Urging for a Tougher Sierra Club Stance

The Sierra Club is obviously trying to duck the issue of immigration (“The Sierra Club and the Immigration Freight Train,” by James Ricci, Metropolis, June 9). Pollution is a local, national and international problem, just like rapid population growth. If the Sierra Club has pushed for legislation to reduce pollution, why is it not willing to lobby for measures to stop population growth in the U.S., which should include immigration reductions? The Sierra Club has spent a large amount of supporters’ money fighting development. But it refuses to urge elected officials in Washington, D.C., to reduce immigration, the driving force behind the population growth in the U.S. Where does the Sierra Club expect newcomers to live?

Yeh Ling-Ling

Diversity Alliance for a Sustainable America

Oakland

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How can Ben Zuckerman, a UCLA professor and Sierra Club board member who claims to have a clue of the workings of the cosmos, impose a view that California and Mexico are separate ecosystems? Nature has no borders. From a global perspective, what difference does it make if 100,000 or a million Mexicans are here or there? Ultimately, it is the same water and same air. For the Sierra Club to even consider the lopsided view that immigrants (legal and illegal) are California’s biggest eco-threat is shocking. Compared to the life span of a star, it was only a blink of an eye ago that California was part of Mexico. California owes them, not vice versa. Immigrants are a fact of life. Let’s look at how we can accommodate people rather than exclude them.

Mark Berlin

Venice