The population of the U.S. in 1980 was 227 million. In 2050, the Census Bureau forecasts it will be 439 million, with most of that growth due to immigration. By 2050, immigration will have made the U.S. about 150 million people more populous, or about 55% more. Thus, to reduce U.S. carbon emissions to any particular level, per capita emissions will have to be reduced about 35% more than if there had been no immigration.
And it's not as if global emissions would be the same. People move to the U.S. from the Third World so they can afford a car, air conditioning, and the like. One plausible estimate is that Mexican immigrants emit four times as much carbon in the U.S. than if they had stayed home.
You could argue that, well, these immigrants won't earn enough money to buy cars and air conditioning, but do you really want to go there? Logically, either an immigrant will prosper in America and emit a huge amount of carbon or will fail to prosper. Neither prospect looks good for America. My best guess is that the median illegal immigrant will do well enough to buy a big vehicle with spinning rims on credit, without ever making enough to pay enough taxes to make himself a net benefit.
Moreover, as we saw during the Housing Bubble, immigration drives people into distant exurbs, leading them to commute more and (in California) to run their air conditioners more.
What's interesting is that relationship between immigration and carbon emissions goes almost totally unspoken. Judging from Google searches, almost nobody every mentions it. I don't think many even think about it. The level of intellectual sophistication is about this:
Carbon emissions are Bad.
Immigration is Good.
Therefore, anybody who says that immigration leads to more carbon emissions is Bad.
Here's a recent LA Times article on global warming and immigration. Of course, it's not about how immigration causes global warming, it's a reverse bankshot about how global warming could cause immigration:
Now, scientists are predicting another consequence of climate change – mass migration to the United States.
As many as 7 million Mexicans could migrate to the U.S. by 2080 as climate change reduces agricultural production in Mexico, according to a new study being published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
OMG! "As many as 7 million Mexicans could migrate to the U.S. by 2080."
Seven million!
Posts
50 comments:
"You could argue that, well, these immigrants won't earn enough money to buy cars and air conditioning, but do you really want to go there?"
It won't be long before these are all RIGHTS.
I bring this up among my "Progressive" friends and acquaintances here in Portland on occasion.
Their response, as you might imagine, is entirely irrational, at least when it's not incoherent. If anyone ever doubted the cliche' about liberals feeling guilt over the success of western civilization, watch how they respond to the suggestion immigration is bad for the planet.
Lifeboat ethics.
The only response I ever got to that argument was, "Well, I don't buy it." All right then.
Is it more comprehensive to say the more populated this country is, the more carbon emissions?
Illegal immigrant or not.
A pretty idiotic post by you, btw.
But, there is some comedic value provided that it was tongue in cheek
I saw that headline too and thought for a moment that the enviro left had gotten a clue and was sadly, sadly let down once I read.
It seems like CO2 emissions per person are largely a function of wealth. Anything that causes a lot of people to get richer, and in particular to get rich enough to have cars and air conditioners, will increase CO2 emissions. (It's not clear where that effect stops, either--wealthier people fly and drive more, have bigger houses, don't worry about running the air conditioner all summer long, etc.)
So to the extent the immigrants got richer coming here, they very likely increased their CO2 emissions. To the extent the economy grew as a result of their getting here, they also increased CO2 emissions. (Most economists say immigration is good for the domestic economy, and that's very plausible--lower labor costs are good for business, if not necessarily for the society as a whole.)
I find it very hard to argue against letting people get richer, in general. My impression is that the CO2 impact of China's vast economic growth is way, way bigger than any impact of immigration in the US, but it's hard to complain about that, since China's rise also represents a billion people in the process of moving from the third world to the first world. Similarly, if the only important effect of immigration was that the immigrants got richer and produced more CO2, I'd find it very hard to be upset about that.
I think the Right should not even budge on any climate related issue like Cap and Trade unless and until the issue of stopping MASS immigration from the 3rd world is addressed.
Getting a climate change nut to have to acknowledge publicly the increased carbon footprint of 3rd worlders in the West would be priceless.
Interestingly, I had a similar situation recently. I was speaking with an uber-liberal in California- Prius driver, switching to bio-diesel, etc. His company has 360 employees, 90% Mexican, don't know if they're legal or not, but 90% only speak Spanish, so probably most are illegal. There is no realization of any CO2 link in his mind, liberals simply will not recognize any of the internal contradictions in their positions. They lack the mental maturity to deal with contradictions, so they refuse to recognize them. It's very pathetic, actually, if it wasn't so tragic for the future of this country.
You forgot to mention the 'diversity' this influx has brought. What a gift. I think 'diversity' trumps even global warming: if lots of immigration (to the US) means more global warming, but fewer immigrants means less diversity but also slower global warming, then diversity is more important.
And once all those Mexicans get here and are amnestied, they'll bring in their relatives via family reunification, and for many categories of that there is no annual cap. So you forgot a multiplier there as well.
I'm fed up with dealing with the economic illiterates on this blog - Who are rightly derided as the peanut gallery, and who give the blog commentators a bad name by association.
A case in point is 'None of the Above', where he states that low wages are good for business and therefore the US economy.
One of the most basic, basic errors anyone can make.
Wages are very low in Bangladesh, but we don't speak of a well functioning Bangladeshi econonmy.
What he fails to realize is that the key metric here is PRODUCTIVITY ie the cash value of the output per worker.
It is productivity that determines and has always determined wages, since the concept of work first originated.
It is also productivity that determines the aggregate wealth of a nation - and such things as whether a nation can afford to pay for adequate public goods and welfare.
No doubt Mexican peons at home work very, very hard at their farms (harder than most Americans will ever work), but what is the actual cash value of what they produce?
Compare that to the work of a computer programmer or engineering techniciam, no physical labor but the actual cash value that is generated by their efforts massively outstrips that of the peon.
Hence to import low wage, low prodcutivity people is not a terribly smart way to go.
Mr. Sailer, you're combining a very positive concept - environmental awareness - and tying it to hateful sentiments, ie, xenophobia and racism. It is what we call the "greening of hate," and rest assured that we will not stand for it.
Climate change will reduce Mexico's ability to feed its own people, so millions more Mexicans will have no choice but to migrate to the US, says some PhD. Following the logic of 'progressives', the US is duty-bound to accept these people because it will be our carbon emissions that will make Mexico's crops wither. I guess it's a given that the US's ability to feed people will be unaffected by climate change.
It's funny: 'progressives' pride themselves on being 'free thinkers' who are always open to new ideas -- just don't challenge any of their core ideas. Do that and the chorus begins: "Racist, sexist, homophobe!"
Morris Dees is always good for a laugh: Ecology-minded opposition to population growth via immigration is the "greening of hate."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0220/p01s04-ussc.html
asdfasdfasdf said...
"You could argue that, well, these immigrants won't earn enough money to buy cars and air conditioning, but do you really want to go there?"
It won't be long before these are all RIGHTS.
They're 'rights' already: That's what the "living wage" campaign is all about.
The connection isn't made because the plutocratic class doesn't want it made.
Obligatory David Gelbaum/Sierra Club link: The Man Behind The Land.
I'm probably one of the few hard core enviros who read this post. What Steve is saying is only what many old school enviros used to say. Before it disappears down the memory hole, I'd like to point out that most of the founding Earth First! people (Ed Abbey, Dave Foreman, Howie Wolke)brought up the illegal immigration issue strongly in the early 80s,and it was in many ways the cause of the split in the group.
I’ve noticed two issues in this discussion. The first one is "prosperity". Everyone has their personal Quality of Life Index, and for some Scandinavia must be wonderful, according to the U.N. I'm from a rural area, and have a bit of a Jeffersonian bias, so buying tons of crap and needing enormous infrastructure and service economy just isn't high on my scale. When I try to add up the cumulative effects of the lifestyle many people lead, the inputs and outputs just don't pencil out for the long term.
The second issue is a largely unappreciated reason as to what drives the huge complex of R and D, technological "innovation" (as if the ceaseless repackaging of wireless communication is really innovation), and whatever is needed to keep the boxes filled in the warehouse. It's a fear of falling behind-being taken over by either superior power, superior economy, or superior numbers. I’ve never heard an honest discussion on what constitutes as “sustainable” country that factors in national security along with the ecological, economic or population factors. This is because we don't want to address that one has to deal with other societies, peoples, economies that might want to dominate ours, and that borders are not permanent things. It’s a game of numbers- superior technology and military might to offset our lower birthrates. (The debate on having less kids in order to give more time and resources to raise a better educated child is an interesting one). No one likes to talk about this, but it’s a logical step when you discuss the low birthrate/higher quality of life topic that is now in Environmental Science textbooks.
I think that that many people who are uneasy with illegal immigration have at least vaguely in the back of their minds a sense of hordes of uneducated people upsetting the balance between numbers and environmental sustainability, but just can’t “go there”. It’s also not polite to mention the fact that most of these immigrants come from a culture that doesn’t exactly have the world’s greatest land ethic. Charley Reese pointed out several times: people are abandoning degraded, desertified areas and moving to healthier ones.
I don’t love the idea that we have to keep a steamroller consumer economy to stay stable (forget staying #1), but until we discuss what “sustainability” really is, we will continue to have the McCain/Obama direction: open borders, low education, consumerism, environmental degradation, centralized agriculture, the military/industrial complex, invade the world/invite the world. The left hates such a discussion because they don’t want to believe that there is a need for something called national security, particularly in the securing of our borders. The right doesn’t want it either, because they’re so knee jerk wedded to capitalism as a surrogate god (unless you’re Sam Francis).
Resources are finite, and there is a point where ecosystems, food chains and symbiotic reactions begin to fail. It doesn't require apocalyptic Hollywood scenarios to visualize it. When will this happen to China? I don't know, but one thing I can imagine is the Chinese abandoning areas that are unsustainable and taking over new ones (I remember a national geographic article about their designs on Russia's Amar River Valley). Their incursion into Africa is hardly surprising. It’s just another example of the emerging corporate feudal state system that is alarming people across the political spectrum.
It seems like CO2 emissions per person are largely a function of wealth.
That's true. But we're also greatly increasing the number of people.
Is it more comprehensive to say the more populated this country is, the more carbon emissions?
Illegal immigrant or not.
This post is not about and does not mention "illegal" immigration.
But thanks for your comedic value.
The Southern Poverty Lew Center recently released an "Intelligence Report" complaining about environmentalists who are opposed to mass immigration.
B.B.
Wait, so two ideas pushed forth by the left are mutually exclusive?!?
AllanF: Their response, as you might imagine, is entirely irrational, at least when it's not incoherent.
Anonymous: ...liberals simply will not recognize any of the internal contradictions in their positions. They lack the mental maturity to deal with contradictions, so they refuse to recognize them. It's very pathetic, actually, if it wasn't so tragic for the future of this country.
Nihilism is necessarily based on a foundation of lies.
If, in these people, there was to be found any devotion to the Truth, then they wouldn't be nihilists.
And along those lines, I sincerely hope that Steve is joking about all of this Global Warming/Immigration Restrictionist nonsense - that he isn't trying to be too clever by half.
The earth has been cooling since at least 1998 [possibly since 1996], and the situation with our* ongoing sunspot minimum is so dire that the Darwinian nihilists who infest this board would do well to get down on their hands and knees and pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster that He dial up the ovens in our* sun, or else we'll all be in danger of freezing to death over the course of the next several decades.
*Well, technically speaking, it's His sun, and they're His sunspots - to do with as He pleases - but we'll just sweep that little distinction right under the carpet.
Steve’s take on this story is far from what its liberal authors intended, and we are presented with a whole new line of argument against the mainstream consensus.
Environmentalism is the great untapped resource for HBDers and paleocons. Modern environmental movements are entirely the product of the civilization of Northern Europe and its racial and cultural equivalents in the New World and Oceania. To put it in geographical terms, the further your ancestral home is from, say, Stockholm, the less likely you are to give a rip about the natural world and its non-human denizens.
The HBD movement needs to express this truth in political terms. To wit: if you want America to uphold the integrity of the environment as the undertaking of a civilization, then you need to maintain the traditional and physical identity of this country as a core Germanic nation.
Thanks, Steve, for publishing an article on this topic. Yes, there is a tendancy to buy a large vehicle, as well as to live in a large house in the 'urbs. There is also the high birth rate of illegal immigrants. Birth rate in California for these population tends to be higher than in the country of origin due to better health care, child care and other forms of assistance than the country.
On top of that, you can add the fact that illegal immigrants tend to have few resources to contribute toward the maintenance of our public lands. I've more than once been at a state park beach and seen a large Latino family scouring the beach for undersize crabs and other shell fish. It's probably no coincidence that the abalone is endandered in California.
Californians for Population Stabilization is a strong advocate on the environmental impact of illegal immigration:
capsweb.org.
They have many very well researched statistics which show that the per capita environmental footprint of illegal immigrants quickly reaches or exceeds that of American citizens.
Thanks,
pd in sf
Anonymous said..."Is it more comprehensive to say the more populated this country is, the more carbon emissions?
Illegal immigrant or not."
Not really. It's tautological and, frankly, idiotic. It should have been obvious to you that Steve is talking about a question of type, not degree. Illegal immigrants have a higher birth rate than American whites and contribute fewer taxes. So there's an increase in carbon emissions without a corresponding increase in funds to deal with them. So the type of person who's an illegal immigrant could be said to be more of a problem re carbon emissions.
And..."A pretty idiotic post by you, btw."
Oh, yes, and you'd be a good judge of what's idiotic, wouldn't you?
... since China's rise also represents a billion people in the process of moving from the third world to the first world.
And a billion or so precious souls consuming scarce natural resources, further polluting planet Earth, and competing with Europe and the USA for natural resources ...
meaning war with China some time in the future.
The Rev. Malthus was basically k-rect.
On a lighter note, fellow iStevies ought to take a look at a pic of Chelsea Clinton's new hubby:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1299218/Chelsea-Clinton-Wedding-First-glimpse-fashion.html
The two are obviously meant for each other.
Is it more comprehensive to say the more populated this country is, the more carbon emissions?
Not necessarily, but all other things being equal, yes.
Illegal immigrant or not.
Mexican-Americans have high fertility rates. Illegal immigration and Hispanic fertility are the only significant drivers of population growth in the United States.
Another Inconvenient Truth for the Left: if America is such an awful racist place where the white man always got his boot on da brutha's neck, why do so many browns come here and thrive?
Steve,
Please tell me this had something to do with what I wrote here. It would really make my day.
Or perhaps the thought was just in the air and I caught it a day early?
Leftists don't seriously believe in global warming just like they don't seriously believe in the blank slate egalitarianism they preach.
Putting aside the issue of immigration, if the Left seriously believed in global warming, they would be pushing for sanctions against China which is now the world's biggest CO2 emitter.
Leftists don't seriously believe in any of the principles they pretend to espouse. It's just a matter of moral preening.
JMHO
The problem with this analysis is that the current abhorrence of carbon may very well reverse. Carbon in the atmosphere may soon be regarded as a good thing. The fear of carbon dioxide is a recent phenomenon based on the proposition that it is a greenhouse gas and we should fear global warming - very doubtful propositions.
No one denies that CO2 is the "green" gas. That is to say there will be more greenery - crops, forests, and weeds - when there is more carbon in the atmosphere. In a world with ever more mouths to feed, more crops is a good thing.
The globe used to have more CO2 in the atmosphere - much, much more. At the time of the Carboniferous Era there was about ten times as much CO2 around in the air. Over time most of that carbon was naturally sequestered into oil, coal, and gas. CO2 levels dropped in the Pleistocene. Had this process continued all photosynthesis would have stopped. Luckily man arose and began returning carbon to the atmosphere - something no other species or natural process could do.
Man evolved in this the fourth great ice age. The "normal" temperature of Earth is quite warm. Ice ages are the exception. There have only been four in the last half billion years. So if CO2 in the atmosphere leads to more warmth that would be "natural".
Alas our ice age is periodic. We alternate warm and cold periods of about one hundred thousand cold years with ten thousand warm years. We are near the end of our interglacial warm period. The last such interglacial - the Eemian - was warmer than this the Holocene interglacial. So there is some reason to expect it to get a bit warmer yet but then it gets much, much colder. That means a mile of ice on New York City and Chicago.
No climatologist doubts that the ice will return although many doubt that we truly understand the process. There are problems with the prevailing Milankovitch Cycle theory.
There was a recent science fiction novel by Niven and Pournelle called Fallen Angels in which as the ice advanced, people were encouraged to burn as much fossil fuel as possible so as to get some green house warming.
It's nice to imagine that there could be an effective human response to the coming giant ice sheets, but a lot of climatologists and physicists now believe that green house warming from carbon is nonlinear and that the carbon spectrum is currently saturated so that more carbon won't produce any more warming. Maybe so, maybe not. It hardly matters.
There was another set of articles in the press last week about some little island sinking beneath the rising waters. That's probably just not true, but even if it is, so what? If the world gets warmer, humans will have more habitable land not less. One third of the former Soviet Union was above the arctic circle. Look at a map. There's a lot of Canada that is frozen. Almost all Canadians live within a few miles of the US border. If the world did actually get warmer human habitable areas would more than double at least in the Northern Hemisphere.
Albertosaurus
"greening of hate"
Yet when hate is "greened" by tying xenophobic anti-Western sentiment to Western "degradation of the environment" and "overconsumption", there is an eerie, yet utterly expected silence. The "greening" of Third World resentment (and xenophobia to Western culture - the mainstay of environmentalism) is rarely opposed.
....
Anyway, with regard to this, frankly, drop a rock, it'll hit the ground. It's not mysterious. Bring large masses of people to your country to sell them stuff for them to consume and consumption will increase.
Whether you ultimately decide that this is still right anyway (presumably as by doing this while reducing taking measures to reduce consumerism we can have a "fairer" distribution of resources) or wrong (either because a) we have no obligations to set policy such that foreigners have more stuff, if especially it means we have less and the current distribution of stuff is basically fair as it is or b) it's not plausible that we can reduce consumption to offset immigration and population growth - both of which I basically agree with), you have to consider the basic fact of the matter.
i posted about this in 2008 when oil was $140 per barrel, except i framed it as a question for the energy department.
every, EVERYBODY, had some armchair idea for how to make gasoline cost less. $4 per gallon, it's an outrage, we should (fill in the blank with some idea cooked up after thinking about the topic for 5 whole minutes).
if the oil import bill is high now, how much higher does it get every year after another 1 million mexicans come into the US and begin using gasoline at the rate which americans use it?
how many additional millions of barrels of oil PER DAY must the US import in, say, in 2020, after allowing mexicans to cross the border at will for over 30 years?
Great posting and so true.
I also second elvisD's comment. Many of the rougher, farther-out enviros of decades past were pretty harsh and no-compromise about population growth and mass immigration. It was only in the '80s and '90s that the great part of the green movement became genteel, D.C.-ish, and Democratic-Party-subservient and gave up the cause.
Edward Abbey had a lot of harsh (and provocative and amusing) things to say:
http://www.abbeyweb.net/
http://home2.btconnect.com/tipiglen/abbey.html
John Tanton, Mr. Anti-Immigration and Zero Population Growth himself, started off as a conservationist:
http://tinyurl.com/2925ywn
Technical difficulty, so retrying (hope this isn't a duplicate):
One might ask: if 70% of the populace is opposed to open borders, why do they continue to support open borders politicians? (e.g. Tancredo got no traction in the primaries).
The answer is that the imported populations brought in by open borders are on the same side as “the people” where it counts: they help push socialism “over the top” electorally. The people may be 70%+ for border security, but they're for other stuff first: Free Stuff. Sort of like how everyone wants to be lean (and the path to get there is known), but a large % of the population is overweight/obese (eating junk food matters more). The candidates offering the most Other People’s Money will inherently be pro open borders, as large-scale immigration of socialist-leaning populations supplies a voting demographic which effectively guarantees steady and lucrative lifetime employment for such politicians. Think you can defeat open borders without defeating socialism? Think again.
Blog challenge to other bloggers/commenters: instead of just complaining, how about coming up with specific workable strategies for beating open borders+ socialism?
This concept (creating infighting amongst the left on two issues they care about) is along the right lines, but the problem with just going the global warming vs. open borders route is that in the moral hierarchy of leftism, open borders generally wins. As a former leftist I can attest that being left wing is only partly about positive feelings (e.g. caring about the environment), and much more so about negative ones (e.g. getting one over on those “dumb flyover staters”). If you want leverage over people, you have to push the button on what they care about most: even more so than moral superiority, most people care about their money (benefits/entitlements etc, including many throughout the middle class). For the right to win, it must be perceived as a better money-provider than the left- and this doesn’t necessarily mean being more socialist than the left, just more clever in some ways. Will explain further in an upcoming blog post.
Sometime in the early 90's, I went to an Earth Day gathering (event? party? I don't know) in Santa Barbara, the city who's oil spill started the whole thing. Much of the city is what is commonly described as "limousine liberals." That group clearly dominates political environmentalism today. But they appear not to have latched onto it yet, in the early 90's. On that Earth Day, I saw about 80 booths, almost entirely staffed with traditional hippies. MOST displayed signs opposing immigration, based on Steve's reasoning. For many, reducing immigration was the entirety of their message.
I was at that same Earth Day event this year, again in Santa Barbara. It's grown to closer to 1000 booths, mostly selling quasi-environmentalist consumer goods. (hemp clothing, electric bikes, etc.) The only mentions of immigration were repeated complaints about the soon to be signed (at the time) immigration bill in Arizona. Several booths sold t-shirts and bumper stickers deriding Arizona as "racist."
The bottom line is, environmentalism has sold out to consumerism. The public face of the movement, at least, has become little more than an ad campaign for companies with the "correct" political positions. And of course, anti-immigration isn't one of those "correct" positions.
The green reaction to these immigration issues simply lays bare the fact that 'greenness' is not a science for these people - it is a religion: A New Age sort of religion in which the main goal is to make you feel good about yourself and to bask in the approval of your peers. SWPL Open-borders folks also get to feel warm and fuzzy because they are helping the down-trodden brown person (but hell, screw those poor 'prole' whites and blacks who are taking the brunt of the Mexican invasion). The (mostly) urban whites may also get all self-congratulatory over being among the 'cognitive elite' who believe in Global Warming.
The point that all three articles of faith are the 'Holy Trinity' for these folk and no appealing to reason or data will shake their faith.
They are the new 'Creationists'.
"I saw that headline too and thought for a moment that the enviro left had gotten a clue and was sadly, sadly let down once I read."
Don't worry, lots of people get it. The membership of the Sierra Club gets it. However, the leadership has been blackmailed into silence by a very large donor (David Gelbaum) who has said he'll pull his support if the SC ever comes out against immigration (implying that going back to its historic ZPG position is a no-no). Schmuel Goldberg above seems to be in the Gelbaum camp.
If you want more than you ever wanted to read on the subject, read Al Bartlett.
And let's not forget "Albertosaurus" above:
"The globe used to have more CO2 in the atmosphere - much, much more. At the time of the Carboniferous Era there was about ten times as much CO2 around in the air."
The Sun also brightens at about 1% per 100 million years, so the decrease in CO2 with time is necessary to keep a steady temperature. In another 500 million years there will be no margin left, and Earth will go into a wet greenhouse state and then follow along the route travelled by Venus.
"There's a lot of Canada that is frozen. Almost all Canadians live within a few miles of the US border."
Most of the rest of Canada has thin, poor soils which won't yield much even if they thaw.
"The bottom line is, environmentalism has sold out to consumerism."
Agreed.
As an early contributor to Greenpeace, I'd agree.
Someone who is a key player in the Sierra Club recently told me that they dare not mention the population/immigration issue as they believe it will affect their donor base.
I make a point now of telling environmental groups that approach me for donations to tell them they will not get a penny out of me until they speak out openly about the impact of unfettered and uncontrolled immigration. I'm not holding my breath.
The turning point, where environmental groups backed aware from the immigration issue, was in about 2000. Sometime close to when David Brower died.
Complete sellout.
-pd in sf
Blog challenge to other bloggers/commenters: instead of just complaining, how about coming up with specific workable strategies for beating open borders+ socialism?
Frame genocidal levels of immigration as criminal.
Apprehend and prosecute perpetrators.
Do you have much on this year's Russian crop failures?
Hoosiernorm
"Whether you ultimately decide that this is still right anyway...you have to consider the basic fact of the matter"
Or stated another way - basically, you can pick any two of these: growing or at least nondeclining prosperity for Americans measured through consumption/growing prosperity for would be immigrants measured through growing consumption/lower CO2 emissions from reduced consumption. You cannot pick all three. If you're telling Americans that you think all three can happen, then you're probably bullshitting or possibly even lying.
Seeing that people are connecting some dots, the SPLC had to issue another report: “Greenwash: Nativists, Environmentalism and the Hypocrisy of Hate.”
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2010/07/27/new-splc-report-nativists-and-the-environmental-movement/
@pd in sf - just joined CAPS. Thanks - I didn't know about this organization before.
Yes I've seen the 2 other mentions of the Sierra Club but, I wanted to add that it was a big controversy, dunno when. I don't know whether being anti-immigration was ever the official line but, there was mainstream news about it (perhaps being debated, only) at least (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Club - place to start, at least). The Sierra Club got it, and got politically-corrected out of it.
Liberals have a hierarchy of values. Their global project of turning brown skinned people into Oreos trumps their concerns about the environment.
My best guess is that the median illegal immigrant will do well enough to buy a big vehicle with spinning rims on credit, without ever making enough to pay enough taxes to make himself a net benefit.
You're engaging in static analysis here - making the same sort of assumptions which caused the Great Recession, such as the idea that 10 million new Americans will produce as much as what 10 million current Americans produce. Not if most of them are a nearly a full standard deviation lower in intelligence. Not if over a third of them can't even finish high school.
The US's per capita use of fossil fuels, and therefore carbon emissions, is about to fall considerably. If something can't continue forever, it won't.
Burning through $1.5 trillion annually in foreign money, the US still has a long way to fall.
What passes for environmentalism is no more than hatred of the peoples who had the know-how and discipline to industrialize their societies. Anyone pointing out needless pollution in nonindustrial societies, such as the ridiculously poor diet cattle and buffalo are fed in the Third World (leading to significantly greater carbon emitted per gallon of milk produced), is called a hater.
Hate is only "hate" when directed at non-whites. When directed at whites, it is "progress".
My best guess is that the median illegal immigrant will do well enough to buy a big vehicle with spinning rims on credit, without ever making enough to pay enough taxes to make himself a net benefit.
Back during the McCain/Kennedy nightmare, in the spring of 2007, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, named Robert Rector, actually ran the numbers, and they are pretty horrifying - the burden imposed by the Central American aboriginals actually INCREASES [from $19,588 to $22,449 per family per year] as they move out of the underground economy and are mainstreamed into the welfare state:
The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Immigrants to the U.S. Taxpayer
by Robert Rector and Christine Kim
May 21, 2007
heritage.org
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: ...A household's net fiscal deficit equals the cost of benefits and services received minus taxes paid. When the costs of direct and means-tested benefits, education, and population-based services are counted, the average low-skill household had a fiscal deficit of $19,588 (expenditures of $30,160 minus $10,573 in taxes)....
The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Households to the U.S. Taxpayer
April 4, 2007
by Robert Rector, Christine Kim and Shanea Watkins, Ph.D.
heritage.org
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: ...A household’s net fiscal deficit equals the cost of benefits and services received minus taxes paid. If the costs of direct and means-tested benefits, education, and population-based services alone are counted, the average low-skill household had a fiscal deficit of $22,449 (expenditures of $32,138 minus $9,689 in taxes)...
Not if most of them are a nearly a full standard deviation lower in intelligence. Not if over a third of them can't even finish high school.
It's much worse than a full standard deviation - Lynn & Vanhanen guesstimate an average IQ for Guatemala of 79, which I think is probably fairly typical of the Mexican/Guatemalan/El Salvadoran aboriginals which we have been getting as illegal aliens these last several decades.
Also, it's much worse than a "third" as regards high school graduation:
LOSING OUR FUTURE: How Minority Youth Are Being Left Behind by the Graduation Rate Crisis
National Graduation Rates By Race and Gender
[PDF, page 6; text, page 2]
urban.org
American Indian/AK Nat, FEMALE: 51.4%
American Indian/AK Nat, MALE: 47.0%
Hispanic, FEMALE: 58.5%
Hispanic, MALE: 48%
Black, FEMALE: 56.2%
Black, MALE: 42.8%
EngineerPoet, Fellow Traveller in Berkeley, and Kiss the Goat:
So nice to know you're out there.
It's unfortunate that the Sierra Club is beholden to such a narrow interest. I appreciate the references and comments. (This further illuminates what I had guessed at.)
I managed to catch the new executive director of the Sierra club when he was interviewed on NPR radio's Forum, about six months ago. I asked him point blank about the Sierra Club's position on population growth and immigration. He seemed to be quite flustered and responded with a vague statement about the "carrying capacity" of developing countries. He carefully steered the issue away from California or the US. So I don't expect things at the Sierra Club to change soon.
Recently, I've run across Sierra Club statements that say that the world could support a population of about 40 billion. Really? Terrifying that such a formerly stalwart orgainization could be so easily co opted.
In addition to Californians for Population Stabilization, I'm impressed with the pragmatic efforts that Pathfinders International has made to assist women in gaining access to healthcare.
Best to you all.
pd in sf
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