March 14, 2013

Bill McKibben: The government must elect a new people now -- for the climate

Bill McKibben, prominent ecological activist and professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, writes in the L.A. Times:
Immigration reform -- for the climate 
Immigrants come to the U.S. determined to make a new life. So often they're more open to the kind of changes we'll need to deal with climate change. 
By Bill McKibben   
For environmentalists, population has long been a problem. Many of the things we do wouldn't cause so much trouble if there weren't so many of us. It's why I wrote a book some years ago called "Maybe One: An Argument for Smaller Families." Heck, it's why I had only one child. 
And many of us, I think, long viewed immigration through the lens of population; it was another part of the math problem. I've always thought we could afford historical levels of immigration, but I understood why some other environmentalists wanted tougher restrictions. More Americans would mean more people making use of the same piece of land, a piece that was already pretty hard-used. 
In recent years, though, the math problem has come to look very different to me. It's one reason I feel it's urgent that we get real immigration reform, allowing millions to step out of the shadows and on to a broad path toward citizenship. It will help, not hurt, our environmental efforts, and potentially in deep and powerful ways. 
One thing that's changed is the nature of the ecological problem. Now that global warming is arguably the greatest danger we face, it matters a lot less where people live. Carbon dioxide mixes easily in the atmosphere. It makes no difference whether it comes from Puerto Vallarta or Portland. 
It's true that the typical person from a developing nation would produce more carbon once she adopted an American lifestyle,

The average Mexican in Mexico emits 22% as much carbon per capita as the average resident of America, and Mexico is, by Third World standards, a fairly affluent, car-crazy country that subsidizes gasoline prices. People in Central American countries emit substantially less carbon per capita than Mexicans.

Either illegal aliens and their descendants, are going to fail to assimilate economically to America, which means they and their's will be a net tax burden, or they will assimilate economically and emit vastly more carbon than if they had stayed in their own country. Which is it?
but she also probably would have fewer children.

That's 180 degrees backwards. The total fertility rate for Mexicans-born women in America has been higher than for Mexican women in Mexico for several decades now. The birthrate is extremely high for new immigrant women in the years right after they arrive in America. Thus, during the big Housing Bubble influx of immigrants, the TFR of foreign-born Hispanic women in California was 3.7 in 2005. The TFR in Mexico is 2.32. One reason Mexicans move to the United States, besides their hopes of buying V8 vehicles and big houses with airconditioning, is to have the extra babies they can't afford to have in their own country.
A December report from the Pew Research Center report showed that birthrates in the U.S. were dropping faster among Mexican American women and women who immigrated from Mexico than among any other group.

That's because immigration has been way down because of the lack of jobs in America for the last half decade (although I see a lot of construction projects underway, again). The 1986 amnesty caused a huge Hispanic baby boom from 1988-1994.
This is a trend reflected among all Latinas in the U.S. As an immigrant mother of two from the Dominican Republic told the New York Times: "Before, I probably would have been pressured to have more, [but] living in the United States, I don't have family members close by to help me, and it takes a village to raise a child. So the feeling is, keep what you have right now." Her two grandmothers had had a total of 27 children. The carbon math, in other words, may well be a wash.

The total fertility rate in the Dominican Republic is down to 2.58, which is no higher than the immigrant Hispanic TFR in the U.S., even during this lull. And Dominicans in the DR only emit 11% as much carbon per capita as the average inhabitant of this country.
... And that's precisely where white America has fallen short. Election after election, native-born and long-standing citizens pull the lever for climate deniers, for people who want to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, for the politicians who take huge quantities of cash from the Koch brothers and other oil barons.

For white liberals, immigration is all about electing a new people to defeat white conservatives. They don't actually believe the immigrants are real human being with real behaviors that will make a difference for the environment. They're just notional tokens to be used to defeat the Real Enemy.
By contrast, a 2012 report by the Sierra Club and the National Council of La Raza found that Latinos were eager for environmental progress. Seventy-seven percent of Latino voters think climate change is already happening, compared with just 52% of the general population; 92% of Latinos think we have "a moral responsibility to take care of God's creation here on Earth."

Oh, boy ...

Even though McKibben lives in Vermont, he has no excuse to be this disingenuous about the environmental behavior of Latinos, especially illegal aliens. See this Los Angeles Times article about how they treat a mountain stream in Southern California.

Further, former Mexican foreign secretary Jorge Castaneda's most recent book pointed out that his countrymen in Mexico have zero interest in environmentalist lifestyles. They hate taking public transportation, they hate living in apartment buildings, their strongest desires are to get a single family house out in the sprawl with a bunch of big cars.
... But immigrants, by definition, are full of hope. They've come to a new place determined to make a new life, risking much for opportunity. They're confident that new kinds of prosperity are possible. The future beckons them, and so changes of the kind we'll need to deal with climate change are easier to conceive.

Embarrassing ...
Republicans think immigrants are a natural fit for their party, and I hope they're at least partly right — some force needs to help ease the Republicans out of their love affair with ideology and back into a relationship with reality. As commentator Bill O'Reilly put it as he watched Mitt Romney lose despite gaining a huge majority of white votes, "it's not a traditional America anymore." 
He's right. And for the environment, that's good news. We need immigrants to this nation engaged in public life, as soon and as fully as possible. It's not just the moral thing to do, it's a key to our future. 
Bill McKibben is the founder of 350.org and a professor at Middlebury College.

From the Wikipedia article on Middlebury, Vermont:
The racial makeup of the town was 94.27% White, 1.09% Black or African American, 0.28% Native American, 1.87% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.66% from other races, and 1.81% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.13% of the population. 

McKibben lives as far from Mexican immigrants as he can get in the continental U.S. Perhaps there is a political lesson for us all in his behavior.

Moreover, there's the Central Paradox of American Politics: Mexicans do better under a Texas-style pro-development state than under a California-style anti-development state.

Environmentalism is expensive. Generally, expensive things are nicer than cheap things, so what's super-nice is being able to afford nice things. Having a highly skilled population of limited size helps afford nice things like environmentalism. Having a giant population of lower average skills makes it harder to afford environmentalism. This is all really obvious if you think about it from a non-Who? Whom? perspective.

85 comments:

Anonymous said...

I live in Texas. I think I will retire to his little Vermont town. Y'all come too and we will turn it red.

FredR said...

That's one of the iSteveiest articles I've ever seen.

Anonymous said...

It seems that the PC, multicult religion is just as whacked out as the Christianity it replaced. Actually less. One cannot prove that the Christian god does not exist. The bible may be incorrect on some details, but there is no way to invalidate the existence of an invisible, omnipotent being.

OTOH, belief in PC requires a complete aversion to easily demonstrable facts, as this fisking amply demonstrates. Would it have been so difficult for this writer to maybe, I dunno, google as he types? Is it really that hard? It is if you want to stay true to The Narrative, I guess.

Anonymous said...

Hey libertarians, the environmentalists and statists believe that if they legalize the illegals then they'll be able to pass cap-and-trade and other various money transfer program.

Please, convince me that they're wrong.

The libertartian endgame on free migration is the end of all nations... please libertarians, how is that indistinguishable from marxism?

Please libertarians, please explain how libertarianism isn't just as sociobiologically foolish as marxism(which persecuted biologists who believed in genetics)? Is atomism really the anecdote for totalism.

Please libertarians, explain to me how western nations(US, Canada, France, UK, etc, etc ... hey Caplan, it's happening to the right in every western country) don't have a "race" problem when it comes to democracy... and please explain how free migration won't be the end of western civilization if western civilization doesn't give up on democracy.

The West is being raped by myopic capitalists money-worshippers and bureaucratic cultural marxist "other" worshipers.

What pisses me off the most about young and new "libertarians" is that so many of them are conservatives and traditionalists who have been PC-whipped to do the lefts bidding... all they care about is money yet it eventually will be taken away from them too.

Anonymous said...

McKibben's dailykooks rants are insane. Anyone aligned with him is a fool or worse.

Anonymous said...

"It's one reason I feel it's urgent that we get real immigration reform, allowing millions to step out of the shadows and on to a broad path toward citizenship. It will help, not hurt, our environmental efforts, and potentially in deep and powerful ways."

Camp of the Saints super liberal left
caricature alert!

AmericanGoy said...

"It's one reason I feel it's urgent that we get real immigration reform, allowing millions to step out of the shadows and on to a broad path toward citizenship. It will help, not hurt, our environmental efforts, and potentially in deep and powerful ways."

Camp of the Saints super liberal left
caricature alert!

Ray Sawhill said...

What a dope McKibben is. For a refreshing reminder that not all enviros are bleeding-hearted idiots, here's a little something from Edward Abbey.

Anonymous said...

The MSM is just a tsunami of insanity and lies.

Automatic_Wing said...

The Sierra Club and the Council of La Raza, eh? Strange bedfellows indeed.

Alden said...

"It's one reason I feel it's urgent that we get real immigration reform, allowing millions to step out of the shadows and on to a broad path toward citizenship."

"But immigrants, by definition, are full of hope. They've come to a new place determined to make a new life, risking much for opportunity. They're confident that new kinds of prosperity are possible."

... Michael Gerson? Is that you?

Anonymous said...

Wow, that's almost surreally bad reasoning. How can this dude be a professor.

Dennis Dale said...

There is method to his madness. He won't say it outright, but knee-jerk Democratic votes, he presumes, will bring liberal Democratic policies including, presumably, environmental ones.

Perhaps he even understands the contradiction--high immigration into America = higher carbon emissions---but figures once the electoral die is cast and the one-party future arrives, leaving Republicans and carbon skeptics out in the cold, they can then furiously legislate away all those cars and all that sprawl, cramming us into increasingly miserable cities.

Of course, they don't realize their immigration policies make their "sustainability" goals virtually impossible.
They're counting on bringing in about a 100 million more people over the next couple of decades. Where do they plan to put them? In Cabrini Green-like high-rises in the cities, I imagine.
It's a kind of madness.

Anonymous said...

Too bad he had ANY children. I'd love for his genes to be lost to history. Well, I can look at the bright side: only one child means only half his genes survive a bit longer.

William said...

I've heard similar arguments emanating from those who believe that opposition to empire is the supreme good. Scott Mcconnell of The American Conservative has argued that multiculturalism is, ultimately, a good thing because immigrants are less likely to support a neoconservative foreign policy.

Environmentalism, anti-imperialism---is there nothing that the dissolution of a people through mass immigration can't accomplish?

Harry Baldwin said...

Speaking of editorials in the LA Times, this recent one was so off the charts it reads like a parody of the white-hating liberal:


Peril From 'Patriots'


"There are, in increasingly frightening numbers, cells of angry men in the United States preparing for combat with the U.S. government. They are usually heavily armed, blinded by an intractable hatred, often motivated by religious zeal.

"They're not jihadists. They are white, right-wing Americans, nearly all with an obsessive attachment to guns, who may represent a greater danger to the lives of American civilians than international terrorists.

"The Southern Poverty Law Center, which has been tracking hate groups for 30 years, released its latest report on the growth of these organizations this week. Its findings were, to say the least, alarming. . . "

The SPLC found straight white goyim males alarming? That IS a startling new development.

Vermont pretzel said...

When I saw this headline today I thought it was refreshing to see one of them admit it really is only about political power, actual environmentalism being a remote secondary concern. Eyes on the prize. As for one-child policy even McKibben must realize at this point that its only observed practitioners are the bourgeois races, i.e. whitefolk and Far Easterners; last time I even heard ZPG mentioned it was one of the old "Brady Bunch" cast playing on a Regis Philbin game show for that charity(?). If good times ever return as neo-Keynesian gospel predicts, the Dominican-mom equivalent of Greg Packer may then find the transfer-state village more to her liking. Look before you leap, enviros.

Cail Corishev said...

but she also probably would have fewer children

This is the kind of stereotyping that would get them fired for racism if they did it in the other direction. This is an example of what I was talking about in another thread: they have an image of Mexicans that's at least a century out of date -- of devout, virtuous Catholics having huge families of hard-working goatherds living close to the land. Incredibly condescending, of course, but PC condescension is okay.

Alcalde Jaime Miguel Curleo said...

Middlebury-Burlington area is actually a helluva nice place to live, if you can handle the seasonal thing of course. It's why the old New York City WASP upper class thought it a congenial place to send their dumber progeny for schooling/socialization

J. Bevington Taliaferro said...

Those imbeciles at the so-called "American Conservative" showed this same kind of mental pathology in their recent story about how we need to frantically celebrate and import millions of third-world savages as soon as possible because it appears that they just might be anti-war; that is anti-neoCon.

That's all very well. I hate the invade the world idiots too, but we don't destroy our country so that we can win elections. It's just another example of Whites trying to figure out a way for our little brown and black brothers to save us from ourselves.

Anonymous said...

I never read such bizarro "logic" in all my life. From ANY ecological perspective FEWER people is better.

Note too how this hypocrite lives in an area of the USA that is almost immune to immigration and illegals. Just once i wish a liberal would practice what they preach and live in an overwhelmingly non-white area.

Anonymous said...

Anyone who doubts Mexicans' commitment to clean air ought to visit their capital city.

Seriously, whom does the guy think he's fooling? Did McKibben receive his marching orders via some blanket journolist memo--or just a lose a bar bet--requiring him to write the most strained ComprehensiveImmigrationReform op-ed yet?

Anonymous said...

That recent study done with the Latinos on the subway would predict that McKibben's attitudes would change if he was around immigrants.

Anonymous said...

"For white liberals, immigration is all about electing a new people to defeat white conservatives".

I guess it never occurs to them that those colored immigrants may ever get some ideas of their own. Ideas like 'what do we need these white liberals for'? To me it is a strange mixture of naivety and arrogance for them to think they can always control these newcomers. Remember some Indian tribes on the east coast welcomed the early French and English settlers. They wanted to trade with them to obtain guns to use against other Indian tribes they had long standing animosities with. Likewise many Indian tribes aided Cortez in his conquest of Mexico. That worked out great for them, didn't it?

It reminds me of that movie Cabaret. Although a generally lightweight movie with many song and dance routines, there is one genuinely eerie scene. It is a lovely summer day and Brian Roberts (Michael York) is at a beautiful Bavarian beer garden with Maximilian Von Heune. The latter is a very wealthy industrialist who welcomes and supports the Nazi rise to power because he wants to see communists and socialists destroyed in Germany. He scornfully dismisses the Nazis as "goons" and continually assures Roberts the German economic elites like himself can "control" them.

Suddenly a strikingly handsome blonde German youth in an S.A. outfit gets up and sings in a wonderful voice this very inspiring and beautiful song about the great future ahead for Germany, (under the Nazis of course). By the end of the song practically the whole crowd is standing and singing alongside him. Hitler salutes are then raised in the air. As Roberts and Von Heune leave, he turns to him in a somber tone and says "you still think you can control them"? It is a genuinely disquieting scene.

Anonymous said...

J. Bevington Taliaferro said..

"..we don't destroy our country so that we can win elections."

Well the Labour party in Great Britain does.

The Liberal party in Canada does.

The Democratic party in America does.

Its an easy strategy and it works. So long as you have no conscience, morals or values. And you lack a long term outlook and have no historic sense.

Anonymous said...

Just how important is environmentalism to Latinos anyways? Is it a major political issue in Mexico? Are there big 'Green' parties there like in Europe? My personal assessment of the average Mexican I see is that this is something they could care less about.

jody said...

do liberals even realize a republican president created the EPA.

it was a CONSERVATIVE who created the EPA, NOT a liberal. mainly, to clean up the air in his native california. and it worked.

i seriously, seriously doubt more than 5% of liberals even know that. i have never, ever, EVER seen a discussion about this. not once.

all i see is drooling from uninformed, intellectually dishonest liberals whenever this topic comes up. their main mental function today seems to be to direct hate towards european americans who vote R. that's about it. that's almost the grand total of what liberals bring to the table.

Dennis Dale said...

that movie Cabaret. Although a generally lightweight movie...

How dare you sir! There's nothing lightweight about that masterpiece.
But the analogy is apt.

The song is "Tommorrow belongs to Me"
http://youtu.be/LNMVMNmrqJE

¡mañana me pertenece!

Dennis Dale said...

something they could care less about.

you mean something they could not care less about

not a quibble.

Anonymous said...

This is crap. It is bad enough that the environmentalists have gone MIA on the issue of immigration due to their concern about the 'Greening of Hate', yes you can google that term, and the Sierra Club's acceptance of $100 million from David Gelbaum to take a dive.

Remaining silent on this issue while the environment is degraded is one thing, but coming out with a disingenuous argument that actually exacerbates the negative consequences to the environment is quite another.

If this doesn't show that protecting the environment is not at the top of their list, I don't know what will. Clearly all the conspiracy theories about leftists infiltrating the green movement and other causes is true. They are using these movements to further their leftwing agenda period. And if that means importing a new docile populace, then the environment be damned.

I've always wanted to find a situation to use this great quote from the Outlaw Josey Wales. I only wish I lived near Middlebury and could say it to this fellow in person.

ben tillman said...

The guy is a retard, and your critique treats him far too kindly.

The point isn't how many children immigrant women have, and it isn't how much CO2 immigrants use. The point is that their departure from their homelands makes room for more people in those countries, so that their home countries' CO2 production at least stays the same while that of the US necessarily increases.

The way to solve AGW (if it is actually happening) is to (1) limit the population and (2) limit each person's effect on the problem. And if you can't immediately limit the population for the entire territory of the earth, then obviously you at least impose limits on as much of it as you can.

That means BORDERS, enforced strictly, around the places where people can and do limit their birth rate.

jody said...

"I guess it never occurs to them that those colored immigrants may ever get some ideas of their own. Ideas like 'what do we need these white liberals for'?"

already happened in almost every democrat-machine city.

over the last 40 years, euro american liberals guided a coalition of africans, jews, homosexuals, mexicans, puerto ricans, and asians, to permanently defeat any conservative politics from conservative american politicians, and turn most of the largest american cities into permanent democrat majorities.

who is the mayor of new york city, chicago, los angeles, san francisco, philadelphia, washington DC, detroit? the european american liberals have trailed off demographically, and handed over control to the outsider groups of the democrat coalition, who are now in control of many major US cities, and run them for their own anti-american purposes.

during his presidency, bill clinton openly spoke about how the US was on track for this to happen, and that he hoped to live to see it occur. the college students he was addressing that day, applauded him. however, when it did happen, and the mulatto guy beat his wife for the top spot in the democrat party, he wasn't smiling. but he did live long enough to see the transfer of power happen, and he personally had a huge hand in making it happen. so there was some schadenfreude for us normal people in that event.

Anonymous said...

Loved your comments left on the Times, Steve. Bet the one about where McKibben lives, in the heart of no diversity, no vibrants, really frosted him.

ben tillman said...


OTOH, belief in PC requires a complete aversion to easily demonstrable facts, as this fisking amply demonstrates. Would it have been so difficult for this writer to maybe, I dunno, google as he types? Is it really that hard?

Google? To determine that more people means more carbon emissions?

Mr. Anon said...

McKibben is a J-school prof, so naturally he is an expert on global climate. Climate change is nothing more than a received religion to these chattering parasites who know nothing about anything useful.

As others have said, at least he only has one child. I hope that child is adopted.

eah said...

At least the LAT had the decency to publish this on the opinion page.

Anonymous said...

Dennis Dale said;

"How dare you sir! There's nothing lightweight about that masterpiece."

Yes of course. It is a magnificent film. What I actually meant was the 'lightweightedness' of the characters. The Ditzy singer Liza Minelli, the clueless German industrialist and that wacky over the top master of ceremonies. None of them seemed to have any idea what was happening all around them. The only guy who seemed to get it was Michael York's character. Note how he got out of Germany pronto too.

Anonymous said...

do liberals even realize a republican president created the EPA.

it was a CONSERVATIVE who created the EPA, NOT a liberal. mainly, to clean up the air in his native california. and it worked.


Ditto for Yellowstone National Park and a host of other parks as well.

SF said...

The Times took your suggestion and require a paid subscription. I suppose the only way to comment on this article would be to write McKibben at his website.

Anonymous said...

Maybe that Professor from Middlebury should read another Professor's personal account of California's Central Valley and the environmental stewardship of its new vibrant inhabitants.

California coastal elites may worry about the oxygen content of water available to a three-inch smelt in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, but they seem to have no interest in the epidemic dumping of trash, furniture, and often toxic substances throughout California’s rural hinterland. Yesterday, for example, I rode my bike by a stopped van just as the occupants tossed seven plastic bags of raw refuse onto the side of the road. I rode up near their bumper and said in my broken Spanish not to throw garbage onto the public road. But there were three of them, and one of me. So I was lucky to be sworn at only. I note in passing that I would not drive into Mexico and, as a guest, dare to pull over and throw seven bags of trash into the environment of my host.

Anonymous said...

I dont'w know if that is true Steve, the lowest poverty rates I saw on Mexicans were not in Texas but were in Riverside county. Also, Mexicans can afford to buy a house but over 53 percent of those in Texas on welfare are Mexicans similar to the 50 percent in California, so I don't know if Texas is better for Mexicans it seems to be better for Whites since Texas whites have low poverty rates than Mexican Texians have high poverty rates.

Anonymous said...

Also, Steve I have met plenty on the right that want to use Mexicans or hispanics for cheap labor and I have known people on the left oppose to illegals. I bet the usual white liberal in Vermont is more opposed than white liberal politicans same goes for white Republicans in South Carolina. Steve, the elite whether left or right is the enemy not liberal whites in general or rank and file conservatives.

ben tillman said...

I've heard similar arguments emanating from those who believe that opposition to empire is the supreme good. Scott Mcconnell of The American Conservative has argued that multiculturalism is, ultimately, a good thing because immigrants are less likely to support a neoconservative foreign policy.

That guy is incredibly confused. Immigration is one of the means to imperialism. If you have immigration, you already have imperialism.

When Steve says, "Invade the world, invite the world....", the second clause is redundant (though it is effective) in conveying the message. Immigration is simply the way that an empire invades the territory that it already purports to control.

stari_momak said...

Time to contact some refugee resettlement agencies and have them direct a flow to Middlebury.

farcical repetition said...

If we really want to get down to who's more Gaia-friendly, cons v. libs, let it be noted the American president most associated with natural preservation--no, not the EPA guy--was a Nobel-winning progressive Republican as well as a talented-if-windy literary stylist whose passel of populist policy positions would today be totally unwelcome to both editorial boards at the NY Times & Wall Street Journal. Reflect on that for a minute.

5371 said...

The TFRs given in sources like the CIA World "Fact"book are grossly exaggerated for many poorer countries. That of Mexico, for example, is far above 2.5, as a cursory examination of census results will indicate. So McKibben is righter than you about the change in Mexican fertility between their own country and the US. To say more precisely how right would require investigating the TFR in the regions of Mexico emigrants usually come from. But you seem to be much righter than him about the net consequences for CO2 emissions of their moving. Hard to see how the larger difference in per capita emissions would not outweigh the fertility gap. Again, a complicated prognosis to make in detail.

Anonymous said...

re: that Hanson article--horreur de litter does seem to be a peculiarly Californian thing. I drove through about 400 miles of west Texas and saw trash everywhere (frankly there's not much else to look at). And parts of I-95 ain't much better. Until reading it from Steve I had no idea that "Don't Mess" had originated as a trademarked slogan of TXDOT, to the surprise of everybody I've since told that. An anti-littering campaign becoming a 10th Amendment manifesto--there is indeed something comically Texan about that course of events.

Anonymous said...



















Also, Texas is doing worst on the poverty stats before they are adjusted for cost of living compared to Arizona. Arizona has only one real Metro Area Maricopia and a smaller one Pima. Texas is more urbanized and should be under the 15 percnet mark with all the oil money.









Anonymous said...

That Vic Hanson piece reminded me of the Caitlin Flanagan/Cesar Chavez piece linked here previously, for the historical sweep if not quite the same cutesy tone. The pre-immigration Central Valley of CA really does seem like a foreign country. What right to do we have to mock Detroit? Nobody I know in either L.A. or the Bay Area would go to Fresno willingly, or even Modesto (the inspiration for "American Graffiti"). Post-60s environmental stewardship in California seems to revolve around various factions of rich people inventing new ways to hassle each other.

Eastside School said...

If anyone wants to join Steve and I in commenting, it's just an email, password and screen name to register.

http://discussions.latimes.com/20/lanews/la-oe-mckibben-immigration-environment-20130314/10

ben tillman said...


it was a CONSERVATIVE who created the EPA, NOT a liberal. mainly, to clean up the air in his native california. and it worked.

Good Lord, 130 years ago Thorstein Veblen explained that environmentalism is a conservative thing. This is to be expected.

ben tillman said...

Just how important is environmentalism to Latinos anyways? Is it a major political issue in Mexico?

LMAO. I can't even remember whom I heard this from, so it was probably from both my wife and my one-time "girlfriend" who was in charge of putting V. Fox in power in Mexico, but when you fly over rivers down there you see diapers and shit (literally) floating downstream. Avoiding environmental degradation is not a priority.

alexis said...

He sees Mexicans like Mao saw his peasants- "a blank slate upon which the most beautiful characters can be written".

Modern Abraham said...

That's one of the iSteveiest articles I've ever seen.

Second that! Don't mean to sound like a total sycophant, but this one should go on the iSteve classics list. I don't know whether it's the thoroughness of the rebuttal, or its efficiency that is so amazing. He trashes his foil here more thoroughly than in VDare articles 10x as long.

I guess special recognition must be given to McKibben, though, Steve's "partner" in this dance. Steve couldn't have done it without you, Bill, so hats off for being such a spineless, craven, lying sack of shyte. I almost feel gratitude towards him. He's like the dumb, drunken ox who picks a fight with Bruce Lee and so lets the rest of us savor an exquisite display of martial arts skill. He's like the retarded shop class student who makes Jimmy Page a guitar out of cardboard and shoelaces and Jimmy still manages to get "Stairway to Heaven" out of it.

Anonymous said...

McKibben. A true Scots-Irish blockhead.

Anonymous said...

More frijoles = more methane. More methane = more greenhouse gas. More greenhouse gas = more global warming.

Nick Diaz said...

In other words, let's keep Mexicans in poverty so that we, the Americans, can pollute as much as we want. Carbon monoxide emissions will only become a problem for the planet if everyone else has the living standard that we, the Americans, have.

Sailer doesen't even realize how callous this post by his is: keep Mexicans out of America so that they can't get better jobs and afford cars to pollute so that we can continue to pollute with our big SUVs. In fact, Sailer doesen't care one bit about the environment: like I said before, he uses ANYTHING to justify stopping Latin American to the U.S.

Every time I think of Sailer, I am reminded of Marcus Licinius Crassus or Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars:

"We, the superior civilization, who are better than you..."(the foreigners)

This insufferable arrogance and sense of entitlement that Americans("we can pollute and enjoy a high stadard of living, but you can't because we are Americans and you are not") have is only really seen in movie super-villain types. I really think Americans should revise their way of thinking. You guys haven't been making many friends throughout the World in recent decades. And once you get hated enough, people will seek to hurt you despite how powerful you might be with no regard to what might happen to them. Change your attitude ASAP, for your own good. Or else.

Rob said...

Chinese anchor baby tourism.

Anonymous said...

Just posted a crap load of pictures on the comment board over there. We will see how long they stay up. This is my favorite:

http://westforksgrc.org/images/ANF_East_ForkPEOPLEallover.jpg

Especially in conjunction with this one from the same area:

http://westforksgrc.org/images/beachTrash3.JPG

Note the Bud Lite and the Cardenas bag. Must be those Claremont College kids again, trashing the wilderness!

Anonymous said...

Interesting stats housing more expensive in Arizona but higher more people own homes than Texas. Texas has a tougher lending law but Arizona mainly a rural state with only two real metro areas has sligthly higher income at 50,448 and poverty at 15.3 while Texas is only 49,646 and 16.8 poverty. Arizona passed more laws against hiring illegal immirgants, so the illegal population leaving California went to Texas instead of Arizona. Arizona probably got more of a gain of whites. In fact the Republicans should be pushing the record of Alaska income at 66,521 and poverty at 9.5 percent and Utah income at 56,330 and poverty at 10.8 percent instead of Texas. Texas is falling behind Arizona, Nevada income at 55,726 and poverty at 11.9 percent and Colorado at 56,456 and poverty at 12.2 percent and Utah. Two slightly blue states and two red states outperformed it in the region as unemployment is dropping in those states they continue to improve while Texas is stagant.

Anonymous said...

The author's twisted logic is nothing more than the liberal need for a self-righteous pat on the back trumping what should be legitimate concerns about an ever-increasing number of humans despoiling the earth and its resources.

Big Bill said...

"Suddenly a strikingly handsome blonde German youth in an S.A. outfit gets up and sings in a wonderful voice this very inspiring and beautiful song about the great future ahead for Germany, (under the Nazis of course). By the end of the song practically the whole crowd is standing and singing alongside him."

How odd. I last saw Cabaret in 1973, 40 years ago this year, only eight years after the Kennedy-Cellar immigration act had passed. Madison Wisconsin just got its first (1) Mexican restaurant. I was creeped out, too.

I watched the scene on Youtube just few minutes ago and my feelings had totally reversed. I felt a wistful longing for a more normal, less Cosmopolitan, less Multi-Cultural time.

I pray that the Germans rediscover the love of country, of blood of soil before it is too late.

And when that time comes (and I pray it comes soon), I hope the Germans have fortitude to do what has to be done.

The Germans would do well to copy the Jewish nation and its efforts to purify Israel in a humanitarian manner:

(1) Gradually increase the social pressure on aliens until many feel culturally isolated and forced to leave.
(2) Declare demographically threatened areas to be to be "occupied territories" and build walls around them with armed checkpoints at all entrances and exits.
(3) Establish systems of internal passports that identify nationality/ethnicity/religion and require everyone to always carry their pass with them.
(4) deny entry/exit to particular areas based on ethnicity/nationality/religion.

If you copy what the Jewish Nation does it will be politically difficult for your enemies to challenge your actions.

Automatic_Wing said...

Hey Nick Diaz, you better stop wasting time commenting here and get back to working out or Georges St Pierre is gonna destroy you, dude. Seriously, bro.

Cail Corishev said...

There is method to his madness. He won't say it outright, but knee-jerk Democratic votes, he presumes, will bring liberal Democratic policies including, presumably, environmental ones.

Exactly. Liberals are much better than conservatives at keeping their eye on the prize, and they know that they can't work toward that prize unless they're in power. With apologies to Futurama, their plan looks like this:

1. Take power
2. ?
3. Live in Utopia

They know that if they can accomplish #1, #3 is just a matter of time, because #2 is just minor details that they can surely work out because they're just so smart and pretty.

So it doesn't matter if they have to flood the country with unskilled mouths to feed and criminals, or if they have to subvert the voting process, or if they have to destroy the Constitution and the balance of power between the branches of government, or if all their efforts tank the economy. They can fix all that in step #2, no problem. But only if they get step #1 done first.

Caleo said...

The only positive side to the inanity of Bill McKibben is that the comments to the LATimes article are uniformly in disbelief that he can think anyone would take him seriously.
Our country is being destroyed by a cabal of, among others, ascetic neo-Puritans who self segregate in whitopias like rural Vermont and then lecture us about the wonders of large scale immigration and urban diversity.
If people like McKibben weren't doing so much damage, it might actually be funny.
It's hard to believe that he actually believes what he wrote.

Anonymous said...

Anyone else been to Middlebury? I suspect that those small fractions of NAMs are the students on the campus of Middlebury College. The town itself is one of the WASPyish I've ever been to. It's like watching an episode of Gilmore Girls... not that anyone else reading this blog ever watched Gilmore Girls...

alexis said...

let's keep Mexicans in poverty....

mr. Diaz, could you please explain exactly how we do that? I wan't aware of this. I'm all ears.

AMac said...

McKibben's beloved "Hockey Stick" portrait of Anthropogenic Global Warming took a beating during the ClimateGate scandal, and then again when skeptics were able to reverse-engineer the mathemagical sausage-making of leading peer-reviewed papers like Mann et al (PNAS, 2008).

But a truly Progressive narrative should never be allowed to die, so the Hockey Stick returned this month to Science magazine, accompanied by the cheers of McKibben's BFFs.

For a ringside seat to analyses of the science behind Marcott et al's paleoclimate reconstruction, tune into Steve McIntyre's recent posts at Climate Audit, e.g. No Uptick in Marcott Thesis.

Another 'tell' about how the Climate Science community values narrative over science.

Anonymous said...

Thick Diaz said..."This insufferable arrogance and sense of entitlement that Americans("we can pollute and enjoy a high stadard of living, but you can't because we are Americans and you are not...You guys haven't been making many friends throughout the World in recent decades. And once you get hated enough, people will seek to hurt you despite how powerful you might be with no regard to what might happen to them. Change your attitude ASAP, for your own good. Or else."

I actually laughed out loud at this one, thanks Nick.

You blather constantly about how much white Americans piss you off yet you still hang around, hoping we'll like you and your (frankly, inferior) brethren. Why don't you just go where there aren't white people? You remind of the dorky guys in high school that couldn't get any girls to go out with them so go mad at the girls and called them snobs and bitches. You whine ceaselessly about us not wanting you around but if we agreed to take you and view you as an equal, you'd jump all over it.

BrokenSymmetry said...

Nick Diaz said

"Carbon monoxide emissions will only become a problem for the planet...."

It's a heck of a difference between dio- and mono- and I don't think you'll get away claiming a typo. And if you really don't know the difference just stop commenting. Ever heard the saying of better being thought a fool than opening one's mouth and removing all doubt?

Anonymous said...

@ Nick Diaz

Carbon monoxide emissions will only become a problem for the planet if everyone else has the living standard that we, the Americans, have.

It is carbon DIOXIDE emissions, not monoxide.

Sailer doesen't even realize how callous this post by his is: keep Mexicans out of America so that they can't get better jobs and afford cars to pollute so that we can continue to pollute with our big SUVs

No one is saying that Mexicans should not get better jobs and be able to afford cars. In fact I have never heard one person here suggest that we prevent Mexico from raising its standard of living. Apparently you think that Mexicans are incapable of achieving any success unless they come to America. Why do you feel this way about Mexicans? Is there something innately wrong with them that we should be aware of?

In fact, Sailer doesen't care one bit about the environment: like I said before, he uses ANYTHING to justify stopping Latin American to the U.S.

Actually what Sailer pointed out in this post, and it is evidently clear by the the position taken by the Middlebury professor, is that it is in fact the other side that cares little for the environment and uses anything to justify grabbing political power. If that means importing Mexicans and stressing the environment, then so be it.

Your anger here is misdirected.

This insufferable arrogance and sense of entitlement that Americans("we can pollute and enjoy a high stadard of living, but you can't because we are Americans and you are not") have is only really seen in movie super-villain types. I really think Americans should revise their way of thinking. You guys haven't been making many friends throughout the World in recent decades. And once you get hated enough, people will seek to hurt you despite how powerful you might be with no regard to what might happen to them. Change your attitude ASAP, for your own good. Or else.

Interesting word choice in that you write it from the point of view of a non-American. I've always suspected your posts were a little different. Now I know you are a disgruntled, jealous foreigner.

Hunsdon said...

Nick Diaz: Change your attitude ASAP, for your own good. Or else.

Hunsdon: Oooh, internet tough guy.

Anonymous said...

To Nick Diaz;

Nobody want to "keep Mexicans in Poverty". We just want to keep them out of the USA and in Mexico where their own country is. That is a perfectly reasonable view to anyone but you and other Latino activists. In fact I would like Mexico to have a much higher standard of living. This would give Mexicans less incentive to invite themselves to the USA.

"He uses anything to justify stopping Latin American coming to the US."

HE DOESN'T HAVE TO "USE" ANYTHING AT ALL! There is no "RIGHT" for Mexicans or other Latins to come to America. Immigration is only a privilege. It is not a "right". IT IS YOU WHO NEED TO "JUSTIFY" your unwanted and illegal presence here, not Mr. Sailer.

It must really eat you up, Senor Diaz, that we just don't think it is just wonderful to have you in our country, doesn't it? What ingrates we are for not appreciating your "intellectuall superiority", huh?

Dennis Dale said...

I've heard similar arguments emanating from those who believe that opposition to empire is the supreme good. Scott Mcconnell of The American Conservative has argued that multiculturalism is, ultimately, a good thing because immigrants are less likely to support a neoconservative foreign policy

McConnel, McKibbon et al are oblivious to the reality that, as Derbyshire says, minorities don't matter--especially our congenitally apathetic Hispanics, who seem to carry in their DNA the same fatalism of their Aztec forebears. They make very good, or at least willing, Catholics for the same reason.

Saying they don't matter doesn't mean they won't tilt the scales, just that, as a group, they have no effective agency of their own; they will naturally fall in line with the Progressive/Corporate alliance that is taking shape in post-historical America.

This is why the Dems, the Chamber of Commerce and the Church love them so. They can be counted on to reward government handouts and dull demagogy with blind acquiescence.
Some are deluding themselves thinking they'll be turned by revulsion toward gay marriage or whatever subsequent degradation lies down the road. They don't care.
There is of course the problem with the initiative process, as demonstrated by Obama's massive anti-white turnout shooting down gay marriage in California. But that's what the judiciary is for, to negate such direct democracy on behalf of corporations and political power.
The left's strategy of electing a new dependent and dull people remains quite sound.

Anonymous said...

To Nick Diaz;

The way Mexico is and has been made by Mexicans is all the "justification" Sailer needs to want to stop Mexicans from coming here. The very fact that so many Mexicans LEAVE Mexico is the most damning fact against it. Obviously there must be something VERY WRONG with Mexico for so many Mexicans to want to flee from the place. If Mexico was a great country why would so many Mexicans want to leave it? This indicates there must be something wrong with Mexican themselves, with their society and cultural affinities. We don't want Mexicans to create Mexico HERE. It would be kind of like a guy in Japan looking at his country and seeing how safe, peaceful, clean and prosperous it is and then looking at a country like Jamaica, Pakistan, Cambodia, etc, and seeing the exact opposite and saying to himself, "I sure don't want those people here, creating those conditions here in Japan".

Anonymous said...

Mexican Green Party a criminal enterprise:

http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/nationworld/report/111011_mex_green_party/mexicos-not-so-green-green-party/

While green parties around the world are known for alternative ethical politics in favor of the environment, Mexico's own green party has gained a rather different reputation.

Following a new scandal over the lavish lifestyles of Mexican green party leaders, critics are accusing them of being political mercenaries with corrupt and cynical policies.

(...)

Anonymous said...

Did anyone do a GIS for Bill McKibben. Do yourself a favor and search him. Then imagine that guy trying to talk about environmental stewardship to a big group of la raza swilling Tecate while they load Mt. Baldy snow into the back of their V8 Rams.

Anonymous said...

Maybe we need a special visa program for descendants of Waffen SS exiles living in South America to get more competent hispanic leadership.

Anonymous said...

"mr. Diaz, could you please explain exactly how we do that? I wan't aware of this. I'm all ears. " - Isn't it obvious? Our dirt is what makes us wealthy, so letting the entire third world come here would make them all wealthy as well.

Mr. Anon said...

"Nick Diaz said...

Carbon monoxide emissions will only become a problem for the planet if everyone else has the living standard that we, the Americans, have."

It's carbon dioxide, nitwit. The stuff that makes your drink fizzy, not the stuff emitted by a broken furnace. Do tell us again, how much smarter than all the rest of us you are. Idiot.

"Every time I think of Sailer, I am reminded of Marcus Licinius Crassus or Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars:"

Yeah, I saw "Spartacus", too. It seems that you get your history - even fake history about the galactic empire - from movies. Yeah, you're a real intellectual titan.

"This insufferable arrogance and sense of entitlement that Americans....."

The only insufferable arrogance on display here is from your own insufferable person, dips**t. Mexicans have no right to emigrate here. They are entitled to exactly nothing from us. This country was not built by them. It was not built for them.

"Change your attitude ASAP, for your own good. Or else."

F**k you, a**hat.

And that is all the civility you merit, little man.

Svigor said...

It must really eat you up, Senor Diaz, that we just don't think it is just wonderful to have you in our country, doesn't it? What ingrates we are for not appreciating your "intellectuall superiority", huh?

He'd better get used to it. Giving up our right (duty?) to tell Nick we don't want him here would mean refusing to acknowledge Mexicans' right to tell us they don't want their country taken over by gringos.

And that would be racist. Like Nick Diaz.

Svigor said...

This insufferable arrogance and sense of entitlement that Americans("we can pollute and enjoy a high stadard of living, but you can't because we are Americans and you are not") have is only really seen in movie super-villain types.

Nothing like the insufferable arrogance and sense of entitlement of the creeps who move here to take advantage of what Americans made, then declare the whole thing the rightful domain of him and his kind.

Good thing Nick Diaz isn't a bigot, though, or he might make blanket statements about the "insufferable arrogance and sense of entitlement that Americans have," and how super-villain-y it is.

If he was an insufferably arrogant and entitled little bigot, he might actually miss the fact that being (inexplicably) welcomed into another country, then turning around and lecturing the natives about their arrogance, entitlement, and super-villain-y attitudes is itself insufferably arrogant, entitled, and bigoted.

You guys haven't been making many friends throughout the World in recent decades. And once you get hated enough, people will seek to hurt you despite how powerful you might be with no regard to what might happen to them. Change your attitude ASAP, for your own good. Or else.

Hey, thanks for the advice. If there's one vibe I definitely get from you, it's how much you love and respect Americans, and how much you want what's best for us.

Anonymous said...

Having spent some time in Mexico, I can say they don't seem to give a hoot about the environment. Even their intellectuals deride it as some kind of frivolous irreverent thing gringos are into for some reason.

Anyone doubting this should take a whiff of one of their rivers or streams and see how long they can stand the smell. Or try and visit one of their pathetic pretend national parks, if they can get past all the logging trucks streaming out of it.

Anonymous said...

Actually, the US only has 10 percent of the Mexican population, most Mexicans even poor ones stay at home. Its the 10 percent you have to deal with. Mexicans make US wages of the 1970's. I worked for 2.90 per hr in 1979 myself.

Anonymous said...

who is the mayor of new york city, chicago, los angeles, san francisco, philadelphia, washington DC, detroit? the european american liberals have trailed off demographically, and handed over control to the outsider groups of the democrat coalition, who are now in control of many major US cities, and run them for their own anti-america As for La it was the Republicans that caused it shift from a white town to mainly Hispanics and more Asians. Granted, a lot of Mexicans and Central Americans came in the late 1970's and Gates that created the police rule in La was actually a Republican. Ronald Reagan's legalization policy pushed the city even more Hispanic and George H Bush and Democraitc Bill Clinton cut the military budget which caused thousands of whites to leave California when they lost their aerospace job these folks were more likely to vote Republician than the white population that came later.