The aricle is right on target criticizing green advocates who insist nobody can be pure enough unless they give up everything and live naked in a hot spring, eating only algae.

Still, green journalism has a place. Industry advocates and lobbying groups tell us and our elected representatives coal mining is clean, nuclear power is safe, automobiles shouldn't be blamed for pollution, agricultural runoff doesn't pollute streams, etc, etc. They're out there with their mouthpieces, feeding TV and print stories to the media outlets, urging us to blame ourselves, someone else, anybody except the (insert industry name here) people who are just trying to make our lives better by allowing us to live more comfortably.

Just as you don't have to be a vegan to eat a healthier diet and have a lower impact on the planet, neither do you have to give up shelter and transportation to stop global warming. Driving a Matrix instead of a Hummer would do a lot. So would building a 2400 square foot house instead of a palace two or three times that size. It's really not necessary to live in a yurt and walk barefoot through the snow.

I think most people already know all this, but we're being tugged and pulled between the two extremes. The one thing to which I do object is the implication that we can't be pure enough to satisfy the purists, so why try? That makes no sense at all. If we followed that kind of advice, none of us would live past 20. It's too hard to obey the 55 mph speed limit, so why not go 110? Drink the whole bottle of tequila. Spend all your money at once. Exercize no self-control whatever, in any realm.

Perfect is the enemy of good enough. Don't listen to either of the extremist viewpoints. They're only interested in being right, not saving the planet. Green comes in many shades. Pale green is better than not green at all.

Why won't journalists breath a word about this subject ? 60 Million new immigrants=Environmental Suicide If you like sprawl, pollution, and resource depletion
you will love the current US immigration and
population trends.

US population has grown by about 100 million since the
1960's. Now, new 2004 US population studies sited by
Cox News Service and others indicate that we will grow
by another 120 million by 2050. In the 1990's alone we
added a record 30 million more Americans, the
equivalent of a new state of California every 10
years. The US Census Bureau also projects a 49%
population increase to about ½ a billion by sometime
in the middle of this century.

Most of us are not anti-immigration xenophobes and
welcome individual immigrants; but US census records
and all population studies now demonstrate that about 60% of the last 30 years of exploding population
growth has been due to immigrants and their children.
Immigration averaged a reasonable 178,000 per year
from 1925 through 1964. At these levels the U.S. was
projected to achieve population stability by sometime
in the 1970’s. Unfortunately, a Democratic controlled
congress increased immigration levels approximately
6-fold beginning in 1965. Next, Ronald Reagan declared
an Illegal Immigrant amnesty. Then, in 1999, Bill
Clinton revised immigration standards to allow those
just above poverty level to sponsor new immigrants.
Now President Bush and the Democratic Party are both
proposing their own legal status plans for millions of
illegal immigrants.


We are clearly no longer the sparsely populated
country of the early 20th century. The United States
has the highest population growth rate of all
developed countries in the world and at more than 290
million, is the third most populous country in the
world. Much of our coastline has a population density
equal to India. Any short term economic gains (i.e.
increased taxes, social security support) provided by
a rapidly growing population will be far outweighed by
the permanent environmental damage done by that
population.

Sierrans for US Population Stabilization, The National
Wildlife Federation, The Center for Immigration
Studies and other diverse groups have all produced
detailed studies proving that smart growth solutions
and environmental controls will ultimately fail if not
accompanied by population stabilization. Among the
findings was that the more a state's population grew,
the more the state sprawled. For example, states that
grew in population by more than 30 percent between
1982 and 1997 sprawled 46 percent on average. In
contrast, states that grew in population by less than
10 percent sprawled only 26 percent on average. On
average, each 10,000-person increase in state
population resulted in 1,600 acres of undeveloped
rural land's being developed, even controlling for
other factors such as changes in population density.

We should do everything we can to help those who have
already legally immigrated; but it is environmentally
destructive and counter productive to use the US as a
safety valve for countries that refuse to control
their own population growth. Those who argue that
limiting US immigration will not effect worldwide
environmental degradation are wrong. By what pretzel
logic are we somehow helping the world environment by
allowing over-immigration to destroy the environment
of the continent of North America? That is like
arguing that cutting
off your right leg is a great way to loose weight.
Over immigration not only helps destroy the North
American environment but it also lets us close our
eyes and indefinitely postpone real solutions to Latin
American population, economic and social problems. A
more humane approach would be to use massive US and
Canadian investment to help Mexico and other Latin
American countries modernize their economies and
environmental safeguards .


See: www.numbersusa.com, www.cis.org , www.susps.org

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What you haven't stated is that all the immigrants who come here are looking to increase their carbon footprint (read that a better way of life).

Yes, correct, so the solution is LESS PEOPLE. The US should not use immigration and act as a safety valve to help enable those countries that refuse to control their own populations .

Don't blame just immigrants. The reason they find this country attractive is because we can drive big cars, build big houses, play with big toys, etc. and generally live excessively. We used to do this by keeping our own population density relatively low and using our economic superiority to extract resources from others. Globalization is closing the curtain on that era, so we'll have to settle on a more modest lifestyle or figure out a way to continue living excessively, such as by sending our armies around the world to enforce our interests.

Restricting immigration would be part of the solution, but it's not as simple as "less people equals a better life."

"Perfect is the enemy of good enough." Words that would have sent me screaming into the night at 19 now seem so obviously true. It's my new mantra. I alresdy have them on my wall. Thanks, Arlington.

Immigration is good for the US because it provides cheap labor, an expanding pool of consumers, and several generations worth of aspriational people. Recent immigrants fill many agricultural and housekeeping jobs that would be difficult to fill otherwise. Plus, the notion that the US is overcrowded is simply not true. A few places are completely built out such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Miami, but most of America has declining population and welcomes new immigrants. Consider, for example, most cities in the midWest and New England outside of Boston and you will see America needs more people. You could easily place 100 million additional people in America. There are currently 8 million houses for sales and if you put four people in each, that would absorb 32 million people. The trick is to add more people in an environmentally sound way, not to slow immigration completely.

I agree. Also, those immigrants are largely the ones planting and harvesting the crops that absorb CO2 and let people "eat locally". There are serious problems with immigration in this country, but closing the border and/or throwing everyone out isn't feasible.