Ads in California Ask Environmentalists to Consider Racism

August 14, 2008 by Jill Garvey
Filed under: Ecopolitics, Immigration 
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Yesterday an organization, called Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS), began running radio ads in areas of California targeting environmentally-concerned citizens. They want people to know that immigrants are destroying “natural treasures” through over-population. In their press release they state:

“If we want to start healing our environment, we’ve got to slow population growth. More people mean more cars, more sprawl, higher energy demands, more air pollution, more demand for water and more paved-over farmland.”

Really? Sounds like CAPS knows a lot about what is affecting the environment right? But nowhere in their press release do they cite any scientific findings to support their claims. Surprisingly their website doesn’t mention any work they’ve done on behalf of the environmental either, just anti-immigrant propaganda. I tried googling CAPS to see if anything would surface, still nothing. You would think an organization running ads about protecting the environment would actually be doing something to protect the environment!

They assert that immigration accounts for 82% of population growth in America, but stop short of saying that the United States is over-populated. Know why? Because it’s not! CAPS’s asinine press release continues,

“The radio ad identifies the real “inconvenient truth” as the fact that population growth and environmental degradation are related, “people drive cars, create sprawl, destroy forests and pollute.”

Wow! I had no idea CAPS! People drive cars and pollute?! All this time I thought it was mass consumption destroying the planet, thank god you’re targeting immigrants as the real culprits.

Most of the immigrants I know are modest hard-working folks, who don’t have all that much to drive, sprawl, or destroy with. I wasn’t aware of the masses of hyper-consumptive immigrants out there driving SUVs and building McMansions on California’s rolling hills (ahem landslides).

CAPS’s release gets particularly creepy when it says,

…rolling back mass immigration is tough for “compassionate Californians” to swallow. “But there are times” Hull stated “when hard choices must be made for the greater good.”

What I find tough to swallow is blaming an impoverished and exploited population for our environmental problems. I find it especially hard to believe that it’s a choice made for the greater good. CAPS has got a lot of nerve using real environmental issues to disguise their hate speech, and if I was a Californian, I’d be pretty angry at CAPS for spreading their garbage onto my airwaves.

CAPS President Diana Hull says “It’s time for Californians to lead the country on this issue.” Yes, please California, take the lead on this issue. Tell CAPS to take their racist agenda and shove it.

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