The news item “What’s behind those ads?” by Colin Rigley (Nov. 6) discussing the reaction to TV ads linking immigration to global warming was probably not intentionally biased, but it certainly misrepresented the opinions of many people concerned about unlimited population growth, and certainly didn’t capture the intent of the people who ran the ads. Blaming immigration for global warming is a bit much, but the point is soundly grounded in basic ecology.
Most animal populations have natural limits on growth, whether by starvation, disease, predation, or myriad other threats. The results of overpopulation are often not pretty animals die miserable deaths and the habitat that supports them is degraded. Technology has freed many (but not all) human populations from these natural controls. Some European countries have dealt with this problem by reducing the birthrate to a point at or below the replacement rate. The United
States would have achieved population stability if it were not for almost uncontrolled immigration.
The director of the California Immigration Population Center characterized people concerned about overpopulation as “the right wing … [having] a strategy of … churning up people’s fears, of creating divisiveness of scapegoating … .” The comment by reporter Rigley, “[Californians for Population Stabilization] is also heavily tied to the environmental movement,” and a claim that “anti-immigration and environmentalism are two ideologies that typically fall on opposite ends of the spectrum” miss the whole point of the objections by many people to unlimited population growth, whether it be by immigration or elevated birthrates.
A key point is that many environmentalists are against unlimited immigration but do not hate immigrants. Perhaps this distinction is too subtle for what is obviously a highly polarized debate. To paint people concerned with overpopulation as right-wing haters and racists is ignorance at best and rank demagoguery at worst.
I was born and grew up in California. Even 50 years ago, I resented the fact that a corrupt Mexican government was mitigating its internal problems by creating conditions that forced citizens to cross the border, and at the same time enriched their coffers with the money that the illegals sent back to Mexico. A perfectly logical liberal stance is to dislike (I don’t do “hate”) the socio-economic conditions that force immigration, but appreciate the many good qualities that Mexicans and other immigrants contribute to our society.
I have watched California’s educational system slip from one of the best to one of the poorest in the nation. I have seen air pollution make Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley almost uninhabitable at times. The clogged L.A. traffic is legendary. I have seen the local collapse of many economically important fish populations: sardines, salmon, and steelhead, to name a few. Most of our wood comes from Oregon and Washington, and most of our oil from foreign countries. Water is rationed throughout the southern two-thirds of the state. Jails are horribly overcrowded. Low-income housing in San Luis Obispo County is scarce as hen’s teeth. All of these factors that degrade our quality of life are the result of a myriad of poor choices, but they are also all exacerbated by overpopulation.
I am more liberal than most of my Creston neighbors, and I am an environmentalist. I don’t hate immigrants, but I believe that more realistic attention to overpopulation and its control will head off some of the dire shadows that we can foresee in our future even now.
This article appears in Nov 13-20, 2008.