Sustaining White America: Population, Environment, and Immigration
Ever since John Tanton launched FAIR three decades ago, the anti-immigrant movement has used population growth and its environment impacts to advance specious arguments for its restrictionist agenda. The Center 
for Immigration Studies’ (CIS) latest report touting “The Environmental Argument for Reducing Immigration to the United States” marks another step in the movement’s ongoing attempts to lay environmental degradation on the backs of the wrong people.
The anti-immigrant movement is deeply rooted in the population control movement of the 1960s/70s—a movement that often wavered between its racially-tinged, eugenics edges and full-bore blame on overly-consumptive “Americans” (i.e., whites) for the environmental crisis of that era. Today the movement has resolutely staked its claim on those old, racially-tinged edges in a disingenuous move to lure environmentalists into its fold. By doing so it has completely abandoned assigning any responsibility for the contemporary environmental crisis on a still-wealthy nation that consumes some forty percent of the world’s resources, regardless of immigration levels. Read more
Fueled by Racism, Opposition to Immigrants is Spanning the Globe
Steeped in fear and contempt and fueled by racism, fierce opposition to migrants, immigrants, and refugees is growing across the globe and is likely to worsen as economic and political turmoil and environmental degradation uproots peoples.
Greece has taken dramatic steps to turn away or detain tens of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers from Iraq, Somalia, Sudan and other war-torn nations. Australia continues its harsh policies aimed at turning away boats packed with refugees. Italy has earned criticism by the UN for its forcible return of Libyans seeking asylum, even as its parliament mapped a path to steep restrictions and fines for undocumented immigrants, and authorization of “citizen patrols” to rein them in. Russia’s ultra-nationalist Movement Against Illegal Immigration is strong in spite of the recent imprisonment of its leader. And the Dutch Freedom Party PVV and its vile anti-Muslim fervor is gaining hold in The Netherlands. The list is long and sobering, particularly as governments bow to the winds of racism in crafting immigration policies. Read more
Sustainability: Thinking Beyond Borders Part Two
When Americans import goods from foreign regions they are often exporting environmental degradation. In the U.S. we import all of our coffee, mostly from Colombia, Brazil and Guatemala. And we import a lot of it. After oil, coffee is the second largest import in the United States.
Luckily, about two thirds of the world’s coffee beans are still classified as arabica. Arabica beans are grown at higher altitudes, require less watering, and need cooler climates. Which means that almost all arabica beans are shade grown, greatly reducing the number of trees being cut down. Shade-grown coffee also grows slower than other varieties, producing a more flavorful, higher quality product. Read more
Ads in California Ask Environmentalists to Consider Racism
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.”
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