environment

For the better part of a century, the most important estuary on the East Coast, Chesapeake Bay, has suffered the consequences of rapid population and economic growth in the bay’s watershed. Because of increasing nutrient and sediment pollution, urban runoff and chemical contaminants, the bay’s water has turned murky, beds of submerged aquatic vegetation (bay grasses) have died off, commercial and sports fisheries have been hammered, the iconic blue crab has suffered, and the bay’s legendary oyster harvest has been reduced to a pittance and almost a memory.

It is clear that growth comes at a price. That “smart growth,” as the late physicist Albert Bartlett once quipped, is a pseudo-solution, and “sustainable growth” an oxymoron.

The organizers and sponsors of the recent conference “Growth and the Future of the Chesapeake Bay” on January 13 - 14 at stately Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, understood all this.

As they asked in the pre-conference promotional flyer:

• Can the money that’s been spent on bay and river restoration deliver fishable, swimmable waters in the face of a human population, 17 million strong and growing, that consumes ever more land, energy, and resources?
• Can there be frank talks about the real costs of growth among policymakers?

Landsat image of Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay (upper right).

“Frank talks?” What were they thinking? In this age of political correctness and the silencing of free speech whenever it is deemed offensive or unacceptable by the progressive thought police?

Since much of the current population growth and virtually all of the projected future population growth in the Chesapeake Bay watershed are related to immigration, it would have been remiss of the conference organizers not to invite speakers who would address this issue.

Roy Beck

They selected two of the very best, both whom I’m proud to say are colleagues and friends of mine: Roy Beck and Philip Cafaro.

A former environmental journalist and author of several books, Roy is the founder and president of NumbersUSA, one of the leaders in the fight in Congress against amnesty and for genuine immigration reform that would enforce the law, reduce overall immigration numbers and give America its only chance at stopping environmentally unsustainable population growth.

Roy was just profiled in The New York Times in December 2014. TheTimes article called him the “genial force behind bitter opposition to immigration overhaul,” who “quietly leads a grass-roots army.” It referred to Roy as:

…perhaps the most powerful member of the small but vocal movement that has helped scuttle every effort at an immigration overhaul for nearly two decades.

According to U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet's website, reforming immigration policy and combatting climate change are two of his key legislative goals.

But there is no evidence that the senator sees any connection between them, despite the fact that the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has identified population growth as one of the two key drivers of global warming, and that most of the increase in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in the past two decades has occurred due to population growth, while per capita emissions have remained relatively flat.

While they have so far neglected to provide hard numbers, the Senate Gang of Eight proposes two changes that would greatly increase America's population. First, an immense amnesty covering up to 12 million illegal immigrants, who would then be able to bring in tens of millions of relatives under current "family reunification" rules. Second, a huge increase in legal immigration, among both unskilled and skilled workers.

Together, these changes could increase immigration into the U.S. by 1 million annually, to as many as 2.25 million people annually. Using Census Bureau forecasting methods, here are projections for U.S. population growth during this century:

• 250,000 annual immigration = 379 million in 2100;

• 1.25 million annual immigration = 524 million in 2100; and

• 2.25 million annual immigration = 669 million in 2100;