Thinking that it has caught Gov. Timothy M. Kaine in a “gotcha” moment, the House Republican leadership has made an issue of the governor’s “selective sense of urgency” in addressing global warming and illegal immigration. Stated a press release issued yesterday by House Speaker’s office:
In today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch, Governor Kaine declares about his proposal concerning global warming, “While climate change should be addressed at the national level, I think most governors are just tired of waiting. We can’t wait for the federal government to do it.”
Conversely, on the issue of criminal illegal aliens, the Governor has castigated the federal government for failing to take action — but has discouraged state and municipal governments from stepping in.
“Suggesting Virginia should take a proactive role on global warming – an issue he concedes is federal in nature – while failing to take action on the growing negative effects of criminal illegal aliens is misguided and insulting to Virginians’ common sense.”
The Republicans stumbled onto a legitimate point, but they played it wrong. They tried to stick Kaine with a charge of hypocrisy, which the media predictably ignored, tossing it off as cheap and meaningless campaign rhetoric. But if handled properly, the Global Warming angle could change the tenor of the illegal immigration debate: Illegal immigrants contribute to global warming.
Seriously. I’m not making that up.
According to prevailing Global Warming theory, manmade global warming is the result of the increase in greenhouse gases, predominantly carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere. The rising level of CO2 can be attributed primarily, though not exclusively, to increasing consumption of fossil fuels. Until renewable energy can kick in on a large scale, fossil fuel consumption is a function of two things: the number of people and the level of material prosperity. In other words, the more people there are who consume more stuff, the more greenhouse gases they’ll generate.
So, what happens when a poor worker from Mexico (2006 per capita income, about $11,000) moves to the United States (per capita income, about $43,000)? He’ll wind up earning four times as much money, consuming four times more stuff and generating four times the volume of greenhouse gases. Bottom line: the massive influx of illegal immigration into Virginia contributes to this country’s rapid population growth and surging resource consumption. If Gov. Kaine wants to hold down greenhouse gas emissions, he needs to stem the tide of illegal population growth.
Now, a lot of people won’t buy this line of logic. But it seems fully consistent with Gov. Kaine’s worldview — and that of many environmentalists, who believe there are just too darn many people on the planet consuming too much stuff. Given Kaine’s missionary work in Honduras as a young man and his sentimental attitude toward Hispanics, I doubt that he will change his position. But other environmentalists and conservationists may be looking for ways to curb population growth any way they can.
Instead of going for the easy “gotcha” moment, worth at best a one-paragraph quote buried deep in a one-day news story, the Republicans should be holding serious discussions with leaders of the environmental/conservation movement to see if they can find common ground.