CAPS SAYS COLBERT’S CRITIQUE OF EARTH DAY TV AD CONTAINED ELEMENTS OF HUMOR BUT CROSSED THE LINE

SANTA BARBARA (May 1, 2012) – Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) issued the following statement in response to “The Word” segment in “The Colbert Report” of April 25, 2012:

There’s no doubt Steve Colbert is funny – at least some of the time. But in the case of his attack on Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) and the organization’s Earth Day TV ad (http://www.capsweb.org/content.php?id=494&menu_id=14), he chose to trivialize a serious subject and crossed the line into slanderous innuendo. And that isn’t funny.

The CAPS spot stated the fact that immigrants produce four times more carbon emissions in the U.S. than in their home countries. It then illustrated that unchecked growth from immigration will drive a population increase equal to the American West in the next few decades.

The spot was created to engage viewers to start thinking about the implications of mass immigration that is driving U.S. population growth and that is expanding the country’s already massive carbon footprint. In the next 40 years, America is projected to grow by more than 100 million people.

Here are a few areas where Colbert got it wrong:

Nowhere does the ad state or suggest, as implied by Colbert, that immigrants, and immigrants alone, are to blame for greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.

But, immigration is the primary cause of continuing rapid U.S. population growth, with no end in sight. This population growth produces upward pressure on our CO2 emissions. This is unassailable.

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) work that Colbert chose to ridicule concluded:

Some may be tempted to see this analysis as “blaming immigrants” for what are really America’s failures. It is certainly reasonable to argue that Americans could do much more to reduce per capita emissions. And it is certainly not our intention to imply that immigrants are particularly responsible for global warming. As we report in this study, immigrants produce somewhat less CO2 on average than native-born Americans. But to simply dismiss the large role that continuing high levels of immigration play in increasing U.S. and world-wide CO2 emissions is not only intellectually dishonest, it is also counter-productive…. The effect of immigration is certainly not trivial.

While CAPS is not affiliated with CIS, we understand that the group is an independent, nonpartisan and nonprofit research organization that is pro-immigrant and supports low immigration, and one which is regularly called on to testify before Congress about matters related to immigration. Their polls are routinely publicized and their principals regularly interviewed by some of America’s largest news outlets from NPR to USA Today.

Our organization is also not affiliated with John Tanton. The controversial Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is simply not a credible information source when it comes to groups favoring population stabilization and environmental protection. CAPS promotes an overall curtailment of population growth, without regard to any particular racial or ethnic group.

The SPLC has been described as “essentially a fraud” and one that “has a habit of casually labeling organizations as ‘hate groups,’” according to Harper’s. Among some of SPLC’s gross misrepresentations: SPLC has accused even the founder of Earth Day of “the greening of hate.” That would be the late Gaylord Nelson, former U.S. Senator from Wisconsin and two-term governor of that state – and a respected liberal icon. He merited this calumny simply because he continued speaking truth about the connection among immigration, population and the environment until the day he died.

Because of American’s proclivity for conspicuous consumption, most environmentalists understand that population growth in the United States affects the environment here and worldwide. However, many environmentalists will not talk about the fact that immigration is the number one factor driving U.S. population growth. As the iconic David Brower, the Sierra Club’s first executive director and a member of CAPS Advisory Board said, “Overpopulation is perhaps the biggest problem facing us, and immigration is part of that problem. It has to be addressed.”

It’s intellectually dishonest to think we can address population growth without addressing mass immigration.

About CAPS
CAPS (http://www.capsweb.org) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1986 that works to formulate and advance policies and programs designed to stabilize the population of California, the U.S. and the world at levels which will preserve the environment and a good quality of life for all. Since nearly all of California's runaway population growth now comes from immigration, CAPS focuses largely on this issue. The organization sponsors public and media awareness campaigns, works with lawmakers to promote more responsible policies, conducts research and has a growing network of member-activists who are concerned about the impacts of overpopulation.