The Sierra Club is pulling out of an Earth Day festival in Dallas, Texas scheduled for April 23 because groups that want to restrict immigration — whether legal or illegal — will be in attendance.
The festival will also be attended by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, NumbersUSA and Progressives for Immigration Reform, all of which seek to reduce the number of people coming into America. Each group says they are participating because they have an environmental message.
“We consider them hate groups,” Reggie James, the director of The Sierra Club’s Texas chapter, told The Austin American-Statesman...
All of the groups claim that America’s current immigration policy is damaging the environment...
“Population growth puts pressure on the environment, accelerates deforestation and increases our dependence on fossil fuels ,” Progressive for Immigration Reform
claimed in their 2014 Earth Day message. “Today, 80 percent of our population growth is spurred by immigration. While conservation is important, efforts to reduce our environmental impact must include stabilizing immigration.”
The Sierra Club previously had a similar message, and even claimed that “… all of our environmental successes may be short-lived if they do not include efforts to address population growth.” Until 1996, the environmental group’s official policy was that both birth rates and immigration levels needed to sharply decline to stabilize the American population as rapidly as possible.
The Sierra Club has has splintered and lost members over the question of immigration several times before finally announcing in 2013 that it supports a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens. Now, the organization’s only position on population reduction is its promotion of “voluntary family planning and reproductive health services.”
Additional information
Extensive information on the Sierra Club's environmental betrayal is available at SUSPS:
For the love of money
Since 1996, leaders of the Sierra Club have refused to admit that immigration driven, rapid U.S. population growth causes massive environmental problems. And they have refused to acknowledge the need to reduce U.S. immigration levels in order to stabilize the U.S. population and protect our natural resources. Their refusal to do what common sense says is best for the environment was a mystery for nearly a decade.
Then, on Oct. 27, 2004, the Los Angeles Times revealed the answer: David Gelbaum, a super rich donor, had demanded this position from the Sierra Club in return for huge donations! Kenneth Weiss, author of the LA Times article that broke the story, quoted what David Gelbaum said to Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope:
"I did tell Carl Pope in 1994 or 1995 that if they ever came out anti-immigration, they would never get a dollar from me."
In 1996 and again in 1998, the Club's leaders proved their loyalty to Gelbaum's position on immigration, first by enacting a policy of neutrality on immigration and then by aggressively opposing a referendum to overturn that policy. In 2000 and 2001, Gelbaum rewarded the Club with total donations to the Sierra Club Foundation exceeding $100 million. In 2004 and 2005, the Club's top leaders and management showed their gratitude for the donations by stifling dissent and vehemently opposing member efforts to enact an immigration reduction policy...
Related articles
Sierra Club Takes Another Step in Its Retreat from the Immigration-Population Connection, by Jerry Kammer, Center for Immigration Studies, April 20, 2016.
A Brief Chronology of the Sierra Club's Retreat from the Immigration-Population Connection, by Jerry Kammer, Center for Immigration Studies, April 21, 2016.
Strategic Negligence: How the Sierra Club's Distortions on Border and Immigration Policy Are Undermining its Environmental Legacy, by Jerry Kammer, Center for Immigration Studies, October 2009.
The Environmental Movement's Retreat from Advocating U.S. Population Stabilization, by Roy Beck and Leon Kolankiewicz, The Journal of Policy History (Penn State University Press); Vol. 12, No. 1 (2000).
