Sierra Club

Thoughts on David Suzuki’s observation that Canada is FULL. Now is the opportune moment to say that on this issue, Dr. David Suzuki is right.
Suzuki has offered us a golden opportunity to resurrect a longstanding demand. We need to develop a Population Plan for this country. We need to start a conversation that would answer one critical question about Canada. "How many people do we want to live here?"

In any discussion about immigration, invariably there is one recurrent statement that never fails to grate. The oft-repeated line that "Canada is a nation of immigrants". It is a cliche that at once manages to be both untrue in the immediate sense and meaningless in its broader truth.

It is untrue because fully 79% of Canadians were born in this country. To say then that we are a nation of immigrants is like saying that the 401 is a highway of heavy trucks. Yes, there are many heavy trucks using
the 401, but the vast majority of vehicles travelling on that road are family cars. In truth, then, the only accurate observation one could make about the 401 is that it is a major conduit of motorized vehicle traffic. So what?

Ah yes, you say, but if we were born here, our parents, our grandparents or our great-grandparents were not. "So we are all immigrants". Well, that could be said of EVERY SINGLE NATION ON THE PLANET because ultimately all of humanity issued out of the Olduvai gorge. We are all then "Africans". So what is your point? That no nation has a right to determine who takes up residence in their country and how many? That unfettered migration is a divine right? That because we entered the elevator from the lobby therefore none of us have a moral right to close the door no matter how much weight is on board?

The ability to migrate, to move to areas of greater resource abundance is and has been a key fertility stimulant. Less densely populated areas offer the promise of raising larger families. The promise of greater prosperity. More material opportunities. That is what spurs migration.

But there comes a point when what Dave Foreman calls "superabundance" gives way to mere abundance and then finally to scarcity. That was the case with every continent in the world and in recent history it has been the case with North America and Australia. Yet despite this obvious transformation we---the grandchildren or great grandchildren of migrants---cling to an absurd and obsolete frontier mentality that is not appropriate to our actual predicament. That "immigrants built this country" may be a truism, but it is also true that a country can become
over-built, and that our current population level is far beyond the carrying capacity of the land to support it.

Such is the case with Canada, a large land mass with a deceptively small carrying capacity---like Antarctica.

Who will talk about fertility, immigration and global overpopulation? Who will point out that migration and global
overpopulation are intimately bound up together? And if there ever was a time to make that point, when would be better than now, after an environmental celebrity of Asian ancestry has stuck his neck out to say what the majority of Canadians are thinking? Are we going to let him hang out to dry? Are we by our silence going to feed the

McCarthyist ambition to squelch any national discussion on this issue?

Now is the opportune moment to say that on this issue, Dr. David Suzuki is right.

Suzuki has offered us a golden opportunity to resurrect a longstanding demand. We need to develop a Population Plan for this country. We need to start a conversation that would answer one critical question about Canada. "How many people do we want to live here?"

Gas-frackers now sponsoring Sierra Club?! Thanks to decades of aggressive misinformation and the deliberate air-brushing of politically incorrect facts about their founding fathers, the leadership of the Sierra Club and its green clones in the environmental establishment have built up a membership steeped in ignorance about the initial aims and concerns of the movement. But ignorance is no excuse for the lack of ethical standards. Environmentalists have a duty to perform due diligence and find out if their favourite green organization is on the corporate take, ask demanding questions and do their own research.

Gas Frackers sponsor Sierra Club

Jan Lundberg, an independent oil industry analyst and eco-activist of notoriety, recently revealed that the Sierra Club, America’s flagship environmental organization, accepted $26 million in donations from Chesapeake Energy, the natural gas fracker. Shocking? It shouldn't be---if you read Sierra Club history--north or south of the 49th parallel. But who in this corrupt, money-grubbing corporate lackey of an organization reads it? I mean----how is this for a measure of ignorance----on the 22nd of this month, the Sierra Club in my locality will be marking "Earth Day", but you would be lucky to find a single Sierran who can tell you who founded Earth Day and why! Imagine if people who call themselves "Christian" celebrated Easter last weekend but never heard of Jesus Christ or understood the significance of the Easter Sunday resurrection?

Origins of Earth Day

Sierrans, like most environmentalists here and elsewhere apparently don't know that it was Democratic Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson who founded Earth Day and that his major focus was the threat posed by immigration-driven population growth in the United States and by global overpopulation.They don't know because their corporate-friendly, soft green-left, open-borders leadership ain't gonna tell them---and it is guaranteed that they aren't ever going to do their own research. It is much easier to be spoon-fed with a constant diet of filtered misinformation from The Club and join the herd in a sociable beach cleanup. Hey, they provide refreshments don't they? The beach clean-up organized by the Toronto Dominion Bank is fun too---and so are the volunteer events sponsored by the Moonies, I understand. And why not lend support to the Hell's Angels' Christmas toy drive in Vancouver?"

'Progressive' coalitions

There is a reason, of course, why the Sierra Club doesn't celebrate the memory of Gaylord Nelson on Earth Day. It is the same reason why La Raza---a group that shamelessly lobbies for the dominance of the Hispanic “race”, won't tell the truth about Caesar Chavez, or Canada’s New Democratic Party won't tell their membership about Tommy Douglas' Master's Thesis or J.S. Woodsworth's position on immigration. It's not politically correct. In fact---its damn-right embarrassing to the modern crop of liars and manipulators who lead the 'progressive' coalition.

Hispanic Rights policy history

The truth is that Caesar Chavez, the celebrated Latino civil rights and union activist for whom streets, parks and three holidays are named, stood on the Mexican border to protest against the importation of illegal strike breakers. He realized that mass immigration was a bad deal for Mexican Americans----just as Canadian socialist icon J.S. Woodsworth was resolutely opposed to immigration during tough economic times because he understood that the best friend the working man ever has is a tight labour market. And Tommy Douglas----who formed the first socialist government in North America---supported eugenics in 1933 because he realized that when poor people had large families, poverty was passed on from one generation to another because the children were condemned to poor nutrition, poor health, and poor education. He cared too much about the poor to see them self-destruct from over-breeding. Martin Luther King Jr. felt much the same way.

Earth Rights

So what did Senator Gaylord Nelson believe? Try this:

On Earth Day's 30th anniversary in 2000, Nelson said : "Population, global warming and sustainability would be my suggestions for the three most urgent environmental challenges.... Stabilizing U.S. population is a challenge that could be resolved in a relatively short period resulting in significant economic and environmental benefits. At the current rate of population growth, the population of the US will (rise)... to some 530 million within the next 65 to 70 years. If that happens the negative consequences will be substantial if not, indeed, disastrous. To stabilize our population would require a dramatic reduction in our immigration rate....

"The hard fact is that while the population is booming here and round the world, the resource base that sustains the economy is rapidly dwindling. It is not just a problem in faraway lands, it is an urgent, indeed, a critical problem here at home right now. We are talking about deforestation, aquifer depletion, air pollution, water pollution, and depletion of fisheries, urbanization of farmland, soil erosion and much more...

"The bigger the population gets, the more serious the problems become.... We have to address the population issue. The United Nations, with the US supporting it, took the position in Cairo in 1994 that every country was responsible for stabilizing its own population. It can be done. But in this country, it's phony to say 'I'm for the environment but not for limiting immigration." http://applythebrakes.com/leader_detail.asp?id=10

Ethics, Environment and Revisionism

So the question is, how can anyone with any ethical sense be associated with an organization like the Sierra Club---or with any of its 'local' manifestations? Are those followers who choose "not to know" about the man who founded Earth Day and why he did so to be exempted from any responsibility for supporting this corporate-front group oblivious to the very threat he worried most about? If a Nuremburg Trial was held to establish culpability for the Sixth Extinction event, would willful ignorance be a plausible defence? I don't think so.

Tim Murray
April 19, 2012

In a shocking announcement outside his San Francisco office, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune,---who only succeeded Carl Pope to that position less than two years ago--- told surprised reporters that he was stepping down in favour of an android developed by technicians attached to an Artificial Intelligence laboratory financed by Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens. The android will replace Brune and everyone else on the Sierra Club payroll.

Introducing Robo-Pop(e), Mark II

It seems that even the bloated bureaucracies of mainstream environmental organizations are feeling the pinch of the Great Recession, forcing labour-saving economies on even the richest of them. The latest move by the Sierra Club therefore makes sense. Since their high-priced front men have given us robotic answers to perennial questions, why not replace them with a bona-fide robot who will work on the cheap, as American workers have been forced to after the influx of 12-20 illegal immigrants which the Sierra Club has refused to oppose? Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce "Robo-Pop(e) Mark II, designed using long-term Sierra Club director Carl Pope as a template.

Robo-Pop(e) (pictured at right), who goes by the anthropomorphic Christian name of “Carlos”, has now become the sole voice of the Sierra Club, the flagship organization of the environmental movement.

Shocking announcement

In a shocking announcement made before a hastily assembled press conference outside his San Francisco office, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune,---who only succeeded Carl Pope to that position less than two years ago--- told surprised reporters that he was stepping down in favour of an android developed by technicians attached to an Artificial Intelligence laboratory financed by Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens. The android will replace Brune and everyone else on the Sierra Club payroll.

Response to criticism

The move apparently came in response to long-standing criticism that the bloated $100 million annual budget of the Sierra Club was consumed by an expensive bureaucracy of careerists intent upon growing the Club by continuing to ignore the root cause of America’s environmental degradation (overpopulation). As long immigration-driven population growth remains unaddressed, critics noted, a growing myriad of environmental problems would afflict the country and citizens would turn to the Sierra Club for help, thus ensuring a steady stream of donations and membership dues. Rather than return to its former policy position of favouring restricted immigration, however, the Board of Directors elected to cut costs by appointing an android who would perform all the duties hitherto assigned to the President, the Vice-President, the Treasurer, the Executive Director, the Executive Chairman, the Secretary , the Fifth Officer and ten directors.

      
Michael Brune and  Executive Chairman Carl Pope, are now both out.

Efficiency move

 In “decoupling” the Sierra Club from human guidance,  the outgoing Board has effectively supplanted the robotic control of one entity, the Executive Director, with another ---Robo-Pop---- as well as a dump the salaries and benefits that accrued to employees,  including medical, dental, vision, life insurance options, flexible spending accounts, an employee assistance program, free Sierra Club membership, discounts on Sierra Club outings and books, long term disability insurance, generous holiday and vacation policies as well as a 401k pension plan. As Robo-Pop will work for nothing and live beyond human extinction, the Sierra Club hopes to cut its overhead by 99% and offer proof to its corporate benefactors that it can screw the working class as well as they can.

Carlos speaks Spanish, but that's not all ...

It should also be appreciated that Robo-Pop, or “Carlos” as he is affectionately known  to outgoing staff-----a name made to appeal to illegal Hispanics whom the Club hopes to recruit in gratitude for its stand in favour of porous borders and unenforced federal immigration law---- has been designed to integrate corporate priorities into its deepest thought processes, so that the Club’s donor base can be secured.

 In addition to an amazing array of attributes, which include the ability to take dictation and type at 3,000 words a minute while answering 100 incoming phone calls simultaneously----Robo-Pop  is programmed to speak Spanish and Arabic to appeal to the growing demographic the Sierra Club hopes to pander to as the United States hurtles toward a population of a half billion by mid-century. Nevertheless, Greenwash will remain as the Official Language of the Club, enabling it to network with other mainstream environmental NGOs on the corporate take. Moreover,  Robo-Pop, it has been learned, will also have a regular column with Huffington Post.  Technicians were careful to hardwire ‘progressive’ political cant into its neural circuitry, so that it can lace its doublespeak with words like “diverse”, “inclusive”, “vibrant”, “cooperative”,  “sustainable”, “just” and “equitable”.

Sierra Club tradition of 'smart growth' continues

To test the new “broom”, we phoned the Sierra Club head office and sure enough, Robo-Pop replied in Spanish monotones. Then, after pressing “3” for Greenwash, Robo-Pop spewed out a string of green buzzwords and oxymoronic phrases like "smart growth", referred us to the website for inquiries about population policy and then promptly hung up. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Tim Murray
October 17, 2011

This article was originally posted to Sinking LifeBoat.

We still value your opinion.

We're working to create our vision for Sierra Club Canada five years from now.

If you haven't had a chance to complete this opinion survey, we'd like to remind you that you still can!

It will take a little of your time, but will make a great difference to our planning!

We would appreciate your reply by Friday, July 4. Please use this link to fill out your survey.

Sierra Club of Canada

Dear Sierra Club,

This is just a friendly reminder that you have until Friday, July 4th to reply to MY “survey”. This was the set of questions I sent to you to pre-empt the pre-fabricated set of twenty-one questions that you sent to me, not a single one of which mentioned over-population or over-immigration as an issue or factor to be considered in the environmental degradation of Canada. Kind of like my fitness instructor stressing cardio, strength training and flexibility without mentioning my chain smoking habit.

Please reply to my questions by my arbitrary deadline or I will continue to follow your lead and make policy decisions without your input.

Remember our slogan. “Tell us what we want to hear or take us off your list!” (but we'll never take you off of ours. And Oh, of course, send us your money to save our poster endangered animal of the month ….”

In case you have forgotten, these were the questions in my survey:

And if you think we should just keep tightening our belts to accommodate more and immigrants, cut back our per capita consumption more and more just to increase total consumption through immigration more and more, tell us, how many immigrants is too many for you? Another 10? 20? 30? 40? 50 million? How many Canadians would there be in an ecologically sound Canada as defined by Sierra Club Canada? Do you have any evidence that wildlife “sanctuaries” and reserves enjoy permanent safety from human population growth? As for Sustainable Energy options, is there a technological fix for the species lost from human population growth? Is there a technological fix for marine life eradicated from over harvesting and pollution? Is there a technological fix for soils exhausted by 10,000 years of intensive farming? Why does the Sierra Club think that climate change warrants more concern than the loss of biodiversity services? Why does the Sierra Club not seem to understand that population that is the underlying agency of both? No climate change without climate changers. Growing cities shrinking wilderness.

One should also ask: Why haven't you taken action on your leader Stephen Hazell's comments on TVO's May 5, 2008 “The Agenda” when he said we should decide what an optimum population for Canada is? What do you believe an optimum population for Canada is? Are you afraid of covering this uncharted territory because you don't know of a politically correct way to answer that question? Is Mr. Hazell afraid to follow through on his own advice?

source:
www.tvo.org/podcasts/theagenda/audio/TAWSP_Dbt_20080505_0_0_40k.mp3
ecologicalcrash.blogspot.com/2008/05/review-of-tvos-agenda-may-5-2008.html

This is my survey. I will not be confined by your prefabricated questions. The questions I need answering involve your complicity in the overpopulation of Canada, and your focus on inconsequential feel-good concepts of consumption, conservation and recycling. Remember it is our total consumption which is relevant, not our per capita consumption.

Tim Murray,
Quadra Island, BC
Home of the sanctimonious
Sierra Quadra Club
Motto “Take HIM off the island”

Stephen Hazell,
Executive Director
Sierra Club of Canada
April 28/08

Mr. Hazell,

In your latest solicitation you enumerate the number of results that Sierra Club volunteers and staff have achieved this year owing to my support. You mention postponing the Kearl tar sands mine pending environmental impact assessment (climate change). You mention stopping the Digby Neck mega-quarry in Nova Scotia that would have proved harmful to right whales. You say you convinced the federal government to develop a new water strategy. You kept global warming at the top of the agenda by advocating "strong" action at Bali and providing needed criticism and analysis of the Harper governments (non) actions following this up. And then you successfully urged the Ontario government to "Grow the Greenbelt" and protect millions of acres of "environmentally sensitive" and "agricultural land" in Southern Ontario.

It sounds like, Mr. Hazell, that you and your team have been busy. Busy like a hyperactive janitor mopping a floor but ignoring that the tap is left wide open to continuously pour water over your work.

Do you remember the IPAT equation? Probably not, I suspect you were not even born in 1970 when the Sierra Club and the whole mainstream environmental movement accepted it as conventional wisdom. "I" (Environmental Impact) equals "P" (Population level) times A (Affluence or per capita consumption) times "T" (technology). Still makes sense to me. But no longer to the politically correct, who have taken the "P" right out to render environmental degradation incomprehensible.

Let's illustrate. We will have to cut global GHG emissions 60% just to make up for the increased emissions brought about by population increases globally in the next four decades. In Australia the population increased 30% from 1990-2006 and its GHG emissions increased by exactly the same number during that same period. In the United States, the population increased 43% from 1970 to 2004 and its GHG emissions increased 43% during that same period. The correlation is clear, is it not? Yet Sierra Club "analysts" in commenting on the governments emissions targets failed to even note Canada's immigrant-driven G-8 leading runaway population growth of 1.08%. Just as they were completely silent following the release of the March 07 census report. A stunning omission for an "environmental" organization.

Environment Minister Gordon Miller said that Southern Ontario can expect to have to jam another 6 million people into its agricultural region in the next 25 years if immigration rates are not curbed. And you want to "Grow the Greenbelt". How? "Smart Growth?" (Smart growth, Smart clear-cuts, Smart extinctions etc.) Check out what is happening to British Greenbelts, once 14% of the UK, now crumbling under development pressure. If Portland Oregon went down, anything will. There is no sanctuary from relentless population and economic growth. Renewable technologies? The energy produced by the 900 wind farm at Sarnia will be erased by the energy demands of 23 days of immigration. BC Hydro claims that if every British Columbian household turned their lights off for one hour it would provide enough power for 4000 households for a year. But the population growth rate in BC is such that in just one year everyone would have turn their lights off for 6 hours a day to power those 4000 households and in four years time everyone would have to leave their lights off permanently. Recycling is also futile. A British study revealed that one new citizen via the maternity ward or the airport wipes out 80 years of responsible re-cycling. I could go on. You get the point Mr. Hazell.

No, no. The point is not to quit recycling. Or to abandon the search for more efficient technologies. Or not to make more efficient and rational land use decisions. Etc. Etc. Rather, it is to point out that without population stabilization all of those worthy goals are pointless. That is why the Sierra Club of the United States was committed to it for most of its recent history and why one third of its current membership are trying to restore that commitment, led by a group of Sierrans called SUSPS (Sierrans for US Population Stabilization).

But I doubt, if you are a typical Canadian like me, that you will be interested in rocking the boat.

So get back to your mop and whistle your happy tune. Who knows, maybe Walt Disney was right, if you wish something to be true and avoid nasty thoughts and phrases like "over-population", "immigration", "limited carrying capacity" and "over-shoot" your Al Gore fantasy just might come true. By living greener lifestyles and vesting our hopes in renewable technologies, you might wish away the fact that there are twice as many Canadians here now as when I was born and pretend that doesn't make a whit of difference to the habitat they're destroying. Just whisper the magic words, “Aba-ka-dabra, Smart Growth!”, and presto! Done!

PS. Is there a technological fix for an extinct species?

Tim Murray
Quadra Island, BC.

Sierra Club Ignores the Smoke of Rampant Growth

My somewhat caustic approach can be attributed in part to a sense of urgency that most environmentalists apparently don't share. I believe we are almost out of time, and I have lost patience with dissemblers.

When I am in a house that has caught fire I am not apt to say "Gee, I think perhaps we should maybe call the Fire Department, don't ya think?". I am more inclined to shout "Call 911 you Sierra Club idiots!" Anything to stop them from continuing to robotically polish the wood furniture and calling that valuable work while the smoke envelopes us.

It was the late great David Brower, three time Nobel Peace Prize nominee and Sierra Club pioneer who said that overpopulation was the major cause of America's environmental ruin, and that since immigration was the main factor in overpopulation, "it had to be addressed". Even in North America. Even in the politically correct community where I live. Somebody has to mention the nasty "I" word. Somebody has to call the Fire Department. And somebody has to tell them to stop pissing around with the furniture polish, get the hell out and start fighting the fire of runaway population growth! This role is not the role of a politician or a salesman. It is the role of someone who must wear the mantle of unpopularity.

Examples of "polishing the furniture":

Investing great time and hope in Sustainable Energy options. The Jevons Paradox dashes all of these hopes. Technological efficiencies liberate cash, and this cash is spent on yet more consumption. When the efficiency of air conditioners improved by 17% consumers bought 36% more air conditioners. When the fuel economy of the average car improved 30% American drivers responded by driving bigger vehicles greater distances. And thanks to population growth there are 130 million more cars on the road. Fuel efficiency in aircraft improved by more than 40% since 1978 but over all fuel consumption rose by 150% since then because of the explosive growth in air traffic encouraged by cheaper transportation costs. Energy use per unit of US GNP has fallen 50% since 1975 after enormous efficiencies were effected after the Arab Oil Embargo. Yet total US energy consumption rose by 40% The name of the game is to reduce total consumption, not improve technological efficiencies. And without stabilizing population, all benefits from efficiencies are erased. The 900 solar farm in Sarnia will produce only enough energy to satisfy 23 days of BAU immigration. Energy gains from renewable technologies are erased by economic growth (population times per capita consumption)

Nature reserves and much vaunted park dedications. None are secure from p pulation and economic growth. Even Yosemite was invaded by logging and mining interests by the stroke of a Congressional pen. A protected park in Costa Rica was similarly violated. Nature Conservancy admits having to take people to court for trepass etc etc. There are no sanctuaries from population and development pressure. And it must be remembered that in the US 40% of all listed mammals are not even found in refuges, and it is in these unprotected lands that 40% of all housing units will be found in the United States by 2030.

Good works. The typical Sierran is like a singing janitor who keeps mopping the floor---doing good works---but blissfully and willfully ignoring the fact that the tap (population growth) is on and water is pouring across it. Then there is the happy fool of a cabin maid on the Titanic as the ship is badly listing, whistlling as she tidies things up. She feels good about her environmentalism, because she is removing anything that isn't recyclable from the cabin. Criminal negligence, the deliberate neglect and avoidance of population growth by environmental organizations despite its obvious correlation to GHG emissions and biodiversity loss, cannot be forgiven by their inconsequential involvement with "good works". The Moonies do "good works". The BDM (Hitler Youth) did good works building trails and doing conservation work. Capone did charity work too. Sorry. You can't buy salvation with good works.

Sustainable Living Practices. Of course it was Al Gore in his Inconvenient Truth who made the absurd statement that we could through the individual choices we make as consumers in the things we buy, the electricity we use or the cars we drive for example that we could reduce our carbon emissions to zero. But Gore did not appreciate that green consumers can never reduce their consumption to zero, and that an increase in the number of the greenest consumers is going to increase total consumption. GHG emissions will have to be cut 60% just to keep pace with population increases in the next half century. And in the UK it was discovered that one new citizen, born or admitted as an immigrant erased 80 lifetimes of responsible recycling.

Polishing the furniture while the house is burning down. Welcome to the Green Fantasy World, where feeling good about yourself is more important than actually addressing the root cause of the problem---over-population, just as Jacques Cousteau said.

It's over-population stupid!

Tim Murray,
Quadra Island, BC

Who was David R. Brower? He was the dean of the American environmental movement, to be ranked among John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt in importance. Nominated for the Nobel Prize three times, he founded the Sierra Club Foundation, the John Muir Institute for Environmental Studies, Friends of the Earth, the League of Conservation Voters, Earth Island Institute, North Cascades Conservation Council and Fate of the Earth Conferences. But it was with America’s flagship environmental organization that he was most associated with. He joined the Sierra Club in 1933, was elected to its board of directors in 1941 and was made its executive director in 1952. Under his leadership club membership grew ten-fold (7,000 to 70,000) from a group of affluent apolitical hikers to an aggressive player on the national environmental scene. David Brower was the catalyst in this transformation. He was the Sierra Club. Yet after 67 years this great crusader felt compelled to resign, “with no regret and a bit of desperation.” Brower, you see, had a problem. He had a problem with corruption, bribery, political correctness and myopia. He knew that demography drives not only human destiny but the destinies of the species we impact, and that unchanged immigration policies would double America’s population by 2100, or if liberalized, add as many as another 700 million by that time. He also knew that post-1970 immigrants and their descendants would be the decisive force fuelling American population growth. If unchecked, it surely meant ecological Armageddon for the country. In resigning Brower stated that “Overpopulation is perhaps the biggest problem facing us, and immigration is part of the problem. It has to be addressed.” Brower, of course, was not alone in advancing those beliefs. Earth Day co-founder and former Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, Earth First co-founder Dave Forman and Harvard professor and socio-biologist E. O. Wilson all warned of the environmental effects of current immigration policies. Just after the first Earth Day in 1970, the President’s Commission on Population Growth and America’s Future urged Congress to stabilize the population at 200 million expeditiously. Paul Ehrlich was among several ecologists who identified 150 million people, half the country’s present population level, as a number that would ensure sustainable habitat survival. The Sierra Club used to agree with them. It used to believe that population growth was a crucial variable in environmental degradation. After all the Ehrlich –Commoner equation (environmental Impact=Population x Affluence x Technology) was conventional wisdom and common sense. Population stabilization, a function of lower fertility rates and lower immigration quotas, were long a part of its program. According to its Population Report of 1989, “Immigration to the U.S. should be no greater than that which will permit achievement of population stabilization in the U.S.” And then suddenly in 1996 that policy was dropped. It became politically correct to ignore the “P” in the IPAT equation and focus on “A”, affluence or reducing per capita consumption, and “T”, more efficient technologies. Greener lifestyles and renewable technologies would save the day and with the oxymoronic fraud of “smart growth”, we could pretend that we could shoe-horn half the world into this continent merely by channeling, or “managing” growth. But when a group of Sierrans, including Brower, saw the folly of this approach and attempted to restore traditional immigration policy, in stepped a billionaire, David Gelbaum, who threatened that if it was restored the Sierra Club would “never see a dollar of his money”. The ruling clique complied and was dutifully rewarded with in excess of $100 million in bribes, tendered in 2000-1 alone. Elizabeth May, for her part, threatened to change the name of the Sierra Club of Canada if the dissidents succeeded in returning the US Club to its original course. She has obviously carried her globalist convictions into the leadership of the Green Party of Canada with a pledge to chase immigration targets into the stratosphere, even beyond that of other parties. American Presidential Green candidate Ralph Nader, by contrast, denounced open borders and liberal immigration as “absurd” in his 2000 campaign, and for that reason enjoyed Brower’s support. Mass immigration can be understood as a right wing project that benefits from left wing collusion, with progressives essentially lining up behind Bill Gates and 40 major technology companies and agribusiness to drive down wages so that conservatives obtain their cheap labour and socialists obtain their cheap cause. Donations to conservation groups to look the other way while the invasion continues is an excellent return on corporate investment. No wonder Canadian members are kept ignorant about who gives money to environmental NGOs, how much is given and what directors are paid. No wonder sleazy arrangements are made between big corporations like the Royal Bank and Nature Conservancy of Canada, the Audubon Society of America and Toyota (a $20 million deal) and the Sierra Club’s deal to endorse the cleaning products of the Clorox corporation. Now you understand why this pioneer of the Sierra Club had to finally leave it just before his death. He could no longer stomach being a member of a corrupt, money-grubbing, corporate lackey that accepted a massive annual bribe to leave immigration, a vital ingredient of environmental degradation, out of the policy book. He realized that a clique purchased by David Gelbaum’s millions and intent on chasing after potential Hispanic members at the expense of defending the environment against the illegal invasion across the southern border could not be overthrown. And the organization was too irredeemably corrupt to be reformed. It had to be abandoned and by-passed. David Brower. An authentic environmentalist, a man of integrity and principle. A rare commodity in the movement. http://www.susps.org/index.html (The whole story on the Sierra Club) http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/1631 (The Royal Bank and Nature Conservancy) Tim Murray April 22/08