Sierra Club Immigration Vote

Re “Immigration Vote Divides Sierra Club,” March 16:

When John Muir and others founded the Sierra Club in 1896, its purpose was “to explore, enjoy and protect” the mountains of California. It has properly, I think, diversified to include the mountains, deserts, sea coasts, forests and wetlands under its umbrella, and the world as its domain. Still, I think we should stick to the charter, to explore, enjoy and protect.

There are many well-meaning people on both sides of the immigration issue. I cannot say that I enjoy what seems to me at times to be a process of helping to solve the population problems of other countries; and I must say that I do wish that the Catholic Church (and some other fundamentalist groups) would finally admit that the Earth really has a serious problem with overpopulation. Nevertheless, I do not think that it is appropriate for the Sierra Club to take a position on immigration.

PAUL R. COOLEY

Culver City

* Re “Cut Immigration, Save the Environment,” Commentary, March 15: Ben Zuckerman’s shameless attack on immigrants as a major source of society’s environmental problems reads like a thinly veiled apologia for nativism and xenophobia. His specious reasoning serves only to distort public perceptions of environmental issues.

Zuckerman puts his own intellectual dishonesty on display when he points out that “we 270 million Americans have as much worldwide impact as the more than 4 billion people who live in all of the developing countries of the world combined.” Therefore, the principal source of environmental degradation is not the potential of future immigration but the consumption patterns of those living in America right now. Furthermore, as important as it is for all Americans to develop environmentally sound practices, the key polluters both in the U.S. and abroad are not individuals but corporations.

SCOTT KURASHIGE, Director

UCLA Environmental Coalition

Westwood

* The Sierra Club has had a policy of limiting population growth for many years. In 1996 the club’s board of directors, without recourse to the membership, abandoned this policy, which brought on the current grass-roots effort to reinstate a policy that is vital to environmental protection not just in the wilderness but especially in the inner city.

What is unfortunate is the failure of the opponents of a limit on immigration to debate the facts. Instead, those of us who have worked for years on behalf of the Sierra Club and the environment and want to protect the quality of life that makes this country special are smeared with terms like “racists” and “eugenicists.” The facts are that all of us, of all colors, creeds and income levels, can have a healthier and more attractive environment with better opportunities in employment and education if we can put a lid on our population.

C.M. DEASY

San Luis Obispo