The immigration factor: if we do nothing—environmental America in 2050

By Frosty Wooldridge

Part 9:  The Immigration factor—if we do nothing—environmental America in 2050

What will America look like environmentally when we add another 100 million immigrants by 2050?    What will it look like with a total human population that grew from our present 315 million to 438 million?  With this series and the social media information you gained from parts 3 and 4, why haven’t millions of readers written their letters and emails to Charlie Rose at PBS and Neal Conan at NPR along with Matt Lauer, David Gregory and Bob Schieffer?  Why haven’t you (we) forced this single gravest predicament into the presidential debates with your letters, phone calls and emails?  I mean, I gave you the email addresses, phone numbers and snail mail addresses in parts 3 and 4. 

Yet, I don’t hear a whisper about immigration in the presidential debates.  I don’t hear a sound-byte about accelerating carbon footprint, acidified oceans, air pollution over our cities, ecological footprint, species extinction, water shortages, gas prices (or the reports that gasoline in California last week hit $4.60 a gallon), resource shortages and the ongoing lack of jobs.

Everyone that either remains silent or guns for more immigration and population growth—doesn’t see the underlying consequences because they do not show themselves in our everyday living.

What about the fact that our continued human encroachment on the land will destroy over 2.4 billion acres of wilderness by 2050 with that added 100 million immigrants?  (Source: www.allspecies.org)  And, much more with our total growth to 138 million added Americans?    Did you know that according to the U.S. Department of the Interior, we Americans cause the extinction of 250 species in the lower 48 states every year?  That’s 2,500 species every decade.  That’s 10,000 species that will be snuffed out of existence in the next 38 years. 

How does that speak to you spiritually, morally, ethically and just the loss of so many of God’s creatures?  As the only cognitive species on this planet, do we possess the right to slaughter that many fellow travelers on this planetary biosphere?

Are we proud of that? Globally, species extinction runs at 80 to 100 creatures per day from human encroachment on habitat as we add 80 million of ourselves net gain annually.  What might be the end result?  Our carbon footprint will create even greater acidification of our oceans that will cause massive die-off of fisheries from our toxic oceans.  That doesn’t include the fact that humans rape the oceans with drift nets and over-fishing.  According to Julia Whitty, OneEarth, humans have been killing off 100 million sharks annually for the last 25 years.  Can you imagine what humans will do to the oceans with an added 3 billion people within 38 years as we grow from 7.1 billion to 10 billion by 2050?   Folks, it’s not going to be pretty.

“Upwards of two hundred species…mostly of the large, slow-breeding variety…are becoming extinct here every day because more and more of the earth’s carrying capacity is systematically being converted into human carrying capacity. These species are being burnt out, starved out, and squeezed out of existence…thanks to technologies that most people, I’m afraid, think of as technologies of peace. I hope it will not be too long before the technologies that support our population explosion begin to be perceived as no less hazardous to the future of life on this planet than the endless production of radioactive wastes.” Daniel Quinn

Can you imagine the air over our cities with Los Angeles adding another 10 million immigrants?  How about Chicago?  How about Houston?  Every breath in those cities adds toxic carbon particles to every man, woman and child in 2012.  Imagine what it will be like in 2050 with another 100 million immigrants.

Do you know what astounds me?  Answer: nobody will mention a word about this predicament.  It’s like if we continue to ignore it, “it” will go away.  I’m here to tell you, it not only won’t go away, it will become catastrophically worse with 138 million more people added to our country.  We won’t be able to cope, solve or deal with it.

That brings me to Dr. Joseph Tainter, author of The Collapse of Complex Societies: Political disintegration is a persistent feature of world history. The Collapse of Complex Societies, though written by an archaeologist, will therefore strike a chord throughout the social sciences. Any explanation of societal collapse carries lessons not just for the study of ancient societies, but for the members of all such societies in both the present and future. Dr. Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory that accounts for collapse among diverse kinds of societies, evaluating his model and clarifying the processes of disintegration by detailed studies of the Roman, Mayan and Chacoan collapses.

Let me make this clear: only one resource keeps this game running—oil.  But it will be gone within 40 years.  Just as gasoline hit $4.60 in California last week, it will reach $20.00 per gallon by 2050. (Source: Chris Steiner, $20 Per Gallon)  Human overpopulation and usage drives that price upwards and eventually will exhaust all oil on this planet.

“The cheap oil age created an artificial bubble of plentitude for a period not much longer than a human lifetime….so I hazard to assert that as oil ceases to be cheap and the world reserves move toward depletion, we will be left with an enormous population…that the ecology of the earth will not support. The journey back toward non-oil population homeostasis will not be pretty.  We will discover the hard way that population hyper growth was simply a side-effect of the oil age.  It was a condition, not a problem with a solution. That is what happened and we are stuck with it.”  James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency

And even if we enjoyed unlimited oil, we don’t enjoy unlimited clean water, clean air and vibrant, arable land to grow food.  Essentially, as we add 100 million immigrants, we paint ourselves into an inescapable corner.

Fellow Americans, I have seen what’s coming in my world travels and I need your help. I need you to return to parts 3 and 4 and start contacting the media through the social media.  Otherwise, as you can see in this series, our civilization, aka, our children will reap the whirlwind of consequences we bequeath to them through our apathy, our arrogance, our misunderstanding of our situation and our choices to do nothing.

Part 10: The immigration factor—if we do nothing—a polyglot society, language chaos and cultural disaster

In a five minute astoundingly simple yet brilliant video, “Immigration, Poverty, and Gum Balls”, Roy Beck, director of www.numbersusa.ORG, graphically illustrates the impact of mass immigration.  Take five minutes to see for yourself:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE&feature=player_embedded

 “Immigration by the numbers—off the chart”by Roy Beck

This 10 minute demonstration shows Americans the results of unending mass immigration on the quality of life and sustainability for future generations: in a few words, “Mind boggling!”  www.NumbersUSA.org

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muw22wTePqQ

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Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as eight times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. In 2012, he bicycled coast to coast across America.  His latest book is: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World by Frosty Wooldridge, copies at 1 888 280 7715/ Motivational program: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World by Frosty Wooldridge, click:

www.HowToLiveALifeOfAdventure.com