@ BrainGlutton
Yes, that’s an intriguing story. Apparently the change came about after a major donor threatened to withold his money if the Sierra Club opposed immigration levels. So maybe it’s incorrect to say the Sierra Club position on immigration is an example of liberal ideology over practicality, more a case of money talks.
One thing liberals do as far as putting practicality over ideology, is maintaining the political viability of their various causes by not allowing fights to break out of these kinds of issues, at least to the extent possible. Sierra Club SHOULD be opposed to more immigration, as should labor, but that’s an ideological stand, whereas not opposing more immigration is a political stand that helps them in the long run on higher priority issues.
It’s also why the NAACP doesn’t favor vouchers despite their constituents favoring vouchers. The NAACP doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it sees itself as part of a Democratic coalition and so backs up the teachers’ unions.
Not really accurate, they are neutral about it. But the injustice seen affecting immigrants is beginning to change even that neutral position, there are reasons why supporting legalization is important for the environment that also affects Americans.
Why? Overpopulation is like most other environmental problems, it is a global problem and does not respect national borders. Holding down one country’s population by erecting barriers around it won’t help any. Imagine if every country did that and there were practically no immigration/emigration in the world – in those circumstances, overpopulation would remain exactly same the problem it is now.
I actually asked someone about that once, and their argument was that a lot of the Third World has been stripped bare due to overpopulation, and if you let the US get overpopulated, there go our natural treasures.
You don’t think a lack of environmental protections might have been a factor?
Yeah, like we need any help burning those up.
On the other hand it could be argued that with our high standard of living, the US uses more resources per capita than do less developed countries, and so reducing the proportion of the worlds population that is not living in poverty will have a negative environmental impact. However this isn’t exactly a moral conclusion.
From an environmental point of view it would be better to simply reduce the standard of living of the US to that of a third world country, or to wipe out large numbers of Americans. Yet somehow I doubt that Chen would support such actions. It isn’t the overall US population he wants to reduce, its only the population of people of a certain type.
So? Does a Mexican’s carbon footprint automatically increase the moment he enters the U.S.?
If he realizes the American Dream, buys a house with AC, eats meat three meals a day, and drives an SUV it will. Mexico produces 4.4 tons of carbon per capita vs the US 19.3.
Note: I’m not saying that this is a good argument against immigration, just that if the only thing you care about is the environment, helping people achieve a higher standard of living could be counter productive. On the other hand raising the standard of living also leads to lower population growth so it may be a wash.
Environmental regulation will always be subservient to people being able to make a living.
Why do you hate Joe the Plumber? 
Hint: Back in England London had no sewage system, and almost no plumbing, and yea, of course there were many that claimed that doing something about the pollution and cholera would destroy the economy.
Well, as it turns out doing something about it gave the modern cities the priceless benefit of having almost no cholera or other diseases like that, and other industries came out of the work that was needed to be done to get clean water and sewage.
Leading then to an angry conservative plumber to have the freedom to complain to Obama hundreds of years later for something else.
Often environmental regulations do help the economy. Often they limit development. Installing a sewage system doesn’t place land off limits. Setting aside land that cannot be developed does. If the US population ever gets to a billion, expect a lot of those national parks to become suburbs.
I guess when confronted with contradictory information from your sources, then the replies are all over the map.
Even there you demonstrate that you are missing perspective:
The important thing is that we all have to reduce our footprint, regardless if we could have a city with the whole population of the world with the same size as Texas, if we cram it with the same population density as New York.
But they did have some plucky, happy-go-lucky toshers*!
*Kids who would hunt in the sewers for coins and items of value washed down the street-drains . . . That was before they started pumping all that shit into the sewers . . . :mad:
I’m an urban planner in one of the most liberal/leftist/progressive regions in the US. I consider myself fairly liberal, but compared to the local norm, I’m probably way off to the right.
I can point to many examples of what the OP wants, but the one that sticks out the most is back-to-the-land living. The progressive crow is generally very anti-development. They call any undeveloped land, regardless of its ecological value or potential for agriculture, as “open space”, which the moment any kind of development is proposed, they defend as if it’s some kind of Costa Rican rainforest. Their ideal form of development? Low-density ecovillages and permaculture estates, where one can grow their own veggies, raise goats, live in a yurt, and so on. Such living, though, consumes far more land per housing unit than the New Urbanism and pocket neighborhood developments they fight hard to stop.
I call eco-developments “green sprawl” - they have the same ecological impacts as exurban sprawl, only it’s wrapped in a coating of granola. They fragment ecosystems, result in longer commutes and the associated consumption of fossil fuels, and exacerbate problems with a lack of middle-market housing. The carbon footprint of a 10 acre permaculture estate is massive compared to even a suburban McMansion. However, such projects are seen as “greener” by their proponents because they are “closer to nature”, have less impervious surface area, and are inhabited by folks that tend to be on the crisper side of crunchy.
Yes, we could. But we won’t. THe cities have enjoyed a resurgence of late, but people still like space. As population increases, there will still be pressure to build more on undeveloped land, just as there has always been in the past.
I don’t think so, one of the offshoots of education is that also, if you follow the evidence, it is in cities were the future is and where the ones that are aware of what is the most environmentally sound policy will live, what **elmwood **pointed out is out there, but the sources I have seen have pointed out several times on the energy efficiency one can get in a city rather than following a wasteful sprawling model, and the ones who are saying that are groups like the Sierra Club. (Remember them?)
The cities are where the near future is, no one can predict what the far future will bring. The reasons for the resurgence of urban life is lower crime, more households without children, and the higher cost of fuel. None of which is guaranteed to stay with us.
And even with the resurgence of cities, the suburbs are still growing as our population grows.
And one item that will require the recommendations from outfits like the Sierra Club to discourage.
The take away home point here is that, regarding who is in favor of sprawl, is also one that can not be assigned with a wide brush to the left.