How Do You Make A Rabid Right Winger Believe in Global Warming?
Published October 15, 2009 @ 01:25PM PT
Answer: Blame it on immigrants.
The anti-immigrant lobby, led by the Center for Immigration Studies, has long accused immigrants for global warming and climate change, targeting organizations such as Sierra Club to adopt anti-immigrant goals. 'Environativists' even attacked the progressive principles for immigration reform recently, arguing that environmental sustainability and immigration are at odds with one another.
The issue cuts through the heart of migrant rights and environmental justice. Why is it alright for the United States to export its pollution to poorer countries but not import people from the countries it is polluting? What about travel and tourism, including the exportation of food and privatized water. Does that not contribute to global warming? Trade liberalization under GATT, NAFTA and CAFTA keeps chipping away at environmental protections while displacing people from their countries and yet, environativists still point the finger towards immigrants who are simply trying to look for a better way of life.
Immigration and global warming are not zero-sum games. As a Pacific Islander, I can say for a fact that global warming is directly leading to immigration from the “Third World” (South) to the “First World” (North). Islands like Kiribati and Tuvalu are going under water as a result of emissions by countries such as Australia and the United States. Developing and underdeveloped countries are facing more climatic variations leading to increased agriculture and crop loss, not to mention devastation from higher magnitude hurricanes that does encourage migration to countries in the North. So instead of a definite immigration leads to global warming equation, we can also say that global warming leads to migration in greater numbers than we would like.
Bur climate change is not merely about numbers. The ecological footprint of the United States is three times bigger than that of India—the United States contains only 4 percent of total global population, yet it contributes 15.7 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere while India contributes a mere 4.9 million tons with approximately 20% of the world’s population. The average North American consumes five times as much as an average Mexican, 10 times as much as an average Chinese and 30 times as much as the average person in India. Through this lens, it is not India or China with close to half of the world’s population that poses a threat to the environment, but a rather small number of Americans that overpopulate the earth. Putting a numerical cap on that small number would do little to alleviate environmental stress. We must change our lifestyles.
We live in an economic system that encourages consumption and 'keeping up with the Jonesses' has certainly been a way of life promoted in American society. If new and future immigrants adopt these models, the blame lies squarely not only with high consumption lifestyle in the North but also with the unequal distribution of rights among different nations and peoples who are pushed out of their lands directly due to this lifestyle. We need not look further than Iraq to see how our desire to control lucrative oil reserves to sustain our consumption patterns led to the displacement of thousands of Iraqis who needed resettlement in various parts of the world, including the United States.
If we rein in our consumption patterns, our ecological footprint decreases and hence population growth–from immigrants or otherwise–becomes a less important issue.
(Photo courtesy Global Warming Awareness)
Share this Post
Facebook
Twitter
Digg
StumbleUpon
Delicious
EmailRelated Posts
-
200 Million Climate-Change Refugees by 2050
-
Open Letter to John Tanton on Global Warming
-
Immigration Restrictionists Make Bad Environmentalists
Comments (7)
Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the ideas covered in the posts. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; that contain ad hominem attacks; or that are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion.
Author
-
Prerna obtained her Masters degree in International Relations in 2007 and took a hiatus from academia. During this break, she co-founded DreamActivist.org and helped launch a program for immigrant youth in the Bay Area (S4FC). Currently, she is also a Managing Editor at The Sanctuary. Views expressed on this blog are her own and not that of any organization currently affiliated with her. Contact email - prerna@change.org
I see allot of blame going against the US, while at the same time you fail to recognize the rain forests being damaged by natives in search of gold, large area destroyed by hydro mining. Now, this is the people, natives, not large corporations doing this. Also you blame US Corporations for going to other countries and "export their pollution" there, why don't you look at the welcoming they receive from those countries? why don't those countries place environmental requirements on them? Why don't those countries change there regulations instead? Seems you are blaming the US for the worlds ills, when you should be blaming other Governments for not caring about the situation.
Posted by Estudar * on 10/18/2009 @ 05:59PM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
Why would governments in cohorts with corporations that prop them up place environmental regulations on them? Have you tried living in any of these countries? In my own, the military government is propped by the environmentally unfriendly Fiji Water. How can the Pacific Island nations--raped and pillaged by hundreds of years of colonization (lets not even mention Nauru)--do anything when their voices are silenced at global forums and their economies dependent on a neo-colonial export-oriented development? Seems like you neither understanding global politics nor global economics.
Posted by Prerna Lal on 11/04/2009 @ 10:16PM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
You seem to have done nothing more than repeat exactly what Estudar was saying, then in the end you have to attempt to demonize her with Seems like you neither understanding global politics nor global economics., you are simply pathetic. Maybe you should take a class in comprehension.
In my own (referring to Fiji)... How can the Pacific Island nations--raped and pillaged by hundreds of years of colonization (lets not even mention Nauru)--do anything when their voices are silenced at global forums and their economies dependent on a neo-colonial export-oriented development?
Maybe they should go back to living in Grass Huts?! Maybe they should then run off all those which choose to live under the neo-colonial developed ideology. Go back to the way of life of being self supportive on the island.
Posted by Liquid Reigns on 11/07/2009 @ 10:57AM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
I would re-name the topic - How do you make Foreign Governments agree to World Environmental Protections
Blaming "'rabid' right wingers" makes your cause look bufoonish.
Posted by Estudar * on 10/18/2009 @ 06:02PM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
Who says CO2 is harmful to the Environment? The EPA does. Will they give the report they had commissioned to the public? No they won't.
Oxides are what have been deemed environmentally unfriendly, CO2 is a plant food, plants absorb it and in turn produce oxygen. If we can quit destroying the environment with illegal mining in the rain forests, and continue our logging industry, which has it right re-planting stands once they are harvested, and keep as many plants on the planet as we can, then explain what is wrong with CO2. With fewer plants, CO2 levels do rise, but is there an impact on the environment from it? The EPA states there is, but many environmental professors say its not so. So who are we to believe and what are we to do?
Posted by Estudar * on 10/18/2009 @ 06:10PM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
Or, you could title this article: "How Do You Get Obama to Realize, War is Bad for Our Air Quality?"
Posted by L.S. hope on 10/19/2009 @ 03:24PM PT
You must be signed in to report content.
Excellent post, Prerna! If we truly care about issues like global warming, we need to start with ourselves. As you rightly point out, we constitute 4 percent of the world's population, yet we consume 25 percent of world's energy resources. This is unsustainable. Now, the poor tread relatively lightly on this earth -- the fact is, they have fewer toys than rich people (cars, boats, lawns, etc). We Americans are the real energy hogs, and it is not picking on this country to point this out. It is a matter of personal responsibility. The reason that ecosystems all over this planet are breaking down is directly related to our unsustainable lifestyles. Of course, the restrictionists talk a good line about "personal responsibility," but they don't live it. Much easier to blame a vulnerable group like immigrants, while conveniently turning a blind eye to their own refusal to take responsibility for the problem and their utter hypocrisy on this issue.
Posted by fille rebelle on 10/25/2009 @ 06:17PM PT
You must be signed in to report content.