>LINK<


Environment
Send an E-Wire Release



********************************************************************** E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE **********************************************************************
TO NATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDITORS:


NPG Responds to Sierra Club Policy Change:
Sierra Club Endorses Policy of 'Negative Population Growth'

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 -/E-Wire/-- The Sierra Club, the nation's leading environmental organization, adopted advocacy of reduction in human population in the United States and the world. The decision by the Club's Board of Directors recognized that the Club's 1970 position to "stabilize" populations was no longer adequate in the face of the dire environmental consequences of overpopulation as Earth's population rockets past six billion.

"Sierra Club leaders' announcement of a negative population growth policy is welcome news," said Sharon Stein, Executive Director of the Washington- based advocacy group, NPG. "We hope other environmental organizations follow suit."

In 1970, the year of the first Earth Day, Zero Population Growth, or "ZPG" was a central theme in the U.S. because of alarm over the post WWII Baby Boom. In fact, the boom was already over by then with the U.S. birth-rate falling slightly below death-rate.

Changes in U.S. immigration law starting in 1965 soon restarted growth. To emphasize the need for more action than "ZPG" implied, the term for reduction, or negative population growth was coined and the organization NPG was founded.

Today the U.S. is huge, ranking number three in population after China and India. The U.S. population is growing far faster than that of other large industrialized nations. If present rates continue, U.S. population will double to over half a billion in less than 70 years, 80% of the growth due to post-1970 immigration and its descendants.

Americans are concerned about the congestion, sprawl and other pressures from rapid population growth. Polls show general support including from recent immigrants for lowering immigration levels, now the highest in U.S. history.

Only grassroots action like that of the Sierra Club, focusing on the inevitability of limits imposed by Nature, may cause the popular will to be heard to halt over-immigration.



.

[This message has been edited by Lokil (edited 05-16-2001).]