Winter Arctic Negative
Case
Arctic Treaty
An Arctic treaty inevitably fails – too many disputes
Watson 9 (Watson, Molly. "AN ARCTIC TREATY: A SOLUTION TO THE INTERNATIONAL DISPUTE OVER THE POLAR REGION." AN
ARCTIC TREATY: A SOLUTION TO THE INTERNATIONAL DISPUTE OVER THE POLAR REGION (n.d.): n. pag. Www.mainelaw.com. 2009.
Web. 23 July 2014. <https://www.mainelaw.maine.edu/academics/oclj/pdf/vol14_2/vol14_oclj_307.pdf>. Springfield,
Massachusetts Area | Public Relations and Communications Current Consultant at EverestPR, Consultant at Ritz Communications
Past Communications Consultant at Westfield State University, Public Relations Consultant at Noble Hospital, Vice President at GCI
Group, Eric).
With regard to claims of territorial sovereignty,
an Arctic treaty might¶ approach the issue in one of three
ways: (1) divide the Arctic among the¶ States based on some formula agreed upon by the States;
(2) direct that the¶ territorial division will be determined under UNCLOS procedure; or (3)¶ like
the Antarctic Treaty, freeze all State territorial claims. The first option¶ for dividing the Arctic is
improbable, as the current dispute exists for the¶ very reason that the States cannot agree. The
next option is also unlikely¶ so long as the United States refuses to ratify the UNCLOS treaty. The¶
United States is not apt to agree to an Arctic treaty that resolves the dispute¶ through the UNCLOS process if it remains unable to
participate within its¶ framework. However, were the United States to ratify UNCLOS, such an¶ approach may prove effective.
Within this option, an Arctic treaty could¶ indicate that UNCLOS is to govern the States’ sovereignty claims while¶ other provisions
of the treaty could address the concerns unique to the¶ Arctic not covered by UNCLOS. States, such as Russia, who have already¶
begun working under the laws of UNCLOS, would likely favor this¶ approach, as they will be able to continue in the UNCLOS process
of¶ submitting claims to the CLCS. By establishing UNCLOS as the governing¶ law, the Arctic States will be bound by the
determinations made by the¶ CLCS, and left without alternatives under, for example, customary law.¶ However, even
were the
United States to ratify UNCLOS, this approach is¶ potentially problematic because the CLCS has
no actual authority to settle¶ disputes or enforce its recommendations. Thus, should more than one
State¶ claim the same territory, as will inevitably occur, it is unclear how the¶ Commission will proceed.165 Claims made by one
State are subject to¶ counter-claims by other States, and while the CLCS’s recommendations are¶ “binding,” the body has no power
to enforce them.166
No Russia-US war; both sides understand the risks
Peck 14 (Peck, Michael. "7 Reasons Why America Will Never Go To War Over Ukraine." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 05 Mar. 2014.
Web. 26 July 2014. I'm a defense writer, avid gamer and history buff. I'm currently a contributing editor for Foreign Policy Magazine,
a writer for the War is Boring defense blog and of course a contributor at Forbes. My work has also appeared in the Washingon
Post,Slate, Defense News, USA Today, the Philadelphia Inquirer and other fine publications. Eric).
America is the mightiest military power in the world. And that fact means absolutely nothing for the Ukraine crisis.
Regardless
of whether Russia continues to occupy the Crimea region of Ukraine, or decides to occupy all of Ukraine,
the U.S. is not going to get into a shooting war with Russia.¶ This has nothing to do with whether
Obama is strong or weak. Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan would face the same constraints. The U.S. may threaten to
impose economic sanctions, but here is why America will never smack Russia with a big stick:¶ Russia is a nuclear
superpower. Russia has an estimated 4,500 active nuclear warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists. Unlike
North Korea or perhaps Iran, whose nuclear arsenals couldn’t inflict substantial damage, Russia could totally devastate
the U.S. as well as the rest of the planet. U.S. missile defenses, assuming they even work, are not designed to stop a
massive Russian strike.¶ For the 46 years of the Cold War, America and Russia were deadly rivals. But they never fought. Their
The one time that U.S. and Soviet forces
almost went to war was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Neither Obama nor Putin is crazy
enough to want to repeat that.¶ Russia has a powerful army. While the Russian military is a
shadow of its Soviet glory days, it is still a formidable force. The Russian army has about 300,000 men and
proxies fought: Koreans, Vietnamese, Central Americans, Israelis and Arabs.
2,500 tanks (with another 18,000 tanks in storage), according to the “Military Balance 2014” from the International Institute for
Strategic Studies. Its air force has almost 1,400 aircraft, and its navy 171 ships, including 25 in the Black Sea Fleet off Ukraine’s
coast.¶ U.S. forces are more capable than Russian forces, which did not perform impressively during the 2008 Russo-Georgia War.
American troops would enjoy better training, communications, drones, sensors and possibly better weapons (though the latest
Russian fighter jets, such as the T-50, could be trouble for U.S. pilots). However, better is not good enough. The Russian military is
not composed of lightly armed insurgents like the Taliban, or a hapless army like the Iraqis in 2003. With advanced weapons like T80 tanks, supersonic AT-15 Springer anti-tank missiles, BM-30 Smerch multiple rocket launchers and S-400 Growler anti-aircraft
missiles, Russian forces pack enough firepower to inflict significant American losses.¶ Ukraine is closer to Russia. The distance
between Kiev and Moscow is 500 miles. The distance between Kiev and New York is 5,000 miles. It’s much easier for Russia to send
troops and supplies by land than for the U.S. to send them by sea or air.¶ The
U.S. military is tired. After nearly 13
years of war, America’s armed forces need a breather. Equipment is worn out from long service
in Iraq and Afghanistan, personnel are worn out from repeated deployments overseas, and there
are still about 40,000 troops still fighting in Afghanistan.¶ The U.S. doesn’t have many troops to send. The U.S. could
easily dispatch air power to Ukraine if its NATO allies allow use of their airbases, and the aircraft carrier George H. W. Bush and its
hundred aircraft are patrolling the Mediterranean. But for a ground war to liberate Crimea or defend Ukraine, there is just the 173rd
Airborne Brigade in Italy, the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit sailing off Spain, the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment in Germany and the
82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.¶ While the paratroopers could drop into the combat zone, the Marines would
have sail past Russian defenses in the Black Sea, and the Stryker brigade would probably have to travel overland through Poland into
Ukraine. Otherwise, bringing in mechanized combat brigades from the U.S. would be logistically difficult, and more important, could
take months to organize.¶ The
American people are tired. Pity the poor politician who tries to sell the
American public on yet another war, especially some complex conflict in a distant Eastern Europe nation. Neville
Chamberlain’s words during the 1938 Czechoslovakia crisis come to mind: “How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be
digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know
nothing.”¶ America‘s allies are tired. NATO sent troops to support the American campaign in Afghanistan, and has little to
show for it. Britain sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, and has little to show for it. It is almost inconceivable to imagine the
especially considering the
region’s sputtering economy, which might be snuffed out should Russia stop exporting natural gas. As for military
Western European public marching in the streets to demand the liberation of Crimea,
capabilities, the Europeans couldn’t evict Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi without American help. And Germans fighting Russians
again? Let’s not even go there.
Arctic war is unlikely
Beckhusen 12 (Beckhusen, Robert. "Russia and Canada Gear Up for Arctic Non-War | Danger Room | WIRED." Wired.com.
Conde Nast Digital, 07 Aug. 2012. Web. 23 July 2014. <http://www.wired.com/2012/08/arctic/>. Robert Beckhusen is a contributor
at wired.com Eric).
war is exceedingly unlikely — because Russia would lose. For one, the United States has an
overwhelming and decisive advantage in submarines. U.S. subs are more advanced, there are more
of them, and their crews are better trained. It’s unlikely Arctic nations would also begin killing each other
over low-key — and remote — territorial disputes.
But a
Alt cause; they can’t solve climate change which is the root cause of military
challenges in the Arctic
Heininen 13 (Heininen, Lassi. "Valdai. Валдай. Discussion Club. Международный Дискуссионный Клуб." Climate Change in
the Arctic: Geopolitical and Security Implications. N.p., 24 Sept. 2013. Web. 23 July 2014.
<http://valdaiclub.com/economy/63020.html>. University Lecturer and Professor at Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lapland,
Finland. Among his other academic positions are Adjunct Professor at Frost Center for Canadian Studies, Trent University, Canada;
Adjunct Professor at Faculty of Geography, University of Oulu, Finland; and Visiting Professor at University of Akureyri, Iceland. He is
also the chairman of the International Steering Committee for the Northern Research Forum. Eric).
Climate change entails not only socio-economic but also military challenges to the Arctic region,
thus might lead towards the remilitarization of the region. The increasing competition for trade
routes, maritime zones and natural resources has already led and continues to lead to a military
build-up of particular coastal states and intensification of NATO military activities in the region.
In contrast with the Cold war era, the current military efforts aim at protection of economic interests of
the Arctic states and assertion of their national sovereignty over the maritime zones and trade
routes rather than global confrontation between two superpowers or military blocs.¶ ¶ To give some examples of military buildups
in the region, for instance, Canada plans to create a 5000-strong ranger unit in its North. The U.S. and Canada are modernizing the
NORAD system. Besides, the U.S. is strengthening its Alaska Command and even plans to deploy an ABM system in the Arctic region
(either land-based in Northern Norway and/or sea-based if ice retreating to continue). Norway is engaged in a quite impressive
program to modernize its coastal guard (including five new frigates’ acquisition). Russia has resumed it strategic aviation flights over
the Northern Atlantic, develops its Northern Fleet (including its nuclear component) and plans to create special Arctic troops to
control its Arctic Ocean coastline. Moreover, according to the so-called Stoltenberg Report of 2009, the five Nordic nations
(Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) decided to create joint military units as well as air monitoring system and SAR
infrastructures which are specially designed for the Arctic. They also plan to create a space group of three satellites to enhance the
above structures’ capabilities in communications and navigation.¶ These developments affect the international security regime in
the Arctic should be
negotiated and legal mechanisms to solve climate change-related conflicts should be developed.
The proposals to develop a system of confidence- and security-building measures in the region
are made by the international expert community as well.
the region in a very negative way. Many experts believe that a special arms control regime for
Russia fears US encroachment in the Arctic – its expansion is a security threat
O’Brien 9 (O'Brien, Gregory. "How to Read the Arctic: Structural Theory and the Balance of Arctic Powers." Academia.edu.
N.p., Spring 2009. Web. 23 July 2014.
<https://www.academia.edu/3476953/How_to_Read_the_Arctic_Structural_Theory_and_the_Balance_of_Arctic_Powers>.
RESEARCH PROJECT SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF POLITICAL
SCIENCE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE FACULTY OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES Eric).
In response to this threatening 'non-presence' of the United States, and the growing multipolarity of the
global structure, Russia appears to be pursuing a path towards establishing a new balance that
would favour its Arctic power and interests. On this point, Karen Ruth Adams argued in 2003 that US encroachment
on the interests of nuclear powers, including Russia, would propel the development of a new balance 'just around the corner.'235
Russian Chief of Staff Lurii Baluevskii has been more direct; stating that US commitment to its
hegemony "expanding its economic, political, and military presence in Russia's traditional zones
of influence" is the country's top national security threat.236 As a consequence, it is difficult to isolate the
regional security dilemma and polarity trends in the Arctic from the larger international environment. For example, Hubert et al.
note that events such as the Russian Georgian war could easily have led to 'chilled' relations among Arctic Council states as a result
Huebert argues that because both the US and
Russia are Arctic Great Powers, any drive to increase power capabilities is likely to have an effect
on the Arctic balance, and hence, is an Arctic security issue.238 Thus, the Arctic security dilemma is in many
of many of these states also being members of NATO.237 Secondly,
ways inexorably linked to outcomes within the international structure. From this vantage, the ability of Russia, or any comparable
The value of the region is too
great, relative gains are too important, and Great Powers will strive to attain a more favourable
balance where their power is most fungible.
Great Power, to conduct itself in the Arctic isolated from the global environment is unlikely.
Mapping
No Russia-US war; both sides understand the risks
Peck 14 (Peck, Michael. "7 Reasons Why America Will Never Go To War Over Ukraine." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 05 Mar. 2014.
Web. 26 July 2014. I'm a defense writer, avid gamer and history buff. I'm currently a contributing editor for Foreign Policy Magazine,
a writer for the War is Boring defense blog and of course a contributor at Forbes. My work has also appeared in the Washingon
Post,Slate, Defense News, USA Today, the Philadelphia Inquirer and other fine publications. Eric).
Regardless
of whether Russia continues to occupy the Crimea region of Ukraine, or decides to occupy all of Ukraine,
the U.S. is not going to get into a shooting war with Russia.¶ This has nothing to do with whether
Obama is strong or weak. Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan would face the same constraints. The U.S. may threaten to
impose economic sanctions, but here is why America will never smack Russia with a big stick:¶ Russia is a nuclear
superpower. Russia has an estimated 4,500 active nuclear warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists. Unlike
North Korea or perhaps Iran, whose nuclear arsenals couldn’t inflict substantial damage, Russia could totally devastate
the U.S. as well as the rest of the planet. U.S. missile defenses, assuming they even work, are not designed to stop a
America is the mightiest military power in the world. And that fact means absolutely nothing for the Ukraine crisis.
massive Russian strike.¶ For the 46 years of the Cold War, America and Russia were deadly rivals. But they never fought. Their
The one time that U.S. and Soviet forces
almost went to war was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Neither Obama nor Putin is crazy
enough to want to repeat that.¶ Russia has a powerful army. While the Russian military is a
shadow of its Soviet glory days, it is still a formidable force. The Russian army has about 300,000 men and
proxies fought: Koreans, Vietnamese, Central Americans, Israelis and Arabs.
2,500 tanks (with another 18,000 tanks in storage), according to the “Military Balance 2014” from the International Institute for
Strategic Studies. Its air force has almost 1,400 aircraft, and its navy 171 ships, including 25 in the Black Sea Fleet off Ukraine’s
coast.¶ U.S. forces are more capable than Russian forces, which did not perform impressively during the 2008 Russo-Georgia War.
American troops would enjoy better training, communications, drones, sensors and possibly better weapons (though the latest
Russian fighter jets, such as the T-50, could be trouble for U.S. pilots). However, better is not good enough. The Russian military is
not composed of lightly armed insurgents like the Taliban, or a hapless army like the Iraqis in 2003. With advanced weapons like T80 tanks, supersonic AT-15 Springer anti-tank missiles, BM-30 Smerch multiple rocket launchers and S-400 Growler anti-aircraft
missiles, Russian forces pack enough firepower to inflict significant American losses.¶ Ukraine is closer to Russia. The distance
between Kiev and Moscow is 500 miles. The distance between Kiev and New York is 5,000 miles. It’s much easier for Russia to send
troops and supplies by land than for the U.S. to send them by sea or air.¶ The
U.S. military is tired. After nearly 13
years of war, America’s armed forces need a breather. Equipment is worn out from long service
in Iraq and Afghanistan, personnel are worn out from repeated deployments overseas, and there
are still about 40,000 troops still fighting in Afghanistan.¶ The U.S. doesn’t have many troops to send. The U.S. could
easily dispatch air power to Ukraine if its NATO allies allow use of their airbases, and the aircraft carrier George H. W. Bush and its
hundred aircraft are patrolling the Mediterranean. But for a ground war to liberate Crimea or defend Ukraine, there is just the 173rd
Airborne Brigade in Italy, the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit sailing off Spain, the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment in Germany and the
82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.¶ While the paratroopers could drop into the combat zone, the Marines would
have sail past Russian defenses in the Black Sea, and the Stryker brigade would probably have to travel overland through Poland into
Ukraine. Otherwise, bringing in mechanized combat brigades from the U.S. would be logistically difficult, and more important, could
take months to organize.¶ The
American people are tired. Pity the poor politician who tries to sell the
American public on yet another war, especially some complex conflict in a distant Eastern Europe nation. Neville
Chamberlain’s words during the 1938 Czechoslovakia crisis come to mind: “How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be
digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know
nothing.”¶ America‘s allies are tired. NATO sent troops to support the American campaign in Afghanistan, and has little to
show for it. Britain sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, and has little to show for it. It is almost inconceivable to imagine the
especially considering the
region’s sputtering economy, which might be snuffed out should Russia stop exporting natural gas. As for military
Western European public marching in the streets to demand the liberation of Crimea,
capabilities, the Europeans couldn’t evict Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi without American help. And Germans fighting Russians
again? Let’s not even go there.
Arctic war is unlikely
Beckhusen 12 (Beckhusen, Robert. "Russia and Canada Gear Up for Arctic Non-War | Danger Room | WIRED." Wired.com.
Conde Nast Digital, 07 Aug. 2012. Web. 23 July 2014. <http://www.wired.com/2012/08/arctic/>. Robert Beckhusen is a contributor
at wired.com Eric).
war is exceedingly unlikely — because Russia would lose. For one, the United States has an
overwhelming and decisive advantage in submarines. U.S. subs are more advanced, there are more
of them, and their crews are better trained. It’s unlikely Arctic nations would also begin killing each other
over low-key — and remote — territorial disputes.
But a
Alt cause; they can’t solve climate change which is the root cause of military
challenges in the Arctic
Heininen 13 (Heininen, Lassi. "Valdai. Валдай. Discussion Club. Международный Дискуссионный Клуб." Climate Change in
the Arctic: Geopolitical and Security Implications. N.p., 24 Sept. 2013. Web. 23 July 2014.
<http://valdaiclub.com/economy/63020.html>. University Lecturer and Professor at Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lapland,
Finland. Among his other academic positions are Adjunct Professor at Frost Center for Canadian Studies, Trent University, Canada;
Adjunct Professor at Faculty of Geography, University of Oulu, Finland; and Visiting Professor at University of Akureyri, Iceland. He is
also the chairman of the International Steering Committee for the Northern Research Forum. Eric).
Climate change entails not only socio-economic but also military challenges to the Arctic region,
thus might lead towards the remilitarization of the region. The increasing competition for trade
routes, maritime zones and natural resources has already led and continues to lead to a military
build-up of particular coastal states and intensification of NATO military activities in the region.
In contrast with the Cold war era, the current military efforts aim at protection of economic interests of
the Arctic states and assertion of their national sovereignty over the maritime zones and trade
routes rather than global confrontation between two superpowers or military blocs.¶ ¶ To give some examples of military buildups
in the region, for instance, Canada plans to create a 5000-strong ranger unit in its North. The U.S. and Canada are modernizing the
NORAD system. Besides, the U.S. is strengthening its Alaska Command and even plans to deploy an ABM system in the Arctic region
(either land-based in Northern Norway and/or sea-based if ice retreating to continue). Norway is engaged in a quite impressive
program to modernize its coastal guard (including five new frigates’ acquisition). Russia has resumed it strategic aviation flights over
the Northern Atlantic, develops its Northern Fleet (including its nuclear component) and plans to create special Arctic troops to
control its Arctic Ocean coastline. Moreover, according to the so-called Stoltenberg Report of 2009, the five Nordic nations
(Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) decided to create joint military units as well as air monitoring system and SAR
infrastructures which are specially designed for the Arctic. They also plan to create a space group of three satellites to enhance the
above structures’ capabilities in communications and navigation.¶ These developments affect the international security regime in
the Arctic should be
negotiated and legal mechanisms to solve climate change-related conflicts should be developed.
The proposals to develop a system of confidence- and security-building measures in the region
are made by the international expert community as well.
the region in a very negative way. Many experts believe that a special arms control regime for
Russia fears US encroachment in the Arctic – its expansion is a security threat
O’Brien 9 (O'Brien, Gregory. "How to Read the Arctic: Structural Theory and the Balance of Arctic Powers." Academia.edu.
N.p., Spring 2009. Web. 23 July 2014.
<https://www.academia.edu/3476953/How_to_Read_the_Arctic_Structural_Theory_and_the_Balance_of_Arctic_Powers>.
RESEARCH PROJECT SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF POLITICAL
SCIENCE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE FACULTY OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES Eric).
In response to this threatening 'non-presence' of the United States, and the growing multipolarity of the
global structure, Russia appears to be pursuing a path towards establishing a new balance that
would favour its Arctic power and interests. On this point, Karen Ruth Adams argued in 2003 that US encroachment
on the interests of nuclear powers, including Russia, would propel the development of a new balance 'just around the corner.'235
Russian Chief of Staff Lurii Baluevskii has been more direct; stating that US commitment to its
hegemony "expanding its economic, political, and military presence in Russia's traditional zones
of influence" is the country's top national security threat.236 As a consequence, it is difficult to isolate the
regional security dilemma and polarity trends in the Arctic from the larger international environment. For example, Hubert et al.
note that events such as the Russian Georgian war could easily have led to 'chilled' relations among Arctic Council states as a result
Huebert argues that because both the US and
Russia are Arctic Great Powers, any drive to increase power capabilities is likely to have an effect
on the Arctic balance, and hence, is an Arctic security issue.238 Thus, the Arctic security dilemma is in many
of many of these states also being members of NATO.237 Secondly,
ways inexorably linked to outcomes within the international structure. From this vantage, the ability of Russia, or any comparable
The value of the region is too
great, relative gains are too important, and Great Powers will strive to attain a more favourable
balance where their power is most fungible.
Great Power, to conduct itself in the Arctic isolated from the global environment is unlikely.
Science Diplomacy
Science diplomacy fails – political motives corrupt such actions and make it
ineffective
Dickinson 9 (Dickinson, David. "The Limits of Science Diplomacy." SciDev.Net. N.p., 4 June 2009. Web. 26 July 2014.
<http://www.scidev.net/en/editorials/the-limits-of-science-diplomacy.html>. David Dickson, founding director of SciDev.Net and
inspirational figure in the science journalism and global development communities Eric).
But — as emerged from a meeting entitled New Frontiers in Science Diplomacy, held in London this week (1–2 June) — using
science for diplomatic purposes is not as straightforward as it seems.¶ Some scientific collaboration clearly
demonstrates what countries can achieve by working together. For example, a new synchrotron under construction in Jordan is
whether scientific cooperation can
become a precursor for political collaboration is less evident. For example, despite hopes that the Middle East
rapidly becoming a symbol of the potential for teamwork in the Middle East.¶ But
synchrotron would help bring peace to the region, several countries have been reluctant to support it until the Palestine problem is
resolved.¶ Indeed, one speaker at the London meeting (organised by the UK's Royal Society and the American Association for the
Advancement of Science) even suggested that the changes scientific innovations bring inevitably lead to turbulence and upheaval.
In such a context, viewing science as a driver for peace may be wishful thinking.¶ Conflicting ethos¶
Perhaps the most contentious area discussed at the meeting was how science diplomacy can frame developed countries' efforts to
help build scientific capacity in the developing world.¶ There is little to quarrel with in collaborative efforts that are put forward with
a genuine desire for partnership. Indeed, partnership — whether between individuals, institutions or countries — is the new
true partnership requires transparent relations
between partners who are prepared to meet as equals. And that goes against diplomats' implicit
role: to promote and defend their own countries' interests.¶ John Beddington, the British government's chief
scientific adviser, may have been a bit harsh when he told the meeting that a diplomat is someone who is "sent
abroad to lie for his country". But he touched a raw nerve.¶ Worlds apart yet co-dependent¶ The truth is that science
buzzword in the "science for development" community.¶ But
and politics make an uneasy alliance. Both need the other. Politicians need science to achieve their goals, whether social, economic
or — unfortunately — military; scientists need political support to fund their research.¶ But they also occupy different universes.
Politics is, at root, about exercising power by one means or another. Science is — or should be
— about pursuing robust knowledge that can be put to useful purposes.¶ A strategy for
promoting science diplomacy that respects these differences deserves support. Particularly so if it
focuses on ways to leverage political and financial backing for science's more humanitarian goals, such as tackling climate change or
reducing world poverty.¶ But
a commitment to science diplomacy that ignores the differences —
acting for example as if science can substitute politics (or perhaps more worryingly, vice versa),
is dangerous.
Scientific diplomacy does not solve
Dickson 10 (David. Director of SciDev.net. “Science in diplomacy: “On tap but not on top”.” June 28,
2010. http://scidevnet.wor...onference-2010 Eric).
There’s a general consensus in both the scientific and political worlds that the principle of science
diplomacy, at least in the somewhat restricted sense of the need to get more and better science into international
negotiations, is a desirable objective. There is less agreement, however, on how far the concept can
– or indeed should – be extended to embrace broader goals and objectives, in particular attempts to
use science to achieve political or diplomatic goals at the international level. Science, despite its
international characteristics, is no substitute for effective diplomacy. Any more than diplomatic initiatives
necessarily lead to good science. These seem to have been the broad conclusions to emerge from a three-day meeting at Wilton
Park in Sussex, UK, organised by the British Foreign Office and the Royal Society, and attended by scientists, government officials and
politicians from 17 countries around the world. The definition of science diplomacy varied widely among participants. Some saw it as
a subcategory of “public diplomacy”, or what US diplomats have recently been promoting as “soft power” (“the carrot rather than
the stick approach”, as a participant described it). Others preferred to see it as a core element of the broader concept of “innovation
diplomacy”, covering the politics of engagement in the familiar fields of international scientific exchange and technology transfer,
but raising these to a higher level as a diplomatic objective. Whatever definition is used, three particular aspects of the debate
became the focus of attention during the Wilton Park meeting: how science can inform the diplomatic process; how diplomacy can
assist science in achieving its objectives; and, finally, how science can provide a channel for quasi-diplomatic exchanges by forming
an apparently neutral bridge between countries. There was little disagreement on the first of these. Indeed for many, given the
increasing number of international issues with a scientific dimension that politicians have to deal with, this is essentially what the
core of science diplomacy should be about. Chris Whitty, for example, chief scientist at the UK’s Department for International
Development, described how knowledge about the threat raised by the spread of the highly damaging plant disease stem rust had
been an important input by researchers into discussions by politicians and diplomats over strategies for persuading Afghan farmers
to shift from the production of opium to wheat. Others pointed out that the scientific community had played a major role in drawing
attention to issues such as the links between chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere and the growth of the ozone hole, or between
carbon dioxide emissions and climate change. Each has made essential contributions to policy decisions. Acknowledging this role for
science has some important implications. No-one dissented when Rohinton Medhora, from Canada’s International Development
Research Centre, complained of the lack of adequate scientific expertise in the embassies of many countries of the developed and
developing world alike. Nor – perhaps predictably – was there any major disagreement that diplomatic initiatives can both help and
occasionally hinder the process of science. On the positive side, such diplomacy can play a significant role in facilitating science
exchange and the launch of international science projects, both essential for the development of modern science. Europe’s
framework programme of research programmes was quoted as a successful advantage of the first of these. Examples of the second
range from the establishment of the European Organisation of Nuclear Research (usually known as CERN) in Switzerland after the
Second World War, to current efforts to build a large new nuclear fusion facility (ITER). Less positively, increasing restrictions on
entry to certain countries, and in particular the United States after the 9/11 attacks in New York and elsewhere, have significantly
impeded scientific exchange programmes. Here the challenge for diplomats was seen as helping to find ways to ease the burdens of
such restrictions. The broadest gaps in understanding the potential of scientific diplomacy lay in the third category, namely the use
of science as a channel of international diplomacy, either as a way of helping to forge consensus on contentious issues, or as a
catalyst for peace in situations of conflict. On the first of these, some pointed to recent climate change negotiations, and in
particular the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as a good example, of the way that the scientific community
can provide a strong rationale for joint international action. But others referred to the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit last
December to come up with a meaningful agreement on action as a demonstration of the limitations of this way of thinking. It was
argued that this failure had been partly due to a misplaced belief that scientific consensus would be sufficient to generate a
commitment to collective action, without taking into account the political impact that scientific ideas would have. Another example
that received considerable attention was the current construction of a synchrotron facility SESAMEin Jordan, a project that is already
is bringing together researchers in a range of scientific disciplines from various countries in the Middle East (including Israel, Egypt
and Palestine, as well as both Greece and Turkey). The promoters of SESAME hope that – as with the building of CERN 60 years ago,
and its operation as a research centre involving, for example, physicists from both Russia and the United States – SESAME will
become a symbol of what regional collaboration can achieve. In that sense, it would become what one participant described as a
“beacon of hope” for the region. But others cautioned that, however successful SESAME may turn out to be in purely scientific
terms, its potential impact on the Middle East peace process should not be exaggerated. Political conflicts have deep roots that
cannot easily be papered over, however open-minded scientists may be to professional colleagues coming from other political
there was even a warning that in the developing world, high profile scientific
projects, particular those with explicit political backing, could end up doing damage by
inadvertently favouring one social group over another. Scientists should be wary of having their prestige used in
this way; those who did so could come over as patronising, appearing unaware of political realities. Similarly, those who hold
science in esteem as a practice committed to promoting the causes of peace and development
were reminded of the need to take into account how advances in science – whether nuclear
physics or genetic technology – have also led to new types of weaponry. Nor did science automatically
lead to the reduction of global inequalities. “Science for diplomacy” therefore ended up with a highly mixed review. The
consensus seemed to be that science can prepare the ground for diplomatic initiatives – and
benefit from diplomatic agreements – but cannot provide the solutions to either. “On tap but not on top”
contexts. Indeed,
seems as relevant in international settings as it does in purely national ones. With all the caution that even this formulation still
requires.
Russian Relations
US Hegemony is not in decline – its position will remain unmatched for a long
time
Kagan 12 (Kagan, Robert. "Not Fade Away: Against the Myth of American Decline." The Brookings Institution. N.p., 17 Jan.
2012. Web. 26 July 2014. Robert Kagan is a senior fellow with the Project on International Order and Strategy in the Foreign Policy
program at Brookings. His most recent book is The New York Times bestseller, The World America Made (Random House, 2012).
Kagan also serves as a member of the secretary of state’s foreign affairs policy board and is co-chairman of the bipartisan working
group on Egypt. He writes a monthly column on world affairs for The Washington Post, and is a contributing editor at The New
Republic. He served in the State Department from 1984 to 1988 as a member of the policy planning staff, principal speechwriter for
Secretary of State George P. Shultz, and as deputy for policy in the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs. Eric).
this sense of decline may be, however, it deserves a more rigorous examination.
the size and the
influence of its economy relative to that of other powers; the magnitude of military power
compared with that of potential adversaries; the degree of political influence it wields in the
international system—all of which make up what the Chinese call “comprehensive national power.”
And there is the matter of time. Judgments based on only a few years’ evidence are problematic. A great power’s decline is
the product of fundamental changes in the international distribution of various forms of power
that usually occur over longer stretches of time. Great powers rarely decline suddenly. A war
may bring them down, but even that is usually a symptom, and a culmination, of a longer
process. ¶ The decline of the British Empire, for instance, occurred over several decades. In 1870, the British share of global
Powerful as
Measuring changes in a nation’s relative power is a tricky business, but there are some basic indicators:
manufacturing was over 30 percent. In 1900, it was 20 percent. By 1910, it was under 15 percent—well below the rising United
States, which had climbed over the same period from more than 20 percent to more than 25 percent; and also less than Germany,
which had lagged far behind Britain throughout the nineteenth century but had caught and surpassed it in the first decade of the
twentieth century. Over the course of that period, the British navy went from unchallenged master of the seas to sharing control of
the oceans with rising naval powers. In 1883, Britain possessed more battleships than all the other powers combined. By 1897, its
dominance had been eclipsed. British officials considered their navy “completely outclassed” in the Western hemisphere by the
United States, in East Asia by Japan, and even close to home by the combined navies of Russia and France—and that was before the
threatening growth of the German navy. These were clear-cut, measurable, steady declines in two of the most important measures
of power over the course of a half-century. ¶ Some of the arguments for America’s relative decline these days would be more potent
if they had not appeared only in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008. Just as one swallow does not make a spring, one recession,
or even a severe economic crisis, need not mean the beginning of the end of a great power. The United States suffered deep and
prolonged economic crises in the 1890s, the 1930s, and the 1970s. In each case, it rebounded in the following decade and actually
ended up in a stronger position relative to other powers than before the crisis. The 1910s, the 1940s, and the 1980s were all high
points of American global power and influence. ¶ Less than a decade ago, most observers spoke not of America’s decline but of its
enduring primacy. In 2002, the historian Paul Kennedy, who in the late 1980s had written a much-discussed book on “the rise and
fall of the great powers,” America included, declared that never in history had there been such a great “disparity of power” as
between the United States and the rest of the world. Ikenberry agreed that “no other great power” had held “such formidable
advantages in military, economic, technological, cultural, or political capabilities.... The preeminence of American power” was
“unprecedented.” In 2004, the pundit Fareed Zakaria described the United States as enjoying a “comprehensive uni-polarity” unlike
anything seen since Rome. But a mere four years later Zakaria was writing about the “post-American world” and “the rise of the
Did the fundamentals of America’s
relative power shift so dramatically in just a few short years? ¶ The answer is no. Let’s start with
the basic indicators. In economic terms, and even despite the current years of recession and
slow growth, America’s position in the world has not changed. Its share of the world’s GDP has
held remarkably steady, not only over the past decade but over the past four decades. In 1969, the United States produced
rest,” and Kennedy was discoursing again upon the inevitability of American decline.
roughly a quarter of the world’s economic output. Today it still produces roughly a quarter, and it remains not only the largest but
also the richest economy in the world. People are rightly mesmerized by the rise of China, India, and other Asian nations whose
share of the global economy has been climbing steadily, but this has so far come almost entirely at the expense of Europe and Japan,
which have had a declining share of the global economy. ¶ Optimists
about China’s development predict that it
will overtake the United States as the largest economy in the world sometime in the next two decades. This could mean
that the United States will face an increasing challenge to its economic position in the future. But the sheer size of an
economy is not by itself a good measure of overall power within the international system. If it
were, then early nineteenth-century China, with what was then the world’s largest economy, would have been the predominant
Even if China does reach this pinnacle again—
and Chinese leaders face significant obstacles to sustaining the country’s growth indefinitely—it
will still remain far behind both the United States and Europe in terms of per capita GDP. ¶
Military capacity matters, too, as early nineteenth-century China learned and Chinese leaders know today. As Yan Xuetong
recently noted, “military strength underpins hegemony.” Here the United States remains
unmatched. It is far and away the most powerful nation the world has ever known, and there
has been no decline in America’s relative military capacity—at least not yet. Americans currently spend less
power instead of the prostrate victim of smaller European nations.
than $600 billion a year on defense, more than the rest of the other great powers combined. (This figure does not include the
deployment in Iraq, which is ending, or the combat forces in Afghanistan, which are likely to diminish steadily over the next couple
of years.) They do so, moreover, while consuming a little less than 4 percent of GDP annually—a higher percentage than the other
great powers, but in historical terms lower than the 10 percent of GDP that the United States spent on defense in the mid-1950s and
the 7 percent it spent in the late 1980s. The superior expenditures underestimate America’s actual superiority in military capability.
American land and air forces are equipped with the most advanced weaponry, and are the most experienced in actual combat. They
would defeat any competitor in a head-to-head battle. American naval power remains predominant in every region of the world. ¶
No Russia-US war; both sides understand the risks
Peck 14 (Peck, Michael. "7 Reasons Why America Will Never Go To War Over Ukraine." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 05 Mar. 2014.
Web. 26 July 2014. I'm a defense writer, avid gamer and history buff. I'm currently a contributing editor for Foreign Policy Magazine,
a writer for the War is Boring defense blog and of course a contributor at Forbes. My work has also appeared in the Washingon
Post,Slate, Defense News, USA Today, the Philadelphia Inquirer and other fine publications. Eric).
Regardless
of whether Russia continues to occupy the Crimea region of Ukraine, or decides to occupy all of Ukraine,
the U.S. is not going to get into a shooting war with Russia.¶ This has nothing to do with whether
Obama is strong or weak. Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan would face the same constraints. The U.S. may threaten to
impose economic sanctions, but here is why America will never smack Russia with a big stick:¶ Russia is a nuclear
superpower. Russia has an estimated 4,500 active nuclear warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists. Unlike
North Korea or perhaps Iran, whose nuclear arsenals couldn’t inflict substantial damage, Russia could totally devastate
the U.S. as well as the rest of the planet. U.S. missile defenses, assuming they even work, are not designed to stop a
America is the mightiest military power in the world. And that fact means absolutely nothing for the Ukraine crisis.
massive Russian strike.¶ For the 46 years of the Cold War, America and Russia were deadly rivals. But they never fought. Their
The one time that U.S. and Soviet forces
almost went to war was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Neither Obama nor Putin is crazy
enough to want to repeat that.¶ Russia has a powerful army. While the Russian military is a
shadow of its Soviet glory days, it is still a formidable force. The Russian army has about 300,000 men and
proxies fought: Koreans, Vietnamese, Central Americans, Israelis and Arabs.
2,500 tanks (with another 18,000 tanks in storage), according to the “Military Balance 2014” from the International Institute for
Strategic Studies. Its air force has almost 1,400 aircraft, and its navy 171 ships, including 25 in the Black Sea Fleet off Ukraine’s
coast.¶ U.S. forces are more capable than Russian forces, which did not perform impressively during the 2008 Russo-Georgia War.
American troops would enjoy better training, communications, drones, sensors and possibly better weapons (though the latest
Russian fighter jets, such as the T-50, could be trouble for U.S. pilots). However, better is not good enough. The Russian military is
not composed of lightly armed insurgents like the Taliban, or a hapless army like the Iraqis in 2003. With advanced weapons like T80 tanks, supersonic AT-15 Springer anti-tank missiles, BM-30 Smerch multiple rocket launchers and S-400 Growler anti-aircraft
missiles, Russian forces pack enough firepower to inflict significant American losses.¶ Ukraine is closer to Russia. The distance
between Kiev and Moscow is 500 miles. The distance between Kiev and New York is 5,000 miles. It’s much easier for Russia to send
troops and supplies by land than for the U.S. to send them by sea or air.¶ The
U.S. military is tired. After nearly 13
years of war, America’s armed forces need a breather. Equipment is worn out from long service
in Iraq and Afghanistan, personnel are worn out from repeated deployments overseas, and there
are still about 40,000 troops still fighting in Afghanistan.¶ The U.S. doesn’t have many troops to send. The U.S. could
easily dispatch air power to Ukraine if its NATO allies allow use of their airbases, and the aircraft carrier George H. W. Bush and its
hundred aircraft are patrolling the Mediterranean. But for a ground war to liberate Crimea or defend Ukraine, there is just the 173rd
Airborne Brigade in Italy, the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit sailing off Spain, the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment in Germany and the
82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.¶ While the paratroopers could drop into the combat zone, the Marines would
have sail past Russian defenses in the Black Sea, and the Stryker brigade would probably have to travel overland through Poland into
Ukraine. Otherwise, bringing in mechanized combat brigades from the U.S. would be logistically difficult, and more important, could
take months to organize.¶ The
American people are tired. Pity the poor politician who tries to sell the
American public on yet another war, especially some complex conflict in a distant Eastern Europe nation. Neville
Chamberlain’s words during the 1938 Czechoslovakia crisis come to mind: “How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be
digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know
nothing.”¶ America‘s allies are tired. NATO sent troops to support the American campaign in Afghanistan, and has little to
show for it. Britain sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, and has little to show for it. It is almost inconceivable to imagine the
especially considering the
region’s sputtering economy, which might be snuffed out should Russia stop exporting natural gas. As for military
Western European public marching in the streets to demand the liberation of Crimea,
capabilities, the Europeans couldn’t evict Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi without American help. And Germans fighting Russians
again? Let’s not even go there.
Arctic war is unlikely
Beckhusen 12 (Beckhusen, Robert. "Russia and Canada Gear Up for Arctic Non-War | Danger Room | WIRED." Wired.com.
Conde Nast Digital, 07 Aug. 2012. Web. 23 July 2014. <http://www.wired.com/2012/08/arctic/>. Robert Beckhusen is a contributor
at wired.com Eric).
war is exceedingly unlikely — because Russia would lose. For one, the United States has an
overwhelming and decisive advantage in submarines. U.S. subs are more advanced, there are more
of them, and their crews are better trained. It’s unlikely Arctic nations would also begin killing each other
over low-key — and remote — territorial disputes.
But a
Oil
No chance of oil spill – Russia follows comprehensive regulations
Ghoneim 13 (G.A, Ghoneim. "Arctic Regulations Overview: Flexibility, Cooperation Needed | Drilling Contractor."
Www.drillingcontracter.com. N.p., 10 Sept. 2013. Web. 26 July 2014. Ghoneim is a reporter and writer for the drillingcontracter.com
Eric).
The existence of comprehensive Arctic-specific regulatory regime is paramount for ensuring the
safety of Arctic drilling and to lead to the successful development of vast Arctic resources. That’s
estimated at more than 25% of world reserves, or approximately 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,669 trillion cu ft of natural gas. The US
Geological Survey in 2010 estimated that an undiscovered 412 billion barrels of oil equivalent is present in the Arctic. Figure 1
outlines the geographical area of the Arctic.¶ It should be noted that Arctic drilling has been successfully undertaken by several
Arctic coastal states, such as Canada and Russia. Arctic drilling has been carried out by companies, such as Dome Petroleum
subsidiary Canadian Marine Drilling, Esso Resources Canada and Gulf Canada, since at least the early ’70s. Currently, Russia
is
leading in Arctic drilling and production. The country has comprehensive regulations in place
and has been cooperating very effectively with Norway in this regard, through venues such as the Barents 2020
project.¶ This article will present the current status of the regulatory schemes of the five Arctic coastal states: US, Canada, Russia,
Greenland (Denmark) and Norway. Much of what’s discussed here was referenced during the regulatory panel discussion at the
Arctic Technology Conference held in Houston in December last year focusing on Arctic drilling. A Pembina Institute study published
in June 2011, conducted for Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB), is an excellent source of identifying the necessary regulatory
elements that must be addressed.¶ Regulatory approaches¶ The
regulatory regimes include the laws used to
govern offshore drilling activities and the regulations that provide details on how to comply with
laws. The regulatory regime applies to environmental protection, safety, employment standards
and worker safety, health protection, emergency planning, oil spill response and liability for
accidents. Two basic approaches are the prescriptive and the goal-based, where the former specifies the methodology for
achieving the goals of the regulator and the latter identifies the goals that must be achieved while allowing the operator the
flexibility to choose the methodology that fits his proposed technology.
Russia’s economy is resilient- foreign reserves provide a backstop to oil price
decline
Adomanis 13 (Mark, Forbes contributor, specializes in Russian economics, “Why Russia’s
economy isn’t going to collapse”,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2013/01/07/why-russias-economy-isnt-going-tocollapse/)
Hating Russia‘s economy is a full-time job for many people. Owen Matthews in Newsweek is perhaps the most
colorful of the bunch, but the difference between Matthews and other Western journalists is primarily one of degree not of kind.
I’ve been following Russia very closely for about a decade now, and I’ve simply lost count of the number of analyses I’ve read arguing
that the end is nigh and that the economy’s final implosion is mere months away. These articles vary greatly in quality, but the basic
indictment of Russia’s economy consists of a number of actually quite reasonable observations on the country’s corruption, red
tape, and over-reliance on natural resources. However, after
getting decimated during the worse days of the
financial crisis, Russia’s economy has been plugging along with steady and unremarkable
growth in the 3-4% range, hardly world beating but actually faster than almost every country in the EU.
As more time has passed and Russia’s economy has defied predictions by continuing to not collapse, I’ve
become increasingly convinced that its economic stability has been somewhat underrated and that, despite its
many faults, its basic economic model is quite likely to endure through the short and medium
terms. I certainly don’t think that Russia is going to become some sort of economic hegemon, but it seems far more likely than not
that it will evolve gradually, and not through some titanic rupture or revolutionary upheaval. But my hunches and inclinations aren’t
very good evidence, so I thought I would put a few charts together which show why I think that Russia’s economy is basically going
to stay stable over the next several years and that it’s a huge mistake to predict a cataclysm which will sweep away the dread Putin.
1.The price of Brent crude has stayed remarkably robust despite chronic economic weakness in the developed world. I suppose it’s
possible that the EU will never emerge from its current doldrums, but I think that the developed world will eventually get out of its
funk and start to grow again. When it does that growth will likely drive the price of oil even higher, or at least prevent it from going
much lower. 2.
Russia still has very large foreign reserves , some of the largest in the entire world.
Although you often hear, as in Matthews’ piece, that “the Russians used to be responsible with their oil money, now they’re become
totally reckless and irresponsible,” Russia still
has very large foreign reserves that amount to almost 25%
of its GDP. Note the similarity between the oil price graph and Russia’s foreign reserves, their shapes are almost
identical. While the utility of foreign reserves can often be overstated, they can be very handy in averting
economic catastrophes, and, as you might expect, the Russians drew heavily on their foreign reserves
during the worst days of the 2008-09 crisis. I think that the
reserves provide a cushion
that will help to shield Russia from a future shock, such as a rapid and
massive decline in the price of oil. Of course there’s still the chance that Russia will suffer a slow and
gradual decline in competitiveness, but what I’m pushing back against is not that argument but the argument that the whole house
of cards is going to collapse in the next couple of years. 3. The
Russian government still runs a budget surplus,
and its spending as a percentage of GDP is not very high. From January-October 2012 Russia ran a budget
surplus of about 1.4%, smaller than the 2011 figure (3.2%) but a surplus nonetheless. Russia’s total level of government spending
(about 32% of GDP) hardly seems outrageous or unsustainable. Additionally, despite a lot of loose and foolish talk from the Russian
defense ministry about it looming re-armament campaign, Russia’s budget spending is more weighted towards the social sphere
than the military industrial complex. Courtesy of the Gaidar institute, here’s a graph showing where Russia’s consolidated
government spending was directed in the first ten months of 2012: The Gaidar institute is hardly a Kremlin outfit, indeed the overall
tone of the report to which I linked is actually quite gloomy* and critical of the authorities, and considering its track record I don’t
think that it would have spun the numbers in a more pro-Putin direction. When analyzing any country’s budget posture you need to
focus on where the money is actually being spent. While there’s been an awful lot of talk about comprehensively re-arming the
Russian military,
the actual level of spending remains relatively small and well within the country’s
ability to pay. The purse-strings are clearly somewhat looser than they used to be, but a quick glance at Russia’s budget
certainly doesn’t give the impression of a totally reckless and debauched approach. 4. Russian unemployment is at or
near a post-Soviet record low. Russia’s labor market isn’t exactly a model for anyone else, but its arguably more robust
now than its ever been before. I think that this will act as a sort of stabilizing influence in its own right, but, more importantly, it
might allow the government to feel comfortable enough to do some tinkering and implement a few moderate reforms. Basically,
the government is more likely to undertake some modest liberalization if the labor market is
healthy and it’s confident that people will be able to find jobs than if the unemployment rate is already
trending upwards (unemployment is obviously highly politically sensitive in “performance legitimacy” regimes like Russia’s).
Artic drilling by the US causes ocean acidification, destroys indigenous
communities food source and no more McDonald’s filet-o-fish
Leonard 13( George Leonard, director of strategic initiatives at Ocean Sonservancy. “Ocean Acidification: A Pain in the
Arctic”, online: http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/2013/05/17/ocean-acidification-a-pain-in-the-arctic/)
Even though oil companies have greatly improved practices in the Arctic, three decades of
drilling along Alaska's North Slope have produced a steady accumulation of harmful
environmental and social effects that will probably grow as exploration expands, a panel of
experts has concluded. Some of the problems could last for centuries, the experts said in a
report yesterday, both because environmental damage does not heal easily in the area's harsh
climate and because it is uneconomical to remove structures or restore damaged areas once
drilling is over. The report, produced by the National Research Council, was immediately hailed
by opponents of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which lies east of established oil
fields and is the only part of America's only stretch of Arctic coastline that for now is off limits to
drilling. Advocates of drilling called it biased. Administration officials said improved techniques
would lessen the environmental impact of future drilling. The council, the research arm of the
National Academies, an independent advisory body on science, produced the report at the
request of Republican lawmakers supporting oil drilling in the Arctic refuge. (The report can be
found on the Web at nas.edu.) No matter where you live, if you go outside and start walking
north, at some point you’ll reach the Arctic Ocean. A vast expanse at the northern reaches of
the planet, the Arctic Ocean supports a dizzying array of ocean wildldife, including the
charismatic – and much threatened – polar bear. Most readers of The Blog Aquatic know that
summer sea ice has been rapidly melting, caused by human-induced climate change from our
ever rising global carbon emissions. Indeed, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the global
atmosphere just broke a new record high. But more poorly understood is that carbon dioxide is
beginning to undermine the Arctic ocean itself through a process called ocean acidification. No
less than 10 key scientific findings can be found in a just-released assessment of ocean
acidification undertaken by an international group of independent scientists. Their assessment
will be presented to the Arctic Council Ministers in Kiruna, Sweden this week. Called the Arctic
Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP), the scientists spent the last three years
detailing the effects of ocean acidification on the Arctic, and exploring the consequences for
the four million people living there. The assessment concludes that the Arctic is particularly
sensitive to ocean acidification, in part because the especially cold Arctic water absorbs more
carbon dioxide than warmer waters to the south. In addition, the region’s ocean food web is
also unusually vulnerable because it consists of only a few keys species that are themselves
vulnerable to changing ocean chemistry. Most troubling, ocean acidification poses real threats
to local indigenous peoples who depend on Arctic resources for sustenance, for their
livelihoods, and for their culture. These new insights into ocean acidification in the Arctic
foreshadow similar processes underway in waters south of the Arctic Ocean in the Bering Sea. In
these sub-Arctic waters where future
Filet-o-Fish sandwiches and
California rolls prosper, ocean acidification also is a direct threat to Alaska’s fishing
industry. Alaska’s signature catch of cod, salmon, and crab is enjoyed by seafood consumers
across the U.S. and around the world. And with over $1.6 billion in revenue in 2010 – and 53,000
jobs at stake – Alaska is rightly worried about how acidification could impact their industry. A
new study published by NOAA Fisheries scientist Dr. Chris Long has documented how more
acidic waters decimate juvenile red king crabs and tanner crabs, an economically important
fishery in Alaska. Along with the AMAP report, Dr. Long’s research is just the tip of the iceberg
in terms of how ocean acidification may disrupt northern marine food webs, including for
economically important species and those of cultural significance.
Spills
Shipping
Russia SOI DA
1NC
US is lagging heavily behind in the Arctic race
AP 14 (Associated Press. "U.S. Lags behind Arctic Nations in Race to Stake Claims to Untapped Resources." PBS. PBS, 1 Jan. 2014.
Web. 23 July 2014. <http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/us-lags-behind-arctic-nations-in-race-to-stake-claims-to-untappedresources/>. Eric).
The U.S. is racing to keep pace with stepped-up activity in the once sleepy Arctic
frontier, but it is far from being in the lead.¶ Nations across the world are hurrying to stake
claims to the Arctic’s resources, which might be home to 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30 percent of its
WASHINGTON —
untapped natural gas. There are emerging fisheries and hidden minerals. Cruise liners filled with tourists are sailing the Arctic’s frigid
waters in increasing numbers. Cargo traffic along the Northern Sea Route, one of two shortcuts across the top of the Earth in
summer, is on the rise. The U.S., which takes over the two-year rotating chairmanship of the eight-nation Arctic Council in 2015, has
not ignored the Arctic, but
critics say the U.S. is lagging behind the other seven: Russia, Norway, Sweden,
Finland, Iceland, Canada and Denmark, through the semiautonomous territory of Greenland.¶ “On par with the other
Arctic nations, we are behind — behind in our thinking, behind in our vision,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said. “We
lack basic infrastructure, basic funding commitments to be prepared for the level of activity
expected in the Arctic.Ӧ At a meeting before Thanksgiving with Secretary of State John Kerry, Murkowski suggested he
name a U.S. ambassador or envoy to the Arctic — someone who could coordinate work on the Arctic being done by more than 20
federal agencies and take the lead on increasing U.S. activities in the region.¶ Murkowski is trying to get Americans to stop thinking
that the Arctic is just Alaska’s problem. “People in Iowa and New Hampshire need to view the U.S. as an Arctic nation. Otherwise
when you talk about funding, you’re never going to get there,” Murkowski said. She added that even non-Arctic nations are deeply
engaged: “India and China are investing in icebreakers.”¶ The U.S. has three aging icebreakers.¶ The melting Arctic also is creating a
new front of U.S. security concerns.¶ Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin said expanding Russia’s military presence in
the Arctic was a top priority for his nation’s armed forces. Russia this year began rehabilitating a Soviet-era base at the New Siberian
Islands and has pledged to restore a number of Arctic military air bases that fell into neglect after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet
Union.¶ Putin said he doesn’t envision a conflict between Russia and the United States, both of which have called for keeping the
Arctic a peaceful zone. But he added, “Experts know quite well that it takes U.S. missiles 15 to 16 minutes to reach Moscow from the
Barents Sea,” which is a part of the Arctic Ocean near Russia’s shore.¶ While the threat of militarization remains, the battle right now
is on the economic level as countries vie for oil, gas and other minerals, including rare earth metals used to make high-tech products
like cellphones. There also are disputes bubbling up with environmental groups that oppose energy exploration in the region; Russia
arrested 30 crew members of a Greenpeace ship in September after a protest in the Arctic.¶ China signed a free trade agreement
with tiny Iceland this year, a signal that the Asian powerhouse is keenly interested in the Arctic’s resources. And Russia is hoping that
the Northern Sea Route, where traffic jumped to 71 vessels this year from four in 2010, someday could be a transpolar route that
could rival the Suez Canal.¶ In the U.S., the Obama administration is consulting with governmental, business, industry and
environmental officials, as well as the state of Alaska, to develop a plan to implement the U.S. strategy for the Arctic that President
Barack Obama unveiled seven months ago.¶ Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel rolled out the Pentagon’s Arctic blueprint last month,
joining the Coast Guard and other government agencies that have outlined their plans for the region. There are no cost or budget
estimates yet, but the Navy is laying out what the U.S. needs to increase communications, harden ships and negotiate international
agreements so nations will be able to track traffic in the Arctic and conduct search and rescue operations.¶ Critics,
however,
say the U.S. needs to back the strategy papers with more precise plans — plus funding. With the
country still paying for two wars, the idea of spending money in an area considered a low
security threat makes the Arctic an even tougher sell.¶ “The problem with all of these strategies is that they are
absolutely silent on budget issues,” said Heather Conley, an expert on the Arctic at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“How do we meet these new challenges? Well, we’re going to have to put more resources to them. It’s dark. It’s cold. There’s
terrible weather. We need to enhance our own satellite communications and awareness in the area as ships and commercial activity
increases in the Arctic.Ӧ The
U.S. needs helicopters, runways, port facilities and roads in the Arctic, she
said – not to mention better accommodations in small coastal towns that have a shortage of beds and would be illequipped to handle an influx of tourists from a disabled cruise ship. With few assets, the U.S. might be forced to borrow from the
private sector.¶ “When Shell drilled two summers ago in the Chukchi Sea and the Beaufort Sea, they had 33 vessels and the Coast
“We’re not prepared. It may be another 10 years. The
Arctic is not going to wait, and the increased commercial and human activity is already there.
Other Arctic states are preparing more robustly, and we are choosing not to.”
Guard had one national security cutter,” Conley said.
It’s a zero sum game – Russia is willing to resort to force if someone challenges
their authority in the Arctic
O’Sullivan 14 (Sullivan. "Opinion: Arctic Development Could Ignite Next Great-Game Competition." Breaking Energy. N.p.,
28 Apr. 2014. Web. 23 July 2014. <http://breakingenergy.com/2014/04/28/opinion-arctic-development-could-ignite-next-greatgame-competition/>. Conor O'Sullivan is a writer at breakingenergy.com Eric).
The flag planting by a Russian submarine in August 2007 underneath the Arctic seabed symbolized Russia’s
intentions to use Arctic exploration as a means of securing its desired imperial status – pursuing
a zero-sum game. The Kremlin plans to establish a new international order in which it becomes a
regional hegemon. It is my opinion that Russia intends to end its role as an isolated entity in
international affairs, becoming closely integrated with the global economy and dictating policy. Russian officials view
the Arctic as securing its energy security ambitions for the next century. Dwindling Russian gas
and energy reserves, in the underdeveloped Siberian fields, and over-reliance on European
imports of its natural gas has led to a push towards the Arctic. Russia’s jurisdictional claim over
the Arctic seabed will challenge the existing international law criteria, the UNCLOS, which specifies
jurisdictional authority over international waters.¶ Arctic stakeholders must be wary of Russian intentions
over Arctic development, considering the nationalistic rhetoric of the current government in power. Russia’s nationalized
energy companies maintain an influence in formulating Arctic Policy and influencing the Russian government to their advantage.
Russia will also use its energy security policy in the Arctic to become a naval superpower as new shipping lanes for trade and energy
production will run along its extensive northern coastline.¶ Russia’s
actions in Crimea and the Ukraine
emphasize their willingness to revert to military action over issues of territorial sovereignty and
that the U.S. requires an assertive foreign policy with Russia. Ensuing competition over Arctic energy
resources and shipping lanes will increase geopolitical competition among the Great Powers. The Bering Sea provides the U.S. with
access to Arctic shipping lanes and can act as a strategic counterbalance to Russia. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 13%
and 30% of the world’s undiscovered oil and natural gas respectively lies under the Arctic seabed. I believe that Arctic Council
members, the Nordic States and Canada, will align with the U.S. to impose strict restrictions over extraction and production in the
Arctic Ocean.
US-Russian relations are key to solve nuclear terrorism and global stability
Graham 8 (Thomas Graham, Thomas Graham joined the Carnegie Endowment as a senior associate in September 1998. His
areas of interest include Russian domestic politics - especially leadership issues, center-regional relations, and big business
government ties - and U.S.-Russian relations Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University and a B.A. in Russian studies from Yale
University, “US-Russia Relations: Facing Reality Pragmatically, center for strategic and international studies, July 2008,
http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/080717_graham_u.s.russia.pdf Eric).
In this uncertain world, the United States and Russia are not strategic rivals, and neither poses a¶ strategic
threat to the other (despite some overwrought Russian rhetoric to the contrary), in¶ contrast to the situation during the Cold War.
Rather, they share a set of common strategic¶ challenges.
Russia, by virtue of its geographic location, and the
United States, by virtue of its¶ global role, must build new relationships with a Europe that is expanding and
deepening; they¶ both must find a way to cope with the growing instability in the Middle East. the
challenge to energy security that implies, and, at least for Russia, the threat that that instability will infect¶ Russia’s southern
In addition,¶ both countries must deal with the dark
side of globalization, and both have a keen interest in the¶ role and effectiveness of the institutions of
global governance, such as the United Nations and the¶ G-8, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Common
reaches: and they both must manage relations with a rising China.
challenges, however, are not the same as common interests. And there are deep¶ differences in the way the United States and
Russia think of global order (consider, for example.¶ the role of democracy or the United Nations). But the question each country
Given their standing as
the world’s two leading nuclear powers, the United States and Russia are each indispensable to
dealing with the problems of proliferation of weapons of¶ mass destruction, nuclear terrorism,
and strategic stability.¶ . The United States, as the world’s largest energy consumer, and Russia, as the largest¶
producer of hydrocarbons, are essential to any discussion of energy security and energy’s¶ future.¶ .
Global economic dynamics and transfers of wealth will require bringing Russia, along¶ with China, India, and others, into a more
needs to ask is how¶ important the other is to its achieving its own strategic goals. For example:¶ .
central role in managing the global economy, a¶ service long performed by Europe and the United States.¶ . In East Asia. to create a
favorable new equilibrium, Russia has an interest in a strong¶ power—that is, the United States—acting as a moderating influence
on China, and the¶ United States has no interest in a weakening Russian presence in Siberia and the Russian¶ Far East. regions rich
in the natural resources that fuel modem economies.¶ . In
the Middle East, both the United States and Russia
have levers that could help promote stability, if the two countries were working in concert, or
fuel conflict, if they were not.
Uniqueness
UQ: Russia has significant interest in the Arctic right now
Padrtova 7/20 (Padrtova, Barbora. "Russian Approach Towards the Arctic Region." Centre for European and North Atlantic
Affairs Analysis RSS. N.p., 20 July 2014. Web. 23 July 2014. <http://cenaa.org/analysis/russian-approach-towards-the-arctic-region/>.
Mgr. Barbora Padrtová holds a Master degree in Security and Strategic Studies from the Faculty of Social Studies of the Masaryk
University in Brno. In 2009 she graduated in International Relations and European Studies from the Metropolitan University in
Prague. She also studied International Relations and Political Science at the Universiteit Twente in Netherlands. In 2011 she worked
at the Political Section of the Embassy of the Republic of Iraq in Washington, D.C. Currently she is a project manager in CENAA. In her
research she focuses on Russian security and foreign policy, US-Russia relations, NATO-Russia relations, post-Soviet region, and the
Arctic region. Eric).
The Arctic is clearly vital to Russia’s relevance in world affairs. Natural resources are one of the ¶
major forces driving Russian policy as they are viewed as a basis for the economic development ¶ and determine its
geopolitical influence. Moreover, the Arctic has always played a significant ¶ role from the perspective
of Russian Navy. Russia is the only country in the world with a nuclear ¶ icebreaker fleet. On the geopolitical level, the most
important for Moscow is maintaining of ¶ nuclear deterrence by securing the open access of submarines to world’s seas. As the
forecast ¶ promises an ice-free Arctic by 2040, Russia
has a well-developed commercial and transport ¶
infrastructure to take advantage of opportunities offered by the retreating icecap. The
importance ¶ of the Arctic to Russia on the one hand, and growing international interest on the
other, has ¶ fueled Russia’s determination to make its role as a central Arctic nation eminently clear
by ¶ political, economic, and military means. As part of its effort to create a comprehensive presence ¶ in the
Arctic, Russia has been steadily expanding its military component there since 2007. Any ¶ foreign
interest in the area, government, commercial or environmental, is seen as hostile intent. ¶
Naturally, Russian national interests will be challenged by other Arctic states – all NATO ¶ members – who can theoretically speak
with one voice against Russia. Thus the Arctic region is ¶ likely to become a region of geo-political competition.
Spills
Link/Internal Link
Russia holds significant interests in the Arctic and is wary of other foreigners
Mikkola & Kapyla 13 (Mikkola, Juha Käpylä & Harri. The Global Arctic: The Growing Arctic Interests of Russia, China, the
United States and the European Union(n.d.): n. pag. Aug. 2013. Web. 22 July 2014.
<www.fiia.fi/assets/publications/bp133.pdf>. Juha Käpylä is researcher the Finnish institute of international affairs. Harri Mikkola is
a researcher the Finnish institute of international affairs. Eric).
Russia is the most important player in the Arctic, with significant economic, security and
governance interests in the region. This is primarily because of natural resources. Over 20% of undiscovered global
hydrocarbon reserves are located in the Arctic area and most of them in the Russian Arctic.4 These natu- ral resources
are vital to Russian national security and economy; oil and gas alone account for roughly 20-25% of Russian
GDP.5 Russia’s domestic social programmes, infrastructure investments, and mili- tary modernization are all critically dependent on
revenues from natural resource export.¶ Similarly,
hydrocarbons provide important leverage for Russian
foreign influence. This is especially the case with energy-dependent Europe, where a third of the natural gas consumed is
imported from Rus- sia. The Arctic plays an increasing role in this equa- tion as a strategically vital
resource base for Russia. So far, the Russian Arctic has been responsible for about 10-15% of
Russian GDP and 25% of its foreign exports and there are systematic efforts to increase these
figures.¶ Russia’s increasing northward focus is also due to the fact that Russia’s mature
hydrocarbon sources in Western Siberia are slowly drying up. Recent hydrocarbon activities in the Russian
Arctic have taken place primarily through onshore projects in key locations such as the Yamal Peninsula and in nascent offshore
projects on the Arctic sea bed in the Barents, Pechora and Kara Seas. These offshore projects have often taken the form of joint
ventures between Russian and international energy corpora- tions. This signals Russia’s need to seek investments and technological
know-how through international cooperation.¶ However, key offshore projects – such as the¶ Shtokhman gas field and
Prirazlomnoye oil field – have turned out to be extremely challenging and have been suffering from continuous delays and shuffling
of foreign partners up until today. Russia has also set its sights on resource bases outside its territorial borders and submitted a
claim for the¶ extension of its continental shelf to the UN Com- mission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) process as early
as 2001.¶ In order to access, exploit and deliver Arctic natu- ral resources to global markets, Russia also aims to develop critical
infrastructure in the Northern Sea Route (NSR), including ports, search-and-rescue (SAR) centres, route administration, ice-breaking
capability, and oil spill response capabilities. In addition, non-maritime parts of the Arctic trans- port system – pipelines, aviation
routes, railways, and roads – and the overall socio-economic con- ditions of the region require development and modernization.¶
Russia seeks to project its sovereign authority in its wide Arctic
region through improved border control (FSB), to provide safety and security espe- cially in the
NSR, and to maintain credible forces to secure critical infrastructures. Russia also seeks to
maintain, develop and project a credible military force – primarily naval, aerial and missile
assets¶ – in the region in order to be able to react in various politico-military scenarios, as well as
to deter the expansion of unwanted foreign military presence into the (Russian) Arctic.
Russia also has security interests in the Arctic.
Further US involvement risks Russian retaliation, actions to gain influence in the
Arctic could be detrimental
Aron 13(Leon Aron, Director of Russian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author, most recently, of Roads
to the Temple: Truth, Memory, Ideas, and Ideals in the Making of the Russian Revolution, “The Putin Doctrine: Russia's Quest to
Rebuild the Soviet State”, foreign affairs published by council of foreign relations, March 8, 2013,
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139049/leon-aron/the-putin-doctrine Eric).
Much in Russian foreign policy today is based on a consensus that crystallized in the early 1990s. Emerging from
the rubble of the Soviet collapse, this consensus ranges across the political spectrum -- from pro-Western liberals to leftists and
three geostrategic imperatives: that Russia must remain a nuclear superpower,
a great power in all facets of international activity, and the hegemon -- the political, military, and
economic leader -- of its region. This consensus marks a line in the sand, beyond which Russia cannot
nationalists. It rests on
retreat without losing its sense of pride or even national identity. It has proven remarkably
resilient, surviving post-revolutionary turbulence and the change of political regimes from Boris Yeltsin to Vladimir Putin.¶ After
his election as president in 2000, Putin added to this agenda an overarching goal: the recovery of
economic, political, and geostrategic assets lost by the Soviet state in 1991. Although he has never spelled it out
formally, Putin has pursued this objective with such determination, coherence, and consistency
that it merits being called the Putin Doctrine. Domestically, the doctrine has guided the regime to reclaim the
commanding heights of the economy (first and foremost, the oil and natural gas industries) and reassert its control over national
politics, the judicial system, and the national television networks, from which an overwhelming majority of Russians get their news.
In foreign and security policy, the doctrine has amounted to a reinterpretation of Russia's geostrategic triad, making its
implementation and maintenance considerably more assertive than originally intended. Although U.S. President Barack Obama has
signaled lately that he will attempt to revive the "reset" with Russia, Washington's best option may well be a strategic pause: a
much-scaled-down mode of interaction that reflects the growing disparity in values and objectives between the two countries yet
preserves frank dialogue and even cooperation in a few select areas.¶ THE PUTIN DOCTRINE IN PRACTICE
Russia fears US encroachment in the Arctic – its expansion is a security threat
O’Brien 9 (O'Brien, Gregory. "How to Read the Arctic: Structural Theory and the Balance of Arctic Powers." Academia.edu.
N.p., Spring 2009. Web. 23 July 2014.
<https://www.academia.edu/3476953/How_to_Read_the_Arctic_Structural_Theory_and_the_Balance_of_Arctic_Powers>.
RESEARCH PROJECT SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF POLITICAL
SCIENCE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE FACULTY OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES Eric).
In response to this threatening 'non-presence' of the United States, and the growing multipolarity of the
global structure, Russia appears to be pursuing a path towards establishing a new balance that
would favour its Arctic power and interests. On this point, Karen Ruth Adams argued in 2003 that US encroachment
on the interests of nuclear powers, including Russia, would propel the development of a new balance 'just around the corner.'235
Russian Chief of Staff Lurii Baluevskii has been more direct; stating that US commitment to its
hegemony "expanding its economic, political, and military presence in Russia's traditional zones
of influence" is the country's top national security threat.236 As a consequence, it is difficult to isolate the
regional security dilemma and polarity trends in the Arctic from the larger international environment. For example, Hubert et al.
note that events such as the Russian Georgian war could easily have led to 'chilled' relations among Arctic Council states as a result
Huebert argues that because both the US and
Russia are Arctic Great Powers, any drive to increase power capabilities is likely to have an effect
on the Arctic balance, and hence, is an Arctic security issue.238 Thus, the Arctic security dilemma is in many
of many of these states also being members of NATO.237 Secondly,
ways inexorably linked to outcomes within the international structure. From this vantage, the ability of Russia, or any comparable
The value of the region is too
great, relative gains are too important, and Great Powers will strive to attain a more favourable
balance where their power is most fungible.
Great Power, to conduct itself in the Arctic isolated from the global environment is unlikely.
The zero sum game is unavoidable – 3 warrants
Bukkvoll 14 (Bukkvoll, Tor. "Prospects for Peace and Cooperation in the Arctic." Arctic.ru. N.p., 2011. Web. 23 July 2014.
<http://arctic.ru/expert-opinions/prospects-peace-and-cooperation-arctic>. Tor BUKKVOLL is Head of the Russia Project at the
Norwegian Defense Research Establishment Eric).
It is of course true that many Arctic states are concerned with their economic and security
interests in the region and the danger of a regional conflict. This is in part reflected in practically all Arctic
states’ increased military presence in the area. At times we see heated rhetoric and mutual accusations of militarization. This
is rooted in three main causes: a zero-sum game over access to natural resources; an insufficient level of
trust among Arctic states; and the fact that the Arctic has been and will remain a militarily
sensitive area, especially for Russia. In addition, climate change and the melting of the Arctic ice cap are likely to
substantially increase commercial activity in the region. This may lead to conflicts that are not yet apparent.¶ Speaking about
oil and gas deposits, this zero-sum game is unavoidable. Politics cannot increase the volume of
available hydrocarbon deposits. Delimitation agreements seem to be the only way of defusing
conflicts. The 2011 agreement between Norway and Russia on a close to fifty-fifty division of the Barents Sea shelf among the
two countries is a case in point. It is, however, important to note here that far from all hydrocarbon deposits are potential sources of
political conflict. In fact, many and probably most deposits are located in undisputed areas. In addition, the possibilities for
cooperation on infrastructure, technology development, etc., in connection with oil and gas exploration and development activities,
might also make this issue less zero-sum.
Arctic Council CP
1NC
Counterplan Text: The Arctic Council should <insert plan text here>
The Arctic Council solves for miscommunication and tensions in the Arctic
Stavridis 13 (Stavridis, James. "High North or High Tension?" Foreign Policy. N.p., 21 Oct. 2013. Web. 23 July 2014.
<http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/10/21/high_north_or_high_tension_arctic_competition>. Former supreme
commander of NATO. He is now the Dean of Tuft's University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Eric).
Second, we need to double down on international cooperation via the Arctic Council. Currently a smallscale international organization, it must be nurtured and resourced. Ratification of the U.N. Law of the Sea Treaty, a perennial topic
in American foreign policy, would also increase U.S. influence in the Arctic. For the United States, working closely with Canada in
particular and our NATO partners in the Arctic generally makes good sense and would reduce costs to individual nations. We
should use the Arctic Council to ensure that each nation's military movements, intentions, and
patterns of operation are fully understood -- thus reducing the prospect of inadvertent tension.
There are also important so-called "Track II" projects, like the rapidly growing annual conference
sponsored by ArcticCircle.org, a loose confederation of experts in the region who met in Iceland last week.¶ Third, we
need to work as closely as we can with Russia in the Arctic. Although we will inevitably have disagreements over other topics, it is
possible the High North could be a zone of cooperation with the Russian Federation. We have shown
the ability to work together in Afghanistan, on counternarcotics and counterterrorism, in combating piracy, and in strategic arms
control and reductions. We should do what we can -- working with NATO allies -- to make it so.
Solvency
The Arctic Council can do mapping
CAFF 14 (CAFF. "Arctic Council to Produce Harmonized Map Covering Region Read More: Http://climate-l.iisd.org/news/arcticcouncil-to-produce-harmonized-map-covering-region/." Climate.issd.org. N.p., 18 July 2014. Web. 24 July 2014.
<http%3A%2F%2Fclimate-l.iisd.org%2Fnews%2Farctic-council-to-produce-harmonized-map-covering-region%2F>. Eric).
The Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF), the Arctic Council's biodiversity
working group, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to guide national mapping
organizations in the Arctic in producing a harmonized map covering the entire Arctic region, with data on, inter alia,
18 June:
climate and biodiversity. The aim of the Arctic Spatial Data Infrastructure (Arctic SDI) is to help harmonize, combine and integrate
wide range of data with a spatial component has been generated in the Arctic.
However, the management of such data has mainly been national or issue-specific and, thus,
many of the existing datasets are distributed among many organizations. Thus, the Arctic SDI
will also contribute to improved sharing and analysis across the Arctic, and will be critical in
helping to understand the impacts of climate change on nature, biodiversity management, and
the adaptability and sustainable use of all living resources in the Arctic. Spatial data can be used
in the Arctic as a tool for integrated planning. Arctic SDI users include: the Arctic Council
Working Groups; scientific groups engaged in Arctic research; governmental authorities involved
in decision regarding the Arctic; and the broader public, including the private sector, NGOs and media. The
diverse data sets.A
national mapping organizations participating in the project are from the US, Canada, the Russian Federation, Denmark and the Faroe
Islands, Greenland, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. CCAF consists of national representatives assigned by each of the eight
Arctic Council Member States, representatives of Indigenous Peoples' organizations that are Permanent Participants to the Council,
and Arctic Council observer countries and organizations.
Arctic Council guidelines solve for oil environmental damage
Arctic Council 9 (The Arctic Council Was Established In 1996 And Succeeded The Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy.,
It Is A High-Level Intergovernmental Forum That Provides A Mechanism To Address The Common Concerns, And Challenges Faced By
The Arctic Governments And The Indigenous Peoples Of The Arctic., and The Members Of The Arctic Council Are Canada, Denmark
(Including The Faroe Islands And Greenland),. ARCTIC COUNCIL (n.d.): n. pag. Www.govmin.gl. 29 Apr. 2009. Web. 24 July 2014.
<http://www.govmin.gl/images/stories/petroleum/Arctic_Offshore_Oil_and_Gas_Guidelines_2009.pdf>. Its the Arctic Council. Eric).
Clean-up Assessment Technique (SCAT) Manual (2004), the Arctic Guide for Emergency Prevention, Preparedness and Response
(2008), the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (2004), the assessment, Oil and Gas Activities in the Arctic—Effects and Potential
Effects (OGA, 2009).¶ 1.2 Goals¶ Purpose of the Guidelines¶ These
Guidelines are intended to be of use to the
Arctic nations for offshore oil and gas activities during planning, exploration, development,
production and decommissioning¶ Recommendations on the transportation of oil and gas are found in the OGA, 2008. The
Guidelines should be used to help secure common policy and practices. The target group for the Guidelines is thus
primarily the authorities, but the Guidelines may also be of help to the industry when planning
for oil and gas activities and to the public in understanding environmental concerns and
practices of Arctic offshore oil and gas activities. While recognizing the non- binding nature of these Guidelines,
they are intended to encourage the highest standards currently available. They are not intended to prevent States from setting
equivalent or stricter standards, where appropriate.¶ Policy development should take into account the domestic situation with
respect to political, economic, legal, and administrative conditions. Consideration should be given to macro- economic effects,
regional effects, and potential environmental impacts. Such consideration should result in a staged opening plan, and ensure
protection of areas of special environmental concern. While these guidelines do not address socio-economic aspects in any detail,
these are
nonetheless important to consider and integrate into the planning and conduct of exploration
and development.¶ The Guidelines are intended to define a set of recommended practices and outline
strategic actions for consideration by those responsible for regulation of offshore oil and gas
activities (including transportation and related onshore activities) in the Arctic (see Figure 1 and Annex A). It is hoped that
nor do they set standards for assessment of potential socio-economic effects of offshore oil and gas activities,
regulators will identify the key aspects related to protection of human health and safety and protection of the environment for the
management of offshore activities, while at the same time remaining sufficiently flexible in the application of these management
regimes to permit alternative regulatory approaches. It should be recognized that the eight Arctic nations have different systems
with different emphases on the division of responsibility between the operator and the regulator. The goal is to assist regulators in
developing standards, which are applied and enforced consistently for all offshore Arctic oil and gas operators. Sensible regulation
will vary to some degree based upon local circumstances. Thus, it
is expected that, based on the outcome of
environmental impact assessment procedures, regulators will establish policies such that
offshore oil and gas activities are conducted so as to provide for human health and safety and
protection of the environment.
Arctic Council is uniquely key to solve the dispute in the Arctic
Stein and Axworthy 11 (Stein and Axworthy, Janice and Thomas. "The Arctic Council Is the Best Way for Canada to
Resolve Its Territorial Disputes." The Globe and Mail. N.p., 25 Jan. 2011. Web. 24 July 2014.
<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-arctic-council-is-the-best-way-for-canada-to-resolve-its-territorialdisputes/article574575/>. Janice Gross Stein is director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto and Thomas
S. Axworthy is president and CEO of the Walter & Duncan Gordon Foundation and a senior distinguished fellow at the Munk School
of Global Affairs. Fred).
For example, the Canada-Russia dispute over the Lomonosov Ridge will take 10 to 20 years if left to the UN Commission on the
What is needed is an Arctic-specific institution where these issues can be
resolved. Luckily, one exists.¶ The Arctic Council, comprised of the eight Nordic countries in the region, is an
effective, high-level venue for discussing substantial concerns, such as the environment and
native rights. However, when it was created in 1996 after a long diplomatic campaign by Canada, peace and security issues
were left out of its mandate at American insistence.¶ But 2011 is not 1996 and, as world interest on the Arctic swells,
peace and security need to be on the agenda to ensure the Arctic Council remains relevant.¶ The
Limits of the Continental Shelf.
survey clearly demonstrates interest in peace and security in the Arctic. On the issue of an Arctic nuclear-weapons free zone (such as
Antarctica), six of the nine constituencies surveyed were very supportive of this idea (82 per cent in Norway, 78 per cent of Southern
Canada, 77 per cent of Finland, 76 per cent of Northern Canada, 75 per cent of Iceland, and 74 per cent of Denmark).¶ Not
surprisingly, American and Russian respondents were the least enthusiastic, with 56 per cent and 47 per cent supporting a nuclearfree Arctic, respectively.¶ The
Arctic Council would be a fitting venue to discuss peace and security, not
only because it includes the world's two largest nuclear superpowers, but also because it
includes as Permanent Participants the indigenous peoples who call this territory their
homeland.¶ Even in Russia, there is an appetite for discussing these issues at the council, with 81 per cent of Russians agreeing
that military security should be discussed and 85 per cent agreeing that the Arctic Council should cover peace-building issues. Upon
becoming chair of the Arctic Council in 2013, Canada will have a rare opportunity to put peace and security back on the agenda.
Environmental Justice K
1NC
Justice must be our overriding imperative-All communities are interconnected,
beyond just constructed boundaries. Damage in one sows seeds of destruction in
another. In return, we reap wars, environmental destruction, and inevitable
extinction. Intellectual and political expediency is flypaper to progress. Making energy
justice our intellectual strategy is key to incorporating these communities into
decision making while laying the foundation for a sustainable politics
Bryant 95
(Bunyan Bryant, Professor in the School of Natural Resources and Environment, and an adjunct professor in the Center for Afro-American and
African Studies at the University of Michigan, 1995, Environmental Justice: Issues, Policies, and Solutions, p. 209-212)
Although the post-World War II economy was designed when environmental consideration was not a problem, today this is no longer the case; we
must be concerned enough about environmental protection to make it a part of our economic design. Today, temporal and spatial relations of
pollution have drastically changed within the last 100 years or so. A hundred years ago we polluted a small spatial area and it took the earth a short
time to heal itself. Today we pollute large areas of the earth – as evidenced by the international problems of acid rain, the depletion of the ozone
layer, global warming, nuclear meltdowns, and the difficulties in the safe storage of spent fuels from nuclear power plants. Perhaps we
have
embarked upon an era of pollution so toxic and persistent that it will take the earth in some
areas thousands of years to heal itself. To curtail environmental pollutants, we must build new institutions to prevent
widespread destruction from pollutants that know no geopolitical boundaries. We need to do this because pollutants are not respectful of
international boundaries; it does little good if one country practices sound environmental protection while its neighbors fail to do so.
Countries of the world are intricately linked together in ways not clear 50 years ago; they find
themselves victims of environmental destruction even though the causes of that destruction
originated in another part of the world. Acid rain, global warming, depletion of the ozone
layer, nuclear accidents like the one at Chernobyl, make all countries vulnerable to environmental destruction.
The cooperative relations forged after World War II are now obsolete. New cooperative relations need to be agreed upon – cooperative relations
that show that pollution
prevention and species preservation are inseparably linked to economic
development and survival of planet earth. Economic development is linked to pollution prevention even though the market fails to
include the true cost of pollution in its pricing of products and services; it fails to place a value on the destruction of plant and animal species. To
date, most industrialized nations, the high polluters, have had an incentive to pollute because they did not incur the cost of producing goods and
services in a nonpolluting manner. The world will have to pay for the true cost of production and to practice prudent stewardship of our natural
resources if we are to sustain ourselves on this planet. We cannot expect Third World countries to participate in debt-for-nature swaps
as a means for saving the rainforest or as a means for the reduction of greenhouse gases, while a considerable amount of such
gases come from industrial nations and from fossil fuel consumption. Like disease, population growth is politically, economically, and structurally
determined. Due to inadequate income maintenance programs and social security, families in developing countries are more apt to have large families not only to ensure the
survival of children within the first five years, but to work the fields and care for the elderly. As development increases, so do education, health, and birth control. In his
chapter, Buttel states that ecological development and substantial debt forgiveness would be more significant in alleviating Third World environmental degradation (or
population problems) than ratification of any UNCED biodiversity or forest conventions. Because population control programs fail to address the structural characteristics of
poverty, such programs for developing countries have been for the most part dismal failures. Growth and development along ecological lines have a better chance of
controlling population growth in developing countries than the best population control programs to date. Although population control is important, we often focus a
considerable amount of our attention on population problems of developing countries. Yet there are more people per square mile in Western Europe than in most
developing countries. “During his/her lifetime an American child causes 35 times the environmental damage of an Indian child and 280 times that of a Haitian child (Boggs,
1993: 1). The addiction to consumerism of highly industrialized countries has to be seen as a major culprit, and thus must be balanced against the benefits of population
Worldwide environmental protection is only one part of the complex
problems we face today. We cannot ignore world poverty; it is intricately linked to
environmental protection. If this is the case, then how do we deal with world poverty? How do we bring about lasting peace in the
control in Third World countries.
world? Clearly we can no longer afford a South Africa as it was once organized, or ethnic cleansing by Serbian nationalists. These types of conflicts
bankrupt us morally and destroy our connectedness with one another as a world community. Yet, we may be headed on a course where the
politically induced famine, poverty, and chaos of Somalia today will become commonplace and world peace more difficult, particularly if the
European Common Market, Japan, and the United States trade primarily among themselves, leaving Third World countries to fend for themselves.
Growing poverty will lead only to more world disequilibrium to wars and famine – as
countries become more aggressive and cross international borders for resources to ward off
widespread hunger and rampant unemployment. To tackle these problems requires a quantum leap in global
cooperation and commitment of the highest magnitude; it requires development of an international tax, levied through
the United nations or some other international body, so that the world community can become more involved in helping to deal with issues of
environmental protection, poverty, and peace. Since the market system has been bold and flexible enough to meet changing conditions, so too must
public institutions. They must, indeed, be able to respond to the rapid changes that reverberate
throughout the world. If they fail to change, then we will surely meet the fate of the
dinosaur. The Soviet Union gave up a system that was unworkable in exchange for another one. Although it has not been easy, individual
countries of the former Soviet Union have the potential of reemerging looking very different and stronger. Or they could emerge looking very
different and weaker. They could become societies that are both socially and environmentally destructive or they can become societies where
people have decent jobs, places to live, educational opportunities for all citizens, and sustainable social structures that are safe and nurturing.
Although North Americans are experiencing economic and social discomforts, we too will have to change, or we may find ourselves engulfed by
political and economic forces beyond our control. In 1994, the out-sweeping of Democrats from national offices may be symptomatic of deeper and
more fundamental problems. If the mean-spirited behavior that characterized the 1994 election is carried over into the governance of the
country, this may only fan the flames of discontent. We may be embarking upon a long struggle over ideology, culture, and the
very heart and soul of the country. But despite all the political turmoil, we must take risks and try out new ideas – ideas never
dreamed of before and ideas we thought were impossible to implement. To implement these ideas we must overcome
institutional inertia in order to enhance intentional change. We
need to give up tradition and “business as usual.” To
must be willing to take political
view the future as a challenge and as an opportunity to make the world a better place, we
and economic risks. The question is not growth, but what kind of growth, and where it will take place. For example, we can maintain
current levels of productivity or become even more productive if we farm organically. Because of ideological conflicts, it is hard for us to view the
Cuban experience with an unjaundiced eye; but we ask you to place political differences aside and pay attention to the lyrics of organic farming and
not to the music of Communism. In other words, we must get beyond political differences and ideological conflicts; we must find success stories of
healing the planet no matter where they exist – be they in Communist or non-Communist countries, developed or underdeveloped countries. We
must ascertain what lessons can be learned from them, and examine how they would benefit the world community. In most instances, we will have
to chart a new course. Continued
use of certain technologies and chemicals that are incompatible with
the ecosystem will take us down the road of no return. We are already witnessing the
catastrophic destruction of our environment and disproportionate impacts of environmental insults
on communities of color and low-income groups. If such destruction continues, it will undoubtedly deal harmful blows to
our social, economic, and political institutions. As a nation, we find ourselves in a house divided, where the
cleavages between the races are in fact getting worse. We find ourselves in a house divided where the gap between the
rich and the poor has increased. We find ourselves in a house divided where the gap between the young and the old has widened. During the 1980s,
there were few visions of healing the country. In the 1990s, despite the catastrophic economic and environmental results of the 1980s, and despite
the conservative takeover of both houses of Congress, we must look for glimmers of hope. We must stand by what we think is right and defend our
position with passion. And at times we need to slow down and reflect and do a lot of soul searching in order to redirect ourselves, if need be. We
must chart out a new course of defining who we are as a people, by redefining our relationship with government, with nature, with one another,
and where we want to be as a nation. We need to find a way of expressing this definition of ourselves to one another. Undeniably we
are a
nation of different ethnic groups and races, and of multiple interest groups, and if we
cannot live in peace and in harmony with ourselves and with nature it bodes ominously for
future world relations. Because economic institutions are based upon the growth paradigm
of extracting and processing natural resources, we will surely perish if we use them to foul
the global nest. But it does not have to be this way. Although sound environmental policies can be compatible with
good business practices and quality of life, we may have to jettison the moral argument of environmental protection in favor of the self-interest
argument, thereby demonstrating that the
survival of business enterprises is intricately tied to good
stewardship of natural resources and environmental protection. Too often we forget that
short-sightedness can propel us down a narrow path, where we are unable to see the long-term effects of our
actions. The ideas and policies discussed in this book are ways of getting ourselves back on track. The ideas presented here will hopefully provide
substantive material for discourse. These policies are not carved in stone, nor are they meant to be for every city, suburb, or rural area.
Municipalities or rural areas should have flexibility in dealing with their site-specific problems. Yet
we need to extend our
concern about local sustainability beyond geopolitical boundaries, because dumping in Third World
countries or in the atmosphere today will surely haunt the world tomorrow. Ideas presented here may irritate some and dismay others, but we
need to make some drastic changes in our lifestyles and institutions in order to foster
environmental justice. Many of the policy ideas mentioned in this book have been around for some time, but they have not been
implemented. The struggle for environmental justice emerging from the people of color and lowincome communities may provide the necessary political impulse to make these policies a
reality. Environmental justice provides opportunities for those most affected by
environmental degradation and poverty to make policies to save not only themselves from
differential impact of environmental hazards, but to save those responsible for the lion’s share
of the planet’s destruction. This struggle emerging from the environmental experience of oppressed people brings forth a new
consciousness – a new consciousness shaped by immediate demands for certainty and solution. It is a struggle to make a true connection between
humanity and nature.
This struggle to resolve environmental problems may force the nation to alter its priorities;
it may force the nation to address issues of environmental justice and, by doing so, it may
ultimately result in a cleaner and healthier environment for all of us. Although we may never eliminate all
toxic materials from the production cycle, we should at least have that as a goal.
The alternative is a radical towards justice in our orientation to oceans:
Our role as academics is to prioritize questions of environmental justice in the debate
space. Not only is this key to solve, but also to understand the foundations that create
the need for new energy and environmental policies. Our method lays the
groundwork for political action anemic to injustice. It’s time to bring the movement to
the classroom
Rodriguez 6
Ph.D., Social Science Prof @ The University of Puerto Rico
(Jose, RE-VALUING NATURE:ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE PEDAGOGY,ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ECOCRITiCISM ANDTHE TEXTUAL
ECONOMIES OF NATURE”, 2006, )
For various educators, the act of teaching environmental justiceshould not stray the field from its roots and status as a social
educators advocate a closer relationship between the environmental justice
movement and the academy, especiallysince the teaching of environmental justice, as Mighty noted by Robert
Figueroa, brings the teacher to a critical! position in the teachingprocess, a spot from which the teacher must place
the classroom and its teaching within the context of the environmental justice
movementand the environmental inequalities that characterizes our world today(311) .^ For
environmental justice educators the classroom is a "space” where citizens can generate and discuss
their visions for transforming our social and political worlds in ways that ameliorate environmental
injustices" (Figueroa 311).Within a politicized classroom, environmental! justice teachersaim at what Paulo Freire calls
conscientization, by which he means theprocess whereby learners, not as mere receivers, but as meaningful and
knowing subjects, accomplish a deepening awareness both of the social and cultural!
reality that shapes their lives and of their ability to change that reality (27).** It means
achieving understanding of their existence in and with the world. For students of
environmental!justice It means achieving a better and deeper understanding of the reality
of environmental! inequalities and of their ability to ameliorate these inequalities.This same
movement.^ Indeed,
process of eco-justice conscientization underlies,for example, Figueroa's transformative teaching and his concept of "moral
imagination" (325-326). Figueroa's
goal in teaching environmental justice is to stretch his students' moral
cognitive ability to apprehend the moral experience, feelings, and judgment
of others, to recognize environmental inequalities and to envision social and political
changes to overcome these inequalities.He describes his radical teaching thus:Radical pedagogy may be
understood as teaching with attitudes andapproaches that politicize the classroom and the curriculum. By identifying the
classroom as a place of reproducing institutional processesin a political economy, which in
turn generates political actors, we canenliven the student's political imagination. The
academic's pursuit ofenvironmental justice carries political baggage and obligation thatmany
subjects lack. The study of a contemporary social movementlends itself to the use of pedagogy as
a form of activism. The socialactivism is a consciousness raising that utilizes the moral and
political imagination of the student to seriously consider the options for transforming current
social conditions. Students feel compelled toask, "What can we do?" and "What is our responsibility?" By askingthese
questions, the classroom is transformed into a place where citizens can think these matters
through without losing sight that the matters are upon us. (326)Politicizing the classroom in order to aid
imagination, their
his students achieve adeeper awareness and understanding of the actuality of environmental inequalities and of their ability to
defeat these inequalitiesalso inspires Steve Chase's "constructivist pedagogy" (355-357).Two books. The Human Rights
Education Handbook edited by NancyFlowers and Jacqueline G. Brooks and Martin G. Brooks' In Searchof Understanding inspire
Chase's teaching. Based on the former.Chase's teaching stresses the concrete experience of his students,active learning
activities, student participation, horizontal communication, critical thinking, the expression of feelings, cooperationamong
environmental justice
education is not just about liberatory knowledge but also about liberatory practices—thus,
training students as activists. Finally, the constructivistdimension of Chase's teaching, based on In Search of
students, and the integration of knowledge, action and feelings (356). Furthermore, Chase's
Understanding,inquires about his students' understanding of concepts before sharing his own understanding of these concepts;
encourages students'inquiry by asking thoughtful, open-ended questions; and engagesstudents in experiences that might
engender contradictions to theirinitial positions about a particular issue (360-361).Jia-Yi Cheng Levine also implements this idea
of conscientizationin her classroom, her goal being the production of "critical
consciousness," which in her view is
essential to help students "be responsible and responsive world citizens" (371). That is, assisting
her students95attain a deeper consciousness and knowledge of environmental! inequalities and of their ability to develop
alternatives to the structuresof environmental! inequalities is what motivates Jia-YI Cheng Levine'seducational efforts to form
political subjects capable of opposingenvironmental injustices and Inequalities. In her essay "TeachingLiterature of
Environmental! Justice in an Advanced Gender Studies Course," Jia-Yi Cheng Levine refers to a particular course aboutwomen
and the environment in which she introduced the !literature ofthe environmental justice movement to her students, exposing
themto various political, social and ecological issues. As she explains:"By introducing literature of environmental justice to our
students,we
help form political subjects who would seek to dismantle racism,sexism,
classism, and unbridled capitalism, which wreak havoc on our planet and our people" (378).
Her teaching is certainly aimed atconscientization, as she makes dear:Teaching is more than transmitting
knowledge or modes of thinking; it helps form political subjects who will determine the
future of this planetwe call home. My goal for teaching literature of environmental justicewas to foster a literacy
of the environment in my students' everydaylives, to call their attention lo the power structures of society
and the political struggles of the impoverished, as well as to encourage them to examine
configurations of knowledge and the dispensation of power. By addressing the interrelated issues of
race, gender, class,and the environment, I wanted to bring environmental and socialjustice education into the class. (368)Jia-Yi
teaching then seeks to empower students as critical and conscientious political
subjects while asking them tostudy, question and confront the history, and ideological!
frameworksthat have contributed both to the environmental degradation we experience
nowadays and to the production of environmental inequalities.In her particular gender studies course, literature greatly
Cheng Levine's
facilitatedthe process of conscientization, thus assigning a significant role toliterature as a liberatory pedagogical tool for
environmental justiceeducators. Although perhaps more suitable for literature courses,the study of literature helps students in
any course reach a reflective awareness and a thoughtful understanding of the material andideological character of
environmental inequalities and of their abilityto transform unequal! conditions. The usefulness and effectivenessof literature as
a pedagogical tool, t insist, is not !limited to !literaturecourses. Rather, !literature, and its analysis, is a practical, helpful
andconstructive toot in a wide variety of courses, especially if we use theword "literature" vaguely to include not just poetry,
fictional proseand nature writing but also non-fictional writing and any other kindsof texts in which issues of environmental
justice appear, or that might provide us with the opportunity to address these issues in the classroom.^ Enabling students to
examine how texts produce meaningand value provides them with a larger picture of political, social andcultural processes that
shape daily life and various social struggles,including environmental justice struggles Integrating Environmental Justice Eco
criticism to theCiassroomThe fundamental question behind environmental justice educators integrating texts containing
environmental justice issues andits analysis into their classrooms is this: How can texts and textual analysis further our efforts
as teachers to help our students achieve a deeper awareness and understanding of the reality of
environmental inequities and of their ability to ameliorate these inequalities? Hence,these teachers presuppose, as Jia-Yi Cheng
Levine's teaching exemplifies, that the introduction of texts, including environmental justiceliterature and its study and criticism,
into the classroom is useful inhelping our students grow to be political subjects who would seek toquestion and challenge
environmental inequalities while proposingalternatives that promote justice, equality and democracy.
Links
Northern Polar expeditions reinforce colonialism and masculine ideologies
while manipulating natives to follow orders through coercion
Bloom 93, Lisa. “Gender on Ice: American Ideologies of Polar Expeditions” pg. 3 Accessed 716-14.
Expeditions to the North Pole, far from being innocent of the tensions of the empire,
represented a peculiar stage of colonialism specific to polar discourses that integrated the
desire for empire with a presumably disinterested moral and scientific imagination. Dependent
upon foot travel and hard work of “Eskimos”, as the Inuit people were called, North Polar
expeditions were icons of the whole enterprise of colonialism. The complexity of the relation
between master and servant in the pursuit of science, however, was consistently written out of
the script. Polar explorers with their established network of publications and clubs identified
polar exploration as an intrinsically pure field of knowledge, effecting the political dealings with
entire Eskimo villages, and the gender and race relations that informed the writing of their
texts. (…) Ideologies of gender were central to polar “discovery” and exploration narratives are a
rich source for the analysis of stereotypes of white masculinity during this era. In the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, polar exploration narratives played a prominent part
in defining the social construction of masculinity and legitimized the exclision of women from
many public domains of discourse. As all-male activities, the explorations symbolically enacted
the men’s own battle to become men. The difficulty of life in desolate and freezing regions
provided the ideal mythic site where men could show themselves as heroes capable of
superhuman feats.
Industrial development is harmful to the native populations
Hugh Brody (1977). Industrial impact in the Canadian north. Polar Record, 18, pp 333-339.
doi:10.1017/S0032247400000589.
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPOL%2FPOL18_115%2FS0032247400000589a.pdf&code=154bc58c7983f554
b38b329bcd41b762
The vastness, coldness, and low biological productivity of the north have given rise to a very
remarkable paradox. On the one hand, human population has always been small and widely
scattered. The largest single aboriginal Arctic community was probably no more than 2 000
strong, and entire culture areas in the Canadian north comprised population clusters of
between 10 and 50 persons. The qualities of the north have meant that for a long time it has been
beyond the reach of agricultural interest or industrial possibility. On the other hand, these same
fundamental qualities mean that once the industrial potential of the north is apparent, it can
only be tapped economically by the application of huge amounts of capital and large-scale
operations. Therefore, when industry does come to the north, we find the smallest, most
isolated societies alongside some of the most costly and technically complex development
projects in the world. Hence the paradox: the smallest alongside the largest, the most traditional
alongside the most modern, and the most remote becoming involved with national or even
international economic interests. The interaction between industrial development and small, isolated
communities has been the subject of social scientific concern since the 1920's. There is a vast
literature dealing with problems of culture contact and colonialism in all parts of the world. Yet the
pattern in the Arctic does not fit easily into the best documented models. The reason for this is simple
enough: industrial advance in the north does not represent a southern wish to make use of either
native peoples or of vast new territories. It includes neither of the main ingredients of classic
colonialism—the wish to profit by reserves of labour or by increased land. Instead, Arctic
'colonialism' is motivated by what lies under the ground, in comparatively restricted areas,
and shows a preference for imported labour, which is often housed and supported on industrial
sites. This means that the impact of industrial development on small northern communities does not
necessarily have a great deal to do with the sudden penetration of a native community by
overwhelming numbers of outsiders, nor does it mean the direct expropriation of land upon which
native peoples have long depended. But there are similarities in the pattern, nonetheless. For
example, sociologists refer to an ideal-type of small community, which has a number of features that
are of special relevance and importance. There are the economic factors: the small communities are
poor—at least relatively so—and are economically dependent on the larger society for some
essential goods. Local resources are not able, or are no longer able, to support the population's
demand for goods (even though it is theoretically possible for them to supply basic foodstuffs). Then
there are the social factors: the small community is highly integrated, and local foodstuffs are shared
in such a way as to maximize their use and minimize local inequalities. Family life is well regulated,
and each generation grows into its expected roles without too much conflict. And, finally, there are
the political factors: the small community is at least indirectly under the aegis of another, far more
powerful social order, of which it is politically a part. These characteristics are typical of remote
societies where an aboriginal culture is of not too distant historical importance. They do, therefore,
apply to the settlements and camps of the Canadian north, and it is worth keeping this fact firmly
in mind when looking at the effect of industrial development on such communities. It is not
just smallness that is of relevance, but also the degree of remoteness, political subordination,
economic dependence, and solidarity of community and family life. It is also important to be as
clear as possible about the kind of industry that is at issue. It is high wage, capital intensive, and
dependent upon highly rationalized economies of scale. It is a frontier mode of economy, and
accordingly has distinct ideological components, including individualism and encouragement to
mobility of labour. As far as native peoples are concerned, it involves the view that it will
provide things that native societies badly need—more money, opportunities for participation
in the mainstream of Canadian life, and what is broadly thought of as 'progress'. Thus industry
is often seen, and indeed is often justified, as a solution to the problems of small native
communities. In this discussion, then, I shall look at some of the relations between these
characteristics of northern industrial advance and the characteristics of small northern communities
already discussed. I shall cover three broad areas of inquiry—the economic, the social, and the
political—with specific emphasis on the questions of money and sharing, as well as on problems of
individualism, identity and mobility, and the way in which industrial development tends to be
totally intrusive. Throughout I shall be supposing a simple model of industrial development in
which a large, elaborate and costly programme for a mine or an oil-and-gas site is either
geographically or economically close to a small native community.
Industrialization of the north is a form of cultural imperialism
“Hugh Brody (1977). Industrial impact in the Canadian north. Polar Record, 18, pp 333-339.
doi:10.1017/S0032247400000589.
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPOL%2FPOL18_115%2FS0032247400000589a.pdf&code=154bc58c7983f554
b38b329bcd41b762
It is often said that northern natives are poor, and that the obvious solution to the problem of poverty
lies in providing more opportunities to earn higher wages. In fact, native income is not easy to
calculate. Income distribution figures for the Mackenzie delta region, published in 1972 and cited by
Professor Charles Hobart in his evidence to the Berger Inquiry, give annual per capita earnings for
Dene as $839.64, for Inuit as $666.89, and Metis as $1 146.52. These figures are compared with the
$3 554.61 per capita annual income for southerners. But the figures are puzzling. Other sources
estimate that the annual income equivalent for country foods is in the region of $4 000 per family,
which yields by itself a higher per capita figure than the total suggested by the 1972 study. Peter
Usher's evidence to the Inquiry indicates that the value of country foods in the Mackenzie delta is
even higher and could, in fact, come close to $8 000 per family per annum. A government-sponsored
study of Indians living in the Great Bear Lake area shows that in the years 1970-75 nearly 60 per cent
of households depended on country foods and sales of fur, and that the dollar value of these gave a
real income of at least $1 500 per capita per annum. Even that study quotes an unrealistically low
price for meat. If the figures are adjusted using more plausible price equivalents, the per capita
income is increased by about 45 per cent to $2 175, which represents a household income of
between $4 350 and $10 000 per annum. Inuit and Dene peoples are not attached to their lands by
sentiment alone. These figures should not be interpreted as demonstrating that the inhabitants of
small northern communities are wealthy, or that they lead economically secure lives. They do,
however, raise some interesting questions about the impact of industrial development.
Remembering that industry is capable of offering jobs at high wages and remembering, also,
that members of the affected community are short of the money they need to buy goods and
services that they have come to regard as essential, one consequence of industrial
development is likely to be a reduction of earnings or earning-equivalents from land-based
and traditional activities. The amount involved could be as much as $5 000 per family per annum.
Of course, industrial employment does not wipe out, at a stroke, all production of country foods; it
does not even put an end to trapping and earnings from sales of furs. Indeed, because wage earners
can afford to improve the technology they apply to the harvesting of renewable resources, high
wages can actually be beneficial to traditional economic activity. But in the longer run, all the
evidence suggests that whatever employment opportunities are created, whatever the levels
of earning in the industrial sector, the use of land and production of country foods eventually
declines. Frobisher Bay, the Hay River-Pine Point area, and Inuvik all exemplify this trend. In
Frobisher Bay, for instance, there is now a persistent shortage of country foods, including seal
meat and whale skin, whereas 15 years ago the area was providing enough meat and fish for
the subsistence of a community numbering 65 per cent of the present Frobisher Inuit
population. Industrial employment also has an impact on the distribution of income within a
small community. Like so many village dwellers who have lived, in the not too distant past, in
relative economic isolation, Inuit and Dene peoples are proud of the ways in which they share the
produce of the land. The activity of hunting may be comparatively individualistic, but its produce
tends to be communal—at least in so far as those in want are able to approach successful hunters and
ask for food. Also, the basic means of production—land—is regarded as communal. Money is not so
readily shared. Wage earners tend to regard it as their own private property, and to spend it
on their immediate families' personal needs. Consumer durable goods cannot easily be
divided among neighbours. The shift towards a money economy thus creates a possibility for
poverty that previously did not exist: those in want are more likely to stay in want, and
substantial inequalities introduce themselves into native communities. It is possible, in an
unequal society where the basis of wealth is not shared, for average per capita income to go up, while
the number of households experiencing poverty is also increasing.
In current politics the indigenous peoples are more and more ignored. Leaving
them “silent” in the international community
Nuttall 98, Mark. “Protecting the Arctic: Indigenous Peoples and Cultural Survival”. Accessed
7-16-14.
In recent years concern over global warming, atmospheric pollution, ozone depletion,
overfishing and uncontrolled resource extraction has focused international attention on the
Arctic as a critical zone for global environmental change. The global quest for natural
resources, the expansion of capitalist markets and the influence of transnational practices on
the periphery has resulted in an internationalization of the circumpolar north. The
anthropogenic causes and consequences of environmental change and degradation
demonstrates how regional environmental change in the Arctic cannot be viewed in isolation,
but must be seen in relation to global change and global processes. Development and the threat
of irreversible environmental damage has precipitated intense debate about the correct use of
natural resources and proper ways forward for Arctic environmental protection. Indigenous
peoples’ organizations, environmentalists and, more recently, national governments, have
stressed the need to implement appropriate resource management policies and
environmental protection strategies. Yet science based resource management systems
designed to safeguard wildlife and the Arctic environment have, for the most part, ignored
indigenous perspectives.
Arctic Alternative
The only way to make the natives feel safe in their home from us is too consult
them first.
“Hugh Brody (1977). Industrial impact in the Canadian north. Polar Record, 18, pp 333-339.
doi:10.1017/S0032247400000589.
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPOL%2FPOL18_115%2FS0032247400000589a.pdf&code=154bc58c7983f554
b38b329bcd41b762
The problem of consultation is of particular importance. There is an Eskimo word that
characterizes the feeling that southerners inspire in Inuit. That word (or root) is ilira, and it is
not easy to translate. It is a kind of fear, a blend of awe and intimidation. It is the feeling a
strong and effective father inspires in his children; it is the feeling you have about a person
whose be- haviour you can neither control nor predict, but who is perhaps going to be
dangerous; it is the feeling you have when you are in a room full of important strangers whose
language you cannot understand; and it is the feeling inspired by the trader, the missionary
and the policeman, white strangers who were so obviously powerful, upon whom Inuit were
so acutely dependent and who told people what to do and believe but were not often disposed
to listen to what Inuit wanted to do and believe. Indeed, Inuit express their surprise and
pleasure when they have dealings with a southerner who does not make them feel ilira. In the
course of two or more decades of dealings with southerners, Inuit came to have expectations
and attitudes strongly influenced by the ilira they felt. They did not expect to be able to state
their own opinions and criticisms of what southerners were doing; they tended to accept the
decisions of traders and missionaries, and to avoid all possible confrontation. There took place
what might be called political retreatism, as well as the careful preservation of a cheerful and
obedient countenance. Native people came to present themselves as conciliatory and accepting.
This meant that they were inclined to smile and look cheerful whenever they had dealings
with southerners; it also meant that they did what they were asked to do, even when it was,
in reality, something they thought wrong or foolish; and, in the end, it meant that they
subordinated themselves to the changing whims of individuals no less than to shifts in prices
or policies by which their lives were profoundly affected. Retreatism of this kind is described by
many Inuit who can recall the first introduction of schools. In some areas this was iin the late
1950's, and in most areas followed directly on the trade and mission period, and represented
one of the first major governmental initiatives in the north. In a series of 43 discussions I had on
this subject with parents who were asked to give permission for their children to go to a federal
school in a settlement, but who were living at the time in camp away from the settlement, 32
said they wanted to say 'no' to the officials by whom they were approached. All but 3, however,
said 'y es> > an d, in many cases, against their own very strong feelings and quite different
judgement, agreed to leave their children in school or moved to a settlement to avoid being
separated from them. This represents approximately a 70 per cent acquiescence rate. When
describing their reasons for thus acquiescing, 21 of the 29 parents used the word ilira to explain
their behaviour, and 14 used the word kappia, which means fear of danger. 18 talked of
southerners as angajuqaat, bosses, and themselves as just not being able to do other than what
they were told. Each person's description of the beginnings of the education programme
involved some more or less explicit reference to their subordination to and dependence upon
southerners. When Inuit talk about subsequent events, they indicate that these attitudes and
their corresponding retreatism have tended to persist, or, in some cases even to be reinforced.
Inuit have rarely felt able to oppose southerners' wishes. Since southerners represent their
innovations as their wish, they thereby minimize the possibility of the kind of dialogue that
genuine consultation must entail. What is more, the discussions that do take place are often
bedevilled by misunderstandings : there are serious language problems, not to mention the
vastly different traditions of dialogue and social exchange that govern the representatives of
industry and the representatives of Inuit or Dene communities. Inuit are slow to decide, and
prefer to wait for the gradual emergence of community opinion before expressing a definite
point of view. They are also suspicious of mere opinion, and regard an error of judgement as a
lie. But decisions about industry can rarely wait long—the harsh economic realities are always
said to be pounding on the door. From the native point of view, their representatives seem to
be stormed into making decisions, into giving agreements, and into expressing their wishes
and conditions for the southerners' programmes.
NSA Politics DA
1NC
NSA reform will pass
Nakashima 7/23 (Nakashima, Ellen. "White House, Senators near Deal on Surveillance Reform." Washington Post. The
Washington Post, 23 July 2014. Web. 25 July 2014. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/white-housesenators-near-deal-on-surveillance-reform/2014/07/23/e3206aa0-12a8-11e4-9285-4243a40ddc97_story.html>. Ellen Nakashima is
a national security reporter for The Washington Post. She focuses on issues relating to intelligence, technology and civil liberties. She
previously served as a Southeast Asia correspondent for the paper. She wrote about the presidential candidacy of Al Gore and coauthored a biography of Gore, and has also covered federal agencies, Virginia state politics and local affairs. She joined the Post in
1995. Eric.
The Obama administration and key U.S. senators are close to a deal on legislation that aims to
end the National Security Agency’s collection of millions of Americans’ phone call logs for
counterterrorism purposes.¶ The USA Freedom Act also would ban the “bulk collection” of
Americans’ personal data by other agencies under several statutes as well as secure other surveillance reforms. A
compromise bill could be introduced as soon as Thursday, Senate aides said.¶ “We are very close
to finalizing an agreement that incorporates the input of the administration, the privacy
community, and the technology industry,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J.
Leahy (D-Vt.) said in an e-mail to The Washington Post. “These stakeholders are coming together behind my
legislation, which will give our intelligence officials clear-cut guidelines, and will let the American people know that their privacy
is going to be protected.Ӧ Leahy has been working for months to produce a bill that can pass the Senate and, ultimately, the
House.¶ “We
feel it’s a good deal,” said a Senate aide who is not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke
anonymously. “We feel we’re going to get a lot of support.”¶ The House in May passed its own version of the USA
Freedom Act, which also would ban bulk collection under various statutes. But critics said the bill’s language governing datagathering was ambiguous, raising concerns that it still would allow the large-scale collection of data from phone companies and
other entities.¶ The
key compromise in the Senate was to clarify the definition of a “specific
selection term,” to make explicit that it could not, for instance, mean a “term based on a broad geographic region, including a
city, state, zip code or area code,” according to a draft copy of the bill obtained by The Post.¶ It also states
that the purpose of the selection term is “to narrowly limit the scope” of items sought by the
government.¶ “We strongly support that language,” said Harley Geiger, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy &
Technology, who suggested such changes in congressional testimony. “This is one of the key ways that the bill aims to prevent bulk
collection.Ӧ President Obama in January called on Congress to work with the administration to craft legislation that would end NSA
bulk collection and achieve other reforms. For instance, he called for a panel of advocates from outside the government to provide
an independent voice before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees domestic surveillance law in a classified
setting.¶ The Senate bill creates such a panel, specifying that the advocates must act in support of “individual privacy and civil
liberties.Ӧ It also requires a declassification review of any surveillance court opinion that includes a significant interpretation of law,
including any new meaning of “specific selection term.”¶ National Security Council spokesman Edward Price said that “we are
encouraged by the recent progress in the Senate.”
Failure to pass the NSA reform will be detrimental to the US economy
Sensenbrenner 13 (Sensenbrenner, Jim. "The NSA Overreach Poses a Serious Threat to Our Economy." Theguardian.com.
Guardian News and Media, 20 Nov. 2013. Web. 25 July 2014. <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/20/jimsensenbrenner-nsa-overreach-hurts-business>. Jim Sensenbrenner is a US politician who has been a member of the Republican party
in the House of Representatives since 1979, representing Wisconsin's 5th congressional district. He is chair of the House Judiciary
Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations and primary author of the USA Patriot Act. Eric).
Internet and telecommunication companies empower businesses to conduct complex
transactions and connect with customers, clients and governments across the globe, placing a premium on privacy,
accountability and transparency. These principles are the currency of their success, because as private citizens, we entrust these
companies with very personal information.¶ The
overreach by the National Security Agency (NSA) does more
than infringe on American civil liberties. It poses a serious threat to our economic vitality. Reports from the
indiscriminate collection of data by the NSA damages American
companies' growth, credibility, competitive advantage and bottom line.¶ US companies seeking
to expand to lucrative markets in Europe and Asia will find regulatory environments much less
receptive to mergers and acquisitions because of NSA programs. German regulatory officials have made it clear, for
business community are clear:
instance, that AT&T, a massive American telecommunications company that provided customer telephone numbers to the NSA as
ordered by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (known as the Fisa court), would undergo intense scrutiny to ensure it
complies with German privacy laws before it can acquire a German telecommunications company.
This mandate would
certainly impede efforts to expand its presence in the region.¶ Of course, US tech companies do not exist in a
vacuum, free from competition. Companies like Google, which exhibit clear dominance in the United States, compete intensely with
American businesses will lose considerable market share if foreign
competitors and regulators paint them as pawns of the US intelligence community. Cisco Systems
foreign competitors around the world.
warned that its revenues could fall by as much as 10% because of the level of uncertainty or concerns engendered by NSA
operations. Cisco saw its new orders fall by 12% in the developing world, 25% in Brazil and 30% in Russia. This is in contrast to the
8% growth Cisco saw in the previous quarter.¶ The
cloud computing industry will also suffer. Since many
industries rely heavily on this technology, any disruption would ripple across all segments of the
national economy. According to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, the US cloud computing industry
could lose between $22 and $35bn (pdf) over the next three years because of the NSA's overreach. And smaller cloud service
providers that partner with U.S. companies have already cancelled contracts.¶ After the revelations of abuse surfaced in June, I knew
Congress must act to mitigate the negative effects on our civil liberties and economy. With these concerns in mind, I introduced the
the
USA Freedom Act increases transparency by giving internet and telecom companies the ability
to publicly disclose the number of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) orders and national
security letters they received, as well as how many orders they complied with. It will also allow companies to divulge how
USA Freedom Act with Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (Democrat from Vermont).¶ As part of its business provisions,
many users or accounts on whom information was demanded under the Fisa orders and national security letters.
Economic decline causes war – multiple studies prove
Royal 10 (Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and Political Perspectives’ Goldsmith and Brauer, Director
Cooperative Threat Reduction DOD, Jedediah Page 213-215)
Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict. Political
science literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence
Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and
national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008) advances Modelski
and Thompson’s (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms in the global economy are
associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often bloody transition from
one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crises could usher in a
redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin, 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the
risk of miscalculation (Fearon, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could
lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner,
behavior of interdependent states.
1999). Separately, Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the
likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections between global
on a dyadic level, Copeland’s (1996, 2000) theory
suggests that ‘future expectations of trade’ is a significant variable in understanding economic conditions
and security behavior of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from
trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the
expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items such as energy resources, the
likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those
resources. Crises could potentially be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own
economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second,
of trade expectations
or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states. Third, others have considered the link between economic
Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation
between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic
decline and external armed conflict at a national level.
downturn. They write, the linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are
strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn
returns the flavor. Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts
self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg & Hess, 2002, p. 89) Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of
terrorism (Blomberg, Hess, & Weerapana, 2004), which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions.
Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government . ‘Diversionary theory’ suggests that, when facing
unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to
create a ‘rally around the flag’ effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995), and Blomberg, Hess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting
evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani
and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for democratic states than autocratic states,
due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic
support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus
weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force. In summary, recent economic scholarship
positively correlates economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political science scholarship
links economic decline with external conflict at systemic, dyadic and national levels.
Uniqueness
NSA reform will pass
Ryan, Volz, and Brown 7/23 (Ryan, Volz, and Brown, Brendan, Alex, and Lauren. "Leahy Nears Deal on NSA
Reform." Www.nationaljournal.com. N.p., 23 July 2014. Web. 25 July 2014. <http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech-edge/leahynears-deal-on-nsa-reform-20140723>. Reporters for the National Journal Eric).
A deal between the Senate and the Obama administration on NSA reform
legislation may be in sight. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Board will get an earful from privacy advocates today. The House
TODAY'S TOP PARAGRAPH:
passed a bill to reauthorize the satellite TV law STELA, but the Senate has more ambitious plans for the must-pass legislation. Yahoo
Senate
Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy is "within inches" of a deal on NSA reform
legislation with the Obama administration, according to a Leahy aide.¶ Speaking off the Senate floor Tuesday,
Leahy said he is "impressed" with how open intelligence officials have been to his proposals.
"I'm far more encouraged that we can finally come up with some legislation," he said. The aide said
the bill would likely go straight to the Senate floor, and insisted a vote is possible before the August recess.¶
pays a visit to the FCC to talk about net neutrality.¶ TOP NEWS¶ ADMINISTRATION NEGOTIATING ON NSA REFORM:
According to the LA Times, the administration has agreed to a stricter definition of the search terms the NSA uses to mine through
The intelligence officials have also agreed to be more transparent about government
spying and will support a stronger public advocate at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,
according to the report.¶ Ned Price, a White House spokesman, said negotiations with privacy groups
and senators have "yielded significant progress."¶ "While there are a number of additional steps that must take
place before this critical bill becomes law, we are encouraged by the recent progress in the Senate," Price
said.¶ PCLOB TO HEAR BACKLASH FROM PRIVACY GROUPS: The Privacy and Civil Liberties Board will hear from a number of privacy
phone records.
advocates this afternoon who will call for more scrutiny of the NSA's surveillance powers
Links
Arctic drilling and mining is unpopular
Østhagen 13 (Østhagen, Andreas. "Arctic Oil and Gas: Hype or Reality?" Fletcher Forum of World Affairs RSS. N.p., 9 Apr.
2013. Web. 25 July 2014. <http://www.fletcherforum.org/2013/04/09/osthagen/>. Andreas Østhagen works for the North Norway
European Office in Brussels while contributing to The Arctic Institute, a D.C. based think tank. He holds a MSc in International
Relations from London School of Economics and has previously worked on Arctic issues at the Center for Strategic & International
Studies (CSIS) and the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies in Oslo. Eric).
As more
and more attention is paid to the Arctic, striking the right balance between the conflicting
interests in the region becomes of paramount importance to national politicians intent on
reelection. As such, discussions concerning Arctic oil and gas activities often seem to inspire conflict and public outcry, such that
the power of civic engagement, in terms of halting the processes, should not be underestimated.¶ A third hindrance comes
from the friction caused when regional interests collide with those of the Federal government.
Internationally, Arctic resource exploration has attracted attention as a symbol of corporate greed and climate change.
The people and local governments of Alaska, for example, are increasingly interested in mineral and oil extraction to boost local
employment levels and tax bases. Washington,
D.C., however, is wary of the politically unpopular issue
Arctic mining or drilling generates amongst environmental organizations. The deadlock between
these two competing interests constitute yet another hindrance for the rapid petroleum
development in the Arctic.
Internal Link/Impact
Failure to pass the NSA reform will tank the economy
Waterman 13 (Waterman, Shaun. "Wyden: NSA Eavesdropping Is Hurting U.S. Economy."Washington Times. The
Washington Times, 09 Oct. 2013. Web. 25 July 2014. <http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/9/wyden-nsaeavesdropping-hurting-us-economy/>. Shaun Waterman is editor of POLITICO Pro Cybersecurity. He is an award-winning journalist
who has worked for the BBC and United Press International; and an expert on counterterrorism and cybersecurity who has
presented at leading conferences such as Hacker Halted and the Aspen Security Forum. Waterman became UPI's Homeland and
National Security Editor shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, covering the Department of Homeland Security from its standup in 2003. His
reporting on the Sept. 11 Commission and the tortuous process by which some of its recommendations finally became law in the
2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act earned him a "Dateline Washington" award from the Society of Professional
Journalists. In 2009-10 Waterman produced a major report on cyber-security for critical infrastructure at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, a leading Washington think tank. Most recently, he wrote about intelligence, foreign affairs and cyber security
as a staff reporter for The Washington Times. Prior to joining UPI, Waterman worked as a senior producer for the British
Broadcasting Corporation’s flagship evening radio news program, The World Tonight. In 1999, he was appointed to run the BBC’s
American radio news desk in Washington, providing round-the-clock news from all over both American continents for the
corporation’s six radio networks. Eric).
Revelations about the National Security Agency’s monitoring of online communications have
damaged the U.S. economy so badly that Americans should “be in the street with pitchforks,” according to a senator
leading the effort to reform federal surveillance laws. Sen. Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat, told a day-long conference at the Cato
Institute, a libertarian think tank, that U.S.
companies trying to do business in the global technology and
communications market are hurting because of the revelations that American Internet giants like
Microsoft, Google and Facebook have been under court order to cooperate with the NSA to monitor
Web traffic. “If a foreign enemy was doing this much damage to the economy, people would be in the streets with pitchforks,”
Mr. Wyden said. A recent report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonprofit, public policy think
tank, estimated that the U.S. cloud computing industry alone stands to lose up to $35 billion over
the next three years as a result of the revelations — and its impact on the reputation and customer relations of
U.S. firms. American firms weren’t just given that reputation, “they won it over the years with good customer practices” only to see
it swept away by “this overly broad surveillance,” Mr. Wyden said. Analysts
say that a particular problem is that
many overseas customers now understand that the U.S. Constitution offers them no protection
from NSA eavesdropping. “Companies like Google and Facebook get more than half their
revenue from outside the United States,” says Alan B. Davidson, who was head of public policy for Google Inc. for
seven years until 2012. “It’s a really big problem.”