Carrying Capacity Network Action Alert Ecosystems, Food & Energy Supplies Threatened by Population Growth

April 2004

– Mass Illegal Alien Amnesty would create Sustainability Crisis–

As a result primarily of mass immigration, which causes nearly 90% of the 3.2 million annual US population growth, our rural landscape is rapidly being developed to accommodate increasing numbers of people. The USDA has estimated that each person added to the U.S. population causes the conversion of more than one acre of natural habitat or farmland to urbanized areas and highways. While this development is noticeably decreasing our quality of life in the form of increasing traffic congestion, sprawl, and loss of open space, there are even more serious consequences; the declining availability of arable land and, ultimately, U.S. food self sufficiency.

Exporting to Importing Food
Losing our Means of Subsistence

The U.S. is the largest food exporter in the world, but this is changing fast. If current population growth and related trends continue, over the next 50 years both degradation and urbanization will diminish our arable land base of 470 million acres to 120 million acres. This would leave a mere 0.6 acres per person, while 1.2 acres per person is required in order to maintain current dietary standards. As a result, the U.S. would cease to be a food exporter due to domestic demand, and would become increasingly dependent on foreign nations for food.

The impact on the U.S. economy could be especially devastating, as food exports now earn $40 billion for the U.S. annually. More importantly, millions of people around the world could starve to death without U.S. food exports.

Some Startling Facts:

• In the 1990's we added 3.2 million people to our population each year, 87% of which was caused by mass immigration (And over 60% of that by legal immigration).The percentage of population growth caused by mass immigration is steadily increasing.

• Between 1982 and 1997, the U.S. developed 25 million acres, or an area the size of Virginia, averaging 1.7 million acres annually.

• Since 1997, across the United States every year, roughly 2.2 million acres (the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined) of precious natural habitat and/or farmland are converted into built up space or highways.

Ten Year Outlook: 2015

If our current growth trends continue, by 2015, the U.S. will have urbanized an additional 38,000 square miles, or an area of habitat and farmland the size of Maryland, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut combined, as our population reaches 332 million. This is equivalent to adding the entire present population of California to our country! More than 90% of this growth is projected to be caused by mass immigration, but if we can act now to enact a moratorium on immigration in excess of 100,000 a year, we can save much of our arable land and remaining natural habitats.

Other Food and Energy Facts:

• The U.S. population more than tripled from 76 million in 1900 to 281 million people in 2000, According to the Census Bureau. During this same period, U.S. population density increased twofold.

• If our current growth rate of 1.2% annually continues, the U.S. population will double by 2050.
  

• Current US population: 292 million. If present growth rates continue, the US population in 2015 will be 332 million.

• Energy. 400 Gallons of oil equivalents are expended annually to feed each American. If current trends continue, by 2015, 133 billion gallons of oil equivalents will be expended solely to feed each American.

Energy Demands

From 1970 to 1990 - while per capita energy use in the U.S. hardly budged - total energy consumption increased by 24%. Prof. John Holdren (energy specialist, Harvard University) determined that 93% of the increase in the United States' use of energy in this 20 year period can be traced to population growth.

Energy, in renewable or fossil fuel form, is the necessary requirement for a functional modern society. As the United States' population increases, a corresponding increase in energy consumption is almost sure to follow. For example, the U.S. Energy Department calculated in a 2003 report that, if current trends continue, annual U.S. energy consumption will rise by one third between 2001 and 2025, if supply is available by then. In this same period, U.S. population will, if current trends continue, coincidently increase by over a third to 380 million people by 2025.

According to the report, petroleum and natural gas demand is predicted to increase by 50% in that period. The report also noted that U.S. energy supplies will increasingly depend on large, new domestic and foreign sources, ensuring further dependence on Middle Eastern oil supplies and making it likely that the few remaining wilderness areas, such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, will be exploited.

Increased demand for oil would be driven mostly by the transportation and agricultural sectors and a higher demand for natural gas by the power-generation industry, which relies on natural gas to produce electricity, according to the Energy Department. Our increasing population, with more people driving cars and greater demand for electricity, helps to explain this phenomenon.

Addressing Unsustainable Population Growth

The necessary first step to secure our future US land, food, and energy resources is the reduction of our legal annual admissions from 1.2 million to 100,000 per year. This is the highest number we can allow, if we ever want to achieve a stable US population. By reducing mass immigration now, we can also save much of our remaining rural landscapes and farmlands. The larger our population becomes, the more land we develop, and the greater our dependency on foreign nations to supply life sustaining resources like food and energy.

Alternative Futures

As the accompanying paper, "Eating Fossil Fuels" indicates, our current demographic course puts the US on the road to ecological disaster (You will be shocked at the estimated sustainable population size of the US). A mass illegal alien amnesty could easily add millions of family members of amnestied illegal aliens to our population in a few short years; all but making an ecological crisis highly likely. We still have a choice between a bleak future, and taking the sustainable path into tomorrow.

Where to start:

1) Fax, write, and call your Representative and Senators and urge that they cosponsor the Moratorium Bill, H.R. 946, The Mass Immigration Reduction Act of 2003 AND support other good bills like the matricula ban, while opposing any and all amnesties including 'earned legalization' and other disguised amnesty bills.

2) Make a special gift donation to CCN and help us continue our effort to achieve population stabilization and preserve our remaining farmlands and natural habitats.

3) Give gift memberships and help increase our clout on Capitol Hill.
A moratorium on mass immigration in excess of 100,000 per year can put the US on the road to sustainability.