22
Aug

Open Letter to the Funders of The Center for New Community (CNC)

Published on August 22nd, 2011

Dear Funder:

I write to complain that you are funding the Center for New Community (CNC) in Chicago, an organization that lies and engages in ad hominem and McCarthyesque attacks of the worst kind. While I would hope that your foundation welcomes honest debate, CNC attempts to squash debate by “taking out” the opposition.

The Carnegie Foundation, another CNC funder, has recently apologized for CNC’s behavior.

Perhaps you do not see or know that the CNC has consistently and unfairly attacked Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) and many other legitimate environmental/population groups who work hard to preserve the quality of life for all Americans and to stabilize U.S. population growth. This unprecedented growth in the U.S. causes, and has caused a myriad of problems that are almost irreversible.

CNC released a video parodying one of my organization’s TV ads. The main feature of the CNC video is an underdressed young woman.

The CNC’s home page features a tabloid intended to “mock” organizations like mine that recognize overpopulation as an environmental concern. That hit piece, “The Borderline,” stoops to ad hominem attacks. For a faith-based group that supposedly builds community, the CNC is remarkably uncharitable toward fellow citizens.

As the response below shows, my group is perfectly willing to debate the interplay of population and the environment – on the merits. We will not sit quietly, however, while we are savaged by a group with no environmental charter and a fondness for offensiveness.

Just so you understand my position, I sat on the federal Rockefeller Commission, which reported to the President and Congress in 1972 that there was nothing to be gained by increasing the nation’s population after reaching 200 million people. Another federal commission, the Jordan commission, reached the same conclusion in the 1990s. Now that the U.S. population exceeds 300 million, the problem has worsened.

All that has improved since the Rockefeller report in 1972 is that Americans now plan their families and are ending the nation’s internal growth.

The nation continues to grow rapidly, however, because immigration has quadrupled. Growth has shifted from internal to imported. This demographic shift forces groups like mine, which used to emphasize family planning, to focus on the need to reduce immigration to a more traditional and sustainable level.

My organization addresses immigration for serious, fact-based reasons. We hope your organization will move forward in the same spirit, leave this tawdry episode behind you, and seriously consider what you fund.

Sincerely,

Marilyn Brant Chandler DeYoung, Chairman of the Board, Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS)

*          *          *

A Response to the Center for New Community’s Immigration Tabloid “The Borderline”

By Kenneth Pasternack, Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS)

The broadsheet “The Borderline” suggests that immigration reductionists blame environmental problems on immigrants. No, reductionists recognize that environmental problems are magnified by a growing U.S. population. Looking at the situation the other way around, how many of America’s environmental stresses would be relieved by a larger population?

Mass immigration is significant because it drives U.S. population growth. America’s growth now comes from immigration levels that were quadrupled in recent decades, even while citizens reduced their family size. Internal growth from people now in the country is slowing and will end within a few decades, but the U.S. population will not stop growing until immigration is reduced.

“Borderline” refuses to recognize immigration as a concern in the context of U.S. population growth, dismissing calls for reduced immigration as a racist plot. The authors refuse to acknowledge that reducing immigration could be a sensible measure to end U.S. population growth, and begin reducing the population, in order to preserve the nation’s vanishing renewable resources for future generations.

Like other immoderate political attacks, “Borderline” oversimplifies issues into all-or-nothing arguments, discounting the complex reality of environmental problems. The piece mentions other factors that degrade the environment only in order to pretend that population levels have no significant impact. Although population’s impact will vary from issue to issue, utterly disregarding population distorts reality.

In biologist Paul Ehrlich’s well-known equation, our Impact on the environment is the product of our Population, times our Affluence, times our Technology, that is, I=PAT. “Borderline” reads P out of the equation.

At bottom, “Borderline” ignores the simple truth that the U.S. population cannot grow forever. After a century in which the U.S. and world populations doubled and redoubled to levels unprecedented in history, “Borderline” recognizes no limit to a sustainable U.S. population.

*          *          *

Let’s examine the section of “Borderline” that offers some substance rather than just insults:

“Top 10 Reasons Why Immigrants Are Not to Blame for Environmental Degradation.”

This title attacks a straw man. I’m not aware of anyone who blames immigrants for environmental problems. As noted above, though, American population growth does aggravate environmental problems. It follows that immigration aggravates environmental problems because immigrants increase the population. Immigrants are no more to blame for environmental degradation than other Americans. On the other hand, immigrants and their descendants do become Americans, and they do increase America’s population, permanently. The Americans already here must determine the nation’s population future, for future generations. Abdicating this responsibility amounts to a choice that we will allow any future population, no matter how large and no matter what the consequences.

Now, let’s briefly examine these 10 “reasons” under their own headings.

1) “Population Growth is Not the Main Cause of Environmental Degradation.” This section starts by claiming that immigration contributes only one-third of U.S. population growth; immigrants and their children actually contribute more than half.  And this section overlooks that immigration will account for all growth a few decades hence, as internal growth from current Americans winds down. On another note, this section tries to shift the focus of environmental harm from people to “harmful economic systems.” While affluence and technology are factors, so is the population – in proportion to its size.

2) “Immigrants Are Not ‘Super-Consumers.’” Without supporting figures, this section suggests that “not many immigrants live high on the hog.” Even if true, immigrants come to America to raise their living standards, and they do not pledge that their descendants will live second-class lives in perpetuity. Over time, immigrant families will assimilate and become part of the wealthier population which “Borderline” blames for environmental problems while absolving new arrivals. Ultimately, imported population growth stresses the environment as much as internal growth.

3) “Immigrants Do Not ‘Drive’ Urban Sprawl,” 4) “Immigrants Do Not Cause Traffic Jams” and 7) “Immigrants Are Not a Major Contributor to Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” Even if Americans start living in denser clusters and increase the availability of public transport, population growth will eventually overtake any improvement. Reductions in per capita impact will be overwhelmed by the multiplier effect as the population grows. This is the P in I=PAT.

5) “Immigrants Are Green Innovators, Not Environmental Destroyers” and 8)  “Immigrants Are a Positive Force for Political Change.” In an age of mass immigration, there is no factual basis to speculate that immigrants as a group are more innovative or more a positive force than the Americans already here. What can be said with certainty is that every immigrant increases the nation’s population.

6) “It’s Not Immigrants who Stomp the Deepest Ecological Footprint in the Borderlands.” This section suggests that the southwestern deserts are more damaged by border fencing than by migrations of illegal immigrants. This author grew up in Arizona and lives in California. Environmental damage from illegal immigrants is serious, and the arid southwest heals very slowly. Furthermore, increasing the population of the southwestern desert by unrestrained immigration will utterly destroy fragile ecosystems through overuse and by draining scarce aquifers. These aquifers are already overdrafted; the southwest must reduce the population, not increase it.

9) “Immigrants Are Not Destroying America’s Idyllic Natural Landscapes.” This section suggests that rural areas are destroyed not by population growth, but by the shift from family farming to industrial agriculture. That shift certainly poses problems; nonetheless, increasing the population through immigration requires that wild land be sacrificed for farmland in order to feed more people (and that farmland and wild land be sacrificed to house more people as well).

10) “Immigrants Are Us.” This is precisely the point, although not in the way the heading intends. Immigrants and their descendants impact the environment just like everyone else. They possess no superpower of environmental invisibility.

*          *          *

Conclusion

The Center for New Community describes itself as committed to building community, justice, and equality, grounded in many faith traditions. The organization’s staff and its large board of directors do not appear to be environmentalists. None appear to be ecologists or other scientists, or demographers. The organization seems blinded about population concerns by its emotions, by its sense of justice, rather than from any interest or knowledge about the environment.

Today’s unprecedented immigration flow poses serious environmental issues, deserving of serious consideration rather than the juvenilia of “Borderline.” Environmental perils that threaten the nation deserve logical analysis, not appeals to prejudice through ad hominem attacks. If the Center for New Community truly desires to foster tolerance, it should train its staff and volunteers to respect the opinions of others, rather than spreading hate toward fellow citizens with contrasting viewpoints. The donations that were wasted on this hit piece could have protected the environment, fostered goodwill between peoples, or furthered any number of other good causes.

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