"A comprehensive population policy for the United States that continues to advocate an end to US population growth at the earliest possible time through reduction in natural increase (births minus deaths), but now also through reduction in net immigration (immigration minus emigration)." That is the wording of the recent Sierra Club initiative that the Earth First! Journal and attendees of the recent EF! Organizers' Conference condemned as being flagrantly racist, and some in "progressive" circles, like Alexander Cockburn, have likened to a David Duke KKK rally.

Immigration, like population reduction, is a complicated, highly politicized and inflammatory subject. By simply parroting Cockburn and others in dismissing this proposal and its supporters, including many longtime Earth First!ers (author Bill Devall), prominent ecologists and conservation biologists (E. O. Wilson) and the head of World Watch Institute (Lester Brown), as racist, the Journal and EF! Organizers' Conference attendees contributed nothing towards resolving the issue.

According to the US Census Bureau, US population is growing by three million people a year. That's another city roughly the size of Los Angeles every two years. Of these three million people, roughly one million are legal immigrants (the US admits more legal immigrants than any other industrialized country), of whom about 10 percent are political (as opposed to economic) refugees. It doesn't matter if people being added are brown, black, purple or white, tofu-eating, bike-riding enviros, they are still all going to be consuming resources and taxing the natural system. In addition, they will probably be consuming more than the world average, simply because it's hard to avoid doing so in our society. Even a first-world person living in Paraguay or Colombia will probably use fewer resources, because public transport there is efficient, food has less packaging, more locally-made products are available, etc.

There are those who associate the supporters of this initiative with right-wing, racist or neo-fascist groups that also happen to espouse anti-immigration ideologies. By this same brand of logic, it could be shown that Earth First! is now allied with the Catholic Church, Operation Rescue and other pro-natalist factions that also favor unfettered population growth and immigration. Indeed, Santos Gomez, one of the prominent Sierra Club opponents of the initiative, stated at the recent Eugene Environmental Law Conference that he didn't believe in the concept of carrying capacity! I suggest, at the risk of offending animal rights activists, that Mr. Gomez put a few fruit flies in a jar with a limited food supply and watch what happens. (Maybe we could tip off the Animal Liberatioon Front before they actually start starving to death, but AFTER he gets the picture.) There was nothing in the initiative, at least as written, that could remotely be shown to advocate increased harassment of (admittedly often exploited) illegal immigrants, increased militarization of the society or "racism" in general.

Issues involving population growth, both in the US and abroad, have always been highly inflammatory, and the broader progressive community has often quick to hurl the accusation of racism (or classism) at those who question the dogma that more human beings are intrinsically a good thing. Although many of us are also involved in the broader progressive movement, or at least concerned with coalition building, we need to admit that there are times when putting the Earth first may mean alienating many in the liberal community. One can easily foresee other issues involving US population growth where being a progressive and being an Earth First!er (or at least an ecologist) might mean different things. Imagine a proposal to eliminate the tax credit for children, or a scheme to offer cash bonuses to those choosing voluntary sterilization? Without a doubt, many in the progressive community would argue, perhaps with some justification, that these were "racist" or "classist" measures because the poor would "sacrifice" disproportionately (not having children is generally considered sacrifice in our culture) and that we should work to achieve an egalitarian society before implementing such policies. But if these policies had a chance of lowering the birth rate, wouldn't they at least deserve to be rationally considered, especially by the Earth First! movement? Immigration reduction, although an issue which might presumably offend humanists and Christians, should at least warrant discussion in ecological circles without the proponents being attacked as racists.

There are many ways to reduce immigration and US population growth in general, none of which need scapegoat immigrants, lead to increased repression of illegal immigrants, or put more cops on the border or on the streets. There are many forces driving immigration into the US including NAFTA, GATT, US covert and overt wars and US/corporate foreign policy, which often rewards cooperative nations with higher immigration quotas or uses immigration as a "safety valve" to reduce domestic political pressure on client states. It has been estimated that NAFTA will eventually push several million Mexican farmers off the land (where many of them are practicing a more ecologically sustainable lifestyle than any Earth First!er I know) and force them to immigrate to the US, often at considerable risk and personal sacrifice. Attacking NAFTA and these other forces pushing immigrants to this country is undoubtedly the best way to reduce immigration. But ignoring the situation and branding anyone as racist who merely suggests that US population growth is an ecological problem, is simply an exercise in sticking our heads in the sand.

Instead of denying that immigration is a significant factor in US population growth, and consequently in US environmental destruction, we might instead begin a debate on an Earth First! position on immigration. What might one look like? Who said a policy reducing "net immigration" need target the poorest people, or even immigrants at all? If changing our foreign and economic policies didn't solve US population problems, what about first targeting educated and relatively affluent technocrats (those in greatest demand to further grow US industry)? Why not allow unfettered entrance to those, especially indigenous people, whose religions do not advocate being fruitful and multiplying? For that matter, why not provide entrance to any one person, provided one US citizen with an income over $100,000 was forced to leave the country?

Like it our not, the Earth First! Journal and those at the activist conference chose the easy path of compromise on this issue. It's easy to point the finger at corporations and consumer culture, and controlling these would certainly help in the long run, but doing so won't significantly reduce the impact on wild areas in the near future. In the short term, another three million people will be added to the US population this year, and an area roughly the size of Delaware will be paved. One million of these new North Americans, a city larger than Portland, Oregon, will be added through immigration. Moving more people to North America, where they will assuredly consume more than in their countries of origin, will not benefit the ecological systems either here or there.

There were many reasons to adopt a public policy against this initiative, including building coalitions with social justice groups and avoiding the old charge, also leveled by Alexander Cockburn, that we are "eco-fascists." There may also have been some lingering personal animosity toward Dave Foreman, one of the principal sponsors of the measure. Many of us are also involved in other progressive causes and groups and might have felt uncomfortable defending a policy that was being so publicly associated with KKK racists. None of this excuses the fact that instead of admitting that three million additional first world Americans a year is too many, and advocating bold, effective steps to reduce immigration (like repealing NAFTA and ending all US military aid to foreign, oppressive regimes), these Earth First!ers chose to parrot the "racist" line being spewed by progressives and in so doing sought to quell even this modest dialogue about US population growth.

The Sierra Club's decision on this initiative will be final before the Journal goes to press. Regardless of the outcome of the election, the points raised by it will not go away. If the proposal loses, the Earth First! movement still needs to address the serious ecological questions posed by immigration and examine the knee-jerk response to the issue. If it wins, instead of bemoaning the fact that the "racists" have won, we might better work outside and inside the Sierra Club to ensure the policy is not used to attack immigrants or as substitute for real, substantive reductions in US consumption. Rather, it should be the impetus to attack the forces that drive immigration