PTC1NC
1.
On Case
a. A Conclusive UC Davis study prove—immigrants lower
wages in the short run—prefer our estimates—they’re
larger in practice
Merel,
University of Californi a, Agricultural and Res ource Ec onomics , Profess or, R utl edg e, U ni versity of C aliforni a, Agricultural and Res ource Ec onomics , PhD candi date,
2017
[Pierr e, Z ac h, 9-24-17, UC D avis, “The Short-Run Impacts of Immigrati on on N ati ve Wor kers : Evidence from the US C onstr ucti on Sector”, https://s .giffor d.ucdavis .edu/upl oads/gifford_public/47/c 2/47c 2d000- 1561-4bb1- 8bc a-12548c 1e2145/r utledgepaper.pdf, pag e 15, acc ess ed 7-7-18, ZA]
Concl usi on
This paper pr ovides new esti mates of the effec ts of i mmigrati on on the empl oyment c onditi ons of nati ves , foc ussi ng on the U S c onstruction s ec tor over the period 1990-2011. The foc us on this sec tor of the ec onomy is necess ar y for the depl oyment of our partial i denti fication s trateg y, whic h uses the s har e of i mmigrant wor kers in the broader ec onomy as an i mperfect ins trumental vari abl e for the s har e of i mmigrant wor kers in constr ucti on.
immigration
displaces native construction workers towards
lower occupational levels, resulting in significantly lower annual earnings, at
least minus 3.7% per each 10 percentage increase in the immigrant share,
Effects on natives’ employment rates
are also negative : a 10
percentage increase in the immigrant share is predicted to result in an increase
in native unemployment by 2.3 percent ,
the true effects are larger in
magnitude
We fi nd evi denc e that
deteriorates the employment conditions of nati ves i n c onstruction i n the s hort run. We are not able to detec t any signific ant effect on weekl y ear nings, however we find s trong evi dence that immigration
point
and minus 7.3% in constr ucti on trades most exposed to immigration.
(defi ned as the percentage of wor kers employed duri ng the week prior to being s ur veyed or acti vel y s eeking wor k duri ng the four weeks prior to being s ur veyed)
and meaningful
point
age points
and by 3.7 percentage poi nts in exposed tr ades .
These figures s hould be i nterpr eted as upper bounds ( meaning that
) for at leas t two
b. 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
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
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
of the H1B program
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 e mpl 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
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 heap for eign l abor under mi nes our vis a program. As a r esul t,
H1B
over the l ong run.
c. 93 econ crises prove no war
Miller 2k
– (Morris, Economis t, Adjunct Professor i n the F ac ulty of Adminis trati on – Uni versity of Ottawa, F ormer Executi ve Director and Seni or Ec onomis t – Worl d Bank, “ Poverty as a C aus e of Wars?”, Inter disci plinary Science Revi ews , Winter, p. 273)
Do wars spring from economic crisis
there would not appear to be any merit in this hypothesis. After
studying ninety-three episodes of economic crisis
they concluded that:
economic crisis –
bore no relationship
to an outbreak of violence
The questi on may be r eformulated.
a popular reacti on to a sudden
that exacer bates poverty and growing dis pariti es i n wealth and inc omes? Perhaps one c ould argue, as some sc holars do, that it is some dramatic event or s equenc e of suc h events l eadi ng to the exac erbati on of poverty that, i n turn, leads to this deplor abl e denouement. T his exog enous factor might act as a c atal yst for a vi ol ent reacti on on the part of the people or on the part of t he political leaders hip who woul d then possi bl y be tempted to s eek a di versi on by fi ndi ng or , if need be, fabricati ng an enem y and
setti ng in trai n the proc ess leadi ng to war. Acc ordi ng to a study under taken by Mi nxin Pei and Ariel Ades ni k of the C arnegie Endowment for International Peace,
in twenty-two c ountries i n Latin America and Asi a i n the years sinc e the Second Worl d War
politic al i mpac t of ec onomic cris es may be wrong ... T he s everity of
as measur ed in ter ms of inflati on and neg ati ve growth -
19 M uc h of the c onventi onal wis dom about the
to the c ollaps e of r egimes ... (or, i n democr atic states, r arel y)
... In the c as es of dictatorshi ps and
semidemocraci es, the r uling elites res ponded to crises by increasing r epr essi on (thereby usi ng one for m of vi olenc e to abort another).
2.
Slavery DA
a. Foreign labor programs inherently bolster systemic abuse
of immigrants – this marginalizes workers to modern day
slavery
SPLC, 13
– Souther n Poverty Law C enter , T he Southern Poverty Law C enter is a nonprofit ci vil rights organiz ati on dedicated to fighti ng hate and bigotr y, and to seeki ng justi ce for the most vulnerable members of s ociety (“Clos e to Sl aver y: Guestwor ker Pr ograms in the United Stat es”, F eb., 2013, http://www.s plcenter.org/get-infor med/public ati ons /close-to-slaver y-guestwor ker- programs-in- the-united-s tates)
the
program
is rife with rights violations
committed by employers who prey on a vulnerable workforce.
In
debate over comprehensi ve i mmigrati on refor m, various polic ymakers and busi nes s groups have s uggested that C ongress cr eate a new or expanded guestwor ker
to ens ure a steady s uppl y of foreign wor kers for i ndus tries that r el y on an abundanc e of c heap l abor. C ongress shoul d l ook before it l eaps . T he curr ent H-2 pr ogram, which pr ovi des temporar y far mwor kers and non- far m l aborers for a vari ety of U.S. i ndus tries,
highly
labor and human
It harms the i nterests of U .S. wor kers, as well, by underc utti ng wages and wor ki ng conditions for thos e who labor at the lowest rungs of the economic l adder . T his program s houl d not be expanded or us ed as a model for i mmigration r eform. U nder
workers
are bound to the employers
who “import” them. If workers complain about abuses, they face retaliation.
workers are routinely: Cheated out of wages Forced to mortgage their futures
to obtain low-wage, jobs Held virtually captive by labor brokers who seize their
documents Subjected to human trafficking and debt servitude Forced to live in
squalid conditions Denied medical benefits for on-the-job injuries
This
program’s the closest thing to slavery.”
The abuses
described here are too common to blame on a few “bad apple” employers. They
are the foreseeable outcomes
It is impossible to create a program for lowwage workers that does not involve systemic abuse. The program should not be
expanded
it should be completely overhauled.
the c urrent H- 2 program overseen by the U.S. D epartment of Labor (DOL), employers brought about 106,000 g ues twor kers i nto this c ountr y in 2 011 — appr oxi matel y 55,000 for agricultural wor k and another 51,000 for jobs in for estr y, s eafood pr oc essing, landsca pi ng, c ons truc tion and other non-agricul tur al industries. But far fr om bei ng treated li ke “guests,” thes e wor kers ar e s ystematic all y exploited and abus ed. U nli ke U.S. citi zens, guest
do not enj oy the most fundamental pr otecti on of a c ompetiti ve l abor mar ket — the ability to c hang e jobs if they are mis treated. Instead, they
guest
deportation, bl ac klisti ng or other
Bound to a si ngle empl oyer and
without acces s to l egal r esourc es, g ues t
temporar y
employers or
. Former H ous e Ways and Means C ommittee Chair man C harl es R angel put it this way: “
I’ ve ever s een
gues twor ker
1 C ongress man R angel’s c onclusi on is not mer e hyper bol e nor the first ti me s uc h a c omparison has been made. For mer DOL offici al Lee G. Williams descri bed the old “ brac ero” pr ogram — an earli er versi on of the guestwor ker pr ogram that brought thous ands of Mexi can nationals to wor k i n the Uni ted States during and after World War II — as a s ys tem of “legaliz ed slaver y.2 On paper, the br ac ero program had many signific ant written legal pr otecti ons , provi ding wor kers with what his tori an Cindy H ahamovitc h, an expert on guestwor ker
programs , has call ed “the most c ompr ehensi ve farm labor contr act i n the histor y of Americ an agricul tur e.3 N evertheles s, the brac ero wor kers were s ystematicall y lied to, cheated and “shamefull y neglec ted. 4 In practic e, there is littl e differenc e between the br acer o program of yester day and today’s H-2 g ues twor ker program. Federal l aw and D OL regul ati ons pr ovi de a few pr otecti ons to H- 2 guestwor kers , but they exist mai nl y on paper. Gover nment enforcement of g uestwor ker rights is historicall y ver y weak. Pri vate attorneys typicall y won’t take up their cause. And non-agricul tur al wor kers i n the program are not eligibl e for feder ally funded l egal ser vic es. The H- 2 guestwor ker s ys tem als o c an be vi ewed as a modern-day s ystem of i ndentured s er vitude. But unli ke European indentur ed s ervants of ol d, today’s g ues twor kers have no pr ospec t of becomi ng U.S. citiz ens.
When their temporar y wor k vis as expire, they must l eave the U nit ed States . T hey ar e, i n effec t, the dispos able wor kers of the U.S. ec onomy. U.S. wor kers s uffer as a r esul t of thes e
flaws i n the guestwor ker s ys tem. As long as empl oyers in low- wag e i ndustri es c an rel y on an endless str eam of vulnerable guestwor kers who l ac k basic labor pr otecti ons, they will have little inc enti ve to hire U .S. workers or make jobs more appealing to domes tic wor kers by impr oving wages and w orki ng c onditi ons . N ot sur prisingly, many H-2 employers discri minate against U .S. wor kers, pr eferring to hir e guestwor kers, even though they ar e req uired to c ertify that no domes tic wor kers ar e avail abl e to fill their j obs . In additi on, it is well-doc umented that wages for U .S. wor kers are depress ed i n industries that rel y heavil y on guestwor kers. T his report is based on inter vi ews with thousands of g uestwor kers, a revi ew of the r esearc h on g uestworker programs , sc ores of l egal c as es and the experi enc es of leg al experts from around the c ountr y.
of a s ystem that treats for eign wor kers as c ommodities to be i mported as needed without affor ding them adequate l egal s afeguards , the pr otecti ons of the fr ee mar ket, or the opportunity to bec ome full members of s ociety. When the Southern Pover ty Law Center publish ed the first versi on of this r eport i n 2007, we r ec ommended refor m or r epeal of the H-2 pr ogram. U nfortunatel y, even after the enactment of modest refor ms i n r ecent years, gues twor ker programs today are still inherentl y abusi ve and unfair to both U.S. and for eign wor kers . In the pas t s everal years, the D OL has propos ed two s ets of regul ati ons to better pr otect non- agricultural H- 2 workers – one
related to wage r ate guarantees and one more c ompr ehensi ve set of r egulations. Thes e r egulations als o woul d better pr otect th e j obs and wages of U.S. wor kers. U nfortunatel y for wor kers, neither set of r egulations has gone into effect; employers have fil ed multi ple laws uits challenging them, and C ongress has effec ti vel y bl oc ked implementation of the new wage r egul ations. F or wor kers, then, the abus es conti nue unabated.
virtuall y
guestwor ker
H-2 guestwor ker
in the name of i mmigration r efor m and s hould not be the model for the future flow of wor kers to this c ountr y. If the c urrent H- 2 pr ogram is allowed to c ontinue,
Recommendati ons for doi ng so appear at the end of thi s report.
Delay DA
3.
a. 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
will
bring jobs
and
inc ome , whic h allow us entr y i nto the state of grace known as
permits us to consume more,
affl uenc e , whic h
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
used World3 to examine growth trends worldwide
to model 12 future
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.
Dream is now, and has long been, a pandemic disor der. Gr owth is a
moral imperati ve
i n the devel opi ng worl d, we are tol d, bec aus e i t will
fr ee the global poor
fr om
depri vation
and
diseas e . It will
enrich
and
environmental remediati on —to
educate the women of the worl d , r educi ng birth r ates. It will provi de us the means to pay for
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
,
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 Earth: 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 proble ms . 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 , rampant popul ati on growth and material c onsumpti on, mounti ng pollution and waste. See ki ng to understand the global s ys tem, its traj ector 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
that had pr evail ed from 1900 to 1970, extr apolating fr om the data
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 at ed 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 a paci 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 tudy 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 about " 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 the "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 boo k 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 centere d 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. O xfor 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 another 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 techno-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 atio n 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 nno vated 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 title 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 ma de of, and America's future 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 on veni ent to the high pries ts of the growthis t or thodoxy if the public beg an to take the study s eriousl y. Meadows , who is retir ed 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 ve s. "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 attracted 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 worrisomel 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 compan y 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 many pollutants as possi bl e; pushi ng yiel ds from the l and to undrea med-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 ver sity, 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 t ec 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 between 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 t o 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 deman ds 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 om 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 glob al 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 wit h 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 transf or 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
never before s een
hydr o . R es earc hers at
, 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 West ern 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 res 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. 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
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.
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.
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
4.
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.
Ableism DA
a. Prioritizing workers is a form of economic rationalism that
inevitably excludes people with disabilities who aren’t
viewed as capable of contributing to the economy.
Blower 15
(Jenn a Blo wer, B A (Honour s), Un iver sit y of To ronto, 2015 A M ajor R esearch Pap er p resented to R yer son Un iver sit y in partial fulfillm ent of the r equir em ent s for th e d egr ee of Mast er of Arts in the Progr am of Im migr ation and Settlement Studies, H OW THE DISCOUR SE OF ABLEISM FUNCTIONS IN C AN AD IAN IMMIGR ATION POL ICY: UND OIN G DISCRIMIN ATION AGAINST PERSONS W ITH DISAB ILIT IES, JK S)
Society undervalues
disabled people,
the labour market, in combination with
immigration policies that focus on narrow economic imperatives have resulted in
barriers that exclude persons with disabilities
these experiences in the labour market reflect the marginal status that persons
with disabilities occupy.
if current policies are geared
toward economic migrants, what will this mean for persons with disabilities who
are viewed as incapable of contributing
an immigration system
“underpinned by ableism and economic rationalism, [renders]
immigration
eligibility patently discriminatory against people with disabilities ”
the human c apital of
as there is no adeq uate labour mar ket with appropriate acc essi bility
and accommodation needs, i deals about persons with dis abilities and their dependenc e on the welfar e s tate persists . Wilton ( 2006) als o addr ess es the state of the labour mar ket as it r efl ects neoli ber al i deologies. D ue to “the incr easing use of s hort-ter m contr acts and part-ti me wor k in rec ent decades [i t] may hol d particul ar i mplic ati ons for women and men with dis abilities , especi all y if the s ectors and oc cupations most affected by this tr end ar e those in whic h peopl e
with disabilities are dis proporti onatel y l oc ated” ( Wilton, 2006, p. 130). Wil ton ( 2006) explai ns that the “chang es i n the nature of empl oyment c onfr ont i ndi vi duals wi th wor k and wor kplaces that are i ncreasi ngly dis abli ng. T his is not onl y in terms of the wages paid and the job (in)s ecurity offer ed, but als o i n ter ms of wor k environments and labour pr oces ses geared to provi de fl exibility to empl oyers ar e the expens e of i ndi vi dual wor kers” ( p.13 0). The c hang es in the nature of
. In C anada, economic i mmigration r outes such as the Provinci al N ominee Pr ogram and the C anadian Experienc e Cl ass are onl y i ncre asi ng. Mor eover, due to the hos tile ec onomic climate i n C anada, new i mmigrants over the las t few decades have been experi enci ng diffic ulties in the labour mar ket (Lewc huk et al., 2015). Thoug h this paper does not s eek to addr ess the s hortc omings of the l abour mar ket and the lac k of s ucc ess amongst newc o mer immigrants in
recent dec ades,
M y con cern is th at if highl y educ ated, highl y s killed migrants are having difficulti es entering the labour mar ket what will this mean for migrants wi th dis abilities and their families who already fare below the averag e i n obtai ning opportunities in the l abour market an d successfully mitig ating C an ada’s im mig ration syst em ? Mor eover ,
Canadi an i mmigrati on
to the econom y? Sc hol ar Yu (2014) si milarl y discusses these conc erns in relation to Austr alia’s i mmigrati on s ystem. It is recogniz ed that
the ass ess ment proc ess to deter mine
and their families
(Yu, 2014, p. 254). M oreover, Yu dr aws on El- Lahi b and Wehbi ( 2011)
b. People with disabilities are excluded from immigration
processes and are easily deportable due to restrictions- the
plan doesn’t resolve this
Weber 15
(Mar k C. Weber, Vi ncent de Paul Profess or of Law, “Immigration and Dis ability in the United States and C anada”, https://heinonline.org/HOL/Landi ngPag e?handle= hein.j our nals/windyr baj 32&di v=14&i d=&pag e=)//vl
Disability arises from
attitudinal barriers in the environment.
, vast discretion remains
with regard to the likely public-charge exclusion, because consular officers
abroad decide unilaterally whether to issue immigrant visas. , conduct related to
mental disability, can result in removal from the United States, and individuals
with mental disabilities have only modest safeguards in removal proceedings.
families who have children with disabilities find themselves excluded from legal
status because of supposed excessive demands on public resources,
the dynamic between peopl e 's physic al and mental c onditi ons and the physical and
Appl ying this idea about dis ability to U nited States and C anadi an i mmigration l aw draws attenti on to barriers to entr y and eventual citiz enshi p for i ndi vi duals who have dis abiliti es. His toric all y,
North American l aw excluded many class es of i mmigrants. i ncluding thos e with i ntellectual disabilities , mental illness , physical objec ts, and c onditi ons likel y to c aus e dependenc y. T houg h exclusions for i ndi vi duals li kel y to dr aw excessi ve public res ources and those with c ommunicabl e diseas es s till exis t i n C anada and the United States, i n recent years the U nited States permi tted l egaliz ati on for sever el y disabled u ndoc umented immigrants alr eady i n the c ountr y, and both c ountries abolished most excl usions from entr y for i mmigrants wi th specific dis abling conditions. Li beralization also occurr ed with regar d to ( 1.8. naturalization r equirements. C hallenges conti nue, how ever. Under US. Law
Moreover
includi ng petty cri minality,
In Canada.
although an indi vidual ’s disability may pr ovide grounds for avoi ding removal in c ertai n c as es. The r elaxati on of s ome immigr ation exclusions i n C anada
5.
Public Charge CP
a. The United States federal government should eliminate
public charge restrictions on legal immigration (to the
United States).
b. Every DA that we avoid is a Net Benefit to the CP
c. The CP is an essential anti-ableist policy to radically
dismantle barriers to individuals with disabilities
Weber 16
(Mark C., Vi nc ent de Paul Professor of Law, “Immigration and Di sability i n the Uni ted States and C anada”, 6/13/16, Wi ndsor Year book of Ac cess to J ustic e 19 (2015). Available at SSRN, https://papers.s srn.com/sol 3/papers.cfm?abs trac t_i d=2606781) J A
The public charge restrictions remain a significant discriminatory barrier to
entry
Relaxation of public charge-related exclusions
would go far to accommodate people with disabilities
advocates should
be able to support their case for reforms with Article 18 of the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. 98 The Convention
mandates both freedom of movement across borders on a nondiscriminatory
basis and accommodations in the immigration process.
that
states parties must ensure that persons with disabilities “[a]re not deprived, on
the basis of disability,
To the extent that considerations of
public charge and excessive demand correlate with disability, compliance with
the Convention would call for reasonable modifications of those exclusionary
provisions
and excessi ve demand
, and i n the U nited States great pr obl ems conti nue with the evi denti ar y and proc edur al aspects of the admi nistration of the i mmigrati on laws in g eneral , as well as the di fficul ty i n navig ating the i mmigrati on s ystem for i ndi vi duals with mental illness or intell ectual dis abilities.
and adopti on of refor ms suc h as more widel y available examinati ons for incompetenc y and broader acc ess to
lawyers for indigent pers ons s ubject to removal
striving to obtain the benefit of the rec ent c hang es i n the i mmigration laws M ore s pecific all y, i n the U nited States the r efor ms oc casi oned by the Fr anc o-Gonzal es cas e r epr es ent an i mportant i nstanc e of acc ommodation for i mmigrants wi th dis abiliti es, but the r eforms remain at this time a matter of court order i n
three s tates and an ad hoc admi nistrati ve edict els ewher e. In 2014, Representati ve J effries i ntroduc ed a bill to provi de c ouns el for unacc ompanied i mmigrant c hildr en and peopl e with mental dis abiliti es i n r emoval proc eedi ngs.97 Adopti on of this s tatutor y chang e woul d make the acc ommodati on sec ure. In additi on, as noted above, havi ng repres entation at the competenc y hearings themsel ves is a needed accommodation. C onsent to removal s hould not be s olicited or acc epted from thos e who do not full y understand what they ar e signi ng. And those indi viduals who are unli kel y ever to bec ome competent must not be held indefinitel y, in ac cor danc e with well establis hed U nited States Supr eme Court cas el aw inter preti ng the due proc ess claus e In C anada, and per haps someday in the U nited States ,
It provi des that “States Parties s hall r ecog nize the rights of persons with dis abilities to liberty of movement, to freedom to choose their r esidence and to a nationality, on an equal basis with other s ,” and
of their ability to obtai n, poss ess and utilize documentation of their nationality or other doc umentation of i dentific ati on, or to utilize rel evant pr oc ess es s uc h as i mmigrati on pr oceedings, that may be needed to facilitate exercis e of the right to liberty of movement.”99
. At the mi ni mum,
d. Disability analysis is a necessary component – disability
studies of immigration policy have been marginalized and
rendered invisible
Baynton 05
(Douglas C., U ni versity of Iowa, “D efecti ves i n the Land: Dis ability and Americ an Immigrati on Polic y, 1882-1924” , Journal of American Ethnic History, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Spring, 2005), pp. 31-44, U ni versity of Illinois Pr ess on behalf of the Immigration & Ethnic His tor y, 2005) JA
Rhetoric about
the "degenerate and psychopathic
immigrants," was pervasive. Restrictionists emphasized the inferior appearance
of recent immigrants.
The issues of ethnicity and disability were inextricably intertwined.
Disability is conspicuously absent from all fields of histories. In areas of study
where disability is clearly central,
literature has focused elsewhere,
. When historians do take note of disability, they usually treat it merely as
personal tragedy rather than a cultural construct to be questioned
A
disability analysis is essential, however, to making sense of the depth of antiimmigrant sentiment and the workings of immigration policy
Quota advoc ates warned that par ticul ar nati onaliti es were dis propor tion atel y prone to be mentally defecti ve.
"the sl ow- witted Sl av," the poor physique of J ews , the "neurotic condition of our J ewish i mmi grants," and
types, which ar e s o c on s picuous and numer ous among the
27
One avowed that "the physi ognomy of certain groups unmistakabl y proclai ms i nferiority of type." When he obs er ved i mmigrants, he saw that "in ever y fac e there was somethi ng wr ong_T her e were s o many s ugar-loaf heads, moon-faces , slit mouths, l anter n-jaws , and goose-bill noses that one might i magine a malicious ji nn had amus ed hi ms elf by casting human bei ngs in a s et of s kew- molds dis car ded by the Cr eator." Mos t were physic ally inade q uate in some way: "South Europeans r un to low stature. A gang of Ital i an navvi es filing al ong the street pr es ent, by their dwar fis hness , a c urious c ontras t to other peopl e. T he Portugues e, the Greeks, and the Syri ans are, from our poi nt of view, undersiz ed. T he H ebr ew i mmigrants are ver y poor i n physique ... the pol ar opposite
of our pi oneer br eed." 28
While disability has been larg el y overl ooked as a c ategor y of anal ysis in the liter ature o n i mmigration, this is by no means unique to i mmigration studi es.
such as the c onseq uenc es of war, indus trializ ation, and the rise of the automobile, even i n the his tor y of the eugenics move ment, the
em phasizing better establis hed c ategori es of
anal ysis suc h as r ac e, g ender , and cl ass, and leavi ng dis ability unexamined at the peripher y
and explor ed.29 In i mmi gration historiography, as i n s o man y other areas of historic al inquir y, dis ability has l ong been pres ent but r endered either i nvisibl e or insigni ficant .
at the tur n of the twentieth c entur y. While it is c ertai n that immigrati on res triction r ested in good part on a fear of "stra ngers in the l and," in John Higham's phrase, it was fueled at least as muc h by a fear of defecti ves i n the land.
6.
Beedev DA
a. 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 growth, 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, global decr eas e i n bee col oni es. While s ome
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 perc 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 ea se in demand for pollinati on whic h was higher than the number of existi ng honeybee col onies . In fac t,
“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,”
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 behavi or of professi onal beekeepers with c hang es i n c olony number s
.
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 declines have been steady and signific ant. Last year in the U S, the number of dis appearing hi ves r eac hed 42 perc e nt.
and Wes ter n Eur ope.
Acc or ding to M oritz and Erler: