• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

CAPS Ads Reveal Immigrants Create Four Times More Carbon Emissions When They Come to the U.S.

Posted on: Tuesday, 13 October 2009, 13:51 CDT

Ads Say Saving Earth Starts In California With Less Immigration

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Oct. 13 This week, Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) began rolling out a multi-media, multi-market ad campaign making the link between too much population growth, too fast and environmental degradation. The campaign includes broadcast radio and television and will be launched in markets across California over the next two weeks.

The campaign recognizes immigration as the number one factor driving U.S. population growth and makes the point that when immigrants settle in the U.S. their energy use quickly becomes Americanized. As a result immigrants' carbon emissions skyrocket. The result is a quadrupling of immigrants' carbon footprint compared to the amount of carbon emissions they produced in their home countries.

CAPS is launching the ad campaign as environmental sensitivity heightens with the approach of the United Nations Climate Change Conference and as the Obama administration grapples with Climate Change and Energy policy. The administration is addressing domestic energy and conservation policy as America faces the largest population increase in its history. According to 2008 U.S. Census Bureau projections, U.S. population will jump from 308 million today to more than 400 million by 2040. That's a 33 percent increase yielding an additional 100 million more people in just the next 30 years. It's an increase equivalent to adding another entire Western half of the country. According to Pew Research, 82 percent of that growth will be a result of immigration and births to immigrants.

Diana Hull, President of Californians for Population Stabilization commented, "Imagine taking close to 100 million people with a relatively small carbon footprint and quadrupling their carbon emissions overnight just by moving them to the U.S. That's going to significantly impact Global Warming. Cutting immigration to the U.S. isn't the only thing we should do to solve the global warming problem, but stopping mass immigration, especially from low carbon use nations will go a long way towards a solution because it is a significant contributor to the problems we face."

Hull also pointed out that Californians made significant progress in energy conservation over the last couple of decades. However, the progress has been mitigated by massive population growth over the same period, driven by immigration and births to immigrants. Hull related California's experience to world conservation efforts, commenting, "People meeting in Copenhagen this December need to publicly recognize that if global population growth does not slow, the world's laudable conservation efforts will be overwhelmed just like our experience in California. The subject of mass population growth needs to be approached with sensitivity but we've got to get it on the agenda."

The ad campaign is based on a Center for Immigrations Studies (CIS) report about U.S. immigration and carbon emissions. Currently, U.S. immigrants produce an estimated 637 million metric tons of CO2 annually or the same amount of carbon emissions currently produced by Great Britain and Sweden, combined.

To learn more about CAPS, visit www.CAPSweb.org.

SOURCE Californians for Population Stabilization

Source: PR Newswire

More News in this Category