Text of the Aspen Resolution #114

City of Aspen, Colorado Passes Population Resolution #114

A resolution of the City of Aspen, Colorado, supporting population stabilization in the United States

December 14, 1999

Whereas: The population of the United States reached about 274 million in 1999 and is growing by approximately three million each year, over 57,000 weekly, the highest population growth rate of the developed countries of the world. Most European countries are at zero or negative population growth.

Whereas: The population of the U.S .is six percent of the world's population, consuming up to 25 percent of the world's natural resources.

Whereas: The ability of the United States to support a population within its carrying capacity is now strained because of population growth. Fifty percent of our original wetlands have been drained to accommodate growth. Ninety-five percent of all U.S. old growth forests have been destroyed. It is estimated that we have consumed approximately three-fourths of all our recoverable petroleum, and we now import more than half of the oil we consume in the United States. America's underground aquifers are being drawn down 23 percent more than their natural rates of recharge.

Whereas: For each person added to the U.S. population, about one acre of open land is lost, causing a total yearly loss of about three million acres. America annually exports $40 Billion in food. If present population trends continue, the U.S. will cease to be a food exporter by about 2030.

Whereas: The report of the Task Force on Population and Consumption of the President's Council on Sustainable Development (1996) said: "The two most important steps toward sustainability are:
1. to stabilize the population promptly, and
2. to move toward greater material and energy efficiency in all production and use of goods and service." The President's Council said, "...reducing immigration levels is a necessary part of population stabilization and the drive toward sustainability."

Whereas: Population growth generated by mass immigration to the United States causes increasing pressures on our environment and forces local governments and communities to spend taxpayers dollars for additional schools, health care facilities, water disposal plants, transportation systems, fire protection, water supplies, power generation plants and many other social and environmental costs.

Whereas: 70 percent of U.S. population growth in the 1990's resulted from mass immigration, comprised of approximately 1.2 million legal immigrants and 300,000 to 400,000 illegal immigrants plus their U.S.- born offspring, annually. If mass immigration continues, the population of the United States is projected to exceed half-a-billion by 2050.

Whereas: Population growth is unsustainable. With a return to replacement levels of immigration, U.S. population can expect to stabilize in another 40 to 50 years. A temporary, all-inclusive five-year immigration reduction to 100,000 annually, followed by a return to 200,000 annually, will eventually allow the U.S. to stabilize its population, at best at about 325 million, and

Whereas: A majority of Americans of all ethnic and racial backgrounds favors substantial reduction in legal immigration and a complete halt to illegal immigration, and

Whereas: The people of the United States and the City of Aspen, Colorado, envision a country with a stable population, material and energy efficiency, a sustainable future, a healthy environment, clean air and water, ample open space, wilderness, abundant wildlife and social and civic cohesion in which the dignity of human life is enhanced and protected.

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: That the City of Aspen hereby petitions the Congress of the United States and the President to immediately implement with deliberate speed and by means consistent with the Constitution of the United States, the consensus of the American People and the President's Council-legislation appropriate to stabilize the population of the United States and insure sustainability:

(1) that will encourage and promote all opportunities toward establishing and maintaining material and energy efficiency, social and environmental responsibility;

(2) by a return to traditional replacement levels of legal immigration, approximately 175,000, all-inclusive per year, annually; by

(3) requiring equitable wages and benefits for workers and community environmental protections to be part of all free trade agreements; and

(4) by mandated enforcement of our immigration laws against illegal immigration, thereby promoting the future well being of all the citizens of this Nation and the City of Aspen.