# Are environmentalists cowards on immigration?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [June 11, 2011, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086 "2011-06-11T06:04:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 10

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**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/181 "2011-06-15T04:00:04Z")

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> [@Kobal2](#):
>
> Which is why I arbitrarily used the Switzerland numbers rather than the Belgium numbers. I figured that was giving myself enough of a safety margin.
> 
> Not that there’s any problem whatsoever with the population density of Belgium - as I said, the country is self-sufficient in food and water and isn’t Hong Kong either. It doesn’t need Switzerland to make itself viable or possible, and I have no idea where you’re pulling that from (outside of your trademarked “well, I have no idea really but it’s just common sense” approach to knowledge :dubious:).

No, there’s no problem with the population density of Belgium. 990 people is not a problem for a country of that size. But if that is expanded to the whole continent, that would be a problem. It would make Europe 7 times as dense as it is. Belgium is less than 12,000 square miles, slightly smaller than Maryland. On a global scale, that’s a dot. Surely you are aware of the importance of large swaths of green areas, trees, wetlands, etc.

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**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/182 "2011-06-15T04:06:59Z")

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> [@Chen019](#):
>
> No they aren’t. Please read the thread before commenting.
> 
> [http://clinton2.nara.gov/PCSD/Publications/TF\_Reports/amer-top.html](http://clinton2.nara.gov/PCSD/Publications/TF_Reports/amer-top.html)
> 
> [| Yale and the World](http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/us-immigration-policy-likely-boost-population)
> 
> Also, saying **Tanton!**  **Nativist!** repeatedly is not an argument.

It **is** if you persist in posting links to Tanton-derived sources. You **do** understand how and why any association with Tanton is automatically discrediting, don’t you? Let me clue you in. From [_Blood, Class and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies,_](http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Class-Nostalgia-Anglo-American-Ironies/dp/0374114439) by Christopher Hitchens, discussing the “official English” movement of 1988:

> [@](#):
>
> U.S. English, it emerged, was a project of “U.S. Inc.,” a tax-exempt body which underwrote a number of other groups, such as the Center for Immigration Studies, Americans for Border Control, and Californians for Population Stabilization. There was no mistaking the timbre of this joint output, which had little to do with the teaching of “the Queen’s English” except as this bore upon the connection between that English and certain inherited conceptions of race and tribal security. Dr. John Tanton, the originating author of this cluster of groups and initiatives, was himself in no doubt that “the question of bilingualism grows out of U.S. immigration policy.”
> 
> So much might have seemed obvious, at least until Dr. Tanton wrote a paper which, phrased in the poor and affected English which is often found among the language’s more ostentatious upholders, created a crisis for his hitherto blue-chip WASP and Jewish campaign. As he coarsely put it:
> 
> > [@](#):
> >
> > _“Gobernar es poblar”_ translates as “to govern is to populate.” In this society, will the present majority peaceably hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile? Can _homo contraceptivus_ compete with _homo progenitiva_ if borders aren’t controlled?
> 
> Having rather clumsily Latinized or Romanized his argument, Tanton moved to a more demotic style. He warned sternly of such alarming cultural imports as "the tradition of the _mordida_ (bribe), the lack of involvement in public affairs, and Roman Catholicism with its tendency to “pitch out the separation of church and state.” He continued to skirt around these aspects of the problem – the most conspicuous opponents of church-state separation in the 1980s have been fundamentalist Protestants – making an excursion through allegedly low “educability” before returning with relish to his main theme, which was, as ever, sex and fertility:
> 
> > [@](#):
> >
> > Perhaps this is the first instance in which those with their pants up are going to get caught by those with their pants down. As whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night. Or will there be an explosion?
> 
> This piece of inadvertence – the shift to “white” as the key word speaks volumes in the extract above, as well as showing the secondary significance of ideas like “culture” and “language” – led to the resignation of many of the U.S. English board members, among them Walter Cronkite and the neoconservative Hispanic Linda Chavez. It also led to closer scrutiny of the network of which Dr. Tanton was the convenor. The chairman of the Florida English campaign, for example, had advocated the elimination of emergency telephone services in Spanish in order to supply what he called an “incentive” to the learning of the tongue of Shakespeare and Dickens. His Dade County equivalent had warned that “the United States is not a mongrel nation.” Rusty Butler, an aide to Senator Steven Symms of Idaho, had forwarded the senator’s call for an English-language amendment to the Constitution by saying that "the language issue could feed and guide terrorism in the U.S. Finally, it was discovered that among the donors to Dr. Tanton’s network was the Pioneer Fund, established in the unpropitious year of 1937 to proselytize for what it then called “applied genetics in present-day Germany.”

As for the [Pioneer Fund:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_fund)

> [@](#):
>
> The 1937 incorporation documents of the Pioneer Fund list two purposes. The first, modeled on the Nazi Lebensborn breeding program,[16] was aimed at encouraging the propagation of those “descended predominantly from white persons who settled in the original thirteen states prior to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States and/or from related stocks, or to classes of children, the majority of whom are deemed to be so descended”. Its second purpose was to support academic research and the “dissemination of information, into the ‘problem of heredity and eugenics’” and “the problems of race betterment”.[14] The Pioneer Fund argues the “race betterment” has always referred to the “human race” referred to earlier in the sentence, and critics argue it referred to racial groups. The document was amended in 1985 and the phrase changed to “human race betterment.”
> 
> The Pioneer Fund supported the distribution of a eugenics film titled Erbkrank (“Hereditary Defective” or “Hereditary Illness”) which was published by the pre-war 1930s Nazi Party. William Draper obtained the film from the predecessor to the Nazi Office of Racial Policy (Rassenpolitisches Amt) prior to the founding of the Pioneer Fund.[9] According to the Pioneer Fund site, all founders capable of doing so participated in the war against the Nazis.[17]
> 
> Draper secretly met Dr. C. Nash Herndon of Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest University in 1949. Little is known about their meetings, but Herndon was playing a major role in the expansion of the compulsory sterilization program in North Carolina.[18]
> 
> In the 1950s and 1960s Draper supported two government committees that gave grants for both anti-immigration and genetics research. The committee members included Representative Francis E. Walter (chair of the House Un-American Activities Committee and head of the Draper Immigration Committee), Henry E. Garrett (an educator known for his belief in the genetic inferiority of blacks), and Senator James O. Eastland of Mississippi, head of the Draper Genetics Committee.[19]

Get the point now?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/183 "2011-06-15T04:17:53Z")

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> [@BrainGlutton](#):
>
> It **is** if you persist in posting links to Tanton-derived sources.

So are you not going to buy a Ford car because of things Henry Ford said 100 years ago? Are you going to reject anti-tobacco campaigns because the Nazi’s started them?

**This guilt by association nonsense is a very effective way of avoiding dealing with actual arguments. It’s pathetic and I expect better from you Brain Glutton**.

btw. Do you seriously think someone like Ben Zuckerman is some racial fanatic?

And if you’d been paying any attention you would see the last couple of pages I’ve been repeatedly referring to these documents. Was the Clinton appointed Council on sustainability just a bunch of racists?

[http://clinton2.nara.gov/PCSD/Publications/TF\_Reports/amer-top.html](http://clinton2.nara.gov/PCSD/Publications/TF_Reports/amer-top.html)

Or this article, which you also seem to have ignored.

> **[| Yale and the World](https://world.yale.edu/yale-global-online)**

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**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/184 "2011-06-15T04:20:06Z")

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> [@magellan01](#):
>
> And I didn’t say it was a link to the Sierra Club. The link chronicled the Sierra Club’s stance on immigration, showing that that environmental organization did, in fact, have a position on The U.S. population and its impact on the environment.

History is not very kind.

Speaking of immaterial, you do realize that they seem to be losing support, and they are not even getting new \*\*material \*\*to post.

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**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/185 "2011-06-15T04:25:04Z")

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> [@Chen019](#):
>
> And if you’d been paying any attention you would see the last couple of pages I’ve been repeatedly referring to these documents. Was the Clinton appointed Council on sustainability just a bunch of racists?
> 
> [http://clinton2.nara.gov/PCSD/Publications/TF\_Reports/amer-top.html](http://clinton2.nara.gov/PCSD/Publications/TF_Reports/amer-top.html)

Outdated and it acknowledges that there is no good information on the impact of the immigrants.

> [@Chen019](#):
>
> Or this article, which you also seem to have ignored.
> 
> [| Yale and the World](http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/us-immigration-policy-likely-boost-population)

Not from Yale and not peer reviewed, and with a very peculiar way of expanding the number of immigrants.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/186 "2011-06-15T04:30:34Z")

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> [@GIGObuster](#):
>
> Outdated and it acknowledges that there is no good information on the impact of the immigrants.

It recommends stabilizing the US population. What has changed so radically since the 90’s?

> [@GIGObuster](#):
>
> Not from Yale and not peer reviewed, and with a very peculiar way of expanding the number of immigrants

Consistent with the Pew Hispanic Centre projections:

> [@](#):
>
> If current trends continue, the population of the United States will rise to 438 million in 2050, from 296 million in 2005, and 82% of the increase will be due to immigrants arriving from 2005 to 2050 and their U.S.-born descendants, according to new projections developed by the Pew Research Center.

[http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=85](http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=85)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/187 "2011-06-15T04:37:17Z")

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> [@Chen019](#):
>
> So are you not going to buy a Ford car because of things Henry Ford said 100 years ago? Are you going to reject anti-tobacco campaigns because the Nazi’s started them?

As pointed out before, it is not like if the nativist sources and info have not been checked before, when they are repeated to the point of nausea and it is clear they are not coming with pertinent evidence of environmentalist efforts besides the narrow subject of immigration+footprint then one has to consider the source.

So far it has been predictable, the biggest chutzpa is to behave as if nothing has happened or pretend that a messy debate has not already taken place elsewhere. With the nativist side losing on this narrow subject.

Repeating that path does not lead to a different result.

And by ignoring the current inaction of the elected representatives that got elected recently thanks to the support of the groups mentioned, irrelevant.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/188 "2011-06-15T04:44:46Z")

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> [@GIGObuster](#):
>
> As pointed out before, it is not like if the nativist sources and info have not been checked before, when they are repeated to the point of nausea and it is clear they are not coming with pertinent evidence of environmentalist efforts besides the narrow subject of immigration+footprint then one has to consider the source.
> 
> So far it has been predictable, the biggest chutzpa is to behave as if nothing has happened or if already a messy debate has already taken place elsewhere. With the nativist side losing on this narrow subject.
> 
> Repeating that path does not lead to a different result.
> 
> And by ignoring the current inaction of the elected representatives that got elected recently thanks to the support of the groups mentioned, irrelevant.

And one has to consider why so called environmentalists ignore the population aspect of the Ehrlich and John Holdren equation regarding [human impact](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_PAT)on the environment. Why would they turn a blind eye to massive population growth in the US? These are reasonable questions to ask.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/189 "2011-06-15T04:55:29Z")

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> [@Chen019](#):
>
> It recommends stabilizing the US population. What has changed so radically since the 90’s?

Not much then on the immigrants, and as you are so pathetically forgetting, I already said that population on the whole is more important.

> [@Chen019](#):
>
> Consistent with the Pew Hispanic Centre projections:
> 
> [http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=85](http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=85)

Once again, the total numbers were not the issue, but going way back for the number of descendants. He also clarifies that:

> [@](#):
>
> However, it is important to keep in mind that while these population projections for America’s future appear likely, they are not necessarily inevitable. Demographic trends may change radically due to behavioral changes and unanticipated events impacting fertility and mortality as well as changes in America’s immigration practices and policies.

It also points to the lack of immigration reform as a problem, but we already know what the nativists think about going forward on that.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/190 "2011-06-15T05:01:33Z")

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> [@Chen019](#):
>
> And one has to consider why so called environmentalists ignore the population aspect of the Ehrlich and John Holdren equation regarding [human impact](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_PAT)on the environment. Why would they turn a blind eye to massive population growth in the US? These are reasonable questions to ask.

You need a cite for me or others here ignoring that.

Once again, controlling the population increase (it is necessary to point this because of your obtuse point, things like your formula \*\*are \*\*taken into account here) is only one part of the issue, dealing with the carbon footprint (and other related environmental ones) is another, and no matter how much you repeat yourself (and never producing even a fig leaf of their environmental efforts now), it is very clear that your heroes are not interested on dealing with the environment.

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**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/191 "2011-06-15T05:03:47Z")

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> [@Chen019](#):
>
> And one has to consider why so called environmentalists ignore the population aspect of the Ehrlich and John Holdren equation regarding [human impact](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_PAT)on the environment. Why would they turn a blind eye to massive population growth in the US?

Well, there’s the Tanton nativist nativist Tanton natavist for one.And that doesn’t even take into account the natavist Tanton Tanton Tanton, natavist Tanton nativist-Tanton nativist particulars!!!

Either that or “cash”.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/192 "2011-06-15T05:03:57Z")

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> [@GIGObuster](#):
>
> You need a cite for me or others here ignoring that.
> 
> Once again, controlling the population increase (it is necessary to point this because of your obtuse point, things like your formula are taken into account here) is only one of the part of the issue, dealing with the carbon footprint is another, and no matter how much you repeat yourself, it is very clear that your heroes are not interested on dealing with the environment.

The question is why are the so called environmentalists ignoring it. I’ve set out some possible reasons above which I consider have overridden their environmental concerns.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/193 "2011-06-15T05:06:55Z")

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> [@Chen019](#):
>
> And one has to consider why so called environmentalists ignore the population aspect of the Ehrlich and John Holdren equation regarding [human impact](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_PAT)on the environment. Why would they turn a blind eye to massive population growth in the US? These are reasonable questions to ask.

Incidentally, don’t think that it is missed by others that in reality you did not deal with the post with that pathetic reply, so the points stand.

On edit: Well, I also thought that you would miss it **magelan01**. 🙂

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/194 "2011-06-15T05:09:00Z")

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> [@GIGObuster](#):
>
> Incidentally don’t think that it is missed by all that in reality you did not deal with the post with that pathetic reply, so the points stand.

You are determined to avoid addressing the wilful blindness & inconsistency of some so called environmentalists. So you keep introducing red herrings.

Anyway, I’m off for a while. I’ll look forward to seeing some better responses when I return.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/195 "2011-06-15T05:21:10Z")

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> [@Chen019](#):
>
> You are determined to avoid addressing the wilful blindness of some so called environmentalists. So you keep introducing red herrings.

“Some”? Well good to know that you can learn a little, most do not and I’m not worrying about some that you claim do not. You still need a cite for that anyhow.

In any case, what is clear is that you are incapable of acknowledging who are the fake environmentalists, I gave you the chance to show if there are any among your heroes that are looking at the whole issue. The conclusion then is that it is true, Most if not all of your nativist sources are laughing at you because they never intended to do anything about carbon footprint controls.

The issue of global warming is interconnected with many others, ignoring a big component of the issue (carbon emissions) and acting like if that would allow you to continue with the charade that they are also environmentalists is silly.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![straight\_man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/straight_man/32/3027_2.png) [@straight\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straight_man)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/196 "2011-06-15T05:47:20Z")

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> [@Chen019](#):
>
> \> Compassionate (poor people deserve to come to the US even if it’s bad for the environment)

This is a bad misstatement of the objection. Let’s try it again:  
-The poorer one is, the less damage one does to the environment. Therefore, it is better for the environment to stay poor. However, we should not advocate that the poor stay poor on environmental grounds because it a) is hypocritical, and b) asks some people to sacrifice far more for the sake of the environment than they receive in return. Restricting immigration has a positive environmental impact mostly because it keeps certain poor people poor. Therefore, we should not argue for restricting immigration on environmental grounds.

As you will notice, this argument requires neither much compassion nor the belief that “poor people deserve to come to the US”.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![straight\_man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/straight_man/32/3027_2.png) [@straight\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straight_man)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/197 "2011-06-15T05:56:26Z")

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Addendum: that argument also holds _even if you are generally opposed to immigration._

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**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/198 "2011-06-15T06:04:32Z")

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> [@magellan01](#):
>
> No, there’s no problem with the population density of Belgium. 990 people is not a problem for a country of that size. But if that is expanded to the whole continent, that would be a problem. It would make Europe 7 times as dense as it is. Belgium is less than 12,000 square miles, slightly smaller than Maryland. On a global scale, that’s a dot. Surely you are aware of the importance of large swaths of green areas, trees, wetlands, etc.

You seem to assume that an increase in American population would necessarily lead to the destruction of its existing large swaths of green areas, trees, wetlands, etc…  
That’s not what increasing population density does, in fact it’s the opposite of it - it’s increasing population _sprawl_.  
Now, I’m well aware of the fact that Americans loooove their sprawl, which incidentally is one of the arguments often touted about on why it’s absolutely impossible for Americans to curb their reliance on cars and the incon_cei_vability of implementing mass transportation on a large scale because y’all just have so much urban sprawl going on.  
But that’s sort of my point. Y’all kinda have to stop doing that.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/199 "2011-06-15T14:13:34Z")

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> [@Chen019](#):
>
> So are you not going to buy a Ford car because of things Henry Ford said 100 years ago? Are you going to reject anti-tobacco campaigns because the Nazi’s started them?
> 
> **This guilt by association nonsense is a very effective way of avoiding dealing with actual arguments. It’s pathetic and I expect better from you Brain Glutton**.

:rolleyes: I’d say **I** expect better, but I wouldn’t want . . .

Look, **Chen.** _Argumentum ad hominem_ is **not** always a fallacy. That is, it is always a logical fallacy but not a rhetorical fallacy. **The single most important piece of information in any message is the name of the messenger.**

E.g.: If someone tries to sell you a Holocaust-denial theory, it does not matter how much hitherto-undisclosed solid evidence he appears to have in his bag. The appropriate thing for you to do first, **before** settling down to listen respectfully, is to determine where this person is coming from, and what are his actual motives in expounding this theory, and make certain he is not **in any sense** (other than that of Holocaust-denial as such) a Nazi sympathizer. If so, he can hardly be worth listening to on that particular subject.

Calling out Tanton on his association with the Pioneer Fund and calling out the Pioneer Fund on its . . . origins is no different.

Godwinization is not always a fallacy either, and the above is a perfect illustration of why it is not.

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**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-environmentalists-cowards-on-immigration/585086/200 "2011-06-15T14:22:24Z")

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I would also add that it’s not “guilt by association” when it’s\* the same guy saying the same things\* under different sock puppets.

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