Originally posted at Immigration Impact, by Walter Ewing.
In a new report, Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR)—a front group for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)—regurgitates an argument as tired as it is flawed: that immigration hastens the destruction of the environment in the United States. Specifically, the report claims that immigration-driven population growth is increasing the nation’s “ecological footprint” and exceeding the country’s “carrying capacity.” This is a faulty line of reasoning that overlooks the degree to which destruction of the environment is a function not of population size, but of how a society utilizes its resources, produces its goods and services, and deals with its waste.
In other words, the PFIR report fails to mention that a few people can pollute a lot, or a lot of people can pollute a little. Even in countries with similar standards of living, there is no direct, one-to-one relationship between population size and environmental degradation. For instance, according to the World Resources Institute, the United States is home to 30% fewer people than the European nations of the EU-15, yet produces 40% more greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as carbon dioxide and methane. In fact, U.S. emissions of GHGs on a per capita basis are more than double those of the EU-15. The production of GHGs in the United States is not the result of population size, but of the degree to which we as a society rely upon fossil fuels, power plants, industrial processes, and automobiles that actually produce GHGs.
The pseudo-environmentalism of the PFIR report is actually a variety of “green xenophobia” which offers no useful guide for the formulation of effective policies on immigration or the environment. The PFIR report represents the latest attempt by a web of anti-immigrant groups allied with FAIR, and its founder John Tanton, to co-op progressive rhetoric in a dubious attempt to persuade political progressives that immigrants are to blame for environmental destruction, African American unemployment, and a host of other socioeconomic problems.
However, blaming immigrants for pollution won’t fix the dysfunctional U.S. immigration system, reduce the U.S. economy’s dependence on fossil fuels, or improve the emissions systems on automobiles. The PFIR report itself casually mentions at the end that its rather limited approach “does not explicitly address any number of critical issues” such as the environmental impact of pollution, the over-exploitation of resources, “the human assault on biodiversity, or environmental justice.” The PFIR report is little more than environmental window dressing for the anti-immigrant movement.
Photo by ashley.adcox.
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“The production of greenhouse gases in the United States is a function not of population size, but of the degree to which we as a society rely upon fossil fuels, power plants, industrial processes, and automobiles that actually produce greenhouse gases.”
One factor is the degree per capita to which we as a society rely upon fossil fuels, power plants, industrial processes, and automobiles that actually produce greenhouse gases. The other factor is the number of people doing that–population IS a factor. At whatever level of impact (except zero—which doesn’t exist), fewer people will always harm the environment less than more.
The bulk of the immigrants moving to the U.S. and Europe are from lower per capita consumption countries and thus the net worldwide result of such immigration is greater environmental impact. Is Mr. Ewing implying Europe is the model we should emulate? If you go country by country, the only two EU-15 countries with a sustainable national ecological footprint are Sweden and Finland. Does Mr. Ewing maintain that their relatively low population density has little or nothing to do with this?
My response to those who say we should just concern ourselves with efficiency and not population is ‘Why not both?’ Why must the two be mutually exclusive? If you think the issue is important, even crucial, why exclude one of the two ways we have to make a positive difference? If we’re serious, why would we tie one hand behind our backs? If someone says ‘let’s worry about efficiency first’, it’s only fair to ask at what U.S. population should we start to pay attention? 400 million? Half a billion? A billion?
Saying environmental harm is not a function of population is dangerous. It gives people the false impression and sense of complacency that we can grow indefinitely and with negligible ecological consequence so long as we are ‘smart’ about it—that population/immigration is unimportant or even irrelevant to environmental policy. The hard truth people don’t like to face is that a lot of people CAN’T indefinitely live at a U.S./European level. Any gain made in efficiency can be negated by proportionate population growth. Let’s say we manage somehow to double our efficiency over the next several decades—the problem is we are also on a pace to double our population in that time. The two would counteract and we’d end up right where we started at an already unsustainable level except with a much larger population to deal with going forward and with an opportunity missed. Isn’t it smarter to not get to that point in the first place rather than try to deal with it after that fact?