The Loss of Gaylord Nelson's Leadership
08/24/2005
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The late Sen. Gaylord Nelson's memorial service (televised on C-span and still available for viewing) several weeks ago was a large and tasteful affair, with many well known politicians telling stories about Nelson's bi-partisan environmental leadership and his love for America's natural treasures. But no one mentioned the "I" word or noted that Nelson never forgot the immigration-overpopulation connection in a haze of political correctness, as many of his environmental contemporaries have.

The article in hand ["Will anyone take up Gaylord Nelson's fight against overpopulation?" and Part 2 here] seeks to remind readers of Gaylord Nelson's real intellectual legacy, that of warning against overpopulation and its American cause, immigration. Unfortunately, current environmental leaders are too corrupted by leftist globalism to listen to his common-sense wisdom. (And the Sierra Club received over $100 million in "donations" in return for not discussing excessive immigration's negative environmental effects.)

[Biographer Bill] Christofferson says he once asked Nelson why, if overpopulation was a global problem, he thought controlling immigration in the United States was so crucial.

Nelson then related an argument put forth by famed environmentalist Garrett Hardin, which he called the "global pothole problem," Christofferson says.

"He said, 'That's like saying if you can't fix every pothole in the world, there's no sense in trying to fill the one right in front of your house.'"

The Vdare obituary of Sen. Nelson did not forget the immigration component of his message.

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