1.) All U.S. environmental organizations to form a "Sustainability Coalition"
to promote reduction in U.S. impact (I = PAT) on the environment to a level
which assures availability of renewable resources far into the future.
2.) The Coalition to lobby for passage of federal legislation calling for an
annual report to the nation on U.S. progress, or lack thereof, toward the
achievement of sustainable use of resources. This report is to include progress
on the supply side, such as increase in use of renewable energy, and progress on
the demand side, particularly in reduction of U.S. population.
3.) The Coalition to require its political arm, The League of Conservation
Voters, to include among the votes in the Congress which it scores, those
votes which affect future U.S. population numbers.
4.) The Coalition to publicize the need for a sustainable U.S. future for
the benefit of the nation and the world.
CUSP
•
Purpose is to turn the U.S. back from that cusp, to catalyze action to move the
U.S. toward sustainability without delay.
•
Method: is to
rate Congressmembers’ environmental record properly, comprehensively.
•
Goal is to
raise public awareness that many higher costs, inconveniences and hardships,
inequities, and lowered quality of life and standard of living are due to
people longages more than to resource shortages , so that the Congress
and Administrations must:
-
acknowledge natural limits to further growth in U.S.
population.
-
consider the benefits of smaller, sustainable U.S.
population like the U.S. had as recently as the 1940’s.
-
vote
comprehensively on environment, acknowledging the role of population numbers.
-
develop
a national population policy leading toward a sustainable economy.
Presently they do none of this.
CUSP, derived from authoritative tallies, should become the accepted standard
measurement of Congressional voting leading toward a sustainable US economy.
• The
widely-accepted League of Conservation Voters National Scorecard (LCV)
includes no votes on U.S. population.
• The
well-established ZPG (Zero Population Growth now called Population
Connection) Congressional Report Card includes no votes on immigration,
even though
U.S. Census Bureau
figures show that the majority of U.S. population growth is due to immigration,
the highest numbers in U.S. history.
A
Congressmember can no longer be regarded as a staunch guardian of environments
by virtue of a high LCV score alone.
CUSP
Success:
Project Vote Smart has accepted the CUSP Score as a measure of
Congressmembers‘ environmental awareness.
Main Goal: LCV adopts a CUSP-type approach, scores some votes that affect
future U.S.
population numbers.
CUSP’s Philosophy:
Reaching U.S.
sustainability is essential
for preserving and protecting the Nation’s (and the World’s) natural heritage.
Present U.S. growth is unsustainable. Today’s Americans are stealing from the
future, their growth in numbers largely the result of federal actions promoting
that growth.
"The
transition to sustainability for the United States is a fundamental, enormous
change - but one that is required to avoid destroying the economic,
environmental and social bases of American lives and to maintain a high quality
of life."
(Report of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development (1996) )
Major conclusion of the 1972 Report to the President and Congress of the
Commission on Population Growth and the American Future (John D. Rockefeller III,
Chair) appointed by the Congress in 1970 at the request of the President:
"After
two years of concentrated effort, we have concluded that, in the long run, no
substantial benefits will result from further growth of the Nation’s population,
rather that the gradual stabilization of our population would contribute
significantly to the Nation’s ability to solve its problems. We have looked for,
and have not found, any convincing economic argument for continued population
growth. The health of our country does not depend on it, nor does the vitality
of business nor the welfare of the average person."
CUSP
is not concerned with any particular group, ethnicity or category
because only numbers and consumption determine environmental impact.
CUSP
does not hate anybody.
On the contrary, it loves everybody and everything now and in the future, the
"unborn", in the fullest sense of that word. It expresses that love in its
effort to popularize the movement to reduce human population in the world, first
and foremost in the United States because it is in the U.S. that "I1"
and "N" are so large that, while China plus India have population numbers nearly
nine times those of the U.S., the "I" global impact of the U.S. on the
environment exceeds that of China and India combined!
Defining terms:
• "CUSP"
is (also) short for "CUSP EnviroScore - The Truly Environmental
Congressional Scorecard"
[MFS
note: See Minnesota delegation CUSP Enviroscores
here;
also see Minnesota delegation immigration voting records
here.]
_____
*
Used with permission of CUSP.
December 2004.
Please see original at < http://www.uscongress-enviroscore.org/cuspframes.html
>.
