In response to Mr. Lamm: Immigration is NOT the
environmental issue (HCN, 2/16/04: Why I’m running: Immigration is
the environmental issue). To blame the trashing of our environment
on immigrants is not unlike the attempt to link Iraq to 9/11; it
rides popular sentiment to further a dark agenda.
The
real environmental issue is consumption, and the consumer culture
we practice and export with religious zeal. Cheap, disposable
plastic, low-mpg cars and trucks, and sprawl would not exist if
there were no market for them. For whatever reason, millions of
full-blooded United States citizens daily find themselves unable to
obey their conscience and alter buying habits toward a more
sustainable end. If we are not capable of resisting our own SUV or
yet another REI catalog, then how can we blame the rest of the
world for enthusiastically responding to targeted marketing of the
American lifestyle?
The issue is the direction of the
road, not who’s on it. Instead of singling out an already
vulnerable group, which is ultimately counterproductive to the
environmental cause, we should be encouraging the masses to
seriously consider consumption habits and their consequences.
David Henretty
Sweet,
Idaho
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Don’t blame the immigrants.
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