{"id":238965,"date":"2021-01-31T09:05:19","date_gmt":"2021-01-31T15:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=238965"},"modified":"2021-01-31T13:36:43","modified_gmt":"2021-01-31T19:36:43","slug":"sierra-club-admits-overpopulation-racist-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/sierra-club-admits-overpopulation-racist-myth\/","title":{"rendered":"Sierra Club quietly admits overpopulation is a ‘deeply racist’ myth"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Washington State Sierra Club made a startlingly frank<\/span> admission<\/span><\/a> last January which received little, if any, attention \u2014 but it should have.\u00a0<\/span>Writing for the organization\u2019s website,<\/span> Brittney Bush Bollay<\/span><\/a> boldly declared an unpopular fact: the theory of global overpopulation is \u201cboth factually incorrect and deeply racist.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Bollay noted that \u201cthe very roots of the modern population control movement are racist,\u201d citing<\/span> Paul Ehrlich<\/span><\/a>\u2019s xenophobic 1968 book, “<\/span>The Population Bomb<\/span>,” which is<\/span> largely responsible<\/span><\/a> for contemporary overpopulation hysteria. Although none of its wild predictions \u2014 including the deaths of millions by starvation during the 1970s and the complete demise of India \u2014 have come to pass, the book\u2019s doomsday forecasting continues to be a major influence on public policy, and Ehrlich continues to hold a respected post in the biology department at Stanford University.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bollay goes on to state, \u201cThe mainstream environmental movement has an uncomfortable history regarding race and equity.\u201d She\u2019s correct \u2014 the early<\/span> conservationists<\/span><\/a> were also eugenicists and\/or racists, almost without exception. Madison Grant, for example, penned<\/span>\u00a0“The Passing of the Great Race<\/span><\/a>,” a book Hitler referred to as \u201cmy Bible.\u201d Theodore Roosevelt, another early conservationist, also praised the book. And John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, was known to denigrate minorities, complaining about their alleged “laziness.” In his 1901 essay collection, \u201c<\/span>Our National Parks<\/span><\/a>,\u201d he wrote, \u201cAs to the Indians, most of them are dead or civilized into useless innocence.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n