New Report Discusses High Immigration's Negative Impact on the Environment
A new report from Progressives for Immigration Reform discusses the impact of high immigration levels on America's ecological footprint and depleting natural resources. The report, authored by Leon Kolankiewicz, says that "U.S. population currently exceeds the carrying capacity of our land and resource base."
The report says that the United States has the world's third largest ecological footprint, exceeded only by two Middle Eastern oil producing countries.
The report's key findings are:
- Ecological Footprint (or EF) is a measure of the aggregate human demands imposed on the environment.
- Scientists use the EF analysis to compare and contrast a given country or region's resource consumption with the earth's natural capacity for renewal and regeneration of those same resources.
- Even as the United States' aggregate EF continues to increase, the earth's biocapacity is decreasing simultaneously.
- If current growth trends continue, U.S. population will increase 43% by 2050, and 82 percent of that growth will result from immigration.
"America is living well beyond its ecological means and rapid population growth driven primarily by high immigration levels is aggravating the country's ecological deficit," says Leon Kolankiewicz. "If environmentalists are serious about facing the challenge of environmental sustainability, they must begin to address the threat of unsustainable U.S. population growth."
You can read the full report at Progressives for Immigration Reform's website.