Breeder Lovers

The Sierra Club has a lot of nerve awarding a “climate denier award” to Santa Barbarans who negotiated a compromise to rebuild the Miramar Hotel [“Climate Denier Award,” 4/16, independent.com/denier]. In the 1990s the Sierra Club—a supposed environmental group based in San Francisco—dissolved its population committee and fled the issue of overpopulation, the greatest environmental challenge of our time.

Why did the Sierra Club become an “overpopulation denier?” Well, it can’t be easy for an environmentalist to remain popular on the Bay Area cocktail-party circuit while reminding San Franciscans that they need to restrict their family size, or even that they need to reduce immigration.

Knee-jerk social liberals in San Francisco think anyone who confronts overpopulation or immigration must be racist. So-called environmentalists in the Bay Area fold under this pressure. Not only does the Sierra Club treat overpopulation as an untouchable subject, so do California’s two Bay Area senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.

By default, environmentalists in Santa Barbara—like Californians for Population Stabilization—must roll up their sleeves and tackle the population issue that Bay Area denizens refuse to dirty their hands with. And then, adding insult to injury, the Sierra Club turns around and fires off a snide parting shot at Santa Barbara while fleeing the scene. Here’s a bulletin to Bay Area social liberals: Environmentalist liberals in Santa Barbara confront the big issues and resolve local issues while your Sierra Club wanders in the wilderness. — Kenneth Pasternack (CAPS Advisory Board Member)