The Next Added 100 Million Americans, Part 17: Selected growth fallacies
By Frosty Wooldridge (01/19/07)
How did we wander into this "growth at all costs" trap? How could educated and rational leaders cheer unending Gross National Product? At what point does the stock market explode through the ceiling and why do we cheer its continuous growth? That's like cheering a 450 pound 5'10" man into eating a truck load of ice cream so he might "grow" to 500 pounds. Once he reaches 500, pro-growth advocates would cheer him on to 600, 700 and 800 pounds.
As America adds the next 100 million people by 2040, how will cities like Los Angeles survive its projected 20 million added people? How will California grow crops with dwindling farmland and water? How will drivers deal with adding another 15 to 20 million cars and trucks onto their gridlocked highways of 2007? How will LAX and Ontario airports deal with more air traffic? How about the horrific air pollution generated by millions of cars, homes, schools, factories and farms?
In his book, “COLLAPSE: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,” Pulitzer Prize winning author Jared Diamond illustrated how great civilizations dismantled their own sustainability. On tiny Easter Island, humans ignored nature, cut down all the trees, built 50 ton rock monuments and died of overpopulation via starvation. Today, we’re faced with the same dilemmas Rome, Anasazi, Mayans, present day Rwanda and other vanished civilizations discovered.
As our numbers grow, America and most of the Western world will battle for remaining resources. It’s already a nightmare of epic proportions in India, China and Bangladesh. What ties my brain in knots stems from the most powerful leaders in the world ignoring this human situation on every front.
Bush thinks if we study global warming more, or ignore it further, perhaps it will vanish. If he pretends we don’t have 3.5 million homeless in America, maybe they will fade into the woodwork. If we disregard our water crisis in the American West, surely, adding 30, 40 or 50 million people to Texas, California, Arizona and New Mexico won’t be a problem.
However, as Herman E. Daly, author of “Steady State Economics” said, “If you’ve eaten poison, you must get rid of the substances that are making you ill. Let us then, apply the stomach pump to the doctrines of economic growth that we have been forced-fed for decades.”
He makes a point I consider critical in this debate: “We cannot have too many people alive simultaneously lest we destroy carrying capacity and thereby reduce the number of lives possible in all subsequent time periods.”
Let’s face it, capitalism, for all it brings us in wealth—also destroys our supporting environment at a sickening pace. Capitalism’s voracious drive for production and consumption knows no bounds. If allowed, it would, like a cancer cell, multiply production until it kills its host.
Daly states, “Environmental degradation is an iatrogenic disease induced by physicians (pro-growth advocates) who attempt to treat the sickness with unlimited wants by prescribing unlimited production. We do not cure a treatment-induced disease by increasing the treatment dosage.”
What does that mean? You can’t keep red-lining a four cylinder engine with limited horsepower to make it rev up forever in order to create more energy. You will, in the end, blow up the engine just as you would kill a horse by overloading the wagon it’s pulling.
As the economist Tobin wrote, “The prevailing standard model of growth assumes that there are no limits on the expanding of supplies of nonhuman agents of production. It is a two-factor model in which production depends only on labor and reproducible capital. Land and resources, the third member of the triad, have been dropped.”
In other words, ignored as a factor in GNP! That’s like ignoring that our 500 pound friend has reached 600 pounds and can no longer walk because he’s too fat to get onto his feet.
As Daly said, “Current economic growth has uncoupled itself from the world and has become irrelevant. Worse, it has become a blind guide.”
If we bet the house on growing our population by adding 100 million and then, another 100 million, what if the hypothesis that technology will save us turns out wrong? We bet now by adding 100 million and our children in 30 years reap the whirlwind of a lost wager.
Will you please note that as our population increases toward adding 100 million in three decades, every aspect of the first 16 parts of this series accelerates commensurately? Once manifested, there’s no escape for any of us.
As Diamond illustrates in former collapsed civilizations, choices could have been made to create a sustained long term society, but weren’t. Looking at China and India today, as well as having traveled through them, I see history repeating itself. India maintains no National Population Policy while expected to grow from 1.1 billion to 1.55 billion by 2050. While China forces one child families, they still expect to grow from 1.3 billion to 1.5 billion. Bangladesh, at 129 million in a landmass the size of Ohio, continues growing at breakneck speed. All three countries face crippling environmental dilemmas and human suffering on a scale we can’t imagine.
That brings me to America’s predicament. Of the next added 100 million people, fully 67 million will be immigrants from Third World countries. What they bring with them are age old rituals, mores and birth rates.
In my air travel to Seattle, Washington, I talked to my cab driver from Bangladesh who had immigrated to the USA in 1990. I asked him about his country’s population. He said it sickened him so much that he would not go back. I asked him why? He said his Muslim religion encouraged every woman to have as many children as possible. I noted that his country exceeded its carrying capacity and that such massive population overload would destroy any hope of ‘quality of life’ and decent ‘standard of living.’
“Why not practice family planning?” I asked.
“It would go against Allah’s wishes,” he said.
“But it creates such human misery,” I said.
“One must not go against Allah’s wishes,” he replied.
“How many kids do you have?” I asked, in frustration.
“Seven with one on the way,” he said, proudly.
“How many do you expect to have?” I asked, calmly.
“That is for Allah to decide,” he said.
Having lived in America for 12 years, this man had not made the connection concerning quality of life and number of children. Having been influenced by America’s educational system, he was as out of touch with reality as if he remained in Bangladesh. His story stands as a glaring example why Third World immigrants continue large families of five to 10 when they immigrate to First World countries.
In May 2006, via SB 2611, our U.S. Senate voted to change legal immigration from 1.0 million to 2.0 million annually, increase chain migration and work visas. With the new Democratic Congress majority, it will pass and we will become the receiving ground for 67 million immigrants.
Therein results in our grave dilemma for adding 100 million people in 33 years—if the low estimate holds. The higher estimate exceeds 143 million.
What you can do for a better future for your country:
A republican form of government is not a spectator sport. It means you must jump in, roll up you sleeves and take personal and collective action. Of course, you could let a dictator take over and do everything for you, but that path would give you Cuba, China, North Korea and other unsavory examples.
To stop Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid from giving an amnesty, take action. Call for a full 10 year moratorium.
CALL NANCY PELOSI
Washington, DC - (202) 225-4965
San Francisco, CA - (415) 556-4862
EMAIL NANCY PELOSI
sf.nancy@mail.house.gov
EMAIL FORM FOR NANCY PELOSI www.house.gov/pelosi/contact/contact.html
Senator Harry Reid
202-224-3121 in Washington DC
775-686-5750 in Reno, NV
www.reid.senate.gov
George Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20500
comments@whitehouse.gov
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard for live listener: 202 456 1414
Fax: 202-456-2461
We must 'sour the milk.’ Bring out your points in the call:
1, America cannot support another 100 million people added to our country in 34 years, i.e., water crisis, resource depletion, air pollution, gridlock, loss of quality of life, etc.
2, America cannot support lawbreakers being given citizenship.
3, America must maintain our English language.
4, America wants only legal immigrants who play by the rules and speak English.
5, America's working poor deserve a chance at jobs taken by illegals
6, America already has too many people and I support a 10 year moratorium on all immigration.
7, Americans must maintain our schools for our children.
8, We can no longer tolerate 350,000 birthright citizens (anchor babies) annually that subtract from our own citizens.
9, Attrition through enforcement by stopping their ability to wire money home, obtain rental housing and jobs.
10, An amnesty failed in 1986, and it will only be worse today. We're being displaced out of our jobs and out of our own country. Call with relentless and never-give-up passion.
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