Spring 2010 Newsletter
Published on May 14th, 2010
AMERICAN BIGFOOT: IMMIGRATION, POPULATION GROWTH, AND OUR OVERSIZED ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT
Bigfoot lives! But we needn’t explore the rugged mountains and impenetrable forests of the Pacific Northwest to find this legend. We need look no further than the voracious and ever more numerous American consumer, with his/her enormous Ecological Footprint (EF). more>>
PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE: POLLING ON ATTITUDE CHANGE AND UNREPORTED CALIFORNIA COSTS
Do the leaders of the various pro-immigration interest groups, now lobbying for an amnesty, accurately mirror the sentiments of their supposed constituencies? It appears that the answer is a definite “no” caused by a now demonstrable chasm and culture clash between what Bill O’Reilly at Fox News calls the “folks” and those who are claiming to represent them. A series of recent polls by Zogby, sponsored by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), finds, for example, that minority voters want less immigration, not amnesty, and more enforcement of immigration laws. These beliefs are consistent with those of most Americans. more>>
Meet CAPS' New Chairman of the Board: Marilyn Brant Chandler DeYoung
New TV Ads Tie Massive Unemployment to Lack of Immigration Enforcement
CAPS and its partners in the Coalition for the American Worker launched two new TV ads asking why the President and congressional leaders have cut jobsite enforcement of immigration laws at a time when at least 8 million jobs are held by illegal foreign workers and so manyAmericans are unemployed. more>>
More Earthquakes or Just More People?
Earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and Turkey have brought death and wreaked havoc in the first few months of this year, leading some to wonder if seismic activity is increasing. It’s not, seismologists say. more>>
CAPS Welcomes New Advisory Board Member Michael Tobias, Ph.D.
A History of Amnesty
Proponents of another new amnesty for illegal aliens fail to acknowledge the history and net effect of previous amnesties. Many Americans believe that there has been only one prior amnesty, the Immigration and Reform Control Act (IRCA) of 1986. In fact, including IRCA, there have been seven amnesties since that time, using the misnomers of “reform” or “adjustments.” These additional amnesties have had the ultimate effect of naturalizing millions of individuals who knowingly entered the United States illegally. Since IRCA was enacted, some 5.7 million more. more>>
Illegal Aliens Commandeer National Parks for Pot
Teddy Roosevelt, the visionary for public trust lands, wouldn’t have predicted that large swaths of national parks would be taken over by Mexican gangs and illegal alien workers using sophisticated production methods to grow marijuana. more>>
Volunteer Thank You
CAPS solutes Laura Willers for her volunteer efforts at our office and for helping at CAPS Earth Day events. more>>
David Brower on Population and Immigration
As we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, on April 22, 2010, it is worth noting, that most of the early leaders knew that “every environmental problem is a population problem.” We are proud that David Brower, the pre-eminent environmentalist of his time, was a member of the Advisory Board of CAPS. From 1952 to 1969, Brower served as the first executive director of the Sierra Club, and later founded Friends of Earth, the Earth Island Institute and co-founded the League of Conservation Voters. more>>
Ben Zuckerman Honored
This year CAPS Vice President and Professor Emeritus of Astronomy at UCLA, Ben Zuckerman and his co-authors were selected as winners of this year's American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Newcomb Cleveland Prize for for the outstanding article published in Science Magazine between June 1, 2008 and May 31, 2009. This is the oldest prize awarded by the AAAS; a prize that has been awarded since 1923. Recognition was given at an awards ceremony at the AAAS Annual Meeting, held in February 2010 in San Diego, CA. more>>
AMERICAN BIGFOOT: IMMIGRATION, POPULATION GROWTH, AND OUR OVERSIZED ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT
By Leon Kolankiewicz, CAPS Senior Writing Fellow
Bigfoot lives! But we needn’t explore the rugged mountains and impenetrable forests of the Pacific Northwest to find this legend. We need look no further than the voracious and ever more numerous American consumer, with his/her enormous Ecological Footprint (EF).
According to the Global Footprint Network, in 2006 Americans had the third-highest per capita EF in the world – 22.3 acres. This area is the amount of biologically productive land and waters needed to furnish the resources and absorb the wastes of a typical American in a given year. Our national aggregate EF was higher than any other country on earth, including China’s. This dubious first-place status is a consequence of both our large population and our high per capita resource consumption.
Over the long term, perhaps even more serious than America’s growing federal deficit is its growing ecological deficit: the widening gap between America’s “biocapacity” and its EF, which the Network estimated at 11.3 acres per capita in 2006. Biocapacity refers to the ecological capacity for regeneration and renewal.
Excessive immigration levels are aggravating the problem by increasing America’s aggregate EF, pushing our country even deeper into ecological deficit. Approaching 310 million, U.S. population currently exceeds the “carrying capacity” of our land and resource base. By forcing annual growth rates to more than 3 million net new residents, high immigration levels are preventing U.S. population stabilization and driving our numbers to a projected 440 million by 2050. According to demographers at the Pew Hispanic Center, more than 80 percent of this increase will be due to immigrants and their U.S.-born descendents.
If this projection comes to pass, by 2050 America’s population will be growing even faster than today, and the U.S. will be climbing rapidly towards a half-billion and then a billion – with ruinous consequences for our environment and quality of life.
EF analysis provides additional scientific evidence that indeed, “numbers count.” It shows that today’s America, to say nothing of tomorrow’s, is already overpopulated, overconsuming, and over-polluting.
The Ecological Footprint is a measure of aggregate human demands, or the human load, imposed on the biosphere or portions of it. When all is said and done, the human economy, all production and consumption of goods and services, depends entirely on the Earth’s natural capital: on arable soils, forests, croplands, pasturelands, fishing grounds, clean air and water, the ozone layer, climate, fossil fuels, and minerals. These perform the ecological services and provide the materials and energy “sources” and waste “sinks” that sustain civilization.
Drawing on natural capital beyond its regenerative capacity leads to “drawdown”, or depletion of the capital stock. Similarly, drawing down the principal of a savings account or inheritance will eventually exhaust it.
When humanity began to exploit fossil fuels at the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, drawdown began to accelerate. It expanded exponentially in the 20th century. To date, drawdown continues recklessly in the 21st century, though growing signs of an ever more exhausted and stressed planet are evident in every continent and ocean, as well as our common atmosphere.
According to EF analysis, since the late 1970’s, humanity as a whole has not been living within the ecological means of the planet; that is, we are already in ecological overshoot – an unstable, and unsustainable condition.
Even as humanity’s aggregate EF continues to increase, the Earth’s biocapacity is decreasing simultaneously; civilization-sustaining biocapacity is being degraded.
Here in the United States, continued rapid population growth, driven primarily by a persistently high immigration rate, is aggravating America’s ecological deficit. Over-consuming and overpopulated America is living beyond its ecological means. A recently released policy brief by Progressives for Immigration Reform finds that if demographic trends hold, America’s ecological deficit will increase from 11 to 16 acres per capita by 2050.
If American environmentalists were serious about living up to their name and facing the challenge of environmental sustainability, they would address the threat of unsustainable U.S. population growth. Although changing to more benign technologies and challenging over-consumption and waste are crucial in our pursuit of sustainability, so is the need for population stabilization, nationally and globally.
Nationally, U.S. population stabilization simply cannot happen without immigration reduction. As the Population and Consumption Task Force of President Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development concluded in 1996: “reducing current immigration levels is a necessary part of working toward sustainability in the United States.”
To effectively shrink America’s “Big Feet” and tread lighter on the Earth, conservationists must advocate reducing both the size of each typical foot and the total number of feet, period. America’s and the Earth’s natural resources can be trampled to death both by feet that are too large and too many.
Leon Kolankiewicz is an environmental scientist and natural resources planner.
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PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE: POLLING ON ATTITUDE CHANGE AND UNREPORTED CALIFORNIA COSTS
Do the leaders of the various pro-immigration interest groups, now lobbying for an amnesty, accurately mirror the sentiments of their supposed constituencies? It appears that the answer is a definite “no” caused by a now demonstrable chasm and culture clash between what Bill O’Reilly at Fox News calls the “folks” and those who are claiming to represent them. A series of recent polls by Zogby, sponsored by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), finds, for example, that minority voters want less immigration, not amnesty, and more enforcement of immigration laws. These beliefs are consistent with those of most Americans.
Sixty-five percent of Asians and Hispanics and 81 percent of African Americans believe there are enough Americans to do unskilled work. So apparently all the lobbyists who claim to be representing any or all of these groups are not carrying the correct message, nor promoting the kind of legislation wanted by those who are paying them, whether they are businesses, minority spokespersons or faith-based activists.
But one of the most interesting parts of this comprehensive CIS study has to do with the claim from religious leaders of every denomination that open borders and an uninhibited welcome is the ethical position for right thinking people. Here, the disparity between pulpit and pew is both surprising and striking. So the theory that support of mass immigration and or amnesty allegedly flows from the laudable compassion consistent with ethnic or religious affiliation is also now open to serious question because of this poll.
Stephen Steinlight, one of CAPS’ most well received speakers a few years ago, reported recently on the contrasting views between Pulpit and Pew among Jews, in an article entitled “Straight Talk About Immigration and Jews” in the magazine The Jewish Week. He called the CIS poll “irrefutable evidence dividing America’s religious leadership and congregants and the ‘pulpit and pew’ of all faiths, on the issue of immigration. Though the divide is narrower among Jews due to fading liberalism and the residual influence of politically correct, moribund communal institutions,” he wrote, “it is significant and widening.”
But this CIS study, overall, is a clarion call to elected officials and policy makers to get up to date on many stale assumptions and stop “rote type thinking” that so-called minorities support the open border and amnesty agendas promoted, for example, by the National Council of La Raza and Luis Gutierrez, Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Immigration Task Force.
When evaluating the opinions of so-called minority advocates and paid or self-appointed lobbyists for what is conventionally and often incorrectly called “underserved groups,” law makers can now question with confidence many of the out of date and politically correct notions they were sold. This well thought out poll establishes that the predominant views of ethnic minorities and many of their associated constituencies are now quite mainstream. Overall, the poll indicates the major divide between long held perceptions about how immigration is viewed and present reality.
So the public, too, needs to move beyond the overused clichés and conventional wisdom of the past. Although it made sense that minorities would identify with their co-nationals and would want to encourage and increase their numbers and thereby the political power of their own group, the mainstream views now held by so many earlier immigrants is a victory for assimilation. It cannot be emphasized enough that a majority of these groups, according to this study, believe that current levels of immigration are too high and that the U.S. needs to encourage illegal aliens to leave by enforcing laws, rather than offering them a pathway to citizenship. So indirectly, and equally important, the CIS poll demonstrates that the pull of one’s cultural base and ancestral home is now on the wane and in a culture devoted to multiculturalism and diversity, that’s really good news.
No doubt these findings are equally valid in California where we are hemorrhaging money— perhaps $20 billion in overruns this year and where about $3.5 billion alone is the approximate annual cost of delivering and caring for babies of illegal aliens and birth tourists. This figure does not include post natal subsidies to parents of new citizen-children or the cost of their education, health care and other services*.
But many solutions to California’s fiscal crisis are well within reach.A new statutory initiative that requires just 400,000 signatures to get on the ballot has been approved by Sacramento and carefully vetted to prevent federal challenges. Even though this is an incredible bargain, no person or foundation of means has deemed it worthwhile to contribute $1 million to $1.5 million to hire enough professional signature gathers to put this initiative on the ballot this November. Penny-wise and pound foolish is a huge understatement, considering how big the win would be and the savings it would generate.
Diana Hull, Ph.D., President
*Women illegally in California are about five percent of the female adult population but represent 20-25 percent of all births and that high percentage is attributed to women who come here just to deliver. The State of California estimates the birth costs for those here unlawfully at $400 to $500 million annually based on $4,000 per regular vaginal delivery for 100,000 to 125,000 births. But this represents only 40 percent of all public funded births, and there is no official information generated in this state for the costs of other types of delivery. But 31 percent of births nationwide were C-sections in 2006 and the Center for Disease Control reports 12 percent of all births are premature. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services puts the average cost in California for a Cesarean section at $22,762 and for a premature birth $164,273. In years when there are 125,000 California births to illegal aliens, the costs for those here unlawfully or as birth tourists is $3.5 billion annually. Not counted are additional costs for births which require heart valve repairs, other types of medical procedures, medications and long-term care. The Chief Deputy Registrar for San Diego County, revealed that "Twelve out of twenty birth certificates do not have a parent's SSN.” That is 60 percent. It is also well known that that “Birth certificates are sold on the streets of this city for about $5,000.”
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CAPS and its partners in the Coalition for the American Worker launched two new TV ads asking why the President and congressional leaders have cut jobsite enforcement of immigration laws at a time when at least 8 million jobs are held by illegal foreign workers and so manyAmericans are unemployed.
While President Obama says his top priority is jobs, apparently he doesn’t mean jobs for Americans at a time when the country faces the highest unemployment rate in decades. While Americans desperately need jobs, the Obama administration is reducing worksite enforcement even though enforcement opens up those jobs for Americans. When illegal workers are then caught, they're often released, and they can take other jobs. The U.S. continues to admit more than a million foreign workers a year that take good paying jobs. The ads ask viewers to call the White House at 202-456-1414 and tell the President Americans want their jobs back!
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More Earthquakes or Just More People?
Earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and Turkey have brought death and wreaked havoc in the first few months of this year, leading some to wonder if seismic activity is increasing.
It’s not, seismologists say.
Improved seismic monitoring and instantaneous news contribute to the sense of more earthquake activity; a bigger factor though is that more people in a more populated world are now living in areas along fault lines. This includes megacities where substandard buildings can’t take the pounding of an earthquake.
There are 130 cities on the globe with populations greater than 1 million, and more than half of those cities are on fault lines, putting an estimated 400 million people at risk.
“The Haiti quake,” per an AP report, “likely set a modern record for deaths per magnitude of an earthquake solely as a function of too many people crammed into a city that wasn’t meant to have that many people and have an earthquake,” said University of Miami geologist Tim Dixon.
The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti, with an estimated population of 9 million, has a fertility rate of 3.81, too high to be sustainable, even given that the United States acts as a release valve for the pitiless press of so many destitute people. It’s estimated there are about 100,000 Haitians living in the United States illegally and another 30,000 who were awaiting deportation at the time of the quake.
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Proponents of another new amnesty for illegal aliens fail to acknowledge the history and net effect of previous amnesties. Many Americans believe that there has been only one prior amnesty, the Immigration and Reform Control Act (IRCA) of 1986. In fact, including IRCA, there have been seven amnesties since that time, using the misnomers of “reform” or “adjustments.” These additional amnesties have had the ultimate effect of naturalizing millions of individuals who knowingly entered the United States illegally.
Since IRCA was enacted, some 5.7 million more people have been granted amnesty and the opportunity to become citizens. But now there are at least four or five times that many people illegally in the United States. Through all these amnesties, many more foreign nationals were amnestied than had been estimated. IRCA was expected to cover some 1 million illegal aliens.
The seven amnesties that have been passed by Congress:
1. Immigration and Reform Control Act (IRCA), 1986.
A blanket amnesty for some 2.7 million illegal aliens2. Section 245(i) Amnesty, 1994.
A temporary rolling amnesty for 578,000 illegal aliens3. Section 245(i) Extension Amnesty, 1997.
An extension of the rolling amnesty created in 1994Note: The numbers for section 245(i) are not broken out for 1994 and 1997
4. Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA) Amnesty, 1997.
An amnesty for close to 1 million illegal aliens from Central America5. Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act Amnesty (HRIFA), 1998.
An amnesty for 125,000 illegal aliens from Haiti6. Late Amnesty, 2000.
An amnesty for some illegal aliens who claim they should have been amnestied under the 1986 IRCA amnesty, an estimated 400,000 illegal aliens7. LIFE Act Amnesty, 2000.
A reinstatement of the rolling Section 245(i) amnesty, an estimated 900,000 illegal aliens
When IRCA was passed by Congress, it was with the strict understanding that it would be a onetime- only forgiveness followed by strict border and active workplace enforcement. The list of amnesties post-IRCA shows that rather than leading to a tightening of immigration policy and enforcement, IRCA became a powerful lure for more illegal entry. Since IRCA led to an amnesty for three times as many people as were estimated beforehand, the U.S. might now be looking at offering naturalization to some 30 million people.
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Teddy Roosevelt, the visionary for public trust lands, wouldn’t have predicted that large swaths of national parks would be taken over by Mexican gangs and illegal alien workers using sophisticated production methods to grow marijuana.
Law enforcement officials say land in the Sequoia National Forest and in the national parks in Redwood, Sequoia and Yosemite, as well as other public lands in states such as Colorado and Idaho, have become illegal marijuana growing zones yielding billions of drug dollars for Mexican traffickers.According to an AP report, “Many of the plots are encircled with crude explosives and are patrolled by guards armed with AK-47s who survey the perimeter from the ground and from perches high in the trees.”
Easy targets for traffickers, the public lands offer remoteness, vastness and thick forest cover. These attributes that give criminals their growing advantage are just what hamper government agents who battle this assault on America’s natural treasures. Agents also lack staff to cover these huge areas.
One law officer likened the marijuana market share grab by Mexican traffickers to that of another drug market. “Just like the Mexicans took over the methamphetamine trade, they’ve gone to mega, monster gardens,” he said.
Growing illicit drugs in the U.S. makes distribution for drug dealers less risky and Mexican gangs can operate closer to their markets. Besides appropriating lands that belong to the American public, the growers abuse them. They leave behind trash, poach deer and birds, cut down trees, dam creeks and often use animal poisons and fertilizers that pollute streams and groundwater.
Fire is part of their arsenal too. The August 2009 La Brea wildfire that burned through 89,000 acres of California’s Los Padres National Forest was started by the cooking fire of marijuana growers, who the Forest Service believed were part of a Mexican drug operation.
Of the estimated $13.8 billion in income by drug cartels in 2006, nearly $9 billion came from marijuana sales, according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
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David Brower on Population and Immigration
By Ric Oberlink, CAPS Consultant
As we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, on April 22, 2010, it is worth noting, that most of the early leaders knew that “every environmental problem is a population problem.” We are proud that David Brower, the pre-eminent environmentalist of his time, was a member of the Advisory Board of CAPS. From 1952 to 1969, Brower served as the first executive director of the Sierra Club, and later founded Friends of Earth, the Earth Island Institute and co-founded the League of Conservation Voters.
Unlike most of today’s environmental leaders, Brower was honest and outspoken about the environmental degradation caused by population growth. He resigned from the Sierra Club’s Board of Directors, in large part over its failure to tackle this issue:
“The population problem is the worst problem we've got. If we don't solve that, we'll solve nothing. Immigration and over-immigration is an important part of that.
“One of the places that suffers a great deal from the immigration problem is California. I was born here when there were 2 million people; now there's something like 34 million and counting. [Ed. note, now over 38 million]
“The question of population is twofaced, our own population increase and that of immigration. We can ignore neither of those two aspects.We have to address them both.”
Active until the very end of his life, Brower’s last public speaking engagement was to be before the CAPS Conference in Los Angeles in August 2000. Illness prevented his attendance at the last minute, and he spoke to the conference by telephone.
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This year CAPS Vice President and Professor Emeritus of Astronomy at UCLA, Ben Zuckerman and his co-authors were selected as winners of this year's American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Newcomb Cleveland Prize for for the outstanding article published in Science Magazine between June 1, 2008 and May 31, 2009. This is the oldest prize awarded by the AAAS; a prize that has been awarded since 1923. Recognition was given at an awards ceremony at the AAAS Annual Meeting, held in February 2010 in San Diego, CA.
The Science Magazine paper "Direct Imaging of Multiple Planets Orbiting the Star HR 8799" reported the first picture ever obtained of a planetary system in orbit around a star other than our Sun. An image of the three planets that the astronomers discovered is shown in the picture below.
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