 |
TODAY Friday 20 February 1998 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
newsroom
|
TODAY Friday 20 February 1998 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
TODAY IN THE WORLD: Population Rebellion in the Sierra Club
"Dear environmental writers," read the letter I got yesterday, "We are the leaders of the referendum effort within the Sierra Club to return our organization to its historic position in favor of a stable US population...We are writing to you to ensure that you can get in touch with us easily to be fully informed about what we are doing." The letter was signed by Ric Oberlink on behalf of "Sierrans for US Population Stabilization."
I received the letter because I am a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, and because the Sierra dissidents are apparently annoyed at some of the coverage they've gotten: "Some reporters have relied heavily for explanation of our campaign on sources outside the Sierra Club who have nothing to do with the referendum. This has happened in part because the newspapers have not been assigning their environmental reporters to cover this issue."
It's all enviro all the time here at Lib Tree, and we're happy for the heaviest of hints on what to write about each morning. And, besides, this is a great question on which it's impossible to be merely wrong. Or right.
A year ago the Sierra Club board approved a resolution to "take no position on immigration levels or on policies governing immigration into the United States." The dissidents, who include heavy hitters like Lester Brown, Dave Foreman, George Kennan, Stewart Udall, and E.O. Wilson, succeeded in placing on an all-members ballot an initiative to repeal that resolution and "adopt a comprehensive population policy for the United States that continues to advocate an end to US population growth at the earliest possible time through reduction in natural increase (births minus deaths), but now also through reduction in net immigration (immigration minus emigration)."
This is one of those issues that utterly depends on your frame of reference. Imagine a grid with four boxes. One says "US", one says "Earth", one says "Pollution" and one says "Habitat." If your concern is the United States, and your program is reducing toxins and remediating pollution, then you might want to be pro-immigration because immigrants tend to increase the net national wealth and because wealth spurs and pays for catalytic converters and smokestack scrubbers and sewage treatment plants. In those frames, you would be especially pro-immigrant if you could select the immigrants for education, small family size and entrepreneurial oomph (not a position, by the way, endorsed by the Sierra dissidents). If your concern is the United States and your program is preserving biodiversity, then you might want to be anti-immigration because immigrants take up space and increase consumption, both of which, under current and foreseeable circumstances, tend to diminish natural habitats and the species that live in them.
If your concern is the Earth, not your nation-state, then you might be (slightly) pro-immigration on both anti-pollution and pro-habitat grounds because, yo, we're all on this planet together and the main environmental duty facing American globalists is to learn how to either consume less or to see to it that consumption incurs less damage. Or you might be (slightly) anti-immigration because the most important thing for a globalist America to do is to set a good example for other nations and to take population equilibrium as a serious, reachable goal.
Personally, I'm in that last camp, but not as a zealot. I'd be happy if the country could cut a deal that allows a lower number of annual immigrants -- maybe 250,000 a year? -- and then gets on with the job of defanging our technologies. As crucial as it is to be an American environmentalist, it seems equally compelling in these times to stand as an American multi-culturalist, totally committed to the great fact that you can come from absolutely anywhere and start in as 100% American. Besides, speaking now especially as a New Yorker, it is just so much damn fun to be in a place that receives regular infusions of foreigness and foreigners.
TODAY ON THE SITE
Don't limit yourself to my ravings on this subject. Go to the Population portion of our In The Trenches section and check out the "On The Other Hand..." feature where immigration pro and con positions are presented avidly and intelligently.
Recent "Today" columns:
2/19: The Trouble With Cattle
2/18: Optimistic Feds and the Future of Kyoto
2/17: The New Great Game
2/13: Windmills
2/12: Stuart Eizenstat's Smart Bomb
2/11: Alligator in the Coal Mine
2/10: Inconvenient Public Opinion
2/9: Remember Penn Station
2/6: Adam Smith and Automobile Efficiency
2/5: Clean Water, Naturally
2/4: Roll, Storms, Roll
2/3: Land Purchase Fever
2/2: Groundhog Day in the Persian Gulf
1/30: Trees and Hormones
1/29: Things To Come (2)
1/28: Things To Come
1/27: 'Bye, 'Bye Brazil
1/26: Jaywalking and Jaydriving
1/23: Good Biotech, Bad Biotech
1/22: No More Roads
1/21: Swordfish
To access more "Today" columns, click "Archives" below.