The Kamala Harris Environmental Disaster

This article presents a detailed analysis that describes the massive hypocrisy of Kamala Harris and other Democrats with respect to their proclaimed fight against Climate Change.   It uses their own metrics to show that in their own words  “they have created an environmental disaster”.   This disaster is a direct result of the tsunami of migrants that they have both allowed and brought into our country over the last 3 ½ years.

The Root Cause of Migration

Prior to the COVID pandemic, Gallup reported that over 750 Million people would like to migrate worldwide.  By 2021, this had increased to almost 900 Million people.  The root cause of virtually all human migration is a desire for a better life, and the belief that the risks of migrating are exceeded by the expected rewards of that better life.   The Biden-Harris reversals of approximately 50 common-sense executive orders to enforce our border has created a giant attraction to migrating to our country.  Instead of forcing unvetted and predominately unqualified asylum seekers to wait in the first safe country they enter while their claims are reviewed, the Biden-Harris administration allows them to live and work in the United States for many years before their claims are even heard.  Instead of having our Border Patrol Agents spending their time stopping illegal border crossings of people and drugs, the Biden-Harris administration has them spending their time  as a concierge service for migrants. 

Over the last 7 years, no person has had more power over migration and climate change than Kamala Harris.  As a United States Senator from California from 2017-2021, she co-sponsored the Green New Deal while she fought President Trump’s border wall proposals.  As Vice President, she has been the tie breaking vote on the oxymoronically named “Inflation Reduction Act” which helped to bring about the highest inflation in over 40 years to American citizens.   As the media ordained “Border Czar”, in charge of finding and addressing the root causes of immigration, she failed to quickly acknowledge and correct the fact that the Biden-Harris administration’s actions were the root cause of the problem.

The Hidden Environmental Problem

Migrants coming from third world countries to the United States have their standard of living increased dramatically.  Common sense dictates that their energy consumption and resulting CO₂ emissions will go up significantly.   This is quantitatively born out using the World Bank's values of CO₂ emissions in tons per capita for countries across the world.  Representative examples of annual metric tons of CO₂ emissions per person are: United States of America (13.1), Mexico (3.0), Guatemala (1.0), Honduras (0.9) , El Salvador  (1.0), Somalia  (0.04), Congo (0.03), Bangladesh(0.5), and India (1.6)  It can be seen that the difference is always greater than 10 metric tons per person annually.  

Analyzing the US Energy Information Administration studies regarding energy use by “end use sector”, it can be seen that these migrants will be using approximately the same energy as existing Americans.  They are being provided driver’s licenses in many states, and are flown and bused around our country when they get here.  They are being provided shelters with heating and air-conditioning.  They are using hospital and school resources with government provided medical care and education.   They are being provided cellphones and work permits for jobs while waiting many years for their “asylum hearings”.   They are eating food and buying products that have been shipped through a global supply chain.   Since these migrants are predominately single adults of working age, their consumption may actually be higher than the average American.

Investigating Immigration Numbers – Then and Now

Five years ago, President Trump’s executive actions related to the border, his work with Mexico, and his work with Border Control  were keeping illegal immigration down to a value much less than 400,000 per year even before Border Wall construction began.  A complete Border Wall had the potential (with a multi-layer approach to stopping illegal immigration) to reduce this level by another 80-90% to less than 80,000 per year.  The more difficult it is to get into the country, the more people that will be caught and the more time border agents will have to stop drugs, terrorists and human smuggling.  Children who have played “Capture the Flag” can easily understand this concept.  Having to use a 30-foot ladder is a much harder challenge than walking through a door.    In some ways, the Biden-Harris administration has made entering our country even easier than walking through a door for some, by bringing migrants directly from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela using an absurdly stretched definition of “parole” authority.

It is widely accepted that the number of “asylum seekers”, “parole”, and “got-away” economic migrants that have come through our virtually “open border” over the last 3 ½ years, and extrapolated through January 2025, will substantially exceed 10 Million people.  This provides a baseline value of over 2.5 Million/Migrants per year with the Harris/Biden plan.  As a final data point, the Senate Border bill this year would have allowed 1.825 Million asylum seekers per year to enter our country.  Adding in illegal entries it could have been even worse than the Harris/Biden “open border”.  The following figure  compares these approaches.


The Environmental Catastrophe

While proclaiming to care about Climate Change, Kamala Harris has actually been a tremendous contributor to additional CO₂ emissions.  With over 10 Million additional migrants that each produce an extra 10 metric tons of CO₂ each per year, she is already responsible for over 100 Million metric tons of CO₂ annually emitted as a result of her policies.   The problem gets progressively worse each year as new migrants enter the country.  

The Biden-Harris Securities and Exchange Commission requires public companies to report their CO₂ emissions.  Applying these rules, Kamala Harris would be responsible for rendering (to cause to be or become) 100 Million Metric Tons of CO₂ emissions per year as a Scope 1 Emission source.  This amount likely exceeds almost any company’s emissions by many orders of magnitude.   For informational purposes, companies should file and indicate that their emissions are immaterial in relation to the presently being released  “Kamala Rendered Air Pollution Per Year” of 100 Million Metric Tons of CO₂.

Conclusion

To add insult to injury, the Harris “open border” policy is costing taxpayers a fortune to provide migrants with benefits that many of our own American citizens don’t have.  This misguided spending is putting government programs such as Social Security and Medicare at risk.  Even crazier, the economic migrants being allowed into our country will likely be the first people to have their jobs replaced by AI and robots.  This will leave future generations with even greater cost burdens to support these present migrants.  With the tremendous influx of migrants to our country, Americans are afraid and worried about how to protect themselves and their rights.   To help correct the effects of this daunting migration problem, the author has published a scholarly paper entitled “Reclaiming our American Privileges and Immunities Inheritance”.   This provides a legal roadmap with additional means to reclaim our 1^st and 2^nd Amendment rights, our voting rights, and our rights to live in safe communities. 

Five years ago, this author showed how California’s existing Cap and Trade System could be used by the State of California to fund a border wall, reduce CO₂ emissions, make a profit, and smartly spend to solve climate change permanently.   It was published with the title “California Liberals Can Beat Climate Change by Stopping Illegal Immigration”.  For those who strongly believe in the imminent dangers of climate change, Kamala Harris has been an unmitigated disaster.   The college students that she has spoken to who are experiencing  “climate anxiety”, and deciding not to have children because of it, should find no joy in this knowledge.   When they are worried that hurricanes or hot temperatures are caused by CO₂ emissions, there is no-one they should point a finger at more than Vice President Harris.  The sooner this immigration insanity is reversed, people across the political spectrum should be able to celebrate.

Brian S. Messenger attended the University of California, Berkeley and earned both a Bachelor of Science degree (1982) and a Master of Science degree (1984) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.  He has been an engineer, inventor, corporate executive, entrepreneur, expert witness, and consultant over the last 40 years in Silicon Valley.