The Last of the Mohicans
In a recent conversation with a veteran warrior in the war against population growth, I attempted to account for the fact that our message has not gained traction among youth anywhere in the Anglosphere. A recent survey in Australia, for example, indicated that young Australians "overwhelmingly support increased immigration," which currently, on a per capita basis, even exceeds Canada's insane migrant intake. They can't buy a house or find a place to rent but they love mass immigration. Sound familiar?
Perhaps this finding should not surprise us. We of senior vintage should remind ourselves that the mindset of each generation is shaped by experiences that are unique to their time. I suggested that we in the immigration reform movement do not fully appreciate that in the minds of younger generations, our views on immigration and population reduction are obscenely passé. They were somewhat fashionable in the late sixties and early seventies, at least among some environmentalists and liberals, but certainly not today. Roy Beck and Leon Kolankiewicz covered that territory in "The Environmental Movement’s Retreat from Advocating U.S. Population Stabilization."
My point was that Gen-Z and Milennials regard our ideas as time-bound, dated or dangerous. Just as they would not choose to wear bell bottom trousers or grow sideburns or listen to Ray Orbison records, they would not be interested in any kind of population control, which, they have been told, reeks of white privilege and colonialism. Amazing, isn't it, that there was more concern about overpopulation in 1970, which features the first Earth Day, than in 2023, when the population of California, the United States and the planet is so very much larger. What is at work here? Are we infected with some sort of toxoplasma or parasite that warps our brains?
McLuhan famously said that "the media is the message." I contend that we are the medium of a message that is bound up with our identity as boomers. This means that our cause will die with us. We can no more get through to Milennials and those behind them than we could persuade them to watch the The Turner Classic Movie channel or forsake video games for Chinese checkers. They never knew what California or Greater Vancouver or Oregon was like when vast tracts of land were undeveloped and even kids in the emerging suburbs could find empty lots and wooded areas to play in. They can't miss what they never had, nor love something they never knew. So why would we expect them to care about overpopulation? They are used to high density, endless urban sprawl, overflow campsites, 24/7 traffic congestion and now, tent cities and sidewalks covered with mattresses and needles. No city or town or province or state seems to be exempt from this alarming phenomena, growing worse each year.
At times I really do feel like a Rip Van Winkle who has woken up in a nightmare. I can't believe what I am seeing, not only in the physical landscape but in the present day culture that now envelopes me. Drag Queens in classrooms? Trans-women competing in women’s sports? "Safe places" in college? "Micro-aggressions"? Give me a break.
I am confounded by the fact that so many people, younger people, are not only comfortable with this circumstance, but celebrate it! They are immersed in their hand-held devices and entranced by technology. Any concern about surveillance or liberty is trumped by a maniacal quest for safety and convenience. They would trade their souls for "smart" technology, and comply with any vaccine mandate if it allows them continued access to products and services they overvalue. Think about it. They can't find affordable housing but they vote for open borders politicians who drive up the cost of land by stoking demand. They can't connect the dots and immigration is a sacred cow. Besides, what has population growth have to do with it? Or anything?
What we are then are a club of boomers who commiserate with each other about the folly of wokism and our inability to defeat it. In other words, ours is a kind of group therapy session where participants are working through their grief. We are on our way out and to our horror, we sense that our "legacy" will soon follow us to the grave. Few of our contemporaries have ever heard of Garrett Hardin or Al Bartlett or John Tanton, but very much fewer Americans or Canadians will know of them in the immediate decades ahead. Those who do will likely be woke academics whose specialty is to study the remnants of "white supremacist" fringe groups who resisted their dethronement. Our story, if told, will be found in The Greening of Hate, Volume II, revised edition 2045.
We are the Last of the Mohicans.
About the author: Canadian author Tim Murray was a long-time Canadian democratic socialist mugged by the reality of Limits to Growth. His new awareness led him away from traditional left/right dichotomies toward steady-state solutions, and a fierce determination to fight the fake environmentalism of the Sierra Club and their clones. He was the co-founder of Biodiversity First, a director of Immigration Watch Canada, and is currently on the board of Population-Environment Balance. He is an avid hiker and nature-lover who co-exists with wolves, cougars, bears, and bald-headed eagles in the North Gulf Islands of British Columbia.