Sierra Skirmish

Immigrants have been blamed, mostly incorrectly, for many of the countries woes – the shortage of jobs, increasing crime rates, the growth in welfare. Now, as part of a battle for control of the Sierra Club, arrivals from other countries are being blamed for the degradation of the nation’s environment.

This is a simplistic argument that downplays the work the country’s oldest environmental group has done to curb pollution, stop sprawl and limit global population growth. A group of candidates seeking seats on the club’s board have made limiting immigration their campaign platform.

In this they are supported by anti-immigration groups, some of them overtly racist, that have encouraged their members to join the Sierra Club so they can take part in the on-going board election, which ends April 21. The dissidents are led by former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm, who has made a name for himself by speaking out on controversial issues.

“There are 75 million new people added to the world every year, year after year,” Mr. Lamm wrote in an email. “Our maximum immigration generosity could not dent the problem of third world poverty.” “Our best role would be to show the world that we can forge a sustainable society as an example and a symbol,” he added.

These are good arguments for the Sierra Club’s continuing its current course, a course that was supported by its membership, by a 3-to-2 ratio, after a similar battle over the group’s immigration stance in 1998. The club, which has 700,000 members – 5,000 of them in Maine – has long advocated for increased funding for family planning programs and efforts to advance women’s rights in countries around the world to stem global population growth.

Closer to home, the group is among the leaders in the fight to change U.S. energy policy to reduce our dependence on highly polluting coal and fossil fuel. The United States leads the world in the emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. The 5.8 billion tons emitted in 2000 was twice that of China, number two on the list. The United States has such high emissions not because its population is growing, but because it is an affluent country where most people drive a car and consume a lot of electricity. Working to change its energy policy and to encourage more fuel-efficient cars is likely to have a greater positive impact than keeping people out of the country.

The same is true of sprawl. The continued gobbling up of undeveloped land is more the result of poor zoning and land-use decisions than the arrival of immigrants. Typically, it is not recent immigrants who are moving to the suburbs and dividing up farmland.

Rather than working, wittingly or not, with groups who want to keep immigrants out of the United States for reasons very different from protecting our environment, those who want to shake up the Sierra Club, which was founded by a Scottish immigrant, would be much more productive if they helped the club achieve its existing goals.