Immigration vs. Conservation
Anti-immigrationists and animal rights activists are working to form a coalition to take over the board of the Sierra Club. I can’t find the weblog I found this on first (Frogs & Ravens maybe?), but now that the NY Times is reporting the issue, it’s mainstream news, and I’d like to give credit for breaking the story where it’s due. Originally, this had been presented as the efforts of two extremist groups, but the Times report puts the slant a little differently, as anti-hunting/trapping activists working with accused racists. The Sierra Club has long been considered a mainstream environmental group because of their self-described reasonable stance regarding hunting and logging, so these days, when the environment is palpably under threat, it’s not surprising that more activist elements within the organization would seek to drive the Club into pursuing a course more in line with their own concerns. The anti-immigrationists, however, represent an outside stream with only an arguably environmental agenda and a decidedly racialist bias. Immigration may account for up to 45% of population growth in the U.S., but I’m not convinced that represents an overall increase in the next 100 years of over 300%, and neither am I convinced that immigration itself is within the purview of any environmental group.