Patriotic americans Fight AMNESTY again

Californians For Population Stabilization
CAPS NEWS
Spring 2013 • VOLUME 54 • NUMBER 1
Patriotic Americans Fight Amnesty Again
By Joe Guzzardi, CAPS Senior Writing Fellow
T
the nation’s population and social woes, including American job displacement.
he gloves are off again. Patriotic Americans
find themselves in the midst of yet another
battle to save the nation from an amnesty
that would create disastrous fiscal and environmental consequences.
During the 2007 McCain-Kennedy amnesty
debates, the Heritage Foundation estimated that
amnesty would cost taxpayers $2.5 trillion in the
first ten years. The Foundation now calculates
that the fiscal impact of this year’s “Gang of
Eight” amnesty would be even higher. The Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform sets
the annual expense directly related to education,
health care and law enforcement at $100 billion.
Our 2006 and 2007 victories were hard fought
but successful. This time around, emboldened
by the 2012 November election results, immigration advocates are more demanding, better
organized and have deeper pockets.
One thing is certain: amnesty proponents never
give up. Since the 1986 Immigration Reform
and Control Act, six additional legislative amnesties have been passed that granted amnesty to at least 3 million illegal aliens. As a result, federal, state and local governments have
absorbed—to the point of bankruptcy in some
California cities—heavy fiscal and tax burdens.
The adverse consequences of unchecked immigration are obvious, and the motives of those
who drive it, ignoble. Pandering politicians,
cheap-labor-lobbying corporations, biased media
and elitists have combined to create what they
hope will be the perfect storm: amnesty for 11
million illegal aliens.
Each of these seven amnesties opened up avenues for chain migration that have compounded
Americans need to join in the effort to ensure
that the voices of reason—our voices—prevail.
CAPS ADS TARGET PRO AMNESTY SENATORS
IN THIS ISSUE
‘Baby Bust’ Blues
Page 2
2012 Annual
Report Summary
Page 3
Short on Water Again
Page 4
New Board and
Advisory Members
California Then and Now
Page 5
Tackling the Taboo
Page 6
S
ince January when a new amnesty proposal
was put forth by what’s been billed as a bipartisan effort led by four Democratic and
four Republican senators, CAPS has been working full throttle to oppose
legalizing the estimated
11 million people who are
in the country illegally.
The campaign is CAPS’ opening salvo in the debate
on this plan. Through it, we plan to further the
discussion and show that the plan is against the
best interests of American citizens and taxpayers.
Now is a “line in the sand”
moment. Amnesty legislation is here. We encourage you to pull out all the
stops in calling, writing
and emailing elected officials with your concerns
about the proposal. Let
them know what you think
realistic solutions are and
what needs to change. The
CAPS website has lots of
background information,
facts and figures, if you
need it.
If enacted, the plan would
give immediate provisional status for those
here illegally to live and
work in the United States,
thus competing with
the estimated 25 million
Americans out of work or
underemployed.
As we write, CAPS is launching a campaign directed to
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ),
one of the eight senators driving the amnesty.
Arizonans are being asked to contact Sen. McCain
and tell him to stop pushing for both a large increase
in the number of immigrant workers admitted to the
U.S. and an amnesty for 11 million illegal aliens.
With TV, radio and online ads in Phoenix, the
campaign is focused on McCain, because he’s
been a long-time amnesty advocate and pusher for
increasing immigration, despite broad opposition
among the constituents in his state to amnesty
and increased mass immigration.
As the campaign proceeds, other spots will be
rolled out, targeted to additional senators supporting the plan, including Sen. Jeff Flake (R), also
of Arizona, and Sen. Marco Rubio (D-FL).
In addition to the jobs issue, legalizing millions
of people will put additional pressure on already
stressed welfare and entitlement programs. The
plan also will contribute to more unsustainable
population growth, not just by way of legalizing
11 million, but through the impacts of continuing
chain migration.
Please don’t stop there.
Send letters to the editors of newspapers, and go
online and post comments to articles and commentary pieces about immigration. Also, talk with
your business colleagues, friends, neighbors and
family. Educate them about the issue if they’re not
up to speed on it, and ask them to get involved to
fight amnesty.
While the amnesty plan will impact all states—
because all states are border states now, that is, all face
challenges from illegal immigration—California
will be disproportionately affected because more
immigrants settle here than in any other state.
Let us know if you are successful in getting an
editorial placed, have a letter to the editor printed
or have other good news to share in this fight.
We’ll keep you posted through online updates and
emails. Let’s fight this amnesty plan!
This year alone there were 12.1 million applicants to the U.S. Diversity Lottery Program, also called the
U.S. population was estimated at 315,412,705 on March 1, 2013. U.S. Census Bureau
Green Card Lottery. U.S. State Department
CAPS Fact 1
Californians For
Population Stabilization
‘Baby Bust’ Blues,
Board of Directors
Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Population Bomb*
Dick Schneider, M.S.
By Leon Kolankiewicz, CAPS Senior Writing Fellow
Chairman of the Board
Ben Zuckerman, Ph.D.
Vice President
Otis L. Graham, Jr., Ph.D.
Secretary
Kenneth Pasternack, J.D.
Treasurer
Tim Aaronson, M.S.
Kim Fletcher
Edward Tabash, J.D.
Staff
Jo Wideman
Executive Director
Gretchen Pfaff
Marketing & Communications Director
Katie Patrykus
Development Director
Mary Bahnken
Membership Services Director
Allison Allen
Administrative Services Assistant
Advisory Board
Denice Spangler Adams, M.S.
Carolyn Pesnell Amory
Allan F. Brown
Benny Chien, M.D.
Robert Gillespie
Helen Graham
Victor Davis Hanson, Ph.D.
Leon Kolankiewicz, M.S.
Richard Lamm, L.L.D.
Martin Litton
Keith Mautino
Nancy Pearlman
Karen Peus
Winifred W. Rhodes
Michael Tobias, Ph.D.
Paul Scott
George Sessions
Jacob Sigg
Louis F. Villanueva
John D. Weeden
Charles Westhoff, Ph.D.
Wendy Yager
CAPS News is published by
Californians for Population Stabilization
1129 State Street, Suite 3-D
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
Phone: 805-564-6626
Fax: 805-564-6636
E-mail: [email protected]
www.CAPSweb.org
Editor: Maria Fotopoulos, APR
Produced by: Jo Wideman
Art Direction: Garcin Media Group
Californians for Population Stabilization
is a nonpartisan, nonprofit,
public interest organization that
works to formulate and advance
policies and programs designed to
stabilize the population of
California at a level which will
preserve a good quality of life
for all Californians.
W
hat planet does he live on? I found
myself wondering in recent weeks. At
every turn, it seemed, I encountered one
Jonathan V. Last, senior writer at The Weekly
Standard, insisting that America is heading over
a demographic cliff because we’re not making
enough babies. And the masters of the media
were listening.
Respectfully. Intently. Earnestly. Rather than falling out of their chairs with guffaws.
In his Wall Street Journal article, Mr. Last channels
the late economist and guru of growth, Julian
Simon, when he claims that “…growing populations lead to increased innovation and conservation. Think about it: Since 1970, commodity
prices have continued to fall and America’s en-
The Wall Street Journal, The Daily
Beast, The Los Angeles Times, The
Weather Channel (!!!) and CBS Sunday
Morning, among others, all gave him
a forum. Would that they be half as
receptive to our message! NewsMax
issued a national declaration of war
on low birth rates with the headline:
“U.S. Battles Declining Fertility.”
Our country has relentlessly added 2 to
3 million people per year for decades
—33 million in the 1990s, 27 million
in the 2000s. We added more than
100 million in the last 40 years, and
in the next 40 to 50 years, according
to the U.S. Census Bureau, we will add
another 100 million, most of it directly
and indirectly from immigration.
Our population continues to grow
with no end in sight, if at a somewhat slower pace than the breakneck speed of
the 1990s, which set a record for the greatest
growth of any decade in our history.
This in a country that already—with our current
bloated population of 315 million—runs a substantial ecological deficit that is pushing us ever
deeper into ecological debt, according to the
Global Footprint Network, the Oakland-based
think tank that tabulates the ecological footprint
of most nations on earth.
According to the Network, if every country in
the world were as overpopulated and resourceintensive as the United States, it would take more
than four Earths to support us all.
Alas, all we have is one Earth, and all we will ever
have is one planet, Buzz Lightyear fantasies of
“to infinity, and beyond!” notwithstanding. And
one is enough, if we know how to care for it. Part
of caring for it is having the collective wisdom
to live within limits, including limiting the size of
our families and population. But growthmaniacs
like Jonathan Last deny that there are any limits
to growth that the infinitely clever human mind
can’t overcome, as long as government doesn’t
stifle individual initiative and ingenuity.
Unfortunately, all too many delusional people deny
a simple, profound truth: that all we have is one
planet at our disposal, and if we continue to dispose
of it as we have been, all that will be left eventually
is a wasteland filled with weeds, trash and toxics.
and droughts, record temperatures, fewer fish, less
de facto wilderness, more threatened and endangered species, more harmful invasive species, higher
carbon dioxide emissions, and more crowded parks
and beaches than ever before. The climate is becoming more erratic; sea level is rising, and the oceans
are becoming more polluted and acidic. I could go on,
but any one of these conditions is not sustainable.
Before he died in 1998, Julian Simon and I were
both interviewed by one of National Public Radio’s
science reporters for a segment on the topic of
carrying capacity for The Morning
Edition. I later spoke with Simon at
a news conference in the Capitol at
which he released a study arguing
for more immigration and faster U.S.
population growth.
In private conversation afterwards,
among other things, he also let on
that he thought the idea that manmade CFCs were harming the ozone
layer was a bunch of nonsense. He
apparently knew better than the two
scientists at the University of California-Irvine—Sherwood Rowland and
Mario Molina—who had just been
awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. They shared the Nobel for working
out the chemical reactions by which
chlorofluorocarbons consumed ozone
molecules in the stratosphere, which
protect us and all other organisms
from damaging ultraviolet-B radiation. But it was all nonsense, Simon
assured me.
Hysteria? Or merely hysterical, as
in totally absurd and comical? It is a
classic illustration of what the pioneering ecological economist Herman
Daly once called “growthmania” on
the part of those who worship at
the altar of growth, growth forever,
growth at all costs.
Human beings are rapidly and inexorably degrading the biosphere that the entire human economy
2 CAPS Fact
resides within and depends upon utterly in countless ways. We are busily sawing off the limb upon
which the entire human enterprise rests—degrading and squandering the “natural capital” that
makes sustainable economic prosperity possible.
vironment has become much cleaner and more
sustainable—even though our population has
increased by more than 50%. Human ingenuity, it
turns out, is the most precious resource.”
This is a whopper. But like Julian Simon, who once
wrote an outlandish article in the journal Science
entitled, “Population, Resources, Environment: An
Oversupply of False Bad News,” Last is deft at
spinning whoppers that are partially true. Thanks
to the efforts of environmentalists (fought every
step of the way by polluters), it is indeed true that
our air and water are cleaner, in general, than they
were 40 years ago; there is also more land set aside
as national parks, wildlife refuges and wilderness
areas. These are achievements worth celebrating.
Commodity prices—think gasoline at the gas
pump—did fall from 1970 to 2000, but in the
2000s, as author Chris Clugston has shown in his
compelling new book, Scarcity, prices for almost
all raw materials have increased sharply. Clugston concludes that Americans mistook temporary
abundance of nonrenewable natural resources
(NNRs) like the fossil fuels and metals as permanent sufficiency. It’s a miscalculation with monumental consequences.
“More sustainable?” One would have to be a
deluded ignoramus, or dare I say, an ecologically
challenged economist, to think so.
We have fewer wetlands, fewer free-flowing rivers,
less available surface and groundwater, less open
space, fewer remaining fossil fuels and high grade
metal and mineral ores, fewer arable soils, fewer
healthy and more diseased forests, more wildfires
Julian Simon once bragged: “We now
have in our hands—in our libraries,
really—the technology to feed, clothe,
and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next 7 billion
years.” Rarely has rank hubris ever been so distilled!
Physicist Al Bartlett looked into Simon’s claim.
Bartlett calculated that after just 17,000 years
(only 0.00024% of 7 billion years), a population
growing at the underwhelming but steady rate
of 1% annually—about equal to the U.S. growth
rate—would produce as many humans as atoms
in the known universe.
Bartlett also quipped that our de facto national
creed has morphed from “In God We Trust” to “In
Growth We Trust.” Treating a slight dip in the birth
rate as a cause for alarm rather than a tentative step
in the right direction is an expression of this creed.
Bartlett said that Julian Simon belonged to what
amounted to a “New Flat Earth Society,” because
only a flat Earth extending infinitely in all directions could accommodate infinite human expansion. I hereby propose that for his recent contributions to such delusions of grandeur, Jonathan
Last be accorded honorary membership in the
New Flat Earth Society.
* With apologies to Stanley Kubrick, Peter Sellers and
the classic Cold War era film Dr. Strangelove.
Leon Kolankiewicz is an environmental scientist and
CAPS advisor. He was the vice president and coordinator
of Carrying Capacity Network (CCN) in the late 1990s,
when University of Colorado physics professor Al Bartlett
and University of Maryland ecological economics professor Herman Daly served on the CCN Board of Directors.
Scientific studies link fine particulate air pollution to premature deaths of those with heart or lung disease.
Environmental Protection Agency
Californians For Population Stabilization
ANNUAL REPORT SUMMARY 2012
In 2012, CAPS continued to be on the frontlines in a fight for a sustainable California and a sustainable country. It was a challenging year.
The United States continued to experience the most rapid population growth of any country in the developed world. On average, the U.S. now adds
1 million legal immigrants annually, and it’s estimated that between 900,000 and 1 million have come to the country illegally each year in recent years.
Projects and Activities
Overpopulation Awareness Campaign
CAPS’ educational and media work continued to emphasize California’s escalating overpopulation-related problems. In 2012 we worked to inform the public, elected officials and the media about
the destructive impacts resulting from overpopulation, primarily driven by massive legal and unchecked
illegal immigration, including a compromised environment, loss of biodiversity, weakened infrastructure,
stressed educational and medical systems and overall diminished quality of life.
CAPS reiterated its belief that the U.S. needs a population policy that limits the overall numbers of
immigrants legally admitted. Within those limits, CAPS recommends that consideration be given for
admitting immigrants with needed skills, rather than merely having quotas on a country-by-country
basis or a random lottery system.
Through live interviews and outreach with print materials, along with continuous updating of our website
content, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter pages, we spent the year fully engaged in getting out our messages. We continued to use the Action Alert system to notify members of proposed legislative actions and
other relevant news, and to offer an easy way to contact legislators. Using this variety of tools enabled
us to broadly communicate our clear and consistent messages that a decrease in all legal immigration is
needed; illegal immigration must come to an end, and birthrates must be reduced by voluntary means.
As part of this campaign we ran a series of TV ads in various markets nationally and in California
(all ads can be viewed on CAPS’ website, CAPSweb.org):
•
During the Republican Presidential Debate in Arizona, we ran a TV ad which aired on
CNN in Sacramento, Los Angeles, Fresno, Bakersfield and Santa Barbara markets. This ad laments
the federal government admitting millions of legal immigrants and temporary workers to take
jobs while more than 2 million Californians are unemployed. More legal immigrants reside and
settle in California permanently than in any other state, and the flow of workers has not stopped
since the recession hit.
The ad illustrates the lack of attention to legal foreign workers by first presenting the word “illegal,”
since illegal immigrants have been the primary media focus. The spokesperson then separates
“il” from the rest of the word to show the word “legal,” saying, “But what about these workers;
legal foreign workers?” The spot ends by combining the letters to form the word “ill” to describe
California’s economy and joblessness, partly attributable to legal and illegal immigration.
•
An Earth Day TV ad ran nationally and showed that immigration-driven population
growth in the U.S. fuels environmental degradation here and abroad. Mass immigration
to the U.S. is expanding the country’s already massive carbon footprint and driving population
growth that will add 100 million people to America in the next 40 years. This ad was shown and
then spoofed on The Colbert Report which has a viewership of 1.5 million.
•
A Memorial Day TV ad, which ran nationally on FOX and also during the RNC and
DNC conventions, asked why the U.S. is admitting millions of immigrant workers
when one in three young veterans is jobless. More veterans settle in California than any
other state, and California continues to experience some of the highest unemployment rates in
the country. In 2011, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that recently returning veterans
between the ages of 18 and 24 had an unemployment rate of 29.1% and that young AfricanAmerican male veterans had an unemployment rate that topped 40%.
•
We ran another TV ad in the Los Angeles, Bakersfield and Sacramento markets calling
on specific politicians (Barbara Boxer, Kevin McCarthy and John Garamendi) to slow
mass immigration and save jobs for unemployed Californians. The campaign launched
as California continued to experience unprecedented levels of unemployment and immigrant
workers continued to pour into the state looking for jobs.
In-house, we produced 60-second and 15-minute YouTube PSAs featuring one of our renowned
Advisory Board members, Michael Tobias. He is an author, ecologist, mountaineer and filmmaker and
his more than 45 books and 170 films have been distributed, translated and broadcast internationally.
Tobias discussed the convergence of population and environmental issues as they relate to any biological bottom line, from habitat preservation and biodiversity conservation to human and animal rights at
home and worldwide.
Additionally, we conducted a survey of 1,000 likely voters in California which showed among
other things that 76% of Californians thought that, rather than bringing in new immigrant
workers, any new jobs created in California should go to unemployed Californians. The poll
findings also showed that 65% opposed the Visa Lottery; 66% opposed chain migration and 70%
favored mandating that all California employers electronically verify that their workers are in the country
legally and have a work visa. As well, 52% polled disapproved of the job Senator Barbara Boxer is doing
to create new California jobs and get unemployed Californians working again.
We completed the California Population Awareness Awards (CAPAs) program; awards were
granted and outstanding young winners feted. The CAPAs, a statewide contest, asked California’s
college and university students to create a short video, radio spot, editorial, Facebook initiative or Twitter
campaign that focused on the causes of overpopulation in California and effects on education, the
environment and future prospects for a sustainable state and a good quality of life. The purpose of the
project was to increase awareness among California’s 3 million college students that the state’s population
has nearly doubled in only 40 years and continues to rise rapidly.
CAPS Contact:
We believed that this important demographic group, which can and will influence the future of California, is
largely unaware of how rapid population growth has impacted California’s economy, our environment,
our public schools, health care facilities, prisons, highways, wetlands, biodiversity, water resources,
energy consumption, and state and national parks. We hoped to begin remedying this lack of awareness
about these issues by starting educational outreach to college students by way of this contest.
Our campaign in support of the program was anchored by Facebook ads, along with targeted college
newspaper print and online advertising. We also shared contest information with online scholarship
and contest sites. The combined efforts resulted in more than 39 million impressions and more than
6,000 site visits to capaawards.com, with the CAPA Awards Facebook page generating more than 5,000
click-throughs. We are considering running this contest again with an emphasis on overpopulation’s
relationship to carrying capacity.
We completed a new project, Population Education for Environmental Scientists: The Need to
Go Where They Are. We exhibited at the Headwaters to Oceans (H2O) Conference in San Diego in May
where we were able to present information on the nature of U.S. population growth and of the clear
feasibility of curbing it. We also exhibited at the Society for Conservation Biology (NACCB) in Oakland in
July and the Ecological Society of America (ESA) in Portland in August.
At the ESA meeting, CAPS held a half-day symposium, Population, Environment and Sustainability Issues
in the U.S., attended by nearly 100 people. Organized by Stuart Hurlbert and moderated by Robert
Costanza, the meeting had a full slate of speakers.
Marilyn DeYoung spoke on U.S. Population Policies, Trends and Projections: 1900-2050; Madeline Weld
on Pernicious Myths Drive Canada’s Population Growth; Robert Dietz on Moving Toward Ecological
Economics: Why Are We Still Haunted by the Ghosts of Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, and Julian Simon?
and Philip Cafaro on Developing an Environmental Impact Statement for U.S. Immigration Policy.
David Schindler discussed Oil Sands Operations, First Nation Peoples and a Sustainable Canada; Gerardo
Ceballos González talked about Continental Ecology, Connectivity, and the Conservation of Biodiversity
in the Mexico-U.S. Border Region; and Hal Michael and Robert Lackey spoke on Past, Present and Future
of Salmonid Stocks in the Pacific Northwest.
Ben Zuckerman also spoke on Population Growth and Projection of Future U.S. Greenhouse Gas Outputs;
Stuart Hurlbert on Sustainability, Censorship and Unholy Left-Right Alliances; and Robert Costanza on
Population, Environment, Economy and Sustainability: Toward an Integrated Synthesis and a Desirable Future.
CAPS began implementation of a new project: The California We Are Losing—Views of our
Golden State’s transition from pristine to imperiled. The project goal is to educate the public to
population growth’s long-term effects on special places near and dear to Californians through visual
juxtapositions of yesterday’s and today’s changed landscapes, while serving as a call to action. The
project will include:
• Rotating, dramatic dedicated page on the CAPSweb.org website, which already gets more than
90,000 page views per year
• Concise video documentary for CAPS’ active YouTube channel, boasting more than 41,000 views
• Television ad to run in the Golden State, showing the plight of cherished statewide locales
• New CAPS’ Pinterest presence, and emotive content for CAPS’ Facebook presence, as well as
powerful imagery for a speakers’ bureau PowerPoint presentation
• Replicable format to share with other states sharing these same struggles to use as they tell their
own “then and now” stories.
We anticipate that these juxtapositions of yesterday’s and today’s California places will offer contrasting
and vivid portraits of changing landscapes across the 20th century to today. Our focus on landscape
change will depict the “natural” environments of redwood groves, meadows, oak-studded hills, wildlife and
pristine beaches of yesterday turning into sprawling towns, cities and suburbs, with the supporting infrastructure to house and accommodate California’s still-growing population, now at nearly 39 million people.
Further, we hope to stimulate discussion and learning to discover what the engines of these dramatic
changes have been. We will invite the public to comment and to share materials of their own depicting
California places of the past as seen and experienced in diaries, books, albums, photos and maps.
Communications Audit
An extensive review of CAPS communications efforts was concluded, which included suggestions for a
major revamping of our website, all collateral materials and outreach methodologies.
Advertising with Google AdWords
We continued in 2012 utilizing an online service that allows us to reach people searching the Internet for
specific key words and phrases or visiting a website that has content aligned with CAPS’ mission, which
brought thousands of new visitors to our website, CAPSweb.org.
1129 State Street, Suite 3-D, Santa Barbara, CA 93101
Phone: 805-564-6626 Fax: 805-564-6636 www.CAPSweb.org
3
2012 ANNUAL REPORT SUMMARY (cont.)
Work with the State Legislature and Congress
CAPS engaged in lobbying, education and advocacy programs designed to influence elected officials in
California and at the federal level.
CAPS members who joined our Action Alert Team were notified whenever urgent action was needed—
giving them a chance to do something important for their state and nation by expressing their concerns
to elected officials.
In 2012, our activists sent more than 145,000 messages to legislators through our website, and thousands
wrote, faxed and called legislators directly.
Gridlock in Washington, Amnesty Efforts in Sacramento
Open Dialogue Program
In January, CAPS Senior Fellow Michael Cutler, a renowned immigration expert and retired INS Senior
Special Agent, spoke in Santa Barbara to a large group of CAPS members on “Profiles in Cowardice:
Immigration, Illegal Aliens & Idiocy.”
CAPS staff, board and member volunteers staffed Earth Day booths in Santa Barbara, Thousand Oaks
and San Diego where we emphasized that overpopulation and overconsumption are the root causes of
environmental destruction. We noted that since the first Earth Day in 1969 world population has doubled
to more than 7 billion and quoted Gaylord Nelson who said, “In this country, it’s phony to say ‘I’m for
the environment but not for limiting immigration.’ It’s just a fact that we can’t take all the people who
want to come here.”
Political deadlock and impending elections produced inertia in the federal legislative session this year—
many bills on both sides of the immigration issue were introduced, but no significant legislation passed.
By contrast, the California legislature considered a number of bills designed to promote amnesty or
otherwise blur the distinction between legal and illegal immigration. Two of these passed, and one was
signed into law.
During 2012 CAPS spokespersons appeared on television news and radio talk shows, were quoted in
newspapers, magazines, and hundreds of blogs discussing nearly every aspect of U.S. population growth
and immigration policies.
Legislation in Congress is much more dependent upon House and Senate leadership than it is in the
California legislature. While House Republican leaders expressed support for mandatory E-Verify legislation, they did nothing to move HR 2885, the Legal Workforce Act, to a floor vote after it passed the
Judiciary Committee.
Print Media
Bakersfield Californian
Breitbart
Columbia Daily Tribune
East Valley Tribune
Environmental News Today
Fox News Latino
The Jersey Journal
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Lodi News-Sentinal
Los Angeles Daily News
New York Daily News
North County Times
Sacramento Bee
San Francisco Weekly
Santa Barbara Independent
Wisconsin State Journal
Judicial and administrative actions on immigration proved more consequential. In June, the Obama
Administration implemented much of the DREAM Act amnesty by administrative action even though the
legislation had repeatedly failed in Congress.
Two weeks later, the Supreme Court upheld a crucial portion of Arizona’s SB 1070. It validated the
requirement that police check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws if “reasonable
suspicion” exists that the person is in the United States illegally, even as it struck down some other parts
of the law.
California passed the TRUST Act, AB 1081, an attempt to gut the DHS’s Secure Communities program.
The legislation would bar police in California from detaining an illegal alien for ICE unless the alien has
a previous, specified felony conviction. Even illegal aliens with multiple drunken driving convictions or a
history of domestic violence would be released.
MEDIA COVERAGE (partial list)
The legislature also passed AB 2189 to make aliens eligible for California driver’s licenses if they receive
“deferred action” status and work permits from the Obama administration under its administrative
amnesty. Initially, the DMV said it needed no additional statutory authority, but then retreated into a
more ambiguous position.
Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 2189, but vetoed AB 1081, the so-called TRUST Act. Brown expressed
his concern that the Trust Act did not cover some major crimes and, unfortunately, indicated that he
would work with the legislature on a slightly different version to sign.
Online Presence
Website
Our website, CAPSweb.org, had more than 47,000 visitors and 92,000 page views between January 1
and December 31, 2012.
CAPS blog
CAPS-blog.org focused on population issues, including immigration (both legal and illegal), jobs, crime,
the environment and more. The blog tackles current events, debunks opposition arguments and encourages comments and discussions about the topics raised. CAPS’ blog had more than 123,000 visitors and
413,000 page views from January 1 to December 31, 2012.
The main contributors to the blog were Joe Guzzardi, CAPS Senior Writing Fellow, and Michael Cutler,
CAPS Senior Fellow. Other contributors have included Senior Writing Fellows Maria Fotopoulos,
Inger Eberhart, D.A. King and Leon Kolankiewicz, as well as CAPS Board and staff members and guest
commentaries by members and like-minded bloggers.
Social Media
CAPS continued to use social media as a tool to reach out to our activists and supporters by linking our
blog, website articles and Action Alerts to our Facebook and Twitter pages, while providing one-click access
to those and other social media sites such as Digg, FriendFeed, LinkedIn and StumbleUpon.
Our online presence was greater than ever in 2012 with the help of other blogs, YouTube and other
social media sites. During the year CAPS received more than 41,000 views of various uploaded videos
on YouTube, and was discussed, quoted in interviews or mentioned in more than 200 blog posts. This
resulted in even more notice of our positions and issues on Twitter and Facebook. We currently have
1,700 individual “likes” on Facebook, and 220 followers on Twitter.
CAPS Senior Writing Fellows Program
Our fellows (Joe Guzzardi, Michael W. Cutler, Maria Fotopoulos, Leon Kolankiewicz, Ric Oberlink, Inger
Eberhart and Rob Sanchez) were published in various media forums. With the particular assistance of
Joe Guzzardi and Michael W. Cutler, TV, radio, print and Internet exposure continued increasing,
with coverage in more than 200 blogs. We also produced and distributed widely three new CAPS Issues
pieces, Overpopulation and the Ocean, Overpopulation Overwhelms Salmon and Cassandra’s Heirs—
Can We Improve on Her Fate?
4 CAPS Fact
Radio
The Alana Burk Show
The Armstrong Williams Show
Bordering on Insanity
The Helen Glover Show
KQED News
Lou Dobbs Radio Show
The Rick Johnson & Mike Agnello Show
The Savage Nation with Michael Savage
Second Opinion with Don Griffin
Talk Back with Chuck Wilder
The Wells Report with Don-David Wells
York’s Morning News with Gary Sutton
Television
CBS47, Fresno, CA
KERO23, Bakersfield
KGET17, Bakersfield, CA
MSNBC, National
NBC-11, San Jose, CA
Telemundo, Bakersfield
Univision, Bakersfield & Los Angeles, CA
Short on Water—Again
A
fter a recent federal report was released,
U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar warned
that Arizona, California, Colorado, New
Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming can expect
less water from the Colorado River. These seven
states rely heavily on the river for agriculture, the
biggest water consumer in the West, as well as
for residential use.
Demand for Colorado River Basin water will
greatly outstrip supply in the decades ahead, according to the study. In less than 50 years, there
will be an estimated 3.2 million acre-feet shortfall from the Colorado River. This is about five
times more than what’s used in Los Angeles now.
The Secretary called for more planning, which
might include greater conservation and desalination, he said, to try to address the future shortfall.
Climate change will contribute to the crisis, because of higher evaporation rates and decreased
snowpack, both of which will contribute to
drought. Population growth will put even more
pressure on water supplies. In fact, increasing
population was viewed as the prime driver
of water demand by the study’s authors.
Interestingly, according to the L.A. Times, which
reported on the story, some environmental
groups, apparently operating in denial, said the
report overestimated population growth and,
thus, they believed the estimates for future water
demand were inflated.
California’s population alone, currently at almost 39
million, is expected to grow to 50 million by 2049
and to 52.7 million by 2060, according to California’s
Department of Finance. That’s nearly a 40 percent
increase from the state’s population now.
The estimated 15.4 million increase between 2010
and 2060 is greater than the current population
of either Illinois or Pennsylvania. Put another way,
currently a state with 15.4 million people would
make it the fifth largest in the United States.
Conservation and technology may offer some
mitigation, but any real planning for the coming
water crisis has to include discussion on how to
achieve sustainable populations in the Western
states and throughout the country. Otherwise,
any gains achieved through smarter water
approaches in farming and by more waterconscious consumers will be lost to the demands
of more and more people.
There are more unemployed people in California than any other state, by more than double.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
CAPS Welcomes New Board and Advisory Board Members
Ensure Your Legacy
By Katie Patrykus
CAPS Director of Development
Providing for CAPS through your estate
allows you to create your own personal
legacy that reflects your dreams for the
future of California and our nation.
Here are two easy and smart ways to
help support CAPS:
Charles K. (Kim) Fletcher, Jr. has been elected
to the CAPS Board of Directors. He was born in
Hollywood and moved to San Diego with his family during the middle of the Depression.
Charles Westhoff, Ph.D., emeritus professor of
Demographic Studies and Sociology at Princeton
University, has joined the CAPS Advisory Board
of Directors.
The CAPS Advisory Board of Directors also welcomes Keith Mautino, who currently is a trustee
of the Santa Barbara Courthouse Legacy Foundation and of the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena.
Kim graduated from Stanford University and
served in the U.S. Army in World War II. He joined
Home Federal as a management trainee in 1950
and was chairman of the board when he retired
in 1992. He also served as director of the Federal
Home Loan Bank of San Francisco. Kim is currently president of Investors Leasing Corporation,
a real estate investment company.
A former director of the Office of Population
Research, Charles has studied fertility and family
planning in the United States and developing
countries, as well as population policy. He served
as director of the Office of Population Studies at
Princeton and has written several books, including
Family Growth in Metropolitan America and The
Later Years of Childbearing.
Keith attended Occidental College, Westmont
College and UCSB graduate school in Asian Studies. He has been a trustee of the Santa Barbara
County Horticultural Society and a trustee and
Secretary of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum.
Active in many nonprofit organizations, Kim is a
member of the San Dieguito Boys & Girls Clubs
and a lifetime member of The Salvation Army
Advisory Board. A founding director of the San
Diego Economic Development Corporation, Kim
also was a trustee of the University of San Diego
and served a two-year term as president of the
United Way of San Diego.
Charles is a fellow of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences and a member of the Institute
of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
He was executive director of the Commission on
Population Growth and the American Future in
Washington, D.C. and was on the Committee on
Population of the National Academy of Sciences.
Formerly a Santa Barbara County Historic
Landmarks Commissioner, Keith also serves on
various committees for The Lotus Society, Ganna
Walska Lotusland, Community Arts Music Association Legacy Society and the Westmont Museum
Arts Council.
In his professional career, Keith has been a fine
art dealer and Asian art specialist for more than
25 years.
Additionally, Charles has been a consultant to the
World Fertility Survey, UNESCO, the UN Population Division Demographic and Health Surveys,
and the African Development Bank. He earned a
Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania.
Calling All Californians—Former and Current
E
very day we hear from Californians like you
who are proud of, and cherish the beauty of,
our “Golden State.” In the same breath, we
also hear your deep sense of loss and a shared
conviction that we must stop the relentless population growth degrading our quality of life.
CAPS listened. In response, we’ve launched a
“then and now” project, “The California We Are
Losing: Views of Our Golden State’s Transition from
Pristine to Imperiled.” Now, we need your help.
The goal of this project is to increase awareness
about relentless population growth’s long-term
effects on special places near and dear to our
hearts. We hope that a visual juxtaposition of
yesterday’s and today’s changed landscapes will
help inspire public action to help save our Golden
State from further irreversible environmental
degradation. Previous “then and now” projects have
rarely touched on the driving issue—population.
CAPS will be among the first to focus on the more
honest, and actionable, prism of population growth.
Your memories and personal/family archives are
needed to illustrate the changes in our state’s
special places through the 20th century to today.
Please send CAPS your photos and/or memories
of special places you love, with evidence of how
they have changed.
1. Charitable Gift Annuity
Tired of low CD rates? Consider a
charitable gift annuity that provides
fixed payments for life at higher rates
than a bank can offer. In addition to
guaranteed payments, you receive an
income tax deduction. After all your
payments are made, the remaining
funds will benefit CAPS.
2.A gift that costs nothing during
your lifetime!
Gifts to CAPS in your will may include
cash, securities, real estate, mineral
rights, royalties or art collections. For
example, you may give your house
to CAPS and continue to reside in it
for your lifetime, while you receive a
current income tax deduction.
Please contact me at 805-564-6626 or
[email protected] for more information. Thank you for your commitment
to future generations by considering CAPS
in your estate planning.
Claremont, Then and Now
Please forward your submissions to CAPS in one
of the following ways:
1940
1. Email [email protected]
(please attach photos in jpg format).
2. Mail to: CAPS
1129 State Street, Suite 3D
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
(please include your name and address on the back
of any photos so that we may return them to you).
Your materials may be featured on the new
CAPS website launching soon, in a documentary
on YouTube and/or through CAPS’ social media
outlets. Funding permitting, we may develop a
television campaign to elicit more interest, action
and support.
Thank you for joining us help a place we so dearly love.
2012
Dreaming About Lost Orange Groves
On the way to Claremont, there is an abandoned orange grove, weeds almost as tall as
the trees are, growing between the ranks of
the trees. For five years now I have looked
at them—tried not to look at them—as I
drive past. One day they will be cleared, and
a shopping mall or condominiums will take
their place. Meanwhile, they stand, in hopeless
rows, gray and dead. - M.S. 1986
For the first time since the dinosaurs disappeared, humans are driving animals and plants to
extinction faster than new species can evolve. International Union for the Conservation of Nature
CAPS Fact 5
Printed on Recycled Paper
Using Environmentally Safe Inks
Is your name or address wrong?
Please let us know.
Address Service Requested
CAPS • 1129 State Street, Suite 3-D
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
Phone: 805-564-6626
Fax: 805-564-6636
www.CAPSweb.org
NONPROFIT ORG
US POSTAGE
PAID
LOS ANGELES, CA
PERMIT NO. 3344
Californians For Population Stabilization
Tackling the Taboo
Leading environmental activists, scholars take on population in new book
CAPS Survey Results
By Leon Kolankiewicz, CAPS Senior Writing Fellow
W
hen it comes to human overpopulation
and the war it is waging on nature, the
American environmental establishment
has been AWOL for several decades. Now comes
a refreshing new anthology published by the
University of Georgia Press that seeks to remind
environmentalists of all that is at stake and make
them reconsider their dereliction of duty.
In Life on the Brink: Environmentalists Confront
Overpopulation, coeditors Phil Cafaro and Eileen
Crist marshaled a veritable who’s who of environmental and conservation leaders, scholars and
activists in a collection of essays that tackles this
touchy topic head on.
Cafaro is a
professor of
philosophy
at Colorado
State University, president
of the board
of Progressives
for Immigration
Reform and the
author of two
prior books on
environmental
ethics. Crist is
an associate professor in the Department of Science and Technology in Society at Virginia Tech
and author of Earth Ethics in an Age of Crisis.
In addition to Cafaro and Crist, more than two
dozen of today’s best thinkers on environmental
and population issues contributed to Life on the
Brink. Among them are Albert Bartlett, professor emeritus of physics, University of Colorado;
Joseph Bish, Population Institute; Anne and Paul
Ehrlich, authors of the groundbreaking The Population Explosion and many other books; and Dave
Foreman, cofounder of Earth First!
Former three-term Colorado governor, Richard
Lamm, also contributed to the book, along with
bioregionalist and fellow at the Post Carbon
Institute, Stephanie Mills; William Ryerson,
president of the Population Media Center; Captain
Paul Watson, cofounder of Greenpeace and
founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society;
and Don Weeden, executive director of the
6 CAPS Fact
Weeden Foundation and a 25-year veteran of
work in the international population field.
As CAPS members know all too well, population
isn’t ignored because it’s boring or passé, but
because it touches on a plethora of compelling,
but emotionally fraught and politically divisive issues, including sex, contraception, abortion, immigration, ethnicity, race, religion, culture, language
and limits to growth. While the environmental
establishment opted to avoid population and
being called nasty names, it cannot avoid overpopulation’s many environmental impacts.
As the most populous state in America, as a place
blessed with phenomenal natural beauty and rich
biodiversity, and as one of the cradles of the conservation movement in America (the Sierra Club
was founded here in 1892), it is not surprising
that California has generated more than its fair
share of population activism. And indeed, no less
than seven of the 26 contributors to Life on the
Brink are or were based in California and/or are
associated with CAPS.
In their foreword to the book, Paul Ehrlich and
Anne Ehrlich of Stanford University contend
that, “If projected rates of population and economic
growth are fulfilled in the next several decades,
safeguarding Earth’s precious store of living natural
capital, and thereby permitting the support of
further billions, will be virtually impossible.”
In his essay “Confronting Finitude,” Richard
D. Lamm, a member of CAPS’ advisory board,
writes: “The hardest challenge in public policy
is to change a policy that has been successful.”
Lamm cites immigration as just such a policy.
Why change it then, he asks. Because the world
has changed, he answers.
“Americans now live in a cash-wage industrial
society with no more virgin land,” Lamm writes.
And this new reality compels us to “no longer
blindly assume that all immigrants benefit America.”
Lamm goes on to urge Americans to urgently
reconsider their public policies, which falsely assume infinite resources in a finite world.
In “Overpopulation versus Biodiversity: How a
Plethora of People Produces a Paucity of Wildlife,” I examine the increase in human popula-
tion and the corresponding decrease in wildlife
in North America, concluding that “Our species is
unique, because here and now only we have the
ability to destroy, or to save, biodiversity. Limiting
human population will not guarantee success,
but not doing so means certain failure.”
Life on the Brink is recommended for all who truly
want to save an America and an Earth worth living
on. As coeditor Phil Cafaro cogently writes, the
contributors to this anthology:
…are committed to the idea that the
human race can be more than an evergaping mouth swallowing the world. We
want to work toward a future in which
humanity limits its appropriation of the
biosphere, and wild nature continues to
flourish. In this way, I believe, we stand
up for what is best in humanity.
Life on the Brink: Environmentalists Confront Overpopulation can be ordered at Amazon.com or the
University of Georgia Press.
Leon Kolankiewicz is a CAPS advisory board member
and CAPS senior writing fellow. A professional wildlife
biologist and environmental planner, Kolankiewicz is
the author of Where Salmon Come to Die: An Autumn
on Alaska’s Raincoast and also contributed to Life on
the Brink.
The response to a recent CAPS survey was overwhelming. Thanks to those of you who took the
time to tell us a little more about yourself. Here
are a few selected stats from the survey:
• More than 1,200 of you responded
• Your top concern (nearly 93% of you) is
that population growth driven by illegal
immigration is too high, particularly when
so many Americans are out of work
• Nearly half of you (48%) felt California’s
size should be 20-30 million people (currently
estimated at 38 million), while 57% of you
felt the United State’s size should be 200
million (estimate currently 315 million)
Many of you also offered your further help to advocate for a stabile population. Thank you! There
are many ways to help—from referring your
friends to CAPS’ FREE Action Alert Team to serving
as a media watchdog. Visit CAPSweb.org, click on
the “Take Action” tab and choose “Activist Tool Kit”
or contact CAPS at [email protected]
or 805-564-6626.
Legislative Action One Click Away!
Did you know we have a federal level component to our online Action Alert advocacy system? Anyone across the country can e-mail or fax their elected federal officials for free, see
key bills and votes in Congress, and contact members of the media directly. Simply click on
the CAPS Take Action Now! box on our home page, www.CAPSweb.org.
Our website also features legislative and congressional directories, targeted messages,
access to representatives, status of legislation and media messages.
If you are not an Action Alert member and would like to join, visit our website, call CAPS
at 805-564-6626, or e-mail us at [email protected]. If you need a specific Action
Alert for your local county or state officials, please contact us and we will set it up.
Crowding is a chronic source of stress, constitutes a major threat to psychological well-being and
contributes to considerably increased aggressive behavior. Crowding Stress by Peter Csermely