As I read “Climate Revolutionary,” I wondered what
Mary Wood suggests for population (HCN,
5/12/08). As I read in “Heard around the West” that “The
bill to help farmers more quickly recruit legal workers passed the
(Colorado) House …,” I pondered labor activist Cesar Chavez’s
forgotten legacy.
Nations with high growth rates hinder
efforts by all for climate and energy solutions. That includes our
own, where economic “elites” swoon at the mere thought of
population stabilization. As Al Gore hinted and as economist
Kenneth Boulding said, “Anyone who believes exponential growth can
go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an
economist.”
By 2050, just eight nations will have
contributed half of all growth on the planet. They are India,
Pakistan, Nigeria, the United States, China, Bangladesh, Ethiopia
and the Democratic Republic of the Congo — in that order (Source:
United Nations). Three — India, China and the United States — are
both carbon-emissions giants and the only nations with populations
over 300 million. There should be a legal remedy against nations
that encourage population tsunamis, including our own, which is
driven by immigration roughly 30 times pre-1965 levels despite
warnings from Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson that population —
global and United States — must be stabilized.
Although
Douglas Bruce’s comments were boorish, I am less worried about
Colorado agricultural interests — who fought having to provide
workers with even basic sanitation facilities — than for our
forgotten resident poor. Those on the open-borders bandwagon might
consider why Chavez, knowing he could never leverage advancements
in a flooded labor market, volunteered his United Farm Workers to
patrol the border.
Kathleene Parker
Rio Rancho, New Mexico
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The population tsunami.
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