Do you really want to know??

Why do so many people talk and talk, yet do not see the real question before them! When you read this article; ask yourself why are we worried about regulating the US population, yet we continue to let many more immigrants enter the country...

It is like the example 315 Mil (current US Pop) - 15 Mil (population control) + 50 Mil (immigrants) = 350 Mil (projected future US Pop) So where is the so called solution?

You should always stop and wonder when you hear the word "Progressive" because history has shown that it means someone wants to control more of your life, and thus you will have less freedom!

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Wishful Thinking from the Center for American Progress

In the progressive political circles I frequent, I often hear exclamations of amazement regarding climate change deniers. "How can these people reject the mountain of evidence that the world is warming? How can they deny the scientific consensus regarding humanity's leading role in disrupting the climate? How, in good conscience, can they ignore climate change's potentially disastrous impacts on their own children and grandchildren?"

These are good questions, but I can't say I share my friends' amazement. The fact is, people often believe what we find comforting, and accept or reject new information not on its objective merits, but on whether it coheres with our hopes, dreams, and worldviews. Conservatives who believe passionately in the goodness of an endlessly growing market economy may be ill-equipped to digest the evidence that this wonderful wealth-making machine is causing significant ecological problems. If they do accept such a possibility, they still may not be in the best position to judge whether minor or major tinkering is needed to solve those problems.

Progressives, I think, love the machine a little less, and thus tend to be a little more willing to engage in major tinkering. But we have our own blind spots, as I was reminded yesterday when the Center for American Progress came out with a new report titled "From a 'Green Farce' to a Green Future: Refuting False Claims About Immigrants and the Environment." Among the "false claims" supposedly refuted are the following:

• more people tends to lead to more pollution and greater strains on natural resources.
• stabilizing America's population has an important part to play in reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
• since immigration accounts for most current and future projected population growth in the U.S., reducing immigration would help Americans combat global climate change.

Not only are such claims false, according to author Jorge Madrid, they are obviously false: "phony environmental arguments." So those who put them forward must be "intentionally misleading" people, as a cover for "nativist organizations and hate groups" (p.1).

But is it obviously false that population growth tends to cause environmental problems or make them harder to solve? Not according to the President's Council on Sustainable Development, which concluded in its 1996 report:

"Managing population growth, resources, and wastes is essential to ensuring that the total impact of these factors is within the bounds of sustainability. Stabilizing the population without changing consumption and waste production patterns would not be enough, but it would make an immensely challenging task more manageable. In the United States, each is necessary; neither alone is sufficient." (Chapter 6)

Presumably the President's Council on Sustainable Development was not a hate group, intentionally trying to mislead people. Yet one of the Council's ten main suggestions for creating a sustainable society was: "Move toward stabilization of U.S. population."

What about claims regarding the need to reduce immigration and stabilize U.S. population in order to rein in America's greenhouse gas emissions – are they obviously false? According the U.S. Department of Energy, between 1990 and 2003, U.S. per capita CO₂ emissions increased 3.2 percent while total U.S. CO₂ emissions increased 20.2 percent. The reason for the discrepancy is that during that same period, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, America's population increased 16.1 percent. More people drove more cars, built more houses, ate more food, took more vacations, and did all the other things that emit carbon. Population growth accounted for four-fifths of increased emissions during this period, with per capita consumption growth accounting for one-fifth. Population growth greatly increased total emissions and it is total emissions, not per person emissions, that quantify America's full contribution to global warming.

Given such facts, those like Jorge Madrid who choose to deny or downplay the connection between population growth and increased greenhouse gas emissions would seem to have a heavy burden of proof with which to contend. At a minimum, it seems absurd to claim that making this connection is obviously false.

Looking to the future, scientists are calling for steep reductions in U.S. emissions, in order to avoid potentially catastrophic climate change. Meanwhile, American politicians have so far avoided committing to even modest reductions. Given the costs involved and the power of inertia, it seems highly unlikely that our country will do enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years with the added hurdle of doubling our population over the next six or seven decades, as we are on track to do at current immigration levels. Of course, we can spin out fantasies where our population continues growing rapidly and we still drastically reduce carbon emissions. But if Al Gore is right that meeting the climate challenge is the moral imperative of our time, then indulging such fantasies seems wrong – regardless of whether those fantasies come from the right or the left.