Guest Post by Joe Guzzardi
Today more than ever Americans value the opportunity to escape from their confined urban lives and enjoy the natural habitat. A Pulse Research poll of likely voters showed that preference for preserving natural habitat and farmland to personally experience nature’s wonders has hardly changed since similar 2014 polling.
The results reflect concern over the U.S. Department of Agriculture findings that development is irreversibly diminishing the limited supply of U.S. farmland, raising serious food production, economic and environmental concerns. Between 1992 and 2012, development has ravaged about 31 million acres of fertile agricultural land.
Here are some of the poll’s results: 73 percent agree that time spent in natural areas provides a “spiritual uplift;” 62 percent responded that it’s “very important” to protect farmland from development so that the nation could produce enough food to feed its population; and 62 percent considered it unethical to pave over productive farmland for housing development.
To the key survey question: Over the rest of this century, would you prefer that the nation’s population continue to grow toward 500 million, grow much more slowly, stay about the same as it is now at 331 million, or slowly become smaller? The answer from 75 percent of the respondents was to “grow much more slowly or not at all.”
The vast majority of Americans want to protect the environment, and to slow population growth. But the same Pulse Research poll found that, even though immigration was identified in the question as the major population growth driver, about 45 percent of respondents wanted to either increase immigration or keep it at the same annual 1 million-plus level. A slightly higher total, 47 percent, want immigration reduced, and population growth slowed.
Population growth and immigration are intertwined. Slower population growth is mathematically impossible as long as immigration remains at its current level. Not only are there more than 1 million immigrants added to the U.S. population each year, the immigrant families have children. The birth rate for immigrant women of reproductive age was 61 births per thousand from 2008 to 2018.
Family reunification is another growth variable. Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School found that each 100 newly arrived immigrants petition, on average, about 350 relatives. This is a growth feature permitted by the federal government’s reunification policy, often referred to as chain migration.
Americans cannot have both a protected environment and more immigration. Immigration’s boost to population levels in rich nations like the U.S. inevitably results in an ecological footprint larger than it would otherwise be. More people mean more development which requires more transportation, either cars or buses. But cars, trucks, commercial aircraft and buses are public enemy No. 1 in the quest for a clean environment. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transportation account for about 29 percent of total U.S. GHGs.
Although President Trump rarely addresses population growth and the threat it presents to the U.S., previous administrations, both Republican and Democratic, have voiced their concerns. In 1993, President Clinton formed the Population and Consumption Task Force to find ways to unite people to protect the environment without jeopardizing the future. The task force’s report included this: “As a matter of public debate, immigration is a sensitive and explosive issue, and both legal and illegal immigration must be addressed with great sensitivity and care in order to advance the debate…. We believe that reducing current immigration levels is a necessary part of working toward sustainability in the United States.”
Nearly three decades have passed since President Clinton’s warning. Yet no administration has had the courage to act on his recommendation to reduce current immigration levels, perhaps because immigration is a more explosive issue today than in 1993. Nevertheless, no one in the media or on Capitol Hill addresses population growth.
Immigrants aren’t to blame for skyrocketing population growth. The fault lies with cowardly Congresses that have refused to act on the obvious fact that immigration levels are unsustainable and compromise Americans’ living standards. Net immigration contributes to the challenge of maintaining a stable population or achieving reduced population. The link between high immigration and population growth is incontrovertible. To pretend that the two variables aren’t intertwined, as Congress and the mainstream media do, is willful blindness.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
I think it has been fairly well established that the average person is fucking stupid and cant reason out the consequences of any actions individually, let alone multiple actions that actually contradict each other. Unless you spell out for them how dumb their responses are right there on the spot the fools will continue to select the feel good answers to buffer their own self-image. Its exactly how you get the followers of the political parties that continually contradict themselves in word and action and yet no one seems to notice.
GLWT
Population expansion by immigration must end . Illegals already living and working in the US must be routed out rounded up and deported . As for under age children of these illegals they are deported with their parents , the adult children of illegals can choose , be an American or get the fuck out !
As for importing tech workers and temporary workers that too is a bull shit program and no crops do not rot in the field because of no cheap labor . Sure prices may rise but tax paying consumers save billions on the cost of illegals in the country fro their living costs subsidized by idiots in control .
It would be horrible if every working American were paid enough to contribute in productivity and taxes to support American society rather then be seen as an avoidable business expense by economic traitors at all levels of business , industry & especially government !