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Topicality
A.“Investment” requires capital expenditure
Anderson 6
(Edward, Lecturer in Development Studies – University of East Anglia, et al., “The Role of Public Investment in Poverty Reduction: Theories, Evidence and Methods”,
Overseas Development Institute Working Paper 263, March, http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/docs/1786.pdf)
1.3 Definitions We define (net) public investment as public expenditure that adds to the public physical capital stock . This would
include the building of roads, ports, schools, hospitals etc. This corresponds to the definition of public investment in national
accounts data, namely, capital expenditure . It is not within the scope of this paper to include public expenditure on health and
education, despite the fact that many regard such expenditure as investment. Methods for assessing the poverty impact of
public expenditure on social sectors such as health and education have been well covered elsewhere in recent years (see for
example, van de Walle and Nead, 1995; Sahn and Younger, 2000; and World Bank, 2002).
B. That means you have to be new infrastructure – repair and maintenance affs aren’t topical
Law Depot 8
(“Capital Expenditure”, 2-6, http://wiki.lawdepot.com/wiki/Capital_Expenditure)
Definition of "Capital Expenditure" Capital expenditure is money spent to acquire or upgrade (improve) long term assets such
as property, buildings and machinery. Capital expenditure does not include the cost to merely repair such assets .
C. Violation – the plan “modernizes” locks and dams – does not build anything new.
D. Vote negative for limits– their interpretation makes any spending topical and allows the negative to defend minorrepair affirmatives for which no meaningful link uniqueness exists.
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Maintenance CP
Counterplan: The United States federal government should invest in preventive maintenance
for all inland water way locks.
Their 1AC evidences concludes that maintenance solves
Micik 12 Agfax,(Katie, January 25, “Waterway Lock Failure Would be Severe Economic Blow, study finds”, http://agfax.com/2012/01/25/waterwaylock-failure-would-be-severe-economic-blow-study-finds/
A failure at one of six focus locks in a new study would cost agricultural producers between $900,000 and $45 million depending on
how long the lock was out of commission.¶ A three-month lock closure on the nation’s inland waterway system would increase the cost of transporting
grains and oilseeds by $71.6 million, according to new study funded by the United Soybean Board and the checkoff’s Global Opportunities program.¶
“Should a catastrophic failure of lock and dam infrastructure occur, agricultural producers — and consequently the American consumer — will suffer
severe economic distress,” the report stated. Barges carry 89% of the soybeans and 91% of the corn that U.S. companies export
though the Gulf of Mexico each year.¶ A lock closure on one of the nation’s main barge highways — the Mississippi, Ohio and Illinois
Rivers — that lasted for three months would shift 5.5 million tons of grains and oilseeds to other modes of transportation, adding
stress to congested highways and increasing railcar demand, driving up freight prices.¶ The 352-page study conducted by the Texas
Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University took a lock-by-lock look at the inland waterway system. It estimated the economic impact on crop
prices paid to producers and transportation costs incurred by shifting modes. It delves into detail on six focus locks and even identifies the crop reporting
districts used by USDA and congressional districts that would see the biggest drop in commodity prices. It identified bottlenecks and tracked how long
barges have to wait to pass through locks. (A PDF of the study can be found here: http://www.unitedsoybean.org/…)¶ If the LaGrange lock on the Illinois
River failed, corn prices would drop $0.70 per ton and soybean prices would drop $2.45 per ton for the Illinois crop reporting district composed of
LaSalle, McLean, Bureau and other counties in the state’s 11th Congressional District. (Note: this study uses current districts, not new districts that go into
effect in -the next election.) Switching to rail and trucks would cost $4.3 million in that crop reporting district alone.¶ Most locks were built to last 50
years, and more than half of U.S. locks are older than that. More than one-third of the locks are more than 70 years old. Lock
rehabilitation,
another term for extensive maintenance and upgrades, can expand a lock’s lifespan from 50 to 75
.
years, the study said ¶ Navigation outages have increased more than threefold since 2000, from about 25,000
hours to 80,000 hours on the Ohio River due to the wear and tear of age. Two locks failed recently:
The Markland Lock was closed in 2009 for five months and the Greenup Lock in 2010 for a month.¶
The combined cost of rehabilitation and maintenance on the study’s six focus locks totals $4 billion,
but only $1.8 billion has been appropriated for the projects, according to the study. In the current
budget environment, funding for large, multi-year infrastructure projects can
be hard to come by.¶ “Delays and budget overruns have become so severe
that they are causing other projects to lose funding or be delayed by a
number of years,” the study said, citing the Olmsted Locks and Dam project. The Olmsted Locks
and Dam project on the Ohio River was first authorized by Congress in 1988 and has seen its estimated
completion slip to 2014 and its cost balloon.¶ “The GO (United Soybean Board’s and the soybean
checkoff’s Global Opportunity) committee invested in this study to calculate the impact of the
worsening condition of the lock and dam system and what the impact would be on the rail and highway
system if those locks failed,” said GO committee chair Laura Foell, soybean farmer from Schaller,
Iowa, in a news release. “It is important for all in the industry and in the public sector to have the
information necessary to make informed decisions when it comes to investing in our locks and dams.Ӧ
The models used in the study also indicated that by 2050, tonnage of crops shipped by truck and rail will increase by 5.5
million and 9.6 million tons, respectively. Tonnage transported by barge is projected to drop by nearly 15 million tons,
reflecting a lack of investment in waterways.¶ “It is important that we have a robust transportation system,” Foell said. “Only by using a
combination of the lock and dam system, rail system and truck system can we continue to move our products in a manner
that will help us feed the world.”
The net benefit is turns case-it takes 1 year at least to build a new river lock and the river has to
be shutdown during construction
Meira 12 (Kristin Meira, Executive Director @ Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, Political
Transcript of a hearing of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, proquest)
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Early in the last decade, our colleagues at the Portland and Walla-Walla Districts of the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers recognized that our aging locks would require strategic repairs to remain operational and reliable.
They also recognized that these projects would need to be planned and executed to have the least impact to our
regional and national economy.¶ It's important to remember the scale of our navigation infrastructure projects.
A catastrophic failure of one of our lock gates would translate to at least a one-year closure of that project. That
is how long it takes to design, fabricate, and install a lock gate of that size. We also do not have any smaller,
backup locks at our projects. Allowing our locks to degrade to the point of failure simply is not an option. A
closure of one of our projects creates a bottleneck for the entire system.
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Elections
Academics predict a narrow Obama victory – prefer our evidence – they’ve historically always been right
Lange 8/1 (Jason, Writer for Reuters, “Analysis: Scientists go beyond the polls to forecast U.S. election”,
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/01/us-usa-election-forecasting-idINBRE87007120120801)
As the election draws closer, pundits and journalists are looking at all sorts of data, from persistently high jobless rates to the latest
polls in the politically divided state of Ohio, for clues on Obama's chances of defeating Republican Mitt Romney. But at a few U.S.
universities, academics have boiled the art of prediction down to a dispassionate science. Some claim their forecasts in presidential
elections -- typically issued months before Election Day -- have been more accurate than opinion polls taken the day before ballots are
cast. Plugging decades of data into spreadsheets, they calculate everything from how much a bad economy is hurting an incumbent to
how the results of New Hampshire's presidential primaries, conducted 10 months before an election, can signal who the eventual
winner will be in November. "What this forecasting really amounts to is quantitative history," said James Campbell, a political
scientist at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. So far this year, forecasters in line with many current opinion polls see Obama squeaking
out a victory over Romney. In a Reuters poll of nine leading forecasters, the median prediction was for Obama to win 50.5 percent of
the vote. Although under the complicated American system, that would not necessarily mean victory because the winner is determined
by the state Electoral College results. In 2008, the median forecast of the same group, which estimated that Obama would receive 52
percent of the vote compared with Republican John McCain's 48 percent, was about as close to the election results as Gallup's final
poll from the last three days of the presidential campaign. In the end, Obama received 52.9 percent of the vote to McCain's 45.7
percent, with other candidates receiving the rest.
Spending kills support from independent voters
Zeleny and Sussman 12
Zeleny and Sussman, Jeff and Dalia, publishers from the NY times, 01/18/12, NY Times, Polls Show Obamas
vulnerability with swing voters, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/us/politics/poll-shows-obamasvulnerability-with-swing-voters.html?pagewanted=all
President Obama opens his re-election bid facing significant obstacles among independent voters, according to the latest New
York Times/CBS News poll, with the critical piece of the electorate that cemented his victory four years ago open to denying
him a second term. As Mr. Obama moves toward a full-throated campaign, delivering a State of the Union address on
Tuesday and inching closer to directly confronting his Republican challenger, a majority of independent voters have soured on
his presidency, disapprove of how he has dealt with the economy and do not have a clear idea of what he hopes to accomplish if
re-elected. The swing voters who will play a pivotal role in determining his political fate are up for grabs, the poll found, with
just 31 percent expressing a favorable opinion of Mr. Obama. Two-thirds of independent voters say he has not made real
progress fixing the economy. The president, mindful of the headwinds facing him, begins his first major television advertising
campaign on Thursday in a handful of battleground states. His targets include independent voters, who the poll found also hold
deep skepticism of Republicans. While Republican primary voters say Mitt Romney stands the best chance of defeating Mr.
Obama, nearly half of independents say they have yet to form an opinion of him, creating a considerable opening for Democrats
to try to quickly define him if he becomes the nominee. As Mr. Romney and his rivals fight to win the South Carolina primary on
Saturday, the poll suggests that Republicans have grown less satisfied with their choices. Nearly 7 in 10 Republican voters across
the country said they now want more options, a probable reflection of conservative unease about Mr. Romney and the remaining
candidates. But with 10 months remaining until Election Day and the lines of argument coming into view, voters are evenly
divided in a matchup between Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney. The president does better against the other Republican candidates.
A glimmer of hope may be on the horizon for Mr. Obama, though, as the economy appears to be generating more jobs. The poll
found that 28 percent of the public says the economy is getting better, which is the biggest sense of optimism found in a
Times/CBS News poll since last February. But Mr. Obama, whose job approval rating remains essentially frozen in the 40s, has
considerable work to do rebuilding the coalition of voters who sent him to the White House. Independent voters have concerns
about Mr. Obama on a variety of measures, including 6 in 10 who say the president does not share their priorities for the country.
“I trusted Obama would bring fresh ideas to the country and improve the economy, even though he was not experienced. It didn’t
happen,” said Jay Hernandez, 54, a credit manager from Miami who said that he is not aligned with either party, in a follow-up
interview. “If there were another Democratic candidate I might reconsider, but I won’t vote for Barack Obama.” With the
president preparing to address a joint session of Congress next week, which will also be an opportunity to outline his
accomplishments to the nation, the poll found that 38 percent of all voters view him favorably, 45 percent unfavorably, and 17
percent have no opinion. The speech will be a chance to draw further distinctions with Congress, whose approval rating remains
near record lows of 13 percent. When asked whom they trust, the poll found that Mr. Obama has an advantage over
Congressional Republicans in making the right decisions about creating jobs, health care,Medicare and Social Security. Yet the
gap narrows on the economy — the chief concern among voters — with 44 percent of Americans saying they trust Mr. Obama
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and 40 percent saying they trust Republicans in Congress. The public is evenly split on whom they trust to deal with the budget
deficit, which the poll found to be the public’s second most important issue.
A close uniqueness debate magnifies the importance of the link --- independent voters are swing close
elections.
Kaufman, 4/13/2012 (Stephen, Who Are America’s Independent Voters? Why Are They Crucial?,
International Information Program Digital, p.
http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/article/2012/04/201204133847.html#axzz1sqNkxizT)
The United States may have a political system dominated by two parties, Republican and Democratic, but
according to a recent poll, more Americans identify themselves as being independent rather than belonging to
either party, and the historical record has shown that independents tend to sway the outcome of U.S. elections .
According to a Gallup Poll released in January, the number of Americans identifying themselves as
independent rose to 40 percent, the highest level ever measured by Gallup, followed by Democrats and
Republicans with 31 percent and 27 percent, respectively. But according to Tara McGuinness, a senior vice
president at the Washington-based public policy research and advocacy group Center for American Progress,
the apparent surge in the number of independents does not mean that most votes in the November presidential
election between President Obama and his probable opponent, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney,
are undecided. Speaking at the Washington Foreign Press Center April 13, McGuinness said perhaps half of
independents actually lean toward one of the two parties. In reality, she said, only about 15 percent of
American voters are truly independent, voting sometimes for Democrats and sometimes for Republicans, and
they are statistically less likely to vote than their partisan counterparts. U.S. presidential elections are often
very close in terms of the popular vote. In 2008, President Obama beat Arizona Senator John McCain with 52.9
percent of the popular vote, compared to 45.7 percent for McCain. That figure closely resembles the fact that
Obama won 52 percent of independent voters, compared with 44 percent for McCain. “As independents go,
frequently elections go ,” McGuinness said. “Especially in close elections , you could not win … [by] simply targeting
independent voters, but frequently you cannot win an election without targeting some independent voters.”
Romney election results in Iran strikes --- Obama reelection defuses the situation with diplomacy
Daily Kos, 4/16/2012 (President Obama versus Romney on Iran, p.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/16/1083726/-President-Obama-versus-Romney-on-Iran)
3. Approach to foreign policy: Romney says he will “not apologize” for America and advocates a return to the
Bush cowboy “my way or the highway” approach to dealing with other nations. When John Bolton is an
endorser, that scares me. To me, however the biggest contrast is their approach to Iran. Binyamin Netanyahu
by all accounts is a hawk who is pushing the U nited S tates to bomb Iran and has been doing so for a long
time. He appears to see no need for negotiation. Granted, he has a right to protect his nation if he believes that
its under threat. However, we all know how flawed the “intelligence” was for the Iraq war. And its important to
let negotiations play out as far as possible before rushing to war, which would have many unintended
consequences for years to come. (See the Iraq war). Here’s the big difference. Here’s Netanyahu’s recent
response to the ongoing P5+1 talks: http://news.yahoo.com/... Netanyahu -- whose government has not ruled
out a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities -- earlier said however that Tehran had simply bought itself
some extra time to comply. "My initial impression is that Iran has been given a 'freebie'," Netanyahu said
during talks with visiting US Senator Joe Lieberman, the premier's office reported. "It has got five weeks to
continue enrichment without any limitation, any inhibition. I think Iran should take immediate steps to stop all
enrichment, take out all enrichment material and dismantle the nuclear facility in Qom," he said. "I believe that
the world's greatest practitioner of terrorism must not have the opportunity to develop atomic bombs," he said.
Here’s President Obama’s response yesterday to Netanyahu (in a response to a journalist's question) at the
press conference in Cartagena: But Obama refuted that statement, saying "The notion that we've given
something away or a freebie would indicate that Iran has gotten something." "In fact, they got the toughest
sanctions that they're going to be facing coming up in a few months if they don't take advantage of those talks. I
hope they do," Obama said. "The clock is ticking and I've been very clear to Iran and our negotiating partners
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that we're not going to have these talks just drag out in a stalling process," Obama told reporters after an
Americas summit in Colombia."But so far at least we haven't given away anything -- other than the opportunity
for us to negotiate," he said. Obama in conjunction with world powers is negotiating with Iran, trying to
prevent a needless war . You can be sure that Mitt Romney would bow to his buddy Netanyahu and attack Iran .
He has previously said “We will not have an inch of difference between ourselves and Israel”. As he also
said in a debate, before making any decision regarding Israel, he will call his friend Bibi. Bottom line, if
somehow the American people elect Mitt Romney, expect more of the bombastic , Bush cowboy approach to
foreign policy with a more than likely bombardment of Iran . If the American people are not fooled by this
charlatan and they reelect Barack Obama, he will continue in his measured way to deal with the threats around
the world, quietly, through the use of negotiation, and force if absolutely necessary, but only as a last resort,
without bragging, and scaring the American people with needless terrorism alerts.
Iran strikes escalates to a nuclear world war.
Chossudovsky, 12/26/2011 (Michel, Preparing to attack Iran with Nuclear Weapons, Global Research, p.
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28355)
An attack on Iran would have devastating consequences, It would unleash an all out regional war from the
Eastern Mediterranean to Central Asia, potentially leading humanity into a World War III Scenario. The
Obama Administration constitutes a nuclear threat. NATO constitutes a nuclear threat Five European "nonnuclear states" (Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Turkey) with tactical nuclear weapons deployed under
national command, to be used against Iran constitute a nuclear threat. The Israeli government of Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not only constitutes a nuclear threat, but also a threat to the security of people of
Israel, who are misled regarding the implications of an US-Israeli attack on Iran. The complacency of Western
public opinion --including segments of the US anti-war movement-- is disturbing. No concern has been
expressed at the political level as to the likely consequences of a US-NATO-Israel attack on Iran, using nuclear
weapons against a non-nuclear state. Such an action would result in "the unthinkable": a nuclear holocaust over
a large part of the Middle East.
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Security K
Framing governmental support for infrastructure in terms of security legitimizes violence and wholesale
destruction in the name of disciplinary control while framing humanity in terms of logistical life
Reid 8 (Julian – lecturer in International Relations at King’s College, visiting professor in International
Relations at the University of Lapland, “Conclusion: The Biopolitics of Critical Infrastructure Protection,”
Securing ‘the Homeland:’ Critical Infrastructure, Risk and (In)Security, Ed. Myriam Dunn Cavelty and Kristian
Soby Kristensen, p. 178-179)
Therefore, the contemporary reification of critical infrastructure as an object for protection owes a significant debt to the development of new forms of
political agency concerned with attacking liberal regimes by undermining specifically liberal sources of security and governance. All of these
developments only serve to fuel liberal representations of the war on terror as a struggle between regimes tasked with promoting security for human life
against enemies dedicated to its nihilistic destruction. Why would anyone seek to destroy infrastructure other than out of a profound antipathy for the
fundamental conditions which human life requires for its prosperity and security? This volume, in opening up the debate on CIP to allow for the
examination of the dehumanising dimensions and implications of the practices involved in CIP, and objectives at stake in it, throws a spanner into the
works of such modes of representation. This is especially true for the chapters by Der Derian and Finkelstein (Chapter 4) as well as Bonditti (Chapter 6),
both of which extend Michel Foucault's seminal analysis of the origins of liberal regimes in practices of discipline and biopolitics whereupon
infrastructure was first objectified as a fundamental source of security to the state. Both of these chapters demonstrate in different ways why the
rationalities informing CIP cannot be understood in simplistic terms of a desire for the protection of human beings from the risk of violent death at the
hands of terrorists, but express a more technocratic will to defend infrastructures even at the cost and to the detriment of distinctly
human capacities. Second they underline the fact that the waging of this war involves the deployment of tactics which, rather than simply
securing the life of populations imperilled by terrorist tactics, deliberately target it with newly insidious techniques of discipline and
control , all in the name of infrastructure protection. In doing so, the volume highlights what can justly be described as the
biopolitical dimensions of the war on terror and the broader security strategies of liberal regimes that have been developed to prosecute
it. In concluding this volume, then, I would like to extend and draw out what I read as being its most valuable contribution to our knowledge of this
lugubrious phenomenon. If we believe our governments and most of the academic literature on the subject, both the security and quality of life is
inextricably dependent on the protection of the critical infrastructures through which liberal regimes are organised. But the provision of such
infrastructure protection requires the deliberate targeting of the human life that inhabits critical infrastructures with
increasingly invasive techniques of governance . As a consequence of the declaration of the war on terror, and more especially as a result of the
ways in which the threat of terrorism is being interpreted and understood by its proponents, the
investment of regimes in the
development of new techniques and technologies for the control of human life is increasing rapidly. Strategies for
critical infrastructure protection are affording significant advances in the development of scientific knowledge and technological control of the
evolutionary capacities and adaptive capabilities of the human. Amid the creation of plans for the provision of critical infrastructure protection, and in
the establishment of new governmental agencies for the execution of those plans, the biological sciences in particular are undergoing a major renaissance
(Cooper 2006). The implications of these new forms of knowledge and security technologies for the quality of human life are profoundly paradoxical.
Human beings themselves do, of course, rely significantly on the operability and maintenance of infrastructures them¬elves. But it is a fact that
human beings within critical infrastructures are also regarded as posing the greatest danger to them (Dunn 2005). In this
context, the
human can be seen to have become both the rogue element against which liberal regimes are today seeking to
secure themselves, as well as the central resource on which they are attempting to draw in pursuit of their security. In order to afford their
own protection, liberal regimes have learned historically to govern human life via its reduction to what I have called 'logistical
life'. This term is apt because the techniques and practices of social control through which regimes of the eighteenth century learned to govern were
drawn directly from the domains of war, military strategy, tactics and organisation (Reid 2006: 17-39). Logistical life is a life lived under
the duress of the command to be efficient, to communicate one's purposes transparently in relation to others,
to be positioned where one is required, to use time economically, to be able to move when and where one is told
to, and crucially, to be able to extol these capacities as the values for which one will agree to kill and die for (Reid
2006: 13). In the eighteenth century, the deployment of techniques with which to increase the logistical efficiencies of societies was legitimised by
regimes through the claim that it was necessary for the exceptional defence of the civil domain of society from its external enemies. Increased military
efficiency and discipline was said to be necessary and beneficial to forms of civil life, the 'quality' of which was defined by their distinction from the
warlike conditions that were said to prevail beyond the boundaries of the state. It is in critique of this type of legitimisation that Foucault's analysis, in its
demonstration of the ways in which techniques for the increase of the logistical efficiency of armed forces impacted directly upon the everyday order of
life within the civil domain of society, is so powerful. He exposes how the methods with which liberal regimes historically prepared for war with external
enemies provided model templates with which to subject the life of their civilian populations to new insidious forms of control and manipulation, and
how, in turn, liberal regimes have sought to legitimise their wars in the name of the defence and development of the very
of logistical ways of living they were busy inculcating within and among their subjects. Now, in the twenty-first century and in
are witnessing precisely the same methods of legitimisation being employed by
liberal regimes, but with a radical twist. Today, the argument being deployed is not, as it was in the eighteenth century, that the increase of the
forms
the context of the war on terror, we
logistical efficiency of societies is a necessary sacrifice in the interest of defending an otherwise distinctly civilian population. Today, it is deemed
necessary to defend the logistical life of society from enemies that are deemed dangerous precisely because they target life in its logistical dimensions.
Amid the global campaign against terrorism, the capacities of societies to practice a logistical way of life have become
indistinguishable from conceptions of the 'quality of life' for human beings . Throughout, for example, the seminal US
National Plan for Research and Development in Support of Critical Infrastructure Protection, one finds the quality of human life construed in terms of its
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logistical capacities. The docility and plasticity of human bodies, the manipulability of human dispositions, and the
many ways in which human behaviour can be subjected to techniques of control, are conceptualised not just as
a means for the protection of liberal societies, but as qualities that distinguish the uniqueness of the human
species. As the Plan for Research and Development states: Part of the challenge of infrastructure protection is how to take full advantage of human
capabilities. The Social, Behavioral and Economic (SBE) Working Group in the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) is focused on scientific
research in the areas of sensory, motor, cognitive and adaptive capability of the human. Currently, the brain is unmatched by any technological system.
The human brain is a semi-quantitative supercomputer that is programmable and reprogrammable by explicit training, previous experience, and ongoing observations on a real-time, virtually instantaneous basis. (Department of Homeland Security 2004: 63) The quality of human life, we
are told in forthright terms, is reducible to its superior amenability to logistical transformation. Its greater capacity for
adaptation and transformation is what distinguishes it from other life forms. Contemporary accounts of this form of human superiority, understood in
terms of humans' amenability to logistical techniques of transformation, recall in their depth and specificity the expressions of wonderment at life's
malleability to be found in military texts of the eighteenth century that Foucault's original exploration of the disciplinary and biopolitical underpinnings
of liberal modernity first exposed (1991: 135-69). Human eyes are capable of high-resolution, stereo-optical vision with immense range, and, integrated
with a highly plastic brain, make humans uniquely capable of discovery, integration, and complex pattern recognition. Human hands constitute a
dexterous, sensitive biomechanical system that, integrated with the brains and eyes, are unmatched by current and near-future robotic technologies.
Humans operate in groups synergistically and dynamically, adjusting perceptions, relationships and connections as needed on a real-time and virtually
instantaneous basis. Human language capabilities exist and operate within a dimensional space that is far more complex and fluid than any known
artificial architectures. (Department of Homeland Security 2004: 63) As Foucault's original analysis of the development of liberal regimes of power
revealed, the emergence of the military sciences in the eighteenth century was allied to as well as constitutive of the broader development of the life
sciences. Developments in modern military science have consistently fed off and contributed to changes in the life sciences more generally. Now, in the
twenty-first century, we can see this alliance being cemented in the development of new methods for the defence of liberal regimes in what is known as
'human factors engineering', or HF/E. HF/E is, as the National Plan describes, 'both a science of human performance and an engineering discipline,
concerned with the design of systems for both efficiency and safety' (Department of Homeland Security 2004: 64). Developed since before the Second
World War, its aim is to harness the 'cognitive, emotional and social capabilities of the human' in order to design more secure systems for the defence of
critical infrastructures and to invest in such human capabilities with a view to creating systems of infrastructure that are resilient to 'deceptive
behaviors', 'rogue activities', and to 'insider threats' said to endanger critical infrastructures (Department of Homeland Security 2004: 42). But in
engineering, the means with which to secure infrastructures against the 'deceptions', 'rogues' and 'insider threats' aimed at it,
human life today faces increasingly intense threats to its integrity. The radical indeterminacy of the human, its capacity for error, its
creative capacities for thought and expression, are directly endangered by the increasingly insidious forms of control
being wielded and asserted in strategies for the securing of critical infrastructures against terrorism. As the Plan informs its
readership, 'Anyone can be presumed to be a candidate for insider threat' (Department of Homeland Security 2004: 43). Indeed, everyone is
suspect of constituting this form of threat. Research and development in response to the fear of insider threats is aimed at the creation of
what is called a 'National Common Operating Picture for Critical Infrastructure' (COP) not simply in order to 'sense rogue behavior' in pre-identified
sources of threats to life, but in order to be able to 'sense rogue behaviour in a trusted resource or anticipate that they may be a candidate threat'
(Department of Homeland Security 2004: 41). It is therefore deemed necessary 'that we presume any insider could conduct unauthorised or rogue
activities' (Department of Homeland Security 2004: 42). Consequently, the movement of human life, each and every possible human disposition
and expression, is
becoming the target of strategies construed paradoxically for the defence of human well-being. In this
context, any action or thought that borders on abnormality is to be targeted as a potential source of threat. As the Plan states,
'the same anticipation of overt damaging action by a purposeful threat can be used to anticipate an unfortunate excursion in thought or action by a wellmeaning actor' (Depattment of Home¬land Security 2004: 44). The development of technologies and techniques for the analysis
of 'what people do' and their 'deceptive behaviours' runs the risk not simply of outlawing fundamental conditions
for quality of human life . It creates and indeed instantiates the risk of the violent destruction of forms of life, of human
populations and individuals, who through no fault of their own are deemed to exhibit signs of anomalous and
threatening behaviour. The deliberate murder of Jean Charles de Menezes, killed with five gunshots to the head fired at point-blank range by
British police on 22 July 2005, is a case in point. This human being, described as an 'unidentified male' with 'dark hair beard/stubble', was targeted on
account of the fact that his 'description and demeanour' matched the identity of a bomber suspect'. The simple fact of his leaving an apartment block
thought to have been used by terrorist suspects, the simple fact that on his subsequent journey, he exited and re-entered the bus on which he travelled,
and in spite of the fact that he walked and did not run, showed no sign of possessing weapons of destruction, and gave no signal of intent of any sort, was
nevertheless deemed to represent a divergence from a normal pattern of behaviour so serious that he was targeted and killed with the most deliberate
violence. In spite of the scale and intensity with which the aim of a complete mapping of human dispositions and behaviours has been pursued, and in
spite of the urgency with which today it is being implemented, the most banal and everyday expressions of life continue to fall, tragically, outside its
grasp. As it was in the eighteenth century that the fantasy of a society which functions as a type of socio-military machine, and
'that would cover the whole territory of the nation and in which each individual would be occupied without interruption but in a different way
according to the evolutive segment, the genetic sequence in which he finds himself' (Foucault 1991: 165) emerged, so at the beginning of the twenty-first
century, we can see that fantasy being given new forms in the shape of critical infrastructure protection. Making sense of what is at
stake in this
phenomenon requires a complete reversal of the terms in which its utility is currently being articulated by liberal regimes
than conceptualise this present struggle in terms of a war on terror in the defence of a common humanity
against an enemy that is inimical to life, we can better conceptualise it as a conflict over the political constitution of life
itself. When the methods with which regimes are seeking to secure the life of their societies demand an incremental
targeting of life, to the point where the most ordinary expressions of life are rendered objects of strategic intervention, it is necessary to
question the ways of valorising life that create such paradoxical conditions. This volume, in my reading, creates important
of power. Rather
openings for the further exploration of such a line of questioning.
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The dream of security produces apocalypse– constructions of existential risk produce the annihilation
they are meant to escape
Peter Coviello, Prof. of English @ Bowdoin, 2k [Queer Frontiers, p. 39-40]
Perhaps. But to claim that American culture is at present decisively postnuclear is not to say that the world we inhabit is in
any way postapocalyptic. Apocalypse, as I began by saying, changed-it did not go away. And here I want to hazard my
second assertion: if, in the nuclear age of yesteryear, apocalypse signified an event threatening everyone and everything
with (in Jacques Derrida’s suitably menacing phrase) "remainderless and a-symbolic destruction," then in the postnuclear
world apocalypse is an affair whose parameters are definitively local. In shape and in substance, apocalypse is defined now
by the affliction it brings somewhere else, always to an "other" people whose very presence might then be written as a
kind of dangerous contagion, threatening the safety and prosperity of a cherished "general population." This fact seems
to me to stand behind Susan Sontag's incisive observation, from 1989, that, 'Apocalypse is now a long-running serial: not
'Apocalypse Now' but 'Apocalypse from Now On."" The decisive point here in the perpetuation of the threat of
apocalypse (the point Sontag goes on, at length, to miss) is that apocalypse is ever present because, as an element in a vast
economy of power, it is ever useful. That is, through the perpetual threat of destruction-through the constant
reproduction of the figure of apocalypse-agencies of power ensure their authority to act on and through the bodies of a
particular population. No one turns this point more persuasively than Michel Foucault, who in the final chapter of his first
volume of The History of Sexuality addresses himself to the problem of a power that is less repressive than productive, less
life-threatening than, in his words, "life-administering." Power, he contends, "exerts a positive influence on life land,
endeavors to administer, optimize, and multiply it, subjecting it to precise controls and comprehensive regulations?' In his
brief comments on what he calls "the atomic situation;' however, Foucault insists as well that the productiveness of modern
power must not be mistaken for a uniform repudiation of violent or even lethal means. For as "managers of life and
survival, of bodies and the race," agencies of modern power presume to act 'on the behalf of the existence of everyone."
Whatsoever might be construed as a threat to life and survival in this way serves to authorize any expression of force, no
matter how invasive or, indeed, potentially annihilating. "If genocide is indeed the dream of modem power," Foucault
writes, "this is not because of a recent return to the ancient right to kill; it is because power is situated and exercised at the
level of life, the species, the race, and the large-scale phenomena of population." For a state that would arm itself not with
the power to kill its population, but with a more comprehensive power over the patterns and functioning of its collective
life, the threat of an apocalyptic demise, nuclear or otherwise, seems a civic initiative that can scarcely be done without.
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Reject the affirmative’s security logic – only resistance to the discourse of security can generate genuine
political thought.
Mark Neocleous, Prof. of Government @ Brunel, 2008 [Critique of Security, 185-6]
The only way out of such a dilemma, to escape the fetish, is perhaps to eschew the logic of security altogether - to reject it as so
ideologically loaded in favour of the state that any real political thought other than the authoritarian and reactionary should be pressed to give it up. That is
clearly something that can not be achieved within the limits of bourgeois thought and thus could never even begin to be imagined by the security
intellectual. It is also something that the constant iteration of the refrain 'this is an insecure world' and reiteration of one fear, anxiety and
insecurity after another will also make it hard to do. But it is something that the critique of security suggests we may have to consider if we want a
political way out of the impasse of security. This impasse exists because security has now become so all-encompassing that it
marginalises all else, most notably the constructive conflicts, debates and discussions that animate political life. The
constant prioritising of a mythical security as a political end - as the political end constitutes a rejection of politics in any meaningful sense of the term.
That is, as a mode of action in which differences can be articulated, in which the conflicts and struggles that arise from such differences can be fought for
and negotiated, in which people might come to believe that another world is possible - that they might transform the world and in turn be transformed.
Security politics simply removes this; worse, it remoeves it while purportedly addressing it. In so doing it suppresses all issues of power and
turns political questions into debates about the most efficient way to achieve 'security', despite the fact that we are never quite told never could be told - what might count as having achieved it. Security politics is, in this sense, an anti-politics,"' dominating political discourse in much
the same manner as the security state tries to dominate human beings, reinforcing security fetishism and the monopolistic character of security on the
political imagination. We therefore need to get beyond security politics, not add yet more 'sectors' to it in a way that simply expands the scope of the state
and legitimises state intervention in yet more and more areas of our lives. Simon Dalby reports a personal communication with Michael Williams, coeditor of the important text Critical Security Studies, in which the latter asks: if you take away security, what do you put in the hole that's
left behind? But I'm inclined to agree with Dalby: maybe there is no hole."' The mistake has been to think that there is a hole and that
this hole needs to be filled with a new vision or revision of security in which it is re-mapped or civilised or gendered or humanised or expanded or
whatever. All of these ultimately remain within the statist political imaginary, and consequently end up reaffirming the state as the terrain of modern
politics, the grounds of security. The real task is not to fill the supposed hole with yet another vision of security, but to fight for an
alternative political language which takes us beyond the narrow horizon of bourgeois security and which therefore does
not constantly throw us into the arms of the state. That's the point of critical politics: to develop a new political language more adequate to the
kind of society we want. Thus while much of what I have said here has been of a negative order, part of the tradition of critical theory is that the
negative may be as significant as the positive in setting thought on new paths. For if security really is the supreme concept
of bourgeois society and the fundamental thematic of liberalism, then to keep harping on about insecurity and to keep
demanding 'more security' (while meekly hoping that this increased security doesn't damage our liberty) is to blind
ourselves to the possibility of building real alternatives to the authoritarian tendencies in contemporary politics. To situate
ourselves against security politics would allow us to circumvent the debilitating effect achieved through the constant
securitising of social and political issues, debilitating in the sense that 'security' helps consolidate the power of the existing
forms of social domination and justifies the short-circuiting of even the most democratic forms. It would also allow us to
forge another kind of politics centred on a different conception of the good. We need a new way of thinking and talking
about social being and politics that moves us beyond security. This would perhaps be emancipatory in the true sense of the
word. What this might mean, precisely, must be open to debate. But it certainly requires recognising that security is an
illusion that has forgotten it is an illusion; it requires recognising that security is not the same as solidarity; it requires
accepting that insecurity is part of the human condition, and thus giving up the search for the certainty of security and
instead learning to tolerate the uncertainties, ambiguities and 'insecurities' that come with being human; it requires
accepting that 'securitizing' an issue does not mean dealing with it politically, but bracketing it out and handing it to the
state; it requires us to be brave enough to return the gift."'
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AGRICULTURE
Rails transport soybeans just as well.
Mongelluzzo 7/16
(Bill, Associate editor, Journal of Commerce Online, “Improved Infrastructure Would Boost Farm Exports, Economist Says; The U.S.
is missing the boat on agricultural exports because of its silo approach to infrastructure spending, economist says,” July, 16, 2012)
Anne Landstrom, principal adviser for the commercial group at Moffatt & Nichol, said the western railroads have made
large investments in track, equipment and freight capacity to move exports of all types from the Midwest to West Coast
ports. Investment in the dredging and locks needed to keep inland waterways competitive, however, has languished. As a
result, New Orleans, which is served by the Mississippi River system, has seen its share of agricultural exports drop to 45
percent from 65 percent. West Coast ports have picked up much of the market share, and East Coast ports such as Norfolk
have benefited from investments by the eastern railroads. (What impact will the newly enacted surface transportation bill
have? Story, page 37.) Further development of West Coast agricultural export infrastructure is under way, including
investment in the bulk sector. Grain terminal operator EGT this year opened an export terminal in Longview, Wash. A
container-on-barge system is being developed to connect Stockton, Calif., with Oakland. The Port of Long Beach is seeking
environmental approval for a grain transload facility. Transporting grain from the Midwest and Upper Midwest in hopper
cars to West Coast ports and transloading the product into marine containers near the ports offers great potential for
increasing agricultural exports from the heartland. That's because exporters in the interior have trouble securing empty
containers, but empties are in greater supply at the seaports. More recently, railroads have been working with shipping lines
and retailers to identify import nodes in inland locations. Canadian National Railroad built a logistics hub and grain
transload facility in Wisconsin that draws empty containers from distribution centers serving a large furniture retailer and a
home improvement retailer in the region. Columbus, Ohio, also is developing container match-backs for soybean exporters
in the region, Landstrom noted. The soybeans move by rail to West Coast ports. Although budget deficit hawks continue to
challenge those in Congress who want to put more money into infrastructure development in these challenging economic
times, there is a growing feeling in Washington that now is not the time to cut back on critical infrastructure development.
Kemmsies urged AgTC members to educate others, especially their elected representatives, on how investment in goods
movement infrastructure will benefit the national as well as local economies. "Quite a bit is riding on agricultural exports,"
he said. "We must develop the infrastructure that is needed to make it happen."
Rising food prices cause a decrease in opium production in Afghanistan
NPR in ‘8
(“Price of Bread in Afghanistan Jumps by 60 Percent”, 5-27, Lexis)
WATSON: Afghanistan relies on imports because it cannot grow enough food to feed its own people. But Amin
Farhang, the Afghan commerce minister, argues that in the long term there may be a silver lining to this food
crisis. Speaking in French to a foreign reporter, Farhang says the high price of may convince many Afghan
farmers to switch from harvesting opium-producing poppies to growing wheat.Minister AMIN FARHANG
(Commerce Minister, Afghanistan): (Through translator) This has already begun in several provinces, because
peasants see that they can now make a profit growing food. So why not change their crops to wheat since
producing poppy is illegal, dangerous, and supports terrorism in Afghanistan.
Drug production causes Afghan instability
Jones in ‘7
(General James, US EU Command in Marines, CQ Congressional Testimony, 3-1, Lexis)
Afghanistan's most serious problem is not the Taliban, it is the alarming growth of its economic dependence on
narcotics. It now permeates nearly every aspect of Afghan society and underwrites much of the violence we are
fighting throughout the nation. It is Afghanistan's true "Achilles' Heal". Afghanistan does not need to become a
narco-state, but it is unfortunately well on its way to becoming one. The parts of Afghanistan which are
currently producing the largest poppy crops are not those that are traditionally known for the growth of such
product. The need to find the right means to ensure that farmers can economically grow and sell legal produce,
in addition to developing an overarching and understandable way ahead in the overall right against narcotics,
is vital. Ninety percent of Afghan narcotics are sold in the European markets. The money returns to
Afghanistan and fuels the IEDs and terrorism that kills and wounds our soldiers. In my opinion this is the
number one problem affecting the recovery of the nation. The lead nation for this effort is the United Kingdom.
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and it is failing in developing and implementing a cohesive strategy to even begin to resolve a problem that will
result in international failure in Afghanistan if not addressed.
Instability goes global causing nuclear war
Morgan in ‘7
(Stephen, Former Member of the British Labour Party Executive committee, “Better another Taliban
Afghanistan, than a Taliban NUCLEAR Pakistan!?” http://www.electricarticles.com/display.aspx?id=639)
However events may prove him sorely wrong. Indeed, his policy could completely backfire upon him. As the
war intensifies, he has no guarantees that the current autonomy may yet burgeon into a separatist movement.
Appetite comes with eating, as they say. Moreover, should the Taliban fail to re-conquer al of Afghanistan, as
looks likely, but captures at least half of the country, then a Taliban Pashtun caliphate could be established
which would act as a magnet to separatist Pashtuns in Pakistan. Then, the likely break up of Afghanistan along
ethnic lines, could, indeed, lead the way to the break up of Pakistan, as well. ¶ Strong centrifugal forces have
always bedevilled the stability and unity of Pakistan, and, in the context of the new world situation, the country
could be faced with civil wars and popular fundamentalist uprisings, probably including a militaryfundamentalist coup d’état. ¶ Fundamentalism is deeply rooted in Pakistan society. The fact that in the year
following 9/11, the most popular name given to male children born that year was “Osama” (not a Pakistani
name) is a small indication of the mood. Given the weakening base of the traditional, secular opposition
parties, conditions would be ripe for a coup d’état by the fundamentalist wing of the Army and ISI, leaning on
the radicalised masses to take power. Some form of radical, military Islamic regime, where legal powers would
shift to Islamic courts and forms of shira law would be likely. Although, even then, this might not take place
outside of a protracted crisis of upheaval and civil war conditions, mixing fundamentalist movements with
nationalist uprisings and sectarian violence between the Sunni and minority Shia populations. ¶ The nightmare
that is now Iraq would take on gothic proportions across the continent. The prophesy of an arc of civil war over
Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq would spread to south Asia, stretching from Pakistan to Palestine, through
Afghanistan into Iraq and up to the Mediterranean coast. ¶ Undoubtedly, this would also spill over into India
both with regards to the Muslim community and Kashmir. Border clashes, terrorist attacks, sectarian pogroms
and insurgency would break out. A new war, and possibly nuclear war, between Pakistan and India could no be
ruled out.¶ Atomic Al Qaeda¶ Should Pakistan break down completely, a Taliban-style government with strong
Al Qaeda influence is a real possibility. Such deep chaos would, of course, open a “Pandora's box” for the region
and the world. With the possibility of unstable clerical and military fundamentalist elements being in control of
the Pakistan nuclear arsenal, not only their use against India, but Israel becomes a possibility, as well as the
acquisition of nuclear and other deadly weapons secrets by Al Qaeda.¶ Invading Pakistan would not be an
option for America. Therefore a nuclear war would now again become a real strategic possibility. This would
bring a shift in the tectonic plates of global relations. It could usher in a new Cold War with China and Russia
pitted against the US.
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FAMINE
1. Tech development solves
Thompson 5/13/11 – Dr. Robert L. Thompson is a senior fellow for The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and professor emeritus at the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Proving Malthus Wrong, Sustainable agriculture in 2050”
http://scienceblogs.com/tomorrowstable/2011/05/proving_malthus_wrong_sustaina.php
Tools available today, including plant breeding and biotechnology, can make presently unusable soils
productive and increase the genetic potential of individual crops - enhancing drought and stress tolerance, for
example - while also producing gains in yields. Existing tools can also internalize plants' resistance to disease, and even
improve a plant's nutritional content - meaning consumers can get more nutritional value without increasing their consumption.
Furthermore, modern high-productivity agriculture minimizes farmers' impact on the environment . Failure to embrace
these technologies will result in further destruction of remaining forests. Adoption of technologies that produce more output from
fewer resources has been hugely successful from an economic standpoint: prior to the price spike in 2008, there was a 150-
year downward trend in the real price of food. The jury is still out on whether the long-term downward trend will resume, prices will flatten out on a new
higher plateau, or they will trend upward in the future. The key is investing in research in the public and private sectors to increase agricultural
productivity faster than global demand grows. Long ago, British scholar Thomas Malthus predicted that the human population would
eventually outgrow its ability to feed itself. However, Malthus has been proven wrong for more than two
centuries precisely because he underestimated the power of agricultural research and technology to increase
productivity faster than demand. There is no more reason for Malthus to be right in the 21st century than he
was in the 19th or 20th - but only if we work to support, not impede, continued agricultural research and
adoption of new technologies around the world.
Turn ---- developing AG ---- falling prices increase hunger by preventing research and development of 3rd
world AG
Paarlberg in ‘8
(Robert, Prof. Pol. Sci. @ Wellesley, and Visiting Prof. Gov. @ Harvard, The Chronicle Review, “The Real Food
Crisis: The True Threats are Local, not Global”, 6-27, 54:42,
http://english.sxu.edu/musgrove/realfoodcrisis.pdf)
The most-worrisome comparison between the 1970s and today is possibly yet to come. If¶ international food
prices begin to fall back down in the next year or two — perhaps following a¶ tightening of monetary policy, or a
slowing of the world economy, or a bumper harvest this¶ summer — there is a danger that international policy
makers will decide the world's "food¶ crisis" is over. If that happens, many of the critical new investments just
now being made to¶ boost food production in the developing world might be cut back, as they were in the
1980s.¶ During the two decades that followed the bursting of the 1970s commodity-price bubble, the¶ United
States began to cut the share of its foreign aid that went toward agriculture from 25¶ percent of the total down
to just 1 percent as of 2007. The share of total World Bank lending¶ that went for agricultural development fell
from 30 percent down to just 8 percent. In part as¶ a consequence, agricultural development in the aiddependent countries of Africa stagnated.¶ Under a deceptive cover of much lower world food prices, hunger
levels in rural Africa steadily¶ increased. Between 1975 and 1995, the number of malnourished children in subSaharan¶ Africa increased by 70 percent, mostly because farm production per capita was falling by 12¶ percent.
By 2005, which was still a year of low international food prices, 23 out of 37 countries¶ in sub-Saharan Africa
were consuming less than their nutritional requirements, and one-third¶ of all African citizens were
malnourished.¶ The real food crisis in Africa today comes not from high prices on the world market but from¶
low productivity on the local farm. Two-thirds of all Africans depend on farming for their¶ income and their
subsistence, yet because their farming techniques remain relatively¶ unimproved by modern technology (most
lack improved seeds, fertilizers, irrigation, electrical¶ power, veterinary medicine, and modern transport), their
crop yields are one-tenth as high as¶ in the developed world, and only one-third as high as in the more
successful developing¶ countries of Asia.¶ It has been gratifying to see how this episode of high world food prices
has brought renewed¶ attention, especially from the World Bank, to the plight of poor farmers in the African¶
countryside. This time around donor support must continue even after the deceptive price¶ surge recedes
Food spikes don’t lead to famine ---- transitory grain shortage is due to conflict
Paarlberg in ’99
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(Robert, Prof. Pol. Sci. @ Wellseley and Associate @ Weatherhead Center for International Studies @ Harvard,
“Markets, Politics, and World Food Security”, http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/WCFIA_9906.pdf)
Transitory food insecurity in poor countries is not directly or significantly linked to changing conditions in
world grain markets.¶ Per capita grain consumption in the developing countries did not generally worsen when
grain export prices increased in 1973–74,¶ or when they increased again briefly in 1995–96, and consumption
generally grew more rapidly during the decade of the 1970s¶ (when prices were high) than during the decade of
the 1980s (when prices were low). This is partly because reliance on grain¶ imports by genuinely poor
developing countries is low, and lower today than several decades ago even when food aid is taken into¶
account. This low dependence cannot be explained as a response to the instability of world grain markets or as
a justifiable¶ response to unreliable supplier concerns; it reflects instead a more general aversion by poor
countries to all freely operating food¶ markets, domestic as well as foreign. Transitory food insecurity thus
seldom results from the malfunction of food markets. Its most¶ conspicuous cause is violent internal conflict,
plus non–accountable governments and natural disasters such as drought.
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CHINA
Chinese people are already infuriated by environmental concerns-plan can not solve
Ruwitch 7-28-12 (John,
Bureau Chief in Vietnam and a writer for Reuters, “China cancels waste project after protests turn violent”, July 28th 2012, http://news.yahoo.com/angry-chineseoccupy-government-office-smash-computers-environment-060626092.html)
QIDONG, China (Reuters) - Chinese officials canceled an industrial waste pipeline project on Saturday after
anti-pollution demonstrators occupied a government office in eastern China, destroying computers and
overturning cars. The demonstration was the latest in a string of protests sparked by fears of environmental
degradation and highlights the social tensions the government in Beijing faces as it approaches a leadership
transition this year. It was also the second cancellation of an industrial project this month, as officials buckle
under pressure from protests. Zhang Guohua, city mayor of the eastern China city of Nantong, said in a
statement the city would terminate the planned pipeline that would have emptied waste water from a Japaneseowned paper factory into the sea near Qidong. The decision came hours after about 1,000 protesters marched
through the city of Qidong, about one hour north of Shanghai, shouting slogans against the pipeline. "The
government says the waste will not pollute the sea, but if that's true, then why don't they dump it into Yangtze
River?" Lu Shuai, a 25-year-old protester who works in logistics, said while marching. "It is because if they
dump it into the river, it will have an impact on people in Shanghai and people in Shanghai will oppose it."
Several protesters entered the city government's main building where they smashed computers, overturned
desks and threw documents out the windows to loud cheers from the crowd. Reuters witnessed five cars and one
minibus being overturned. At least two police officers were dragged into the crowd at the government office
and punched and beaten enough to make them bleed. Environmental worries have stoked calls for expanded
rights for citizens and greater consultation in the tightly controlled one-party state. The outpouring of public
anger is emblematic of the rising discontent facing Chinese leaders, who are obsessed with maintaining stability
and struggling to balance growth with rising public anger over environmental threats. Such protests "suggest
that the middle class, whose members seemed willing to accept in the 1990s that being able to buy more things
equaled having a better life, is now wondering whether one's quality of life has improved, if you have to worry
about breathing the air, drinking the water, and whether the food you're eating is safe," said Jeffrey
Wasserstrom, of the University of California Irvine. The protest followed similar demonstrations against
projects the Sichuan town of Shifang earlier this month and in the cities of Dalian in the northeast and Haimen
in southern Guangdong province in the past year. "We are aware of the Shifang experience, and if it worked
there then it may work here. We have a responsibility to protect our home," said one student who declined to be
named because he said the government had threatened retribution against anyone who spoke to the media.
China will control food prices if necessary
Market Watch 7/27
(“China asks edible-oil firms to avoid price hikes,” July 27, 2012, http://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-asks-edible-oil-firms-toavoid-price-hikes-2012-07-27)
The Chinese government has advised edible-oil producers in China to avoid raising prices "unless absolutely necessary,"
stopping short of a repeat of last year's outright price cap on such products, major producer Wilmar International Ltd. said
Friday. The government's move signals it is again wary of resurgent food prices--of which cooking oil is a bellwether-despite inflation ebbing to its lowest level since January 2010, after a sharp rally in U.S. grain prices late last week drove up
Chinese soybeans. Beijing has cut interest rates twice this year and is widely expected to undertake more cuts in the second
half to revive its flagging economy--moves that it can ill-afford if inflation data again show an uptrend. "There is no control
on cooking oil prices," said a spokeswoman for Wilmar, which operates in China as Yihai Kerry Group. "However, the
government has advised that companies should avoid increasing prices unless it is absolutely necessary." Cofco Group was
the other major producer that the government met with to discuss cooking oil prices, state media reported. Cofco didn't
reply to calls and an e-mail for comment. Wilmar and Cofco control about 70% of China's retail cooking oil market.
Officials from the National Development and Reform Commission, Beijing's top economic planning agency, met
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executives from Wilmar and Cofco on Tuesday for a "discussion" after a group of producers raised their prices in mid-July,
state media reported, citing an unidentified Cofco official. The commission, which has price-setting powers, said it "hoped
companies would preserve the stability of edible-oil prices," a report from the state-run Economic Information Daily said.
Commission officials didn't respond to a call for comment. Despite low inflation, the commission's action suggests the
government is loath to let any sign of resurgent prices derail its policy-loosening campaign. Edible oil prices have been
fairly stable this year. Soyoil retail prices have risen by 0.22 yuan a liter from their lowest point this year in early March to
around CNY12.25/liter, the Ministry of Commerce said. Inflation levels have also fallen significantly since the government
began its tightening campaign last year, decelerating to a rise of just 2.2% in June on year versus 3% in May. But Chinese
soybean prices rose late last week, gaining 2% as reports of a U.S. Midwest drought sent global grain markets soaring. Last
year, the commission asked edible-oil producers to cap prices for 10 months, part of efforts to roll back inflation.
China’s on the road to food policy self-sufficiency
Ter Beek 8/1
(Vincent, Editor for Pig Progress, an international trade journal, World Poultry, Vol. 28, No. 6, “China: Self-sufficient food production
within reach,” August 1, 2012, http://www.worldpoultry.net/background/china-self-sufficient-food-production-within-reach10708.html)
The story has been well-known for some time. When it comes to food security in China, many have pointed to rapid
economic growth, the rising food demand, increasing imports of feedstuffs like soybeans. So often, the question is: Who
will feed China? A question for Jikun Huang, from the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy at the Chinese Academy of
Sciences. He addressed the audience at the ‘Feeding the World’ summit, organised by the Economist Group and sponsored
by DSM, in Geneva, Switzerland, on February 8. His answer can be summarised as: China will take care of itself – and
others too. Huang pointed to the time frame between 1992 and 2010, stating that in 17 years, China was a net food exporter.
It is only in the last three years that China had to import. He also mentioned the fact that both national and household food
security has significantly improved in this time. Huang continued by explaining how China had managed to achieve this.
The annual growth rate of China’s agriculture has been 4.4 times the rate of the population growth in the last 30 years. To
support this, he showed figures of a staggering grain production growth (74%) between 1978 and 2009; a whopping oil
crop production growth by 505% in that same time frame. Similarly, meat production has grown extremely strong over the
last 30 years, be it for poultry, pork, beef or mutton. Two developments in Beijing are at the basis of these achievements,
Huang explained – a combination of strong investments in agriculture and a national policy reform. Between 1984 and
1997, the Chinese central government invested roughly between 50-100 billion yuan (€6-12 billion) annually in the
agricultural sector. As from 1998, the budget was increased virtually every year to reach 450 billion yuan (€56 billion) in
2008 with more growth projected. Part of the investments went into stepping up the amount of irrigated land. About 50% of
total cultivated land in China is now used for irrigation, a total of almost 60 million ha. In comparison, by 1950, this was
approximately 15 million ha. The key element of future investments will be Research and Development-related, Huang
said.
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DEFORESTATION
Sugar makes the impact inevitable
Council on Hemispheric Affairs, 08 (States News Service, “BIOFUELS AND GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS - WHO IS TO BLAME?”, 7/10,
lexis)
Further ethanol controversy surrounds environmentalist concerns that Brazil’s sugar industry is permanently
destroying large areas of the Amazon rainforest. The industry has forced small farmers to sell their land at low
prices and work for large multi-national companies, under poor conditions and scant pay. In addition, Brazil’s
ethanol production has pushed soybean cultivation and cattle ranching into the Amazon area, making room for
sugarcane production in the southeastern part of the country. This region, once home to coffee and fruit
plantations, was originally part of the southeastern portion of the Amazon rainforest, of which only 7 percent
remains today. Another environmental concern regarding sugar cane cultivation involves the burning of the old
cane to get rid of dry leaves and dispensable biomass. This hazardous practice creates health problems for local
populations, and spreads the fires into some of the remaining Amazon rainforests.
Status quo solves
Council on Hemispheric Affairs, 08 (States News Service, “BIOFUELS AND GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS - WHO IS TO BLAME?”, 7/10,
lexis)
President Lula has increasingly displayed support to protect the Amazon from ongoing destruction. On June
19, the government extended its two-year ban on the sale of soy from the deforested land in Amazonia until
July 2009. Additionally, officials from the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural
Resources have already begun bans on beef and timber from illegal Amazon lands (Mercopress). This recent
commitment could signify the government’s sincerity regarding prevention of deforestation and “its
commitment to a policy of environmental registration and licensing for land in Amazonia (Brazzil). New
policies also present Brazil as environmentally conscious to international groups such as Greenpeace, who have
in the past heavily criticized the country’s lack of effort in sustaining the Amazon’s integrity. Greenpeace
director Paulo Adario applauded Lula, stating, “Today’s decision is important because it proves that it’s
possible to guarantee food production without cutting down one more hectare of Amazon forest.” Also, in an
attempt to speed the recovery of Amazonian pastures and degraded soils, the government will offer soft loans,
ample credit for small farmers, and an insurance system designed to reduce the risks of climate change. With
the appointment of strong conservationists such as the Minister of Environment, Carlos Minc, a UN awarded
defender of the environment, the Lula administration is taking urgent steps to enhance agricultural production
and increase Amazonian protection. If action indeed follows such rhetoric, Brazilian planners could be on the
verge of helping the country become a world player in trade while it attempts to keep domestic prices low.
Turn ---- high prices solve poverty ---- key to environmental protection
La Vina et al in ‘6
(Antonio, (Dean @ Ateneo School of Gov. in Philippines), Lindsey Fransen, (Grad Student in Energy and
Resources @ Center for Latin American Studies @ UC Berkeley), Paul Faeth, (Exec. VP @ World Resources
Institute), and Yuko Kurauchi, (World Bank Consultant), WRI White Paper, “Reforming Agricultural
Subsidies: “No Regrets” Policies for Livelihoods”, http://pdf.wri.org/reforming_ag_subsidies.pdf)
Poverty itself affects the environment by increasing people’s direct reliance on the natural resource base. It can
also prevent farmers from investing in more sustainable practices, either because they do not have funds for
investment, or because the returns on the investment may not be sufficient to justify the expense. For example, WWF
predicts that by 2025 more than 60 percent of total water supply in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Malawi will be used to irrigate sugarcane. The region could benefit from investing in more
Higher profits
would not only generate funds that could be used for irrigation, but could also provide an incentive to improve
infrastructure. While higher market prices are not the only conditions necessary to ensure more sustainable practices, they are nonetheless an important factor influencing practices and
efficient and sustainable irrigation practices, but it will only be able to do so if it earns more from sugar (WWF 2004), the price of which is currently kept low by EU subsidies.
investments within the sector.
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<File Name>
DDI 2012
Economy
Cross Apply Mongelluzzo – Railroads solve goods transportation – riverlocks not key
Economic Decline doesn’t lead to war
A. Economic theory
Deudney 91 (Daniel, Hewlett Fellow in Science, Technology, and Society at the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Princeton University, “Environment and Security:
Muddled Thinking”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, pg. 27)
The record of previous depressions supports the proposition that widespread economic stagnation and unmet economic expectations contribute to
international conflict. Although initially compelling, this scenario has major flaws. One is that it is arguably based on unsound economic theory. Wealth
is formed not so much by the availability of cheap natural resources as by capital formation through savings and more efficient production. Many resource-poor
countries, like Japan, are very wealthy, while many countries with more extensive resources are poor. Environmental constraints require an end to
economic growth based on growing use of raw materials, but not necessarily an end to growth in the production of goods and services. In addition,
economic decline does not necessarily produce conflict. How societies respond to economic decline may largely depend upon the rate at which
such declines occur. And as people get poorer, they may become less willing to spend scarce resources for military forces. As Bernard Brodie observed
about the modern era, “The predisposing factors to military aggression are full bellies, not empty ones.”’” The experience of economic depressions over
the last two centuries may be irrelevant, because such depressions were characterized by under-utilized production capacity and falling resource
prices. In the 1930 increased military spending stimulated economies, but if economic growth is retarded by environmental constraints, military
spending will exacerbate the problem. Power Wars. A third scenario is that environmental degradation might cause war by altering the relative power of states; that
is, newly stronger states may be tempted to prey upon the newly weaker ones, or weakened states may attack and lock in their positions before their power ebbs further.
But such alterations might not lead to war as readily as the lessons of history suggest, because economic power and military power are not as tightly
coupled as in the past. The economic power positions of Germany and Japan have changed greatly since World War II, but these changes have not
been accompanied by war or threat of war. In the contemporary world, whole industries rise, fall, and relocate, causing substantial fluctuations in the
economic well-being of regions and peoples without producing wars. There is no reason to believe that changes in relative wealth and power caused
by the uneven impact of environmental degradation would inevitably lead to war. Even if environmental degradation were to destroy the basic social and economic
fabric of a country or region, the impact on international order may not be very great. Among the first casualties in such country would be the capacity to
wage war. The poor and wretched of the earth may be able to deny an outside aggressor an easy conquest, but they are themselves a minimal threat to other
states. Contemporary offensive military operations require complex organizational skills, specialized industrial products and surplus wealth.
of dictatorships and semidemocracies, the ruling elites responded to crises by increasing repression (thereby using one form of violence to abort another).
B. History
Ferguson 6 (Niall, MA, D.Phil., is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University. He is a resident faculty member of the Minda de Gunzburg
Center for European Studies. He is also a Senior Reseach Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, The Next War of
the World, http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/29355.html)
Nor can economic crises explain the bloodshed. What may be the most familiar causal chain in modern historiography links the Great Depression to the rise of
fascism and the outbreak of World War II. But that simple story leaves too much out. Nazi Germany started the war in Europe only after its economy had
recovered. Not all the countries affected by the Great Depression were taken over by fascist regimes, nor did all such regimes start wars of aggression. In fact, no
general relationship between economics and conflict is discernible for the century as a whole. Some wars came after periods of growth, others were
the causes rather than the consequences of economic catastrophe, and some severe economic crises were not followed by wars.
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