MCRI ·
Earth Day 2011: 41 years of congressional stupidity and public indifference
By Dave Gorak, 03/24/2011
After two years of concentrated effort, we have concluded that, in the long run, no substantial benefits will result from further growth of the Nation’s population, rather that the gradual stabilization of our population through voluntary means would contribute significantly to the Nation’s ability to solve its problems. We have looked for, and have not found, any convincing economic argument for continued population growth. The health of our country does not depend on it, nor does the vitality of business nor the welfare of the average person.
Rockefeller Commission on Population Growth and the American Future - March 1972
Millions of well-intentioned but naïve Americans calling themselves "environmentalists" are about to engage in the annual hypocrisy called Earth Day, during which we will hear and see the word "green" with greater frequency than encountered on St. Patrick's Day.
Newspapers and TV commentators will editorialize on this 41st Earth Day that was created by the late Sen. Gaylord Nelson, when our population stood at 203 million people. School children will be photographed sprucing up their respective areas. Thousands of words will be written about such activities as recycling, proper disposal of old paint cans and household chemicals, and how to reduce our "carbon foot prints" for the benefit of all mankind.
But nary a word will be written about the need to stabilize our population growth if we are to have any hope of avoiding a depletion of our natural resources and reversing an already declining standard of living. Quality of life issues like open spaces will continued to be ignored while false prophets of "smart growth" continue to peddle their brand of pure baloney to planners at every level of government.
On April 1, 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau said our population was 308,745,538 people or more than 100 million people since that first Earth Day. At this writing, our population has surpassed the 311 million mark, or another 3 million people, 80 percent of them the result of our foolish and totally unnecessary immigration policy that each year since 1990 has permitted 1 million people to enter this country each year. Add to that number about 500,000 illegal aliens every year.
At our present rate of growth Census projects there will be another 100 million of us by 2045 and nearly 600 million people by 2100, but nobody in the federal government, which the aiders and abettors of illegal aliens keep reminding us has sole responsibility for our immigration policy, seems to appreciate what lies ahead for this republic.
As you all "do your part" on Earth Day 2011, keep in mind what Gaylord Nelson told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in April 2001: "...in this country, it's phony to say, 'I'm for the environment but not for limiting immigration.' It's just a fact that we can't take all the people who want to come here."
And then ponder these words from the late George F. Kennan in his 1993 book "Around the Cragged Hill":
"Actually, the inability of any society to resist immigration, the inability to find other solutions to the problem of employment at the lower, more physical, and menial levels of the economic process, is a serious weakness, and possibly even a fatal one, in any national society. The fully healthy society would find ways to meet those needs out of its own resources."
Kennan went on to say that at unless we wise up soon about immigration, at some point our population growth will stabilize and then begin to decline. That will be when this country takes on the same characteristics as those Third World countries from which most of our immigrants are coming.
Perhaps “Forrest Gump” should get the last word here: “Stupid is as stupid does.”