Note: This article was originally written for and published in the Sopris Sun, Carbondale’s independent newspaper.
Welcome! sulphur dioxide
Hello! carbon monoxide
The air, the air
Is everywhere
- “Air” from the musical; Hair
Here in the pristine Rocky Mountains, it’s hard to imagine schoolchildren being kept inside at recess because of toxic air. Only those of us who grew up near a large city or industrial area in the late 1960s and early ‘70s remember the dreaded “Smog Alert” that kept us cooped up inside, sometimes for several days, when atmospheric inversion prevented factory smoke and car exhaust fumes from dispersing, causing a thick layer of dirty air to remain trapped over cities and suburbs.
At the time, a grassroots environmental movement had already begun to address the concerns of citizens affected by poisons being wantonly dumped into our air, water, and soil. Books like Silent Spring by Rachel Carson published in 1962, alerted the public to the danger of a continued attitude of negligence toward the health of our natural environment. Neil Young’s song After the Gold Rush featured the line; “Look at mother nature on the run in the nineteen seventies.”
Across America groups of concerned citizens formed to battle oil spills, polluting factories, toxic dumps, pesticides, and loss of wildlife habitat. But the government was slow to respond to requests for environmental protection legislation. Most of the members of Congress remained unaware of or uninterested in the problems that pollution was creating for their constituents.
The exception was Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, who had been closely following the environmental movement’s grassroots efforts. The disparity between growing public outrage and lack of concern by politicians led Senator Nelson to begin formulating ideas to bring Congress’ attention to the people’s desire for change.
Impressed by the efforts of community organizers working to solve their local pollution problems and inspired by the “Teach-ins” staged by anti-Vietnam War demonstrators on college campuses, Nelson proposed a nationwide environmental “Teach-in” to be held on April 22, 1970; the first Earth Day.
Denis Hayes was appointed the National Coordinator in charge of organizing rallies across the nation and explaining Earth Day to the media, who treated the idea almost as a joke. Newsweek called it “a bizarre nationwide rain dance.” Time said it “had aspects of a secular, almost pagan holiday” and questioned whether the movement was just a fad. But Hayes replied: “If the environment is a fad, it’s going to be our last fad…We are building a movement, a movement with a broad base, a movement which transcends traditional political boundaries. It is a movement that values people more than technology, people more than political boundaries, people more than profit.”
Environmentally conscious Americans were thrilled to have a forum to express their desire to protect the earth. Twenty million people – 10% of the population – participated in Earth Day events that ranged from neighborhood clean-ups to large gatherings involving speakers and musicians.
Aside from events organized by Denis Hayes and his team, thousands more were generated at the local level by community volunteers, teachers, students and city council members. Some demonstrations tended toward the theatrical, especially on college campuses. In Omaha Nebraska student demonstrators wore gas masks to signify the smog problem. Protesting auto emissions and oil spills, California students cut up their oil company credit cards and one hundred students in Tacoma Washington rode horses on the freeway.
Fulfilling Gaylord Nelson’s desire to get politicians involved in the anti-pollution campaign, twenty-two Senators participated in the day’s events. So many representatives were scheduled to give Earth Day speeches that Congress was adjourned.
Summarizing the hopes of America’s fledgling environmental movement, Senator Nelson gave a speech in Denver Colorado in which he said; “Earth Day may be a turning point in American history. It may be the birth date of a new American ethic that rejects the frontier philosophy that the continent was put here for our plunder, and accepts the idea that even urbanized, affluent, mobile societies are interdependent with the fragile, life-sustaining systems of the air, the water, the land.”
As a result of Earth Day 1970, concern for the environment skyrocketed among the public. In 1969 only one percent of the American population thought protecting the environment was important, but by 1971 that number had increased to 25%.
It was also an eye-opening experience for the nation’s politicians and it wasn’t long before regulatory legislation was introduced. In July 1970 President Nixon formed the Environmental Protection Agency and within ten years, several pieces of legislation had been enacted including the Water Pollution and Control Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and the Clean Air Act.
While air pollution in major cities is still a problem, Smog Alerts have decreased dramatically. For instance, in 1977 Los Angeles had 121 Stage One Smog Alerts. The number dropped to 66 in 1987, one in 1997, and there have been no Stage One alerts since 1997.
Gaylord Nelson died in 2005, but his legacy lives on in a robust environmental movement that continues to address issues of importance to the health of our planet and human survival. Denis Hayes is now the Honorary Chair of the board of directors of the Earth Day Network, which promotes environmental action worldwide and is active in 170 nations. For Earth Day 2000, Hayes spearheaded a campaign focused on global warming and a push for clean energy.
As our knowledge and understanding of earth’s sensitive organic systems has increased, Earth Day has grown into a global celebration. Earth Day 1990 generated worldwide recycling efforts and for Earth Day 2000, the internet was used to link 5,000 environmental groups in 184 countries.
Earth Day celebrates our common values and this coming April 22nd, we can again come together to appreciate our successes and focus on ecological issues that affect everyone without regard to race, religion, nationality or political affiliation.
To find out how you can participate, visit the Earth Day Network: http://www.earthday.net/
Opps, Sue curiously (and conveniently) ommited one of Nelson’s more often asserted pleas:
“We have to address the population issue. The United Nations, with the U.S. supporting it, took the position in Cairo in 1994 that every country was
responsible for stabilizing its own population.
It can be done. But in this country, it’s
phony to say “I’m for the environment but not for limiting immigration.” It’s just a fact that we can’t take all the people who want to come
here. And you don’t have to be a
racist to realize that.
However, the subject has been driven out of public discussion because everybody is afraid of being
called racist if they say they want any limits on immigration.”
-Gaylord Nelson, founder of
Earth Day
I have absolutely no problem with the idea of limiting immigration for the purposes of creating a sustainable population level. In fact our immigration laws are based on that exact parameter.
What I object to is the argument that immigration should be limited because it introduces “dangerous multiculturalism” and creates “enclaves of traditions, religion, language, poverty, conflict and separateness” that will destroy American culture. That is by definition; racism.
One should note though that the “limiting immigration for the sake of the environment” argument loses its power when you consider the planet as a whole. We are all dependent upon the planet’s finite resources and healthy ecosystems, so the entire population must be considered a threat to our survival regardless of how that population is distributed over the earth.
Whether people move to America or stay in Mexico doesn’t really matter in light of the fact that no matter where they live, they create stress on the overall environment which affects all of us collectively. I have to assume then, that this is one of those arguments used to make those who have a racist anti-immigration agenda appear as if they are only concerned with the environment.
‘Whether people move to America or stay in Mexico doesn’t really matter in light of the fact that no matter where they live, they create stress on the overall environment which affects all of us collectively”
Immigrants come to consume more. Consumption levels in the U.S. are the highest in the world. Where a person lives generally dictates his level of consumption. Ergo, his increased consumption has a greater effect the “on the overall environment.” .
“More people, more scars upon the land.”–John Denver
“I have to assume then, that this is one of those arguments used to make those who have a racist anti-immigration agenda appear as if they are only concerned with the environment.”
Nice crypto-slander against Gaylord Nelson, because it is he who made statement. Have you no shame!
Good try at turning my argument against me, but if you Google that sentence by Gaylord Nelson, you’ll find it appears almost exclusively on anti-immigration websites that otherwise give little attention to the environmental impact and lots of attention to the supposed extra crime, poverty, and cultural degradation of America by immigrants. Which makes my point about arguments like Nelson’s being used out of context by racists to make it appear that they have only the purest of motives. Have you no shame?
I would have thought that someone such as yourself who has been the object of name calling for expressing your truths, whould be much less inclined to do so to others mearly expressing their truths–I would have thought.
B y the way, I knew Gaylord Nelson personally. The reason he knew “the subject [immigration]has been driven out of public discussion because everybody is afraid of being
called racist if they say they want any limits on immigration” is because he was often called a ‘racist.’
Yeah Mike, you’re probably right. I was reacting defensively to your comments and you’ve probably noticed I tend to get a little agressive when I’m in the position of defending things like justice, freedom and tolerance.
It’s that doggone American spirit that I inherited from my Norwegian, German, and British immigrant ancestors.
Please accept my apology for playing too rough.
Sue, I don’t think you needed to apologize. Sen. Nelson’s daughter Tia was a friend of mine in the 80′s and I attended the 15th earth day with her and others in DC. I used to work for Greenpeace. I very seriously doubt that he was a racist. His concerns were that immigrants would add to the need to sequester trash and the litter type of pollution as well as the attendant water pollution which stays here, unlike air pollution and global warming issues. I refuse to believe that those calling him “racist” were anything but ignorant about environmental concerns.
The argument in city cores was jobs or the environment and bottle deposit issues, there was no general expansive environmental view at that time. I just as steadfastly refuse to believe that his quotes are being used to support environmental concerns before racist objectives. Environmentalism has been abused by those who didn’t see the bigger picture, as racist (taking away jobs so “white people in suburbs can have clean air”), and abused by racists as a tool in an attempt to justify their racism. Sue, I don’t think you needed to apologize.
“I just as steadfastly refuse to believe that his quotes are being used to support environmental concerns before racist objectives. Environmentalism has been abused by those who didn’t see the bigger picture, as racist (taking away jobs so “white people in suburbs can have clean air”), and abused by racists as a tool in an attempt to justify their racism.”
No disrespect intended, but this statement is hopelessly incomprehensible.
For a more lucid, informative and
compreshensive understanding. see:
“The Environmental Movement’s Retreat from Advocating U.S. Population Stabilization (1970-1998): A First Draft of History.”–Roy Beck and Leon Kolankiewicz .
http://www.numbersusa.com/PDFs/Retreat2.pdf3w
Mike, that link was broken. Here is one that works:
http://www.mnforsustain.org/beck_environmental_movement_retreat_short.htm
It’s interesting that according to the article the overpopulation issue did seem to disappear from the environmental movement’s list of concerns. There’s no doubt in my mind that it is the leading cause of environmental degradation and stress on the planetary ecosystem. As such, it should certainly take center stage in any discussion on ecological preservation.
There are many reasons why someone might be against unchecked immigration. Racism is one of them, but not the only one and I should never presume another’s motives, especially as I’ve often been falsely accused of having ulterior motives myself. And in all of the times I’ve heard you on Con Games I’ve never detected any racist undertones to your arguments. You seem sincere in your quest to serve your country’s best interest.
I don’t know what the solution is to immigration, overpopulation and resulting environmental impact, but hostility toward the ideas of others won’t help further the discussion, which is why I disagree with Ed and stick to my apology.
You should be a diplomat. You are much too self-effacing for someone like me, who has his alcoholic (Irish) father’s proclivity for brawling, to agressively grapple with. Nonressistence, it is said, is irresistible.
Glenwood Post Independent
August 14, 2003
Population back on enviros’ agenda: Solutions global and local
By Mike McGarry
“If sustainability means meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations to meet their needs, it is axiomatic that continuous population growth is unsustainable, globally and locally.” — Jonette Christian, Carry Capacity Network
Stabilizing an immigration-driven U.S. population growth rate that is exploding to an unsustainable doubling within the lifetimes of today’s school children is crucial to providing a sustainable future, globally and locally.
Those were the essential words of Jonette Christian and Colorado’s former three-term governor, Richard Lamm, two of the speakers at the Aspen-based Sopris Foundation’s (www.soprisfoundation.org) State of the World Conference 2002 in Aspen on July 12-14. The conference topic was, “Is a sustainable future possible?”
Thirty years ago Americans were much more aware of the threats overpopulation posed to the country and the world. Stabilizing U.S. population was integral to the ideals of the first Earth Day in 1970, and virtually every environmental organization officially endorsed the need to halt U.S. population growth as necessary to meeting sustainability goals.
The 1970s were also ironically the years the U.S. began showing a noticeable population weight gain from what was the beginning of an unprecedented mass-immigration binge. Since 1970 we have engorged ourselves with a dyspeptic 83 million new consumers, a number greater than the populations of most of the countries of the world. Nearly 70 percent of that growth came from immigration.
Fast-forward from 1970 to 1999 and you might not recognize the place. The country’s population had soared by more than a third, to 278 million, . becoming the third most populous nation in the world, with immigration levels several times our historical averages. By now most environmental organizations had dropped U.S. population stabilization from their priorities, and what formerly were convivial coffee-shop discussions about population were now nasty, accusatory shouting matches.
Meanwhile, the population-consumption juggernaut was gaining momentum. Total U.S. energy consumption, for example, in the 1990s grew by 13 percent, exactly the percentage of population growth that decade. The decade of the ’90s makes clear the numbers of consumers cannot be isolated from the amount consumed. Even if Americans were to significantly reduce consumption levels and continue to improve resource technology, as we must, most gains would be lost to immigration-fueled population growth.
The many influences causing our national population priorities to about-face over the years were discussed in the Journal of Policy History’s “The Environmental Movement’s Retreat from Advocating U.S. Population Stabilization (1970-1998)”. It is important to note is that within that time frame the guiding population principle of Earth Day 1970, Think Globally — Act Locally, was supplanted with, “Population is a global problem (exclusively) requiring global solutions.” Thus was born and promulgated an intellectual dishonesty.
Deforestation is a global problem, but nobody would suggest we wait for the world to tackle our nation’s deforestation challenges. Moreover, there are nearly 200 countries and thousands of cultures and subcultures in the world. International bodies are notorious for their inability to agree on even the nature of a problem, never mind the nightmarish prospect of imposing global one-size-fits-all solutions.
The nation-state is the only practical and effective unit of community and therefore of public policy implementation. International cooperation and assistance do not suffer because of that fact, just as respecting and acting on the primacy of family does not mean families are uninvolved in the greater communities.
Not to be ignored is the research by Dr. Virginia Abernethy of Vanderbilt University showing the opportunity to emigrate for the citizens of nations and members of cultures with unsustainable population growth rates keeps them from taking the necessary steps to stabilize their population growth rates.
Hence, Mexico, which has more than tripled its numbers over the last 50 years (and is currently on a 50-year doubling course), has no substantive population policy. It also explains why the president of Bangladesh recently said matter-of-factly he would just send his nationals to the “under-populated” United States to ameliorate the effects of his country’s projected population doubling within 50 years.
Is a sustainable future possible? No, not when 6.1 billion people continue to annually add nearly 80 million more to the planets numbers, when the United States continues to be the sixth demographically fastest growing country in the world and when Colorado continues to grow at twice the U.S. rate.
Yes, if we heed the words of Christian and Lamm and if we immediately take to heart the those of the former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment and Population Lindsey Grant (“Elephants in the Volkswagen”): “Most world environmental and social problems can be solved but only if population policy is an integral part of the solution.”
Mike McGarry is a spokesman for the Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform.
Mike,
Seek to understand and you might. This is not an MTV moment. What is not understood is not wrong or incorrect, due to a lack of understanding.
The environment is effected more in by each person in poorer country then in richer countries. This is a simple fact. Every individual in the world has an impact on the environment, but this is magnified in poor countries. Poorer countries are focus on surviving and not the environment, so they will cut down a rainforest if it means they can feed or educate their family. Using the environment to condemn immigrations doesn’t mean you care about the worlds’ environment; it just means you care about the local environment. The more people who live in poverty the worse off the worlds’ environment is. So when people immigrate to richer countries they actually help the environment by moving. I’m not saying that immigration is the most effective way to help the environment, but with-out-doubt is does help. It would be much more effective to help poorer country out of poverty, so then they would have the opportunity to worry about the environment instead of survival. Also if poorer countries are given the chance to prosper, they would have no reason to immigrate in the first place. Although over populating hurts the environment, the States isn’t even close to reaching that point. We have more trees now than when Columbus came. Good try on coming up with a new reason to hate Mexicans though. I call it selfishness not racism. If you care about the environment, then care about the world environment.
“Although over populating hurts the environment, the States isn’t even close to reaching that point. We have more trees now than when Columbus came.”–Nathen from New Castle
When it comes to deforestation, it isn’t the case that a tree is a tree is a forrest of trees. A tree farm isn’t a forrest.
“Since 1600, 90% of the virgin forests that once covered much of the lower 48 states have been cleared away. Most of the remaining old-growth forests in the lower 48 states and Alaska are on public lands. In the Pacific Northwest about 80% of this forestland is slated for logging. ” –
Deforestation: The conversion of forest to another land use or the long-term reduction of the tree canopy cover below a 10 percent threshold. Deforestation implies the long-term or permanent loss of forest cover and its transformation into another land use.”
–University of Michigan, Global Change program
At least you didn’t include the oft repeated, “We can fit all the people on the world in Texas,” another one of those Bizzaro World statements.
By the way, did you get your datum from Rush Limbaugh; it has that telltale Limbaughian flavor to it.
“The environment is effected more in by each person in poorer country then in richer countries. This is a simple fact. Every individual in the world has an impact on the environment, but this is magnified in poor countries…[so] when people immigrate to richer countries they actually help the environment by moving.–Nathen of New Castle
defination: Ecological Footprint (EF):
It estimates how much of Earth’s productive land and sea is used to produce the food, materials and
energy that we consume and to assimilate our wastes.”
(http://www.relocalize.net)
For the record, the EF for:
U.S. is 24 acres
Mexico is 6.4
Bengladesh is1.9 acres
Now, what was that about, ah, something about when people immigrate to richer countries they actually help the environment, or
something?
And, finally, ” Good try on coming up with a new reason to hate Mexicans though.”–Nathen from New Castle
Nathen, oh Nathen. You shoud know that in former days I would have looked you up (for displaying your bravado at me) and planted a banana cream pie into you face, with the hope you wouldn;t find that funny. I have changed. I want my banana pie–all of it!
Take care.
Mike,
Good job on the article. You make a lot of sense…but so does Nathan. I guess it comes down to whether you take a global or local perspective.
What matters also is whether you are talking about landfill capacity, deforestation, unregulated factory emissions, auto pollutants and fuel consumption, etc. Each nation faces different aspects of the same problem.
As I’m more of a global thinker when it comes to humanity and the environment, I’m for population control by limiting births. No one on earth needs more than two kids! American citizens who have four or more are just as much at fault, if not more, for damaging our environment than immigrants.
I do believe in immigration control, but I’m not ready to commit to the severe limitations of the hardliner’s stance. While it may indeed stress America’s resources, I still think a steady influx of new cultures and ideas is healthy for our society overall.
ZPG was and is something I do support. In fact it should be reduced, through natural causes and reducing the birthrate. Immigration, emmigration and migration do not add or subtract from the planetary population. ZPG people that I interfaced with, while with Greenpeace,didn’t view human movement as an issue, it was what they did where they went. That was their biggest environmental concern.
The biggest environmental concerns about immigration on a planetary scale, is that those who come to the US will increase their carbon footprint and waste/trash. Until recently this was not a concern. Of course the The Population Bomb has been around for a long time and these issues, as well as whether humans should go on a soybean based diet, have been linked for quite some time.
The immigration problem has always been specific to nationalist/racist interests. Conflating it with environmentalism is a matter of convenience. Purely accidental with an opportunity to cherry pick environmental issues that feed the anti immigration set.
The anti immigration crowd has never been aligned with the environmental movement — in fact your use of the now mild perjorative “enviros” illustrates this (when used 25 years ago, it was considered much harsher).
The anti immigration crowd also refuses to look at the relationship of the wealthy power elite in this country seeking cheap foreign labor to undercut the American worker, to the wealthy power elite of Mexico, in particular. I have blasted the oligarchy of Mexico for refusing to give equal pay for equal work in Mexico since they are a part of NAFTA — this would be the most effective way of stopping people from going through the harrowing and expensive move to the USA. So let me attack the Mexican government and NAFTA; Mexican workers should be paid the same amount for the same work as here and Canada.
Why don’t they do this; because they would then have to point the guns toward themselves for supporting politicians that have allowed this to take place. There are always plenty of dank and vile Republican bigots to stoke the fires of racism. It is much easier to rant about waves of immigrants and try to build a fence that won’t even cover the border than to economically solve the problem through structural changes in NAFTA.
I used to listen to Mike on immigration Wednesdays and called in several times. What was the agenda? We should arrest them, they’re, illegals, build a fence, don’t hire them, suspend rule of law and equal justice under the law and profile search. Practically every time I called in with the suggestion or something similar to what I wrote here Mike would say yeah that sounds good and go right back to the reactionary crap of arrest build a fence, and searches, as if that changes the motivation to come here in the first place.
All that meant to me was that there was no real effort to solve the problem, just rally the dank and vile Palinistas for votes to get the same politicians in office, who get funded by the employers of the illegal labor source in the first place.
By the way Lamm comes across as a bigot and so does Tancredo. Do you think I give a crap what party they belong(ed) to? Every one isn’t a bigot, but I feel pretty safe in saying at least 80% of Republicans are. Oh Lamm was a Democrat — so what.
Sue Gray, although emotional, must come to grips with overpopulation caused by immigration. Try on for size an added 100 million people to this country. Forget the multicultural/diversity crap and get down carrying capacity, water shortages, climate change, bio-diversity extinctions and worse. We’re in for a nasty ride and it’s all caused by population overload caused by unrelenting immigration from a world that grows by 77 million annually.
We need a total moratorium on all immigration. We are too full as it is, and when the fighting begins, it will separate along ethnic lines.
In other words, we’ll be at each others throats for basic resources such as water and energy.
As to Troy’s ridiculous statements, Lamm is a visionary and understands this greater than most. Such leaders as Lamm, Tancredo, Hull, McGarry, Beck, Hull and others will be known as the Susan B. Anthony’s, Dr. Martin Luther King’s, Eleanor Roosevelt’s, Barbara Jordan’s and Thomas Jefferson’s and Gandhi’s of the 21st century.
Hope they win in order for our children to survive in the 21st century. God, I hate stupid people, but there are so many of them! Frosty Wooldridge
Out of the United State’s 920 million hectares, it is estimated that the forest has seen a decline of120 million hectares(423 to 302) since 1630. However this figure represents forest, not total trees. To have a continuous supply of trees, we grow a great deal more seedlings than we harvest, which actually brings the total estimated number of trees (counting seedlings) to a higher number than in 1630. Now yes, that is a Rush fact and also has screwed up logic, but it is still true. My point was not that we do a great job of managing the land, but instead it was that we don’t have a problem of over population. I shouldn’t have even used the fact because it takes away from the whole point. If you disagree with my view on overpopulating, then fine. Don’t have kids, teach protection, become an abortion advocate, and if you’re still not satisfied do some mass killing or just kill yourself. This may offended you, but it really is not my intentions. I just want you to see that if you have a problem with overpopulation then make a cause out of that. Immigration has nothing to do with overpopulation. Just because someone isn’t allowed over here doesn’t mean they don’t exist or that they don’t account for the worlds’ population. In fact it’s the exact opposite, they count even more if they live in a poor country, because as I was trying to say they are apart of a environmentally-non-conscious society. Also my point is not to justify mass immigration, but instead trying to turn your attention away from hate and to the real problem. The biggest problem the environment faces is poverty. If we can help poverty decline then not only will less people immigrate, but the environment will hugely benefit. Controlling immigration doesn’t do anything but deflect the problem. A true environmentalist cares about the whole world just as much as his own backyard.
Hey Ed:
I just returned from the grocery store. Luckily, I got to last two banana cream pies, one for me to eat, and one for you to wear. Lookig forward.
Your pen pal,
Mrs McGarry’s favorite of her three children, Mike
Mike,
I prefer the anti-oxidants of berrys. There is nothing like reducing the radicals.
“We need a total moratorium on all immigration. We are too full as it is, and when the fighting begins, it will separate along ethnic lines.”
I see that Frosty has already logged into the possibilities of division, so we can be conquered. But we already knew Frosty was logged in when discussing the football team he couldn’t verify being on — do you remember when Star Eagle asked you about that??? Are you locked and loaded for blacks, Jews, and Latinos — what do those commies look like?
I could go into how his myopic horizon would have one believe that this country must be on another planet, unaffected by what happens when other mal-administrated nation-states rule over oppressed populations who slash and burn forests and each other, and then want to come here, whether we helped the mal-administers in their murders or not. But why think our foreign policy ever had anything to do with that.
Why think that the nation-state is the highest order of human organization possible. The nation-state is the greatest hindrance to the progress of humanity and health of this planet in exisitence, leading by hand the great corruption of religious evil.
Lets pray and wave our national flags a little harder.
Frosty illustrates my point; the anti-immigration crowd is not a bunch of tree huggers seeking zen in the forest.
Nathan,
I am sure you are coming from a good place, however citing Limbaugh is extremely dangerous intellectually speaking.
Although it wasn’t citing Limbaugh as a foundation for researched argument, Sue did correct me on the middle East, some thing I had followed for many years but was asleep at the wheel over the issue of elections between Hamas and Fatah, because of a divorce. It secured information for later discussion. Resting an argument on Limbaugh is worse than building on the foundation for the Tower of Pisa.
I support the following just about to the letter;
Don’t have kids, teach protection, become an abortion advocate, and if you’re still not satisfied do some mass killing or just kill yourself. This may offended you, but it really is not my intentions. I just want you to see that if you have a problem with overpopulation then make a cause out of that. Immigration has nothing to do with overpopulation. Just because someone isn’t allowed over here doesn’t mean they don’t exist or that they don’t account for the worlds’ population.
Nathan cites again the obvious; immigration has nothing to do with (over)population. Unless what you are concerned with is limited to the USA.
Another note; neither Frosty or Mike make the environmental impact of exponential population growth in the rest of the world as the leading concern. It is ALL about people streaming across a nation-state border.
Very little of that flies under the banner of ZPG or the environmental movement as a whole. They don’t want Mexicans here and Frosty additionally has not written anything positive about African-Americans or any one of color that I am aware of. If I am wrong go to your blog history and show us.
Edward,
First as far as the pie thing goes I would say “there is nothing like reducing the (free) radicals”.
Second, it wasn’t me who called out Frosty on his M.S. football creds. I vaguely remember that rumble but I am pretty sure I had nothing to say on that point. I do know football but I don’t know it all.
And finally I have to actually stand up for Frosty because I believe he, in essence, is being berated the same as Sue has in the past for her pro-Palestinian/anti-Zion viewpoint and myself for my “wake-up, 9/11 and the war on terror are not what many of you think” perspective.
I also believe I remember Frosty writing positively of African-Americans in one of his biking tales. Nonetheless, I don’t feel Frosty’s desire for illegal immigrants (the key word here is illegal) to be deported is racially motivated.
I know that my desire for that is certainly not. I can see way too many positive reasons for deportation on both (all) sides of the border(s).
While I certainly agree with Sue’s perspective on cultural diversity (I love NY!) I also believe we can achieve that with a structured immigration system that does not permit a flood of illegal immigrants across the southern border.
I also don’t believe the excess of cheap labor they have provided for years now has been beneficial to this country economically either.
As I have stated here before, I believe that by sending these illegals back home they will now have the opportunity to transform their homelands in ways that in the long run will benefit both their, and our, country.
Painless, certainly not. But working out every other day isn’t exactly painless either, its just good for you.
And we have plenty of work to do here in our homeland to fix what is broken without the added weight of illegal migration.
Last word:
Advocating for stabilizing world AND national population growth rates are not mutually exclusive. However, as the late, great Gaylord Nelson reminded us, “The United Nations, with the U.S. supporting it, took the position in Cairo in 1994 that every country was responsible for stabilizing its own population.”
Second, overpopulation creates poverty creates environmental degradation. Ireland is a good example. Once it threw the yoke of that ongoing criminal enterprize, the Catholic Church, off its back, the Irish people went from being the poorest in Western Eurrope to the economic envy of of all of Europe. Having fewer children freed up time and otherwise nondiscretionary economic resources to seek educational and other opportunities to become the “economic miracle” of more recent years. Notice that those gains paralled the relative peace now taking place in Northern Ireland, yet another residual benefit from population stabilization.
In glairing contrast, Africa, suffering from the ongoing ravages of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, with it’s current exploding population growth rate is expected to double in the number of desperate souls by 2030, an impossible scenero to even imagine. Eradicating poverty can only come by first moving to stabilizing the pop growth rate–period.
Mike, your argument is impeccable. As I said before, there are many arguments for immigration control and yours makes sense. Each nation should be responsible both for its population control and environmental protection. We have immigration laws that first and foremost need to be enforced. And we should take a good look at the impact increased population immigration is having on our environment and determine whether stricter quotas are in order.
Star Eagle, you wrote; “I don’t feel Frosty’s desire for illegal immigrants (the key word here is illegal) to be deported is racially motivated.”
First, Frosty’s primary desire is not to see (key word: illegal) immigrants deported. It’s to see ALL immigrants prevented from entering the U.S. And second, all you have to do is look at the title of some of his posts to know with certainty that his anti-immigration stance is racially motivated. Take a recent post for instance:
IMPREGNATING AMERICA WITH INCOMPATIBLE AND DANGEROUS CULTURES
http://www.aspenpost.net/2009/01/30/impregnating-america-with-incompatible-and-dangerous-cultures/#comments
Then look at the body of his text for numerous examples of racism. Here are some gems from the above post:
[They arrive in such huge numbers and at such breakneck speed, the former ‘melting pot’ concept that made America successful—breaks down into a salad bowl of incompatible and often, antagonistic cultures. Toss in dozens of foreign languages! Voila! A growing polyglot non-American culture and chaotic conflicting languages! Result: breakdown of America!]
[The greater question we Americans must ask ourselves: how many more incompatible, conflicted and desperate cultures can we settle into America without ourselves becoming embroiled in their unending wars, ancient cultural practices and ethnic conflicts?]
Being a Taoist I’m bound to say that there is no good or bad, right or wrong way to look at things. I just prefer it if people come right out and say what they think, rather than trying to deny their true motivation because they don’t want to appear racist. There’s really nothing wrong with being racist, as long as you don’t take it to the degree of hurting someone. Some of my favorite people, including family members are raging racists, but that doesn’t make them bad people. It’s mainly a matter of societal and parental upbringing. I’d venture to say there is a little racist attitude in all of us.
How about this for irony? A group of former Michigan State football players are riding their bikes from East Lansing, Michigan to……wait for it……….ready……………MEXICO, as part of a fund raising effort for an orphanage in Matamoros.
http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20090419/GW01/904190589&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL
http://www.orphanagefundraiser.com/
Please support this great man and his vision.