Taboo n. 1. A prohibition excluding something from use, approach, or mention because of its sacred and inviolable nature. An object, word, or act protected by such a prohibition.
How and why the immigration-population-environment connection is avoided by members of the scientific community is the topic of this edition of The Social Contract. We like to think that specialists concerned with such issues as endangered species, water and other resource shortages, and environmental degradation are willing to confront the causal role played by population growth. But as the contributors reveal, leading members of the scientific community deliberately curtail discussion of the role played by immigration-fueled population growth and have taken measures to avoid public discussion of it in their journals.
This outstanding collection of essays is a project of our West Coast Editor, Dr. Diana Hull, with assistance from Leon Kolankiewicz. Dr. Stuart Hurlbert, emeritus Professor of Biology at San Diego State University, is a key contributor. He has long challenged the scientific community to make the connection between immigration and threats to the environment. Indeed, shouldn’t immigration-spurred population growth be considered the ultimate environmental problem in the United States?
John Cairns, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Environmental Biology Emeritus at Virginia Tech University, and a long-time contributor to The Social Contract, has been unafraid to confront fellow members of the environmental community about immigration, population growth, and the environment. We are pleased to include an appreciation of his work by Dr. M. Rupert Cutler, former Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. In addition, Dr. Karen Cairns, his daughter, discusses “The Legitimate Role of Advocacy in Environmental Education” in a very thoughtful essay on ethical issues that present themselves when there is temptation to suppress fact or opinion bearing on matters at the interface of science and society.
We are grateful to Brenda Walker for detailing how the Sierra Club was basically bought by a proponent of Open Borders. The largest non-governmental environmental organization is now a big part of the problem.
How the scientific community covers these issues is a significant variable affecting public opinion and policy. Likewise, in a final essay Robert J. Samuelson points out the complicity of the mainline media in maintaining public ignorance as a result of its self-censorship on critical immigration issues. As contributors to this issue confirm, all these institutions do a disservice by continuing to ignore the immigration-population connection.