Re: US Immigration & Population (fwd)

Michael,

I would think that an environmental position would have problems with
anti-immigration. I suppose that if it were a nationalist environmentalism
- "We want to preserve the purity of our nation's environment, therefore
we will restrict the entry of aliens" - then it maybe it makes sense (from
a certain nationalist point of view, of course). But if it is an
environmentalism that is globally focused, then population pressures which
compel migration, for example the exceeding of regional carrying capacity,
could be seen as ecologically advantageous as redistributing the global
population. It seems one way to reduce the "overpopulation" in, say India
or China, is to permit them entry into some of the comparatively
"underpopulated" regions. The United States, for instance, would have a
negative population growth if but for immigration (which is why the
environmental nationalists desire to restrict it, I suppose).

Andrew Austin
Knoxville, TN