Betsy Hartmann
Conservative anti-immigrant and population control forces are once again
threatening to take control of the Sierra Club, one of the nation’s most
influential environmental organizations. A September 26 resolution by the Board
of Directors changed Club policy on population from supporting population
stabilization to advocating "reductions in the population of the United
States and the world." Progressive population activists in the Club are
disturbed by the serious nature of this change in policy. What may seem like a
minor change in language has major implications for the reputation of the Sierra
Club and its relationship to immigrants, communities of color and women’s groups
in the US and overseas.
Population stabilization, the term used by most US environmental
organizations, implies declining population growth rates over time, a phenomenon
now occurring more rapidly than anticipated in most countries of the world. The
world’s annual population growth rate is now 1.33 percent a year, down from a
rate of over two percent in 1965-70. The UN estimates that world population will
reach an estimated 9 billion in 2050, at which point it will start to level off
as most families achieve ‘replacement-level fertility’ or a two-child norm.
The Sierra Club’s call for population "reductions" instead endorses
negative population growth, below replacement level fertility. How does the Club
hope to achieve this, given that most demographers agree that barring disaster,
three billion more people will be added to the planet’s population in the next
fifty years?
Here the logic of the Club’s new population policy is seriously flawed. It
combines support for population reductions with other Club policy which
advocates addressing population by positive means. These include championing the
empowerment and equity of women, supporting reproductive health services, and
addressing the root causes of migration by encouraging sustainability, economic
security, human rights, and environmentally sustainable consumption.
These lofty goals, if fully implemented, would contribute to the present
trend of declining population growth rates, but not to reductions in population
size. These reductions would result from a likely combination of three very
negative factors: on a purely national level, a halt to immigration, and on a
global level, draconian one-child family policies and/or a massive rise in death
rates — hardly a women’s health and human rights agenda.
Unfortunately, rising death rates are already a reality in many African
countries hard-hit by the AIDS epidemic. Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of
the UN AIDS agency, estimates that half of all newborn babies in Africa now
carry the HIV virus. In the 29 most severely affected countries, life expectancy
has decreased to 47 years and population growth rates are dropping. So far the
UN says absolute population size is not likely to decline in Africa as a result
of AIDS, but that scenario cannot be ruled out entirely.
Given the severity of the AIDS crisis and the coercive means required to
achieve negative population growth, advocating population reductions is
ethically problematic, to say the least. Why then is the Sierra Club willing to
risk alienating health and human rights activists? The answer lies in the Club’s
internal controversy over immigration.
In April 1998 Sierra Club members voted on two ballot initiatives.
Alternative A, put forward by anti -immigration proponents, would have put the
Club on record as supporting a "reduction of net immigration" as a
component of a "comprehensive population policy for the United
States."
Alternative B, supported by the Club’s staff, Board of Directors, and many
grassroots volunteers, reaffirmed the Club’s neutral policy on immigration and
adopted a women’s empowerment/human rights approach toward population and
migration issues. Many in the environmental community breathed a deep sigh of
relief when Alternative B won by a 60 percent majority. The ‘greening of hate’
— the scapegoating of immigrants for environmental degradation — had been
soundly defeated.
But not for long. Almost immediately after their defeat, Alternative A
proponents set out to push environmental justice and reproductive and human
rights advocates off the Club’s National Population Committee (NPC) and fill it
with their own sympathizers. Judy Kunofsky and Director Anne Ehrlich, both
prominent members of the conservative Federation for American Immigration Reform
(FAIR), meanwhile maintained their important oversight positions of the NPC.
Currently serving on the NPC is Carole Wilmoth, Executive Director of the US
Sustainable Population Policy Project, largely a coalition of anti-immigration
groups which are pushing for a US ‘national population policy’ to combat the
threat of overpopulation.
In a December 22, 1998 letter to the Board of Directors, former NPC members
Karen Jones, Karen Kalla, Julie Beezley, Santos Gomez and Cathi Tactaquin
expressed their disappointment that "the NPC we were part a part of — the
most racially and ethnically diverse in the Club, with a majority of female
members, has been treated in a manner where none of us could ethically reapply
for membership. Our committee has been replaced with an all Anglo, two-thirds
male committee which includes strong national leaders closely associated with
organizations providing substantial funding for Alternative A." They
pointed out how "the wording, spirit, and intent of Alternative B have been
subverted to the extent that many of the racial and ethnic minorities we’ve
worked with have been, or will be, driven from association with the Club."
Activists also charge that the Club’s leadership has been moving to undercut
democratic decision-making procedures. In September the Board of Directors
sought a legal opinion under the California Non-Profit Corporations Code which
limits the power of members’ initiatives. Members’ votes no longer have the
authority to bind the Board on general matters involving conservation policy or
governance. This legal opinion could further undermine Alternative B. It also
changes the very nature of the Sierra Club, which has had a long tradition of
membership democracy.
The recent policy shift from population stabilization to population
reductions reflects the disenfranchisement of those who supported the
Alternative B approach to population issues as well as the growing power of
anti-immigration proponents. These include Dr. Alan Kuper, chair of the
population and environment committee of the Ohio chapter of the Sierra Club. The
policy change was made as part of a deal to keep an initiative from Kuper off
the ballot. Hence, the schizophrenic message it conveys. The population
reduction language is Kuper’s, the rest on women’s empowerment and human rights
the language of Alternative B. The two mix as well as oil and water.
Negative Population Growth and other anti-immigration groups have heralded
the policy change as a victory for their side. Meanwhile, Carl Pope, Sierra Club
Executive Director, is busy doing spin control, claiming that the Club has not
altered its population policy or retreated from its neutrality on immigration.
But no amount of spin control can obscure the fact that calling for
population reductions gives succor to the Right and implicitly, if
unintentionally, endorses some combination of coercive birth control, increasing
death rates and restrictive immigration policies. In 1998 the Sierra Club
membership voted overwhelmingly against such a program. They should ask why a
year later the Board of Directors is dismantling democracy and going against
their will.
— Betsy Hartmann is the Director of the Population and Development Program
at Hampshire College and a founding member of the Committee on Women,
Population and the Environment. A version of this article originally appeared
in the January 2000 issue of The Progressive. It is also forthcoming in
Political Environments.