1 post tagged “immigration pollution global-warming”
In a recent interview with the Time magazine, GOP presidential candidate Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, says,"I wonder why the Sierra Club isn't going crazy about the environmental aspects of massive immigration into the U.S. The fact is, Americans consume more energy than anyone else, so if a person moves here from another country, they automatically become bigger polluters." (Time June 11,2007, page 8)
Tom Tancredo is known for his hard-line approach to immigration, which is nothing special among politicians in America and Europe these days. But it is his novel discovery that immigrants caused global warming.
Am I a bigger polluter in America then I am in China (I'm currently a legal alien but I will be an illegal immigrant soon)? I wish he was right. But since the majority of the most polluting industries have moved to China, if I stayed in China I would be exploiting an environment which is much more strained than here. China will overtake the USA as the world's biggest source of greenhouse gasses this year.
It's difficult for me to complain about American politics. If it's so bad, why did I go through all the humiliating process to come here? For a chance to be discriminated against? The answer is that, believe it or not, the dominant culture in China is even more materialistic, conforming, unjust and conservative than here. There the only social issue is money and art is for rats. In China I had a decent job, and there were even one or two girls who, if I kept begging, might go out with me. But here I found a community of diverse people who care about social justice, environment, art, daydreams...And you even have a chance to make a career out of thinking critically, how wonderful is that!
Back to the global warming and immigrants theory, if Tancredo is right, to solve global warming we just need to keep the
immigrants so poor that they cannot consume any energy including their own.
