Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.

-Emma Lazarus

Environmentalists have long held that environmental problems come down to one issue: population. All of our environmental woes, from species extinction to global warming, can ultimately be traced back to human population pressures. Too many people means too much negative environmental impact.

In 1968, Paul Ehrlich wrote the best-selling Population Bomb. Despite his inaccurate predictions of doom, traditional greens still zealously cling to the book. There is near consensus among environmental groups, activists, and concerned citizens that human population is a major cause, if not the major cause of environmental problems.

After Earth Day, environmental groups adopted population policy stances. According to Claude Martin, director of World Wildlife Fund International, "Conventional wisdom has it that the world's rapid increase in population is largely responsible for its environmental degradation." Even self-proclaimed environmental optimist Gregg Easterbrook notes, "Human population growth is at once the most important and worst understood of ecological issues."

The problem is not solely with human species. Consider Yellowstone National Park. Nearly all independent observers decry the severe deterioration of that ecosystem caused by overpopulated of elk and bison. Generations ago, predators like wolves and Indian hunters balanced wildlife populations. Ecologist Frederic Wagner writes, "Today we have removed those constraints but the breeding urges remain." Consequently, big game populations fill up the habitat to the point of severely degrading the environment.

In human and animal ecology, population and environmental quality are intimately linked. Moreover, population's impact on the environment is often very site-specific. The United States is certainly not suffering from too many bison; Yellowstone Park is.

And, when it comes to local population, few would deny the prominent role of immigration. The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that immigrants, legal or otherwise, will be responsible for two-thirds of the net U.S. population growth by 2050. Thanks largely to immigration, California's population is projected to jump another 67 percent in just thirteen years. And, when the population changes, so will the attendant environmental concerns. Last year, a report of the President's Council on Sustainable Development bluntly stated, "This is a sensitive issue, but reducing immigration levels is a necessary part of population stabilization and the drive toward sustainability."

Garret Hardin, professor emeritus of ecology at University of California, Santa Barbara, writes, "Once an environmentalist faces the issue of population growth, he finds he cannot avoid the immigration problem." It would make sense that environmental groups would incorporate immigration issues into their policy platforms, just as they do with population. What is Greenpeace's policy on immigration? Or the Sierra Club's? They have none. Even the environmental group Zero Population Growthdemurs.

Why is immigration policy so intractable that major green groups cannot incorporate it into their agendas?

For one, orthodox green groups have typically associated with modern liberal politics. Their preferred strategy to resolving environmental problems has been to rely heavily on the state apparatus. Benign despots, such as Al Gore and Carol Browner at the EPA, can surely usher us towards a new, greener society --if only we give them sufficient power.

But conservative figures such as Pat Buchanan have led the charge against open immigration policies. Despite altruistically advocating "fewer people means a better world for all,"greens don't want to be associated with xenophobes out to protect their turf from invasion.

The politics of protecting flies over people and swamps over jobs, however, slips dangerously close to elitism. Greens strive to differentiate themselves from that elitism. Their cause is the plight of the common man: the tired, the poor, the wretched refuse, and the homeless. Emma Lazarus' words on the Statue of Liberty serve as a clarion call to Nanny State advocates within the ranks of enviro groups. Immigrants are precisely the people that greens want to aid, not reject.

In 1994, California ballot Proposition 187 sought to cut off public services from illegal immigrants in the state. The hotly contested measure drew opposition from the California League of Conservation Voters. Executive Director Sam Schuchat explained that, although Prop. 187 wasn't primarily an environmental issue, "We felt like we had to do it just to make sure we were on the right side of history on this one. . . . Environmentalists wanted to show that we are on the side of people, not just endangered species." Bleeding hearts trump environmental sustainability.

Nonetheless, population growth, and immigration by extension, is fundamental to nearly all environmental problems. With the population bomb ticking, "welcoming"more immigrants is not an option. Yet neither is rejecting the downtrodden. It seems greens are caught between a rock and a hard place.

Thus, while environmental groups might jump at the chance to curb population growth, their hands are tied on immigration. The Sierra Club opposed Prop. 187, not because they favor more immigrants to California, but because spurning them just isn't the right way to control population.

In an ideal world, we should be able to save the planet and not restrict hand-outs at the same time. The appeal of having your cake and eating it too postpones the inevitable need to reconcile immigration with environmental quality. So they quietly wait for the magic elixir.

A similar tack is taken by major environmental groups regarding overgrazing in Yellowstone. While elk and bison resort to "starvation rations"like tree bark and pine needles, the National Wildlife Federation reels at the prospects of culling the herds. In spite of serious wildlife overpopulation problems in Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain, and other national parks, green groups staunchly oppose hunting and other balancing efforts.

Overpopulation is a big problem, they concur, but austere measures to reduce the hapless, big-eyed newcomers -- be they elk or immigrants -- are not an option.

Or are they? Eventually, there may come a time when population pressures push even the most altruistic greens to realize that they can't have it both ways. That is, after all, precisely their position: you can't have unlimited growth without destroying the planet. It will be interesting to see how they grapple with the question of how to save the planet and everyone who wants to be on it at the same time. Hopefully, they will recognize the inevitability of trade-offs in conserving scarce resources.

Sidebar

DISSENSION IN THE RANKS

For the Sierra Club, perhaps the nation's most influential environmental group, immigration has been one big headache. Traditionally, the Club takes policy stances on every issue they find relevant to their mission, from playgrounds to population. In the 1970s, the group committed to zero population growth in the United States, but unsuccessfully wrestled with a policy on immigration. After years of internal debate, on February 24, 1996 the Club resolved to "take no position on immigration." At issue, ultimately, is reconciling two concerns of its membership: (1) achieving environmental quality and sustainability, and (2) protecting immigrant welfare. The former, a strictly environmental concern leading to stricter immigration policies, seems counterpoised to the latter, a sense of justice that would meet immigrants with open arms. With membership at loggerheads during an election year, Sierra Club leadership meekly says, 'no comment.'

Immigration has not gone gently into that good night, however. In the words of retired engineering professor Alan Kuper, a long-time grassroots member from Ohio, "We can't win if the population keeps growing." He argues that the well-being of immigrants and everyone else is ultimately jeopardized by population growth due to immigration. Dr. Kuper has initiated a referendum to reverse the Club's 1996 policy. If it succeeds, the Sierra Club may soon acknowledge the realities of balancing immigration and population with other values, such as individual well-being and justice.