Climate change requires population stabilization for America
By Joseph Chamie, opinion contributor — 05/12/21 10:30 AM EDT
For America to deal effectively with climate change and many other critical environmental concerns, including biodiversity loss, deforestation, natural resource depletion, food production, pollution and congestion, requires a gradual transition to population stabilization.
That statement calling for the gradual stabilization of America’s population is basically the same unequivocal conclusion recommended by the U.S. Commission on Population and the American Future nearly 50 years ago.
When proposing the presidential advisory commission on population and America’s future in 1970, President Richard Nixon said, “One of the most serious challenges to human destiny in the last third of this century will be the growth of the population.” Since the former president’s remark uttered a half century ago, America’s population has grown from 205 million to 333 million and the world’s population has more than doubled, increasing from 3.7 billion in 1970 to 7.9 billion today.
In its summary submitted to the White House in 1972, the commission clearly reported its central finding, “[w]e have concluded that, in the long run, no substantial benefits will result from further growth of the Nation’s population, rather that the gradual stabilization of our population through voluntary means would contribute significantly to the Nation’s ability to solve its problems.”
More than half of America’s population growth in the past has been the result of immigration. Since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, for example, approximately 55 percent of America’s population growth from about 2.5 million in 1776 to 333 million in 2021 has been the result of immigration, i.e., immigrants and their descendants.
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https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/553003-climate-change-requires-population-stabilization-for-america
