population

OFIR was founded partly because of the need to alert Oregonians and U.S. citizens to the environmental consequences of excessive immigration levels.

Following is an excellent summary reminding us of the destructive effects on our environment caused by mass migration.  The statement was issued by the Immigration Reform law Institute, on the occasion of Earth Day, 2019.  Earth Day is observed annually on April 22, throughout the world.

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“On Earth Day, we should all recognize our responsibility to be good stewards of our environment,” said Dale L. Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of IRLI. “Those who advocate against borders and reasonable immigration controls are acting irresponsibly and causing great damage to our planet. An effective plan to protect our environment must recognize the role that mass migration plays in boosting CO2 emissions and pollution to dangerous levels.”  

637 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually

Immigration-generated population growth is fueling an increase in energy demand and the waste product that accompanies it. Immigrants to the United States alone produce about four times more CO2 in the United States as they would have in their countries of origin. U.S. immigrants produce an estimated 637 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually — equal to Great Britain and Sweden combined. Strangely, governments that stress the urgency of addressing climate change are also some of the biggest opponents of border enforcement and immigration limits.

Mass migration grows America’s carbon footprint

One of the most popular talking points of climate change advocates is that the United States has less than five percent of the world’s population, yet consumes about a quarter of the world’s fossil fuel resources. If that is true, then why do some of the same people support immigration policies that significantly increase American fuel consumption as well as its carbon footprint? The two positions are wildly inconsistent.

Global climate hypocrisy 

While issuing apocalyptic warnings about climate change, the United Nations simultaneously encourages countries to accept even more migrants. After the Trump administration pulled the United States out of the UN’s Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria followed suit. Austria and Slovakia have also indicated they will act similarly. Their objection is that the pact may encourage more illegal alien arrivals and is not in the interests of the host country. 

Border trash is piling up

The environmental damage from mass migration extends beyond just increased CO2 output. The land around our southern border is riddled with trash, and it is directly proportional to the numbers of those who make the perilous journey to enter our country illegally. 

According to the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, in fiscal years 2011 and 2012, when Arizona was experiencing over 120,000 border apprehensions, over 65,000 pounds of border trash was being collected annually. That’s more than 32 tons of garbage—plastic water bottles, abandoned vehicles, human waste, medical products and much more—on the ground. In the following years, as apprehensions fell as low as 70,000, border trash collections dropped as well – reaching a low of just 19,000 pounds in fiscal year 2015 before jumping back up in 2016. This is only one of our four southern border states, and not even the largest.

Our government needs to act

With this kind of pollution caused by mass migration, surely our federal government is on the case. That assumption would be wrong. IRLI has argued that federal immigration-regulating agencies—in particular, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security—have ignored the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), our nation’s preeminent environmental law, for decades. Since it became law nearly a half century ago, NEPA has required any agency, before implementing actions or programs that will affect the environment, to issue an Environmental Impact Statement analyzing and publicizing those effects. The federal government’s immigration programs are probably the most environmentally consequential programs there are, yet no such analysis has ever been done.

See the news release as issued by IRLI at:  https://www.irli.org/single-post/2019/04/21/Earth-Day-Message-Mass-Migration-Harms-the-Environment Read more about Mass Migration Harms the Environment – Earth Day Message

by  Tim Murray

Maybe you haven’t heard the terrible news. The United States, like almost every nation on the planet, is in serious population overshoot. This is a vastly different world than the one Emma Lazarus lived in. Hers was an America of seemingly unlimited resources. Ours is one of Limits to Growth.

Yes, there are still vast tracts of America that are sparsely populated. But it is not about how many people a nation can contain but how many it can sustain. The United States has a limited ecological carrying capacity, and there is every indication that it has been exceeded.

That is not only a disaster for us, but a catastrophe for the world. Put it this way. The very last thing that Mother Nature needs is another American consumer. Migration from less developed countries to developed nations like ours has a “multiplier” effect. The average migrant to the United States, for example, quadruples his GHG emissions upon arrival, and this applies to the consumption of resources as well. This is not surprising. After all, most immigrants come here precisely because they want to consume more. They want to enjoy the good life, or at least a materially better life, for themselves and their children.

To prospective immigrants I would say this. Our working poor and IT workers do not need your competition. Our bulging prisons and crowded classrooms cannot accommodate you. Our fruit and vegetable crops do not need you to harvest them. Our service and hospitality sector does not need your labour, nor does the home construction industry. We have Americans to do those jobs. All they need is a decent wage, and without immigration, there is a good chance that they would get it.

The era of smokestack industries and family farms is over. The era of A. I. and robots is soon to unfold. The demand for menial labor will plummet. We will be hard put to employ our working poor, never mind the global poor that Emma Lazarus and her modern day equivalents would welcome. In other words, your services will not be required.

So here’s some advice. Turn around and go back from whence you came. If things are still too rough at home, chances are that you can find suitable sanctuary in a country located in the same region. And if you do manage to make it back, could you please convey this message to your compatriots: Take responsibility for your family size. Understand that scarcity and the conflict that issues from it are in a large part a consequence of your nation’s runaway population growth. If your nation cannot grow the pie, it can, through aggressive family planning programs, increase the size of per capita “slices” by reducing the number of diners at the table.

I think you are a victim of a misunderstanding. The Statue of Liberty was meant to tell you that liberty, democracy and the rule of law can set the citizens of your country free. It was a prescription for good government, not an invitation to come and settle here. The Lazarus poem was an add-on twenty years after the statue was erected, and not congruent with the statement that the Statue was making. Immigration and liberty are apples and oranges.

In fact, higher population density requires more regulations and laws. Population growth is inversely correlated to liberty. As Isaac Asimov said in his famous “bathroom” metaphor. If there is only one tenant and one bathroom in an apartment, the tenant has “freedom of the bathroom”. He can access the bathroom at any time. But once another tenant or tenants come to share that same apartment, the original occupant must compete to use the bathroom. Rules of use or etiquette ensue. Tenants have no unrestricted freedom to use the bathroom whenever they like. And the more tenants who move in, the more restricted the residents will be.

Perhaps a name change would clarify the message. You have heard of the Statute of Limitations. I think Lady Liberty should be rechristened as the Statue of Limitations, and her torch be replaced by a stop sign.

Published by the Council of European Canadians
Read the full article here.