by Olivier Simon
Daily Lobo columnist
Not too long ago, this nation marked with mixed emotion - and the usual smear of indifference - the crossing of the 300 million inhabitants mark. Who was this lucky newborn baby? You might call him or her America's 300 millionth patriot. What is the challenge he or she embodies? Overpopulation.
You might wonder why this matters - after all, there's nothing magical about the number 300 million. Much less arbitrary, however, is the fact that we last marked a similar milestone, the 200-million mark, in 1967, and that we will probably hit 400 million by 2043.
It gets even more significant when you look into what will be different about these new millions, compared to past ones.
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For one thing, the majority status of whites will come to an end at about the same time we hit 400 million. Immigrants, particularly Hispanics, now provide 52 percent of the country's population growth. Indeed, without their arrival and their high rates of fertility - 2.8 children per woman - the U.S. would be losing population, like much of Europe and Japan.
That may lead to social unrest if we go on with business as usual. In an economically stratified society like ours, the risk is serious that these newcomers will simply be shunted into a vast new underclass, serving a wealthy white minority, unless major efforts are made to integrate them and give them ample opportunity to belong and succeed.
But you can only give ample opportunities to everyone in the first place if you actually have the basic resources to hand around.
Some will say this concern is baseless. They'll point out that, after all, the U.S. is one of the most richly endowed and underpopulated places on Earth. Even at 400 million people, we'll still have one-sixth the population density of Germany, itself hardly a dismal place to be.
This is a fact, but there are two holes in it. First, it's not just how many people you plan to support that matters; it's also how lavishly they're going to live. And we Americans are the most lavish resource consumers on the planet, except for a few tiny, oil-rich countries in the Middle East. We've been working for decades to reach this dubious position, and it's not clear what could stop it from progressing further, other than a good old-fashioned shortage of some basic resources, like water or oil.
Consider that since 1950, our energy consumption has tripled; our use of oil for driving has increased five-fold; and our water use has risen 127 percent. And since 1982, the average number of miles we drive has gone up 79 percent. Today, with 5 percent of the world's population, we produce a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions. How the world will support 100 million more such people - assuming the new residents get their rightful chance to work their way into the middle class - admits no easy answer, unless we live differently.
Second, it's not just a question of the absolute size of the U.S. True, it's a huge and, on average, underpopulated nation, but the vast majority of new population growth is not evenly spread out over the amber waves of grain and purple mountains' majesty. On the contrary, the trend for the past, and probably next few decades, is for the rather small, dense urban areas to get even denser and more populous, while the vast interior of the country stagnates or even loses people. North Dakota, for example, actually peaked in population back in the Great Depression. Meanwhile, social infrastructure in the megalopolises, where most of the new people will be, is already stretched thin, while energy prices threaten to resume their march skyward.
How can we deal with the issue? Border fences are proud, idiotic displays of xenophobia and are unlikely to work anyway. Sunlight is probably the best medicine - let immigrants know we understand their struggle for a better life, and we are willing to openly accept them as promising members of society.
What we must then do - the most difficult thing - is model a new American way of life for them. Let those who come to this country find not a careless maw of consumption, but an efficient, locally centered, environmentally conscious society, and they will aspire to that standard. That might be the best hope to provide a better, more sustainable future for our soon-to-come 400 millionth patriot.
Olivier Simon is a senior majoring in biochemistry and is president of the College Greens at UNM.
