It’s a fact, but so far you have not demonstrated that it’s a fact that matters.
All other things being equal, my ordering a pizza tonight strictly decreases the amount of pizzas available in my town - but it doesn’t really matter because there’s more than enough to go around. “It’s just **moar **!” is meaningless in a vacuum and without a frame of reference.
For example, I pointed out on the very first page of this bear of a thread that carbon footprints are not linear. I do not know the variables myself (do you ?), but purely hypothetically if say:
CF = 10,000 + 0.0002*(million people)
Then the impact of immigration would be negligible, relatively speaking. It’s even more negligible if, still hypothetically speaking, tweaking that “all other things” (by controlling emissions, pushing clean energy, etc…) would slash that initial constant in half.
So, what I’m trying to say is that if you have a concrete analysis of the impact immigrants (or just each new million people) has on the total carbon footprint of the US, then bring it darling. But contenting yourself with clamouring that “it’s more !” won’t do the trick, I’m afraid.
That’s what people should be looking it. More people mean more stress on our resources and the environment. At what point does it “matter”? I don’t know. I want people to look at it. You don’t know, yet you want to not discuss it. We DO know that prior to the payoff the Sierra Club thought it was important. As did Clinton’s council.
Okay, but let’s say a convention is in town. The ability for a finite number of pizza shops to make fresh pizzas in a given night is finite. The amount of water in a particular area has limits. There is a point at which there are more people than a water basin, like the Colorado, can sustain. already the flow at its terminus has been reduced drastically. How many more people can the Southwest sustain? Isn’t that a valid thing for environmentalists to look at?
Fine, let’s say carbon footprints are not linear. The FACT remains that even if immigrants will have smaller footprints than the average American, it IS STILL AN INCREASE. It is further stress on the environment and resources. Regardless of whether the new people have smaller carbon footprints, the fact remains: additional people = more stress.
No one is talking about removing people. At least n ow I understand you emotionalism. But that’s not what we’re talking about. We are talking about understanding the role immigrants play in the U.S. sustainability equation, which we would then use to craft immigration policy—IN THE FUTURE!
On this we can agree, yes. Argue for more studies and hard data then, not reducing immigration already.
It’s not that I don’t want to discuss it altogether. I simply refuse to discuss it on the simplistic terms **Chen **wants us to lap up unthinkingly.
And I certainly refuse to opine on the sole basis that a passel of pseudo-ecologists with an ultra right-wing agenda said it was the solution to America’s problems.
It is. And I’m more or less confident they are in fact looking at it. Why wouldn’t they ?
But if on the one hand they’re not screaming bloody murder about immigration or current pop. growth, and on the other hand are in fact writing op-eds explaining why linking immigration with fucking up the environment is misleading and agenda-driven, then I would be inclined to believe that they’ve concluded that it wasn’t an insurmountable problem, at least for the time being.
Then cut the personal digs at me, it is clear that the cites were not used properly.
The insistence on using the desendants of the immigrants (the pew cite is not despairing for that) outside of the context of the cite, reeks of the efforts of nativists groups to remove the 14th ammendment.
The future, Conan?
As it has been pointed before, the future that will come thanks to the real efforts of the nativists groups, is to make the future immigration worse by actively working to elect people that in reality are climate change deniers. Instead of dealing in the future with regular immigrants, we will get more as refugees.
Trying to avoid looking at what nativists and climate change deniers are actually doing with their pretend environmentalism now is a foolish thing.
But isn’t that what the Sierra Club was doing? And Clinton’s council? That is the concern. Environmental groups, starting with the eminent Sierra Club has walked away from the issue after being threatened. They are usually the ones that would look into the issue. But now they’re not. This is basically Chen’s concern. As far as I can tell, anyway.
I think you drastically overstate the degree to which anyone things it is THE solution to anything. I think it would help if you read what you’ve written in this post and reread the OP. I think you’ve made some assumptions and jumped to some some conclusions that were unnecessary.
THIS is exactly Chen’s concern and question. His argument is that environmentally concerned types, like the Sierra Club, have been pushed to NOT look at the issue. He offers some evidence that points to them being blackmailed into it by someone with a non-environmetal concern. Surely you’d agree that if the geologist I mentioned felt his funding would be pulled or that he would be attacked professionally by people hurling accusations of “racist” and “natavist” at him. Can you see that the left, who is usually concerned with the environment might be doing themselves a disservice by, in essence, closing down an entire field of enquiry?
I agree. If they were doing the things you mention it would help them make their point. But it really wouldn’t add to the credibility of their point. It would merely reduce attacks like the ones you find in this thread. Regardless, the science is the science.
It is not a dig. Read your own posts, you have been emotional about this. And remembering that you said you were an immigrant, I simple pointed out that that made sense to me. That the emotionalism was not out of the blue. Still, if you took it as a dig, I’ll apologize, as it was not intended to be.
And believe me, if I want to take a shot at you, you’ll know it.
The 14th amendment is only a tangentially related issue. It’s a valid part of the discussion only to the degree that it increases illegal immigration. Whether that is teensy-weensy or mega-high is for another discussion.
Read it again, the moderator was not amused when the other poster did reach for the same tactic.
As demonstrated here the tactic is used to avoid dealing with the points I made. And to continue to ignore what other environmentalists, scientists and academics said about the issue.
Unfortunately when dealing with nativist organizations that is part of the baggage.
Yeah, great **strawman **. The point is it is a material factor. Also, I completely agree and support efforts to address global warming.
In terms of sustainability in the US, population growth is a material issue. This is acknowledged in the Clinton sustainability report and and with the obvious example of water supplies in the Southwest.
US population growth is largely driven by immigration. Therefore it is logical from an environmental perspective to reduce US immigration to alleviate population growth:
Having scrolled back a little further in this thread, I can see there are other posts I could have moderated earlier. It’s a bit late but I’ll do so here:
Both of you need to dial it back here. Take the personal remarks to another forum.
Nothing more about Jews, thank you. This is only going to take the thread off-topic and it could easily be interpreted as anti-Semitic.
Since the moderator has reigned on the thread, might as well continue.
So where are the quotes from your heroes demanding the current congress, that they helped elect, to stop being obstructionists on carbon emissions controls?
Because it is by their efforts that one can recognize if they are indeed doing it for the environment.
I’m talking about environmentalists generally. From an environmental POV it makes sense to address population growth in the US. Immigration is one logical policy option to address this.
Impractical, besides all the other points mentioned before.
“Immigration control is a foolish way to create an environmental perspective,” says Adam Werbach, who was the president of the Sierra Club in 1998. “It attacks people who are suffering, it allows people who are rich to be unaccountable, it’s out of touch with the realities of changing demographics, and it’s terrifically unpopular.”
Those are non-environmental reasons. Which goes back to my original point, why are environmentalists turning a blind eye to such a damaging environmental issue? It seems that there must be strong non-environmental reasons.
Because logically, it would make sense to reduce population growth via reducing immigration levels. Easy.
