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Our per capita emissions of carbon dioxide have remained relatively stable for at least several decades, if that continues it would mean that if we allow our U.S. population to continue increasing by about ten percent (roughly 30 million each decade) our carbon emissions will increase accordingly.

A Bad Bet on Carbon, a recent Op-Ed from the New York Times (May 13, 2010) by Robert Bryce of the Manhattan Institute explains why carbon capture and sequestration from coal burning power plants, which many experts advance as a solution to the pressing need for reducing carbon emissions, is in fact impractical.

To capture and sequester only half of the emissions in the U.S. in 2009 would require capturing and sequestering 8.2 million tons of carbon dioxide per day, day after day after day, a seemingly impossible task.

The only long term solution to the problem is to halt our population growth as soon as possible and then reverse it until our population, now almost 310 million, can, after an interim period of negative growth, be stabilized at a sustainable level, far lower then it is today. 

If present trends are allowed to continue, our population is projected to grow to 450 million by mid-century, an increase of some 140 million in only 40 years. That increase is equal to the size of our entire population only some sixty years ago! Our political leaders seem to believe that our population growth can continue indefinitely without destroying our environment, resources and standard of living.

Beyond question, the driving force behind our U.S population growth is immigration, both legal and illegal, yet that fact is rarely if ever considered or even recognized by our political leaders.   

In fact the immigration reform bill (HR 4321) now in the House of Representatives (and the outlines of a comparable bill being prepared in the Senate) would vastly increase legal immigration, weaken barriers to illegal immigration, and sharply raise intake of guest workers.

If those bills are enacted, the 2009 Census “high immigration” projection of a U.S. population of 458 million by 2050 would undoubtedly be far too low.