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Many environmentalists are conflicted about immigration. Caught between a desire to limit national populations and a desire to help poor people—mostly in South America—live better lives.
About The Population Factor:
A series of key conversations examining the connection between our planet’s growing population & related issues. Expect to be educated on a range of topics including climate change, wildlife preservation, immigration policy & consumption patterns.
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EarthX is a media company dedicated to inspiring people to care about the planet. We take an omni channel approach to reach audiences of every age through its robust 24/7 linear channel distributed across cable and FAST outlets, along with dynamic, solution oriented short form content on social and digital platforms. EarthX is home to original series, documentaries and snackable content that offer sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. EarthX is the only network that delivers entertaining and inspiring topics that impact and inspire our lives on climate and sustainability.
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Many environmentalists are conflicted about immigration. Caught between a desire to limit national populations and a desire to help poor people—mostly in South America—live better lives.
About The Population Factor:
A series of key conversations examining the connection between our planet’s growing population & related issues. Expect to be educated on a range of topics including climate change, wildlife preservation, immigration policy & consumption patterns.
EarthX
Love Our Planet.
The Official Network of Earth Day.
About Us:
At EarthX, we believe our planet is a pretty special place. The people, landscapes, and critters are likely unique to the entire universe, so we consider ourselves lucky to be here. We are committed to protecting the environment by inspiring conservation and sustainability, and our programming along with our range of expert hosts support this mission. We’re glad you’re with us.
EarthX is a media company dedicated to inspiring people to care about the planet. We take an omni channel approach to reach audiences of every age through its robust 24/7 linear channel distributed across cable and FAST outlets, along with dynamic, solution oriented short form content on social and digital platforms. EarthX is home to original series, documentaries and snackable content that offer sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. EarthX is the only network that delivers entertaining and inspiring topics that impact and inspire our lives on climate and sustainability.
EarthX Website: https://earthxmedia.com/
Follow Us:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earthxmedia/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/earthxmedia
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EarthXMedia/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@earthxmedia
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EarthXMedia
How to watch:
United States:
- Spectrum
- AT&T U-verse (1267)
- DIRECTV (267)
- Philo
- FuboTV
- Plex
- Fire TV
#EarthDay #Environment #Sustainability #Ecofriendly #Conservation #EarthX
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TVTranscript
00:00Many environmentalists in the developed world are conflicted about the issue of immigration,
00:06caught between a desire to limit national populations and a desire to help poor foreigners
00:12live better lives.
00:14How should environmentalists think about immigration?
00:16Today on The Population Factor, we explore this issue with Madeline Weld, President of
00:22Population Institute, Canada.
00:52How should environmentalists think about immigration?
00:59Many environmentalists in the developed world are conflicted about the issue of immigration,
01:05caught between a desire to limit the growth of national populations and a desire to help
01:11poor foreigners live better lives.
01:14Today on The Population Factor, we discuss what a compassionate yet sustainable immigration
01:20policy might be.
01:22We're joined today by Madeline Weld from Population Institute, Canada.
01:29Madeline, welcome to The Population Factor.
01:32Thank you very much for having me.
01:34It's wonderful to see you again.
01:37Great to see you again, Phil.
01:38Tell us a little bit about the work of Population Institute, Canada.
01:43Okay, so Population Institute, Canada was created under another name, the Ottawa Family
01:50Planning Project.
01:51And then a few years later, we tried to create a cross-Canada network because there were
01:58environmental organizations here and there, or concerned with population or sustainability.
02:04That didn't last so long.
02:07And so later, we changed our name to Global Population Concerns.
02:11So is your group more focused on sort of global population issues or Canadian population issues?
02:18Well, it's concerned about both.
02:21The Ottawa Family Planning Project, when it was formed, it was to raise money for Planned
02:27Parenthood or organizations that would support family planning in the developing world.
02:32But in the early 1990s is also the time when the Canadian government greatly ramped up
02:39immigration levels, and the government embraced high immigration levels, and they increased
02:45it to 250,000 each year, regardless of economic circumstances.
02:52And every government since then, liberal or conservative, has kept up the very high immigration
02:58levels.
02:59And Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants to raise them even more.
03:03This year, because of COVID last year in 2020, our intake was, I think, only in quotation
03:10marks, about 160,000.
03:13He wants to take in 400,000 this year, which is a very high number.
03:19That would be extremely high for Canada.
03:21The United States only takes in about 1.2 million immigrants annually.
03:26So Canada is maybe about an eighth of the U.S. population, something like that.
03:32We are at about 38 million now.
03:36And so it is a very high level.
03:37And especially given that businesses are, a lot of businesses have been wiped out or
03:43are struggling with all the shutdowns during COVID, it seems rather misguided to be increasing
03:50immigration levels.
03:51And there's actually no good economic reason that I can think of that we actually need
03:57to increase our immigration levels.
04:01So I think it has a lot to do with politics.
04:05Let me ask you a question.
04:07What is the environmental argument for reducing immigration into Canada or the United States?
04:15Well, the environmental argument is that every human being has an impact.
04:20Even if you try to be as environmental as possible, you have to live in a house, you
04:25have to eat food, the food has to be grown somewhere.
04:28You need things to live.
04:31You need buildings.
04:32The more people there are, the more schools, the more hospitals, the more houses, et cetera,
04:39you will need.
04:40And Canada's growing population is certainly having a huge impact on the environment.
04:45But what would you say to people who say, well, you know, obviously population is an
04:50environmental issue, but immigration really just moves people from one place to another.
04:56So it's neutral.
04:58Well, I would say that a country has to make sure that it is sustainable.
05:04And I think that is the case, because when you move people from all over the world to
05:08Canada and, you know, it doesn't really matter where they come from, they need to live in
05:12a house and they're going to need services.
05:16And they have caused a huge amount of development in the southern part of Canada, especially
05:22in the Toronto area, which is in southwestern Ontario.
05:26The impact on the farmland has been enormous.
05:29We lose in Ontario, for example, about 175 acres every day of farmland.
05:35And you know, supposedly there are strategies to try to reduce the impact on farmland.
05:40But by 2000 or so, Ontario had lost about 20 percent of its farmland.
05:48And some of the best farmland in Canada is in southern Ontario.
05:52We don't have, given our latitude, we don't have that much good farmland.
05:56Let me just stop you there.
05:58A lot of people don't realize, I mean, one of the things you probably hear is, well,
06:02Canada is a big country and there's plenty of room.
06:06But I think one of the things you might be running into is the same space where you've
06:12got some of your best farmland, maybe a little bit more in the south, is also where people
06:18want to live.
06:19And so it doesn't necessarily help that you've got the great frozen north if people in farmland
06:27are sort of competing for the same land near the U.S. border.
06:31Well, that's exactly right.
06:33And actually, 90 percent of the Canadian population lives within 100 miles or 160 kilometers of
06:40the U.S. border.
06:42So most people live on about 7 percent of Canada's surface areas.
06:47And you can't really establish large populations in most of Canada without huge inputs of energy.
06:55Where would those people get their food from?
06:57They can't grow it.
06:58And by hunting, you cannot support a very large population.
07:04Is Canada's population growing now?
07:07It's growing, yes.
07:08It's growing rapidly by about close to 1 percent a year.
07:11I think it's 0.9 percent a year now.
07:15And immigration contributes about 80 percent of that growth.
07:19Because like the U.S., Canada has had a total fertility rate, or a TFR, at or below 2 since
07:26about 1970.
07:27I mean, the baby boomers did not have many children.
07:33And so even though they were a large cohort, so when they started to have children, there
07:37was a little bit of a mini-population boom.
07:40But that would have settled by now.
07:43And the total fertility rate has been quite low for a long time.
07:47So immigration is contributing to an increasing share of population growth.
07:52So it sounds as if Canada's sort of in the same boat as many wealthy, developed nations.
07:59Fertility rates are actually below replacement rate.
08:02But your population is still growing, partly, in large part, because of immigration.
08:09And I think that's similar, certainly it's similar to the United States, Australia, many
08:13countries in Western and Northern Europe.
08:17So the argument then would be that in order to create a sustainable society, we need to
08:24stabilize these populations, perhaps even reduce them.
08:27Do you have a sense of what a, you said earlier, Canada's population is around 38 million people.
08:34What would a sustainable Canadian population be?
08:37Well, estimates have been about 10 million.
08:43In 1970, we were about 20 million and, you know, everything was working.
08:49We had all the, you know, building we needed.
08:54We were a comfortable society.
08:57I don't really see how growth has contributed to the well-being of Canadians.
09:02And of course, things are more hectic, more crowded, more traffic.
09:05And as you increase the population, you, of course, cut off access to nature because
09:10it gets farther and farther away.
09:12Well, apparently, there are some Canadians who don't have a problem with that.
09:16Tell me a little bit about the Century Initiative.
09:18Yes, the Century Initiative is an organization that believes that we should have a population
09:26of 100 million Canadians by 2100.
09:30That seems to be its entire raison d'etre.
09:33It's completely business oriented.
09:36I don't think there's an environmentalist among a lot of them.
09:41So they have the standard economic idea that growth is good and more growth is better and
09:46even more growth is best.
09:48I don't know what drives them because the standard of living of Canadians has not been
09:54going up with this growth.
09:57It seems to be growth for growth's sake.
09:59But then on the other hand, I guess, you know, there are some, let's say, profiteers
10:04of growth.
10:05Sure.
10:06So there is some support in Canada for the Century Initiative.
10:11And see if you can explain this to me, because here in the United States, when we think of
10:16your prime minister, Trudeau, we think of him as an environmentalist.
10:21And yet it sounds as if he's very supportive of increasing population numbers.
10:28Do people in Canada see that as a disconnect or not?
10:31Well, I think some of them certainly do, because in surveys, most Canadians do not think that
10:37we need a larger population or that we need more immigration.
10:41But the idea of more immigration is being sold very dogmatically.
10:47I mean, and it's being promoted by the media, including by the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting
10:52Corporation promotes it.
10:56And then there's also the idea that if you oppose mass immigration, then you are anti-immigrant
11:02or xenophobic or this or that.
11:05I don't hear them very much at all discussing the negatives, the environmental impacts of
11:10immigration, because they'll, well, the media in general will, in general, treat environmental
11:17problems as sort of things that are out there on their own, like, you know, pollution or
11:23sprawl as an inevitability.
11:26So, you know, they'll discuss making things greener or, you know, greener energy or this
11:31or that without looking at the fact that if you're constantly bringing in more people,
11:36the energy demands are going to increase.
11:39So you talk to a lot of environmentalists about this issue, and you know that a lot
11:45of environmentalists are conflicted about immigration.
11:50Many of them even are themselves argue for higher levels of immigration.
11:56What are some of the arguments that are given against limiting immigration for environmental
12:02reasons?
12:03I don't think you can think of any environmental reason not to limit immigration, since immigration
12:09means, by definition, growth in the number of people, means more people, and more people
12:16means more use of resources.
12:19So I think then the reasons become, well, they become political, and they'll often resort
12:24to saying, well, you're xenophobic because you don't like these people because they're
12:29brown or black or yellow or whatever.
12:33That argument, and it'll be an argument of compassion, it'll be, you know, these people
12:38need help.
12:40We should bring them here and help them.
12:44Those arguments I would call false arguments.
12:47But I mean, you seem like a nice person, a compassionate person.
12:51And it is true that by bringing someone from a poor country to a wealthy country like the
12:57United States or Canada, you really can improve their economic and personal opportunities.
13:06So what about that compassion argument for more immigration?
13:09Is there any truth behind it?
13:12I don't think so, because the people who come to Canada and the US are not the poorest of
13:17the poor.
13:18They're the people, usually, of some means, one could help far more people in situ with
13:25the same amount of money, providing aid for development, and especially for contraception.
13:32When you hear about some of these refugee, for instance, refugee camps, sometimes the
13:38fertility rate there is very high.
13:41The kids there have very little chance of a good life, as I see it.
13:46But I could imagine someone listening to that argument and saying, yes, as things stand
13:51now, we take in a lot of people who maybe don't need to come.
13:55But there certainly are people around the world who would benefit from being moved to
14:00wealthier countries.
14:02So let's shift immigration policy more in that direction.
14:06What do you think about that sort of argument?
14:08Well, I think taking in refugees is sometimes a very good thing.
14:12And Canada took in a lot of Vietnamese refugees and more recently, Syrian refugees.
14:18But again, one can help people.
14:20And then the idea is that they would return to their country of origin when things settle
14:26down a bit, because our capacity, our absorptive capacity is not unlimited.
14:32So really what it can come down to is, again, a matter of carrying capacity.
14:38There might be arguments from compassion to try to help more people as individuals, but
14:44it could simply be the case that if you try to help too many individuals, you're going
14:50to undermine what makes a society wealthy and flourishing in the first place.
14:56Well, I think there's definitely that possibility, because as we were talking about farmland,
15:02if we pave over all our farmland, how are we going to help feed the world?
15:06Canada and the U.S. both contribute significantly to the global food supply.
15:13Also, when people come to richer countries, they often send remittances back home.
15:19And those remittances help business as usual to continue back home instead of the reforms
15:26that are needed.
15:27That's a really interesting point.
15:29That's an argument that I've often heard, that by acting as a sort of a safety valve
15:35for countries that are overpopulated or not taking care of their own problems, countries
15:42like Canada and the United States can make things worse.
15:47What do you think of that argument?
15:48I think it's accurate, because overpopulation is a problem that we will not be able to escape
15:56in the long run.
15:57Because the argument often is one American or one Canadian consumes 20 times or 40 times
16:03as much as one Somali or one Ugandan or whatever it is.
16:08But when it comes to the local environment, desperately poor people can devastate it just
16:15trying to survive as their population increases.
16:18For example, Ethiopia is deforested, not because of big lumber companies, but because
16:26of poor people needing more space to grow food, ever more space.
16:32Lake Victoria is pretty much fished out.
16:37Not so much because of big fishing trawlers, but because of ever more people trying to
16:42get their food.
16:45So what do you think is the responsibility of people in those countries, governments
16:50in those countries to deal with population issues?
16:55What they should do is what has been done very successfully in a number of countries,
16:59which is to educate people about the benefits of small families and to make family planning
17:05methods, all kinds of family planning methods available to everyone, including the poorest.
17:12It would improve life for everyone because most people want to stay where they are and
17:19with their own customs and what is familiar to them.
17:23And these programs have been implemented successfully, for example, by Bangladesh, the state of Kerala
17:29in India and in Iran.
17:33Really that's a bright spot in this whole discussion.
17:37When people, when governments decide that limiting fertility is an issue, it seems as
17:44if we can do that and we can do it voluntarily.
17:47Yes.
17:49And as Jane O'Sullivan of Australia has shown, that saying that development leads to smaller
17:56families is putting the cart before the horse because smaller families leads to increased
18:02per capita wealth, which is development.
18:05You don't have to have development in order to use birth control.
18:09And many very poor women would willingly embrace birth control if it were available.
18:15That's the case in, for example, in the Philippines, which one of Jane O'Sullivan's example was
18:22comparing the Philippines and Thailand from 1970 onward.
18:26In 1970, they had a similar population, a similar per capita GDP, but Thailand's total
18:32fertility rate fell dramatically and it became a lot richer.
18:37The Philippines had the disadvantage of having the Vatican oppose and the bishops oppose
18:44any kind of contraception.
18:46And Thailand did a much better job at bringing fertility rates down and as O'Sullivan has
18:53shown, really reaped the economic benefits of that.
18:56Madeline, let me ask you about something else.
18:59There's been a change in the discourse around population.
19:04For the 25 years from about 1970 up to the Cairo Population Conference, it was sort of
19:12seen as acceptable for governments to explicitly advocate for smaller families.
19:19Not to force people to have smaller families, but to say to them, it would be good if more
19:24people had smaller families.
19:27Since Cairo, that sort of fell out of favor and the thought was any sort of government
19:33advocacy of small families risked becoming coercive.
19:37What is your sense of that change and how we've been served by that change?
19:42Well, I think we've been served very poorly by that change.
19:47I guess we could call it the social justice warrior change, where being concerned about
19:52the population was condemned as racist or whatever, colonialist.
19:57And I think that's a terrible mistake because nature doesn't really care about your political
20:04ideology at all.
20:05And the coercion that the environment can exert is much harsher than that of any population
20:13control program you can think of.
20:17It's a good point, right?
20:18I mean, there's different kinds of coercion.
20:21You can coerce a woman into not having a child that she wants, but starvation is a kind of
20:27coercion too.
20:28Yes, it is.
20:29And lack of water.
20:30I mean, the UN said clean water is a human right.
20:34Okay, tell that to depleting aquifers that people have a right to water.
20:40They're not going to listen.
20:42Yeah.
20:43I mean, rights really depend on a lot of things, but sometimes we forget that rights are claims
20:49on limited resources.
20:51And so at some point, you can want everybody to have that right to clean water, a right
20:59to being able to explore nature, a right to breathe clean air.
21:04But if the resources aren't there, the right sort of goes away.
21:09Yeah, then it becomes meaningless talk because you can't force nature to do anything.
21:17And then the question is to whose benefit?
21:20I mean, humans are already of the mammalian biomass on earth.
21:25Humans and their animals, their domestic animals, that is, and farm animals are over 95%.
21:32So what's the point of overwhelming the world?
21:35I mean, I think you're saying at some point, more isn't necessarily better, including in
21:41just sheer numbers of people.
21:43That's exactly right.
21:45There was a photograph I saw of a giraffe overlooking the slums of Nairobi.
21:50And when people say, you know, the poor only consume one 20th or whatever of what we consume,
21:57but it doesn't matter to that giraffe because its territory is being used up.
22:02And the bushmeat that is being hunted for meat, it doesn't help them if so many hungry
22:06people are after them.
22:07Even if those hungry people don't get much meat, it still kills off their wildlife.
22:12And it seems to be a tendency of late to measure environmental impact entirely in terms
22:18of greenhouse gas emissions.
22:20But that's not the only way.
22:21There's lots of ways to destroy the environment.
22:24And 8 billion humans are doing a pretty good job of it.
22:28Well, you've given us a lot to think about, Madeline Weld.
22:32Thank you so much for visiting The Population Factor.
22:36It's been a real pleasure talking to you, Phil, and thank you so much for having me.