Meeting Earth Day's Promise Means Reducing Immigration

When I covered the inaugural Earth Day teach-ins as a reporter 51 years ago, one of the top concerns was the rapidly growing U.S. population — and its negative impact on America's wildlife and ecosystems.

At the time, the United States was an affluent nation of 203 million hyper consumers and polluters — and it was adding more than 20 million each decade. Environmental leaders such as Senator Gaylord Nelson — often dubbed the Father of Earth Day — called for the United States to model population stabilization for the rest of the world, as well as modeling ways to reduce negative per capita impacts.
 
Over the last half-century, the United States has done well as an international model for environmental laws and institutions, cleaning the air, and a number of other accomplishments, while struggling to greatly reduce per capita resource consumption and waste.