Migrating species: environmentalists worry that eco-systems may be affected by immigration

National Review, June 16, 1997 by John A. Baden, Douglas S. Noonan

ENVIRONMENTALISTS have long held that environmental problems come down to one issue: population. All our environmental woes, from species extinction to global warming, can ultimately be traced back to human population pressures.

In 1968, Paul Ehrlich wrote the best-selling Population Bomb. Despite his inaccurate predictions of doom, traditional greens still zealously cling to his thesis. According to Claude Martin, director of World Wildlife Fund International, "Conventional wisdom has it that the world's rapid increase in population is largely responsible for its environmental degradation." Even self-proclaimed optimist Gregg Easterbrook says, "Human population growth is at once the most important and worst understood of ecological issues."

The problem is not solely with human species. Consider Yellowstone National Park. Nearly all independent observers decry the severe deterioration of that ecosystem caused by overpopulations of elk and bison. Generations ago, predators like wolves and Indian hunters balanced wildlife populations. Ecologist Frederic Wagner writes, "Today we have removed those constraints, but the breeding urges remain."

In human and animal ecology, population and environmental quality are intimately linked. Moreover, population's impact on the environment is often very site-specific. The United States is not suffering from too many bison; Yellowstone Park is.

And, when it comes to local human populations, few would deny the prominent role of immigration. The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that immigrants, legal or otherwise, will be responsible for two-thirds of the net U.S. population growth by 2050. Thanks largely to immigration, California's population is projected to jump another 67 per cent in just 13 years. And, when the population changes, so will the attendant environmental concerns. Last year, a report of the President's Council on Sustainable Development bluntly stated, "This is a sensitive issue, but reducing immigration levels is a necessary part of population stabilization and the drive toward sustainability."

Garret Hardin, professor emeritus of ecology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, writes, "Once an environmentalist faces the issue of population growth, he finds he cannot avoid the immigration problem." It would make sense, therefore, if environmental groups were to incorporate immigration issues into their policy platforms, just as they do with population. What is Greenpeace's policy on immigration? Or the Sierra Club's? They have none. Even Zero Population Growth demurs.

Why is immigration policy so intractable for green groups?

For one reason, green groups are typically associated with modern liberal politics. Their preferred strategy for resolving environmental problems has been to rely heavily on government coercion. Surely Al Gore and Carol Browner (at the Environmental Protection Agency), can usher us toward a new, greener society -- if only we give them sufficient power.

There is a further consideration. The greens' usual politics of protecting flies over people and swamps over jobs comes dangerously close to elitism. Greens strive nervously to differentiate themselves from elitists. Their cause, they tell themselves, is the plight of the common man: the tired, the poor, the wretched refuse. Emma Lazarus's words are a clarion call to Nanny State advocates within enviro groups.

Thus, in 1994, when California's Proposition 187 sought to cut off public services from illegal immigrants, it drew fierce opposition from the California League of Conservation Voters. Executive Director Sam Schuchat explained that, although Prop. 187 wasn't primarily an environmental issue, "We felt like we had to do it just to make sure we were on the right side of history on this one. . . . Environmentalists wanted to show that we are on the side of people, not just endangered species." Bleeding hearts trumped sustainability.

The same is true for the Sierra Club -- perhaps the nation's most influential environmental group -- which takes policy stances on everything from playgrounds to population. In the 1970s, the group committed itself to zero population growth in the United States. Yet after years of internal debate, in February 1996 the Club resolved to "take no position on immigration." With its members divided during an election year, Sierra Club leadership meekly said, "No comment."

Immigration has not gone gently into that good night, however. In the words of retired engineering professor Alan Kuper, a long-time Sierra Club member from Ohio, "We can't win if the population keeps growing." He argues that the well-being of immigrants and everyone else is ultimately jeopardized by population growth due to immigration. Dr. Kuper has initiated a referendum to reverse the Club's 1996 policy. If it succeeds -- and it may -- the Sierra Club will have to acknowledge the realities of balancing immigration and population with other values, such as individual well-being.

Interestingly, a similar dilemma faces environmental groups on overgrazing in Yellowstone. While elk and bison resort to starvation rations like tree bark and pine needles, the National Wildlife Federation shrinks from culling the herds. Overpopulation is a big problem, it concurs, but limiting the number of newcomers -- be they elk or immigrants -- is not an option.