You may or may not remember the global-cooling scare back in the 1970s. Some scientists were convinced that large portions of the planet would soon become dangerously cold. There were even fears of a “New Ice Age.” The news media reported extensively and in scary terms on the supposed catastrophe in the making.
Here is Newsweek’s take on the subject in 1975: “Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic.”
Happily, the “New Ice Age” panic petered out, and everybody moved on.
Today, however, a big alarm is about supposedly disastrous “global warming” that environmental activists blame on man’s use of fossil fuels. Not many weeks pass without new “reports” – some of which have been discredited – that mankind is in terrible trouble if we do not stop using so much energy and if we do not get a handle on “climate change.”
Recently, we read this alarmist headline on a story in the Los Angeles Times: “Climate change linked to mass Mexican migration to U.S.” The study cited in the story said that by 2080 – 70 years from now – 1.4 million to 6.7 million Mexicans could enter the United States in response to rising temperatures.
That’s an interesting theory, but the fact is, millions of Mexicans have already entered the United States illegally and are still doing so – and they aren’t waiting around for climate change. We expect that in the future – just as today – most people who come to America, legally or not, will do so for economic reasons. That is an excellent reason why the federal government should effectively enforce our laws against illegal immigration.
Meanwhile, we’ll take a wait-and-see approach to the question of whether “global warming” will cause more people to slip across the border.