New Pakistan Environmental Directory

EarthDirectory's newest directory is an environmental directory of Pakistan.  Check it out at www.earthdirectory.net/pakistan.

China Directory Updated and New Directory of Food Safety Organizations

EarthDirectory's China environmental directory has just been completely updated and you can see it at www.earthdirectory.net/china.  Also, EarthDirectory's new directory of food safety organizations is now on the the Internet and can be viewed at www.earthdirectory.net/food.

Democrats for Reasonable & Responsible Immigration (DRRI), Part 5 - Some Interesting British Articles on Mass Immigration

Recently I came upon some interesting articles written by British guys covering some of the issues involved with mass immigration.  These articles are excellent for defining some of the major issues of mass immigration and why some people on both the left and right support mass immigration.

The first article is entitled How Did Opening Borders to Mass Immigration become a Left-wing Idea?" and is written by Ed West of The Telegraph.  The article discusses how mass immigration is viewed by the economic elite of society as beneficial, and why it's not beneficial for the working class.

The second article is now a classic on debunking the myths of mass immigration.  It was written in 2003 by Anthony Browne in OpenDemocracy.  The article is entitled The Folly of Mass Immigration.  While it's a great article for countering the arguments in favor of mass immigration, I wince at the sections where he implies that the U.S, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were basically empty before European settlement and are now still capable of absorbing mass immigration.

Democrats for Reasonable & Responsible Immigration (DRRI), Part 4 - Progressives: Stand Up for Moderate Immigration, Not Mass Immigration!

The United States can have a responsible and reasonable immigration policy of allowing hundreds of thousands of permanent immigrants into the country every year.  We just can't continue our current policy of allowing a combined total of well over a million permanent legal & permanent unauthorized immigrants into the country each year - that kind of yearly mass immigration (roughly double the size of the combined populations of Minneapolis & St. Paul) will lead towards a U.S. population level that could surpass one billion by the beginning of the next century -- that will be too many people for a country that consumes a very disproportionate amount of the world's resources.  Some of us already believe that the USA is well above a population level that is sustainable for the long-term future at the current American standard of living.

The Department of Homeland Security's most recent available statistics show 1,062,040 new legal permanent residents in 2011 and 694,193 new American Citizens in 2011.  See: DHS Immigration Statistics.  Nobody seems to know the precise number of net new yearly permanent unauthorized immigrants, but the Pew Hispanic Center estimated the total number of unauthorized immigrants in the USA at the beginning of 2011 to be 11.2 million.  See: PEW report.   

What would be a reasonable number to have as our official level of yearly permanent immigration?  According to the Population Reference Bureau's most recent estimate, for 2009, the USA had approximately 328,000 emmigrants (migrants permanently leaving the USA).  See: PRB's figures.  That would be a reasonable number to start at for new yearly permanent immigrants to the USA.  At that level, the U.S. population will still increase due to our current demographic situation, but it might allow the country's population to be at a level near half a billion by the year 2100, rather than over 1 billion.  Environmental groups in the U.S. traditionally supported an immigration level of approximately 300,000 per year, before the honorable opposition (the mass immigration movement) made it politically incorrect for American environmental organizations to take a stand on U.S. immigration.


Editor's note (4/5/12):  The above "armchair" population projection includes allowing the people already in the immigration pipeline to become citizens at the current immigration rates and allowing the people in the "pathway to citizenship" to become citizens at the current immigration rates.  It's for the people not already in the pipeline that the immigration and permanent resident acceptance numbers would be greatly reduced.  Also, the national population increase rate is very fluid and can be decreased further, or even turned around altogether, by a combination of factors such as increased rates of emmigration from the USA, an even greater decrease in the American birthrate and, of course, a decrease in the number of immigrants and permanent residents accepted into the U.S.    

Democrats for Reasonable & Responsible Immigration (DRRI), Part 3 - Links to Government Tables Showing the USA Trending to Over 1 Billion People by 2100

Here are the deep links to the tables showing the United States trending towards over one billion people by 2100, just in case you had trouble finding them from the link provided in the previous post: www.census.gov/population/projections/nation/summary/np-t1.txt and www.census.gov/population/projections/nation/summary/np-t1.pdf (it's the same data in two different types of files).  I recommend that you make copies of them (as far as I know it's perfectly OK to download them for your personal use) because the honorable opposition may try to get the Census Bureau to remove them now that the public is realizing that our own government has made these projections and that they're freely available for public viewing.  The Census Bureau does not make it immediately clear on their homepage that this particular long-term projection data is available, and so far I haven't been able to find official yearly immigration and emmigration statistics on the Census Bureau site - those statistics are probably there but they sure are hard to find.  The Census Bureau should make links to national migration statistics and long-term national population projections clearly available on the Census Bureau homepage: www.census.gov.

Shouldn't the Government be warning the American people about this alarming trend of a soaring population rate in the USA?  Isn't this a matter of the long-term sustainability and environmental security of the United States and isn't this also a matter of the long-term sustainability and environmental security of the entire world due to the voracious appetite of Americans for a huge percentage of the World's resources?

Democrats for Reasonable & Responsible Immigration (DRRI), Part 2 - Population Projections

OK folks, here are the population projections from the U. S. Census Bureau.  The current population of the United States is estimated to be 313,279,753 at 3:41 pm Central Standard Time today, March 31, 2012.  If the USA were to have zero net international migration from 2000 to 2100 the total population would end up at roughly 378,000,000 in the year 2100, and if the USA were to follow the highest immigration projection rate, which we seem to be following (especially if you include some of the millions of unauthorized residents that probably did their best not to be officially counted in the census, and also see article from The New Republic), the population of the USA would reach roughly 1,182,000,000 by the year 2100.  Yup, that's one billion one hundred and eighty-two million residents in the USA by the year 2100.  Now you can see why we need to keep our net incoming international migration way down.  I have yet to meet an American who says that he or she wants the country's population to reach one billion any time in the foreseeable future.

To see the U. S. Census Bureau population projections for yourself go to www.census.gov/population/www/projections/natproj.html

To see the U. S. and World Population Clocks go to:
www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

Democrats for Reasonable & Responsible Immigration (DRRI), Part 1 - Opening Statement

I'm starting an unofficial organization named Democrats for Reasonable & Responsible Immigration  (DRRI).  I'm sick of various commentators stating that anyone who isn't for massive immigration into the United States is a white-supremacist nationalist.  I'm a progressive/liberal environmental editor who caucused for President Obama in 2008.  When I'm not working on my environmental publishing business I'm doing physical labor to make a living - painting, yard work, housecleaning, etc.  I favor universal single-payer health insurance for all Americans.  I favor universal civil rights and equal rights for everyone.  But I don't favor massive immigration into the USA.  I have the right to be against huge levels of immigration into my country without being called a racist nationalist.  I live in a university district and many of my friends are immigrants from all over the world who have become citizens in the last few decades and some of them even agree with me.  I have the right to believe that my country has already, or nearly already, surpassed a sustainable level of population that would allow people in the USA to continue to live in the current American lifestyle and standard of living.

More comments later, but in the meantime check out EarthDirectory's directory on population, demography and immigration - www.earthdirectory.net/population

New Blog Covering Earth Watching, Space & Geography

EarthDirectory's new blog, "EarthObserver.Net" will include some of the coolest views of Earth from space; interesting space topics such as near earth objects, weather in space and news about the International Space Station; and various items of interest involving the Earth's geography.  To see EarthObserver.Net click here.

New Directories on Coral Reefs, Indigenous Peoples, Lakes and Mountains

EarthDirectory's newest directories cover coral reefs, indigenous peoples, lakes and mountains.  The next directory will be about food safety.  The entire network of EarthDirectory's directories and blogs can be viewed here.  

EarthDirectory's New Directory on Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)

EarthDirectory's newest directory is on Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP).  EMP is a phenomenon that scientists claim can knock out the power grid and most of the electronics in the USA.  According to certain scientists and experts, EMP can be caused by the detonation of a single nuclear weapon many miles over the United States, and it can also be caused by rare solar geomagnetic storms that are predicted to occur every 100 years or so (such a storm is apparently well overdue).  EarthDirectory's EMP Directory can be viewed at www.earthdirectory.net/emp.  I especially recommend checking out the video on the National Geographic link which is located a few links from the bottom of the directory (you might have to try this link a couple of times for it to load properly).  Also, for additional and more specific information on EMP, I recommend the EMPact AMERICA site which is just a few links above the National Geographic link in the directory.

New Ugandan and Ethiopian Environmental Directories

This is just a brief post to announce that EarthDirectory's two newest directories are the Ugandan and Ethiopian environmental directories.  They can be viewed at www.earthdirectory.net/uganda and www.earthdirectory.net/ethiopia.   EarthDirectory now has directories covering four of the major East African countries; Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia.

New Environmental and Conservation Directory on Tanzania

EarthDirectory's newest directory covers conservation and environmental organizations and agencies in Tanzania.  Tanzania is an amazing country which has seacoast, lowland forests, the Serengeti, Mount Kilimanjaro, the Island of Zanzibar, huge lakes including Lake Victoria, exotic animals and Jane Goodall's research station.  The Tanzania Directory can be viewed at www.earthdirectory.net/tanzania.

New Directory on "Peak Oil"

EarthDirectory's newest directory is The World Directory of Peak Oil Organizations and Related Sites.  It can be viewed at www.earthdirectory.net/peakoil.  "Peak Oil" is the theory that the Earth's supply of recoverable oil is at or nearing it's peak level of production and as it gets harder and more expensive to get oil out of the Earth, the world's usable supply of oil will rapidly decline by the end of the century. 

A Republican Environmental Group

Many of you may think that there are no specifically Republican environmental organizations in existence due to the current political climate in which Republicans and Democrats seem to be at polar opposites on environmental issues.  Well, it turns out that there actually is a Republican activist environmental organization and its name is Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP America).  Its homepage can be viewed at http://www.repamerica.org/.

Traditionally Republicans have not necessarily been on the anti-environment or anti-conservation side.  Some examples are: 1. The world's first national park, Yellowstone, was established in 1872 under the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant, a Republican. 2. The Forest Service was founded and multiple national parks were established under the administration of Republican President Theodore Roosevelt in the early 1900's. 3.The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created during the administration of Republican President Richard Nixon in 1970. 4. Republican President Ronald Reagan strongly backed the Montreal Protocol treaty of the late 1980's which has the purpose of phasing out ozone-depleting chemicals in the atmosphere (see: www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/republican/reagan-global-warming).

While some Republican environmentalists are leaving the party, such as former Congressman Pete McCloskey, many still remain in the party and continue to work for environmentalist and conservationist goals and values.

Three New Directories Added to the EarthDirectory Network

This week three new directories have been added the the EarthDirectory Network!  They are the World Directories on Birds (http://earthdirectory.net/birds), Whales, Dolphins, Other Marine Mammals and Sea Turtles (http://earthdirectory.net/sea), and Natural Hazard and Disaster Research & Safety Organizations(http://earthdirectory.net/hazards).  The table of contents for the entire EarthDirectory Network is at http://discoverearth.net/.