Since its founding, Colcom Foundation has argued that one of environmentalism’s most overlooked failures is the movement’s reluctance to confront population growth head-on. The foundation traces its values back to the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, a moment it regards as a foundational turning point that correctly identified population stabilization as a core environmental priority.
Colcom Foundation is among the primary sources of funding directed towards the United States anti-immigration movement. That funding helps organizations like the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the American Border Patrol, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), and Numbers USA.
A Look at the Data
Between 1970 and 2021, the United States reduced its per capita CO2 emissions by 35 percent, dropping from 21.33 metric tons per person to 14.04. That represents a genuine and hard-won environmental achievement. Yet over that same period, the U.S. population grew by 62 percent, from 205 million to 332 million people. The result: total CO2 emissions actually increased by 0.67 billion tons, a net rise of 15 percent.
Colcom Foundation uses this data point to illustrate what it calls a persistent pattern in U.S. environmental policy. Per capita improvements are real, but they are routinely outpaced by the sheer growth in the number of people. The foundation argues this dynamic plays out across virtually every major environmental metric, from urban sprawl to species extinction to habitat loss.
Wildlife and Habitat Under Pressure
The Colcom Foundation points to the North American bird population as one of the starkest illustrations of this trend. Since 1970, roughly 2.9 billion birds have been lost, with the total dropping from approximately 10 billion to 7 billion. Wildlife populations more broadly have followed a similar downward trajectory as human land use has expanded.
By 2020, land consumed by human-made structures and surfaces in the U.S. totaled over 187,000 square miles. Agricultural uses occupied 52 percent of the U.S. land base, while only 13 percent carried any level of conservation protection. Colcom Foundation contends that without addressing population growth directly, these numbers will continue to worsen regardless of individual conservation efforts. Visit this page for more information.
More about Colcom Foundation on https://waterlandlife.org/land-conservation/colcom-revolving-fund-for-local-land-trusts/