'Treehugger' Website Wonders if Immigration Should Be Reduced To Help Environment
A recent essay posted on an environmental website at Yale University, YaleGlobal, discusses the touchy subject of immigration's impact on environmentalism. The positions that political liberals take on both issues can often contradict each other.
Moving toward population stabilization would contribute significantly to America’s ability to solve its domestic problems as well as many of those abroad, especially energy and resource consumption, climate change and environmental sustainability. . .
Contrary to popular thought, the dominant force fueling America’s demographic growth is not natural increase, but immigration. This is because immigrants not only add their own numbers to the nation’s overall population, but also contribute a disproportionate number of births whose effects are compounded over time.
Even the website Treehugger.com in their coverage of the essay points out the sensitivity of the immigration topic for environmentalists.
Obviously this is a touchy subject. Many immigrants are not driven by the desire to make big families that tax the environment; many are fleeing horrible living conditions, war, drought, etc. Are we to bar them refuge because of their potential blight on the environment?
Roy Beck founded NumbersUSA after writing about the potential impact high immigration would have on the environment and U.S. sustainability. Our website has three issue pages dealing with U.S Population, the Environment, and Urban Sprawl.