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Curbing growth not racistBy Froma Harrop February 23, 2004, published in The Dallas News The U.S. population could hit a half-billion people by 2044, according to one Census Bureau projection, and the Sierra Club's leaders don't want to do anything about it. Worse, they don't want anyone in the club to talk about it. And any club member who defies the gag order gets pelted by charges of racism. Things have gotten nutty at the Sierra Club. An exploding U.S. population fuels nearly every environmental crisis – from water shortages to sprawl to loss of wildlife habitats. The Sierra Club's leadership won't touch the subject because the chief source of population growth today is immigration – an issue that can take on racial overtones. "It is environmental malpractice to avoid this issue because it is sensitive," says former Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm. Now running for the club's 15-member board, Mr. Lamm is one of three petition candidates vowing to address the population problem. Three decades ago, the Sierra Club backed save-the-earth rallies centered on controlling population growth. Marchers waved copies of Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb. Environmentalists back then feared that baby boomers would do as their parents had done – make big families. And they weren't afraid to tell middle-class Americans to have fewer children. Now that immigration is fueling nearly all population growth, the club leadership has fallen silent. The Sierra Club leaders know that most of the members wanting to lower immigration levels are good liberals interested in numbers, not in skin color. But they lack all courage in defending them. Indeed, they join some Hispanic activists in tarring as racist anyone who challenges current immigration policy. The heaviest artillery is directed at the club's board candidates who speak hard truths on population. "This is the toughest election that I ever have run," says Mr. Lamm, a Democrat who started his career as a civil-rights lawyer and was elected Colorado governor three times. "There is a level of vituperativeness that I never have seen." Morris Dees, a founder of the Southern Poverty Law Foundation, has decided to join the slander brigade. Mr. Dees is issuing ludicrous warnings of a "right-wing takeover" at the Sierra Club. (He has come up with a catchy phrase that he repeats over and over: "the greening of hate.") Past Sierra Club board elections have revealed strong support for addressing the population issue, so the smear job may not work. Indeed, three current board members have survived assassination attempts on their character and openly back establishing a serious population policy. They are: Doug LaFollette, Wisconsin's secretary of state and a Democrat; Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace; and UCLA astronomer Ben Zuckerman. Hardly a cabal of crypto-racist fiends. The basic question is whether Sierra Club members want their leaders to continue sitting on their hands as the U.S. population heads to a half-billion. That many people wouldn't tread lightly on the planet. That's what this issue is about. Froma Harrop writes for The Providence Journal.
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