{"id":153369,"date":"2021-05-04T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-04T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grist.org\/?p=533123"},"modified":"2021-05-04T10:30:00","modified_gmt":"2021-05-04T10:30:00","slug":"how-arizonas-attorney-general-is-weaponizing-climate-fears-to-keep-out-immigrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/05\/04\/how-arizonas-attorney-general-is-weaponizing-climate-fears-to-keep-out-immigrants\/","title":{"rendered":"How Arizona\u2019s attorney general is weaponizing climate fears to keep out immigrants"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This\u00a0story<\/a><\/em>\u00a0was originally published by\u00a0HuffPost<\/a>\u00a0and is reproduced here as part of the<\/em>\u00a0Climate Desk<\/em><\/a>\u00a0collaboration.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich accused the Biden administration of failing to protect the environment in a recent lawsuit, it seemed like an unusual claim from a Republican better known for distorting climate science<\/a> in legal briefs defending oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is, until you read what Brnovich considers the source of pollution: immigrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a lawsuit<\/a> filed April 12, Brnovich seeks to reinstate President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s immigration policies, on the argument that Biden has failed to carry out mandatory environmental reviews on how more immigration could increase climate-changing pollution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMigrants (like everyone else) need housing, infrastructure, hospitals, and schools. They drive cars, purchase goods, and use public parks and other facilities,\u201d the suit reads. \u201cTheir actions also directly result in the release of pollutants, carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which directly affects air quality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using pro-environment arguments to defend anti-immigration views dates back decades, to a time when the environmental movement harbored a powerful faction of Malthusians who believed the preservation of nature merited harsh, even violent, restrictions on immigration and childbearing. That faction faded to the fringes over the years as the political right moved to championing both climate denial and hardened borders, and environmentalists marginalized any openly racist elements in their camp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Arizona\u2019s lawsuit is one of the highest-profile examples of how the political right will shift on climate change as warming-fueled disasters mount and render denial an untenable position. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs it becomes more and more difficult to deny that climate change is real and human caused, the Republican Party is going to need new strategies, especially if they have any hope of attracting a younger generation,\u201d said John Hultgren, a professor of environmental politics at Bennington College in Vermont. \u201cThis is a potential strategy. It won\u2019t do anything to help us mitigate or adapt to climate change, but it will give the thin veneer of an appearance that they care about climate change.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The specter of \u2018ecofascism\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It is also a sign that a more nefarious ideological view could be making its way into mainstream politics: the idea that the response to ecological collapse and rising seas should be to limit who gets a seat in a finite number of civilizational lifeboats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That view has already gained traction in Europe, where far-right parties are increasingly adopting<\/a> that rhetoric as voters\u2019 concern over climate change converges with anger at migrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Then-President Donald Trump walks alongside the border wall near Alamo, Texas on January 12.\n White House\/Shealah Craighead<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After green parties picked up votes in the 2019 European parliamentary elections, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen pledged to remake<\/a> Europe as \u201cthe world\u2019s first ecological civilization\u201d and railed against \u201cnomadic\u201d people who \u201cdo not care about the environment\u201d as \u201cthey have no homeland,\u201d harkening to the Nazis\u2019 \u201cblood and soil\u201d slogan that described a belief in a mystical connection between race and a particular territory. Le Pen is now a frontrunner in France\u2019s 2022 presidential election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Germany, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party\u2019s Berlin youth wing urged its leaders<\/a> to abandon climate denialism. The green arm of Italy\u2019s neo-fascist movement CasaPound, meanwhile sent trees<\/a> to towns across the country, to pay homage to former dictator Benito Mussolini. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the English-speaking world, far-right eco-fascist thinking animated the manifestos of two mass shooters posted in 2019. The white male gunman who killed nearly two dozen people in a Walmart store in El Paso in August 2019 said he sought to end the \u201cHispanic invasion of Texas.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe environment is getting worse by the year,\u201d the manifesto, posted online, stated. \u201cMost of y\u2019all are just too stubborn to change your lifestyle. So the next logical step is to decrease the number of people in America using resources. If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can become more sustainable.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The document explicitly cited the 74-page message the gunman who killed 51 worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, posted in March 2019. That shooter, a 28-year-old white Australian, thrice described himself as an \u201ceco-fascist\u201d motivated to repel waves of migrants fleeing climate change-ravaged regions of the world from Anglophone nations\u2019 shores. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is shocking to see what was in the El Paso shooter\u2019s manifesto described in more legalistic language in this suit by the Arizona attorney general,\u201d said Alexandra Stern, a historian at the University of Michigan. \u201cIt\u2019s leaning in toward ecofascism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018These arguments have long existed\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But Hultgren expressed wariness about labeling the Arizona lawsuit as \u201cecofascism,\u201d which he said conjures images of a foreign enemy in Nazi Germany. It also obscures what he called the rich history of American \u201cright-wingers instrumentally appropriating nature to advance xenophobic goals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we call things \u2018fascist,\u2019 there\u2019s a sense that it\u2019s outside the American political norm,\u201d he said. \u201cIn reality, these arguments have long existed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most vocal proponents of using environmental concerns to oppose immigrants have been the so-called Tanton Network, a collection of more than a dozen anti-immigration groups founded or funded by John Tanton, a rich opthamologist from Michigan. A one-time national leader in the Sierra Club, Tanton, who died in July 2019, \u201cbelieved that the root cause of environmental destruction is overpopulation by the wrong sorts of people\u201d and that \u201cto protect both nature and the nation, one must preserve white supremacy by keeping immigrants out,\u201d Betsy Hartmann, a researcher who studies ecofascism at Hampshire College, wrote last year in the Columbia Journalism Review<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a Tanton Network strategy,\u201d Hartmann said of the Arizona lawsuit. \u201cThis is a blatant first act on the national stage of this legal strategy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, the Center for Immigration Studies, which Tanton founded in 1985, trumpeted the lawsuit as \u201can important stand for the American environment.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cArizona is the first state to sue, but we can hope that it will not be the last,\u201d wrote Julie Axelrod, the group\u2019s litigation director and a former adviser to the Trump administration\u2019s Environmental Protection Agency. \u201cThe environmental consequences of immigration have never been more apparent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Axelrod pioneered the strategy with a 2016 lawsuit against the Obama administration\u2019s Department of Homeland Security, which she accused<\/a> of violating \u201cour nation\u2019s preeminent environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), by completely failing to perform environmental analysis of its legal immigration and amnesty policies, which have directly led to the entrance and permanent settlement of tens of millions of foreign nationals to the United States.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A federal judge dismissed<\/a> most of the claims in 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the science actually shows <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The effects of climate change, meanwhile, are already plaguing Central America, where many migrants to the U.S.\u2019s southern border originate. Two of last year\u2019s named 30 Atlantic hurricanes made landfall over the region, wreaking havoc with devastating floods and winds in what scientists said<\/a> was a sign of a warmer future.\u00a0Historic droughts parched hillsides in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, incentivizing rural villagers to make the dangerous trek north to the regional superpower and world\u2019s largest economy. Between 1.4 million and 2.1 million people in Central America and Mexico are likely to be displaced from their homes by 2050 due to the impacts of climate change, according to a 2018 World Bank report<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Brnovich has become a go-to critic of the Biden administration\u2019s border policies for Fox News.\n Fox News<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The United States produced nearly 30%<\/a> of the carbon dioxide emissions currently accumulated in the atmosphere, by far the largest share. Today, the U.S. is the second-largest emitter of planet-heating gas after China and has the fourth-highest per capita emissions<\/a> rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But research does not support the idea that immigrants increase pollution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a 2011 study<\/a> published in the journal Population Research and Policy Review, scientists analyzed federal pollution data in 183 different metropolitan areas and determined \u201cthat immigration does not contribute to local air pollution levels across any of the seven pollution measures examined.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2019 study<\/a> in the Social Science Journal compared air quality data in counties populated by immigrants and native-born citizens in a series of models and found \u201cthat native population is strongly associated with worse air quality, while foreign-born population is associated with better air quality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking that a step further, a January 2021 study<\/a> in the journal Population and Environment looked at state-level data from 1997 to 2014 and concluded that \u201cimmigration may indeed yield environmental benefits and that environmental quality may represent an important factor or amenity influencing immigration flows.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Center for Immigration Studies spokeswoman declined an interview request for Axelrod. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an appearance<\/a> on \u201cFox & Friends,\u201d Brnovich, whose office did not make him available for an interview, said he was simply opting to use the same flexibly interpreted law \u201cthe left always uses to stop highway projects and airport reconstruction.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are saying that by stopping the wall construction, they\u2019re violating NEPA because it\u2019s allowing more and more people to come into this country \u2015 migrants \u2015 and that\u2019s having a devastating impact on our environment,\u201d Brnovich said. \u201cIt\u2019s also impacting the increased population, which will have all sorts of impacts down the road.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The political opportunism shows how \u201cthe outer bounds of NEPA are quite undefined,\u201d said Michael Gerrard, director of Columbia Law School\u2019s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEnvironmentalists have been trying to push it outward for half a century,\u201d Gerrard said. \u201cSo it\u2019s not surprising to see the right attempt to push it as well.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stern said the future of this kind of rhetoric within the Republican Party could depend on whether the Arizona lawsuit proves successful in federal court. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not clear where this is going,\u201d she said. \u201cBut ultimately rhetoric that identifies certain groups of people as pollutants is dehumanizing, and dehumanization is a key component and often the first step toward greater violence toward those groups.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Grist<\/a> with the headline How Arizona\u2019s attorney general is weaponizing climate fears to keep out immigrants<\/a> on May 4, 2021.<\/p>\n

This post was originally published on Grist<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the right grapples with what comes after climate denial, a Copper State lawsuit suggests creeping \u2018eco-fascism\u2019 in Europe may be a model.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,242,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153369"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153370,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153369\/revisions\/153370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}