<Gore sets goal of 100% carbon-free electricity by 2020 The Oil Drum DrumBeat: July 19, 2008>

150 comments on Looking for answers, a slight cough, and thoughts on Boone's plan

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FiniteQuantity on July 18, 2008 - 10:30pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Would it be fair to say the measures you propose are not intended to limit population growth as such, but rather to restrict U.S. immigration?

Since I prefaced it by saying I was speaking from an American perspective limiting immigration drastically limits population growth where I live - America. Al Gore didn't call for the world to have 100% renewable energy by 2020 - he called for America to do it. We won't hit 100% by 2020, but whatever percent we hit, will be higher if we end immigration today. And ultimately ending US immigration will limit total world population as well since the countries that are overpopulating through births (which is now the US as well thanks to immigrant mothers), most notably Mexico, but also India, Pakistan, the Phillipines, and others, will have to deal with their population problem sooner. Mexico can't shreak loud enough at any proposal to stop illegal immigration. They see it as a big solution to their problems. Stop it and they need to find other solutions. Like maybe birth control.

And at the end of the day, would that resolve our issues with excess resource use and environmental degradation?

An American uses more resources than a Philipino or a Mexican or an Indian. Allowing them to come to the US causes more resource use and environmental degradation than if they had remained home. At the end of any day in which people immigrant from the 3rd world to the US, there is more resources used than there was the day before, more environmental degradation that day than there was the day before. No one thing will resolve our issues with "excess resource use and environmental degradation" so I think it is unfair to say that if something doesn't solve the problem completely than it shouldn't be done. That is what people that don't want a local wind farm always say. They point to how small that wind farm's output will be in relation to what the state needs and then say "this wind farm will not solve our energy problem, therefore it can be canceled with no bad effect".

At the end of many many days, 2 million immigrants a year into the US, plus their offspring ends up being 10s of millions and uses tremendous resources and causes tremendous environmental degradation - if nothing else - for the US.

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Dryki on July 18, 2008 - 10:49pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Limiting immigration as long as WE in the US have such a disproportionally larger share than anyone else, as long as that disproportional share is based on taking away from those same people who then must try to work their way here, no, it will not work. No, if we want to stop the urge to come to US, we need to
take less and help others have more.

Or put all our efforts into guns. Maybe just shooting people at the border. And it won't be long before we start shooting people within our borders with equal abandon. How we make and pay for those guns is going to be an interesting question. Nuclear and biological weapons - on a mass scale - that's probably what US will do. After all, we already have the stockpiles.

Before we do that, however, we're going to need a Pinochet-like purge of the unpatriotic elements within US society. Which is why Homeland Security's terrorist watch list is now over 1 million Americans. Nixon was just playing around.

cfm in Gray, ME

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FiniteQuantity on July 18, 2008 - 11:06pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

We can stop immigration without stopping "the urge to come to the US" or using guns to kill people. And we likely will, only for very sad reasons. As horrible and "immoral" as the pro-immigration crowd want to paint a stoppage of immigration, it happened once before - during the Great Depression. And it wasn't turned on again (for the most part) until Teddy Kennedy and his team got fired up about it in the 1960's. That's 30 years without significant immigration. The country survived fine, the world survived fine. No one went to hell because of it.

Ultimately I don't see how that won't be the story again if things go as badly as they could once oil production starts to decline. You will not have a Great Depression II, with high 25% unemployment, and a government that looks the other way as employers hire illegals from Mexico.You will not have a Great Depression II and have a government that cows to the incessant begging and whining of greedy businessmen who claim they must have more and more foreign workers or they won't be able to compete ... with the American company down the block. And you will not have a Great Depression II with 25% unemployment and a million new immigrants each year waiting for their citizenship papers.

And also, you will not have a Great Depression II, and have a government that looks the other way as employers send jobs to China and India in massive amounts. Pulling back jobs from China and India while simultaneously freezing the US population would be a great way to lesson world demand for oil, just as sending massive amounts of jobs over there was a great way to hit Peak Oil sooner rather than later.

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Kiashu on July 19, 2008 - 1:23am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

...

Where do people like you come from? Are you posting from your bunker in the hills, or what?

The mind boggles.

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GauharJK on July 19, 2008 - 2:05am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

An American uses more resources than a Philipino or a Mexican or an Indian.

Surely, Americans do consume and waste enormous resources. Why do you feel you have the right to spend a life of luxury, while others should be denied of these things? Everyone here wants a better life for themselves and their loved ones. And if its in America, people will go. If not legally, then by illegally crossing the borders.

Do you know how many illegal immigrants enter the US every year?

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FiniteQuantity on July 19, 2008 - 4:54am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Surely, Americans do consume and waste enormous resources. Why do you feel you have the right to spend a life of luxury, while others should be denied of these things?

I am not denying anyone anywhere in the world the ability to live a life of luxury. You don't have to come to America to live a life of luxury.

Everyone here wants a better life for themselves and their loved ones. And if its in America, people will go. If not legally, then by illegally crossing the borders.

It is a simple matter to stop illegal immigration. People can't come to where they aren't wanted. Right now the people in power want illegal immigration so it occurs, but if they decide they don't want it then it wouldn't matter how much a Mexican crossing the border or an Indian or Chinese overstaying their visa wants to come they wouldn't be able to get a job, get any services, etc. because Americans would know the penalty was too to severe if they deal with them.

Do you know how many illegal immigrants enter the US every year?

Tons, but you have both George Bush and John McCain who want to give them another amnesty. Rich men love illegal immigration. They lose no jobs due to it, have no salary lowered from it, don't have their neighborhoods taken over by it, have no gangs in their kids schools because of it, etc. - they only see it benefiting them as they hire cheap and desperate gardeners and nannies and maids and what have you while all of society, rich and poor alike has to share the burden of the costs of the illegals. I wouldn't be surprised if Barack Obama was all for it. If the people in power ever decide they don't like illegal immigration they will stop it. If we go into a Great Depression both legal and illegal immigration will stop. Any politician who continues the "great immigration propaganda" at that point will be voted out of office.

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150 comments on Looking for answers, a slight cough, and thoughts on Boone's plan

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