Is Immigration Hurting Our Environment?

A new friend has joined the ranks of all those who hold anti-immigration beliefs dear and near to their hearts.  It may make for an unlikely combination but environmentalists are now jumping on board this campaign and not only are they adding their support but also are conducting new studies that will prove that immigrants are as bad for the environment as pollution. A group called Californians for Population Stabilization have recently started creating pro-environment anti-immigration commercials.  Each commercial has a different point about the downfalls of immigration.  One explains that if we continue to allow immigration at the same pace our carbon footprint will grow because immigrants produce four times the carbon footprint that they do in their home countries.  These ads are inadvertently or perhaps purposely promoting institutional racism.  They make it seem as though without immigration we could have global warming under control, but is this really the case? Susan Gibbs, author of People on the Move, doesn’t think so.
Susan Gibbs believes that global warming isn’t necessarily being caused by immigration.  She thinks it is immigration that is being caused by global warming.  So then what is causing our global warming if not increased immigration?  She believes it is  our own patterns of unsustainable consumption of products that is the main cause for global warming.  In the article, Environmentalists say: stop ALL of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, by Joshua Kahn, he points out how our country is promoting institutional racism by passing the Arizona anti-immigrant law and also his disagreement in the large negative reaction of immigration recently stirred up by large environmentalist groups.
So, what is the answer?  How can we possibly balance anti-immigration laws and global warming.  Susan Gibbs believes the answer is through globalization.  If we can communicate and share our ideas without passing so much blame perhaps we can look to ourselves to see what each of us individually and as a country can do to better our environment.