How Does Immigration Impact The Environment?
Institute for Sound Public Policy is committed to the creation of a sustainable society in the United States, one that secures essential natural resources for future generations and preserves flourishing populations of all native species in perpetuity.
It is our position that the U.S. will fail in these efforts if we fail to stabilize our population. As David Brower, former Sierra Club Executive Director, said at the dawn of the environmental movement: “We feel you don’t have a conservation policy unless you have a population policy.”1
IFSPP seeks to preserve open space, farms and wildlife habitat from sprawl. That’s why we support new parks and wildlife refuges, and improved land use, transportation and zoning policies. But over half the sprawl in the U.S. is caused by population growth. Unless we stop population growth, sprawl will continue to gobble up undeveloped land.
Further reading
Reproduction and the carbon legacies of individuals
Notes
1 Quoted in Stewart Udall, “The Quiet Crisis,” 1966.
2 Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, U.S. Department of Energy, “National Fossil Fuel CO2 Emissions – All Countries.”
3 President’s Council on Sustainable Development, “Towards a Sustainable America: Advancing Prosperity, Opportunity, and a Healthy Environment for the 21st Century,” 1999.
4 Frederick Hollmann, Tammany Mulder, and Jeffrey Kallan, “Methodology and Assumptions for the Population Projections of the United States: 1999 to 2100.” Population Division Working Paper 38, table F (Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau, 2000).
5 President’s Council on Sustainable Development, “Towards a Sustainable America.”
6 U.S. Council of Environmental Quality and U.S. Department of State, “Global 2000 Report to the President,” 1981.
7 Aldo Leopold, “Game Methods: The American Way,” 1931.
