The Badger Herald’s April 19 story about the founding of Earth Day, while an important history lesson for those unfamiliar with its creation, omits the critical fact that its founder, Gaylord Nelson, was deeply concerned about the nation’s immigration policy that currently is responsible for nearly 90 percent of our population growth.
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Today, this country’s population stands at 324 million people compared with 205 million people on that first Earth Day in 1970 — and much of that growth has been the result of immigration.
Last year, Pew Research reported from this point on immigrants and the birth of their children here will represent 88 percent of our population growth that will result in a population of 430 million people by 2065. According to the Census Bureau, by 2100 there will be more than 600 million of us.
Such growth is not inevitable because Congress controls the number of people who are allowed to come here legally every year. Since 1990, that yearly number has exceeded 1 million, or four times the average number admitted during the first 200 years of our nation’s history. Had the 2013 Senate amnesty bill passed, which had — and still has — the support of Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, annual legal immigration would have doubled.
Picking up litter and planting pretty flowers, two common but mostly symbolic events held every Earth Day, wasn’t what Nelson was had in mind for the long-term protection of the environment and our natural resources. Shortly before he died in 2005 he said, “In this country, it’s phony to say, ‘I’m for the environment but not for limiting immigration.’ It’s just a fact that we can’t take all the people who want to come here.”
Reduce our carbon footprints? Just how are we supposed to do that when the federal government continues to add so many feet?
Dave Gorak is the executive director of the Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration.