, I'm not against logging if it is done in accordance to FSC standards, or fishing if it is done in accordance with MSC standards. Why is that? Because FSC practices are sustainable, MSC practices are sustainable, organic food production is sustainable, but population growth is not. There are no set of standards, short of colonizing other planets (but I wouldn't hold my breath on that) that can be applied to population growth that can make it sustainable in the long run. When it comes to population, the only sustainable practice is no growth.
In America we have a great opportunity in that all population growth is the result of immigration, if we stopped immigration, we would have steady population, and then we could truly begin to learn to live sustainably and without the insane demand for constant growth. Population growth can not continue unabated, all other environmental issues are a subset of population problems.