My Immigration-Linked-To-Environment Testimony Hits Some As 'Loopy' or 'Novel' (but it once was common wisdom)
I did some surfing of the internet and thus far have found that 95% of the blogs and comments (outside of our own website) about my Senate testimony Wednesday think I was a little crazy to say that immigration-driven U.S. population growth is an environmental threat. Granted, there really wasn't a lot of attention to the hearing on S. 424, but . . . .
The environmental argument is hilariously stupid.
That was one comment on my testimony.
If I had been drinking beer at the time, my computer would have been soaked. I literally could not believe what I was hearing.-- Person watching my testimony by webcast
A blogger on the internet giant "Daily Kos" acted like this was the first time anybody has ever suggested a link between adding 100 million people since 1970 and a deterioration of U.S. natural resources.
Mr. Beck represents Numbers USA. I swear this is the argument this guy made: His organization justifies reduction of the number of green cards issued on environmental and economic grounds.-- Casual Wednesday, blogger on Daily Kos
The word "environmental" was italicized to indicate this was a truly outrageous issue to bring up in connection to immigration.
As evidence of my insanity, the blogger quoted this paragraph from my testimony:
"But nearly every new adult permanently added to the U.S. population through immigration legislation would be a potential competitor to unemployed and underemployed American workers. And every new immigrant increases the total U.S. carbon footprint and ecological footprint (and, because of increased consumption once they arrive here, increases the global footprints, as well). " -- Roy Beck, testimony to Senate Judiciary Committee, June 3, 2009
The blogger then continued the commentary:
Got that? We've rehashed the "they're takin' our jobs" arguments here plenty of times, but the environmental argument is novel.
As you all know, I am a confirmed political Independent who finds lots to support from both liberal and conservative thinkers. But I have to say that I am once again amazed at the lack of environmental knowledge throughout the liberal websites. They are the ones that covered the hearings, and they are the ones that act like U.S. population growth can't possibly be an environmental issue.
Novel argument? Hmmmm, let's see, David Brower was talking about this connection back in the 1960s when he was building the Sierra Club into the giant of the environmental movement. The Sierra Club went on to adopt policies that through the 1970s and 1980s and into the early 1990s identified out-of-control immigration as an impediment to meeting U.S. environmental goals.
Liberal Democratic Sen. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin was making the same population/environmental connections when he was starting the Earth Day movement in 1970, pioneering the federal wilderness act and leading the passage of several other landmark bills. In the 1990s and before his death this decade, Sen. Nelson and I shared speaking events at which we made the same appeal to reduce immigration to allow for environmental sustainability in the U.S.
OK, so maybe the writers are too young and too little educated about the environmental movement to know these things. But they heard or read my testimony which began by noting that President Clinton's Council on Sustainable Development in 1996 concluded that environmental sustainability was not possible in the U.S. unless immigration numbers are reduced to allow for a stabilizing U.S. population.
Have they heard of the Clinton Administration? Hint: Pres. Clinton's First Lady is our current Secretary of State. Unfortunately, the Prez never did anything much about his Council's environmental recommendations, but he never disavowed them.
Novel environmental/immigration arguments? Indeed!
I wish I could claim to be so smart to come up with some grand new environmental theory, but some of the greatest environmental thinkers and activists of the late 20th century were there long before I walked into the Senate Dirksen Office Building hearing room.
But you would think I am some lone voice of the prophet crying in the wilderness with a totally new message.
Opposition (to S. 424) came from Roy Beck, founder of NumbersUSA, a grassroots group dedicated to reducing the number of immigrants to the US. He offered what often seemed to be a loopy combination of nativist and environmental arguments against the bill.-- Windy City Times, Chicago
How did we get to this level of public ignorance?
Well, by the 1980s, most journalists and environmental groups stopped talking directly about the environmental challenges posed by rampant U.S. population growth.
Why did they stop?
Environmental scientist Leon Kolankiewicz and I were asked to answer that question for the academic publication Journal of Policy History. The answer is discouraging. And there are many reasons for this educational failure. You can read our Journal article here, and an expanded version published by Center for Immigration Studies here.
Unfortunately, ignorance not only is no defense under the law, it also is no defense against the laws of nature and mathematics. No matter how much the sarcastic bloggers of the internet may ridicule the idea of an immigration/environmental connection, the 3 million additional Americans every year are resulting in approximately 1 million new acres of natural habitat and farmland being cleared, scraped, paved and developed and in the health of wonders like the Chesapeake Bay being put out of reach.
I and NumbersUSA will continue to sound the immigration/environment alarm until it no longer sounds "novel" to anybody.
ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA