***1NCs***
1NC – Energy General
Energy production locks-in productivist discourses surrounding the ocean – this causes
environmental destruction, failed policies, and commodifies the ocean space in favor
of an imperial neoliberal logic
Marten 11 (Emily, MA Geography @ University of Miami, "The Discourses of Energy and
Environmental Security in the Debate Over Offshore Oil Drilling Policy in Florida,"
http://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1253&context=oa_theses)
In the case of offshore oil drilling, ocean space is the physical arena upon which the security discourses , such as
energy and environmental , create knowledge, portraying counter-realities of the ocean and its value
for society. Though the security discourses discussed in depth in chapters 3 and 4 attach new images and values to ocean space through the
perpetuation of their associated knowledges, the ocean has, throughout history, been the subject of social representations and value
constructions that persist within these discourses. In particular, marine or ocean space, most notably in terms of its relationship to terrestrial
space, has often held the position as the spatial ‘other’ in respect to human processes. As Steinberg (2001) point s out, the
ocean has
held many positions in its relationship with society, namely as a space for transportation, resource extraction,
and, more recently, an intricate part of the biophysical processes that sustain human life. Regardless of the
attempts of the latter imagination to integrate ocean spaces into a complex argument about the long-term sustainability of life on earth, the
more traditional notion that the ocean is “merely a distance and not a place ” where social rules do not apply,
persists in contemporary discourses, managing to distance ocean spaces from social controls and
oversight (Steinberg 2001: 49; Zalik 2009). During the centuries before widespread seafaring, the ocean was a ‘resource provider’,
furnishing littoral communities with food and the occasional luxury items (i.e. pearls). With God, Glory and Gold in mind, the Imperial
quest to map and mine the world sent many explorers across the oceans, but with little interest given to
the content of the oceans themselves. This has resulted, especially under the auspices of capitalism and
neoliberalism, which emphasize material and financial accumulation in tandem with deregulation and privatization, in policies that
often ignore or be little social and environmental consequences to the very social processes transpiring
within ocean space. Due to the anthropocentric nature of exploration and resource extraction, the
oceans have tended to play merely a service role, as they are viewed simply as the matter lying between
the more easily inhabitable terrestrial formations. Social constructions or representations of the ocean, attempt to
provide a static image of this space in order to define the parameters of its usefulness to society. In the
processes of resource extraction, multi-use preservation, and environmental sustainability, the often
competing representations of ocean space have seen lit tle compromise, with regulatory policies
constantly being implemented, lifted, or ignored in view of competing interests, and their associated
ocean-space imaginations. This chapter seeks to highlight the evolution of social constructions and securitization of the ocean, namely
in the Un ited States, by deconstructing and analyzing a few of the dominant perspectives rega rding ocean space throughout history. I hope to
show that despite an increase in scientific inquiry aimed at increas ing an understanding of ocean spaces and reconfiguring the spatial
imagination, the ocean as
a resource provider and the ‘other’ to terrestrial spaces remains a prominent
vision that serves to inform human actions within that space. As a result of the ocean’s seemingly fixed
construction as the ‘other’, limited authority is placed on any knowledge that conceptualizes ocean
space as a vital element within the Earth’s ecosystem, and the subsequent need for protections and
regulations to ensure its sustainability. In fa ct, where protections of ocean space exist it is most frequently in light of efforts to
maintain the ocean as a multiple use space for commercial enterprise s, and not as a result of an incorporation of a new knowledge that seeks
to protect ocean space for the purpose of environmental sustainability or ecosystem pr otection. In
the case of energy and
environmental security, the conceptualization of the ocean provides the frame of reference from which
each discourse imagines the ocean’s relationship and utility to society. For instance, under the discourse of energy
security the ocean is constr ucted as the frontier for oil resources, that would be produced and used domestically in order to secure the
American oil supply from the volatile foreign oil market and oil-funded terrorism. In the case of environmental security, the ocean is percei ved
as [1] a vital element in the larger ecosystem on which humans rely upon for long-term survival; and [2] is the site where the commodification
of the pristine, unspoile d by dirty offshore drilling activities and rigs, is able to generate t housands of jobs and billions in annual income for
coastal tourism
Makes extinction inevitable – exacerbates structural violence – Tech Optimism makes
the aff epistemologically suspect
Byrne and Toley 6 (John – Head of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy – It’s a leading
institution for interdisciplinary graduate education, research, and advocacy in energy and environmental
policy – John is also a Distinguished Professor of Energy & Climate Policy at the University of Delaware –
2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Toley –
Directs the Urban Studies and Wheaton in Chicago programs - Selected to the Chicago Council on Global
Affairs Emerging Leaders Program for 2011-2013 - expertise includes issues related to urban and
environmental politics, global cities, and public policy, “Energy as a Social Project: Recovering a
Discourse,” p. 1-32)
From climate change to acid rain, contaminated landscapes, mercury pollution, and biodiversity loss, the origins of many of our least
tractable environmental problems can be traced to the operations of the modern energy system. A scan of
nightfall across the planet reveals a social dila that also accompanies this system’s operations: invented over a century ago, electric light
remains an experience only for the socially privileged . Two billion human beings—almost one-third of the planet’s
population—experience evening light by candle, oil lamp, or open fire, reminding us that energy modernization has left intact—and
sometimes exacerbated—social inequalities that its architects promised would be banished (Smil, 2003: 370
- 373). And there is the disturbing link between modern energy and war. 3 Whether as a mineral whose control is fought
over by the powerful (for a recent history of conflict over oil, see Klare, 2002b, 2004, 2006), or as the enablement of an atomic
war of extinction , modern energy makes modern life possible and threatens its future. With environmental
crisis, social inequality, and military conflict among the significant problems of contemporary energy-society relations, the importance of a
social analysis of the modern energy system appears easy to establish. One might, therefore, expect a lively and fulsome debate of the sector’s
performance, including critical inquiries into the politics, sociology, and political economy of modern energy. Yet, contemporary discourse on
the subject is disappointing: instead of a social analysis of energy
technological visions
regimes, the field seems to be a captive of euphoric
and associated studies of “energy futures” that
imagine the pleasing consequences of
new energy sources and devices. 4 One stream of euphoria has sprung from advocates of conventional energy, perhaps best
represented by the unflappable optimists of nuclear power 12 Transforming Power who, early on, promised to invent a “magical fire”
(Weinberg, 1972) capable of meeting any level of energy demand inexhaustibly in a manner “too cheap to meter” (Lewis Strauss, cited in the
New York Times 1954, 1955). In reply to those who fear catastrophic accidents from the “magical fire” or the proliferation of nuclear weapons,
a new promise is made to realize “inherently safe reactors” (Weinberg, 1985) that risk neither serious accident nor intentionally harmful use of
high-energy physics. Less grandiose, but no less optimistic, forecasts can be heard from fossil fuel enthusiasts who, likewise, project more
energy, at lower cost, and with little ecological harm (see, e.g., Yergin and Stoppard, 2003). Skeptics of conventional energy, eschewing
involvement with dangerously scaled technologies and their ecological consequences, find solace in “sustainable energy alternatives” that
constitute a second euphoric stream. Preferring to redirect attention to smaller, and supposedly more democratic, options, “green” energy
advocates conceive devices and systems that prefigure a revival of human scale development, local self-determination, and a commitment to
ecological balance. Among supporters are those who believe that greening the energy system embodies universal social ideals and, as a result,
can overcome current conflicts between energy “haves” and “havenots.” 5 In a recent contribution to this perspective, Vaitheeswaran suggests
(2003: 327, 291), “today’s nascent energy revolution will truly deliver power to the people” as “micropower meets village power.” Hermann
Scheer echoes the idea of an alternative energy-led social transformation: the shift to a “solar global economy... can satisfy the material needs
of all mankind and grant us the freedom to guarantee truly universal and equal human rights and to safeguard the world’s cultural diversity”
euphoria of contemporary energy studies is noteworthy for its historical
consistency with a nearly unbroken social narrative of wonderment extending from the advent of steam
power through the spread of electricity (Nye, 1999). The modern energy regime that now powers nuclear weaponry
and risks disruption of the planet’s climate is a product of promises pursued without sustained public
(Scheer, 2002: 34). 6 The
examination of the political, social, economic, and ecological record of the regime’s operations. However,
the discursive landscape has occasionally included thoughtful exploration of the broader contours of energy-environment-society relations. As
early as 1934, Lewis Mumford (see also his two-volume Myth of the Machine, 1966; 1970) critiqued the industrial energy system for being a key
source of social and ecological alienation (1934: 196): The changes that were manifested in every department of Technics rested for the most
part on one central fact: the increase of energy. Size, speed, quantity, the multiplication of machines, were all reflections of the new means of
utilizing fuel and the enlargement of the available stock of fuel itself. Power
was dissociated from its natural human and
geographic limitations: from the caprices of the weather, from the irregularities that definitely restrict
the output of men and animals. 02Chapter1.pmd 2 1/6/2006, 2:56 PMEnergy as a Social Project 3 By 1961, Mumford despaired that
modernity had retrogressed into a lifeharming dead end (1961: 263, 248): ...an orgy of uncontrolled
production and equally uncontrolled reproduction: machine fodder and cannon fodder: surplus values and
surplus populations... The dirty crowded houses, the dank airless courts and alleys, the bleak pavements, the sulphurous
atmosphere, the over-routinized and dehumanized factory, the drill schools, the second-hand experiences, the starvation of the senses, the
remoteness from nature and animal activity—here are the enemies. The living organism demands a life-sustaining environment.
Modernity’s formula for two centuries had been to increase energy in order to produce overwhelming
economic growth. While diagnosing the inevitable failures of this logic, Mumford nevertheless warned that modernity’s
supporters would seek to derail present-tense evaluations of the era’s social and ecological
performance with forecasts of a bountiful future in which, finally, the perennial social conflicts over
resources would end. Contrary to traditional notions of democratic governance, Mumford observed that the modern ideal actually
issues from a pseudomorph that he named the “democratic- authoritarian bargain” (1964: 6) in which the
modern energy regime and capitalist political economy join in a promise to produce “every material
advantage, every intellectual and emotional stimulus [one] may desire, in quantities hardly
available hitherto even for a restricted minority” on the condition that society demands only what
the regime is capable and willing to offer. An authoritarian energy order thereby constructs an aspirational democracy while
facilitating the abstraction of production and consumption from non-economic social values.
Vote neg - methodological investigation is a prior question to the aff – strict policy
focus creates a myth of objectivity that sustains a violent business-as-usual approach
Scrase and Ockwell 10 (J. Ivan - Sussex Energy Group, SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research),
Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, David G - Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, SPRU,
Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, “The role of discourse and linguistic framing effects in sustaining
high carbon energy policy—An accessible introduction,” Energy Policy: Volume 38, Issue 5, May 2010,
Pages 2225–2233)
The way in which energy policy is “framed” refers to the underlying assumptions policy is based on
and the ways in which policy debates ‘construct’, emphasise and link particular issues . For example
energy ‘security of supply’ is often emphasised in arguments favouring nuclear-generated electricity. A more limited framing effect
operates on individuals in opinion polls and public referendums: here the way in which questions are posed has a
strong influence on responses. The bigger, social framing effect referred to here colours societies’ thinking
about whole areas of public life, in this case energy use and its environmental impacts. A key element of the proposed
reframing advanced by commentators concerned with decarbonising energy use (see, for example, Scrase and MacKerron, 2009) is to cease
treating energy as just commercial units of fuel and electricity, and instead to focus on the energy ‘services’ people need (warmth, lighting,
mobility and so on). This paper helps to explain why any such reframing, however logical and appealing, is
politically very
challenging if it goes against the perceived interests of powerful groups, particularly when these interests are aligned
with certain imperatives which governments must fulfil if they are to avoid electoral defeat. There is a dominant conception of
policy-making as an objective, linear process. In essence the process is portrayed as proceeding in a
series of steps from facts to analysis, and then to solutions (for a detailed critique of this linear view see Fischer, 2003). In
reality, policy-making is usually messy and political, rife with the exercise of interests and power. The veneer
of objective, rational policy-making, that the dominant, linear model of policy-making supports is
therefore cause for concern. It effectively sustains energy policy ‘business as usual’ and excludes many
relevant voices that might be effective in opening up space to reframe energy policy problems and
move towards more sustainable solutions
(see, for example, Ockwell, 2008). This echoes concerns with what
counts as knowledge and whose voices are heard in policy debates that have characterised strands of several
literatures in recent decades, including science and technology studies, sociology of scientific knowledge, and various strands of the political
science and development literatures, particularly in the context of knowledge, discourse and democracy. An
alternative to the linear
model is
provided by a ‘discourse’ perspective. This draws on political scientists’ observations of ways in which politics and
can be
understood as: ‘… a shared way of apprehending the world. Embedded in language it enables
subscribers to interpret bits of information and put them together into coherent stories or accounts.
Each discourse rests on assumptions, judgements and contentions that provide the basic terms for analysis,
debates, agreements and disagreements…’ Dryzek (1997, p.8). A discursive approach rejects the widely held
assumption that policy language is a neutral medium through which ideas and an objective world are
represented and discussed (Darcy, 1999). Discourse analysts examine and explain language use in a way that
helps to reveal the underlying interests, value judgements and beliefs that are often disguised by
policy actors’ factual claims and the arguments that these are used to support. For example UK energy policy
policy-making proceed through the use of language, and the expression of values and the assumptions therein. Discourse
review documents issued in 2006–2007 are criticised below for presenting information in ways that subtly but consistently favoured new
(including scientific and policy experts) base their
understanding of problems and solutions on their knowledge, experiences, interpretations
and value judgements. These are coloured and shaped by social interactions, for example by what is
nuclear power while purporting to be undecided on the issue. People
considered an ‘appropriate’ perspective in one's work life within certain institutions. Policy actors therefore expend considerable effort on
influencing the design and evolution of institutions in order to ensure problems and solutions are framed in ways they favour. Thus
discourse is fundamental to the way that institutions are created, but in the short-term institutions also have a
constraining or structuring effect. At a more fundamental level there are even more rigid constraints, which can be identified as a set of core
imperatives, such as sustained economic growth and national security, which states and their governments, with very few exceptions, must
fulfil in order to ensure their survival (Dryzek et al., 2003—these are explored in detail further below).
1NC – Oil
Oil energy production locks-in productivist discourses surrounding the ocean – this
causes environmental destruction, failed policies, and commodifies the ocean space in
favor of an imperial neoliberal logic
Marten 11 (Emily, MA Geography @ University of Miami, "The Discourses of Energy and
Environmental Security in the Debate Over Offshore Oil Drilling Policy in Florida,"
http://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1253&context=oa_theses)
In the case of offshore oil drilling , ocean space is the physical arena upon which the security
discourses , such as energy and environmental , create knowledge, portraying counter-realities of the
ocean and its value for society. Though the security discourses discussed in depth in chapters 3 and 4 attach new images and values
to ocean space through the perpetuation of their associated knowledges, the ocean has, throughout history, been the subject of social
representations and value constructions that persist within these discourses. In particular, marine or ocean space, most notably in terms of its
relationship to terrestrial space, has often held the position as the spatial ‘other’ in respect to human processes. As Steinberg (2001) point s
out, the
ocean has held many positions in its relationship with society, namely as a space for transportation,
resource extraction, and, more recently, an intricate part of the biophysical processes that sustain
human life. Regardless of the attempts of the latter imagination to integrate ocean spaces into a complex argument about the long-term
sustainability of life on earth, the more traditional notion that the ocean is “merely a distance and not a place ”
where social rules do not apply, persists in contemporary discourses, managing to distance ocean spaces from
social controls and oversight (Steinberg 2001: 49; Zalik 2009). During the centuries before widespread seafaring, the ocean was a
‘resource provider’, furnishing littoral communities with food and the occasional luxury items (i.e. pearls). With God, Glory and Gold in mind,
the Imperial quest to map and mine the world sent many explorers across the oceans, but with little
interest given to the content of the oceans themselves. This has resulted, especially under the auspices of
capitalism and neoliberalism, which emphasize material and financial accumulation in tandem with deregulation and privatization, in
policies that often ignore or be little social and environmental consequences to the very social processes
transpiring within ocean space. Due to the anthropocentric nature of exploration and resource
extraction, the oceans have tended to play merely a service role, as they are viewed simply as the matter
lying between the more easily inhabitable terrestrial formations. Social constructions or representations of the
ocean, attempt to provide a static image of this space in order to define the parameters of its usefulness to
society. In the processes of resource extraction, multi-use preservation, and environmental
sustainability, the often competing representations of ocean space have seen lit tle compromise, with
regulatory policies constantly being implemented, lifted, or ignored in view of competing interests,
and their associated ocean-space imaginations. This chapter seeks to highlight the evolution of social constructions and
securitization of the ocean, namely in the Un ited States, by deconstructing and analyzing a few of the dominant perspectives rega rding ocean
space throughout history. I hope to show that despite an increase in scientific inquiry aimed at increas ing an understanding of ocean spaces
and reconfiguring the spatial imagination, the
ocean as a resource provider and the ‘other’ to terrestrial spaces
remains a prominent vision that serves to inform human actions within that space. As a result of the
ocean’s seemingly fixed construction as the ‘other’, limited authority is placed on any knowledge that
conceptualizes ocean space as a vital element within the Earth’s ecosystem, and the subsequent need
for protections and regulations to ensure its sustainability. In fa ct, where protections of ocean space exist it is most frequently
in light of efforts to maintain the ocean as a multiple use space for commercial enterprise s, and not as a result of an incorporation of a new
knowledge that seeks to protect ocean space for the purpose of environmental sustainability or ecosystem pr otection. In
the case of
energy and environmental security, the conceptualization of the ocean provides the frame of reference
from which each discourse imagines the ocean’s relationship and utility to society. For instance, under the
discourse of energy security the ocean is constr ucted as the frontier for oil resources, that would be
produced and used domestically in order to secure the American oil supply from the volatile foreign oil
market and oil-funded terrorism. In the case of environmental security, the ocean is percei ved as [1] a vital element in the larger
ecosystem on which humans rely upon for long-term survival; and [2] is the site where the commodification of the pristine, unspoile d by dirty
offshore drilling activities and rigs, is able to generate t housands of jobs and billions in annual income for coastal tourism
The impact is Extinction – The K turns the aff – the aff causes error replication – Can’t
address the root cause
Ahmed 12 Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research and
Development (IPRD), an independent think tank focused on the study of violent conflict, he has taught
at the Department of International Relations, University of Sussex "The international relations of crisis
and the crisis of international relations: from the securitisation of scarcity to the militarisation of
society" Global Change, Peace & Security Volume 23, Issue 3, 2011 Taylor Francis
The twenty-first century heralds the unprecedented acceleration and convergence of multiple, interconnected global crises – climate
change, energy depletion, food scarcity, and economic instability. While the structure of global economic
activity is driving the unsustainable depletion of hydrocarbon and other natural resources, this is
simultaneously escalating greenhouse gas emissions resulting in global warming. Both global warming and energy
shocks are impacting detrimentally on global industrial food production, as well as on global financial and
economic instability. Conventional policy responses toward the intensification of these crises have been decidedly
inadequate because scholars and practitioners largely view them as separate processes. Yet increasing evidence
shows they are deeply interwoven manifestations of a global political economy that has breached the
limits of the wider environmental and natural resource systems in which it is embedded. In this context, orthodox IR's
flawed diagnoses of global crises lead inexorably to their ‘securitisation’, reifying the militarisation of policy
responses, and naturalising the proliferation of violent conflicts. Global ecological, energy and economic crises are thus
directly linked to the ‘Otherisation’ of social groups and problematisation of strategic regions considered
pivotal for the global political economy. Yet this relationship between global crises and conflict is not
necessary or essential, but a function of a wider epistemological failure to holistically interrogate their structural
and
systemic causes . In 2009, the UK government's chief scientific adviser Sir John Beddington warned that without mitigating and
preventive action 'drivers' of global crisis like demographic expansion, environmental degradation and energy depletion could lead to a 'perfect
storm' of simultaneous food, water and energy crises by around 2030.1 Yet, for the most part, conventional policy responses from national
governments and international institutions have been decidedly inadequate. Part of the problem is the way in which these crises are
conceptualised in relation to security. Traditional disciplinary divisions in the social and natural sciences, compounded by bureaucratic
compartmentalisation in policy-planning and decision-making, has meant these crises are frequently approached as largely separate processes
with their own internal dynamics. While it is increasingly acknowledged that cross-disciplinary approaches are necessary, these have largely
failed to recognise just how inherently interconnected these crises are. As Brauch points out, 'most studies in the environmental
security debate since 1990 have ignored or failed to integrate the contributions of the global environmental
change community in the natural sciences. To a large extent the latter has also failed to integrate the results of this debate.*"
Underlying this problem is the lack of a holistic systems approach to thinking about not only global
crises, but their causal origins in the social, political, economic, ideological and value structures of the
contemporary international system. Indeed, it is often assumed that these contemporary structures are largely what need to be
'secured* and protected from the dangerous impacts of global crises, rather than transformed precisely to ameliorate these crises in the first
place. Consequently, policy-makers frequently overlook existing systemic
and structural obstacles to the
implementation of desired reforms. In a modest effort to contribute to the lacuna identified by Brauch, this paper begins
with an
empirically-oriented, interdisciplinary exploration of the best available data on four major global crises
— climate change, energy depletion, food scarcity and global financial instability — illustrating the
systemic interconnections between different crises, and revealing that their causal origins are not accidental but
inherent to the structural failings and vulnerabilities of existing global political, economic and cultural
institutions. This empirical evaluation leads to a critical appraisal of orthodox realist and liberal approaches to
global crises in international theory and policy. This critique argues principally that orthodox IR reifies a highly
fragmented, de-historicised ontology of the international system which underlies a reductionist, technocratic and
compartmentalised conceptual and methodological approach to global crises. Consequently, rather than
global crises being understood causally and holistically in the systemic context of the structure of the international system,
they are 'securitised* as amplifiers of traditional security threats, requiring counter-productive militarised responses
and/or futile inter-state negotiations. While the systemic causal context of global crisis convergence and acceleration is thus elided, this
simultaneously exacerbates the danger of reactionary violence, the problematisation of populations in
regions impacted by these crises and the
naturalisation of the consequent proliferation
of wars and humanitarian disasters . This moves us away from the debate over whether resource 'shortages* or
'abundance* causes conflicts, to the question of how either can generate crises which undermine conventional socio-political orders and
confound conventional IR
discourses, in turn radicalising the processes of social polarisation that can culminate in
violent conflict.
Vote neg - methodological investigation is a prior question to the aff – strict policy
focus creates a myth of objectivity that sustains a violent business-as-usual approach
Scrase and Ockwell 10 (J. Ivan - Sussex Energy Group, SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research),
Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, David G - Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, SPRU,
Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, “The role of discourse and linguistic framing effects in sustaining
high carbon energy policy—An accessible introduction,” Energy Policy: Volume 38, Issue 5, May 2010,
Pages 2225–2233)
The way in which energy policy is “framed” refers to the underlying assumptions policy is based on
and the ways in which policy debates ‘construct’, emphasise and link particular issues . For example
energy ‘security of supply’ is often emphasised in arguments favouring nuclear-generated electricity. A more limited framing effect
operates on individuals in opinion polls and public referendums: here the way in which questions are posed has a
strong influence on responses. The bigger, social framing effect referred to here colours societies’ thinking
about whole areas of public life, in this case energy use and its environmental impacts. A key element of the proposed
reframing advanced by commentators concerned with decarbonising energy use (see, for example, Scrase and MacKerron, 2009) is to cease
treating energy as just commercial units of fuel and electricity, and instead to focus on the energy ‘services’ people need (warmth, lighting,
mobility and so on). This paper helps to explain why any such reframing, however logical and appealing, is
politically very
challenging if it goes against the perceived interests of powerful groups, particularly when these interests are aligned
with certain imperatives which governments must fulfil if they are to avoid electoral defeat. There is a dominant conception of
policy-making as an objective, linear process. In essence the process is portrayed as proceeding in a
series of steps from facts to analysis, and then to solutions (for a detailed critique of this linear view see Fischer, 2003). In
reality, policy-making is usually messy and political, rife with the exercise of interests and power. The veneer
of objective, rational policy-making, that the dominant, linear model of policy-making supports is
therefore cause for concern. It effectively sustains energy policy ‘business as usual’ and excludes many
relevant voices that might be effective in opening up space to reframe energy policy problems and
move towards more sustainable solutions
(see, for example, Ockwell, 2008). This echoes concerns with what
counts as knowledge and whose voices are heard in policy debates that have characterised strands of several
literatures in recent decades, including science and technology studies, sociology of scientific knowledge, and various strands of the political
science and development literatures, particularly in the context of knowledge, discourse and democracy. An
alternative to the linear
provided by a ‘discourse’ perspective. This draws on political scientists’ observations of ways in which politics and
policy-making proceed through the use of language, and the expression of values and the assumptions therein. Discourse can be
understood as: ‘… a shared way of apprehending the world. Embedded in language it enables
subscribers to interpret bits of information and put them together into coherent stories or accounts.
Each discourse rests on assumptions, judgements and contentions that provide the basic terms for analysis,
model is
debates, agreements and disagreements…’ Dryzek (1997, p.8). A discursive approach rejects the widely held
assumption that policy language is a neutral medium through which ideas and an objective world are
represented and discussed (Darcy, 1999). Discourse analysts examine and explain language use in a way that
helps to reveal the underlying interests, value judgements and beliefs that are often disguised by
policy actors’ factual claims and the arguments that these are used to support. For example UK energy policy
review documents issued in 2006–2007 are criticised below for presenting information in ways that subtly but consistently favoured new
nuclear power while purporting to be undecided on the issue. People
(including scientific and policy experts) base their
understanding of problems and solutions on their knowledge, experiences, interpretations
and value judgements. These are coloured and shaped by social interactions, for example by what is
considered an ‘appropriate’ perspective in one's work life within certain institutions. Policy actors therefore expend considerable effort on
influencing the design and evolution of institutions in order to ensure problems and solutions are framed in ways they favour. Thus
discourse is fundamental to the way that institutions are created, but in the short-term institutions also have a
constraining or structuring effect. At a more fundamental level there are even more rigid constraints, which can be identified as a set of core
imperatives, such as sustained economic growth and national security, which states and their governments, with very few exceptions, must
fulfil in order to ensure their survival (Dryzek et al., 2003—these are explored in detail further below).
***2NC Links***
2NC – Nuclear – General
Attempting to use nuclear power to solve global warming is an unsustainable approach that attempts
to maintain the environmentally destructive lifestyle - this is the root cause of ecological problems,
and causes deadly environmental damage from nuclear waste that threatens all life on earth
(Roy C Dudgeon , Cultural anthropologist who has published academic articles in journals and books
about ecological issues and philosophy of science, political systems, comparative religion/philosophy
and Native American history and ethnography. He currently teaches in International Development
Studies for Menno Simons College at the University of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada., 2008, “Is nuclear
power the answer to global warming?”, )
The larger problem we face is really two-fold. More specifically, all of the "conventional" power sources on which
industrial society relies (including fossil fuels and nuclear power) are: 1. unsustainable and , 2. ecologically
destructive . This calls into question the sustainability of industrial society itself. Nuclear power generation in particular requires the use
of fissionable material (plutonium). Just like oil and coal, fissionable material also exists in limited quantities. Just
like the fossil fuels, it is also used up during the process of generating electricity. Nuclear power,
therefore, is inherently unsustainable over the long-term, just as fossil fuels are. Far worse than
this, however, is the fact that nuclear power generation /inevitably/ involves the creation of toxic
nuclear waste which remains deadly to all living things for a period of thousands of years . The plutonium
wastes generated have a half-life of roughly 10,000 years. What this means is that it takes 10,000 years for /half/ of this waste to degenerate
into non-radioactive isotopes, and another 10,000 years for the remaining 50% of the material which is still radioactive to do the same, etc. If
the ancient Egyptians had used plutonium reactors, for example, the wastes they would have produced several thousand years ago would still
be roughly 95% as lethal as when they first stored them. Yet the ancient Egyptian civilization collapsed millenia ago, which would have left no
one to ensure that these wastes were prevented from leaking into the environment (and contemporary industrial society is not immune from a
There is also /no known way/ of rendering these materials non-radioactive or non-polluting,
nor is any likely in the future given our current understandings of the sciences of physics and
similar fate).
chemistry . Nor is there any /proven/ way of "safely" storing these materials for the period of time necessary (which means preventing the
release of these materials into the larger environment for tens of thousands of years). The mining of fissionable materials also
/inevitably/ creates environmental damage and ecological contamination, just ask the people living near the
mines in northern Saskatchewan, Canada (Goldstick 1987). Despite these facts, however, there are unfortunately some
misguided souls who would tout nuclear power as a so-called "solution" to global warming, because
nuclear facilities release no greenhouse gases over the short-term. This may be true, but that is much like
suggesting chemotherapy as a treatment for the common cold. The pollution created by nuclear
reactors is far more deadly and far more permanent, and the potential impacts on life on this planet
far more potentially devastating over the long-term. This is because release of some of this material into
the environment is statistically inevitable over the long-term, both from leaks from stored materials, and
due to "accidental" releases from operating nuclear facilities such as the Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine some years
ago. There are any number of reasons why such accidents can occur, including human error, mechanical
failure, design flaws, administrative flaws (or some combination of them), to say nothing of military or
terrorist attacks and natural disasters such as earthquakes. And the more nuclear facilities there are in
existence, the more statistically inevitable further such releases becomes, both due to the proliferation of nuclear
reactors, and the wastes they generate. Nuclear reactors themselves, when they go off-line, also become a nuclear waste disposal problem.
Calling nuclear power the "answer" to global warming, therefore, is utterly absurd to anyone who
really knows anything about the Green movement or ecology. If you want to know about the real Green solution to these
problems, Google "hydrogen fuel" or "fuel-cells," and start learning something about the /real/ sustainable, emission-free alternatives which
The promotion of nuclear power as a
"solution" to global warming is, however, a perfect example of the continuing short-sightedness of
many in contemporary society, and of our collective lack of any true understanding of ecological
already exist. The literature refers to this solution as the "hydrogen economy."
issues . It is also an excellent example of the lengths to which many are willing to go to sustain the
inherently wasteful and destructive lifestyle we have become accustomed to for a few more decades,
and the consequences be damned. So long as we fail to recognize that it is this very lifestyle, and our attempt to
maintain it at any cost, which is the root cause of our ecological problems, however, nothing substantial
will ever be done about the ecological crisis which we collectively face.
2NC – Nuclear – Masking
The plan is Atoms for Peace 2.0 – Their emphasis on the peaceful aspects of nuclear
power are co-opted by the military to divert attention from militarized applications –
causes extinction
Medhurst 97 (Martin J, professor of speech communication and coordinator of the program in
presidential rhetoric at Texas A&M University, “Atoms for Peace and Nuclear Hegemony: The Rhetorical
Structure of a Cold War Campaign,” Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 23, Issue 4)
From the outset, one
of the chief goals of the Atoms for Peace campaign was the effort to divert
attention away from weapons development
and nuclear testing
by promoting , in the public realm,
discourse about the "peaceful atom ." This discourse took the form of articles, speeches, films, cartoons, displays, conferences,
pamphlets, television documentaries, radio commentaries, and a constant stream of newspaper and news magazine reports. This public side
of the Atoms for Peace campaign, which I have detailed elsewhere, was constructed for the explicit purpose of
redirecting audience attention and concern away from military applications and toward
peaceful uses such as those found in medicine, agriculture, or industry .( n14) The timing of the
speech and campaign was not accidental, coming on the heels of both the USSR's first thermonuclear explosion in August 1953 and the
adoption of NCS 162/2 in October, and immediately before the launching of the first nuclear-powered submarine, the Nautilus, and, more
crucially, the onset of the Castle series, the first attempt by the U.S. to demonstrate a useable hydrogen bomb. The test series was scheduled to
commence on 1 March 1954.Planning for how the public would be informed about the testing started well before and was framed within the
general principles of atoms for peace. On 26 January 1954, OCB working group member Stefan T. Possony submitted a memorandum to OCB
Executive Secretary Richard Hirsch, outlining plans for taking a movie of the Castle shots. After admitting that he could find "no way to produce
a movie of the operation in which the hydrogen weapon can be minimized or ignored," he went on to suggest "that the film highlight the
scientific, systematic and typically American way by which we have been going about developing nuclear energy. We should show the effort
involved, our regard for human lives, and the various construction, logistical and technological
activities, in order to drive
home the idea that American technology can accomplish many gigantic undertakings efficiently. In this
particular case, the audience should be convinced that such a problem is 'right up our alley' and can be handled without strain."( n15) Possony
went on to advise that "the film include a scientific chapter in which the fission and fusion processes are explained with animated cartoons so
that even a very poorly educated person can understand what this is all about. This explanation," he held, "should branch out into an analysis of
the various beneficial uses of nuclear energy."( n16) As the Castle series commenced on 1 March 1954, the United States Information Service
(USIS) was already orchestrating the President's atoms-for-peace proposal in all 217 posts abroad. The State Department and the Federal Civil
Defense Administration were in charge of domestic exploitation of the president's address, including the printing and distribution of "500,000
illustrated pamphlets" that contained "the speech text together with approximately 20 photographs or illustrative drawings."( n17) As the
atoms-for-peace campaign began to gather steam, the situation suddenly changed. The first shot of the Castle series, code-named Bravo,
exploded with a force almost three times that which had been predicted. In so doing, it had vaporized the atoll, spread radioactive fallout well
outside the designated security area, and contaminated hundreds of Marshall Islanders and the crew of a Japanese fishing boat, incongruously
named the Lucky Dragon. There was nothing lucky about it; all the crew members became sick and one eventually died. The others spent over
two years in the hospital. There was now a greater need than ever for some way to contextualize nuclear testing. Public fears about the bomb
became even more pronounced when, at a presidential news conference on 31 March AEC chairman Lewis Strauss announced that a hydrogen
bomb could be made as large as the target required and that one such bomb could wipe out an area the size of downtown New York City.
Despite public concerns and international outrage, the Castle series continued through 14 May. On 20 April, however, a secret memo was
distributed to the Operations Coordinating Board. The memo held that henceforth all nuclear weapons testing "should be routinized, and test
series should be portrayed not as isolated dramatic events but as part of a process." The memo went on to argue that in an effort "further to
routinize weapons tests reporting and place these events in perspective it was suggested that the reporting on them be put in the context of
the advance of nuclear science and applications in all fields."( n18) The effort to "contextualize" nuclear weapons testing would be an ongoing
concern until 1958, and one in which the Atoms for Peace campaign would play more than a minor role. The
goal was to play up the
beneficial uses of the atom and thereby hope to downplay--or at least to neutralize in the public mind--
its destructive uses . While this aspect of the campaign was clearly directed at domestic and allied western opinion--the kind of
opinion that could potentially retard or curtail continued testing--it is important to note that the USSR immediately recognized what the goal
was. In signaling their rejection of Eisenhower's plan for an atomic pool for peaceful purposes on 27 April 1954, the Soviets noted, "This
proposal for the use of a certain part of atomic materials for peaceful purposes could create the
deceptive impression that the production of atomic weapons had been limited and could lead to
weakening the vigilance of the peoples regarding the growing threat of a war in which these weapons of
aggression and mass destruction of people would be used."( n19) That analysis was precisely correct. The
goal was what we might today call "impression management." And it was an important goal, for without recourse to
America's nuclear arsenal the United States and its allies had no way to match the sheer manpower of the Soviet empire. For the New Look to
be effective, the United States had 1) to maintain and increase its already substantial lead in both the quality and quantity of nuclear weaponry,
for Peace was to be a vehicle
for allowing full implementation of the New Look, both within the U.S. military and throughout the NATO forces,
an implementation that would take time. Atoms for Peace bought time, created good will, projected a positive
image, and created a context within which the weapons program could become "routinized."
and 2) make public the intention to use such weapons should circumstances warrant.( n20) Atoms
2NC – Nuclear – Mining Module
Commercialization of nuclear power would devastate vulnerable communities and
exacerbate nuclear colonialism
Endres 9 (Danielle, Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Utah, “From wasteland
to waste site: the role of discourse in nuclear power’s environmental injustices,” Local Environment Vol.
14, No. 10, November 2009, 917–937)
All nuclear power production must begin with Uranium mining, which is inextricably linked with indigenous peoples
globally (Yih et al. 1995). Within the USA, approximately 66% of the known Uranium deposits are on reservation lands, as much as 80% are on
treaty- guaranteed land and up to 90%
of Uranium mining and milling occurs on or adjacent to Native American
land (Kuletz 1998). Uranium is mined for both commercial nuclear power plants and for military purposes. Makhijani and Hu (1995) argue that
it is difficult to separate civilian and military nuclear production because of overlap and lack of infor- mation. However, Hoffman (2001) notes
that although the earliest Uranium mining in the USA was used for nuclear weapons, the 1954 Atoms for Peace programme resulted in
Uranium mining for commercial nuclear power plant development. Although Uranium mining lessened in the
USA in the 1980s, renewed interest in expanding nuclear power pro- duction has resulted in industrial interest in re-opening
shuttered mines or opening new mines (Gaynor 2007, Barringer 2008, Saiyid and Harrison 2008, Yurth 2009). Several Native
American nations are currently resisting Uranium mining on their lands (Navajo Nation 2005, Capriccioso 2009, Lakota Country Times 2009).
Even if nuclear power in the USA draws from foreign sources of Uranium, Yih et al. (1995, p. 105) report that
“indigenous,
colonised, and other dominated people have been disproportionately affected by
Uranium mining worldwide”. Past Uranium mining and milling in the USA resulted in severe health and environ- mental legacies
for affected people and their lands. From Uranium mining operations on Navajo land during the Uranium boom (1950s–1980s), there are at
least 450 reported cancer deaths among Navajo mining employees (Grinde and Johansen 1995). The
devastation extended beyond
employees to the larger communities surrounding the mines and mills. The United Nuclear Uranium mill at Church Rock on the
Navajo reservation is the site of the largest nuclear accident in the USA. On 16 July 1978, over 100 million gallons of irradiated water
contaminated the Rio Puerco River, plant and animal life, and Navajos (Grinde and Johansen 1995, Yih et al. 1995).5 Even now, the legacy
of over 1000 abandoned mines and Uranium tailing piles is radioactive dust that continues to circulate through the
land (Grinde and Johansen 1995). Yih et al. (1995) cite a statistically significant likelihood of birth defects and other health problems for
women living in the vicinity of mine dumps and tailing piles.
The impact is environmental racism – it’s a toxic genocide on the periphery and
indigenous lands globally
Endres 9 (Danielle, Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Utah, “From wasteland
to waste site: the role of discourse in nuclear power’s environmental injustices,” Local Environment Vol.
14, No. 10, November 2009, 917–937)
As mentioned above, nuclear colonialism describes how the nuclear production process – including both nuclear
weapons production and nuclear power – disproportionately
harms indigenous people worldwide.3 The
Indigenous Environmental Network (2002) wrote: The nuclear industry has waged an undeclared war against our
Indigenous peoples and Pacific Islanders that has poisoned our communities worldwide. For more than 50 years, the legacy of the nuclear
chain, from exploration to the dumping of radioactive waste has been proven, through documentation, to be
genocide and ethnocide and a deadly enemy of Indigenous peoples. . . United States federal law and nuclear policy has
not protected Indigenous peoples, and in fact has been created to allow the nuclear industry to continue
operations at the expense of our land, territory, health and traditional ways of life. . . . This disproportionate toxic burden –
called environmental racism – has culminated in the current attempts to dump much of the nation’s nuclear waste in the homelands of the
Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin region of the United States. Examples of nuclear colonialism in the United States include Uranium mining
and milling on reservation lands in the Black Hills and Four Corners regions, nuclear testing on land claimed under the 1863 Treaty of Ruby
Valley by the Western Shoshone, and HLWstorage sites con- sidered on Western Shoshone, Southern Paiute, and Skull Valley Band of Goshute
lands (Nelkin 1981, Grinde and Johansen 1995, Kuletz 1998, La Duke 1999, Hoffman 2001). The phenomenon of nuclear colonialism is
empirically documented. The book Nuclear Wastelands, edited by Makhijani et al. (1995), reveals that indigenous people in the USA and
globally are disproportionately burdened by the production of nuclear weapons. Further, Hooks and Smith (2004, p. 572) demonstrate that US
military sites are dispropor- tionately located on or near Native American lands. While these studies focus primarily on military
applications of nuclear technologies, there is also evidence to suggest that Uranium mining for nuclear power production
and HLW storage also fall within the pattern of nuclear colonialism (Nelkin 1981, Hoffman 2001). Hoffman (2001, p. 462)
details the “extraordinary unequal distribution of benefits and burdens at each stage of the [nuclear fuel] cycle” imposed upon Native American
nations in the USA, particularly by Uranium mining and HLW disposal. Nuclear colonialism is a type of environmental injustice. In part,
nuclear colonialism is environmental racism. According to Bullard (1999, p. 6), “environmental racism combines
with public policies and industry practices to provide benefits for whites while shifting costs to
people of color”. Yet, nuclear colonialism is also a form of colonialism. Native Americans, unlike other marginalised racial groups in the
USA, are members of over 150 distinct sovereign tribal nations and each holds a unique legal relationship with the federal government. As
Suagee (2002, p. 227) notes, “Although Indian people have suffered much discriminatory treatment from people who apparently define Indian
identity in primar- ily racial–ethnic terms, the fact that Native American governments are sovereign govern- ments is a significant distinction
between them and other kinds of minorities”. Although Native Americans in the USA are sovereign governments, they are still faced with a
Americans are embedded within a system of
resource colonialism under which “native peoples are under assault on every continent because
their lands contain a wide variety of valuable resources needed for industrial development”. Nuclear colonialism is a form of
system of colonialism. Gedicks (1993, p. 13) argues that Native
resource colonialism that faces Native Americans in the USA and other indigenous peoples worldwide.4
2NC – Renewables
Renewable energy covers up the root causes of environmental destruction – Reject the aff –
the plan locks-in an unsustainable energy system that co-opts alternatives
Byrne et al 9
(John, Distinguished Professor of Energy & Climate Policy at the University of Delaware, Head of the
Center for Energy and Environmental Policy, the Center is a leading institution for interdisciplinary
graduate education, research, and advocacy in energy and environmental policy, Member of Working
Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1992, 2007 Nobel Peace Prize
with the Panel's authors and review editors, http://bst.sagepub.com/content/29/2/81.full.pdf+html)
Contesting the imagery is difficult. Big Wind resisters cite noise, bird mortality, and the industrialization of heretofore largely untrammeled land
and seascapes in their arguments against Big Wind farms. But supporters counter with scientific evidence offered by experts ranging from
ornithologists to acoustics specialists and underscore the larger threat of global warming in defense of these carbon-free alternatives.
Importantly, the green energy case pits one set of environmental values against another, and depends on the priority of climate change to win
out. But equally important, the environmental case for
green energy fails to challenge the affluence-based
development path secured by earlier energy systems . Rather than questioning the underlying
premise of modern society to produce and consume without constraint, contemporary green energy
advocates warmly embrace creating “bigger and more complex machines to spur and sate
an
endlessly
increasing world energy demand ” (Byrne & Toly, 2006, p. 3) Marketing slogans originally justifying fossil energy-based obesity
can be revamped to suit the new green energy agenda: choosier mothers choose renewables and better living through green energy will
motivate the postclimate change consumer to do the right thing. Yet the
green energy agenda will not change the cause
of the global warming threat (and so many other environmental harms), namely, unlimited consumption and
production. In this sense, large renewable energy systems, touted as saviors of the planet, actually appear mainly to save
modernity. A final problem specific to an extra-large green energy project is the distinctive environmental alienation it can produce. The
march of commodification is spurred by the green titans as they seek to enter historic commons areas such as mountain passes, pasture lands,
coastal areas, and the oceans, in order to collect renewable energy. Although it is not possible to formally privatize the wind or solar radiation
(for example), the extensive technological lattices created to harvest renewable energy on a grand scale functionally preempt commons
management of these resources.10 Previous efforts to harness the kinetic energy of flowing waters should have taught the designers of the
mega-green energy program and their environmental allies that environmental and social effects will be massive and will preempt commons-
technophilic awe that inspired earlier energy obesity
now emboldens efforts to tame the winds, waters, and sunlight—the final frontiers of he society-nature commons—all to
serve the revised modern ideal of endless, but low- to no- carbon emitting, economic growth. Paradigm Shift Shedding the
institutions that created the prospect of climate change will not happen on the watch of the green titans or
extra large nuclear power. The modern cornucopian political economy fueled by abundant, carbon-free energy
machines will, in fact, risk the possibility of climate change continually because of the core properties
based, society-nature relations. Instead of learning this lesson, the
of the modern institutional design.
Alternative energy production is re-appropriated by dominant economic structures to sidestep genuine
criticism – traditional politics is co-opted – the permutation can’t solve
Byrne and Toley 6 (John – Head of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy – It’s a leading
institution for interdisciplinary graduate education, research, and advocacy in energy and environmental
policy – John is also a Distinguished Professor of Energy & Climate Policy at the University of Delaware –
2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Toley –
Directs the Urban Studies and Wheaton in Chicago programs - Selected to the Chicago Council on Global
Affairs Emerging Leaders Program for 2011-2013 - expertise includes issues related to urban and
environmental politics, global cities, and public policy, “Energy as a Social Project: Recovering a
Discourse,” p. 1-32)
The Sustainable Energy Quest The problems of the conventional energy order have led some to regard reinforcement of the status quo as folly
and to instead champion sustainable energy strategies based upon non-conventional sources and a more intelligent ideology of managed
relations between energy, environment, and society consonant with environmental integrity. This regime challenger seeks to evolve in the
social context that produced the conventional energy regime, yet proposes to fundamentally change its relationship to the environment (at
such as wind and photovoltaic electricity are purported to offer building
blocks for a transition to a future in which ills plaguing modernity and unsolved by the
least, this is the hope). Technologies
conventional energy regime can be overcome (Lovins, 1979; Hawken et al., 2000; Scheer, 2002; Rifkin, 2003; World
Bank, 2004b). While technical developments always include social, material, ecological, intellectual, and moral infrastructures (Winner, 1977:
54 - 58; Toly, 2005), and may, therefore, be key to promoting fundamentally different development pathways, it is also possible that
technologies , even environmentally benign ones, will be appropriated by social forces that predate
them and , thereby, can be thwarted in the fulfillment of social promises attached to the
strategy . Indeed, if unaccompanied by reflection upon the social conditions in which the current energy regime thrives, the
transition to a renewable energy regime may usher in very few social benefits and little, if any,
political and economic transformation. This is the concern that guides our analysis (below) of the sustainable energy
movement. At least since the 1970s when Amory Lovins (1979) famously posed the choice between “hard” and “soft” energy paths, sustainable
energy strategies have been offered to challenge the prevailing regime. Sometimes the promise was of no more than “alternative” and “least
cost” energy (Energy Policy Project of the Ford Foundation, 1974a, 1974b; O’Toole, 1978; Sant, 1979), but adjectives
such as
“appropriate,” “natural,” “renewable,” “equitable,” and even “democratic” have also been envisioned
(Institute for Local SelfReliance, 2005; Scheer, 2002: 34). 16 The need to depart from the past, especially in light of the oil crises of the 1970s
and the energy-rooted threat of climate change that has beset policy debate since the late 1980s, united disparate efforts to recast and
reconceive our energy future. Partly, early criticisms of the mainstream were reflective of a broader social agenda that drew upon, among other
things, the anti-war and anti-corporate politics of the 1960s. It was easy, for example, to connect the modern energy regime to military conflicts
of the period and to superpower politics; and it was even easier to ally the mainstream’s promotion of nuclear power to the objectives of the
Nuclear Club. With evidence of profiteering by the oil majors in the wake of the 1973-1974 OPEC embargo, connecting the energy regime with
the expanding power of multinational capital was, likewise, not difficult. Early sustainable energy strategies opposed these alliances, offering
promises of significant political, as well as technological, change. However, in the thirty years that the
sustainable energy
movement has aspired to change the conventional regime, its social commitments and politics have become muddled. A telling
sign of this circumstance is the shifted focus from energy politics to economics. To illustrate, in the celebrated work of one of the movement’s
early architects, subtitles to volumes included “breaking the nuclear link” (Amory Lovins’ Energy/War, 1981) and “toward a durable peace”
(Lovins’ Soft Energy Paths, 1979). These publications offered poignant challenges to the modern order and energy’s role in maintaining that
order. Today, however, the
bestsellers of the movement chart a course toward “natural capitalism” (Hawken et al.,
2000), a strategy that anticipates synergies between soft path technologies and market
governance of energy-environment-society relations. Indeed, a major sustainable energy think tank
has reached the conclusion that “small is profitable” (Lovins et al., 2002) in energy matters and argues that the soft
path is consistent with “economic rationalism.” Understandably, a movement that sought basic change for a third of a century
has found the need to adapt its arguments and strategies to the realities of political and economic power. Without adaptation, the
conventional energy regime could have ignored soft path policy interventions like demand-side management, integrated resource planning,
public benefits charges, and renewable energy portfolio standards (see Lovins and Gadgil, 1991; Sawin, 2004), all of which have caused an
undeniable degree of decentralization in energy-society relations. In this vein, it is clear that sustainability proponents must find ways to speak
the language and communicate in the logic of economic rationalism if they are to avoid being dismissed. We
do not fault the
sustainable energy camp for being strategic. Rather, the concern is whether victories in the everyday of
incremental politics have been balanced by attention to the broader agenda of systemic change and
the ideas needed to define new directions . A measure of the sustainable energy initiative’s strategic success is the growing
acceptance of its vision by past adversaries. Thus, Small is Profitable was named ‘Book of the Year’ in 2002 by The Economist, an award unlikely
to have been bestowed upon any of Lovins’ earlier works. As acceptance has been won, it is clear that sustainable energy advocates remain
suspicious of the oil majors, coal interests, and the Nuclear Club. But an earlier grounding of these suspicions in anti-war and anti-
corporate politics appears to have been superseded by one that believes the global economy can serve
a sustainability interest if the ‘raison de market’ wins the energy policy debate. Thus, it has been
suggested that society can turn “more profit with less carbon,” by “harnessing corporate power to heal the planet” (Lovins, 2005; L. H. Lovins
and A. B. Lovins, 2000). Similarly, Hermann Scheer (2002: 323) avers: “The fundamental problem with today’s global economy is not
globalization per se, but that this globalization is not based on the sun—the only global force that is equally available to all and whose bounty is
so great that it need never be fully tapped.” However, it is not obvious that market economics and globalization can be counted upon to deliver
the soft path (see e.g. Nakajima and Vandenberg, 2005). More problematic, as discussed below, the
emerging soft path may fall
well short of a socially or ecologically transforming event if strategic victories and rhetorics that
celebrate them overshadow systemic critiques of energy-society relations and the corresponding
need to align the sustainable energy initiative with social movements to address a comprehensive
agenda of change.
2NC – Renewables – AT: Clean Tech Good
The call for pragmatic solutions to climate change is climate denialism- obscures root
causes and the system that propagates warming now
Kenrick 13 (Justin, Research Fellow at Social and Political Science University of Edinburgh, Emerging
from the Shadow of Climate Change Denial, http://www.acme-journal.org/vol12/Kenrick2013.pdf)
(ii) The story that progressive action from within this system will be sufficient Part of the reason why the
need to break our dependence on this economic system isn’t stated so baldly, is because of
the second form of denial . This is
held to by climate change negotiators, and by campaigners. It is based on a story that tells of progress, of what we are
capable of because of the great leap we made from tradition to modernity. It tells us that we have overcome slavery, the Berlin wall, apartheid,
and that this is just the next (the biggest) call for progressives to succeed. Despite the fact that all those campaigns contained within them the
the sto ry of those moments is told is that they were
movements that fulfilled and strengthened societies core values rather than challenged them (see Brian
Barry 2005). The denial here is that there is anything fundamentally wrong with our system , it is the
possibility of transformative radical systemic change, the way
assertion that we have progressed ; and this is a really difficult issue to address since - relative to the systems of domination that
drove the enclosures in England, or the clearances in Scotland, with the victims then being used to appropriate other people’s lives and lands
throughout the world - relative to these systems of domination, those within the magic circle who benefit from economic growth have indeed
made progress, whilst all outside that circle continue to be crushed. As the magic circle of the bene ficiaries expands, the pressure on those
people and ecosystems they exploit becomes intolerable. Meanwhile, relative to commons systems of social and ecological resilience (systems
that have persisted throughout the world where systems of domination have not yet crushed them) what we see as the progress of including in
moral worth an ever - expanding circle of human and non - human beings, is not the outcome of a modernity that is supposed to be making us
better than those who went before, it is simply the nat ural human tendency to reassert relations of equality and commonality (Kenrick 2009a).
In response to the story that progressive action can affect the necessary change: It is
crucial to be aware of the way radical
and effective ways of mobilizing the mainstream around vital issues can not only lead to welcome radical change,
but can lead to an unwelcome distraction from the real issue that needs to be faced. There are some
worrying parallels between the 10:10 campaign in the UK that so effectively broadcast the need to cut our emissions by 10 per cent within 12
months, and the ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign in 2005 that so effectively brought together a huge coalition to place global poverty on the
international and G8 agenda, yet so spectacularly failed to achieve any real change on the ground. As Bob Geldo f pointed out at the 2007 G8
meeting in Germany two years later, the earlier campaign resulted in the deepening – rather than the alleviation - of world poverty.
Having
drawn many campaigners into sup porting his attempts at high profile celebrity persuasion at the
earlier G8 meeting, Geldof pointed out that this has resulted in increasing promises from the G8 but
an actual reduction in their aid for Africa. His conclusion was that “This world governmen t bollocks
just doesn’t work. . . .if this is how they keep their word to the needy . . . who trusts them on climate
change?” (Bell 2007, p. 40 - 41). However, Hewson (2005) argues that Geldof failed to recognize his own role in mobilizing the public to supp
ort the G8 rather than to oppose it’s poverty - generating policies. Similarly, Free Association note that: “Make Poverty History sucked energy
away from any wider movement against capital. Before 2005, summit demonstrations had been at least Emerging from the Shadow of Climate
Change Denial 108 protests, if no t concerted attempts to physically shut meetings down; in stark contrast, Make Poverty History welcomed
leaders of the G8 to Scotland, essentially inviting them to sort out the world's problems.” (2010 , p. 1020 - 1021) From a very different
perspective, Papa dimitrou (2008) argues that the radical ‘Dissent!’ protest against the 2005 Gleneagles G8 failed to have any effect because it
failed to connect with the mainstream. Hewson agrees when he writes that: “It is not enough to simply take direct action against summits or, at
a wider scale, corporations, governments and the Far Right. We have to explain why we are doing this to people who are not in ‘our
movement’.” (2005 , p. 139) Taken together these critiques suggest the need for those seeking ‘politically real istic’ change from within the
mainstream and those seeking ‘humanly and ecologically realistic’ change from the radical fringes, to work equally hard at making bridges to
each other through broadening their critique of the system, and through sharpening th eir ability to recognize and seize strategic moments for
change. If, instead, they remain divided and neutered then the status quo can claim that only it can act for positive change - as it has at the
climate summit at Durban in 2011, and did at the G8 cli mate summit at Heiligendamm in 2007 (Free Association 2010). In ways that are very
reminiscent of the 2005 ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign, the 10:10 campaign mobilizes celebrities, the public, civil society institutions and —
in this case — companies and bra nches of government to pledge to reduce their emissions by 10%. But one exception is permitted, that is the
corporations. In signing the 10:10 pledge, companies are the only bodies that are not required to reduce their actual emissions by 10%, they are
onl y required to reduce the carbon intensity of their activities by 10%. Their emissions can expand infinitely and they will still be deemed to
have fulfilled their pledge as long as their greater production involves 10% less carbon per unit produced. This is understandable in an economy
reliant on externalizing costs, and in which those who refuse to expand are displaced or taken over by those who do expand, but by the same
token it shows that we need to rapidly change the framework set by the current paradig m and power relations rather than be constrained to
‘succeed’ within them. This
is why James Hansen stated that he hoped that the Copenhagen negotiations
would fail rather than ‘succeed’ in establishing targets and ‘solutions’ that would guarantee run aw ay
climate change. Hansen is described as “vehemently opposed to the carbon market scheme — in which permits to pollute are bought and
sold — which are seen by the EU and other governments as the most efficient way to cut emissions” (Hansen 2009, p. 1). Hansen added that
“We’ve got the developed countries who want to continue more or less business as usual, and then these developing countries who want
money and that is what they can get through offsets [sold through the carbon market]” (Hansen 2009 , p. 2). If setting
targets is
simply a way of postponing action today, and of setting up money making schemes for the powerful
in the Global North and Global South, then — he argued — we should hope for the failure of such
negotiations. Clearly there is a proud history of progressive action enabling radical change , but it has
only led to real change only when it has demanded the ‘impossible’, rather than sought ‘success ’.
The abolitionists did not listen to those who said that the entire economy and well - being of society d
epended on slavery, that slavery was a natural part of human nature, and that since the powerful
backed slavery it could never be abolished. The abolitionists simply said slavery was wrong, and
starting from that position sought what they were told was the ‘impossible’ and succeeded. In a similar
vein,
starting from the position of opposing the whole system of economic growth on which we are
told our well - being depends would be seen as making as impossible a demand as that of the abolitionists.
Starting by asserting that carbon emissions , world poverty and resource depletion are driven by a
system of economic growth in which the costs of that growth are born by those least able to speak ,
would lead us to assume that governments and corporations are not the right tools with which to
tackle climate change since their economic system is to social and ecological well - being what slave
owners were to slaves.
2NC – Oil Link
Fossil fuels can’t transform consumption habits – alternative fossil fuels are worse and increased
production kills transitions to sustainable frameworks – only the alt solves
Mulligan 10 (Shane, Postdoctoral Researcher - Energy University of Waterloo - Assistant Professor at
Concordia University, "Energy, Environment, and Security: Critical Links in a Post-Peak World," Global
Environmental Politics 10:4, November 2010, EBSCO)
However, the projected declines of oil, before gas and coal, may actually increase emissions in the short term,
as prices spur investments into more diffcult (and more polluting) supply sources and the
technologies needed to exploit them. In recent years, declines in conventional oil production have in- creasingly been
offset through growth in other “liquids,” like natural gas liquids, coal-to-liquids, biofuels, and processed bitumen
from tar sands. However, virtually all of these alternatives are both less effcient in terms of energy return on
investment (EROI) and more polluting than the “easy oil” they are replacing. 72 Because more energy must be used to
obtain the same usable energy, these alternatives are likely to exacerbate the problem of emissions and thus further
climate insecurity, as more fuel is consumed in order to produce fuel. Canada’s tar sands, which have had a devastating impact
on the local and downstream environment, also consume tremendous quantities of fossil fuels (especially natural gas) in the process of
extracting the bitumen. Biofuels, too, depend heavily on fossil fuels for their production; some, like corn ethanol, may not even provide as
much fuel as is consumed in their production.73 Meanwhile, palm diesel production is raising emissions by devastating peat forests in
Indonesia and Malaysia, along with their animal, plant, and human inhabitants.74 It seems likely that a decline in petroleum may motivate a
shift to electriªed transport; but this will increase demand for electricity, and hence for coal for power generation, and hence even higher CO2
emissions (at least until peak coal is reached). While the use of these substitutes will have a negative impact on efforts to reduce emissions,
they nevertheless offer at least a temporary respite from declining net energy. Thus, on the one hand, fossil fuel decline may alleviate climate
change by forcing changes in our fuel consumption but, on the other hand, the search for alternative fuel sources to maintain industrialized
society may exacerbate the problem of emissions and climate change. Moreover, in
the declining economic environment that
many experts believe will follow peak oil, reduced demand for energy and a deteriorating investment
climate may slow the search for alternatives, since there is (for the moment) plenty of oil to go around. But as Rubin
suggests, the next economic upturn will increase demand and prices again, thus dampening any recovery;
until the fuel base of the global economy changes, that economy will keep “ banging its head”
against the ceiling of affordable energy prices.75 Whether this will spur the necessary investment into alternatives and
infrastructure, or will generate a series of recessionary periods as the collapse of industrial civilization plays out in a warming world, is quite
possibly the question of the next century. Discursive Constraints on Fossil Fuel Concerns The preceding discussion suggests we face a serious
risk to stability and an immense challenge for planners and policy-makers—but what are the chances of peak oil receiving a hearing, when
climate change alone so dominates the environmental agenda and the public mindset? Are
governments prepared to ad- dress
peak oil as a policy concern, or even as a security concern, as they have begun to do with climate change? The answer may
depend on whether the discursive environment is amenable to a new understanding of the
relationship between energy, the environment, and security. The discursive threads outlined above offer a
tentative framework through which to consider how the West may view and respond to the twin challenges of peak oil and climate change. In
terms of our relationship to nature, peak oil reinforces an image of natural limits, and suggests we look on fossil fuels not merely as
commodities or strategic resources, but as an essential element of human ecology. The energy resources on which our economic system relies
may be as essential to human life, in their way, as water, biological diversity, or an intact ozone layer. In the modern world, we rely on cheap
energy for heat, transportation, manufacturing, food, and clothing, and its decline means that our lifestyles and even our lives are threatened.
While lives are already being lost, even in the industrialized world, due to “energy poverty,” the notion of overshoot and “die-off” puts this
threat at the level of the species.76 The
fact that our principal energy sources are exhaustible and may soon become
not, of course, mean that they will suddenly “run out;” indeed, some oil will likely be mined as long as
technologically advanced humans persist on this planet. However, after oil production peaks, the amount that human efforts
can extract from the earth will begin to decline, irreversibly and inexorably. It is not a matter of reserves being
“equivalent to X years left at current rates of production:” the problem is maintaining the rate of production. Geological
factors will demand greater efforts and investment—in time, money, and energy—for each successive barrel, even while the
availability of capital may be stymied by declining economic activity due to energy scarcity. Declining net
increasingly scarce does
energy stands as a potential limit to the human project, and demands recognition of the fact that humans are not “exempt” from the laws of
nature.77
2NC – Oil Link – Framing
Fossils fuels create ideological path dependency – locks-in energy policy failure – framing is key
Scrase and Ockwell 10 (J. Ivan - Sussex Energy Group, SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research),
Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, David G - Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, SPRU,
Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, “The role of discourse and linguistic framing effects in sustaining
high carbon energy policy—An accessible introduction,” Energy Policy: Volume 38, Issue 5, May 2010,
Pages 2225–2233)
The urgency of the climate change problem and the need for the rapid introduction of new, more sustainable approaches to the way
in which we produce and use energy are familiar issues to readers of Energy Policy. This journal publishes many insightful articles that
engage with the ways in which policy might be reoriented to facilitate a transition to a low carbon
energy system. In spite of this, global carbon emissions continue to rise at an alarming rate and energy policy in
practice is a long way from resembling the kind of sustainable best practice advocated in journals such as this one. But
why, in the face of a problem as urgent and potentially catastrophic as climate change, is energy policy so resistant to change?
There are a myriad of contributing factors to the dominance of policies that support high carbon energy systems, including issues such as
technological lock-in, socio-technical transitions and the time-scale of the climate problem relative to electoral cycles. In this article we seek to
provide readers of Energy Policy with an accessible introduction to one particular issue that has received increasing attention in the policy
sciences over the last two decades, namely the role that the linguistic
framing of policy problems and solutions can
play in sustaining the dominance of existing policy positions. In doing so we hope to highlight the value of
discourse analytic techniques to the mainstream energy policy community and to augment emerging work by other authors who have used
discourse-oriented approaches to the critical analysis of energy policy (see, for example, Bulkeley, 2000; Smith and Kern, 2009; Szarka; 2004;
Eames et al., 2006; Lovell, 2008; Lovell et al., 2009). Using the UK as an example, we introduce readers to the way in which linguistic
framing may serve to favour the status quo in energy policy. This highlights an important task for those concerned with
facilitating the introduction of more sustainable energy policy—not
only do we need to know what such policy might
look like, we also need to influence the linguistic framing of energy policy problems and solutions. This
renders the project of a transition to a low carbon energy system as much political as it is technical or economic.
2NC – Oil – Environmental Racism
The 1AC displaces the perspective of those most violently affected by the plan – they
bracket the debate to US benefits while erasing the ecological violence done against
the periphery –Your ballot should forefront environmental justice – the impact is
extinction
Bryant 95 (Bunyan, Professor in the School of Natural Resources and Environment, and an adjunct
professor in the Center for Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Michigan,
Environmental Justice: Issues, Policies, and Solutions, p. 209-212
Although the post-World War II economy was designed when environmental consideration was not a problem, today this is no longer the case; we must be concerned enough about
environmental protection to make it a part of our economic design. Today, temporal and spatial relations of pollution have drastically changed within the last 100 years or so. A hundred years
ago we polluted a small spatial area and it took the earth a short time to heal itself. Today we pollute large areas of the earth – as evidenced by the international problems of acid rain, the
we have embarked
upon an era of pollution so toxic and persistent that it will take the earth in some areas thousands of
years to heal itself. To curtail environmental pollutants, we must build new institutions to prevent widespread destruction from pollutants that know no geopolitical boundaries.
depletion of the ozone layer, global warming, nuclear meltdowns, and the difficulties in the safe storage of spent fuels from nuclear power plants. Perhaps
We need to do this because pollutants are not respectful of international boundaries; it does little good if one country practices sound environmental protection while its neighbors fail to do
so.
Countries of the world are intricately linked together in ways not clear 50 years ago; they find themselves
victims of environmental destruction even though the causes of that destruction originated in
another part of the world . Acid rain, global warming, depletion of the ozone layer, nuclear accidents like the one at
Chernobyl, make all countries vulnerable to environmental destruction. The cooperative relations forged after World War II are now obsolete. New
cooperative relations need to be agreed upon – cooperative relations that show that pollution prevention and species preservation are
inseparably linked to economic development and survival of planet earth . Economic development is linked to pollution
prevention even though the market fails to include the true cost of pollution in its pricing of products and services; it fails to place a value on the destruction of plant and animal species. To
date, most industrialized nations, the high polluters, have had an incentive to pollute because they did not incur the cost of producing goods and services in a nonpolluting manner. The world
will have to pay for the true cost of production and to practice prudent stewardship of our natural resources if we are to sustain ourselves on this planet. We cannot expect Third World
countries to participate in debt-for-nature swaps as a means for saving the rainforest or as a means for the reduction of greenhouse gases, while a considerable amount of such gases come
from industrial nations and from fossil fuel consumption. Like disease, population growth is politically, economically, and structurally determined. Due to inadequate income maintenance
programs and social security, families in developing countries are more apt to have large families not only to ensure the survival of children within the first five years, but to work the fields and
care for the elderly. As development increases, so do education, health, and birth control. In his chapter, Buttel states that ecological development and substantial debt forgiveness would be
more significant in alleviating Third World environmental degradation (or population problems) than ratification of any UNCED biodiversity or forest conventions. Because population control
programs fail to address the structural characteristics of poverty, such programs for developing countries have been for the most part dismal failures. Growth and development along
ecological lines have a better chance of controlling population growth in developing countries than the best population control programs to date. Although population control is important, we
often focus a considerable amount of our attention on population problems of developing countries. Yet there are more people per square mile in Western Europe than in most developing
countries. “During his/her lifetime an American child causes 35 times the environmental damage of an Indian child and 280 times that of a Haitian child (Boggs, 1993: 1). The addiction to
consumerism of highly industrialized countries has to be seen as a major culprit, and thus must be balanced against the benefits of population control in Third World countries.
Worldwide environmental protection is only one part of the complex problems we face today. We
cannot ignore world poverty; it is intricately linked to environmental protection. If this is the case, then how do we deal with
world poverty? How do we bring about lasting peace in the world? Clearly we can no longer afford a South Africa as it was once organized, or ethnic cleansing by Serbian nationalists. These
types of conflicts bankrupt us morally and destroy our connectedness with one another as a world community. Yet, we may be headed on a course where the politically induced famine,
poverty, and chaos of Somalia today will become commonplace and world peace more difficult, particularly if the European Common Market, Japan, and the United States trade primarily
Growing poverty will lead only to more world disequilibrium to
wars and famine – as countries become more aggressive and cross international borders for resources to ward off widespread hunger and rampant unemployment. To tackle
among themselves, leaving Third World countries to fend for themselves.
these problems requires a quantum leap in global cooperation and commitment of the highest magnitude; it requires development of an international tax, levied through the United nations or
some other international body, so that the world community can become more involved in helping to deal with issues of environmental protection, poverty, and peace. Since the market
public institutions. They must, indeed, be able to respond to the rapid
changes that reverberate throughout the world. If they fail to change, then we will surely meet the
system has been bold and flexible enough to meet changing conditions, so too must
fate of the dinosaur . The Soviet Union gave up a system that was unworkable in exchange for another one. Although it has not been easy, individual countries of the former
Soviet Union have the potential of reemerging looking very different and stronger. Or they could emerge looking very different and weaker. They could become societies that are both socially
and environmentally destructive or they can become societies where people have decent jobs, places to live, educational opportunities for all citizens, and sustainable social structures that are
safe and nurturing. Although North Americans are experiencing economic and social discomforts, we too will have to change, or we may find ourselves engulfed by political and economic
forces beyond our control. In 1994, the out-sweeping of Democrats from national offices may be symptomatic of deeper and more fundamental problems. If the mean-spirited behavior that
characterized the 1994 election is carried over into the governance of the country, this may only fan the flames of discontent. We may be embarking upon a long struggle over ideology,
despite all the political turmoil, we must take risks and try out new ideas –
ideas never dreamed of before and ideas we thought were impossible to implement. To implement these ideas we must
overcome institutional inertia in order to enhance intentional change. We need to give up tradition and “business as usual.” To view the future as a
challenge and as an opportunity to make the world a better place, we must be willing to take political and economic risks. The question is not
culture, and the very heart and soul of the country. But
growth, but what kind of growth, and where it will take place. For example, we can maintain current levels of productivity or become even more productive if we farm organically. Because of
ideological conflicts, it is hard for us to view the Cuban experience with an unjaundiced eye; but we ask you to place political differences aside and pay attention to the lyrics of organic farming
and not to the music of Communism. In other words, we must get beyond political differences and ideological conflicts; we must find success stories of healing the planet no matter where
they exist – be they in Communist or non-Communist countries, developed or underdeveloped countries. We must ascertain what lessons can be learned from them, and examine how they
Continued use of certain technologies and chemicals
that are incompatible with the ecosystem will take us down the road of no return. We are already
witnessing the catastrophic destruction of our environment and disproportionate impacts of
environmental insults on communities of color and low-income groups. If such destruction continues, it will
undoubtedly deal harmful blows to our social, economic, and political institutions. As a nation, we find ourselves in a house divided, where the
cleavages between the races are in fact getting worse. We find ourselves in a house divided where the gap between the rich and the poor has increased.
would benefit the world community. In most instances, we will have to chart a new course.
We find ourselves in a house divided where the gap between the young and the old has widened. During the 1980s, there were few visions of healing the country. In the 1990s, despite the
catastrophic economic and environmental results of the 1980s, and despite the conservative takeover of both houses of Congress, we must look for glimmers of hope. We must stand by what
we think is right and defend our position with passion. And at times we need to slow down and reflect and do a lot of soul searching in order to redirect ourselves, if need be. We must chart
out a new course of defining who we are as a people, by redefining our relationship with government, with nature, with one another, and where we want to be as a nation. We need to find a
way of expressing this definition of ourselves to one another. Undeniably we are a nation of different ethnic groups and races, and of multiple interest groups, and if we cannot live in peace
and in harmony with ourselves and with nature it bodes ominously for future world relations.
Because economic institutions are based upon the
growth paradigm of extracting and processing natural resources, we will surely perish if we
use them to foul the global nest. But it does not have to be this way. Although sound environmental policies can be compatible with
good business practices and quality of life, we may have to jettison the moral argument of environmental protection in favor of the self-interest argument, thereby demonstrating that the
survival of business enterprises is intricately tied to good stewardship of natural resources and
environmental protection. Too often we forget that short-sightedness can propel us down a
narrow path, where we are unable to see the long-term effects of our actions. The ideas and policies discussed in this book are ways of getting ourselves back on track. The ideas
presented here will hopefully provide substantive material for discourse. These policies are not carved in stone, nor are they meant to be for every city, suburb, or rural area. Municipalities or
Yet we need to extend our concern about local sustainability
beyond geopolitical boundaries, because dumping in Third World countries or in the atmosphere today will surely haunt the world tomorrow. Ideas presented here
rural areas should have flexibility in dealing with their site-specific problems.
may irritate some and dismay others, but we need to make some drastic changes in our lifestyles and institutions in order to foster environmental justice. Many of the policy ideas mentioned
in this book have been around for some time, but they have not been implemented. The struggle for environmental justice emerging from the people of color and low-income communities
may provide the necessary political impulse to make these policies a reality. Environmental justice provides opportunities for those most affected by environmental degradation and poverty to
make policies to save not only themselves from differential impact of environmental hazards, but to save those responsible for the lion’s share of the planet’s destruction. This struggle
emerging from the environmental experience of oppressed people brings forth a new consciousness – a new consciousness shaped by immediate demands for certainty and solution. It is a
struggle to make a true connection between humanity and nature. This struggle to resolve environmental problems may force the nation to alter its priorities; it may force the nation to
address issues of environmental justice and, by doing so, it may ultimately result in a cleaner and healthier environment for all of us. Although we may never eliminate all toxic materials from
the production cycle, we should at least have that as a goal.
***2NC Impact Stuff***
2NC – Sustainability
The systems unsustainable – the alternative is try or die
Darder 10 (Professor Antonia Darder, Distinguished Professor of Education, University of Illinois,
Urbana Champaign, “Preface” in Critical Pedagogy, Ecoliteracy, & Planetary Crisis: The Ecopedagogy
Movement by Richard V. Kahn, 2010, pp. x-xiii) GENDER MODIFIED
It is fitting to begin my words about Richard Kahn’s Critical Pedagogy, Ecoliteracy, and Planetary Crisis: The Ecopedagogy Movement with a
poem. The direct and succinct message of The Great Mother Wails cuts through our theorizing and opens us up to the very heart of the book’s
message—to ignite a fire that speaks to the
ecological crisis at hand; a crisis orchestrated by the inhumane greed and
economic brutality of the wealthy. Nevertheless, as is clearly apparent, none of us is absolved from complicity with the
devastating destruction of the earth. As members of the global community, we are all implicated in this destruction by the very
manner in which we define ourselves, each other, and all living beings with whom we reside on the earth. Everywhere we look there
are glaring signs of political systems and social structures that propel us toward unsustainability and extinction.
In this historical moment, the planet faces some of the most horrendous forms of “[hu]man-made” devastation ever known to humankind.
Cataclysmic “natural disasters” in the last decade have sung the environmental hymns of planetary imbalance and reckless
environmental disregard. A striking feature of this ecological crisis, both locally and globally, is the overwhelming
concentration of wealth held by the ruling elite and their agents of capital. This environmental malaise is characterized by the
staggering loss of livelihood among working people everywhere; gross inequalities in educational opportunities; an absence of health care for
millions; an unprecedented number of people living behind bars; and trillions
spent on fabricated wars fundamentally tied
to the control and domination of the planet’s resources. The Western ethos of mastery and supremacy over nature has
accompanied, to our detriment, the unrelenting expansion of capitalism and its unparalleled domination over all aspects of human life. This
hegemonic worldview has been unmercifully imparted through a host of public policies and practices that conveniently gloss over gross
inequalities as commonsensical necessities for democracy to bloom. As a consequence, the liberal democratic rhetoric of “we are all created
equal” hardly begins to touch the international pervasiveness of
racism, patriarchy, technocracy, and economic
piracy by the West, all which have fostered the erosion of civil rights and the unprecedented ecological exploitation
of societies, creating conditions that now threaten our peril, if we do not reverse directions. Cataclysmic disasters, such as Hurricane
Katrina, are unfortunate testimonies to the danger of ignoring the warnings of the natural world, especially when coupled with egregious
governmental neglect of impoverished people. Equally disturbing, is the manner in which ecological
crisis is vulgarly exploited by
capitalists who see no problem with turning a profit off the backs of ailing and mourning
oppressed populations of every species—whether they be victims of weather disasters, catastrophic illnesses, industrial
pollution, or inhumane practices of incarceration. Ultimately, these constitute ecological calamities that speak to the inhumanity
and tyranny of material profiteering, at the expense of precious life. The arrogance and exploitation of neoliberal values of
consumption dishonor the contemporary suffering of poor and marginalized populations around the globe. Neoliberalism denies or
simply mocks (“Drill baby drill!”) the interrelationship and delicate balance that exists between all living beings, including
unscrupulous and ruthless
the body earth. In its stead, values of individualism, competition, privatization, and the “free market” systematically debase the ancient
ecological knowledge of indigenous populations, who have, implicitly or explicitly, rejected the fabricated ethos of “progress and democracy”
propagated by the West. In its consuming frenzy to gobble up the natural resources of the planet for its own hyperbolic quest for material
domination, the exploitative nature of capitalism and its burgeoning technocracy has dangerously deepened the structures of social exclusion,
through the destruction of the very biodiversity that has been key to our global survival for millennia. Kahn insists that this devastation of all
species and the planet must be fully recognized and soberly critiqued. But he does not stop there. Alongside, he rightly argues for political
principles of engagement for the construction of a critical ecopedagogy and ecoliteracy that is founded on economic redistribution, cultural and
linguistic democracy, indigenous sovereignty, universal human rights, and a fundamental respect for all life. As such, Kahn seeks to bring us all
back to a formidable relationship with the earth, one that is unquestionably rooted in an integral order of knowledge, imbued with physical,
emotional, intellectual, and spiritual wisdom. Within the context of such an ecologically grounded epistemology, Kahn uncompromisingly
argues that our organic relationship with the earth is also intimately tied to our struggles for cultural self-determination, environmental
sustainability, social and material justice, and global peace. Through a carefully framed analysis of past disasters and current ecological crisis,
Kahn issues an urgent call for a critical ecopedagogy that makes central explicit articulations of the ways in which societies construct
ideological, political, and cultural systems, based on social structures and practices that can serve to promote ecological
sustainability and biodiversity or, conversely, lead us down a disastrous path of unsustainability and extinction. In making his case,
Kahn provides a grounded examination of the manner in which consuming capitalism manifests its repressive force throughout the globe,
disrupting the very ecological order of knowledge essential to the planet’s sustainability. He offers an understanding of critical ecopedagogy
and ecoliteracy that inherently critiques the history of Western civilization and the anthropomorphic assumptions that sustain patriarchy and
the subjugation of all subordinated living beings—assumptions that continue to inform traditional education discourses around the world. Kahn
incisively demonstrates how a theory of multiple technoliteracies can be used to effectively critique the ecological corruption and destruction
behind mainstream uses of technology and the media in the interest of the neoliberal marketplace. As such, his work points to the manner in
which the sustainability
rhetoric of mainstream environmentalism actually camouflages wretched neoliberal policies and
practices that left unchecked hasten the annihilation of the globe’s ecosystem . True to its promise, the book
cautions that any anti-hegemonic resistance movement that claims social justice, universal human rights, or global peace must contend
forthrightly with the deteriorating ecological crisis at hand, as well as consider possible strategies and relationships that rupture the status quo
and transform environmental conditions that threaten disaster. A failure to integrate ecological sustainability at the core of our political and
pedagogical struggles for liberation, Kahn argues, is to blindly and misguidedly adhere to an anthropocentric worldview in which emancipatory
dreams are deemed solely about human interests, without attention either to the health of the planet or to the well-being of all species with
whom we walk the earth.
2NC – Structural Violence
Structural violence is the proximate cause of all war- creates priming that
psychologically structures escalation
Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois ‘4
(Prof of Anthropology @ Cal-Berkely; Prof of Anthropology @ UPenn)
(Nancy and Philippe, Introduction: Making Sense of Violence, in Violence in War and Peace, pg. 19-22)
This large and at first sight “messy” Part VII is central to this anthology’s thesis. It encompasses everything from the routinized,
bureaucratized, and utterly banal violence of children dying of hunger and maternal despair in Northeast Brazil (Scheper-Hughes, Chapter
33) to elderly African Americans dying of heat stroke in Mayor Daly’s version of US apartheid in Chicago’s South Side (Klinenberg, Chapter
38) to the racialized class hatred expressed by British Victorians in their olfactory disgust of the “smelly” working classes (Orwell, Chapter
36). In these readings violence is located in the symbolic and social structures that overdetermine and allow the criminalized drug
addictions, interpersonal bloodshed, and racially patterned incarcerations that characterize the US “inner city” to be normalized (Bourgois,
Chapter 37 and Wacquant, Chapter 39). Violence also takes the form of class, racial, political self-hatred and adolescent self-destruction
(Quesada, Chapter 35), as well as of useless (i.e. preventable), rawly embodied physical suffering, and death (Farmer, Chapter 34).
Absolutely central to our approach is a blurring of categories and distinctions between wartime
and peacetime violence. Close attention to the “little” violences produced in the structures,
habituses, and mentalites of everyday life shifts our attention to pathologies of class, race, and
gender inequalities. More important, it interrupts the voyeuristic tendencies of “violence studies” that risk publicly humiliating the
powerless who are often forced into complicity with social and individual pathologies of power because suffering is often a solvent of
human integrity and dignity. Thus, in this anthology we are positing a violence continuum comprised of a multitude of “small wars and
invisible genocides” (see also Scheper- Hughes 1996; 1997; 2000b) conducted in the normative social spaces of public schools, clinics,
emergency rooms, hospital wards, nursing homes, courtrooms, public registry offices, prisons, detention centers, and public morgues.
The violence continuum also refers to the ease with which humans are capable of reducing the
socially vulnerable into expendable nonpersons and assuming the license - even the duty - to
kill, maim, or soul-murder. We realize that in referring to a violence and a genocide continuum we are flying in the face of a
tradition of genocide studies that argues for the absolute uniqueness of the Jewish Holocaust and for vigilance with respect to restricted
purist use of the term genocide itself (see Kuper 1985; Chaulk 1999; Fein 1990; Chorbajian 1999). But we hold an opposing and alternative
view that, to the contrary, it
is absolutely necessary to make just such existential leaps in purposefully
linking violent acts in normal times to those of abnormal times. Hence the title of our volume: Violence in War
and in Peace. If (as we concede) there is a moral risk in overextending the concept of “genocide” into spaces and corners of everyday life
where we might not ordinarily think to find it (and there
is), an even greater risk lies in failing to sensitize
ourselves, in misrecognizing protogenocidal practices and sentiments daily enacted as normative
behavior by “ordinary” good-enough citizens. Peacetime crimes, such as prison construction sold as economic
development to impoverished communities in the mountains and deserts of California, or the evolution of the criminal industrial complex
into the latest peculiar institution for managing race relations in the United States (Waquant, Chapter 39), constitute
the “small
wars and invisible genocides” to which we refer. This applies to African American and Latino youth mortality statistics in
Oakland, California, Baltimore, Washington DC, and New York City. These are “invisible” genocides not because they
are secreted away or hidden from view, but quite the opposite.
As Wittgenstein observed
,
the things
that are hardest to perceive are those which are right before our eyes and therefore taken for
granted. In this regard, Bourdieu’s partial and unfinished theory of violence (see Chapters 32 and 42) as well as his concept of
misrecognition is crucial to our task. By including the normative everyday forms of violence hidden in the minutiae of “normal” social
practices - in the architecture of homes, in gender relations, in communal work, in the exchange of gifts, and so forth - Bourdieu forces us
to reconsider the broader meanings and status of violence, especially the links between the violence of everyday life and explicit political
terror and state repression, Similarly, Basaglia’s notion of “peacetime crimes” - crimini di pace - imagines a direct relationship between
wartime and peacetime violence. Peacetime crimes
suggests the possibility that war crimes are merely
ordinary, everyday crimes of public consent applied systematic- ally and dramatically in the
extreme context of war. Consider the parallel uses of rape during peacetime and wartime, or the family resemblances between
the legalized violence of US immigration and naturalization border raids on “illegal aliens” versus the US government- engineered genocide
in 1938, known as the Cherokee “Trail of Tears.” Peacetime crimes suggests that everyday forms of state violence make a certain kind of
domestic peace possible. Internal “stability” is purchased with the currency of peacetime crimes, many of which take the form of
professionally applied “strangle-holds.” Everyday forms of state violence during peacetime make a certain kind of domestic “peace”
possible. It is an easy-to-identify peacetime crime that is usually maintained as a public secret by the government and by a scared or
apathetic populace. Most subtly, but no less politically or structurally, the phenomenal growth in the United States of a new military,
postindustrial prison industrial complex has taken place in the absence of broad-based opposition, let alone collective acts of civil
disobedience. The
public consensus is based primarily on a new mobilization of an old fear of the mob,
the mugger, the rapist, the Black man, the undeserving poor. How many public executions of
mentally deficient prisoners in the United States are needed to make life feel more secure for the
affluent? What can it possibly mean when incarceration becomes the “normative” socializing experience for ethnic minority youth in a
society, i.e., over 33 percent of young African American men (Prison Watch 2002). In the end it is essential that we recognize
the existence of a genocidal capacity among otherwise good-enough humans and that we need
to exercise a defensive hypervigilance to the less dramatic, permitted, and even rewarded
everyday acts of violence that render participation in genocidal acts and policies possible
(under adverse political or economic conditions), perhaps more easily than we would like to recognize. Under
the violence
continuum we include, therefore, all expressions of radical social exclusion, dehumanization,
depersonal- ization, pseudospeciation, and reification which normalize atrocious behavior and
violence toward others. A constant self-mobilization for alarm, a state of constant hyperarousal is,
perhaps, a reasonable response to Benjamin’s view of late modern history as a chronic “state of
emergency” (Taussig, Chapter 31). We are trying to recover here the classic anagogic thinking that enabled Erving Goffman, Jules
Henry, C. Wright Mills, and Franco Basaglia among other mid-twentieth-century radically critical thinkers, to perceive the symbolic and
structural relations, i.e., between inmates and patients, between concentration camps, prisons, mental hospitals, nursing homes, and other
“total institutions.” Making
that decisive move to recognize the continuum of violence allows us to see
the capacity and the willingness - if not enthusiasm - of ordinary people, the practical technicians
of the social consensus, to enforce genocidal-like crimes against categories of rubbish people.
There is no primary impulse out of which mass violence and genocide are born, it is ingrained in
the common sense of everyday social life. The mad, the differently abled, the mentally
vulnerable have often fallen into this category of the unworthy living, as have the very old and
infirm, the sick-poor, and, of course, the despised racial, religious, sexual, and ethnic groups of the
moment. Erik Erikson referred to “pseudo- speciation” as the human tendency to classify some individuals or social groups as less than
fully human - a prerequisite to genocide and one that is carefully honed during the unremark- able peacetimes that precede the sudden,
“seemingly unintelligible” outbreaks of mass violence
. Collective denial and misrecognition are prerequisites for
mass violence and genocide. But so are formal bureaucratic structures and professional roles. The practical technicians of
everyday violence in the backlands of Northeast Brazil (Scheper-Hughes, Chapter 33), for example, include the clinic doctors who prescribe
powerful tranquilizers to fretful and frightfully hungry babies, the Catholic priests who celebrate the death of “angel-babies,” and the
Everyday violence encompasses the
implicit, legitimate, and routinized forms of violence inherent in particular social, economic, and
political formations. It is close to what Bourdieu (1977, 1996) means by “symbolic violence,” the violence that is often “nusmunicipal bureaucrats who dispense free baby coffins but no food to hungry families.
recognized” for something else, usually something good. Everyday violence is similar to what Taussig (1989) calls “terror as usual.” All these
terms are meant to reveal a public secret - the hidden links between violence in war and violence in peace, and between war crimes and
“peace-time crimes.” Bourdieu (1977) finds domination and violence in the least likely places - in courtship and marriage, in the exchange
of gifts, in systems of classification, in style, art, and culinary taste- the various uses of culture. Violence, Bourdieu insists, is everywhere in
social practice. It is misrecognized because its very everydayness and its familiarity render it invisible. Lacan identifies “rneconnaissance” as
the prerequisite of the social. The exploitation of bachelor sons, robbing them of autonomy, independence, and progeny, within the
structures of family farming in the European countryside that Bourdieu escaped is a case in point (Bourdieu, Chapter 42; see also ScheperHughes, 2000b; Favret-Saada, 1989). Following Gramsci, Foucault, Sartre, Arendt, and other modern theorists of power-vio- lence,
Bourdieu treats direct aggression and physical violence as a crude, uneconomical mode of domination; it is less efficient and, according to
Arendt (1969), it is certainly less legitimate. While power and symbolic domination are not to be equated with violence - and Arendt
argues persuasively that violence is to be understood as a failure of power - violence, as we are presenting it here, is more than simply the
expression of illegitimate physical force against a person or group of persons. Rather, we need to understand violence as encompassing all
forms of “controlling processes” (Nader 1997b) that assault basic human freedoms and individual or collective survival. Our task is to
recognize these gray zones of violence which are, by definition, not obvious. Once again, the point of bringing into the discourses on
genocide everyday, normative experiences of reification, depersonalization, institutional confinement, and acceptable death is to help
answer the question: What makes mass violence and genocide possible? In this volume we are suggesting that
mass violence is
part of a continuum, and that it is socially incremental and often experienced by perpetrators,
collaborators, bystanders - and even by victims themselves - as expected, routine, even justified.
The preparations for mass killing can be found in social sentiments and institutions from the family, to schools, churches, hospitals, and the
military. They
harbor the early “warning signs” (Charney 1991), the “priming” (as Hinton, ed., 2002 calls it), or the
“genocidal continuum” (as we call it) that push social consensus toward devaluing certain forms of
human life and lifeways from the refusal of social support and humane care to vulnerable “social
parasites” (the nursing home elderly, “welfare queens,” undocumented immigrants, drug addicts) to the
militarization of everyday life (super-maximum-security prisons, capital punishment; the technologies of heightened personal
security, including the house gun and gated communities; and reversed feelings of victimization).
2NC – Jevons Paradox
Plan is one step forward and two steps back – they don’t trade off with coal – nuclear
power use compounds consumption – turns the case
Foster et al, 10 (JOHN B. is editor of Monthly Review and professor of sociology, University of Oregon. BRETT CLARK is assistant professor
of sociology, North Carolina State University. RICHARD YORK is co-editor of Organization & Environment and associate professor of sociology,
University of Oregon, “Capitalism and the Curse of Energy Efficiency: The Return of the Jevons Paradox”, Monthly Review, November 2010. Vol.
62, Iss. 6; pg. 1, 12 pgs, proquest)
The Jevons Paradox was forgotten in the heyday of the age of petroleum during the first three-quarters of the twentieth century, but
reappeared in the 1970s due to increasing concerns over resource scarcity associated with the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth analysis,
heightened by the oil-energy crisis of 1973-74. As energy efficiency measures were introduced, economists became concerned with their
effectiveness. This led to the resurrection, at the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, of the general question posed by the Jevons
Paradox, in the form of what was called the "rebound effect." This was the fairly straightforward notion that engineering efficiency gains
normally led to a decrease in the effective price of a commodity, thereby generating increased demand, so that the gains in efficiency did not
Jevons Paradox has often been relegated to a more
extreme version of the rebound effect, in which there is a backfire, or a rebound of more than 100 percent of
"engineering savings," resulting in an increase rather than decrease in the consumption of a
produce a decrease in consumption to an equal extent. The
given resource.30 Technological optimists have tried to argue that the rebound effect is small, and therefore environmental
problems can be solved largely by technological innovation alone, with the efficiency gains translating into lower
throughput of energy and materials (dematerialization). Empirical evidence of a substantial rebound effect is, however, strong. For example,
technological advancements in motor vehicles, which have increased the average
miles per gallon of vehicles by 30 percent
in the United States since 1980, have not reduced the overall energy used by motor vehicles. Fuel consumption per
vehicle stayed constant while the efficiency gains led to the augmentation, not only of the numbers of cars and trucks on the roads (and the
miles driven), but also their size and "performance" (acceleration rate, cruising speed, etc.) - so that SUVs and minivans now dot U.S. highways.
At the macro level, the Jevons Paradox can be seen in the fact that, even
though the United States has managed to double
its energy efficiency since 1975, its energy consumption has risen dramatically. Juliet Schor notes that over the
last thirty-five years: energy expended per dollar of GDP has been cut in half. But rather than falling,
energy demand has increased, by roughly 40 percent. Moreover, demand is rising fastest in those
sectors that have had the biggest efficiency gains - transport and residential energy use. Refrigerator
efficiency improved by 10 percent, but the number of refrigerators in use rose by 20 percent. In
aviation, fuel consumption per mile fell by more than 40 percent, but total fuel use grew by 150 percent
because passenger miles rose. Vehicles are a similar story. And with soaring demand, we've had soaring
emissions. Carbon dioxide from these two sectors has risen 40 percent, twice the rate of the larger
economy. Economists and environmentalists who try to measure the direct effects of efficiency on the lowering of price and the immediate
rebound effect generally tend to see the rebound effect as relatively small, in the range of 10 to 30 percent in high-energy consumption areas
once the indirect effects, apparent at the macro level, are
incorporated, the Jevons Paradox remains extremely significant. It is here at the macro level that scale
effects come to bear: improvements in energy efficiency can lower the effective cost of various
products, propelling the overall economy and expanding overall energy use.31 Ecological economists
such as home heating and cooling and cars. But
Mario Giampietro and Kozo Mayumi argue that the Jevons Paradox can only be understood in a macro-evolutionary model, where
that the overall effect is to increase
scale and tempo of the system as a whole.32 Most analyses of the Jevons Paradox remain abstract, based on isolated
improvements in efficiency result in changes in the matrices of the economy, such
technological effects, and removed from the historical process. They fail to examine, as Jevons himself did, the character of industrialization.
Moreover, they are still further removed from a realistic understanding of the accumulation-driven character of capitalist development. An
economic system devoted to profits, accumulation, and economic expansion without end will tend to
use any efficiency gains or cost reductions to expand the overall scale of production. Technological
innovation will therefore be heavily geared to these same expansive ends. It is no mere coincidence that each of the
epoch-making innovations (namely, the steam engine, the railroad, and the automobile) that dominated the eighteenth, nineteenth, and
twentieth centuries were characterized by their importance in driving capital accumulation and the positive feedback they generated with
respect to economic growth as a whole - so that the scale effects on the economy arising from their development necessarily overshot
improvements in technological efficiency.33 Conservation
in the aggregate is impossible for capitalism, however
much the output/input ratio may be increased in the engineering of a given product. This is because all
savings tend to spur further capital formation (provided that investment outlets are available). This is especially the case
where core industrial resources - what Jevons called "central materials" or "staple products" - are concerned. The Fallacy of Dematerialization
The Jevons Paradox is the product of a capitalist economic system that is unable to conserve on a macro scale, geared, as it is, to maximizing
the throughput of energy and materials from resource tap to final waste sink. Energy
savings in such a system tend to be used
as a means for further development of the economic order, generating what Alfred Lotka called the
"maximum energy flux," rather than minimum energy production.34 The deemphasis on absolute (as
opposed to relative) energy conservation is built into the nature and logic of capitalism as a system unreservedly
devoted to the gods of production and profit. As Marx put it: "Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets!"35 Seen in the context
of a capitalist society, the
Jevons Paradox therefore demonstrates the fallacy of current notions that the
environmental problems facing society can be solved by purely technological means. Mainstream
environmental economists often refer to "dematerialization," or the "decoupling" of economic growth,
from consumption of greater energy and resources. Growth in energy efficiency is often taken as a concrete indication that
the environmental problem is being solved. Yet savings in materials and energy, in the context of a given process of production, as we have
seen, are nothing new; they are part of the everyday history of capitalist development.36
Each new steam engine, as Jevons
emphasized, was more efficient than the one before. "Raw materials-savings processes," environmental
sociologist Stephen Bunker noted, "are older than the Industrial Revolution, and they have been
dynamic throughout the history of capitalism." Any notion that reduction in material throughput, per
unit of national income, is a new phenomenon is therefore "profoundly ahistorical."37 What is neglected,
then, in simplistic notions that increased energy efficiency normally leads to increased energy savings overall, is the reality of the Jevons
Paradox relationship - through which energy savings are used to promote new capital formation and the proliferation of commodities,
demanding ever greater resources. Rather than an anomaly, the rule that efficiency increases energy and material use is integral to the "regime
of capital" itself.38
As stated in The Weight of Nations, an important empirical study of material outflows in
recent decades in five industrial nations (Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, and
Japan): "Efficiency gains brought by technology and new management practices have been offset by
[increases in] the scale of economic growth."39 The result is the production of mountains upon
mountains of commodities, cheapening unit costs and leading to greater squandering of material
resources. Under monopoly capitalism, moreover, such commodities increasingly take the form of
artificial use values, promoted by a vast marketing system and designed to instill ever more demand for
commodities and the exchange values they represent - as a substitute for the fulfillment of genuine
human needs. Unnecessary, wasteful goods are produced by useless toil to enhance purely economic values at the expense of the
environment. Any slowdown in this process of ecological destruction, under the present system, spells
economic disaster. In Jevons's eyes, the "momentous choice" raised by a continuation of business as usual was simply "between brief
but true [national] greatness and longer continued mediocrity. " He opted for the former - the maximum energy flux. A century and a half later,
in our much bigger, more global - but no less expansive - economy, it is no longer simply national supremacy that is at stake, but the fate of the
planet itself. To be sure, there are those who maintain that we should "live high now and let the future take care of itself." To choose this
course, though, is to court planetary disaster. The
only real answer for humanity (including future generations) and
the earth as a whole is to alter the social relations of production, to create a system in which
efficiency is no longer a curse - a higher system in which equality, human development, community, and
sustainability are the explicit goals.
Increased energy spurs consumptions – doesn’t trade off with other energy
Zehner 12 (Ozzie, Author of Green Illusions and a visiting scholar at the University of California,
Berkeley. His recent publications include public science pieces in Christian Science Monitor, The
American Scholar, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, The Humanist, The Futurist, and Women’s Studies
Quarterly. He has appeared on PBS, BBC, CNN, MSNBC, and regularly guest lectures at universities.
Zehner’s research and projects have been covered by The Sunday Times, USA Today, WIRED, The
Washington Post, Business Week and numerous other media outlets. He also serves on the editorial
board of Critical Environmentalism, Zehner primarily researches the social, political and economic
conditions influencing energy policy priorities and project outcomes. His work also incorporates
symbolic roles that energy technologies play within political and environmental movements. His other
research interests include consumerism, urban policy, environmental governance, international human
rights, and forgeries, Zehner attended Kettering University (BS -Engineering) and The University of
Amsterdam (MS/Drs – Science and Technology Studies). His research was awarded with honors at both
institutions.
The Rebound Effect Phantom The nineteenth century brought us a collection of ghoulish and chilling immortals—the headless horseman of
Sleepy Hollow, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and even Abraham Lincoln's phantom train, which has been heard leaving Washington DC late at night
on a circuitous funeral route toward Springfield, Illinois, where it never arrives. It was during this era, in 1865, that a man named William
Stanley Jevons wrote a book about a similar sort of phantom. His book, entitled The Coal Question, started out innocently enough. Jevons
documented how James Watt's introduction of the steam engine greatly improved efficiency. Seems nice. But this increase in efficiency in turn
made steam engines more popular and ultimately drove coal use ever higher.4 This rebound effect, also termed the " Jevons
paradox,"
arises again and again in various incarnations throughout the history of energy use: Increases in energy efficiency
make energy services relatively cheaper, encouraging greater consumption. Energy efficiency can actually lead to
negative environmental impacts unless regions institute taxes, caps, or regulations to prevent growing consumption patterns from smothering
efficiency gains. As long as energy-efficiency strategies come with checks to prevent the rebound effect, efficiency proponents argue that they
are highly effective. For instance, new refrigerators use just a fraction of the energy of models sold decades ago, yet because there is a limit to
the amount of refrigeration space one can fit in a kitchen, the benefits of efficiency are usually not usurped by the rebound effect. Similarly,
there's no indication that drivers of small cars, who achieve twice the gasoline efficiency of those driving large vehicles, tend to drive twice as
much as a result. And based on numerous case studies of businesses, Rocky Mountain Institute researchers claim, "We have not seen evidence
that radically more efficient commercial buildings cause people to leave the lights on all night and set their office thermostats five degrees
lower. In fact, energy savings in everything from office towers to schools have often been higher than projected. People do not seem to change
their behaviors simply because they have a more efficient building."5 That's nice, too. But it's not the whole story. There's another problem.
Even though energy
consumers might not spend their efficiency savings to buy more energy, they may choose to spend these savings on
unintentionally inspire
other types of consumption, leaving overall energy footprints unchanged or even larger. This occurs at the
macroeconomic level as well. In short, energy-efficiency savings frequently lead to larger profits, which spur more
other products or endeavors that still lead to energy consumption. In this case, energy-efficiency measures can
growth and thus higher energy consumption. For instance, another Rocky Mountain Institute study shows that reducing drafts,
increasing natural light, and otherwise making workplaces more efficient, can increase worker productivity by as much as 16 percent.6 This
higher productivity allows firms to grow, and the resulting labor cost savings can be spent on new machinery, buildings, or expansion. These
rebound effects
often dwarf the original energy-efficiency effects, leading
to far greater overall energy
consumption.7 In fact, the authors of a central report on the rebound effect conclude, "While the promotion of energy efficiency has an
important role to play in achieving a sustainable economy, it is unlikely to be sufficient while rich countries continue to pursue high levels of
economic growth."8 Thus, efficiency efforts will only prove effective as long as we institute contemporaneous reforms to move from a
consumption-based economy to one grounded in sufficiency.
***ATs***
2NC – AT: Framework/Energy Policy Making Good
Counter-interpretation – The judge is an educator – the aff must defend their
assembly and presentation of the 1AC – the ballot should endorse a decision making
model for the most effective approach to energy production policy
1. Framing is key to effective energy policy –– Plan-focus mystifies how their evidence
is biased by the perspective and interests of their authors – Can’t sever the knowledge
production of the 1AC – it kills advocacy building and holistic education – the way they
choose to assemble and frame the 1AC compromises the political action of the plan
2. It’s predictable – the 1AC chooses their method and representations – proves aff
side bias
4. Interrogating dominant policy frameworks creates space for new ways of
approaching energy policy – our role as energy policy researchers should be to
interrogating the framing of our policies
Scrase and Ockwell 10 (J. Ivan - Sussex Energy Group, SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research),
Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, David G - Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, SPRU,
Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, “The role of discourse and linguistic framing effects in sustaining
high carbon energy policy—An accessible introduction,” Energy Policy: Volume 38, Issue 5, May 2010,
Pages 2225–2233)
This paper has provided several examples where central elements of energy policy have been discursively constructed
so as to speak directly to core government priorities, such as economic growth and national security. This
has served to maintain the dominance of the current framing of energy policy and to promote
certain political interests. This is a challenging observation if one argues that energy policy needs to be
reframed. The transition to a low carbon economy may be a good idea. Indeed, it is one that is increasingly central in policy discourses in
both developed and developing countries. This does not, however, necessarily mean that this discursive shift will have any specific material
impact on energy policy. The institutional
constraints on discursive developments here still exist and must be
confronted (or conformed to) before new policy ideas are likely to gain any influence. Having an impact
on the core of energy policy requires confronting the dominance, or ‘discursive hegemony’ of the existing
way in which policy is framed – within the context of the constraints that have shaped and facilitated this existing framing. This is
almost a ‘Catch-22’ situation if one wants to see urgent action to tackle climate change: to be radical but excluded (and potentially right only
with hindsight), or gradualist and engaged in a process that may move too slowly to avert disaster. This argument suggests that reframing
energy policy is only likely to be successful if the arguments that support it are discursively constructed in such a way as to speak to core
government imperatives. If climate change is one of the central reasons behind needing to reframe energy policy, then the fact that the
environment sits outside of the core imperatives that governments have to deliver against to ensure their survival implies that this could be
very challenging indeed. It is, of course, possible that future events might transpire to alter this. As mentioned above, catastrophic climate
impacts might well mean that protecting the environment becomes a core government imperative. But by this point it may well be too late for
any reframing of energy policy to be effective in tackling climate change. Of course there is the possibility in the shorter term that the
government imperative to sustain representative legitimacy will put tackling climate on an equal footing with security or economic growth. For
this to happen in a relevant timeframe, however, will require extraordinary popular pressure and institutional changes. Ideas serving expansion
of fossil fuel markets are strongly embedded in today's predominantly technocratic and nationalistic energy policy discourses. We hope that
this article has served to provide an accessible introduction to the ways in which discourse
and linguistic framing effects might be
playing a role in sustaining energy policy frameworks that are resistant to the many insightful changes
often advocated in the pages of Energy Policy. If the influence of such framing effects is accepted, we begin to see how the process of effecting
changes in energy policy is not just a technical or economic task, but also a political task. Moreover, this highlights an urgent need for civil
society to engage directly with the existing framing of energy policy and the problems it seeks to address in an effort to reframe it around more
sustainable, low carbon principles and concerns. The demonstration of the value
of a discourse analytic approach in this
to highlight some important
considerations for energy policy researchers. Moving away from the traditional linear
understanding of the policy process requires researchers to critically reflect on the interplay of
values, beliefs, entrenched interests and institutional structures that serve to facilitate or constrain the
policy traction of certain framings of energy policy problems and solutions. Further than this, it also
highlights the role in this process that we ourselves play as researchers, and the extent to which our own values,
beliefs and interests influence the framing of our research practice and communication. This has
important and far reaching implications, both methodological and normative, raising considerations that are
likely to continue to gain traction as researchers and policy makers alike increasingly appreciate the
need for reflexivity in our approach to framing, interpreting and implementing energy policy in the decades to come.2
paper, together with other emerging contributions in this field (cited above), also serves
5. Winning framework means the alternative is irrelevant – the debate is a yes/no
question about whether the knowledge the affirmative produced is true or not – it’s
about what the aff should have done
6.– Instrumental policy narratives obscure root causes and produce ideology at the
subconscious level – rethinking key to effectively reorient policy
Scrase and Ockwell 10 (J. Ivan - Sussex Energy Group, SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research),
Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, David G - Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, SPRU,
Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, “The role of discourse and linguistic framing effects in sustaining
high carbon energy policy—An accessible introduction,” Energy Policy: Volume 38, Issue 5, May 2010,
Pages 2225–2233)
This perspective begins by seeing politics as a struggle for ‘discursive hegemony’ in which actors seek to
achieve ‘discursive closure’ by securing support for their definition of reality (Hajer, 1995). The notion of
‘story-lines’ is useful here. These narratives employ symbolic references that imply a common
understanding of an issue (Hajer, 1995; Rydin, 1999). Essentially, the assumption is that actors do not draw on a
comprehensive discursive system; instead this is evoked through story-lines. By uttering a specific word or
phrase, for example, ‘global warming’, a whole story-line is in effect re-invoked; one that is subtly different,
for example, to that of the ‘anthropogenic greenhouse effect’ or ‘climate change’. ‘Global warming’ implies a story-line where the whole earth
will get hotter in the future; ‘climate change’ suggests something less certain and uniform (see Whitmarsh, 2009); ‘anthropogenic greenhouse
effect’ is perhaps the most technically correct term, and it directly attributes the warming effect to human activity. Story-lines are therefore
much more than simply ‘arguments’. The meanings and connotations of familiar story-lines
are often recognised at an
almost subconscious
level. They can thus act to define policy problems while obscuring underpinning
interests, values and beliefs. They can add credibility to the claims of certain groups and render those
of other groups less credible. They therefore act to create social order within a given domain by serving as devices through which
actors are positioned and ideas defined and linked together. Institutional arrangements are important in structuring discourses,
forming routine understandings. Complex research findings or logical arguments are often reduced to an eyecatching visual representation or memorable one-liners. These gloss over real complexities and uncertainties,
and entail significant loss of meaning. This allows considerable flexibility in interpretation, which
helps recruit people with differing views into a ‘discourse coalition’. It also avoids confrontation or
even the necessity for direct social contact between coalition members (Hajer, 1995). In this view, to shape policy,
a new discourse must dominate in public and policy discussions, and penetrate the routines of policy
practice through institutionalisation within laws, regulations and organisations (Hajer, 1993; Nossiff, 1998; Healey, 1999). In terms of policy
change then, promoting a new story-line is a difficult task, involving dismantling those promoted by those
actors who were able to achieve prominence for their claims and viewpoint originally (Rydin, 1999) and
which may have become embedded in institutions. For example, it took over a decade for the issue of acid rain to impact
on UK air pollution policy. A discourse coalition formed around the issue that promoted a story-line highlighting the negative international
environmental impacts of emissions from coal-fired power stations, particularly trees dying in Scandinavian countries, and the related need for
tighter pollution controls in Europe. In the UK the acid rain discourse coalition first had to confront the institutionally entrenched British
discourse on air pollution. This was dominated by local and national concerns with urban air pollution and health effects, which left little room
for the consideration of new ideas related to the international environmental impacts of industrial emissions (Hajer, 1995, p. 268).
2NC – AT: Energy Policy Making Good
The K is an impact turn – Technocracy marginalizes non-expert viewpoints, thwarts the
democratization of knowledge, and entrenches status quo power relations.
Healy 3 (S., School of History and Philosophy of Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney,
“Epistemological Pluralism and the ‘Politics of Choice’,” Futures, Vol. 35)
The notion of 'epistemological pluralism' [11] was inspired as a counter to the stance of 'epistemic
sovereignty' advanced by Rouse [12,25] to describe the way representational perspectives both
maintain their authority and deny legitimacy to rival perspectives. The thoroughly entrenched
nature of 'epistemic sovereignty' is graphically illustrated by how Beck in his prescriptions to counter some of 'epistemic sovereignty's'
worst excesses in effect embodies and reflects it: "Only when medicine opposes medicine, nuclear physics opposes nuclear physics, human
genetics opposes human genetics or information technology opposes information technology can the future that is being brewed in the
test tube become intelligible and evaluable for the outside world" [5, p. 234] (3) 'Epistemic sovereignty' not only depicts the prevalent
Political decisions legitimating the
agri-industrial practices that resulted in BSE/vCJD, Nuclear Power, and Genetically Manipulated Crops
and Foods all depend upon a validation by expertise. The continuing pervasiveness of 'epistemic
sovereignty' thwarts attempts to democratise knowledge and decision-making because the
presumption of 'sovereignty' unavoidably marginalises other perspectives and views,
embedding the power relations underpinning the status quo. 'Epistemological pluralism' is intended
as a step in the direction of reconceptualising knowledge and, consequently, reconfiguring the
relations of power of which it is part. It's important to emphasise that these power relations do not only reflect sets of sociocontemporary culture of expertise but also the way it lends itself to political purposes.
material relations, or complexes of people and things, but also embody matters commonly regarded as narrowly political. Although
enlightenment science was originally a decisive element in freeing political culture from religious and feudal dogma, today this no longer
While much of science, and many scientists, remain progressive in outlook the success of
science now underpins a broader cultural ubiquity that far outstrips that of the dogma it replaced.
While Beck effectively captured the paradox, resulting from this, that the narrow scientific
holds.
application of science to remedy problems in which science is implicated tends to compound
them , his remedies are less convincing. This is because he failed to recognise the interdependence
of 'epistemic sovereignty' and the broader political culture it underwrites. The epistemological
insistence on one true, all-encompassing universal vision finds resonance in an equally constrained
politics, which while outwardly democratic, is in practice retrogressive, backward looking and
pathologically intolerant of difference. This diagnosis not only helps explain our
counterproductive captivation by 'technical fixes ' in the face of matters like climate change, but also
the myopia of 'the war on terror' (although this 'McWorld' vision is paralleled by the equally myopic 'Jihad World' vision of its opponents),
and any number of related matters such as the impoverished, and impoverishing, vision of society and humankind embodied by
contemporary economics. 'Epistemological pluralism' concurs with the original enlightenment prescription of pluralism but argues that
rather than being underwritten by science today the 'epistemically sovereign' form of contemporary science denies it. A contemporary
pluralist politics requires, as a necessary but not necessarily sufficient condition, a pluralist knowledge politics. The ongoing necessity to
regulate the complexes of people and things that make up our world requiring an implicit scientifically infused knowledge politics as a
fundamental feature of broader politics.
2NC – AT: Expertism
Expertism isn’t objective – you can’t trust their evidence – It’s incorporated within
dominant ways of knowing that crowd out alternative explanations and solutions for
policy problems
Scrase and Ockwell 10 (J. Ivan - Sussex Energy Group, SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research),
Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, David G - Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, SPRU,
Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, “The role of discourse and linguistic framing effects in sustaining
high carbon energy policy—An accessible introduction,” Energy Policy: Volume 38, Issue 5, May 2010,
Pages 2225–2233)
All too often, however, the subjective roles of specialist knowledge, ideas, values, beliefs, and underlying
interests are ignored in policy discussions. As Adams et al. (2003, p.1915) put it: ‘…policy debates are often
flawed because of the assumption that the actors involved share an understanding of the
problem that is being discussed. They tend to ignore the fact that the assumptions, knowledge, and
understandings that underlie the definition of [policy] problems are frequently uncertain and contested.’ In
this way the ideas of certain actors are often dismissed as they fail to fit with dominant ways of expressing
knowledge claims within institutional contexts. For example, in the aftermath of Chernobyl, Cumbrian sheep farmers’
knowledge about the physical properties of the soil in the Lake District was ignored by government scientists. This led to an ill-informed and
ineffective policy response, while creating antagonism and fostering distrust of officials and experts (Wynne, 1996). Recognising
the
ways in which values, beliefs and ideas are shaped and drawn upon in the construction of policy
problems and solutions makes it possible to reach a better understanding of the policy process . It is an
arena that involves the interplay of different and often competing ‘knowledge claims’ of various actors. Sometimes these conflicts are between
the different types of knowledge (‘knowledges’) of lay or local actors and those of experts, but they can equally constitute contests within local
or specialist communities.
2NC – AT: Paradigm Wars
No Paradigm Wars – philosophical inquiry is accepted as key to policy and research
Kurki 11 (Milja, Lecturer in International Relations Theory, The Department of International Politics,
The University of Wales Aberystwyth, “The Limitations of the Critical Edge: Reflections on Critical and
Philosophical IR Scholarship Today”,Millenium: Journal of International Studies)
Philosophical reflection is about gaining understanding of how knowledge is generated and structured
and what its relationship is to its producer, their social context and society at large. It is about understanding the
role and structure of scientific or social knowledge: how it is constructed; what objects exist in its purview; and why and how we do (or do not)
come to know our objects in specific ways. This might
seem a rather abstract interest; and indeed, for many, ‘metatheoretical’ or ‘philosophy of science’ research remains a rather abstract theoretical sub-field narrowly
engaged in detailed debates on epistemology, causation or prediction. Philosophically informed IR
research can, however, be much more than this. Indeed, for many of its promulgators, philosophical research has
arguably been a very politically and socially important, as well as potentially influential, field of study. While most
philosophically inclined analysts acknowledge that meta-theory is not everything in IR, most argue it is
of crucial significance in the discipline.8 This is because it shapes in crucial ways how we come to
understand the world, evaluate claims about it and, indeed, interact with it. Depending on whether
we are a positivist or a post-structuralist, we seek different kinds of data, ask different kinds of questions
and come to engage with actors differently in ‘international politics’ (which is also conceived of in different ways). 9
To use Patrick Jackson’s language: philosophical wagers matter. 10 Philosophical research is not only of significance in IR
scholarship, of course. It is worth remembering that some of the most well-known philosophers of science had at the
heart of their inquiries questions of values and politics. Thus, Popper and Kuhn, for example, were socially and politically
driven philosophers of science; and sought through their philosophical frameworks to influence the interaction of scientific practice and societal
power structures. 11 The same stands for logical positivists in the social sciences. Biersteker describes this well: European
and
American scholars embraced logical positivist, scientific behavioralism in the post-war era in part as a
reaction against fascism, militarism, and communism. They were reacting against totalizing ideologies
and sought a less overtly politicized philosophical basis for their research. Their liberalism stressed
toleration for everything except totalizing ideologies, and their logical positivist scientific approaches
provided what they viewed as a less politicized methodology for the conduct of social research. 12 Murphy’s
detailed study of the rise of behaviouralist peace studies confirms the same; the rise, in a specific context, of a specific type of meta-theoretical
argumentation, which is deployed to a social and, in fact, ‘political’ effect in order to criticise recent social dynamics and to change the world in
a preferable direction. 13 There
is, even when it is sidestepped by scientists or philosophers themselves (as in the case of behaviouralists), a
‘politics’ to the philosophy of science, in the sense that meta-theoretical concerns are tied up with
concrete social and political debates and struggles and specific normative and political visions of both
science and society, even if in indirect ways. 14 This ‘political’ edge of philosophical debate has not been
absent in IR scholarship, and arguably it was precisely the political role of philosophies of science that critical
international theory was ‘invented’ to deal with. It is important to bear in mind that when meta-theory emerged as an
important sphere of study within IR theorising in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was moved to the centre ground of IR
research by a selection of key critical thinkers who politicised this area. Cox, Ashley, Ashley and Walker, Hoffman, Linklater and
Steve Smith, 15 for example, argued vehemently in favour of the necessity for IR to consider its philosophy
of science underpinnings because of the political effects that epistemological and ontological
decisions IR theorists make have on their concrete research and resultant policy proposals. Indeed,
in a famous line, Steve Smith called his epistemological work the most political of his career. 16
2NC – AT: Cede the Political
We control UQ and turn – Energy policy is ceded to dominant conservative knowledge
claims – our method is key to reclaiming political agency
Scrase and Ockwell 10 (J. Ivan - Sussex Energy Group, SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research),
Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, David G - Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, SPRU,
Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, “The role of discourse and linguistic framing effects in sustaining
high carbon energy policy—An accessible introduction,” Energy Policy: Volume 38, Issue 5, May 2010,
Pages 2225–2233)
All too often, however, the subjective roles of specialist knowledge, ideas, values, beliefs, and underlying
interests are ignored in policy discussions. As Adams et al. (2003, p.1915) put it: ‘…policy debates are often
flawed because of the assumption that the actors involved share an understanding of the
problem that is being discussed. They tend to ignore the fact that the assumptions, knowledge, and
understandings that underlie the definition of [policy] problems are frequently uncertain and contested.’ In
this way the ideas of certain actors are often dismissed as they fail to fit with dominant ways of expressing
knowledge claims within institutional contexts. For example, in the aftermath of Chernobyl, Cumbrian sheep farmers’
knowledge about the physical properties of the soil in the Lake District was ignored by government scientists. This led to an ill-informed and
ineffective policy response, while creating antagonism and fostering distrust of officials and experts (Wynne, 1996). Recognising
the
ways in which values, beliefs and ideas are shaped and drawn upon in the construction of policy
problems and solutions makes it possible to reach a better understanding of the policy process . It is an
arena that involves the interplay of different and often competing ‘knowledge claims’ of various actors. Sometimes these conflicts are between
the different types of knowledge (‘knowledges’) of lay or local actors and those of experts, but they can equally constitute contests within local
or specialist communities.
Their definition of political is too narrow – Incorporating our method is key to
effective energy policy and deconstructing the objectivity of the political process
Scrase and Ockwell 10 (J. Ivan - Sussex Energy Group, SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research),
Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, David G - Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, SPRU,
Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, “The role of discourse and linguistic framing effects in sustaining
high carbon energy policy—An accessible introduction,” Energy Policy: Volume 38, Issue 5, May 2010,
Pages 2225–2233)
The way in which energy policy is “framed” refers to the underlying assumptions policy is based on
and the ways in which policy debates ‘construct’, emphasise and link particular issues . For example
energy ‘security of supply’ is often emphasised in arguments favouring nuclear-generated electricity. A more limited framing effect
operates on individuals in opinion polls and public referendums: here the way in which questions are posed has a
strong influence on responses. The bigger, social framing effect referred to here colours societies’ thinking
about whole areas of public life, in this case energy use and its environmental impacts. A key element of the proposed
reframing advanced by commentators concerned with decarbonising energy use (see, for example, Scrase and MacKerron, 2009) is to cease
treating energy as just commercial units of fuel and electricity, and instead to focus on the energy ‘services’ people need (warmth, lighting,
mobility and so on). This paper helps to explain why any such reframing, however logical and appealing, is
politically very
challenging if it goes against the perceived interests of powerful groups, particularly when these interests are aligned
with certain imperatives which governments must fulfil if they are to avoid electoral defeat. There is a dominant conception of
policy-making as an objective, linear process. In essence the process is portrayed as proceeding in a
series of steps from facts to analysis, and then to solutions (for a detailed critique of this linear view see Fischer, 2003). In
reality, policy-making is usually messy and political, rife with the exercise of interests and power. The veneer
of objective, rational policy-making, that the dominant, linear model of policy-making supports is
therefore cause for concern. It effectively sustains energy policy ‘business as usual’ and excludes
many
relevant voices that might be effective in opening up space to reframe energy policy problems and
move towards more sustainable solutions
(see, for example, Ockwell, 2008). This echoes concerns with what
counts as knowledge and whose voices are heard in policy debates that have characterised strands of several
literatures in recent decades, including science and technology studies, sociology of scientific knowledge, and various strands of the political
science and development literatures, particularly in the context of knowledge, discourse and democracy. An
alternative to the linear
provided by a ‘discourse’ perspective. This draws on political scientists’ observations of ways in which politics and
policy-making proceed through the use of language, and the expression of values and the assumptions therein. Discourse can be
understood as: ‘… a shared way of apprehending the world. Embedded in language it enables
subscribers to interpret bits of information and put them together into coherent stories or accounts.
Each discourse rests on assumptions, judgements and contentions that provide the basic terms for analysis,
debates, agreements and disagreements…’ Dryzek (1997, p.8). A discursive approach rejects the widely held
assumption that policy language is a neutral medium through which ideas and an objective world are
represented and discussed (Darcy, 1999). Discourse analysts examine and explain language use in a way that
helps to reveal the underlying interests, value judgements and beliefs that are often disguised by
policy actors’ factual claims and the arguments that these are used to support. For example UK energy policy
model is
review documents issued in 2006–2007 are criticised below for presenting information in ways that subtly but consistently favoured new
nuclear power while purporting to be undecided on the issue. People
(including scientific and policy experts) base their
understanding of problems and solutions on their knowledge, experiences, interpretations
and value judgements. These are coloured and shaped by social interactions, for example by what is
considered an ‘appropriate’ perspective in one's work life within certain institutions. Policy actors therefore expend considerable effort on
influencing the design and evolution of institutions in order to ensure problems and solutions are framed in ways they favour. Thus
discourse is fundamental to the way that institutions are created, but in the short-term institutions also have a
constraining or structuring effect. At a more fundamental level there are even more rigid constraints, which can be identified as a set of core
imperatives, such as sustained economic growth and national security, which states and their governments, with very few exceptions, must
fulfil in order to ensure their survival (Dryzek et al., 2003—these are explored in detail further below).
2NC – AT: Pragmatism
Policy focus devolves into endlessly answering the wrong questions – You should
prioritize why questions to make our policy prescriptions effective – that’s Scrase and
Ockwell – Owen naturalizes systems of violence that only the alt solves
McCormack 10 [Tara McCormack is Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Leicester and
has a PhD in International Relations from the University of Westminster, Critique, Security and Power
pp42-46]
Problem-solving theory then has two functions. It serves as a guide and an excuse for political elites; a guide because it aims to
show elites how they might solve problems arising from a specific set of social and political relations, the ‘given framework for action’, and an
excuse as these specific social and political relations are naturalised and presented as eternal and
unchanging situations rather than a contingent set of arrangements that are open to change. Problemsolving theory naturalises and removes from questioning the institutions and social and power
relations that exist, presenting them as immutable and unchanging facts of life (Cox, 1981: 129). Problem-solving theory,
therefore, clearly has a conservative ideological function because it delimits what is legitimate enquiry and any potential for
change (1981: 129–130). According to Cox, critical theory can challenge both these aspects of problemsolving theory. Critical theory does not
accept the given framework for action. For critical theory this framework itself is subject to critique and questioning. Critical theory begins, like
problem-solving theory, with ‘some aspect or particular sphere of human activity’ (1981: 129). Yet whilst problem-solving theory stops at the
boundaries, critical theory steps outside of the given framework for action. Critical theory questions the existing institutions and social and
power relations which problem-solving theory takes as an unchangeable ‘fact of life’ and tries to explain how and why problems arise by
putting them in their broader social, historical, and political context (1981: 129). Critical theory, as Jahn argues, has a methodological
requirement of analysing concrete phenomena in their historical and social totality (1998: 614). Critical theory [is] critical in the sense that it
stands apart from the prevailing order of the world and asks how that order came about . . . It is directed towards an appraisal of the very
framework for action, or problematic, which problem-solving theory accepts as its parameters. Critical theory is directed to the social and
political complex as a whole rather than to the separate parts . . . the critical approach leads towards the construction of a larger picture the
whole of which the initially contemplated part is just one component, and seeks to understand the processes of change in which both parts
and whole are involved. (Cox, 1981: 129) Critical theory therefore requires a substantive material analysis of the framework for action, the
historical structure (Cox, 1981: 135) which gives rise to the problematic considered. Cox here also explicitly identifies critical theory with
historical materialism: ‘Historical materialism is, however a foremost source of critical theory’ (1981: 133). For Cox, historical materialism is a
particular current within Marxist thought ‘which reasons historically and seeks to explain, as well as promote, changes in social relations’
(1981: 133). Cox argues that the prevailing international social order (the framework for action or historical structure [1981: 135]) can be
understood, abstractly, in terms of the interaction between material capabilities, ideas and institutions (1981: 136). This historical structure
influences both human action and theory although not in a direct or entirely deterministic way (1981: 135). As Marx argued, ‘Men make their
own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under
circumstances directly found, given and transmitted by the past’ (1978b: 595). For Cox, critical theory has another advantage over problemsolving theory in that it understands that the social world is in a constant state of change: ‘Critical theory is a theory of history in the sense of
being concerned not just with the past but with a constant process of historical change’ (1981: 129). As reality changes we find that the
divisions of the social world into separate disciplines may appear arbitrary. Cox gives the example of new kinds of theories that challenge the
idea of the state as a coherent actor (1981: 130). Writing in 1981, Cox is referring to pluralism and interdependence theory in the context of
the oil crises and the end of the Bretton Woods international financial system. Cox argues that contemporary American realism, which he
exemplifies the problem-solving approach to theory. Theorists working within this framework
have an ahistorical approach which assumes a fixed and unchanging international system. For
calls neo-realism,
Cox, theory is a way in which we understand and explain the ‘real social world’ (1981: 126). However, Cox argues that the relationship between
the social world and the way in which it is perceived and theorised is more complicated than problem-solving theory allows for. For Cox,
there is a crucial and complicated relationship between ‘facts’, ‘reality’ and knowledge . ‘Facts’ are
not neutral stepping stones on the way to understanding ‘reality’. Theory is not neutral but socially
and politically bounded in a complicated way; it reflects, or is a product of, rather than describes actually
existing social and political processes. The form that theory takes and the explanations that it gives, arise from and are part of
the way in which people attempt to understand the social world and their position in it. Cox argues therefore that theory derives from
a given perspective, a specific social, political and economic position, whether of a nation, or class, for example: [Theory is]
always for someone and for some purpose. All theories have a perspective. Perspectives derive from a position in time and
space, specifically social and political time and space. The world is seen from a standpoint definable in terms of
nation or social class, of dominance or subordination, of rising or declining power, of a sense of
immobility or of present crises, of past expectations, and of hopes and expectations for the future. (1981:
128) At the epistemological level, therefore, problem-solving theory ignores the complicit relationship
between theory and the social and political perspective
2NC – AT: World Improving
The alt is try or die – Structural mechanisms make Global warfare inevitable –
quantitative assessments erase escalating violence against the global South
Gregory ’10 (Derek Gregory , Prof. of Geography @ U. of British Columbia, “War and peace,”
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Vol. 35.2)
Ferguson is not alone in his silence. Many of those who regarded those continuing conflicts as ‘remote’– which excludes
the millions to whom those ‘theatres’ were their homes – elected to repress
role of the global North in provoking violence in the global South.
or to re-script
the
Hence Mueller’s (2009)
claim that, asymptotically, ‘war has almost ceased to exist’, at least between ‘advanced states’ or ‘civilised nations’. Within those
states, amnesia has now become so common that Judt (2008) describes the 20th century as the forgotten century. ‘We have
become stridently insistent that the past has little of interest to teach us’, he writes: ‘Ours, we assert, is a new world; its risks and opportunities
are without precedent.’ He suggests that ‘in our haste to put the twentieth century behind us’, to lock horror and misery in the attic-rooms of
our memories and museums, we – particularly the ‘we’ that is US, so to speak –‘have forgotten the meaning of war’. The
parenthetical qualification is necessary because in Europe the remains of two world wars are etched deep into the cultural landscape. There,
some have seen salvation in Europe’s construction of ‘civilian states’ out of the wreckage –‘the obsolescence of war is not a global
phenomenon’, Sheehan (2007, xvii) argues, ‘but a European one, the product of Europe’s distinctive history in the twentieth century’– while
others have sought redemption in the constitutively (‘core’) European pursuit of Kant’s perpetual peace (Habermas 2006). But the meaning of
modern war is not confined to those terrible global conflicts, and their exorbitation of war as ‘total war’ was not a bolt from the blue. Its arc can
be traced back to the Napoleonic wars. Bell locates the origins of a recognisably modern culture of war in those ferocious campaigns and their
‘extraordinary transformation in the scope and intensity of warfare’ (2007, 7). It was then, too, that the ill-fated French occupation of Egypt in
1798 and the savage expeditions through the Levant inaugurated what Said (1978, 87) saw as a modern, profoundly martial Orientalism that
was to be reactivated time and time again throughout the 20th and on in to our own century. We should remember, too, that Napoleon also
had to contend with insurgencies in Egypt and in Europe; 19th-century war cannot be reduced to a succession of battles between the armies of
contending states, any more than it can in subsequent centuries when, as Judt (2008, 6) reminds, war has ‘frequently meant civil war, often
under the cover of occupation or “liberation”‘. If these observations qualify the usual European genealogy of modern war, then its supersession
cannot be a European conceit either. Across the Atlantic a number of critics worry that, in the wake of 9/11, the
United States
continues to prepare its ‘serial warriors’ for perpetual war (Young 2005; Bromwich 2009). The Pentagon has
divided the globe into six Areas of Responsibility assigned to unified combatant commands – like US Central Command, or CENTCOM (Morrissey
2009) – and relies on a veritable ‘empire of bases’ to project its global military power (Figure 1).2 And yet Englehardt reckons that it’s hard for
Americans to grasp that Washington is a war capital, that the United
States is a war state, that it garrisons much of the planet, and
that the norm for us is to be at war somewhere at any moment. (2009) Writing barely a year after the presidential
election, he ruefully observed that the Bush administration, ‘the most militarily obsessed administration in our history, which year after year
submitted ever more bloated Pentagon budgets to Congress’, was succeeded by the Obama administration that had already submitted an even
larger one. There are of course differences in foreign and military policy between the two, but re-scripting the war in Afghanistan as ‘the good
war’, a war of necessity, even a Just War – the comparison is with Bush’s Iraq war – continues to license the re-scripting of a succession of other
wars from Korea or even the Philippines to Afghanistan (and beyond) as the imaginative scene for a heroic interventionism by the United States
and its allies – Kipling’s ‘savage wars of peace’ now waged by a stern but kindly Uncle Sam (Boot 2003a) – that endorses a hyper-masculinised
military humanism (Barkawi 2004; Douzinas 2003). The shifting fortunes of inter-state wars and ‘small wars’ since the Second World War have
been charted by two major projects: the Correlates of War project (COW) at the University of Michigan, devoted to ‘the systematic
accumulation of scientific knowledge about war’, and the joint attempt to establish an Armed Conflict Dataset by the Uppsala Conflict Data
Program in Sweden (UCDP), the International Peace Research Institute in Norway (PRIO) and the Human Security Report Project in Canada
(HSRP). Any
quantitative assessment is a battlefield of its own, involving disputes over
definitions and data and, for that matter, over the reduction of military violence to abstract metrics
and body counts. This holds for individual wars – think, for example, of the debates that have raged over estimates
of casualties in Iraq – but it applies a fortiori to any global audit. The sources for such studies are inevitably
uneven and, as Østerud (2008a 2008b) reminds us, ‘deaths from decentralized and fragmented violence are
probably underreported relative to deaths from more centralized and concentrated violence’ (2008a, 226). The screening and
sorting devices that have to be used in these approaches only compound the difficulty. Most
quantitative studies count as a ‘war’ only armed conflicts that produce at least 1000 deaths each year,
which is a necessarily arbitrary threshold, and the common restriction to ‘battle-field’ or ‘battle-related deaths’ excludes many
other deaths
attributable to military or paramilitary violence. Although these tallies include civilians caught in the crossfire,
they exclude deaths from war-induced disease or starvation and, crucially, ‘the deliberate killing
of unarmed civilians’. These are serious limitations. To erase the deliberate killing of civilians makes a mockery not only of the ‘new
wars’ I describe below, which are widely supposed to focus on civilians as targets, but also of old ones. What are we then to make of the
bombing offensives of the Second World War? For these reasons, I also rely on a third, more recent project, the Consolidated List of Wars
developed by the Event Data Project on Conflict and Security (EDACS) at the Free University of Berlin. This provides a database that reworks the
thresholds used in other projects and, in distinguishing inter-state wars from other kinds of war, operates with a threshold of 1000 military or
civilian deaths (Chojnacki and Reisch 2008). These body counts (and the temporal limits their exclusions assign to war) are defective in another
sense, however, because casualties
do not end with the end of war. Nixon (2007, 163) writes about the ‘slow violence’ of
landmines, cluster bombs and other unexploded ordnance. It costs roughly 100 more to remove a landmine than to lay it,
and in consequence: One hundred million unexploded mines lie inches beneath our planet’s skin. Each year they kill 24,000 civilians and maim
many times that number. They kill and maim on behalf of wars that ended long ago… In neither space nor time can mine-terrorized
communities draw a clear line separating war from peace. (Nixon 2007, 163) But, as Nixon emphasises, other lines can be drawn. Unexploded
ordnance is heavily concentrated in some of the most impoverished places on the planet, often on the front lines of the Cold War in the South,
including Afghanistan (the most intensively mined state in the world), Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Somalia, Angola, Mozambique, Nicaragua and
El Salvador. Landmines not only kill directly; they also have a dramatic effect on local political ecologies, since they are typically used to interdict
land-based resources and hence food supplies. In Mozambique, for example, large areas of prime agricultural land were sown with mines and
have remained unworkable for years, which has forced farmers to bring marginal lands into cultivation with serious consequences for land
degradation and food security (Unruh et al. 2003). Other slow killers that disproportionately ravage populations in the South also reach back to
attack those in the North. Thus Blackmore (2005, 164–99) writes of ‘war after war’– the long-term effects of exposure to agents like dioxins or
depleted uranium3– and there are countless killings ‘out of place’ by veterans returning to the North from war-zones in the South suffering
from post-traumatic stress disorder. These remarks are not intended to disparage the importance of quantitative studies. While I despair of
those who reduce war to a mortuary balance-sheet – what Arundhati Roy (2002, 111) called the algebra of infinite justice: ‘How many dead
raw numbers do mean something. But there is a world of meaning
hidden behind the tallies and tabulations, which can never summon up the terror, grief and
suffering that constitute the common currency of war (cf. Hyndman 2007). With these qualifications in place, the
Afghans for every dead American?’– the
most relevant findings from these projects for my purposes are these. First, casting a long shadow over everything that follows, more than
two million battle deaths have occurred worldwide in nearly every decade since the end of the Second World
War. It bears repeating that this figure underestimates the carnage because the toll is limited to ‘battle
deaths’.4 Second, the number of inter-state wars has remained low since the end of the Second World War; they declined and
even briefly disappeared in the last decade of the 20th century, but reappeared at the start of the present century.
Third, while intra-state wars were more frequent than inter-state wars throughout the 19th and 20th
centuries (with the exception of the 1930s), by the end of the 20th century their numbers were increasing
dramatically, with a corresponding increase in intra-state wars that drew in other states. The
considerable rise in the number of armed conflicts between the end of the Second World War and the
end of the Cold War was almost entirely accounted for by the increase in conflicts within states in the
global South (Sarkees et al. 2003, 61–4). The number of intra-state wars declined steeply after 1992, though they continued to account
for the vast majority of armed conflicts around the world; some have seen this trend continuing into the 21st century – in 2005 the
Human
Security Report trumpeted ‘a less violent world’– but others have detected a marked increase since the
last fin de siècle (Chojnacki and Reisch 2008; Harbom and Wallensteen 2009).
Even if isolated figures show positive trends- inequality gap is reaching critical mass
and jacks living standards in ways mis-understood in their evidence
Economist ’11 (“The rich and the rest- What to do (and not do) about inequality”,
http://www.economist.com/node/17959590, January 20, 2011)
APART from being famous and influential, Hu Jintao, David Cameron, Warren Buffett and Dominique Strauss-Kahn do not obviously
have a lot in common. So it tells
you something about the breadth of global concerns about inequality that
China's president, Britain's prime minister, America's second-richest man and the head of the
International Monetary Fund have all worried, loudly and publicly, about the dangers of a rising gap
between the rich and the rest. Mr Hu puts the reduction of income disparities, particularly between China's urban elites and its
rural poor, at the centre of his pledge to create a “harmonious society”. Mr Cameron has said that more unequal societies
do worse “ according to almost every quality-of-life indicator ”. Mr Buffett has become a crusader for a higher
inheritance tax, arguing that America risks an entrenched plutocracy without it. And Mr Strauss-Kahn argues for a new global
growth model, claiming that gaping income gaps threaten social and economic stability . Many others seem
to share their concerns. A new survey by the World Economic Forum, whose annual gathering of bigwigs in Davos begins on
January 26th, says its members see widening economic disparities as one of the two main global risks
over the next decade
(alongside failings in global governance). The debate about inequality is an old one. But in the wake of a
financial crisis that is widely blamed on Wall Street fat cats, from which the richest have rebounded fastest, and ahead of public-spending cuts
that will hit the poor hardest, its tone has changed. For
much of the past two decades the prevailing view among the
world's policy elite—call it the Davos consensus—was that inequality itself was less important than ensuring
that those at the bottom were becoming better-off. Tony Blair, a Labour predecessor of Mr Cameron's, embodied that
attitude. His New Labour party was famously said to be “intensely relaxed” about the millions earned by David Beckham (a footballer) provided
Now the focus is on inequality itself , and its supposedly pernicious consequences. One
strand of argument, epitomised by “The Spirit Level”, a book that caused a stir in Britain, suggests that countries with greater
disparities of income fare worse on all manner of social indicators , from higher murder rates to
that child poverty fell.
lower life expectancy . A second thread revisits the macroeconomic consequences of income
disparities. Several prominent economists now reckon that inequality was a root cause of the
financial crisis: politicians tried to counter the growing gap between rich and poor by encouraging poorer folk to take on more credit (see
article). A third argument is that inequality perverts politics, with Wall Street's influence in Washington often
cited as exhibit A of the unhealthy clout of a plutocratic elite. If these arguments are right, there might
be a case for some fairly radical responses , especially a greater focus on redistribution. In fact, much of the
recent hand-wringing about widening inequality is based on sloppy thinking. The old Davos consensus of boosting growth and combating
poverty is still a better guide to good policy. Rather than a sweeping assault on inequality itself, policymakers would do better to take on the
market distortions that often lie behind the most galling income gaps, and which also impede economic growth. Begin with the facts about
inequality. Globally, the gap between the rich and the poor has actually been narrowing, as poorer countries are growing faster. Nor is there a
monolithic trend within countries (see article). In Latin America, long home to the world's most unequal societies, many countries—including
the biggest, Brazil—have become a bit more equal, as governments have boosted the incomes of the poor with fast growth and an overhaul of
public spending to improve the social safety-net (but not by raising tax rates for the rich). The gap between rich and poor has risen in other
emerging economies (notably China and India) as well as in many rich countries (especially America, but also in places with a reputation for
being more egalitarian, such as Germany). But the reasons for this differ. In China inequality has a lot to do with the hukou system of residency
permits, which limits internal migration to the towns; by some measures inequality has peaked as rural labour becomes more scarce. In
America income inequality began to widen in the 1980s largely because the poor fell behind those in the middle. More recently, the shift has
been overwhelmingly due to a rise in the share of income going to the very top—the highest 1% of earners and above—particularly those
working in the financial sector. Many Americans are seeing their living standards stagnate, but the gap between most of them has not changed
all that much. The links between inequality and the ills attributed to it are often weak. For instance, some of the findings in “The Spirit Level”
were distorted by outliers: strip out America's high murder rate (which many would blame on guns, not inequality) or Japan's longevity (diet,
not equality), and flatter societies no longer look so much healthier. As for the mooted link to the financial crisis, the timing is dodgy: America's
poor fell behind in the 1980s, the credit bubble took off two decades later. Message to Davos These nuances suggest that rather than fretting
about inequality itself, policymakers need to differentiate between its causes and focus on ways to increase social mobility. A
global
market offers far bigger returns to those at the top of their game, be they authors, lawyers or fund
managers. Modern technology favours the skilled. These economic changes are themselves often
reinforced by social ones: educated men now tend to marry educated women. The result of all this, as
our special report this week shows, is the rise of a global elite. At heart, this is a meritocratic process; but not always. Rules and
institutions are often rigged in ways that limit competition and favour insiders at the expense both of
growth and equality . The rules can be blatantly unfair: witness China's limits to migration, which keep the poor in the countryside. Or
they can involve more subtle distortions: look at the way that powerful teachers' unions have stopped poorer Americans getting a good
education, or the implicit “too big to fail” system that encouraged bankers to be reckless and left the rest with the tab. These are very different
problems, but they all lead to wider inequality, fewer rungs in the ladder and lower growth.
2NC – AT: Human Nature
Human nature can be changed – Its not set in advance and pedagogical transformation
in this debate can change economic preference formation
Schor ‘10
(Julie, Prof. of Economics @ Boston College, Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth, pgs. 11-12)
And we don't have to. What's odd about the narrowness of the national economic conversation is that it leaves out
theoretical advances in economics and related fields that have begun to change our basic understandings of
what motivates and enriches people. The policy conversation hasn't caught up to what's happening at the
fore- front of the discipline.
One of the hallmarks of the standard economic model, which hails from the nineteenth century, is that
people are considered relatively unchanging. Basic
preferences, likes and dislikes, are assumed to be stable, and don't
adjust as a result of the choices people make or the circumstances in which they find themselves. People
alter their behavior in
response to changes in prices and incomes, to be sure, and sometimes rapidly. But there are no feedback loops from
today's choices to tomorrow's desires. This accords with an old formulation of human nature as fixed, and this view still dominates the policy
conversation. However, there's
a growing body of research that attests to human adaptability. Newer thinking
in behavioral economics, cultural evolution, and social networking that has developed as a result of interdisciplinary work in
psychology, biology, and sociology yields a view of humans as far more malleable. It's the economic analogue to recent
findings in neuroscience that the brain is more plastic than previously understood , or in biology that human
evolution is happening on a time scale more compressed than scientists originally thought. As economic actors, we can change,
too. This has profound implications for our ability to shift from one way of living to another, and to be better
off in the process. It's an important part of why we can both reduce ecological impact and improve well- being. As we transform our
lifestyles, we transform ourselves. Patterns of consuming, earning, or interacting that may seem unrealistic or
even negative before starting down this road become feasible and appealing. Moreover, when big changes are on the table,
the narrow trade-offs of the past can be superseded. If we can question consumerism, we're no longer forced to make a
mandatory choice between well-being and environment. If we can admit that full-time jobs need not require so many hours, it'll be possible to
slow down ecological degradation, address unemployment, and make time for family and community. If we can think about knowledge
differently, we can expand social wealth far more rapidly.
usual" thinking
Stepping outside the "there is no alternative to business-as-
that has been a straitjacket for years
puts creative options into play . And it opens the doors to double and
triple dividends: changes that yield benefits on more than one front. Some of the most important economic research in recent years shows that
a single intervention-a community reclamation of a brownfield or planting on degraded agriculture land-can solve three problems. It
regenerates an ecosystem, provides income for the restorers, and empowers people as civic actors. In dire straits on the economic and
ecological fronts, we have little choice but to find a way forward that addresses both. That’s what plenitude offers.
2NC – AT: Economy Models Good
The models used for their projections are the same ones that failed to predict the
financial crisis. Their assumptions that everyone behaves rationally and identically
make economic collapse inevitable.
Stiglitz August 19 2010 Joseph Stiglitz recipient of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in economics, is
University Professor at Columbia University “Needed: a new economic paradigm” Financial Times
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d5108f90-abc2-11df-9f02-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1BS29qLRO
The blame game continues over who is responsible for the worst recession since the Great Depression – the financiers who did such a bad job
of managing risk or the regulators who failed to stop them. But the economics profession bears more than a little culpability. It provided
the models that
gave comfort to regulators that markets could be self-regulated; that they were efficient
and self-correcting. The efficient markets hypothesis – the notion that market prices fully revealed all the relevant information – ruled
the day. Today, not only is our economy in a shambles but so too is the economic paradigm that
predominated in the years before the crisis – or at least it should be. It is hard for non-economists to understand how peculiar
the predominant macroeconomic models were. Many assumed demand had to equal supply – and that meant there could be no
unemployment. (Right now a lot of people are just enjoying an extra dose of leisure; why they are unhappy is a matter for psychiatry, not
economics.) Many
used “representative agent models” – all individuals were assumed to be identical, and this
meant there could be no meaningful financial markets (who would be lending money to whom?). Information asymmetries, the
cornerstone of modern economics, also had no place: they could arise only if individuals suffered from acute schizophrenia, an assumption
incompatible with another of the favoured assumptions, full rationality. Bad models lead to bad policy: central banks, for
instance, focused on the small economic inefficiencies arising from inflation, to the exclusion of the far, far greater inefficiencies arising from
dysfunctional financial markets and asset price bubbles. After all, their
models said that financial markets were always
efficient. Remarkably, standard macroeconomic models did not even incorporate adequate analyses of banks. No wonder former Federal
Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, in his famous mea culpa, could express his surprise that banks did not do a better job at risk management.
The real surprise was his surprise: even a cursory look at the perverse incentives confronting banks and their managers would have predicted
short-sighted behaviour with excessive risk-taking. The standard models should be graded on their predictive ability –
and especially their ability to predict in circumstances that matter. Increasing the accuracy of forecast in normal times (knowing whether the
economy will grow at 2.4 per cent or 2.5 per cent) is far less important than knowing the risk of a major recession. In this the
models
failed miserably, and the predictions of policymakers based on them have, by now, totally undermined
their credibility. Policymakers did not see the crisis coming, said its effects were contained after the bubble burst, and thought the
consequences would be far more short-lived and less severe than they have been. Fortunately, while much of the mainstream focused on these
flawed models, numerous researchers were engaged in developing alternative approaches. Economic theory had already shown that many of
the central conclusions of the standard model were not robust – that is, small changes in assumptions led to large changes in conclusions. Even
small information asymmetries, or imperfections in risk markets, meant that markets were not efficient. Celebrated results, such as Adam
Smith’s invisible hand, did not hold; the
invisible hand was invisible because it was not there. Few today
would argue that bank managers, in their pursuit of their self-interest, had promoted the well-being of
the global economy. Monetary policy affects the economy through the availability of credit – and the terms on which it is made
available, especially to small- and medium-sized enterprises. Understanding this requires us to analyse banks and their interaction with the
shadow banking sector. The spread between the Treasury bill rate and lending rates can change markedly. With a few exceptions, most central
banks paid little attention to systemic risk and the risks posed by credit interlinkages. Years before the crisis, a few researchers focused on
these issues, including the possibility of the bankruptcy cascades that were to play out in such an important way in the crisis. This is an example
of the importance of modelling carefully complex interactions among economic agents (households, companies, banks) – interactions that
cannot be studied in models in which everyone is assumed to be the same. Even the sacrosanct assumption of rationality has been attacked:
there are systemic deviations from rationality and consequences for macroeconomic behaviour that need to be explored. Changing paradigms
is not easy. Too many
have invested too much in the wrong models. Like the Ptolemaic attempts to
preserve earth-centric views of the universe, there will be heroic efforts to add complexities and refinements to the
standard paradigm. The resulting models will be an improvement and policies based on them may do better, but they too are likely to fail.
Nothing less than a paradigm shift will do.
The opportunity cost model is oversimplifying by reducing the indeterminacy of
“strategic calculations” to a normative question of what rational states SHOULD do.
Patrick McDonald, and Kevin Sweeney, Assistant Professor of Government 2 UT Austin and works for
the DOD, 2007, “The Achilles’ Heel of the Liberal IR Theory? Globalization and Conflict in the Pre-World
War I Era”, World Politics 59.3 (2007) 370-403 P.MUSE
A vast quantity of empirical evidence spanning a variety of research designs and estimating techniques has led many scholars to conclude that
international commerce reduces military conflict between states.8 A
number of studies rely on what is now labeled the
opportunity cost model. Large levels of international trade between states make conflict less likely by raising the economic costs of
war. By closing trade routes through sanctions, embargoes, or threats of piracy and sabotage, the opportunity costs of military conflict increase
as greater potential trade may be lost. Consequently, any state that shares large levels of bilateral trade with another state should be hesitant
to use military force to resolve any political conflict between them. Despite this empirical progress, the
widespread integration of
bargaining models of war in security studies has raised questions concerning the mechanisms whereby
commerce leads to peace. Citing the opportunity cost model’s neglect of strategic interaction
between states, bargaining approaches highlight the indeterminacy of that framework.9 While the
threat of high economic costs may deter a state from initiating military conflict, its adversary may
exploit this reluctance by displaying a greater willingness to escalate the conflict with military
force. These approaches argue instead that the links between trade and conflict work through the former’s ability to expand the range of
signals that states can use to reveal private information about resolve and achieve a negotiated bargain short of war in a crisis.10
Econmic Growth and Market stability are not objective phenomena but instead the
knowledge of growth is co-productive with the power of the state.
Lemke 1 (Thomas, PhD in political science @ Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt,
“The Birth of Bio-politics” – Michel Foucault’s Lecture at the College de France on Neo-Liberal
Governmentality”, Economy and Society Vol. 30 No. 2)
Now, Foucault maintains that the theoretical basis for the Ordo-liberals' conviction was their radical anti-naturalistic conception of the market
does not amount to a natural economic
reality, with intrinsic laws which the art of government must bear in mind and respect; instead, the market can only be
constituted and kept alive by dint of political interventions. In this view, like the market, competition, too,
is not a natural fact always already part and parcel of the economic domain. Instead, this fundamental
economic mechanism can only function if support is century, in the Ordo-liberal view, the market mechanism
and the impact of competition can only arise if they are produced by the practice of government. The
Ordo-liberals believe that the state and the market economy are not juxtaposed to each other but that the one mutually
presumes the existence of the other (Lect. Feb. 7, 1979). forthcoming to bolster a series of conditions, and adherence to the latter
and of the principle of competition. In the Ordo-liberal scheme, the market
must consistently be guaranteed by legal measures. Pure competition is therefore neither something that exists "naturally", nor is it something
ever completely attained, but provides the justifications for a projected target which necessitated incessant and active politics. In such an
approach there is no room for a conception that distinguishes between a limited domain of liberty and the legitimate domain of government
intervention. Unlike this negative conception of the state typical of liberal theory in the 18th and 19th
2NC – AT: Timeframe
Short-termism link turns effective policy making – becomes self-defeating and crowds
out true strategic thinking
Pinar Bilgin 4 IR @ Bilikent AND Adam David MORTON Senior Lecturer and Fellow of the Centre for the
Study of Social and Global Justice IR @ Nottingham“From ‘Rogue’ to ‘Failed’ States? The Fallacy of Shorttermism” Politics 24 (3) p. Wiley Interscience
Calls for alternative approaches to the phenomenon of state failure are often met with the criticism that such
alternatives could only work in the long term whereas 'something' needs to be done here and now.
Whilst recognising the need for immediate action, it
is the role of the political scientist to point to the fallacy of
'short-termism' in the conduct of current policy. Short-termism is defined by Ken Booth (1999, p. 4) as 'approaching security issues
within the time frame of the next election, not the next generation'. Viewed as such, short-termism is the enemy of true
strategic thinking. The latter requires policymakers to rethink their long-term goals and take small
steps towards achieving them. It also requires heeding against taking steps that might eventually become selfdefeating. The United States has presently fought three wars against two of its Cold War allies in the post-Cold War era, namely,
the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Both were supported in
an attempt to preserve the delicate
balance between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War policy of supporting client regimes has
eventually backfired in that US policymakers now have to face the instability they have caused. Hence the need
for a comprehensive understanding of state failure and the role Western states have played in failing
them through varied forms of intervention. Although some commentators may judge that the road to the existing situation is paved
with good intentions, a truly strategic approach to the problem of international terrorism requires a more sensitive
consideration of the medium-to-long-term implications of state building in different parts of the world whilst also
addressing the root causes of the problem of state 'failure'. Developing this line of argument further, reflection on different socially relevant
meanings of 'state failure' in relation to different time increments shaping policymaking might convey alternative considerations. In line with
John Ruggie (1998, pp. 167–170), divergent issues might then come to the fore when viewed through the different lenses of particular time
increments. Firstly, viewed through the lenses of an incremental time frame, more immediate concerns to policymakers
usually become apparent when linked to precocious assumptions about terrorist networks, banditry and the breakdown of social order within
failed states. Hence relevant players and events are readily identified (al-Qa'eda), their attributes assessed (axis of evil, 'strong'/'weak' states)
and judgements made about their long-term significance (war on terrorism). The
key analytical problem for policymaking in this
narrow and blinkered domain is the one of choice given the constraints of time and energy devoted to a particular decision. These
factors lead policymakers to bring conceptual baggage to bear on an issue that simplifies but also distorts
information. Taking a second temporal form, that of a conjunctural time frame, policy responses are subject to more
fundamental epistemological concerns. Factors assumed to be constant within an incremental time frame are more variable and it is more
difficult to produce an intended effect on ongoing processes than it is on actors and discrete events. For instance, how long should the 'war on
terror' be waged for? Areas of policy in this realm can therefore begin to become more concerned with the underlying forces that shape
current trajectories.
Shifting attention to a third temporal form draws attention to still different
dimensions. Within an epochal time frame an agenda still in the making appears that requires a shift in decision-making, away from a
conventional problem-solving mode 'wherein doing nothing is favoured on burden-of-proof grounds', towards a risk-averting mode,
characterised by prudent contingency measures. To conclude, in relation to 'failed states', the latter time frame entails reflecting on
the very structural conditions shaping the problems of 'failure' raised throughout the present discussion, which will demand lasting and
delicate attention from practitioners across the academy and policymaking communities alike.
***AFF***
2AC – Energy Policy Making Good
Debate over technical energy policy improves decision-making and advocacy
Hager ’92 (professor of political science – Bryn Mawr College, ‘92 (Carol J., “Democratizing Technology: Citizen & State in West German
Energy Politics, 1974-1990” Polity, Vol. 25, No. 1, p. 45-70)
What is the role of the citizen in the modern technological state? As political decisions increasingly involve complex technological choices, does
a citizen's ability to participate in decision making diminish? These questions, long a part of theoretical discourse, gained new salience with the
rise of grassroots environmental protest in advanced industrial states. In West Germany, where a strong environmental movement arose in the
1970s, protest has centered as much on questions of democracy as it has on public policy. Grassroots groups challenged
not only
the construction of large technological projects, especially power plants, but also the legitimacy of the bureaucratic
institutions which produced those projects. Policy studies generally ignore the legitimation aspects of public policy making.2 A
discussion of both dimensions, however, is crucial for understanding the significance of grassroots protest for West German political
development in the technological age and for assessing the likely direction of citizen politics in united Germany. In the field of energy politics,
West German citizen initiative groups tried to politicize and ultimately to democratize policy making.3 The
technicality of the issue was not a barrier to their participation. On the contrary, grassroots groups proved to be
able participants in technical energy debate, often proposing innovative solutions to technological problems. Ultimately,
however, they wanted not to become an elite of "counterexperts," but to create a political discourse between policy makers and citizens
through which the goals
of energy policy could be recast and its legitimacy restored. Only a deliberative, expressly democratic
groups developed new,
grassroots democratic forms of decision making within their own organizations, which they then tried to transfer
to the political system at large. The legacy of grassroots energy protest in West Germany is twofold. First, it produced major
substantive changes in public policy. Informed citizen pressure was largely responsible for the introduction of
new plant and pollution control technologies. Second, grassroots protest undermined the legitimacy of
bureaucratic experts. Yet, an acceptable forum for a broadened political discussion of energy issues has not been found; the energy
form of policy making, they argued, could enjoy the support of the populace. To this end, protest
debate has taken place largely outside the established political institutions. Thus, the legitimation issue remains unresolved. It is likely to
reemerge as Germany deals with the problems of the former German Democratic Republic. Nevertheless, an
evolving ideology of
citizen participationa vision of "technological democracy"-is an important outcome of grassroots
action.
Discussion of energy policymaking is required to pressure and alter decisions of policymakers
Kuzemko ’12 [Caroline Kuzemko, CSGR University of Warwick, Security, the State and Political Agency: Putting ‘Politics’ back into UK
Energy, http://www.psa.ac.uk/journals/pdf/5/2012/381_61.pdf]
This observation brings us on to the way in which debates and narratives within political circles, particularly within parliament and amongst
policymakers, started to shift. A plethora of new papers, debates and policy documents on energy emerged over this time, despite the round of
energy reviews and the new White Paper that had been produced immediately prior to this period (see in particular Havard 2004; Ofgem 2004;
DTI 2005a, 2005b, 2006a, 2006b and 2006c; JESS 2006). The energy sector became increasingly referenced in these proliferating policy and
other government documents in terms of potential supply insecurity (FCO 2004; Straw in Plesch et al 2004). Echoing media, academic and
think-tank narratives, direct links can be found between fears of supply insecurity and Russia (FAC 2008; see also House of Commons 2007;
Ofgem 2009: 1). In particular, in 2007 the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) produced a report entitled ‘Global Security: Russia’ (FAC 2008). This
is where we see how assumptions about resource nationalism and energy ‘politicisation’ as wrong affect perceptions (Straw in Plesch et al
2004; DTI 2007: 19). The FAC report focuses on certain political frameworks in non-OECD producer countries, particularly Russia, which may not
allow new reserves to be developed properly making them ‘unstable’ suppliers (Havard 2004; FCO 2004). This in turn had negative implications
for energy prices (Straw in Plesch et al 2004; DTI 2007: 19). What was
also evident over this time, however, was the
rising amount of reports produced by political institutions outside of those directly responsible for
policymaking, the Energy Directorate of the DTI and the independent regulator, Ofgem. The Foreign Office, House of Commons
committees and parliamentary offices, such as that of Science and Technology, all started to produce reports on energy focused on energy
security (FCO 2004; POST 2004; Fox 2006; House of Lords 2006; House of Commons 2007; FAC 2007). Energy security was added, by the UK, to
formal forums for international negotiation. In 2005, during the October EU Summit at Hampton Court, the issue of ‘energy security’ was added
to the agenda (Offerdahl 2007). In a paper prepared for conference delegates energy is characterised as a sector which was by then becoming
an issue of national security (Helm 2005b: 2). Increasing dependence on Russia for supplies of, particularly gas, is seen as a source of threat to
the security of EU, and by extension UK, energy supply. Likewise, energy security was made top of the agenda in the G8 Summit of 2006 (G8
2006). In 2006 Prime Minister Tony Blair used his annual Lord Mayor’s speech to highlight energy security concerns (DTI 2006c: 4). Growing
political interest in energy, outside of those institutions formally responsible for energy policymaking, indicates the extent to which energy was
becoming subject, once more, to political debate and deliberation. What is also interesting to note at this time is the degree to which the
deliberation of energy becomes formalised through various new institutions. In July 2004, in the immediate aftermath of the Yukos affair, the
new Energy Act had conferred on the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry a fixed duty to report annually on energy security matters to
Parliament (DTI 2005a). Thus a specific political process was put in place to revisit energy security at least annually. Changes related to the need
to deliberate more formally had also started to take place within the DTI and FCO in that new resources were allocated to energy analysis
(Interview 5). The 2007 White Paper acknowledged that energy had not up until the mid 2000s existed as a discrete area of foreign policy.
Again, as such, it had less dedicated capacity assigned to it. The paper announced that, for the first time, the UK would have ...an integrated
international energy strategy which describes the action we are taking to help deliver secure energy supplies and tackle climate change. (DTI
2007: 8) Concurrent with the degree
to which energy was re-entering elite political debates at both the
national and international levels, which in itself indicates a degree of deliberative repoliticisation ,
there were a number of policy alterations made relating to changing interpretations of energy and
international markets. It could be argued that energy security had, in 2003, been assumed to exist, especially given the degree to which
energy governance was still understood to be heading in a promarket direction (Thomas 2006: 583; Jegen 2009: 1; Lesage et al 2010: 6; EC
2011: 14). For example the energy supply objective had been worded such that the UK should continue to “maintain the reliability of…
supplies” (DTI 2003: 11). Energy security, although still an objective, had been an assumed outcome of marketisation which explains why
competitive markets had been the principal objective of energy policy at that time (cf. Helm 2005). By contrast, however, by 2007 energy
security is understood to be something that needs to be established, as one of the ‘immense’ challenges facing the UK as a nation, and
furthermore, to require further political action to achieve (DTI 2006c: Introduction and 4). This
refocus of objectives onto
achieving energy security, over time, added to the political pressures being brought to bear on energy
policymakers given the degree to which supplies continued to be considered ‘insecure’ (Kuzemko 2012b: ). These changes in policy
objectives, political institutions, and the addition of political capacity to deliberate energy are understood have taken place partly in response
to political pressures to change emanating from outside energy policy circles, i.e. the DTI and Ofgem. Ofgem officials report a higher degree of
‘outside’ political interference in their practices (Interview 15), and it has been widely claimed that both the 2006 Energy Review and 2007
White Paper were researched and compiled specifically because the DTI and Ofgem understood the political need to respond to the crisis
(CEPMLP 2006; House of Commons 2007a). As these processes of deliberation intensified it started also to become clear that the state had lost
considerable capacity to understand the complexities of energy. Government was considered to be more responsible, given that the narrative
was of national energy supply security, but lacking in information and knowledge both about what was happening and what to do about it.
Ultimately this resulted in the formation of a new government institution, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), with specific
mandates to deliver on energy and climate security.
2AC – Economy Solutions Key
Economic solutions are the only way to prevent extinction from warming- incentives and markets can
be effective
Wagner ‘11 Gernot, “But Will the Planet Notice? How Smart Economics Can Save the World.” Hill and Wang Press, p. 11-12
The fundamental forces guiding the behavior of billions are much larger than any one of us. It’s about
changing our system, creating a new business as usual. And to do that we need to think about what makes
our system run. In the end, it comes down to markets, and the rules of the game that govern what we
chase and how we chase it. Scientists can tell us how bad it will get. Activists can make us pay attention to the ensuing instabilities
and make politicians take note. When the task comes to formulating policy, only economists can help guide us
out of this morass and save the planet. In an earlier time with simpler problems, environmentalists
took direct action against the market’s brutal forces by erecting roadblocks or chaining themselves to
trees. That works if the opposing force is a lumberjack with a chain saw. It might even work for an entire industry when the task is to ban a
particular chemical or scrub a pollutant out of smokestacks. But that model breaks down when the opposing force is ourselves: each and every
one of us demanding that the globalized market provide us with cheaper and better food, clothes, and vacations. There
is no blocking
the full, collective desires of the billions who are now part of the market economy and the billions
more who want to—and ought to—be part of it. The only solution is to guide all-powerful market
forces in the right direction and create incentives for each of us to make choices that work for all of
us. The guideposts we have today for market forces evolved helter-skelter from a historical process that
gave almost no weight to the survival of the planet, largely because the survival of the planet was not at
stake. Now it is. Since we cant live without market forces, we need to guide them to help us keep the
human adventure going in workable ways, rather than continue on the present path right off the edge
of a cliff.
2AC – Clean Tech Good
Capitalism is being transformed by new clean tech- this avoids their impacts
Chichilnisky ’10 (Professor Graciela Chichilnisky was the architect of the Carbon Market, and lead author
on the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change which won the 2007 Nobel Prize. She is UNESCO
professor of mathematics and economics, director of Columbia Consortium for Risk Management and
professor of economics statistics at Columbia University, NY, 10 (“will 20th century capitalism go
green?”, The Ecologist, 9/21/10,
Capitalism is transforming itself. Having caused the worst environmental excesses of the 20th century – overconsumption of fossil fuels and
forests in rich nations and the attendant denuding of poor nations’ resources needed for survival– capitalism is now changing its stripes.
New
global scarcities have emerged, and with them new limits on the use of critical natural resources such as air, water and energy that are key to
human survival. The
limits on resources are in turn creating new markets. These new markets – for clean air,
water, fossil and clean fuels - are transforming capitalism . An example is the US Clean Air Act, which put limits on the
emission of sulphur dioxide by power plants, from which emerged a market that trades rights to emit SO2 at the Chicago Board of Trade. The
SO2 market successfully and quickly eradicated acid rain in the US. At the global level a similar market mechanism emerged in 1997, when the
Kyoto Protocol laid limits on carbon emissions by rich nations. From these limits a carbon market was created that became international law in
2005, is now trading $165 billion/year at the EU Emissions Trading System, and is expected to become the largest commodity market in the
world. The carbon market privatises the atmosphere of the planet, but favours the poor nations who have more rights to emit; as a result $50
billion has so far been transferred from rich to poor nations for productive projects that have allowed their economies to reduce carbon and
leapfrog into clean development strategies, avoiding the heavy industrialization followed by rich nations. The USA being left behind
The transformation is causing a clash between the old and the new. There is a heated political debate about whether to continue the Kyoto
carbon limits after 2012. The nation that led capitalism during the last century is the most resistant to change: the US is the only advanced
nation that has accepted no limits on carbon emissions, and the largest emitter among them. Last week the US steelworkers union sued the
Chinese government at the World Trade Organisation, for offering favorable credit and subsidizing land used for its clean technology industry,
and President Obama plans to follow suit at the national level. In contrast, China is an enthusiastic supporter of the Kyoto Protocol and has
become the leading exporter of clean energy equipment, having created one million jobs in clean energy manufacturing. The US is the single
advanced nation that has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol and does not trade in its carbon market. It desperately needs to create jobs as it has
9.6 per cent unemployment, the highest unemployment since the Great Depression - a major challenge to the Democratic administration in the
November 2010 elections. One million jobs would be very valuable in the US right now, whilst 14.6 million people are unemployed and 170,000
families are living in homeless shelters. The US has every reason to emulate China. But instead of investing in clean tech jobs, the US invested
hundreds of billions of taxpayers funds in the past three years to provide credit and bail out venerable old financial institutions - the heroes of
last century’s capitalism - who have created the US’s main exports, financial services and products. These are the same financial institutions
that caused the worst financial crisis of our times. China, India and Brazil go renewable As the OECD nations slowly emerge from the worst
financial crisis in 80 years, a completely different transformation is taking place in the rich nations and in the less industrialised world. Less
industrialised nations for the first time lead world economic growth. China received tens of billions from the Kyoto Protocol Clean Developing
Mechanism for clean energy infrastructure, and is emerging as the world’s leading exporter in clean energy equipment – exporting wind
turbines and solar energy equipment to Europe and the US. India is quickly growing its clean technology industry based on its engineering
capabilities, and is the largest exporter of software in the world, topping $60 billion per year in exports from Bangalore. Brazil and other large
developing nations are quickly stepping up to the challenge using the Clean Development Mechanism and leapfrogging over heavy
industrialisation to a clean future while they combat their citizens’ hunger and deprivation. Among advanced nations, the US is alone in
resisting change and denying the need for carbon limits. US Senators face more acceptance from the power plant industry for creating a US
carbon market than they do from their constituents at home, who will vote in the November 2010 elections and will decide the nations’
political future for the next few years. The US public still regards clean technology as a cost and not a profit, asking how much the
transformation will ‘cost’. Instead, the Chinese, the Indians, and the Brazilians see investment in clean tech as an opportunity for profits and
growth. US reaction to China’s export leadership is to sue the Chinese, rather than to compete and take over the reins in an area where, due to
its own technological prowess, the US should be a natural leader. Economics of restraint and preservation But the world is moving on. Markets
for biodiversity and for watersheds and forests will emerge in the near future. The United Nations, which created the carbon market as part of
the Kyoto Protocol, is working on new global environmental markets. We need to create these market solutions before it is too late, before we
destroy the remnants of the planet’s biodiversity in seas and soils. We are in the midst of the 6th largest extinction event in the history of the
plant and the first caused by human action.
The new markets that arise from ecological constraints will dominate
the 21st century economy, and so will markets for knowledge. The carbon market will become the largest commodity market in the
world because carbon is emitted in producing energy, energy is the mother of all markets, and 89 per cent of the energy produced
in the planet comes from fossil fuels. Energy creates today the largest source of carbon emissions in the
world – about 41 per cent. The transformation of capitalism is unstoppable because we need limits on resources
for humans to survive. And from these limits, new markets will emerge as we trade the rights to use resources.
These new markets are quite different from what we had until now and will change capitalism. They
involve ‘non rival’ goods, since carbon in the atmosphere, biodiversity in the planet and even global knowledge are non–rival goods, they are
the same for all and can be shared without losing them. No more private goods This is very different from the private goods that characterised
capitalism until now, where ‘whatever you have, I cannot have’. Markets for private goods divide us and create competition because goods are
rival in consumption - ‘what I consume you cannot consume’. The new markets involve non–rival goods that are the same for all. This is for
physical reasons. Since CO2 distributes uniformly all over the planet and we all face the same atmospheric carbon concentration, we must all
cooperate to find a global solution, rich and poor, young and old, black or white .
The markets of the future are here today.
They are starting to cause a great and most welcome transformation for capitalism. The question now
is how long the transformation will take, and whether we will experience ecological and climate disasters.
Human civilisation as we know it may not be able to survive during the transition. Time is not on our side. The longer it takes, the greater the
risk we face.
2AC – Jevons Paradox
Rebound effect exaggerated
Niemeyer, science writer for Ars Technica, 1-23-13
(Kyle, He has B.S. and M.S. degrees in Aerospace Engineering from Case Western Reserve University,
and is currently a Ph.D. candidate focusing on combustion modeling, “How badly does the rebound
effect undercut energy efficiency?,” http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/01/how-badly-does-therebound-effect-undercut-energy-efficiency/, accessed 1-30-13, CMM)
Give everyone fuel-efficient cars and we’ll use less fuel, right? According to some economists—and opponents of mandated improvements in
energy efficiency,
suggesting they all can actually lead to greater energy use through a rebound effect. However, a group of
economists and others, led by Kenneth Gillingham of Yale University, argue in a new Nature commentary that
the rebound effect is exaggerated.¶ According to their article, the effect is real but small: 5 to 30 percent of
energy savings may be lost due to greater use. At most, this could reach a little over half of intended savings lost on large scales—but energy
is still saved overall. These numbers are supported by many (“vast” is the word used by the authors) academic
studies and simulations.¶ To be fair, the rebound effect is not simple. It actually comes about via four factors that interact and combine
energy efficiency—we'll squander some of the savings by driving more. That argument goes for other forms of
in a complex manner. The first is the “direct” effect, where a drop in the cost of using some energy-consuming device (like a car or washing
machine) results in slightly increased use. For cars, various studies show that this reduces savings in energy from the improved efficiency by 5 to
23 percent initially. After everyone becomes accustomed to the lower fuel costs, this could eventually rise to 30 percent.¶ This number is
smaller for other devices like home appliances—around 10 percent. How much more often would you use your washing machine if it was more
efficient? Would you even notice? The authors argue that these numbers are probably overestimates. People don’t use efficiency directly to
gauge how much energy to use, but rather price. That brings the numbers down to somewhere between 5 and 10 percent.
2AC – Method Focus
Method focus is flawed and causes paradigm wars
Jackson, associate professor of IR – School of International Service @ American University, ‘11
(Patrick Thadeus, The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations, p. 57-59)
Perhaps the
greatest irony of this instrumental, decontextualized importation of “falsification” and its critics into IR
is the way that an entire line of thought that privileged disconfirmation and refutation—no matter how complicated that
disconfirmation and refutation was in practice—has been transformed into a license to worry endlessly about
foundational assumptions. At the very beginning of the effort to bring terms such as “paradigm” to bear
on the study of politics, Albert O. Hirschman (1970b, 338) noted this very danger, suggesting that without “a little
more ‘reverence for life’ and a little less straightjacketing of the future,” the focus on producing internally
consistent packages of assumptions instead of actually examining complex empirical situations would
result in scholarly paralysis. Here as elsewhere, Hirschman appears to have been quite prescient, inasmuch as the major effect of
paradigm and research programme language in IR seems to have been a series of debates and discussions about whether the fundamentals of a
given school of thought were sufficiently “scientific” in their construction. Thus we have debates about how to evaluate scientific progress, and
attempts to propose one or another set
of research design principles as uniquely scientific, and inventive,
the purpose of placing them
on a firmer scientific footing by making sure that they have all of the required elements of a basically Lakatosian19 model of
science (James 2002, 67, 98–103). The bet with all of this scholarly activity seems to be that if we can just get the fundamentals
right, then scientific progress will inevitably ensue . . . even though this is the precise opposite of what Popper and Kuhn and
Lakatos argued! In fact, all of this obsessive interest in foundations and starting-points is, in form if not in
content, a lot closer to logical positivism than it is to the concerns of the falsificationist philosophers, despite the prominence of
“reconstructions” of IR schools, such as Patrick James’ “elaborated structural realism,” supposedly for
language about “hypothesis testing” and the concern to formulate testable hypotheses among IR scholars engaged in these endeavors. That,
above all, is why I
have labeled this methodology of scholarship neopositivist. While it takes much of its self
justification as a science from criticisms of logical positivism, in overall sensibility it still operates in a visibly positivist
way, attempting to construct knowledge from the ground up by getting its foundations in logical order
before concentrating on how claims encounter the world in terms of their theoretical implications. This is by no means to say that
neopositivism is not interested in hypothesis testing; on the contrary, neopositivists are extremely concerned with testing
hypotheses, but only after the fundamentals have been soundly established. Certainty, not conjectural provisionality,
seems to be the goal—a goal that, ironically, Popper and Kuhn and Lakatos would all reject.
2AC – World Improving
Violence has massively decreased because of econ growth/modernization/interdependence- best
data proves
Gat ‘13 (AZAR GAT, DPhil in History (University of Oxford, 1986); Ezer Weitzman Professor of National
Security, Political Science Department, Tel Aviv University; recent books: War in Human Civilization
(Oxford University Press, 2006); Victorious and Vulnerable: Why Democracy Won in the 20th Century
and How It Is Still Imperiled (Hoover Institution, Rowman & Littlefield, 2010); Nations: The Long History
and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Is war
declining – and why? Azar Gat⇑ Department of Political Science, University of Tel Aviv
azargat@post.tau.ac.il , March 19th 2013)
When quite a number of scholars simultaneously and independently of one another arrive at very
similar conclusions on an issue of cardinal theoretical and practical significance, their thesis deserves,
and has received, great attention. The thesis is that war and violence in general have progressively
decreased in recent times, during the modern era, and even throughout history. Of course, despite their
unanimity, all these scholars could still be wrong. Indeed, each of them tells a similar story of people’s disbelief at their
findings, most notably that we live in the most peaceful period in human history . Some of them even
explain the general incredulity by the findings of evolutionary psychology according to which we tend to
be overly optimistic about ourselves but overly pessimistic about the world at large. Having myself
written about the marked decrease in deadly human violence (Gat, 2006), I agree with the authors’
general thesis. However, their unanimity falters over, and they are less clear about, the historical trajectory of and the reasons for the
decline in violence and war, questions that are as important as the general thesis itself. Previous Section Next Section Hobbes was right, and
Rousseau wrong, about the state of nature Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011) towers above all the other books surveyed
here in size, scope, boldness, and scholarly excellence. It has deservedly attracted great public attention and has become a best-seller.
Massively documented, this 800-page volume is lavishly furnished with statistics, charts, and diagrams, which are one of the book’s most
effective features. The book, spanning the whole human past as far back as our aboriginal condition, points to two major steps in the decline of
violence. The first is the sharp decline in violent mortality which resulted from the rise of the state-Leviathan from around 5,000 years ago. This
conclusion is based on the most comprehensive studies of the subject published over the past 15 years (Keeley, 1996; LeBlanc, 2003; Gat,
2006), which demonstrate on the basis of anthropological and archaeological evidence that Hobbes’s picture of the anarchic state of nature as
a very violent one was fundamentally true. Pinker rightly summarizes that violent mortality with the rise of states dropped from a staggering
estimated 15% of the population, 25% of the men, in pre-state societies, to about 1–5%. The main reason for this drop is the enforcement of
internal peace by the Leviathan, but also, less noted by Pinker, lower mobilization rates and a smaller exposure of the civilian population to war
than with tribal groups, as will be explained shortly. This conclusion regarding the dramatic drop in violent mortality with the transition to the
state is at odds with the claim made by Jack Levy & William Thompson in their book, The Arc of War (2011). As the book’s title implies, Levy &
Thompson posit a great increase in warfare during history, before a decrease during the past two centuries. Thus, the book claims that
mortality in fighting greatly increased, ‘accelerated’ in the authors’ language, with the transition to the state. They reach this conclusion by
making several mistaken assumptions. First, although professing ignorance about the distant past because of the lack of evidence on the
behavior of hunter-gatherer societies before the adoption of agriculture some 10,000 years ago, they cite and are heavily influenced by the old
Rousseauite anthropology of the generation after the 1960s, which recent studies have refuted. Obviously, one does not have to accept the
above findings regarding the pervasiveness and great lethality of prehistoric warfare. But Levy & Thompson simply do not engage with them.
They accept as true the Rousseauite premise that sparse human population could not possibly have had that much to fight about. However,
recently extant hunter-gatherer societies prove the opposite. Australia is our best laboratory of hunter-gatherer societies, because that vast
continent was entirely populated by them and ‘unpolluted’ by agriculturalists, pastoralists or states until the arrival of the Europeans in 1788.
And the evidence shows that the Australian tribes fought incessantly with one another. Even in the Central Australian Desert, whose population
density was as low as one person per 35 square miles, among the lowest there is, conflict and deadly fighting were the rule. Much of that
fighting centered on the water-holes vital for survival in this area, with the violent death rate there reckoned to have been several times higher
than in any state society. In most other places, hunting territories were monopolized and fiercely defended by hunter-gatherers because they
were quickly depleted. Even among the Inuit of Arctic Canada, who were so sparse as to experience no resource competition, fighting to kidnap
women was pervasive, resulting in a violent death rate 10 times higher than the USA’s peak rate of 1990, itself the highest in the developed
world. In more hospitable and densely populated environments casualties averaged, as already mentioned, 15% of the population and 25% of
the men, and the surviving men were covered with scars (Gat, 2006: chs 2, 6). We are not dealing here with a piece of exotic curiosity. Ninetyfive percent of the history of our species Homo sapiens sapiens – people who are like us – was spent as hunter-gatherers. The transition to
agriculture and the state is very recent, the tip of the iceberg, in human history. Furthermore, the human state of nature turns out to be no
different than the state of nature in general. Here too, science has made a complete turnabout. During the 1960s people believed that animals
did not kill each other within the same species, which made humans appear like a murderous exception and fed speculations that warfare
emerged only with civilization. Since then, however, it has been found that animals kill each other extensively within species, a point pressed on
every viewer of television nature documentaries. There is nothing special about humans in this regard. Thus, lethal human fighting did not
‘emerge’ at some point in history, as Levy & Thompson posit. Previous Section Next Section Violent death sharply decreased with the rise of the
Leviathan As mentioned earlier and as Pinker well realizes, violent mortality actually dropped steeply with the emergence of the stateLeviathan. Here is where Levy & Thompson make a second mistake. For measuring the lethality of warfare they use evidence of battle
mortality, but this is highly misleading for various reasons. First, pre-state tribes’ main fighting modes were not the battle but the raid and the
ambush – capturing the enemy by surprise and often annihilating entire sleeping camps: men, women, and children. Second, the size of battles
merely indicates the size of the states and their armies, which are obviously larger than tribal groups in absolute terms. Yet the
main
question is relative casualties, what percentage of the population died violently. And here the fact is that while states and their
armies grew by a factor of tens, hundreds, and thousands, giving a spectacular impression of large-scale fighting, relative casualties
actually decreased under the state, and not only because of internal peace. Indeed, casualties decreased precisely
because states grew large. Take Egypt, for example, part of the ‘acceleration’ of war with the emergence of states in Mesopotamia, Egypt,
Greece, and China, according to Levy & Thompson. The size of the Egyptian army with which Pharaoh Ramses II fought the Hittite empire at the
Battle of Kadesh (commonly dated 1274 BCE) was 20,000–25,000 soldiers. This was a very large army by the standards of the time. Yet the total
population of Egypt was about 2–3 million, so the army constituted 1% of the population at most. This was very much the standard in large
states and empires throughout history because of the great financial and logistical problems of maintaining large armies for long periods at
great distances from home. Thus, in comparison to the high military participation rates of small-scale tribal societies, participation rates, and
hence war casualties, in large states’ armies were much lower. Moreover, in contrast to the great vulnerability of women and children in smallscale tribal warfare, the civilian population of Egypt was sheltered by distance from the theaters of military operations and not often exposed
to the horrors of war. Such relative security, interrupted only by large-scale invasions, is one of the main reasons why societies experienced
great demographic growth after the emergence of the state. It is also the reason why civil war, when the war rages within the country, tends to
be the most lethal form of war, as Hobbes very well realized. Warfare and feuds in the pre- and early-modern eras Levy & Thompson further
posit that between the 14th and early 19th centuries, Europe was the scene of a second ‘acceleration’ in the historical trajectory of violence.
This is very much in line with the prevailing perceptions regarding early modern European history, but these perceptions are most probably
wrong, and for the same reason as before: Levy & Thompson count absolute battle casualties, and obviously states became more centralized
during this period and armies grew in number, so battles also grew in size. Yet it was the anarchy and feudal fragmentation in Europe between
the fall of the Roman Empire and 1200 that were responsible for the pervasive insecurity and endemic violence that characterized the Dark
Ages and resulted in, among other things, a sharp demographic decline. Again, small-scale usually meant more, not less, violent mortality. The
focus on early modern Europe is misleading also in another way: in the late Middle Ages the Mongol conquests inflicted on the societies of
China, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe casualties and destruction that were among the highest ever suffered during historical times. Estimates
of the sharp decline experienced by the populations of China and Russia, for example, vary widely. Still, even by the lowest estimates they were
at least as great, and in China almost definitely much greater, than the Soviet Union’s horrific rate in World War II of about 15%. The receding
of medieval anarchy in the face of the growing European state-Leviathans was the first step towards a steep decline in the continent’s violent
mortality rate beginning in early modernity and continuing to the present day. The studies and data cited by Pinker with respect to the
domestic aspect of this trend are strikingly paralleled by those of Robert Muchembled’s History of Violence (2012). The work of a historian, the
book meticulously documents, on the basis of French legal records, a 20-fold decrease in homicide rates between the 13th and 20th centuries.
Earlier studies of other parts of Europe, starting with Gurr (1981), have come up with similar findings. Like Pinker, Muchembled attributes the
steep decline to the state’s growing authority, as its justice system effectively replaced and deterred ‘private justice’, vendetta, and pervasive
violence, all of them endemic in unruly societies. Correspondingly, again like Pinker, Muchembled invokes Norbert Elias’s (2000) ‘civilizing
process’, whereby the defense of honor by sword and knife, a social norm and imperative in most traditional societies, is gradually given up
among both the nobility and the general populace. The civilizing process is partly a function of the growing authority of the state’s rule and
justice system. But there were other factors involved, which Pinker excels in identifying and weaving together. Although he is not a historian,
his historical synthesis is exemplarily rich and nuanced. He specifies the growing humanitarian sensibilities in Europe of the Enlightenment,
which he traces to, among other things, the gradual improvement in living conditions, growing commercial spirit and, above all, the print
revolution with the attendant values and habits of reasoning, introspection, and empathy that it inculcated among the reading elites. As Pinker
points out, not only did homicide rates decline but also other previously common forms of violence, such as judicial disembowelment and
torture, were becoming unacceptable by the 18th century. This was the beginning of a continuous process which during the following centuries
would bring about, among other things, the abolition of slavery and the decline of capital punishment, tyranny, and political violence in the
developed world – most notably in the areas where the values of Enlightenment humanitarianism triumphed. Both Pinker and Muchembled
identify a change in the trend towards increased violence and homicide rates in the United States and Europe from the 1960s on. They attribute
this change (Pinker is particularly elaborative here) to the erosion of public authority and some reversal of the ‘civilizing process’ with the cults
of youth culture, defiance of authority, radical ideologies of violence by the ‘oppressed’, and the fragmentation of the stable family structure.
Pinker identifies a return to a downward trend in violence from about 1990 on, which he attributes to an ebbing of much of the above through
reasserted state action and changes in the public mood. A last point worth mentioning in this context: Muchembled reveals that throughout the
steep decline in homicide rates, from medieval times to the present, 90% or more of all cases have been perpetrated by men, especially
between the ages of 20 and 30 years old. As Daly & Wilson (1988: 145–149) have shown, this ratio is found in each and every society studied
around the globe, from hunter-gatherers to agricultural and industrial societies, irrespective of the vastly different homicide rates among them.
Previous Section Next Section The decline of war and the three `Long Peaces' after 1815 We
now move to the decline of war,
which is our main concern here. Most people are surprised to learn that the occurrence of war and
overall mortality in war sharply decreased after 1815, most notably in the developed world. The ‘Long Peace’
among the great powers after 1945 is more recognized and is widely attributed to the nuclear factor, a
decisive factor to be sure, which concentrated the minds of all the protagonists wonderfully. The (inter)democratic peace has been equally recognized. But in actuality, the decrease in war had been very
marked before the nuclear era and encompassed both democracies and non-democracies. In the
century after 1815, wars among economically advanced countries declined in their frequency to about
one-third of what they had been in the previous centuries, an unprecedented change. Indeed, the Long Peace
after 1945 was preceded by the second longest peace among the great powers, between 1871 and 1914, and by the third longest peace,
between 1815 and 1854 (Gat, 2006: 536–537, 608). Thus, the three longest periods of peace by far in the modern great powers system all
occurred after 1815. Clearly, one needs to explain the entire trend, while also accounting for the glaring divergence from it: the two World
Wars. Previous Section Next Section Is modern war more lethal and destructive than before? In his earlier works, Levy (1983) was among the
first to document the much-reduced frequency of war after 1815. But what brought about this change? Levy & Thompson assume – this is
perhaps the most natural hypothesis – that wars declined in frequency because they became too lethal, destructive, and expensive.
Supposedly, a trade-off of sorts was created between the intensity and frequency of warfare: fewer, larger wars supplanting many smaller
ones. This hypothesis barely holds, however, because, again, relative to population and wealth wars have not become more lethal and costly
than earlier in history. Furthermore, as Levy & Thompson rightly document, the wars of the 19th century – the most peaceful century in
European history – were particularly light, in comparative terms, so there is no trade-off here. True, the World Wars, especially World War II,
were certainly on the upper scale of the range in terms of casualties. Yet, as already noted, they were far from being exceptional in history.
Once more, we need to look at relative casualties, general human mortality in any number of wars that happen to rage around the world,
rather than at the aggregate created by the fact that many states participated in the World Wars. I have already mentioned the Mongol
invasions, but other examples abound. In the first three years of the Second Punic War, 218–16 BCE, Rome lost some 50,000 citizens of the ages
of 17–46, out of a total of about 200,000 in that age demographic (Brunt, 1971). This was roughly 25% of the military-age cohorts in only three
years, the same range as the Russian and higher than the German rates in World War II. This, and the devastation of Rome’s free peasantry
during the Second Punic War, did not reduce Rome’s propensity for war thereafter. During the Thirty Years War (1618–48) population loss in
Germany is estimated at between one-fifth and one-third – either way higher than the German casualties in World War I and World War II
combined. People often assume that more developed military technology during modernity means greater lethality and destruction, but in fact
it also means greater protective power, as with mechanized armor, mechanized speed and agility, and defensive electronic measures. Offensive
and defensive advances generally rise in tandem. In addition, it is all too often forgotten that the vast majority of the many millions of noncombatants killed by Germany during World War II – Jews, Soviet prisoners of war, Soviet civilians – fell victim to intentional starvation,
exposure to the elements, and mass executions rather than to any sophisticated military technology. Instances of genocide in general during
the 20th century, much as earlier in history, were carried out with the simplest of technologies, as the Rwanda genocide horrifically reminded
us. Nor have wars during the past two centuries been economically more costly than they were earlier in history, again relative to overall
wealth. War has always involved massive economic exertion and has been the single most expensive item of state spending (e.g. massively
documented, Bonney, 1999). Examples are countless, and it will suffice to mention that both 16th- and 17th-century Spain and 18th-century
France were economically ruined by war and staggering war debts, which in the French case brought about the Revolution. Furthermore, death
by starvation in premodern wars was widespread. Previous Section Next Section Is it peace that has become more profitable? So if wars have
not become more costly and destructive during the past two centuries then why
have they receded, particularly in the
developed world? The answer is the advent of the industrial–commercial revolution after 1815, the most
profound transformation of human society since the Neolithic adoption of agriculture. The correlation between the decline of war in the
developed world and the process of modernization, both unfolding since 1815, is surely not accidental, and the causation is not difficult to
locate. In the first place, given explosive growth in per capita wealth, about 30- to 50-fold thus far, the Malthusian trap has been broken.
Wealth no longer constitutes a fundamentally finite quantity, and wealth acquisition progressively
shifted away from a zero-sum game. Secondly, economies are no longer overwhelmingly autarkic,
instead having become increasingly interconnected by specialization, scale, and exchange. Consequently, foreign
devastation potentially depressed the entire system and was thus detrimental to a state’s own
wellbeing. This reality, already noted by Mill (1848/1961: 582), starkly manifested itself after World War I, as Keynes (1920) had anticipated
in his criticism of the reparations imposed on Germany. Thirdly, greater economic openness has decreased the likelihood
of war by disassociating economic access from the confines of political borders and sovereignty . It is
no longer necessary to politically possess a territory in order benefit from it. Of the above three factors,
the second one – commercial interdependence – has attracted most of the attention in the literature.
But the other two factors have been no less significant. Thus, the greater the yield of competitive
economic cooperation, the more counterproductive and less attractive conflict becomes. Rather than
war becoming more costly, as is widely believed, it is in fact peace that has been growing more
profitable. Referring to my argument in this regard, Levy & Thompson (2011: 72–75) excused themselves from deciding on the issue on the
grounds of insufficient information regarding the cost of premodern war. But as already noted, the information on the subject is quite clear.
The status quo is structurally improving
Indur Goklany 10, policy analyst for the Department of the Interior – phd from MSU, “Population, Consumption, Carbon Emissions, and
Human Well-Being in the Age of Industrialization (Part III — Have Higher US Population, Consumption, and Newer Technologies Reduced WellBeing?)”, April 24, http://www.masterresource.org/2010/04/population-consumption-carbon-emissions-and-human-well-being-in-the-age-ofindustrialization-part-iii-have-higher-us-population-consumption-and-newer-technologies-reduced-well-being/#more-9194
In my previous post I showed that, notwithstanding
the Neo-Malthusian worldview, human well-being has
advanced globally since the start of industrialization more than two centuries ago, despite massive increases in
population, consumption, affluence, and carbon dioxide emissions. In this post, I will focus on long-term trends in the
U.S. for these and other indicators. Figure 1 shows that despite several-fold increases in the use of metals and synthetic organic chemicals, and
emissions of CO2 stoked by increasing populations and affluence, life
expectancy, the single best measure of human wellbeing, increased from 1900 to 2006 for the US. Figure 1 reiterates this point with respect to materials use. These figures indicate that
since 1900, U.S. population has quadrupled, affluence has septupled, their product (GDP) has increased 30-fold, synthetic organic chemical use
has increased 85-fold, metals use 14-fold, material use 25-fold, and CO2 emissions 8-fold. Yet life expectancy advanced from 47 to 78 years.
Figure 2 shows that during the same period, 1900–2006, emissions of air pollution, represented by sulfur dioxide, waxed and waned.
Food
and water got safer, as indicated by the virtual elimination of deaths from gastrointestinal (GI) diseases between 1900 and 1970.
Cropland, a measure of habitat converted to human uses — the single most important pressure on species, ecosystems, and biodiversity —
was more or less unchanged from 1910 onward despite the increase in food demand. For the most part, life
expectancy grew more or less steadily for the U.S., except for a brief plunge at the end of the First World War accentuated by the 1918-20
Spanish flu epidemic. As in the rest of the world, today’s U.S. population not only lives longer, it is also healthier. The disability rate for seniors
declined 28 percent between 1982 and 2004/2005 and, despite quantum improvements in diagnostic tools, major
diseases (e.g., cancer,
and heart and respiratory diseases) now occur 8–11 years later than a century ago. Consistent with this, data for New York
City indicate that — despite a population increase from 80,000 in 1800 to 3.4 million in 1900 and 8.0 million in 2000 and any associated
increases in economic product, and chemical, fossil fuel and material use that, no doubt, occurred —crude mortality rates have declined more
or less steadily since the 1860s (again except for the flu epidemic). Figures 3 and 4 show, once again, that whatever health-related problems
accompanied economic development, technological change, material, chemical and fossil fuel consumption, and population growth, they were
overwhelmed by the health-related benefits associated with industrialization and modern economic growth. This does not mean that fossil fuel,
chemical and material consumption have zero impact, but it means that overall
benefits have markedly outweighed costs.
The reductions in rates of deaths and diseases since at least 1900 in the US, despite increased
population, energy, and material and chemical use, belie the Neo-Malthusian worldview. The
improvements in the human condition can be ascribed to broad dissemination (through education, public health
systems, trade and commerce) of numerous new and improved technologies in agriculture, health and medicine
supplemented through various ingenious advances in communications, information technology and
other energy powered technologies (see here for additional details). The continual increase in life expectancy accompanied by the
decline in disease during this period (as shown by Figure 2) indicates that the new technologies reduced risks by a greater
amount than any risks that they may have created or exacerbated due to pollutants associated with greater consumption of
materials, chemicals and energy, And this is one reason why the Neo-Malthusian vision comes up short. It dwells on the increases in risk that
new technologies may create or aggravate but overlooks the larger — and usually more certain — risks that they would also eliminate or
reduce. In other words, it focuses on the pixels, but misses the larger picture, despite pretensions to a holistic worldview.
2AC – Sustainability
The system’s sustainable and the alt can’t solve
Kaletsky ’10
(Anatole, Masters in Economics from Harvard, Honour-Degree Graduate at King’s College and Cambrdige, editor-at-large of The Times of
London, founding partner and chief economist of GaveKal Capital, He is on the governing board of the New York– based Institute for New
Economic Theory (INET), a nonprofit created after the 2007– 2009 crisis to promote and finance academic research in economics outside the
orthodoxy of “efficient markets.” From 1976 to 1990, Kaletsky was New York bureau chief and Washington correspondent of the Financial
Times and a business writer on The Economist,
The world did not end. Despite
all the forebodings of disaster in the 2007– 09 financial crisis, the first decade of
the twenty-first century passed rather uneventfully into the second. The riots, soup kitchens, and bankruptcies
predicted by many of the world’s most respected economists did not materialize— and no one any longer
expects the global capitalist system to collapse, whatever that emotive word might mean. Yet the capitalist system’s survival
does not mean that the precrisis faith in the wisdom of financial markets and the efficiency of free enterprise will ever again be what it was
before the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008. A return to decent economic growth and normal financial conditions is
likely by the middle of 2010, but will this imply a return to business as usual for politicians, economists, and financiers? Although
globalization will continue and many parts of the world will gradually regain their prosperity of the precrisis
period, the traumatic effects of 2007– 09 will not be quickly forgotten. And the economic costs will linger for decades in the
debts squeezing taxpayers and government budgets, the disrupted lives of the jobless, and the vanished dreams of homeowners and investors
around the world. For what collapsed on September 15, 2008, was not just a bank or a financial system. What fell apart that day was an entire
political philosophy and economic system, a way of thinking about and living in the world. The question now is what will replace the global
capitalism that crumbled in the autumn of 2008. The central argument of this book is that global
capitalism will be replaced by
nothing other than global capitalism. The traumatic events of 2007– 09 will neither destroy nor diminish the
fundamental human urges that have always powered the capitalist system— ambition, initiative, individualism, the
competitive spirit. These natural human qualities will instead be redirected and reenergized to create a new
version of capitalism that will ultimately be even more successful and productive than the system it
replaced. To explain this process of renewal, and identify some of the most important features of the reinvigorated capitalist system, is the
ambition of this book. This transformation will take many years to complete, but some of its consequences can
already be discerned. With the benefit of even a year’s hindsight, it is clear that these consequences will be different from the nihilistic
predictions from both ends of the political spectrum at the height of the crisis. On the Left, anticapitalist ideologues seemed
honestly to believe that a few weeks of financial chaos could bring about the disintegration of a politicoeconomic system that had survived two hundred years of revolutions, depressions, and world wars. On the Right,
free-market zealots insisted that private enterprise would be destroyed by government interventions that were clearly necessary to save the
system— and many continue to believe that the crisis could have been resolved much better if governments had simply allowed financial
institutions to collapse. A
balanced reassessment of the crisis must challenge both left-wing hysteria and right-
wing hubris. Rather than blaming the meltdown of the global financial system on greedy bankers, incompetent regulators, gullible
homeowners, or foolish Chinese bureaucrats, this book puts what happened into historical and ideological perspective. It reinterprets the crisis
in the context of the economic reforms and geopolitical upheavals that have repeatedly transformed the nature of capitalism since the late
eighteenth century, most recently in the Thatcher-Reagan revolution of 1979– 89. The central argument is that capitalism
has never
been a static system that follows a fixed set of rules, characterized by a permanent division of responsibilities between private
enterprise and governments. Contrary to the teachings of modern economic theory, no immutable laws govern the behavior of a capitalist
economy. Instead, capitalism
is an adaptive social system that mutates and evolves in response to a changing
environment. When capitalism is seriously threatened by a systemic crisis, a new version emerges that is
better suited to the changing environment and replaces the previously dominant form. Once we recognize that
capitalism is not a static set of institutions, but an evolutionary system that reinvents and reinvigorates itself through crises, we can see the
events of 2007– 09 in another light: as the catalyst for the fourth systemic transformation of capitalism, comparable to the transformations
triggered by the crises of the 1970s, the crises of the 1930s, and the Napoleonic Wars of 1803– 15. Hence the title of this book.
2AC – Alt Fails
The alt fails, causes transition conflicts, and flips their impacts
Aligica ‘3 (fellow at the Mercatus Center, George Mason University, and Adjunct Fellow at the Hudson Institute (Paul, 4/21. “The Great
Transition and the Social Limits to Growth: Herman Kahn on Social Change and Global Economic Development”, April 21,
http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=2827)
Stopping things would mean if not to engage in an experiment to change the human nature, at least in an equally difficult experiment in
altering powerful cultural forces: "We firmly believe that despite
the arguments put forward by people who would like
to 'stop the earth and get off,' it is simply impractical to do so. Propensity to change may not be inherent in
human nature, but it is firmly embedded in most contemporary cultures. People have almost everywhere become
curious, future oriented, and dissatisfied with their conditions. They want more material goods and covet higher status and
greater control of nature. Despite much propaganda to the contrary, they believe in progress and future" (Kahn, 1976, 164). As
regarding the critics of growth that stressed the issue of the gap between rich and poor countries and the issue of redistribution, Kahn noted
that what
most people everywhere want was visible, rapid improvement in their economic status and
living standards, and not a closing of the gap (Kahn, 1976, 165). The people from poor countries have as a
basic goal the transition from poor to middle class. The other implications of social change are
secondary for them. Thus a crucial factor to be taken into account is that while the zero-growth advocates and their
followers may be satisfied to stop at the present point, most others are not. Any serious attempt to
frustrate these expectations or desires of that majority is likely to fail and/or create disastrous counter
reactions. Kahn was convinced that "any concerted attempt to stop or even slow 'progress' appreciably (that is, to
be satisfied with the moment) is catastrophe-prone". At the minimum, "it would probably require the creation of
extraordinarily repressive governments or movements-and probably a repressive international system"
(Kahn, 1976, 165; 1979, 140-153). The pressures of overpopulation, national security challenges and poverty as well
as the revolution of rising expectations could be solved only in a continuing growth environment. Kahn
rejected the idea that continuous growth would generate political repression and absolute poverty. On the contrary, it is the
limits-to-growth position "which creates low morale, destroys assurance, undermines the legitimacy of
governments everywhere, erodes personal and group commitment to constructive activities and
encourages obstructiveness to reasonable policies and hopes". Hence this position "increases enormously
the costs of creating the resources needed for expansion, makes more likely misleading debate and
misformulation of the issues, and make less likely constructive and creative lives". Ultimately "it is precisely
this position the one that increases the potential for the kinds of disasters which most at its advocates
are trying to avoid" (Kahn, 1976, 210; 1984).
2AC – Maximizing Life
Maximizing life is key- all lives have value
Schwartz ‘2 (L Schwartz, medical ethicist, 2002, Medical ethics: a case based approach,
www.fleshandbones.com/readingroom/pdf/399.pdf
Supporters of the sanctity of life ethic dismiss considerations about quality and quantity because, they assert: • all
life is worth living
under any condition because of the inherent value of life. The upshot of the theory is that quality of life,
although desirable, is irrelevant to assessing the value of a life because all life is inherently valuable. Many
supporters of the sanctity of life criterion say this is true only of human life, but there are religious groups who claim sanctity extends to all life.
Either way, the sanctity of life principle states that all
human life is worthy of preservation and hence eliminates the justifiability
of abortion, euthanasia and rational suicide and, at extremes, withdrawal of futile treatment: The sanctity of life ethic holds that every
human life is intrinsically good, that no life is more valuable than another, that lives not fully developed
(embryonic and fetal stages) and lives with no great potential (the suffering lives of the terminally ill or the pathetic lives of the severely
handicapped) are still sacred. The condition of a life does not reduce its value or justify its termination.6 So,
whereas to determine the value of a life on its quality asserts that there is a relevant difference between the type of life and the fact of life, this
distinction is rejected by sanctity arguments as irrelevant. The sanctity criterion tends to be associated with religious beliefs. The JudeoChristian rationale is usually that lives are inherently valuable because they are gifts from God and not ours to end as we wish. In a sense, our
lives are on loan to us and, as such, must be treated with respect. In Islam, the suffering associated with reduced quality of life is also
considered a divine endowment and therefore ought to The value of life: who decides and how? 115 be borne without assistance, as the
suffering is said to lead to enlightenment and divine reward. However, religious arguments are not required to defend sanctity beliefs. It is
enough simply to say that all human lives are deserving of equal respect not because of what they have to offer or have offered or potentially
will offer, but because they exist. The notion of inalienable human rights attributes force to the value of human life with the assertion that it
needs no justification. This is the primary merit of the sanctity of life ethic – that a life requires no justification – but justification is required for
the premature termination of that life. In this sense, the principle acts as a forceful bulwark against devaluing human life. Article 3 of the United
Nations Declaration of Human rights asserts simply that: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.7 No argument is made to
justify this claim because no argument is necessary. However, it will be necessary to justify any violation of this right.
2AC – Structural Violence
Negative peace precedes positive peace—absence of war is a prerequisite to social justice.
Folk ’78 (Jerry Folk, Professor of Religious and Peace Studies at Bethany College, 1978 ("Peace Education – Peace Studies Programs: Towards
an Integrated Approach," Peace & Change, Volume 5, Number 1, Spring, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via JSTOR, p. 58)
Those proponents of the positive peace approach who reject out of hand the work of researchers and educators coming to the field from
the perspective of negative peace too easily forget that the
prevention of a nuclear confrontation of global
dimensions is the prerequisite for all other peace research, education, and action. Unless such a
confrontation can be avoided there will be no world left in which to build positive peace.12 Moreover, the
blanket condemnation of all such negative peace oriented research, education or action as a reactionary attempt
to support and reinforce the status quo is doctrinaire. Conflict theory and resolution, disarmament
studies, studies of the international system and of international organizations, and integration
studies are in themselves neutral. They do not intrinsically support either the status quo or
revolutionary efforts to change or overthrow it. Rather they offer a body of knowledge which can be
used for either purpose or for some purpose in between. It is much more logical for those who
understand peace as positive peace to integrate this knowledge into their own framework and to
utilize it in achieving their own purposes. A balanced peace studies program should therefore offer
the student exposure to the questions and concerns which occupy those who view the field
essentially from the point of view of negative peace.13
2AC – Markets Good
Markets key to peace
Gartzke ‘9 (The Capitalist Peace Erik Gartzke Columbia University 2009 Erik Gartzke is an associate professor in the Department of Political
Science and the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University
The discovery that democracies seldom fight each other has led, quite reasonably, to the conclusion that democracy causes peace, at
leastwithin the community of liberal polities. Explanations abound, but a consensus account of the dyadic democratic peace has been
surprisingly slow to materialize. I offer a theory of liberal peace based on capitalism and common interstate interests. Economic development,
capital market integration, and the compatibility of foreignpolicy preferences supplant the effect of democracy in
standard statistical tests of the democratic peace. In fact, after controlling for regional heterogeneity, any one of these
three variables is sufficient to account for effects previously attributed to regime type in standard samples of wars, militarized interstate
disputes (MIDs), and fatal disputes.1 If war is a product of incompatible interests and failed or abortive bargaining, peace ensues when states
lack differences worthy of costly conflict, or when circumstances favor successful diplomacy. Realists and others argue that state interests are
inherently incompatible, but this need be so only if state interests are narrowly defined or when conquest promises tangible benefits. Peace
can result from at least three attributes of mature capitalist economies. First, the historic impetus to
territorial expansion is tempered by the rising importance of intellectual and financial capital , factors
that are more expediently enticed than conquered. Land does little to increase the worth of the
advanced economies while resource competition is more cheaply pursued through markets than by
means of military occupation. At the same time, development actually increases the ability of states to project power when
incompatible policy objectives exist. Development affects who states fight (and what they fight over) more than the overall frequency of
warfare. Second,
substantial overlap in the foreign policy goals of developed nations in the post–
WorldWar II period further limits the scope and scale of conflict. Lacking territorial tensions, consensus
about how to order the international system has allowed liberal states to cooperate and to
accommodate minor differences. Whether this affinity among liberal states will persist in the next century is a question open to
debate. Finally, the rise of global capital markets creates a new mechanism for competition and
communication for states that might otherwise be forced to fight. Separately, these processes
influence patterns of warfare in the modern world. Together, they explain the absence of war among
states in the developed world and account for the dyadic observation of the democratic peace. The notion
of a capitalist peace is hardly new. Montesquieu, Paine, Bastiat, Mill, Cobden, Angell, and others saw in market forces the power to end war.
Unfortunately, war continued, leading many to view as overly optimistic classical conceptions of liberal peace. This study can be seen as part of
an effort to reexamine capitalist peace theory, revising arguments in line with contemporary insights much as Kantian claims were reworked in
response to evolving evidence of a democratic peace. Existing empirical research on the democratic peace, while addressing many possible
alternatives, provides an incomplete and uneven treatment of liberal economic processes.Mostdemocraticpeace researchexamines trade in
goods and services but ignores capital markets and offers only a cursory assessment of economic development (Maoz and Russett 1992).
Several studies explore the impact of interests, though these have largely been dismissed by democratic peace advocates (Oneal and Russett
1999a; Russett and Oneal 2001). These omissions or oversights help to determine the democratic peace result and thus shape subsequent
research, thinking, and policy on the subject of liberal peace. This study offers evidence that liberal economic processes do in fact lead to peace,
even accounting for the well-documented role of liberal politics.