Ethnic conservatives

Immigrants can be a good influence | Gene Edward Veith

The Sierra Club is polling its half-a-million members on whether their environmental activism should include reducing the number of immigrants allowed into the United States. In what is being called a battle for the soul of the environmentalist movement, conventional liberals who do not want to be thought racist are pitted against the ideologues who, to use a common metaphor, see human beings as nothing more than harmful parasites on the face of the earth.

Both sides agree on the dogma that population growth is something bad. "Make no mistake," says Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, "overpopulation is, without question, a fundamental cause of the world's ills." He calls it, however, a global problem and worries about charges of racism. Such arguments are "a form of denial," according to member Allan Kuper. "We can't remain silent in the face of endless rapid growth" in the U.S. population. Immigration, he maintains, is having a negative impact on the environment.