D 1NC
1.
On case
a. Very few DREAMers are elligble for conditional legal status--they’re years away from solving their internal links
Batalova and McHugh 10—
Seni or Polic y Anal yst; Manag er, M PI D ata H ub AND Director, N ati onal C enter on Immigrant Integration Polic y [J eanne Batalova a nd Margie McHug h, J ul y 2010, “DREAM vs. Reality: An Anal ysis of Potenti al DREAM Act Beneficiaries”, Migrati on Polic y Institut e, https ://www.migrationpolic y.org/pubs/DR EAM- Insight-Jul y2010.pdf] AM arb
under the DREAM Act
far fewer than 2.1 million people
would be likely to actually progress to conditional, not to mention permanent,
legal status.
About 5 percent
would
still have to wait for six years before they could apply to adjust to permanent
status. Another 28 percent
would have to obtain a
GED before becoming eligible for conditional status
(s ee Tabl e 2).10 H owever, as we dis cus s bel ow, many of thes e potenti al beneficiaries may have p roblem s meeting th e law’s addition al educat ion r equirement s, and
1 million unauho meet the ag e, durati on of U S resi denc y, and age at arrival req uirements for c onditi onal l eg alization
Among thos e who would qualify under the legislation’s age upon enactment, length of resi denc y (i.e., at least fi ve years in the U nited States), and age at arri val (i.e., arrived before ag e 16) provisi ons, we find that: �
(or 114,000) ar e young adults (18 to 34) and adults ( 35 or older) with at l east an associate’s degree. Among them, slightl y less than 66,000 already have a bachelor’s degree or higher and 48,000 have an ass ociate’s degree. Even thoug h these indi viduals have met all of the DR EAM Ac t’s age, length of resi denc e, age at entr y, and educati on-attai nment requir ements , they
(or 612,000) woul d i mmedi atel y qualify for conditional status becaus e they already have a U S high sc hool di ploma/GED or s ome (unc ompl eted) coll ege c oursewor k. � Mor e than 43 perc ent ( or 934,000) are c hildr en under 18 who would bec ome eligibl e for c onditi onal s tatus if they obtai n a high s chool di ploma or G ED. � R oug hl y 23 percent (489,000) ar e young adults who
and thus be eligible to purs ue either the higher educ ati on or militar y s er vic e routes to per manent status.
b. Status Quo Solves - Courts supporting DACA now.
Jordan ’18
Miriam J ordan is the national immigration c orres pondent for the New Yor k Ti mes - “F or Thous ands of ‘Dreamers,’ It H as Been a Wild Ri de. And It’s N ot Over Yet.” – N ew Yor k Ti mes – April 25th - #CutWithR J- https://www.nyti mes.c om/2018/04/25/us/daca- dreamers-c ourt-ruling.html
the big action has been in the courts. A federal judge ruled
Trump ended the DACA program improperly and ordered the government not
only to keep it in place, but to allow DACA participants to apply for renewals .
Judge Bates in Washington found
that the decision was “virtually unexplained.” He gave the government 90 days to
come up with sufficient legal justification, or be forced to begin accepting new
DACA applications.
In C ongress, a number of bipartis an pr opos als that would pr otect Dr eamers were either rej ected by the White H ouse or fail ed t o gai n enough s upport among l awmakers. But
Jan. 9, 2018:
in San Francisc o
that the
admi nistration had
On the first day, l egal-ai d organi zati ons were deluged. In Los
Angel es, peopl e s tarted lini ng up at 2:30 i n the mor ning at the C oalition for H umane Immigrant Rights of Los Ang eles . “I wanted to take this opportunity whil e the window l asts ,” sai d M ario H ernandez, 29, who was whis ked across the Mexic o-Uni ted States bor der when he was a 1- year-ol d, and then rais ed in Los Angeles. H ours later, his sens e of urgenc y seemed prescient. T he D epartment of Justic e filed a notic e of appeal . April 24, 2018:
This week, in the biggest blow yet to the Trump administration’s move to kill the DACA program,
c. Dems won the midterms – which saves DACA.
Savage ’18
David G. Savage has covered the Supreme Court and legal issues for the Los Angeles Times in the Washington bureau since 1986 “Supreme Court extends relief for 'Dreamers,' refuses to rule now on Trump immigration plan” – LA Times – Feb 26 th - #CutWithRJ- http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-court-daca-20180220-story.html
With DACA now effectively off the congressional agenda for this
year, the possibility of new immigration restrictions is also much less likely.
Democrats hope to regain control of at least one house of Congress in the
midterm elections, which would give them considerably more of a say in any
legislation.
, led by Stephen Miller, Trump's domesti c poli cy advisor. They have tried to use ren ewal of DA CA as a bargaining chip to get Congress t o adopt new poli cies to restrict legal immigration.
d. There is no labor shortage---companies exploit programs to
outsource and undermine American competitiveness
Norlin 17
(Chas e, C EO of Trans mosis, an organiz ati on founded by Silicon Vall ey T ec hnol ogy Entr epr eneurs, dedic ated to the res earch and applicati on of tec hnol ogy to s trengthen the American wor kforc e. Norlin was the founder and CEO of Emerge Digital Group, named the eighth fastest-growi ng company in America and the No. 1 fastest-growi ng company in Silicon Valley, bas ed on r evenue growth, by Inc. M agazi ne, "D on't Gi ve Silic on Valley Mor e H1B Vis as ," https://www.r ealcl ear politic s.c om/articles /2017/01/14/dont_give_silicon_valley_more_h1b_vi sas _132795.html )
their economic argument, that the industry suffers from a shortage of
workers, is false and misleading. companies take advantage to drive their
bottom line. The law permits companies to lay off their own employees in favor of
foreign workers
firms use the provision to their
CEO Ti m Cook, Al phabet CEO Larry Page and Micros oft CEO Satya Nadella met wi th Trump in New Yor k. You can bet the pitc h was si mil ar.
Big tech
doing the wor k in the s tates or overs eas . T hink about that. T he l aw does mor e than look the other way at fir ms that hire foreign wor kers instead of Americ an citiz ens; it all ows c ompanies to ditc h their own empl oyees s o they c an hir e foreign nati onals. Remember the r ecent stor y about l aid- off Disney wor kers who were forced to trai n their for eign replacements ? N ot s urprisi ngly, tec h
of the H1B program
advantage. Microsoft laid off 21,000 workers. Hewlett Packard announced it
was cutting 30,000 on top of the 55,000 jobs it slashed the year before.
the program does not foster or give priority to American job growth
In late 2014,
In September 2015,
25,000 to
workers. That was
programs . About half, or 40,000 of the vis as handed out eac h year, don’t go to firms s uch as Micros oft, Appl e or Facebook, the c ompani es we thi nk about when we hear H1B. They g o to profes sional offs hor e outsourcing firms such as Cog nizant, which rec ei ved 9,000 H1B’s l ast year .
Another problem wi th the H1B program is the law rewards co mpanies fo r outsourcing their tr aini ng
Outsourcing firms operate an almost p yramid-like system: they bring for eign nationals to the U nited States, who then learn the jobs of American citiz ens. Then these foreign wor kers retu rn ho me overs eas . M any ti mes, the best wor kers in Indi a arri ve in a tech- friendl y city s uc h as Seattle, learn the ins and outs of their host c ompany, fl y bac k to the s ubconti nent to run a c all c enter or IT department, and tr ain their wor kers wi th the s kills they learned in the Uni ted States. T o be s ure, this is capitalis m at wor k, s omething I s uppor t as an entr epr eneur. But it has g one too far. Allowi ng c ompani es to outs ource their tr aini ng pr ograms and lay off their own empl oyees in favor of keeping c hea p for eign l abor under mi nes our vis a program. As a r esul t,
H1B
over the l ong run.
2.
Militarism DA
a. The Aff entrenches imperial violence by coercively asking
DREAMers to exchange military service for citizenship.
Nopper ’10
Tamar a N opper - Ph.D ., T emple Uni versity ( Sociol ogy), 2008. She c urrentl y s er ves as an adj unc t assistant l ecturer of Sociol og y and Asi an Amer ican Studi es at the U ni versity of Penns yl vania and Asi an Studies and Americ an Studies at T empl e U ni versi ty. H er ac ademic publications focus on r ace and i mmigration enforcement, and raci al ideologies and s ocioec onomic i neq uality. “ Why I Oppos e R epealing DAD T and Pass age of the Dream Act” – Bl ac k Agenda Report - September 22nd, 2010. This articl e originall y appear ed on M s. N opper’s web site, Bandung1955. #CutWi thRJ- Available at: https ://www.bl ac kagendarepor t.c om/c ontent/why-i-oppose-repeali ng-dadt- and-pass age- dream-act
the passage of the DREAM Act will increase the
size and power of the U.S. military
the Dream Act may provide a
pathway to citizenship for some undocumented immigrant young people if they
serve two years in the U.S. military
people
lack critical perspective regarding the U.S. military as one of the main vehicles
in the expansion and enforcement of U.S. imperialism,
and repression against
political dissent and people’s movements.
the inclusion of more undocumented immigrant youth in
the U.S. military is not an ethical project given that
. By
supporting the diversification of the U.S. military we undermine radical
democratic possibilities by giving the military state more people, many of whom
will
continue nurturing long-term relationships with the U.S. military,
including a political affinity with its culture and goals.
disadvantag es, sur veillance, and disci pline fr om both D ADT and anti-i mmigrant legislation. F or exampl e, Blac k women, incl udi ng s ome of whom are not l es bians, have been dispr oportionatel y disc harged fr om the U.S. militar y under DAD T. And anti-immigrant l egislati on, polici ng measur es, and vigilante xenophobic racis m is moti vated by and reinforc es white s upre mac y and white nationalism. Yet both the r epeal of D ADT and
and the D epartment of Defens e, whic h is already the larges t U.S. employer . Repeali ng DADT will make it easier for g ays and les bians to openl y ser ve and
in its pr esent inc arnati on
legal residenc y and possibl y
or s pend an eq ual amount of ti me in coll ege. “Both the repeal of D ADT and the pass age of the DREAM Act will i ncreas e the siz e and power of the U.S. militar y and the D epar tment of D efens e.” U ns urprisi ngly, the latter, bei ng pus hed by D emocrats, is getting s upport fr om “ many with close ties to the militar y and hig her educ ati on.” As the Wall Str eet Ti mes reports: “ Pentagon offici als s upport the Dream Act. In its str ategic pl an for fisc al years 2010- 2012, the Offic e of the U nder Secretar y of Defens e for Pers onnel and R eadi nes s cited the Dream Act as a ‘s mart’ way to attract quality recr uits to the all-
volunteer force… “‘Pass age of the Dr eam Ac t woul d be extremel y beneficial to the U.S. militar y and the c ountry as a whol e,’ s aid Margar et Stoc k, a retired Wes t Poi nt professor who s tudies i mmigrants in the militar y. She sai d it made ‘perfect’ sens e to attac h it to the defens e-authoriz ati on bill. “ Louis C aldera, s ecretar y of the Ar my under Presi dent Bill Cli nton, s aid that as they str uggled to meet r ecrui ting goals, ‘recrui ters at stati ons wer e telling me it would be extr emel y valuabl e for thes e patri otic people to be all owed to ser ve our countr y.’” What c onc erns me is that far too many liberals and pr ogressi ves, i ncl udi ng thos e who s er ve as pr ofessi onal c ommentators on cabl e news and/or pr ogressi ve publications ( and some with a s eemi ngl y deep affi nity for the D emocratic Party) have been pr aisi ng the pass age of the DREAM Act. Unsur prising is that many of the same
gestur es, so too does a
support the r epeal of D ADT. While a sinc ere conc ern about dis crimi nation may uni te both
of
heter os exuality, whi te supremac y, c api talis m, patriarc hy,
Far too many liberals and progressi ves, incl uding those critical of policies or the squashi ng of politic al diss ent, take an a mbi valent stance on the U.S. militar y. It is uncl ear what makes s ome of thes e fol ks unwilling to openl y oppos e the militar y state. Perhaps it’s easier than dealing with the bac klas h from a variety of peopl e, i ncluding the many people of col or and/or women who ar e now buildi ng long-ter m c areers i n the militar y. Or maybe it’s more amenable to buil ding c areers as pundits i n both c orporate and
progressi ve media, both of whic h may be critic al of s ome defense spendi ng or “wasted” (read uns ucc essful) militar y effor ts bu t not nec ess aril y of U.S. militaris m. “’ Pas sage of the Dream Act would be extr emel y beneficial to the U .S. militar y and the c ountr y as a whole.” Whatever the c as e,
gays and l esbi ans and/or
both ges tur es are willi ng to have our communi ties ser ve as merc enaries in exc hange for c ertai n rights, s ome of which ar e never full y g uar anteed in a homophobic and white s upr emacis t c ountr y. N or is it pr agmatic
ultimatel y di e in combat or devel op PT SD and health is sues and/or
b. Militarism causes environmental degradation and climate
change – consumption of resources and contamination of
ecosystems
Jorgenson,
U ni versity of U tah, ass oci ate profess or and direc tor of graduate studies in soci olog y, et al.,
2012
(Andr ew K., Br ett Clar k, Uni versity of Utah, assistant profes sor of sociol ogy and s ustainability studies , and J ennifer E. Gi vens , U ni versity of Utah, doctoral s tudent in c omparati ve i nternati onal s oci olog y, Wi nter 2012, N ature + C ulture, Vol. 7, Iss . 3, “T he Environmental Impacts of Militariz ati on in C ompar ati ve Pers pec ti ve: An Overlooked Rel ations hip”, accessed vi a JC P ProQues t, acc ess ed 7/16/18, GDI-JG)
Militarism contributes to environmental degradation during times of war and
peace.
Biological and chemical weapons contaminate ecosystems
and devastate landscapes.
Waging war also
produces a broad range of debris that accumulates as pollution
at the
military bases used in the military campaign.
Military campaigns consume enormous amounts of fossil (and nuclear) fuels in
planes, ships, and tanks (
US military consumes at least 1.3 billion
gallons of oil annually in the Middle East alone-more than the annual
consumption of Bangladesh. Such levels of fossil fuel use contribute to the
global accumulation of carbon dioxide emissions and thus cause climate change
The envir onmental and public health har ms ass oci ated wi th war are mor e obvi ous, so we provi de onl y a few examples to illustra te the r ang e of i mpacts.
Agent Or ange was used to defoliate the l andsc ape during the Vi etnam War, polluting the land and water and c ausing sig nificant health pr obl ems for ci tizens of Vi etnam and US sol diers . M ore r ec entl y, depleted uranium has been us ed in the manufac turi ng of bullets, shells, and bombs. T his material contributes to the contaminati on of the land duri ng and f ollowi ng war and presents s erious health ris ks for human and animal populations ( Birchard 1998; Sanders 2009; White 2008).
within the nations where war is being waged, as well as
Debris, i n this partic ular c as e, i ncl udes fuel deposits, ammuni tion dumps, dr ums filled with oil and sol vents , asphalt, greas e, paint, tires, cables, unexploded muniti ons , gunpowder , and fi berboar d. T h ese materi als introduc e an array of c hemic als and other toxins into ec os ys tems that will c ontinue to har m both fl ora and fauna unl ess a "cl ean oper ation" is conducted ( Lani er-Graham 1993).
Grimes 1999; Klare 2002; Lanier-Gr aham 1993; M ars hall 2005; Pellow 2007; Thomas 1995) . Michael Kl are (2007) i ndic ates that the
. This situation is especially true in terms of the expansionary
dynamics and environmental impacts of militarism during periods of peace ).
The constant preparation for future conflicts by vested military interests and
persistent geopolitical concerns escalate the scale and operations of militaries.
As a result,
Military institutions and their activities consume vast amounts
of nonrenewable energy and other resources for research and development,
maintenance, and operation of the overall infrastructure
military
operations generate large amounts of toxic substances and waste, which
contribute to the contamination of land and water.
(IPCC 2007). War als o c ontributes to defores tation and the l oss of wildlife habitat, as peopl e attempt to r ebuild what was los t duri ng the conflict (Lani er-Graham 1993). Too often the envir onmental i mpacts of militarism ar e overl ooked
(Clark and Jorgens on 2012
the treadmill of destr ucti on expands even in the abs enc e of ar med conflic t.
(Dycus 1996; Jorgens on 2005; J orgens on et al. 2010; Si del and Shahi 1997; Yor k 2008) . At the same time,
3.
HOPE ACT CP
a. Text: The United States federal government should pass
the American Hope Act of 2017 (H.R. 3591).
b. The Hope Act ends the threat of deportation, provides the
path to citizenship, and does not include a military
requirement
NIF 17
(National Immigrati on F orum, advocates for the value of i mmigrants and immigration to Americ a. The F orum, bas ed in Was hington, DC , is one of the nati on’s pr emier i mmigrati on polic y organiz ati ons and has been at the c enter of ever y major l egislati ve and polic y debate rel ated to i mmigrati on sinc e its founding i n 1982. T he org aniz ati on was founded by Ric k Swartz and Phyllis Eisen. The F orum uses its c omm unic ati ons, advoc ac y and polic y expertise to cr eate a better, more welc oming America that treats all newcomers fairl y and r es pec ts the rights of all. T he For um is a powerful and key advoc ate on numer ous i mmigration iss ues, wor ki ng clos el y with business , la w enforc ement, faith and i mmigrant leaders hip acr oss the countr y to advance refor ms to our nation’s i mmigration s ystem. It has gai n ed accr edi tation fr om the Better Business Bureau and ear ned a four-star rati ng from Charity N avigator, “American H ope Act of 2017: Bill Summar y”, NIF:
https://i mmigrationforum.org/article/american-hope- act- 2017- bill-summar y/)
the American Hope Act
would protect them from deportation,
allow them to work legally and permit them to travel outside the country.
status could be changed to that of a lawful permanent
resident,
The bill
would permit Dreamers with conditional permanent resident status to obtain
federal assistance for higher education, including federal grants, work-study
programs and student loans.
The Dream Act
requires that Dreamers complete
military service,
The American
Hope Act has no such requirement. o
D oes  T he bill would create a c onditi onal per manent r esident s tatus for young undoc umented i mmigrants that is valid for up to eight years. The c onditi onal permanent resi dent status
What
 To qualify for c onditi onal per manent r esident s tatus , young undocumented immigrants would need
in the U.S.
to meet the followi ng requir ements : o Establis h that they came to the U .S. before the ag e of 18 and have c onti nuousl y li ved i n the U.S. sinc e D ec ember 31, 2016; o Pass gover nment bac kground c hec ks; and o D emonstr ate that they have not been convicted of c ertain crimi nal offenses.  A Dr eamer’s c onditi onal per manent r esident
or green car d hol der, by: o M aintai ning c onditi onal permanent resi dent status for at l east thr ee years; o Demon strating that they have not abandoned conti nuous r esidenc e in the U.S.; o Passing g over nment bac kground chec ks ; and o Establi shi ng that he or s he has not been c onvicted of c ertain crimi nal offens es during the period they have held conditional per manent resident status.  T he period of time for whic h a Dreamer was granted D ACA would c ount toward the threeyear peri od requir ed to c hange status to that of a lawful permanent resi dent.  Gener all y, a Dr eamer woul d have to compl ete fi ve years as a c onditi onal per manent r esident or lawful permanent resi dent or s ome c ombi nation of the two before being eligible to appl y for U .S. citiz enshi p. 
 The bill incl udes the following provi sions to assis t Dr eamers with the proc ess es of bec oming c onditi onal per manent r esidents and, eventuall y, U .S. citiz ens : o Per mits the Secretar y of the De partment of Homeland Sec urity (DH S) to establish a grant pr ogram for non-pr ofit organiz ations to as sist eligible applic ants to appl y for c onditi onal per manent r esident s tatus ; o Establis hes a Presi denti al Award for Busi nes s Leaders hip i n Promoti ng American Citizens hi p for c ompanies and other organiz ati ons that assist their employees and members with the natur alization proc ess ; an d o Directs the Secretar y of Educati on to devel op an electronic program that pr ovi des ins tructi ons on
the English language. Why the Americ an H ope Act is Cons tructi ve  The Americ an Hope Act is a legislati ve sol uti on. T he bill is a l egislati ve s ol ution to per manentl y address the fate of at l east an esti mated 1.8 million young undoc umented immigrants who were br oug ht to the U .S. as c hildr en and have li ved in the U.S. for most of their li ves.  The American H ope Act pr otects Dreamers. The bill woul d provi de young undoc umented i mmigrants who have grown up in our c ommuniti es i n the U.S. si nc e they were chil dren with protec tion fr om deportation and an oppor tunity to bec ome American ci tizens if they follow the l aw.  The Am erican Hop e Act h elp s Am er ica’s econom y. The bill would all ow young undocumented i mmigrants to c ontinue to c ontribute to their communities and the economy by wor king l egall y, paying their fair shar e of taxes and buildi ng busi ness that employ American wor kers . F or ins tanc e, over the next ten years, young undoc umented i mmigrants who have D ACA will contri bute $433.4 billion to the GDP. Mai n D iffer ences from the
Dream Act of 2017  T he Dream Act of 2017 is a bipartis an bill introduced by Sens . Linds ey Gr aham (R- South C arolina) and Dic k D urbi n (D-Illinois) in the U .S. Senate and Congress women Ileana RosLehtinen (R-Florida) and Lucille R oybal-All ard (D-C alifor nia) i n the U.S. Hous e of R epres entati ves that woul d provi de Dreamers with pr otecti on from deportati on and an opportuni ty to obtain l egal s tatus if they meet c ertain requirements. The Dr eam Ac t of 2017 differs primaril y fr om the Americ an H ope Ac t as follows: o T he American H ope Ac t woul d make more Dr eamers eligible for legal status by allowi ng Dreamers who were brought to the U.S. before Dec ember 31, 2016 to q ualify, wher eas the Dream Act would all ow onl y Dreamers who were brought to the U.S. at leas t four years befor e the enactment of the bill to q ualify. o
graduate fr om or
two years of a higher education program, c ompl ete at l east two years of
or be empl oyed for at least three years to bec ome lawful permanent resi dents .
The American H ope Ac t provi des support to hel p Dr eamers appl y for c onditi onal permanent r esi dent status, l ear n about naturali zation, and i mpr ove their Englis h through gr ant pr ograms and other initi ati ves. The Dr eam Ac t does not provi de s uc h s upport, but r equires that Dreamers demons trate an ability to read, write and speak English and knowledge of U.S. ci vic s to become l awful per manent residents.
4.
Shutdown DA
a. Compromise coming now – Trump can’t last much longer –
it’s most likely
Swaminathan 19
– (Aarthi Swaminathan, 1/11/19, " Shutdown deal depends on 'how much pain the Trump adminis trati on is willing to tol erate'," N o Public ation, https://financ e.yahoo.c om/news /s hutdown- deal-depends-muc h-pain-tr ump- admi nistr ation- willing-tol erate- 155253476.html)CWS
The timing of a deal between Trump and Democrats
border will “depend on how much pain the Trump administration is willing to
tolerate,”
There are various pain points that will be felt shortly in coming days
and weeks “All could lead to a compromise the “most likely outcome will be to
As we roll i nto day 21 of the shutdown — tying the r ecor d for the l ongest-runni ng s hutdown in his tor y — al mos t 800,000 federal wor kers ar e s et to miss their first payc hec k on Friday, while wor kers and unions are filing l awsui ts against the Tr ump adminis trati on.
the Hous e
according to anal ys ts at Bank of Americ a Merill Lynch (BAML). “
,” anal ys ts wr ote.
.” BAM L thinks that
who oppos e the proposed $5.7 billion s teel wall to fenc e the nearly 2,000-mil e s outhern
return to the bipartisan deal that was struck by Congressional leaders before the new
year,
which incl uded s ome money for bor der security in r eturn for funding the rest of the g overnment through the fiscal year.” On Thurs day, feder al wor kers g ather ed i n Was hington D.C. demanding that g over nment be r eopened. “ When they s ay, ‘ one payc hec k away fr om homeless ,’ I’ m not there, but I’ m r eal clos e,” a Phil adel phi a-based IRS veter an told USA T oday. “The l ong er the curr ent s hutdown las ts, the greater the c as h-flow cons traints for affec ted wor kers ,” BAM L anal ysts noted. “F urther mor e, Congress has not yet agreed to pay bac k- wages to furloughed wor kers.”
b. The path to resolving the shutdown is narrow – additional
immigration demands will poison the well
Perry
Bacon 18,
12/21/
senior writer for FiveThirtyEight , “Why Fights Over Immigration Kee p Shutting Dow n The G overnment”, FiveThirtyEight, De c 21 20 18, https :// fivethirtyeight.com/ fea tures/why-fights -over-i mmigration-ke ep-shutting-down -the-g overnment/, mm
We’re facing the third government shutdown in less than a year
Back in January, a disagreement over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
program caused a partial government shutdown.
immigration policy has come to symbolize
the two parties’ broader values and electoral coalitions.
The voters are not alone. Elites in each party have moved
toward the ideological poles on immigration policy.
Trump is driving toward a shutdown in pursuit of a wall, an
idea that many congressional Republicans are fairly lukewarm about.
we’re already at two shutdowns
involving immigration policy in the Trump era — and I would not rule out a few
more.
this Friday thanks, in part, to a fight over i mmigrati on polic y. Pr esident Tr ump wants $5 billion for a border wall — an amount that is unli kel y to make it thr oug h the
Senate.
1 So it’s wor th taki ng a step bac k and as ki ng: Why is i mmigrati on such a stumbli ng bl oc k? After all, it was n’t al ways li ke this. C onser vati ves onc e bac ked more li ber al i mmigration policies, and liberals have at ti mes bac ked more r estricti oni st ones . In 1986, for exampl e, R onal d R eag an signed a law that granted amnesty to nearl y 3 million undocumented immigrants . R eag an and George H.W. Bus h both us ed their exec uti ve
powers to declar e that c hildr en of undocumented immigrants affected by the Reagan-er a law c oul d not be deported. In 2006, Barac k Obama and Hillar y Clinton, who were both then senators, voted for 700 miles of additi onal fencing on the U.S.-Mexi co border as part of a provisi on to s atisfy c ons er vati ves c oncer ned about a ris e i n illegal immigration.2 But over the past c oupl e of decades — as the number of unauthorized i mmigrants i n the U.S. ros e s teepl y and then began to decline —
The battle over i mmigration polic y is about way mor e than jus t i mmigration, in other wor ds, in the s ame way that the tensions between the two parties on health polic y reflec t deeper fault li nes . T he politics of immigration today ar e notabl y more di vi ded and partis an than they were 10 or 20 years ago, and ther e are a few reas ons why.
First, ther e are the party c oalitions. Compar ed to the mid- 2000s, the D emocratic Party of today incl udes fewer non-His panic white voters: 67 perc ent people who are or l ean toward being D emocrats wer e non-Hispanic whites in 2007, but that number had dropped to 59 percent i n 2017, acc ordi ng to the Pew R es earc h C enter . F orty perc ent of sel f-identi fied D emocr ats ar e now nonwhite. Republic ans too have grown more r aciall y di verse, but onl y barel y, and they are still over whel mi ngly white: 88 percent i n 2007, compar ed to 83 perc ent in 2017. About 12 perc ent of D emocrats are His panic , roughl y doubl e the perc entage of R epublicans who ar e of Hi spanic desc ent. So the D emocr ats have a huge bl oc of peopl e in their par ty who have r acial, ethnic and cultural ties to Americ a’s most r ec ent i mmigrants, who are l argel y Asian- and Latino-American. And while “mi norities” and “ people of c olor” are fraught terms that often ignore differenc es both between and within raci al and ethnic groups, the Democrats are es senti all y now the home party for Americans
who might feel that U .S. s ociety tr eats them as “ other.” Secondl y, while both parti es h ave undergone ideologic al shi fts, Democr ats have s hifted mor e dramatic ally. Pollsters as k a vari ety of questi ons to meas ure p ublic opi nion on immigrati on, but they all s how the same thi ng: D emocrats have become far more pr o-immigrati on in rec ent years. Acc ordi ng to Pew, in 2006, 37 perc ent of Democrats3 s aid that legal immigrati on to the U.S. should be decreased, compared to 20 perc ent who sai d it should incr eas e. 4 Pew found a huge revers al in thos e number s earlier this year: 40 perc ent of D emocr ats bac k higher i mmigration l evels, compar ed to 16 percent who want them l ower ed. Accor ding to Gallup, 85 perc ent of D emocrats now feel i mmigrati on is a “good thi ng” for America, c ompared to 69 perc ent who s aid the same i n 2006. R epublicans haven’t actuall y bec ome mor e anti -immigrati on, acc ordi ng to Pew and Gallup. But, per Pew, ther e are more Republic ans 5 who want i mmigration decreas ed (33 perc ent) than who want it i ncreas ed (22 perc e nt). As a
result, the gap between the parti es on questi ons about i mm And i mmigrati on is indic ati ve of a broader s hift: D emocr atic voters have grown more li ber al on is sues of rac e, g ender and ide ntity gener ally. T hat i ncludes w hite Democr ats.
Li ber al-leani ng ac ti vists and Democratic politici ans argue that polici es li ke the wall aren’t jus t bad or ineffec ti ve, they are i mmoral and racist. Tr ump and other cons er vati ves have s uggested that mor e i mmigration could both hur t the U.S. ec onomy and lead to more cri me. Let me avoid maki ng this a both-sides stor y: F or the most part, D emocrats are more aligned with over all public opi nion
on immigration. T he majority of voters want undoc umented young people who were brought to the U .S. as c hildren to be protec ted from deportation, and Democr ats’ dema nd for that provisi on that led to last winter’s shutdown. Li kewis e, most voters don’t s upport a bor der wall, but
That s aid, America di d elect a presi dent (in 2016) and a Senate maj ority (i n 2016 and 2018) who bel ong to the party that is generall y l ess supporti ve of i mmigrati on,
so either there is s ome appeti te for a middle ground or i mmigrati on is not a deal-br eaker iss ue for many Americans. Either way, it would be l ogical for the two sides to find a c ompromis e. But
the s hifts the parti es have undergone in the l ast 10 or s o years make suc h a compromis e har d to execute. D emocr atic l eaders c an’t easily sign on to any fundi ng for a wall that their bas e thi nks is a physic al monument to r acis m, particul arl y si nce the top D emocratic leaders ar e white but muc h of the party base is not. Tr ump can’t easil y gi ve up on the wall , since he basic all y c ampaigned on the i dea that America needs a wall to r emai n a great nation. So
c. Kills consumer confidence and growth--- turns the case
Patricia
Cohen,
NYT , T he Long er It Lasts, the M ore a Shutdown Coul d H urt the Economy, J anuar y 20,
2018,
https ://www.nyti mes.c om/2018/01/20/us/politics/economy-government-shutdown.html
The longer the government is shut down, the bigger the economic impact
That partial stop costs the economy productive work time, ,
along with revenue
When the government is late in paying , it
incurs additional interest costs.
employment is also affected.
sentiment,
job creation, consumption, and some elements of production grew more slowly
shutdowns cost the economy
reduce annual economic growth by 0.2 percentage point. Another shutdown
would trim at least $6.5 billion a week
. The nearly monthlong shutdown in 1995-96 coincided with a 5 percent
drop in stock prices.
— and this ti me, the bigger the c hanc es that the
That c oul d c hang e, quic kl y, if the impass e drags out.
economy’s r ecent growth s purt c oul d stall, at least temporaril y. Shutdowns bring the government to a par tial s top, though so-c alled ess ential personnel keep wor ki ng, and many s er vices c ontinue to be provi ded.
historical evi denc e s uggests
that the federal gover nment c ollects from daily fees at par ks and museums. Pri vate-sec tor compani es that contr act wi th the g over nment have their wor k temporaril y disrupted, and travel s pending is r educ ed, aff ecti ng local ec onomi es.
c ontractors
Delays i n iss uing feder al c hec ks, permi ts and lic enses slow the res t of the economy’s wor kings, affecti ng export and i mport p er mits, mortg ages and s mall- busi ness l oans.
A g over nment funding crisis als o c as ts a pall on the economy, damaging c onsumer s enti ment and busi nes s optimis m. A s hutdown c oul d also pr event federal agenci es from r eleasing ec onomic data that busi ness es and traders rel y on to make mar ket decisi ons ever y day. Ec onomic ac ti vity typic all y s naps bac k s oon after a s hutdown ends, but not before the partial stoppag e damages growth. A 16- day s hutdown in Oc tober 2013, for example, may have cos t $20 billion in
output, c utti ng 0.5 percentage point off the annualized ec onomic growth r ate i n the fourth q uarter, acc ordi ng to the s ec urities rati ng fir m M oody’s. At that s hutdown’s peak, 850,000 feder al empl oyees wer e furloughed for a total of 6.6 million wor kdays. Paying them for days not wor ked c ost $2 billion. Pri va te-s ector
The 2013 shutdown cut j ob creati on i n the s ector by about 120,000 over two weeks , the C ouncil of Ec onomic Advi sers es timated in an anal ysi s conduc ted i mmedi atel y after war d. “ A range of indic ators s how that
i n the first half of Oc tober than
in pr evi ous months,” the r eport concluded. As a whol e,
at leas t 0.1 perc entage point of growth per week, and probabl y muc h more, the C ongres sional R es earch Ser vic e s ur mised i n a r eport i n 2014. A s epar ate repor t fr om the Bureau of Ec onomic Anal ysis, part of a larger anal ysis by the Congressi onal R es earc h Servic e, found that l ost hours wor ked by federal employees over the two weeks of the s hutdown i n 2013 accounted for a 0.3 perc entag e poi nt drop i n quarterl y growth — by themsel ves. Pr esident Tr ump’s Council of Economic Advis ers esti mates that ever y week of furloughi ng federal wor kers woul d
from the nati on’s economic output, ec onomis ts at Standard & Poor’s suggested. “ A s hutdown affects not onl y Was hington and its employees, but als o has rippl e effec ts across s ectors thr oughout the c ountr y — from shoppi ng malls to nati onal par ks, from c ontractors to hotels ,” sai d Beth Ann Bovi no, c hief U nited States ec onomist at S.&P. Job r ecruiters worried that a s hutdown c ould als o sl ow hiring. “ We face a ver y real ris k of a national hiri ng hesitati on, with recruiters putting plans on hol d, and job movers opti ng to sit tight for the fores eeable future,” sai d D oug M onr o,
a founder of the global j ob searc h engine Adzuna. And then there are the con sequences for W all Str eet
“Certainl y the stoc k mar ket has been on a tear and pr oved q uite resilient,” s aid N anc y Vanden H outen, a s eni or economist at O xford Economic s.
Envi DA
5.
a. First, Growth is unsustainable and causes extinction
Ketcham, 17—
internall y cites the 30- year M IT Li mits to Growth study and numerous other experts (C hristopher, “THE F ALLACY OF END LESS EC ONOM IC GR OWTH,” https ://ps mag.com/mag azine/fallac y-of-endl ess-growth, dml)
Growth is sacr os anc t.
Growth
Dream is now, and has long been, a pandemic disor der. Gr owth is a
moral imperati ve
will
bring jobs
i n the devel opi ng worl d, we are tol d, bec aus e i t will
and
inc ome , whic h allow us entr y i nto the state of grace known as
fr ee the global poor
fr om
depri vation
and
diseas e . It will
affl uenc e , whic h
enrich
and
permits us to consume more,
educate the women of the worl d , r educi ng birth r ates. It will provi de us the means to pay for
environmental remediati on —to
cl ean up
what s o-call ed ec onomic pr ogress has des poiled. It will
lift all boats
, maki ng us
all ric h ,
heal thy
,
providi ng
mor e j obs
for
mor e people
pr oducing
more goods
and
s er vices
s o that the all-mighty economy c an
c ontinue to grow . "Gr owth is our idol, our g olden c alf," H er man D al y, an ec onomist known for his anti-growth her esies, tol d me recentl y. In the U nited States, the r eligion is expr ess ed most avidl y in the cult of the American Dr eam. T he gatekeepers of the faith happen to not onl y be American: The
researchers
to model 12 future
happy . East and Wes t, Asia and Eur ope, communis t and c apitalist, big busi nes s and big labor, Nazi and neoliberal, the governments of j ust about ever y moder n nation on E arth: All have es pous ed the mad growthis t creed. In 1970, a team of
at the M ass ac hus etts Ins titute of T echnolog y began wor ki ng on what would bec ome the most important doc ument of the 20th centur y to q ues tion this orthodoxy. The
scientists spent two years holed up in the c ompany of a gigantic mai nframe computer, pl ugging data i nto a s ys tem dynami cs model c alled World3, i n the first large-sc ale effort to gras p the i mplications of growthis m for manki nd. T hey emerged with a book call ed The Li mits to Growth, issued as a sli m paperbac k by a little- known publis her in M arc h of 1972. It exploded onto the sc ene, bec oming the best-selli ng environmental title in histor y. In the Netherlands half a million copies s old withi n the year. M ore than three millio n c opi es have been sol d to date i n at l east 30 languages . Its mess age was c ommons ensical : If humans pr opagate, s pread, buil d, cons ume, and poll ute beyond the li mits of our tiny spi nning orb, we will have problems . T his was not what Americans indoc trinated in growthis m had been accustomed to hearing— and never had they heard i t fr om Ph.D .'s mars haling data at one of the world's citadels of learni ng. T he idea for the Li mits study originated with a c harismatic Italian i ndustri alist named Aur elio Peccei , who sidelined as a
phil osopher and author on world affairs. Pecc ei had fought for the resis tanc e in Ital y— he had been c aptur ed and tortured by the fascis ts— and had gone on to a s pectac ular c areer wor king i n i ndustr y, notabl y as an exec uti ve at Fiat. By 1968, he had beg un to questi on the legac y that i ndustri al ci vilization was l eavi ng its chil dren. He publis hed a book on the s ubjec t, T he C has m Ahead, i n whic h he worried about the "s uicidal ignoranc e of the human c onditi on" on a planet of dwi ndli ng res ourc es , ram pant popul ati on growth and material c onsumpti on, mounti ng pollution and waste. Seeki ng to understand the global s ys tem, its traj ect or y, and its pros pects for sur vi val, Pecc ei c o-founded the Club of Rome, a thi nk tank whose purpos e was to lay bare the " predic ament of manki nd." T he club woul d s ponsor the s tudy, and Pecc ei r eac hed out to M IT, where a 29- year-ol d profess or of s ystem dynamics named D ennis M eadows, who had helped desig n the World3 computer pr ogram, offered to dir ect i t. M eadows and his team
used World3 to examine growth trends worldwide
that had pr evail ed from 1900 to 1970, extr apolating fr om the data
scenarios
that play out when we tax the limits of the planet.
any system based on exponential
economic and population growth crashed eventually.
The most probable result ... will be
the loss of human life,
it would likely begin around the 21st century.
of global development and its c ons equences, proj ected out to the year 2100. They focus ed on the complex feedbac k loops—the s ystem dynamics—
The team s epar ated thos e li mits i nto two categ ories: sourc es and si nks . Sources ar e thos e things we need from natur e for i ndustri al
civiliz ation to sur vi ve: minerals, metals , rar e earth elements, fossil fuels, fres h water, arable soil. Si nks r efer to the c apaci ty of the planet to abs orb polluti on of its soil, air, and water, and, most omi nousl y, the c apacity of its atmos pher e to absor b c arbon. A typic al if simplified s ystem dynamic in the s tu dy went li ke this : "Popul ati on cannot grow without food, food producti on is increased by growth of c apital , mor e c apital requires more r esourc es, disc arded resources bec ome pollution, polluti on interferes with the growth of popul ation and food." T he models s howed that
One of the gloomier models was c alled the standard run, i n which the "
years
," the team stated. T hings end unhappil y: "
a rather s udden and unc ontroll abl e decli ne in both populati on and i ndustri al c apacity." Sudden and uncontr ollable: in other wor ds, a
busi ness-as- us ual model di d not give an exact date for the c ollapse, but s uggested
pr esent growth tr ends
i n world population, indus trializ ati on, poll ution, food production, and res ource depleti on c ontinue
unc hanged ." In that sc enario, which came to be known as busi nes s-as- usual, "the li mits to growth on this planet will be reached
coll apse of ci vilization , a collaps e that would mean
middl e of the
culture
, and
s ometi me withi n the next one hundred
c apital on a sc al e uni maginable
. T he Worl d3
Li mits was i mmediatel y the subject of vi cious attac k by the defenders of growthis m. T he first sal vo arrived in the New Yor k Ti mes i n April of 1972, a month after publication, from the pens of three ec onomics profes sors at Col umbia U ni versity and H ar vard U ni versity, two of whom happened to be publishi ng a book that year abou t " affl uenc e and i ts enemies." Li mits was
"an empty and misleadi ng wor k," they wr ote. It was "l ess than pseudos cienc e and littl e more than pol emical ficti on." It had t he "sc ent of technical chic aner y." T he insi nuati on was that M eadows' team had fed bad data i nto their supercomputer , the res ult being, as the Times revi ewers stated, "gar bage i n, gar bage out." T he rebukes piled up over the years : in The Ec onomist, F orbes, For eign Affairs, i n the halls of academi a, at Yale, Princ eton, H arvar d, and even at MIT . With an evangelical fervor, articl e after article as sur ed the public that the book s o badl y mis calc ulated our future it s hould be dis miss ed outright. T he mos t c ommonl y cited error ascribed to Li mits centered on a tabl e of data that s uggested the worl d woul d run out of gold by 1981, petroleum by 1992, copper, lead, and natural gas by 1993. Other vi tal mi ner als—sil ver, tin, zinc, mercur y— would be g one by 2000. But the book's authors made no s uc h predicti ons . T he data was us ed onl y to illustr ate how exponential growth quic kl y depletes non-r enewabl e natur al res ources . N ever theless,
Limi ts' detr actors to this day conti nue to cite this allegedl y erroneous data set to s upport the cl ai m that the modeling was all wr ong.
Wors e than any specific pr edic tion, however, was that the Li mits team s eemed to be questioni ng the vi ability of the Americ an Dream. " Li mits pr eac hes that we must learn to make do with what we already have," grumbled the ec onomists writing i n the Ti mes. T he study was an
affr ont
to the c ornuc opi an credo of mains tream economics, whic h s ays that prici ng and innovation will
always s ave us
fr om the
depleti on of s ourc es
and the
satur ation of sinks
. If a r esourc e bec omes sc arc e in the mar ketplac e, ec onomis ts tell us, i ts price rises, whic h acts as the signal for s oci ety to
innovate alternati ves
becaus e there's money to be made doing s o. If a sink is s aturated, technolog y—
priced right
— will
ameliorate the effect ,
scrub the s mokestac ks
,
disperse the oil s pills
, and
so on . This unquesti oni ng faith in the magic al powers of human ing enuity has l ed economi sts to make s ome
prepos ter ous ass ertions. Oxfor d U ni versity pr ofess or Wilfred Bec ker man, who dubbed Li mits "a br azen, i mpudent piece of nons ens e," clai med ther e is " no reas on to s uppose that economic growth c annot conti nue for a nother 2,500 years." C arl Kays en, a doyen of ec onomics at Har var d, s ai d that, by some c alc ulati ons, the Ear th's " available matter and energy" could support a popul ati on of ar ound 3.5 trillion people, all li vi ng at American standar ds of affluence. J ulian Simon, who publicl y expr ess ed his loathing for Li mits, assur ed us bac k in 1992 that "We now have in our hands—i n our li braries , r eall y— the tec hnol og y to feed, cl othe, and s uppl y energ y to an ever-growi ng popul ation for the next 7 billion years ." Elsewher e, he made the bizarr e decl aration that, "in the end, c opper and oil come out of our minds." The Li mits authors were facing off ag ains t a fundamentalist i deol og y her e, one that happened to have the winds of histor y at its bac k. In the two c enturi es of Western t echno-indus trial ci viliz ation that pr eceded the book, the c eilings to popul ation
and ec onomic growth had been shatter ed ag ain and ag ain by free- mar ket-dri ven innovation. The dooms ayers had c onsistentl y been pr oved wrong. T he 18-centur y political ec onomist Thomas M althus famousl y predicted that exponenti al growth of popul ation would eventuall y outstrip the c apacity of l and to produc e food, and the res ult would be mass star vati on. But the world i nnovated its way around hunger with the Gr een R evolution and g enetic all y modifi ed organis ms and the deep- drilling of pr eviousl y untappabl e aquifers. So it was that Li mits was rel egated to the blinker ed r ealm of Mal thusi an doomsdayis m. By the 1980s , Pr esident R onal d R eag an was citi ng the book in his speeches onl y to ri dicul e it. "Perhaps you remember a r eport publis hed a few years bac k c alled T he Limi ts to Growth," he s ai d at the U ni versi ty of South Carolina i n 1983. T here are "no s uc h thi ngs as li mits to gr owth," he decl ared to the s tudents in the audience. Even the ti tle its elf, R eagan s aid, was offensi ve, bec ause "in this vast and wonderful world that God has gi ven us , it's
not what's insi de the Earth that c ounts, but what's insi de your mi nds and hearts , bec ause that's the stuff that dreams are made of, and America's f uture is in your dreams." The effec t of this critical bac kl ash was that Li mits mostl y dis appear ed from mai nstr eam disc ussi on. It was c ommonl y understood, M eadows sai d, that it woul d be very inc onveni ent to the high pries ts of the growthis t or thodoxy if th e public beg an to take the study s eriousl y. Meadows , who is retired fr om academia but s till travels the world to lec tur e, met readers i n the 1970s and '80s who s aid the book had c hanged their li ves. "In the 1990s and 2000s , they s aid, 'Your book c hanged my parents' li ves.' N ow," he s aid, "I gi ve a s peec h and people as k, 'Did you write a book?'" Over the l ast dec ade, Li mits has attract ed renewed i nteres t fr om ecol ogists and ec onomis ts, with many havi ng developed their own methodol ogies to gaug e its ac cur ac y. In 2014, Graham Tur ner, of the Mel bour ne Sustainable Society Insti tute in Australi a, compar ed the book's standard run projections with his toric al
data sinc e 1970. H e l ooked at, among other statis tics, birth and death rates as an approxi mati on of populati on trends, indus trial output per c apita as a meas ure of development, and c arbon i n the atmos pher e as a measur e of poll uti on. We ar e
decade,
or
might even be under way
hewi ng pr etty cl osel y
to busi ness-as -usual, he c oncluded, noti ng that "the alignment of data tr ends wi th the LT G dynamics i ndicates that
the early stages of collapse could occur within a
." In M arch of 2016, the All-Party Parliamentar y Group on Li mits to Gr owth i n the U nited King dom is sued a report decl aring that the 1972 projections wer e worriso mel y s pot- on. T he author of the report, Ti m Jac kson, a pr ofess or of s ustainable development at the Uni versity of Surrey, told me, "
aspec t of the book," he wr ote, "is how acc urate many of the basic tr end extrapol ation[s] ... still ar e 30 years later." On the book's 20th anni versar y, i n 1992, M eadows gathered up his original team to c o-author an update c alled Beyond the Li mits , and, i n 2004, he c ompl eted a 30- year update. He hoped, i n par t, to addr ess the most wides pread critique of the 1972 study: that it had
The applicati on of tec hnol ogical s olutions alone has pr olonged the peri od of popul ati on and industrial growth, but it has not r emoved the ul timate li mits to that growth." The versi on of Worl d3 that Meadows us ed for the s ec ond and thir d editi ons of the book inc orporated the possibility of
far greater tec hnol ogical advanc es
. "But the r es ults and our c oncl usi ons
underes ti mated i nnovation
and
N umer ous anal yses
have s hown that the his toric al data
trac k ver y cl osel y
the lines of the Li mits to Gr owth standard run." Ec ologists C harl es H all and J ohn W. D ay c onducted their own c omparison of Li mits' proj ecti ons with real- worl d data i n 2009, and found the pr ojec tions to be "
qui te on target
. We are
not awar e of any model
made by ec onomists that is
as ac cur ate over suc h a l ong time span
." M atthew Si mmons, the noted inves tment banker whose company managed tens of billions of doll ars i n energy-i ndustr y mergers and acquisitions , offered a si milar obs ervati on in 2000. "T he mos t amazi ng
technolog y , the twin engines of i ndus trial ci viliz ation and the pillars of the growthist faith. The first edi tion of Li mits had, in fact, gone a long way towar d acc ommodating tec hnol ogy as a possi ble s aving grac e for the growth s ystem. In one of the 12 sc enarios, the authors modeled a world s ystem " producing nuclear power, r ec ycling r es ourc es, and mini ng the mos t remote r eser ves ; withholdi ng as man y pollutants as possi bl e; pushi ng yiel ds from the l and to undreamed-of heights; and pr oduci ng onl y c hildr en who are ac ti vel y wanted by their parents ." N evertheless , the authors wr ote, "the result is s till an end to gr owth before the year 2100.
remained the same ," he tol d me. "In thos e l ater runs we
even ass umed infi nite resources
. But guess what? It is
still i mpossi ble
for the human population and c onsumpti on to
grow exponentiall y for ever
."Now, at the
ver y moment
that we
need i nnovation to ac cel erate — to
mount a vi abl e r esponse
to cli mate c hange, to
locate new r esourc es
and
r epl ac e dwindling
or
des poil ed ones
—
evidence s uggests
that
the opposite is happening
. J os eph Tai nter, a profess or of sus tai nability at U tah State U ni versity, examined innovati on tr ends usi ng 30 years of data from the U.S. Patent and Trademar k Offi ce. What he found was troubli ng. Slightl y more
than half of all patents iss ued i n this countr y are to foreign entiti es, so Tai nter c onsi dered c hanges to the number of patents per applicant to be an accur ate i ndic ator of global pr oduc ti vity as expres sed thr ough invention. In the maj or tec hnic al fiel ds he studi ed —dr ugs and c hemic als, metallurg y, energ y, bi otechnolog y, infor mation tec hnol ogy, and s o on— he found that the number of res earchers on eac h patent steadil y i ncreas ed b etween 1974 and 2005. This means more time and man-hours —and pres umabl y more money inves ted— for a declini ng retur n. In his 1988 book The C ollaps e of C omplex Societies —a kind of compani on vol ume to Li mits—T ainter makes the c as e that as ci vilizati ons grow they produc e incr easingl y c omplex pr obl ems that demand incr easingl y c ompl ex sol uti ons . C ompl exity demands more energ y, r equir ing new tec hnol ogies for energ y extr action. But , as T ainter's s tudy s uggests, i nnovati on
expl oration, and is c ommonl y us ed to c ompare the amount of energy requir ed to extract, trans port, and r efine a particul ar resource with the amount of energ y it ulti matel y provi des . EROI for our master energy s ourc e happens to be
retrieved ar e
declining
more profligate
Monas h U ni versity, marshaling
immens e effec ti veness
and
within decades
, will begin s eeing "sc arcity" of "
gl obal-scal e i mplementation
woul d be
entir el y unprec edented . And so, as we
mos t of the s trategicall y important metals
and
materials
that are
fundamental to [the] running of our societi es
." Ac cor ding to the s tudy's l ead authors, a chemic al engineering pr ofess or at Lund U ni versity in Sweden and an applied s ystems anal yst at Stoc khol m U ni versi ty, "s carcity may lead [to] '
peak ci vilization ,' unl ess urgent counter measur es are s ystematical ly undertaken."
downward slope
may have its own li mits
si nce 2002. Accor ding to the Austr alian Bureau of Statisti cs, it now takes
. T he conc ept of energ y-return- on-i nvestment, known as ER OI, was originall y c oined in referenc e to fossil-fuel
40 perc ent more inputs
to dig up mi nerals i n general, whil e the grain sizes and ore grades of what's bei ng
Even in the mids t of s ubstantial i nnovati on
. Ac cor ding to a 2016 report fr om the Internati onal R es ourc e Panel at the U nited N ati ons Envir onment Programme, the amount of virgin natural res ourc e needed for a gi ven amount of pr oduct has gone up 17 percent over a si ngle decade. In 2000, it took an aver age 1.2 kil ograms of materials to gener ate one doll ar of global GD P. By 2010, it took 1.4 kil ograms. T he amount of pri mar y materials extrac ted from the Earth globall y rose fr om 22 billion tonnes in 1970 to 70 billion tonnes i n 2010, with per capita global material us e g oing fr o m s even tonnes in 1970 to 10 tonnes over the s ame 40- year period. Acc ordi ng to the report, there is "
c onsiderabl e data , concl uded that the c heerful sc enari os proj ecti ng renewabl es will suppl y mos t of the world's energ y by mi d-centur y " ass ume
whose
, as discover y and extrac tion of fos sil fuels becomes more difficult and c ostl y. (The risi ng cost— whic h is to say c ompl exity— of res ource extracti on and r etrieval was one of Li mits' broad proj ecti ons that als o tur ned out to be acc urate.) ER OI for global oil and gas producti on went from 30-to-1 i n 1995 to 18- to- 1 in 2006. In the U.S., the ER OI for oil disc over y in 1919 was an astonis hi ng 1,000- to- 1. By the 2010s, i t was 5-to- 1. In mini ng, multifactor pr oducti vi ty— which reflects the effici enc y with which the inputs of capital, l abor, materials, s ervic es , and energ y gener ate a uni t of mi ner al pr oduc t —has been on a
, today's global economy has
more wasteful, using more materials per unit of GDP than it did 20
. The J ournal of Envir onmental Science and Engineering repor ted i n 2013 that, " under the pr es ent par adig m of us e," the world,
become
years ago
plummeti ng
bl under along with busi ness-as- us ual
, awaiti ng the
unrealistic tec hnical potentials
techno- messi ah
and
i mpl ementati on ti mes
pr omised by the c ornuc opi ans with their
." Which means we'll be
free mar kets
and their
stuc k mos tl y with fossi l fuels
profi t-ins pired genius es
growing environmental press ure
per uni t of ec onomic acti vity," not l ess. Opti mists will
undoubtedl y look to renewable energy
as a stay against declini ng ER OI and risi ng seas . But they may be blindsi ded by the
s tar k limits
of
wi nd
to keep the expansion machi ne runni ng. Ti m Jac kson of the U ni versity of Surrey has c alc ulated that, at c urrent r ates of c arbon density—the amount of c arbon rel eased per unit of energ y c ons umed— our gr eenhouse gas emissi ons will incr ease by mor e than 2 percent per year . At that r ate, by 2050 c arbon dioxi de emissi ons woul d be mor e than doubl e what they were i n 2015. T o ac hieve a tenfold reduction i n global emissi ons by 2050, c arbon density woul d have to decline on aver age 8.6 perc ent annuall y—al most 10 ti mes the r ate at whic h it has decli ned over the las t 50 years and 50 ti mes faster than i n the pas t dec ade. In other words, we would have to innovate c arbon-reducti on str ategi es at r ates
, an alternate future awaits us. In 2014, N aomi Ores kes and Erik Conway, historians of sci enc e at Har vard and the Californi a Ins titute of T echnolog y, res pecti vel y, g ave us a pic tur e of what that futur e might look li ke. Tog ether they publis hed T he C ollapse of Western Ci viliz ation, a grim wor k of futurist s cienc e fic tion. It was Li mits transfor med i nto a novella of cli mate-fueled apoc al ypse. "Suffice it to say that
total losses—
social, cul tur al, ec onomic, and demogr aphic—
,
s olar
, and
hydr o . R es earc hers at
never before s een
, with tec hnol ogies of
were
greater than any in recorded human history
Governments worldwide are destabilized,
overthrown.
while there emerge "viral and retroviral
agents never before seen."
," declar es the narrator, a his tori an who li ves i n a hobbl ed, depopulated soci ety 300 years after the " ulti mate bl ow for Western ci vilization." T hat blow c omes in 2093, when br eaknec k atmos pheric war ming l eads to the disi ntegration of the Wes t Antarctic a Ice Sheet. This r es ults in a s ea l evel rise of fi ve meters or more that inundates c oastal citi es and, c ombi ned with the effec ts of other mel ting ic e s heets , s ends billions of peopl e fl eeing inl and to hig her ground. T he ice sheet meltdown is pr eceded
by decades of s oci al and economic unr est dri ven by climate chang e. In the year 2041, for exampl e, a s eries of "
unprecedented heat waves
" scorc hes the
global food s uppl y
. In N orth America, des ertific ati on that had s tarted in the earl y 21 centur y
The warmer planet, a
Petri dish
c onsumes the world's mos t pr oducti ve far mland
for ins ects whos e r ang es have expanded, rel eas es upon a
s tar ved ,
dehydrated ,
in Californi a and the Great Plai ns. As the unrest i ntensi fies the U .S. decl ares marti al l aw, s o the g ood citiz ens won't riot, fighting each other for crumbs .
weakened humanity
the
us ual dis eases
borne by flies and mosquitoes —dengue fever, yellow fever— and lac k of s anitation i n mass encampments leads to
explosi ve outbreaks
of thos e old nemeses , typhus and c holer a,
, as the future c hronicler writes,
b. Second, Economic growth is the sole reason why the bee
population is declining
Andrew
Porterfield, 15
20
. Andrew Porterfiel d is a writer, editor and c ommunications c ons ultant for ac ademic i nstituti ons , c ompanies and non-pr ofits in the life s cienc es. H e is bas ed in C amarillo, C alifornia. Genetic Literac y Pr ojec t. 12/3/15. “Trade and economic gr owth, not pestici des , major dri ver of beehi ve decli nes?” https ://g eneticliterac ypr ojec t.org/2015/12/03/trade- ec onomic-growth-not- pes ticides- maj or-dri ver- beehi ve- decli nes /
Honey imports and exports and dramatic economic changes in certain nations
have been more responsible for honeybee colony decreases
(and s ome incr eases) than GM Os, pestici des , mites or diseas es, acc ordi ng to a new study by Ger man res earc hers. M oreover, the data clouded the pic tur e often s een i n medi a and N GO repor ts, pointi ng to a c onsistent, glo bal decr eas e i n bee col oni es. While s ome
“c ountri es with a positi ve corr elati on between honey pr oduc tion and c ol ony number are the main honey expor ters, whil e c ountri es with a negati ve c orrel ation are thos e i mpor ting honey,”
countri es, li ke the U S and i n Western Europe, have s een a consis tent decline i n c olonies, other countries have s een dramatic incr eases in col oni es and honey pr oducti on. Southern Europe, for example, s aw a doubling of c oloni es over the past 50 years, while South American c oloni es grew by 5.2 percent annuall y, Afric an col oni es grew by 3.3 p erc ent annuall y, and Asian c olonies grew by 4.4 percent annually (all over the past 50 years). Over all, despite the decreases in Wes ter n Eur ope and the U nited States , the F AO data s howed an incr eas e i n the number of all c ol oni es globally. Per haps significantl y, the data als o s howed an incr ease in demand for pollinati on whic h was higher than the number of existi ng honeybee col onies . In fac t,
M oritz and d Erler wr ote. “N one of the col ony number dynamic s of the pas t 50 years, neither i ncr eas e nor decreas e, show any
about 60 possible environmental causes of bee health threats have been
investigated.
The closest match, the German researchers wrote,
were associated with severe political, social and economic changes,
The researchers pointed to the growth of commercial
beekeeping as a possible link to colony declines, especially in the US
relati on to the arri val of novel pests or the us e of novel pestici des.” All i n all,
But nobody, until the Ger man study, has tried to s ystematicall y match ec onomic issues , indi vi dual c ountr y dynami cs, and the b ehavi or of professi onal beekeepers with c hang es i n c olony numbers
.
such as a 66 perc ent decline in c olonies in M adag asc ar after a political coup i n 1977, and a 73 perc ent decli ne in Burundi during that c ountry’s ci vil war, and
significant declines i n easter n Eur ope after the c ollaps e of the Soviet Uni on. But i n the U.S. and Wester n Europe, the declin es have been steady and signific ant. Last year in the U S, the number of dis ap pearing hi ves r eac hed 42 perc ent.
and Wes ter n Eur ope.
Acc or ding to M oritz and Erler:
c. Timeframe matters—collapse now rather than later’s better
and delay wrecks the transition
Foss 14—
c o-editor of T he Automatic Earth, pr eviousl y a Res earch Fell ow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies
(Nicole, “Cras h on D emand? A Response to D avid Hol mgren”, http://www.theautomatic earth.c om/cras h-on-demand-a-res ponse-to-davi d-holmgren/ , dml)
efficiency is the straightest path to hell”, because there is little or no capacity
to adapt in a maxed out system.
Reaching limits to growth will impose severe
consequences, but these can be mitigated.
. collapse in fact offers
the best way forward , a reckoning postponed will be worse when the inevitable
limit is finally reached.
If we need to learn to live within
limits, we should do so sooner rather than later.
As J ames H owar d Kunstl er has put i t, “
The c ombination of little physic al r esilience, enor mous debt, s ubstantial vul ner ability even to s mall a s mall rise in i nteres t rates, the potential for pric e c ollaps e on leveraged ass ets, a rel ati vel y s mall s kill base, leg al obs tacl es to s mall scal e decentr alized s olutions, an ac ute dependenc e on money i n circul ati on and s ky high expectati ons in the context of wi des pread ignoranc e as to appr oac hi ng limits is s et to turn the c ollaps e of the western financial s ystem i nto a perfect storm. Ti me is i ndeed short and ther e will be a li mit to what can possi bl y be acc omplished. H owever, whatever peopl e do manag e to ac hieve could make a differenc e i n
their loc al area. It is ver y muc h worth the effort, even if the tas k at hand appears over whel ming. Gi ven that a top- down appr oac h stands ver y little chance of alteri ng the cours e of the Titanic, we might as well dir ect our efforts towards things that can potenti all y be successful as there is no better way to proceed.
Acting to create c onditi ons c onduci ve to adaptation i n advanc e c an make a differ enc e to how cris es are handl ed and the i mpact they ul timatel y have
Hol mgren argues that
that
The longer the expansion phas e of the c ycl e c ontinues, the greater the debt mountai n and the str uctural dependence on cheap e nerg y become, and
the mor e greenhous e gas emissions are pr oduc ed
. C onsiderable pain is inflicted on the mass es by the attempt to s ustain the unsustainabl e at any c ost.
Holmgren foc uses partic ularl y on the potenti al for c ollapse to
sharply r edu ce emissions
, thereby per haps
prev enting th e clim ate catastroph e
built i nto the Brown T ec h sc enario.