Implications of the Impossible: Environmental Consequences of Perpetual National Population Growth

National population increase during 5 minute radio interview = 20 people

National population increase during 30 minute feature broadcast = 125 people

National population increase every 24 hours = 6000+

Total population of nation is 306 million people

National population increase every year = 2.4 million

Average annual people admitted as legal immigrants into the US: 1 million more citizens

Estimated average annual illegal immigration into the US: 800,000 more

Estimated current undocumented residents in the US: 11.3 million

Number of amnesties since 1986: 7 amnesties

Additional citizens as a results of amnesties since 1987: 6 million more citizens

The nation’s population is growing at 0.7% per year, which may not sound significant – but it is.

In 100 years of growing at such a rate, the national population will double in size, while our bio-capacity is almost certain to be diminished due to the growing population’s demands on resources and open space.

According to an analysis of the Global Footprint Network’s ecological footprint data, U.S. bio-capacity (our domestic surface area available to produce resources for consumption and to assimilate resulting waste), currently provides for only 48% of our annual subsistence; 52% of our annual subsistence is enabled by importing bio-capacity, drawing down resource reserves, and degrading our habitat.

California’s central valley, which provides half of all fruits and vegetables to the United States, has seen its acreage reduced by 500,000 acres in the last 20 years as 2 million people moved into the region. The valley’s current population of 5.5 million is expected to grow to 12.5 million by 2040, reducing farmland by at least another one million acres.

36 percent of schools in the United States use portable classrooms to alleviate over-crowding and one-fifth hold classes in temporary instructional space, such as cafeterias and gyms.
The United States – just to maintain the level of traffic congestion it currently suffers – has to add over 16,000 miles of highways and major streets each year.

Municipal solid waste per capita leveled out at about 4.5 lbs. per person per day in 1990 and have stayed the same ever since. However, due to population growth, total solid waste has continued to increase – from 205 million tons per year in 1990 to 251 million tons per year in 2006.

Immigration to the US

On average, over 1 million foreign-born people are granted permanent residence status each year. (In 2005 it was 1.2 million). Prior to a 1965 change in law, annual entries were about 300,000 per year.

82% of the US population increase from now until 2050 will result from the foreign-born people arriving from 2005 to 2050 and their U.S.-born descendants.

If Congress were to set immigration policy to allow for 300,000 people to be invited into the nation per year – the historical norm – US population would be 80 million less then is currently projected to be at mid-century.

Mass-immigration hurts the wages and job prospects of US citizens that are in the lower-middle and lower economic classes.

The winners of mass immigration are employers that can pay exploitative wages and the upper classes who can therefore pay less for basic services. The losers are native-born minority Americans and those that are relatively unskilled and uneducated – in other words, mass immigration is hurting the most vulnerable US citizens.


Produced by Joseph Bish, Executive Director, New England Coalition for Sustainable Population