Rights Malthus D.A. – CFFP
This authoritarian transition brought to you by:
Liz
Clara
Mark
Michael
Alex
THE HAMMER
YOU MUST REJECT EVERY INSTANCE OF TYRANNY
Petro ‘74 [Professor of Law @ Wake Forest University. University of Toledo Law Review Spring 1974, page. 480]
However, one may still insist, echoing Ernest Hemingway—“I believe in only one thing: liberty”. And it is always well to bear in mind David Hume’s observation: “It is seldom that liberty
, it is unacceptable to say that the invasion of one aspect of freedom is of no
import because there have been invasions of so many other aspects. That road leads to chaos,
tyranny, despotism and the end of all human aspiration. Ask Solzhenistyn. Ask Milovan Djilas. In sum, if one believes in freedom
as a supreme value and the proper ordering principle for any society aiming to maximize spiritual and material welfare, then every invasion of freedom
must be emphatically identified and resisted with undying spirit.
of any kind is lost all at once.” Thus
Top Shelf
How to win on Aff
The only card you’ll ever need.
Global warming is a liberal lie - they’re all commies
McFarlane 6/19
(Bonnie McFarlane, 6/19/15, [Totally serious standup comedian], "Global warming is totally a lie
liberals tell to distract us from their commie agendas," The Guardian,
www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2015/jun/19/global-warming-lie-liberals-telldistract-us, MX)
Global Warming is a
big fat lie
Everybody is talking about global warming. Clearly, it’s got a great publicist. My guess is it’s the same one that Amy Schumer uses. However, unlike Schumer – whom I have on good authority is real –
. Now, before you spit out your fair trade coffee and start yelling about carbon emissions, let me assure you that this is not a conclusion that came easily to me. I thought about it a lot. Just this morning I was in the shower for a good two
hours debating the pros and cons of dating someone with a giant global footprint. Once the water went cold and I dried myself off with a h air dryer, I knew I had my answer.
This so-called
“environmental Armageddon” is a fictitious construction cooked up by the
left so we’ll spend all our time
changing out our light bulbs and
flattening cardboard and completely overlooking their
pinko/commie/socialist agendas .
(or at least a half hour a week)
I’m on to you, liberals! You’re trying to be heroes to humanity. You want everyone to pat you on the back and say, “Oh, look who saved the planet!”
The planet doesn’t need saving. After all, it’s been around for almost 2,000
years. It was fine before you got here, and it’ll be fine after the apocalypse destroys most
of humankind
Well, I have news for you.
for the sins of homosexuality and shellfish consumption. God hates Shrimp Scampi, but He doesn’t seem to have a problem with littering. (Leviticus 10:10) I wish people would stop incessantly asking, “Don’t we care what
kind of planet we’re going to leave our children?” First of all, I’m pretty sure any child psychologist would agree that leaving a whole planet to a kid is an appalling idea. I wouldn’t dream of spoiling my daughter with an entire planet. You don’t have to give your kids
I wish scientists would stop blaming us
humans for causing global warming. This is patently false, since global warming is not
real!
we’ve just experienced the coldest spring on record
the world; just spend some time with them once in a while. That’s what they really want. That, and a Mercedes SUV for their s weet 16.
isn’t enough to sway you, I’ve got other anecdotal evidence that should be
If the fact that
my sister went to Greenland and never saw any polar bears
stranded on tiny ice floes .
But the most telling sign that global
plenty convincing. For example:
In fact, my sister didn’t see any live polar bears at all, so there.
warming is not an actual threat is this: the Republican presidential candidates aren’t
trying to scare us with the prospect that we’re all doomed to die from toxic air and
scorching temperatures. And Republican presidential candidates love scaring the public.
It’s their passion
despite the numerous
scientific claims and all those hockey-stick graphs
I don’t think there’s any
truth to this whole global warming thing. At the very least, the declarations are
exaggerated and we have nothing to worry about for at least a decade.
. If they could put a gun to each of our heads individually and say, “Vote for me or else you die”, I think they would. That’s why,
showing the sharp rise in temperatures,
1NC
1NC Shell
A. The ecological crunch is coming---overwhelming scientific evidence
proves an impending environmental crisis risks extinction
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 4-6, MX)
This impending crisisis caused by the accelerating damage to thenatural environment on
which humans depend for their survival. This is not to deny that there are other means that may bring catastrophe upon the
earth. John Gray for example5 argues that destructive war is inevitable as nations become locked into the struggle for diminishing resources. Indeed,
Gray believes that war is caused by the same instinctual behavior that we discuss in relation to environmental destruction. Gray regards population
increases, environmental degradation, and misuse of technology as part of the inevitability of war. War
may be inevitable but it
isunpredictable in time and place, whereas environmental degradation isrelentless and
has progressively received increasing scientific evidence. Humanity has a record of
doomsayers, most invariably wrong, which has brought a justifiable immunity to their
utterances. Warnings were present in The Tales of Ovid and in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, and in more recent
times some of the predictions from Thomas Malthus and from the Club of Rome in 1972, together with
the “population bomb” of Paul Ehrlich, have not eventuated. The frequent apocalyptic
predictions from the environmental movement are unpopular and have been vigorously attacked.
So it must be asked, what is different about the present warnings? As one example, when Sir David King, chief
scientist of the UK government, states that “in my view, climate change is the most severe problem that we are facing today, more serious than the
threat of terrorism,”6 how is this and other recent statements different from previous discredited prognostications? Firstly, they
are based
on themost detailed and compelling science produced with the same scientific rigorthat
has seen humans travel to the moon and create worldwide communication systems.
Secondly, this science embraces arange of disciplinesof ecology, epidemiology, climatology,
marine and fresh water science, agricultural science, and many more, all of which agree
on the nature and severity of the problems. Thirdly, there isvirtual unanimityofthousands of
scientistson the grave nature of these problems. Only a handful of skeptics remain. During the past decade many
distinguished scientists, including numerous Nobel Laureates, have warned that humanity has perhaps one or two
generations to act to avoid global ecological catastrophe. As but one example of this multidimensional problem,
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that global warming caused by fossil fuel consumption may be accelerating.7 Yet
climate change is but one of a host of interrelated environmental problems thatthreaten
humanity. The authors have seen the veils fall from the eyes of many scientists when they examine all the scientific literature. They become
advocates for a fundamental change in society. The frequent proud statements on economic growth by treasurers and chancellors of the exchequer
instill in many scientists an immediate sense of danger, for humanity has moved one step closer to doom. Science
underpins the success of our technological and comfortable society. Who are the thousands of scientists who issue the warnings we choose to ignore?
In 1992 the Royal Society of London and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences issued a joint statement, Population Growth, Resource Consumption
and a Sustainable World,8 pointing out that the environmental changes affecting the planet may irreversibly damage the earth’s capacity to maintain
life and that humanity’s own efforts to achieve satisfactory living conditions were threatened by environmental deterioration. Since 1992 many more
statements by world scientific organizations have been issued.9 These substantiated that most
environmental systems are
suffering from critical stress and that the developed countries are the main culprits. It was necessary to make a transition to
economies that provide increased human welfare and less consumption of energy and materials. It seems inconceivable that the
consensus view of all these scientists could be wrong. There have been numerous international conferences of
governments, industry groups, and environmental groups to discuss the problems and develop strategy, yet widespread deterioration of the
environment accelerates. What is the evidence? The Guide to World Resources, 2000 –2001: People and Ecosystems, The Fraying Web of Life10 was
a joint report of the United Nations Development Program, the United Nations Environment Program, the World Bank, and the World Resources
Institute. The
state of the world’s agricultural, coastal forest, freshwater, and grassland
ecosystems were analyzed using 23 criteria such as food production, water quantity, and biodiversity. Eighteen
of the criteria were decreasing, and one had increased (fiber production, because of the destruction of forests). The report card on
the remaining four criteria was mixed or there was insufficient data to make a judgment. In 2005, The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis
60 percent of the ecosystem
services that support life on earth—such as fresh water, fisheries, and the regulation of air,
Report by 1,360 scientific experts from 95 countries was released.11 It stated that approximately
water, and climate—are being degraded or used unsustainably. As a result the Millennium Goals agreed to
by the UN in 2000 for addressing poverty and hunger will not be met and human well-being will be seriously affected.
B. This means a transition to environmental authoritarianism’s coming
now---solves extinction
Beeson 10 (Mark, Professor of International Politics at Murdoch University in Perth, Western
Australia, Environmental politics, Environmental Politics, 15(5): 750–767.,Volume 19, issue
2)//ADS
The environment has become the defining public policy issue of the era. Not only will political responses to
environmental challenges determine the health of the planet, but continuing
environmental degradation may also affect political systems. This interaction is likely to be especially acute
in parts of the world where environmental problems are most pressing and the state's ability to respond to such challenges is weakest. One
possible consequence of environmental degradation is the development or consolidation
of authoritarian rule as political elites come to privilege regime maintenance and internal
stability over political liberalisation. Even efforts to mitigate the impact of, or respond to,
environmental change may involve a decrease in individual liberty as governments seek to transform
environmentally destructive behaviour. As a result, ‘environmental authoritarianism’ may become an
increasingly common response to the destructive impacts of climate change in an age of diminished expectations.
C. The transition is only possible in a world with limited rights – the 1AC
is founded on a philosophy of abundance that is incompatible with
environmental survival
Humphrey 7
(Mathew Humphrey 7, Reader in Political Philosophy at the University of
Nottingham, UK, 2007, Ecological Politics and Democratic Theory: The
Challenge to the Deliberative Ideal, p. 20-21//um-ef)
If these changes are necessary - the downgrading, curtailment and reconceptualisation of
democracy, liberties, and justice, as well as the raising to primacy of integrity and
ecological virtue - how are the necessary changes to come about? Value change
represents the best'long-term' hope but the ecological crisis is not a 'long-term' problem.
These
changes have to be introduced quickly
and
before there has been time to inculcate
value shifts in the population. The downgrading of rights and liberties has to be
achieved through policy and institutional change, even while the question of a long-term change of values is also
what is required ispolitical leadership and the institution of the state
addressed. For both these tasks
. The
immediate problem lies in the collective action problem that arises in respect of the looming ecological constraints on economic activity and the potential collapse of the global
commons. The end of the 'golden age' of material abundance, as we slide back down the other side of 'Hubbert's pimple’ will bring about intense competition for scarce
resources. To understand politics under these circumstances, we have to turn back to Hobbes and Burke, the political philosophers who conceptualised life under conditions of
political
philosophy carries within it an ontological component which sets out the foundations of
political possibility. The contemporary West he sees as defined by the 'philosophers of the
great frontier' Locke, Smith, and Marx. These are thepolitical philosophers of abundance.
scarcity, and also to Plato, commended for his healthy mistrust of democracy. For Ophuls a crucial element of political philosophy is the definition of reality itself;
For Locke the proviso of always leaving 'as much and as good' for others in appropriation could always be met even when there was no unappropriated land left, as the
productivity of the land put to useful work would always create better opportunities for those coming later. Smiths 'invisible hand' thesis was also dependent upon the
For Marx the 'higher phase' of
communist society arrives 'after the productive forces have... increased with the allround development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more
abundantly' (Marx, 1970: 19). For Ophulsthese are all the political philosophies of abundance. Ecological
crisis, however, returns us to the Hobbesian struggle of all against all (Heilbroner, 1974: 89). With ecological scarcity
assumption that the material goods would always be available for individual to accomplish their own economic plans.
Both liberalism and
socialismrepresent the politics of this 'abnormal abundance' and with the demise of this
period we return to the eternal problems of politics. Hobbes, then, is seen as the political philosopher of ecological scarcity
we return to the classical problems of political theory that 400 years of abnormal abundance has shielded us from (Ophuls, 1977: 164).
avant la lettre. 'Hardin's "logic of the commons" is simply a special version of the general political dynamic of Hobbes' "state of nature"' (Ophuls, 1977; 148).
Competition over scarce resources leads to conflict, even when all those involved realise
that they would be collectively better off if they could co-operate, 'to bring about the tragedy of the commons it is
not necessary that men be bad, only that they not be actively good' (Ophuls, 1977: 149). It is this Hobbesian struggle that may impose 'intolerable strains on the representative
Coercion is seen as the solution (and it is
and the appropriate agent of
this solution is the state. The transition from abundance to scarcity will have to be
centralised and expert-controlled, and it is unlikely that 'a steady state polity could be
democratic' (Ophuls, 1977: 162). As we shall see in the following paragraphs, this faith in the ability of the state to institute centralised controls that would be obeyed
political apparatus that has been historically associated with capitalist societies' (Heilbroner, 1974: 89).
hoped, although as we have seen not for terribly good reasons, that this coercion can be agreed democratically),
by its citizens is one of the areas that has attracted fierce criticism from contemporary green political theorists.
2NC Turns the Case
Only top-down, centralized imposition of constraints on freedom can
guarantee planetary survival---their ethic will inevitably fail to improve
ecological outcomes---an accelerating crisis makes authoritarianism
inevitable, and the worse the environment gets, the worse the constraints
on freedom will be
Humphrey 7
(Mathew Humphrey 7, Reader in Political Philosophy at the University of
Nottingham, UK, 2007, Ecological Politics and Democratic Theory: The
Challenge to the Deliberative Ideal, p. 14-15)
our democratic choices reflect a narrow understanding of our
immediate interests and not an enlightened view of our long-term welfare, the case is made by Ophuls.
He claims that we are now 'so committed to most of the things that cause or support the evils' with which he is concerned that 'we are almost paralysed;
nearly all the constructive actions that could be taken at present... are so painful to so many
people in so many ways that they are indeed totally unrealistic, and neither politicians nor
citizens would tolerate them' (Ophuls, 1977: 224).4 Environmentally friendly policies can be
justifiably imposed upon a population that 'would do something quite different if it was merely left
to its own immediate desires and devices' (Ophuls, 1977: 227): currently left to these devices, the American people 'have so far evinced little
In terms of the first of these points, that
willingness to make even minor sacrifices... for the sake of environmental goals' (Ophuls, 1977: 197). Laura Westra makes a similar argument in relation to the collapse of
Canadian cod fisheries, which is taken to illustrate a wider point that we cannot hope to 'manage' nature when powerful economic and political interests are supported by
reducing our 'ecological footprint' means
'individual and aggregate restraints the like of which have not been seen in most of the
northwestern world. For this reason, it is doubtful that persons will freely embrace the choices
that would severely curtail their usual freedoms and rights... even in the interests of longterm health and self-preservation.” (Westra, 1998: 198).Thus we willrequire a 'top-down' regulatory
regime to take on 'the role of the "wise man" of Aristotelian doctrine as well as 'bottom-up' shifts in values (Westra, 1998: 199). Ophuls also believes that in
certain circumstances (of which ecological crisis is an example) 'democracy must give
way to elite rule' (1977: 159) as critical decisions have to be made by competent people. The classic
'uneducated democratic preferences and values' (Westra, 1998: 95). More generally
statement of the collective action problem in relation to environmental phenomena was that of Hardin (1968). The 'tragedy' here refers to the "remorseless working of things'
towards an 'inevitable destiny' (Hardin, 1968: 1244, quoting A. N. Whitehead). Thus even if we are aware of where our long-term, enlightened interests do lie, the preferred
outcome is beyond our ability to reach in an uncoerced manner. This is the n-person prisoners' dilemma, a well established analytical tool in the social analysis of collectively
suboptimal outcomes. A brief example could be given in terms of an unregulated fishery. The owner of trawler can be fully aware that there is collective over-extraction from the
fishing grounds he uses, and so the question arises of whether he should self-regulate his own catch. If he fishes to his maximum capacity, his gain is a catch fractionally
depleted from what it would be if the fisheries were fully stocked. If the 'full catch' is 1, then this catch is 1 - £, where £ is the difference between the full stock catch and the
depleted stock catch divided by the number of fishing vessels. If the trawlerman regulates his own catch, then he loses the entire amount that he feels each boat needs to
surrender, and furthermore he has no reason to suppose that other fishermen would behave in a similar fashion, in fact he will expect them to benefit by catching the fish that he
abjures. In the language of game theory he would be a 'sucker', and the rational course of action is to continue taking the maximum catch, despite the predictable conclusion
that this course of action, when taken by all fishermen making the same rational calculation, will lead to the collapse of the fishery. Individual rationality leads to severely
suboptimal outcomes. Under these circumstances an appeal to conscience is useless, as it merely places the recipient of the appeal in a 'double-bind'. The open appeal is
'behave as a responsible citizen, or you will be condemned. But there is also a covert appeal in the opposite direction; 'If you do behave as we ask, we will secretly condemn
you for a simpleton who can be shamed into standing aside while the rest of us exploit the commons' (Hardin, 1968: 246). Thus the appeal creates the imperative both to
In terms of democracy, what this entails is that, in general, we have to be prepared
toaccept coercionin order to overcome the collective action problem.5 The Leviathan of
the state is the institution that has the political power required to solve this conundrum.
'Mutual coercion, mutually agreed on" is Hardin's famous solution to the tragedy of the
commons. Revisiting the 'tragedy' argument in 1998, Hardin held that '[i]ts message is, I think, still true today. Individualism is cherished
because it produces freedom, but the gift is conditional: The more population exceeds the
carrying capacity of the environment, the more freedoms must be given up' (Hardin, 1998: 682). On
behave responsibly and to avoid being a sucker.
this view coercion is an integral part of politics: the state coerces when it taxes, or when it prevents us from robbing banks. Coercion has, however, become 'a dirty word for
most liberals now' (Hardin, 1968: 1246) but this does not have to be the case as long as this coercion comes about as a result of the democratic will. This however, requires
people can agree to coerce
each otherin order to realise their long-term, 'enlightened' self-interest. If they cannot, and
both the myopic and collective action problem ecological objections to democracy arc valid, thenthis coercion may not be 'mutually
agreed upon'but rather imposed by Ophuls' ecological 'elite' or Westra's Aristotelian 'wise man'. Under these
overcoming the problems raised by the likes of Ophuls and Westra, that is, it is dependent upon the assumption that
circumstances
there seems to be no hope at all for a reconciliation of ecological imperatives and
we are faced with a stark choice,
democracy or ecological survival
democratic decision-making:
.
2NC Authoritarianism Key/Democ Fails
Democratic societies cannot address environmental destruction – only
authoritarianism solves
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 13-14, MX)
An evolutionary and therefore genetic mechanism relevant to our analysis is the need
and acceptance of authoritarian social structures conferred upon us by our primate
ancestors. These forces can even be seen to operate within a liberal democracy in which
leaders and democratic institutions themselves gradually evolve to become more
authoritarian. Freedom and individuality expressed through the market economy result in elites widening the gap between rich and poor and
enriching themselves by acquisitions in developing countries under the guise of freedom and democracy. Maladaptations of society as defined by
Stephen Boyden26 become more common, for example the economic view that retail spending is good for society or the accumulation of vast assets
by the rich that they cannot possibly use or spend in their lifetimes. The number of billionaires in the world is increasing rapidly and the majority are in
the liberal democracies. As we will see in the discussion to follow, many
liberal democracies are moving visibly
toward authoritarianism. Governments see this as an option to protect their power, and
many of their rich supporters favor it to protect their assets. It will be argued in chapter 6 that liberal
democracies are inherently unstable and move slowly but surely to authoritarianism.
Theorists who have seen liberal democracy as representing humanity's final political system have adopted a too narrow historical perspective, which
can be corrected by adopting a biohistorical or sociobiological view of the human species. We
should not be blind to the
possibility that an authoritarian meritocracy might have advantages in world crisis
management compared to the present democratic mediocracy. Our patient in the intensive care unit could
not be managed successfully under liberal democracy. Recognizing that totalitarian states have caused as much, if not more, environmental damage
as the liberal democracies, we will nevertheless argue in chapter 4 that some historical
totalitarian regimes have averted
some catastrophic environmental damage by dictate. We will document the personal and
democratic failures that render the environmental crisis difficult to address. An altruistic,
able, authoritarian leader, versed in science and personal skills, might be able to
overcome them. But liberal democracy predisposes the election of the slick wielders of the
political knife and then encumbers them with the burdens of economic chains and
powerful self-interested corporates who cannot be denied. They fuel the growth economy that preserves their
power and that of government. It is instructive to ask our democratically elected leaders: What do you see as the endpoint of this liberalized growth
economy? Surely to maintain this growth to infinity is unsustainable? Yet this growth is necessary for the present economic system to survive and
satisfy the perceived material needs of humanity. Our
leaders cannot provide an answer to this question. To
some it falls beyond their elected period, and they do not have to address it. To others there is the
hope that science and technology will capture the carbon dioxide of climate change, create hydrogen fuel from water, and feed the millions with
it is not an issue that democratic societies are addressing in a
way that will encourage solutions
genetically modified foods. But in general
2NC
Impact
2nc top o/v
Disad outweighs and turns the case –
The 1AC precludes effective centralized responses to a worsening global
environmental crisis that risks the extinction of humanity as well as the
total destruction of the biosphere and countless other species--overwhelming scientific evidence confirms that we’ve got a short window
of time to take direct, concerted actions to move society back within the
margin of ecological sustainability---that’s Shearman & Smith.
Authoritarianism is inevitable – it’s not a question of whether or not the
transition will happen but when. Any reason sooner is better means you
vote negative.
And, Absent a transition the only freedom one has is the freedom to die,
and you can’t be free if you’re dead
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 85-86, MX)
Our position differs from Wolff and other anarchists also insofar as
we reject the principle of autonomy, the
foundation belief of liberalism . It is the argument of this work that liberalism has
essentially overdosed on freedom and liberty. It is true that freedom and liberty
are important values, but such values are by no means fundamental or ultimate
values . These values are far down the list of what we believe to be core values based
upon an ecological philosophy of humanity: survival and the integrity of ecological
systems. Without such values, values such as freedom and autonomy make
no sense at all . If one is not living, one cannot be free. Indeed liberal freedom
essentially presupposes the idea of a sustainable life for otherwise the only freedom that
the liberal social world would have would be to perish in a polluted environment. The issue of
values calls into question the Western view of the world or perhaps more specifically the viewpoint that originates from Anglo Saxon development. It is
significant that the "clash of civilizations" thinking espoused by Samuel Huntington, a precursor of the neoconservatives, has generated much debate
and support. Huntington’s analysis involves potential conflict between "Western universalism, Muslim militancy and Chinese assertion."" The divisions
are based on cultural inheritance. It
is a world in which enemies are essential for peoples seeking
identity and where the most severe conflicts lie at the points where the major
civilizations of the world dash. Hopefully this viewpoint will be superseded, for
humanity no longer has time for the indulgence of irrational hates. The
important clash will not be of civilizations but of values. The fault line cuts across all
civilizations. It is a clash of values between the conservatives and the consumers. The latter
are well described in this book. They rule the world economically, and their thinking excludes true care
for the future of the world. The conservatives at present are a powerless polyglot of scientists, environmentalists, farming and
subsistence communities, and peoples of various religious faiths, including a minority of right-wing creationist who think that God wishes the world to
be cared for. They recognize the environmental perils and place their banishment as the preeminent task of humanity .
The fight for
minds, not liberal democracy, will determine the future of the world’s
population. If conservative thought prevails it may unite humanity in common cause
and heal the cultural fault lines. In the next two chapters we will develop further our critique of liberal democracy, arguing first that
democracy is already at an end through the undermining of democratic
institutions by man’s inherent mentality and by global corporate capitalism. We will find that the
latter has become Plato's beast and the keeper that panders to the beast has become the democratic government. This is so, regardless of the
correctness of the arguments of this chapter. In chapter 7, we will look more closely at liberalism itself and detail its philosophical flaws. This will
complete our multipronged philosophical and ecological dissection of liberal democracy. Having exposed what remains beneath the mummy’s shrouds,
it will remain to search for an alternative system and explore whether liberal democracy can be saved by radical reforms or political surgery or
resurrected from the tomb of its self-destruction by divine intervention.
And, The failures of liberalism mean that the affs solutions will fail
Ophuls ‘97
(William Ophuls (political Science at Northwestern Requiem for Modern politics, 1997)
Thus harsh and sweeping assessment of our predicament which will be elaborated and supported in the main body of the book, is
intended to promote not despair but simply a realistic understanding of the political challenge
confronting humanity on the threshold of the twenty-first century. Indeed it is only by exposing the
intrinsically self-destructive nature of modern politics that we can reveal the only real
solution to our multitude of problems – which is to change the way of thinking that
caused them. Unfortunately when most people call for solutions a different way of
thinking is usually the last thing they have in mind. What they want instead is something
that will not challenge their assumptions, shock their sensibilities, or violate the
conventional wisdom. Much of what follows is therefore designed to make it absolutely clear that no such
solution exists
– that trying
to solve our problems in terms of the basic principles of
liberal polity is a lost cause because it is these principles that have created the
problem in the first place. In this way, the necessity for a new vision of politics that directly
addresses the egotism and destructiveness of the modern way of life will follow as a
matter of course. In that sense, not just the Conclusions, wherein I briefly sketch the essential spirit of the new vision, but
the work as a whole is the “solution” to the problems it describes: it tries to exemplify a different
way of thinking.
vs Value to Life
The disad outweighs by comparative magnitude – you should prioritize a
utilitarian framework:
a. “Domestic” entails that the aff only solves for the 300 million citizens
in the United States, this is versus planetary extinction, that’s
Shearman and Smith
b. The magnitude question should force you to prioritize human lives –
total extinction removes possibility of solutions to human rights
violations in the future – even if the aff solves for dehumanization in
the United States, it doesn’t solve for deaths of 6 billion worldwide
Extinction outweighs
Bostrum 12 (Nick, Professor of Philosophy at Oxford, directs Oxford's Future of Humanity
Institute and winner of the Gannon Award, Interview with Ross Andersen, correspondent at The
Atlantic, 3/6, “We're Underestimating the Risk of Human Extinction”,
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/were-underestimating-the-risk-ofhuman-extinction/253821/)
Bostrom, who directs Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, has argued over the course of several papers that human extinction risks
are poorly understood and, worse still, severely underestimated by society . Some of
these existential risks are fairly well known, especially the natural ones. But others are obscure or even exotic. Most worrying to Bostrom is the subset of
existential risks that arise from human technology, a subset that he expects to grow in number and potency over the next century. Despite his concerns about
the risks posed to humans by technological progress, Bostrom is no luddite. In fact, he is a longtime advocate of transhumanism---the effort to improve the
human condition, and even human nature itself, through technological means. In the long run he sees technology as a bridge, a bridge we humans must cross
with great care, in order to reach new and better modes of being. In his work, Bostrom uses the tools of philosophy and mathematics, in particular probability
theory, to try and determine how we as a species might achieve this safe passage. What follows is my conversation with Bostrom about some of the most
interesting and worrying existential risks that humanity might encounter in the decades and centuries to come, and about what we can do to make sure we
outlast them. Some have argued that we ought to be directing our resources toward humanity's existing problems, rather than future existential risks, because
existential risk mitigation may in
fact be a dominant moral priority over the alleviation of present
suffering . Can you explain why? Bostrom: Well suppose you have a moral view that counts future
many of the latter are highly improbable. You have responded by suggesting that
people as being worth as much as present people. You might say that fundamentally it doesn't matter whether
someone exists at the current time or at some future time, just as many people think that from a fundamental moral point of view, it doesn't matter where
A human life is
a human life. If you have that moral point of view that future generations matter
somebody is spatially---somebody isn't automatically worth less because you move them to the moon or to Africa or something.
in proportion to their population numbers, then you get this very stark
implication that existential risk mitigation has a much higher utility
than pretty much anything else that you could do . There are so many
people that could come into existence in the future if humanity survives this
critical period of time---we might live for billions of years, our descendants might
colonize billions of solar systems, and there could be billions and billions times
more people than exist currently . Therefore, even a very small reduction in the
probability
of realizing this enormous good
will
tend to
outweigh even
immense benefits like eliminating poverty
or curing malaria , which would be tremendous under ordinary
standards.
c. Acts to bolster civil liberties absent solutions to existing ecological
rights violations create disproportionate levels of quality of life –
turns the case
UNEP ’14 (Division of Environmental Law and Conventions - United Nations Environment
Programme environment for development - The Division of Environmental Law & Conventions
(DELC) is the lead Division charged with carrying out the functions of UNEP that involve the
development and facilitation of international environmental law, governance and policy. To fulfill
its mandate, DELC’s work focuses on: Leading the international community in the progressive
development of environmental law Supporting States in the development and implementation of
legal and policy measures that address emerging environmental challenges Facilitating harmony
and inter-linkages among environmental conventions Working with MEA Secretariats to support
States in implementing their treaty obligations Enhancing States’ participation in regional and
global environmental forum // 6-24-15 // MC)
2 million annual deaths and billions of cases of diseases are attributed to pollution. All
over the world, people experience the negative effects of environmental degradation
ecosystems decline, including water shortage, fisheries depletion, natural disasters due to
deforestation and unsafe management and disposal of toxic and dangerous wastes and
products. Indigenous peoples suffer directly from the degradation of the ecosystems that they
rely upon for their livelihoods. Climate change is exacerbating many of these negative effects of
environmental degradation on human health and wellbeing and is also causing new ones,
including an increase in extreme weather events and an increase in spread of malaria and other
vector born diseases. These facts clearly show the close linkages between the environment and the enjoyment of human rights, and justify an integrated
More than
approach to environment and human rights. OVERVIEW OF LEGAL ISSUES There are three main dimensions of the interrelationship between human rights and environmental
The environment as a pre-requisite for the enjoyment of human rights (implying that
human rights obligations of States should include the duty to ensure the level of environmental
protection necessary to allow the full exercise of protected rights); Certain human rights,
especially access to information, participation in decision-making, and access to justice in
environmental matters, as essential to good environmental decision-making (implying that human rights must be
protection:
implemented in order to ensure environmental protection); and The right to a safe, healthy and ecologically-balanced environment as a human right in itself (this approach has
). The Stockholm Declaration, and to a lesser extent the Rio Declaration, show how the
link between human rights and dignity and the environment was very prominent in the early
stages of United Nations efforts to address environmental problems. That focus has to some extent faded away in the
been debated
ensuing efforts by the international community to tackle specific environmental problems, with more focus being placed on developing policy and legal instruments, both at the
Although the
foundation of developing such mechanisms laid on the considerations made at the time of the
Stockholm Conference, the human rights dimension is not made explicit in most of these
instruments. However, there have been several calls from different UN bodies to address the issues of human rights and environment in conjunction. The
international and national levels, targeted at the environmental problems that were emerging, through a series of MEAs and other mechanisms.
Commission on Human Rights (now transformed into the Human Rights Council) by Resolution 2005/60 requested the High Commissioner and invited UNEP, UNDP and other
relevant bodies and organizations, within their respective mandates and approved work programmes and budgets: “to continue to coordinate their efforts in activities relating to
human rights and the environment in poverty eradication, post-conflict environmental assessment and rehabilitation, disaster prevention, post-disaster assessment and
The UN reform
process also calls for the integration of human rights in all of the organization’s work. In a series
of resolutions, the former United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations
Human Rights Council have drawn attention to the relationship between a safe and healthy
environment and the enjoyment of human rights. Most recently, the Human Rights Council in its resolution 7/23 of March 2008 and
resolution 10/4 of March 2009 focused specifically on human rights and climate change, noting that climate change-related effects have
rehabilitation, to take into consideration in their work relevant findings and recommendations of others and to avoid duplication” (paragraph 8).
a range of direct and indirect implications for the effective enjoyment of human rights. These
resolutions have raised awareness of how fundamental the environment is as a prerequisite to
the enjoyment of human rights.
vs Nuclear War
Extinction from ecocide is inevitable absent a transition to ecoauthoritarianism – that’s Shearman-Smith and Beeson
Default to probability – democratic consumerism is systemic and slowly
destroying the environment
And, There is an invisible threshold that will result in massive and
unstoppable feedback loops - it’s try or die
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 24-26, MX)
So far, we have discussed events that are predicted with a high degree of certainty. However science is discovering
mechanisms that may result in sudden irreversible changes in the earth's environment.
These are termed threshold events, whereby a further small increase in temperature
triggers a major change in the earth’s control mechanisms. The U.S. National Academy of
Sciences supports this concept and believes that there could be an abrupt climate
change. The following are a few examples of possible mechanisms. The gulf stream, flowing north in the North
Atlantic Ocean, warms northern Europe and returns deep cold waters flowing south. Studies
from the National Oceanographic Centre in the UK have shown that the returning current may have slowed by 30 percent since 1957.16 The
northward flow is weakening due to climate-related increases in the southward flow of
fresh water from melting ice. This event is depicted in the doomsday thriller The Day After Tomorrow. If the gulf stream
reversed, Europe would have the climate of Hudson Bay, despite a warming world. There
are a number of natural stores of greenhouse gases ("sinks") in the tundra, soils, and
oceans. These sinks could release their gases as the temperature increases, leading to a
rapidly accelerating global warming. The permafrost in the tundra of Siberia is thawing
rapidly and is releasing frozen stores of the greenhouse gas methane.17 The oceans
absorb 2 billion tons more carbon dioxide than they release each year, and this is about
one third of all carbon dioxide produced by humanity. In future, with warming of the
ocean’s water, this sink may be compromised and there may be a net release of carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere. However at present the Antarctic Ocean is becoming more acidic
due to absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The acidity will affect the
ability of tiny crustaceans to grow their calcium carbonate shells, and an important link
in the food chain may be lost.18 The forests of the world are an important carbon sink,
but as the temperature rises trees become sick and become net producers rather than
stores of carbon dioxide. British scientists have also discovered another feedback mechanism whereby warmer
temperatures have increased microbial activity in the soil, releasing greater than
expected amounts of carbon—quantities sufficient to reduce Britian’s attempt to curtail
greenhouse gas emissions.' There are other mechanisms whereby global warming is being accelerated. Arctic ice is
rapidly melting, being 20 percent less than normal during the summer of 2005. Dr. Mark Serreze of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data
Center, believes that a threshold may soon be reached beyond which sea ice will not recover. A
feedback process may be set in motion, accelerating the melting of ice, as there is more
open blue water to absorb solar energy and less white ice to reflect sunlight back into
space.20° The major threat of global sea level rising comes from the glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica. Greenland's glaciers are melting into the
sea at almost twice their previously observed rate in the last five years.' The average temperature of Greenland has
risen by 3°C (5.4°F) over the last two decades and between 1996 and 2006 the amount of water lost from Greenland’s ice sheet increased from
90 cubic kilometers (21.6 cubic miles) to 220 cubic kilometers (52.8 cubic miles) per year. Greenland’s ice sheet covers 1.7 million square kilometers
(0.66 million square miles) with
ice of up to 3 kilometers thick (1.86 miles), and if completely melted it
would raise global sea levels by around 7 meters (7.65 yards). The evidence that we are moving into an accelerated
phase of global warming is supported by data showing that 9 of the 10 warmest years since 1860 have occurred since 1990 and 19 since 1981, and
annual increases in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are
accelerating as shown by data from the U.S. Government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. These measurements are
sufficient for scientists to be increasingly concerned that damage to carbon sinks and other mechanisms
described above may be playing a part. James Lovelock is a scientist, respected internationally for his pioneering work on
biological feedback systems. He introduced the Gaia concept of the living earth acting like a single organism by using feedback mechanisms to
maintain stability of temperature and climate over long periods of time. In 2006, in his book The Revenge of Gaia, he argued that global
warming will be amplified by the simultaneous malfunction of several feedback systems
due to human activities and it is already too late to stop catastrophic warming.22 One such
mechanism is that of global dimming, whereby aerosols in the atmosphere produced by global
industry are shielding the earth from part of the sun’s radiation. With a severe industrial
downturn, a sudden leap in global temperatures will be expected. Various events are likely to precipitate
economic downturn, such as the likely oil shortage are discussed later in this chapter.
Rights vs. Enviro
This vastly outweighs the case---preserving existence by definition has to
come before any other value---worsening environmental crisis turns all of
their impacts, but embracing eco-authoritarianism unites humanity and
solves all war
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 85-86, MX)
Our position differs from Wolff and other anarchists also insofar as we reject the principle of
autonomy, the foundation belief of liberalism. It is the argument of this work that liberalism has
essentially overdosed on freedom and liberty. It is true that freedom and liberty are
important values, but such values are by no meansfundamental or ultimate values. These
values arefar down the listof what we believe to be core values based upon an ecological
philosophy of humanity:survival and the integrity of ecological systems. Without such
values,values such as freedom and autonomymake no sense at all. If one is not living,
one cannot be free. Indeed liberal freedom essentially presupposes the idea of a
sustainable lifefor otherwise the only freedom that the liberal social world would have would
be toperish in a polluted environment. The issue of values calls into question the Western
view of the world or perhaps more specifically the viewpoint that originates from Anglo Saxon
development. It is significant that the “clash of civilizations” thinking espoused by Samuel
Huntington, a precursor of the neoconservatives, has generated much debate and support.
Huntington’s analysis involves potential conflict between “Western universalism, Muslim
militancy and Chinese assertion.”18 The divisions are based on cultural inheritance. It is a
world in whichenemies are essential for peoples seeking identityand wherethe most
severe conflictslie at the points where the major civilizations of the world clash.
Hopefully this viewpoint will be superseded, for humanity no longer has time for the indulgence
of irrational hates. The important clash will not be of civilizations but of values. The fault
line cuts across all civilizations. It is a clash of values between the conservatives and the
consumers. The latter are well described in this book. They rule the world economically, and
their thinkingexcludes true care for the future of the world.The conservatives at present
are a powerless polyglot of scientists, environmentalists, farming and subsistence
communities, and peoples of various religious faiths, including a minority of right-wing
creationists who think that God wishes the world to be cared for. They recognize
theenvironmental perils and place their banishment as the preeminent task of humanity.
The fight for minds, not liberal democracy, will determine the future of the world’s
population.If conservative thought prevails it mayunite humanity in common cause and
heal the cultural fault lines.
Delaying the transition to authoritarianism in the hopes that people just
start to “get it” on their own independently causes extinction
Charles Daniel 12, University of Leeds, Summer 2012, “To what extent is democracy
detrimental to the current and future aims of environmental policy and technologies?,” POLIS
Journal, Vol. 7, http://www.polis.leeds.ac.uk/assets/files/students/student-journal/ug-summer12/charles-daniel.pdf
Is it therefore possible to conclude that democracy is indeed detrimental to the current and future aims of environmental policy and
technologies? The resounding answer is ‘no’ as the alternative options proposed in the paper do not offer viable and comprehensive
as our
planet becomes more over-crowded, over-developed and over-dependent on financial instruments, so too
does thewindow of opportunity to secure a sustainable planet for future generations. Tim
Flannery is right in asserting that ‘our fate is in our own hands’ and whilst the need to be optimistic and to put faith in
the ability of our future as stewards of the Earth is important, one cannot ignore our inclination as a species
to behave in a selfish manner. Not only is it a political and cultural reality, it is also a biological one (Flannery 2010).
methods of being able to direct policy in ways that democracy is unable. What can be acknowledged though is that
Our instinct to survive will not go away. Unfortunately, that survival has become so contingent on the systematic exploitation of our
natural world. It has, I believe, reached a point where something needs to be done. Progressive politics through
raising awareness and encouraging good practices is vital for the survival of our planet. We cannot,
however, wait for people to slowly adjust their lifestylesandhope that environmental
consciousness ‘just happens’. I believe some level of intervention is required, a higher one that is
currently present in our domestic and global politics. We need to accept, at some point, thatlimitations on our
economic and social freedomsmay be necessary in order to ensure that ‘Gaia’s’ future is
secured. As I have suggested in Chapter 3, this has to be a two-tiered process. Firstly individuals have to accept
limitations on their freedom. This has to be acknowledged by national governments that, in turn, would make the same
sacrifice and relinquish certain aspects of their authoritative freedoms to supranational institutions. This process would require high
levels of trust in global governance models that have, as such, been fairly ineffective in influencing the actions of powerful nations.
However, we must not lose faith in these processes and retreat to policies of economic isolation and suspicion.
James Lovelock is correct in affirming that our
planet is old and frail. It is up to those in power to
ensure thatit does not wither away.
Liberating agency is the root cause of all their impacts and extinction --the aff can’t solve human defects
Ophuls ’11 - former member of the U.S. Foreign Service and has taught political science at
Northwestern University (Ophuls, William. “Plato's Revenge: Politics in the Age of Ecology.” 19
August 2011. P. 70-74)
The portrait of the psyche that emerges is cautionary. Asmuch as contemporary humans would like to believe that
wehave transcended our evolutionary origins, our animal nature lives on within us — in
our genes andin our minds. Witness the architecture of the human brain, in which the cerebral cortex enfolds a mammalian limbic system wrapped around a reptilian core.
Hence, said Jung, Everycivilizedhumanbeing, however high his conscious develop- ment, isstillanarchaicman at the deeper levels of his psyche.
Just as the human body connects us with the mammals and displays numerous vestiges of earlier evolutionary stages going back even to the reptilian age, so the human psyche is a product of evolution which,
when followed back to its origins, shows countless archaic traits. 2 In effect, Jung concludes, a “ 2,000,000-year-old man ” dwells in all of us. Even the distinctively human part of our nature associated with the
cortex is irredeemably Paleolithic. 3 As a consequence, men and women are constantly agitated by primordial drives and conflicting emotions that they only partly understand and struggle to control — and that
wehavepropensitiesforsicknessandevilthatmust not
be ignored. Anthropology supports this bleak assessment of the humanpsyche. With few exceptions,
therearenoharmlesspeople, and the savage mind, whatever its virtues, is often prey to unconscious forces and raw emotions (and is therefore the author of savage behavior).
A review of the anthropological literature reveals three seemingly universal tendencies of the human mind: we are prone to
superstitionandmagicalthinking, we are predisposed to paranoia, and we project our own
hostility onto others. 4 In essence, says Melvin Konner, chronic fear pervades the psyche and drives human
behavior. 5 Although the last word has yet to be spoken, there seems to be an emerging scientifi c consensus: we humans are a volatile mix of animal, primal, and civil — a tangle of emotions and
they are usually not even aware of. Much is healthy and good in human beings, but
drives that all but guarantees inner and outer conflicts. That human nature is partly animal nature is not entirely a bad thing. Instinct is necessary for a healthy psyche and a moral society.
Butforhumanbeingstolivepeacefullyincrowded civilizations, the more bestial and savage
aspects ofman ’ snaturehavetobeactivelydiscouragedbysociety. Konner puts it more forcefully. Because of our fear-driven
antisocial propensities,
wehumansare “ evil ” by nature and thereforeneed a “ Torah, ” or
anequivalentethical code, to forestall the war of all against all . 6 In practice, this means that mores are essential
because they tip the balance between good and evil in human nature. Good ones turn fal- lible, passionate men and women into reasonably upright members of society, while bad ones turn them into feral
This conclusion does not follow from theory alone; it hasbeen empirically
demonstrated. The social psychologist Stanley Milgram showed how simple it is to create little Adolf Eich- manns who obediently inflict severe pain on hapless experi- mental subjects. 7 In an
menaces to society.
even more frightening experiment, his colleague Philip Zimbardo contrived to convert ordinary, presumably decent students into punitive monsters. In the infamous Stanford prison experiment, student volunteers
were randomly assigned to be either guards or prisoners. In a matter of days, the former turned harsh and sadistic, the latter cringing or rebellious, and the experiment had to be aborted to avert physical harm to
the prisoners. 8 In effect,
psychology has rediscovered what were once called“ the passions ” — the
welter of conflicting and potentiallydan- gerous impulses and emotions that lurk in every human
breastandthat threaten to eruptundertheslightestprovocation unless they are kept in
check by
social control
Society cannot exist
unlessacontrollingpoweronwillandappetitebeplacedsome-where. ”The choice is between
self-imposed“ moral chains ”or externally imposed“ fetters. ” In his Politics , Aristotle identified the essential political challenge:
personal character or
. Recall the words of Burke: “
For as man is the best of the animals when perfected, so he is the worst of all when sundered from law and justice . . . [because he] is born possessing weapons for the use of wisdom and virtue, which it is
possible to employ entirely for the opposite ends. Hence, when devoid of virtue man is the most unholy and savage of animals. 9 When individuals gather in crowds, the challenge increases by orders of
magnitude because
fear,greed,andangerarecontagious. As Gustave Le Bon pointed out long ago, crowds amplify every
human defect and manifest many new ones oftheir own
. “ The masses, ” said Jung, “ always incline to herd psychology, hence
they are easily stampeded; and to mob psychology, hence their witless brutality and hysterical emo- tionalism. ” 10 Nietzsche was even more scathing: “ Insanity in individuals is something rare — but in groups,
The greatest WeaponofMassDestructionon the
planetistherefore the collective human ego
parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule. ” 11
.
Historyteachesthatthehumancapacityforevilisvirtuallyunlimited. Unless wisdom and virtue are deployed to counteract ego ’ s
potential for destruction,
actualdestructionisinevitableasmenandwomenforgettheirbetternatureandbecomeunholya
ndsavage animals. This new yet old understanding of human nature is enough by itself to demolish modern hubris. Infinite social progress is as much of a chimera as infinite material
progress. The “ 2,000,000-year-old man ” is what he is and will not be improved, only tamed. Indeed, at this point in human history, the essential task is forestalling racial suicide, not pursuing social perfection. To
We are in touch not
with reality but with a kind of shadow play projected onto the screen of the psycheby
this cautionary portrait of human nature, we must now add the limits of human cognition. As has been shown, the human perceptual apparatus is a trickster.
even the finest intellects struggle to
comprehendcomplex, self-organizing systems, for nature does not make iteasy for us to
know reality. But the fault does not lie in nature. The human mind was simply not created to unravel the mys- teries of quantum mechanics or to comprehend the intricate dynamics of the global
invisible deep structures
. We have also seen that
climate regime. It was instead cobbled together and then honed to perfection by evolution for one specifi c purpose — survival as hunter-gatherers on the African savannah. We are Jung ’ s “ 2,000,000-year-old
man ” not just emotionally but also cognitively. We are hardwired to perceive in certain ways and not in others. Above all, human cognition is “ designed ” for concrete perception, so primal peoples are masters of
what anthropolo- gist Claude L é vi-Strauss called “ the sciences of the concrete. ” 12 This is by no means an inferior mode of thought. The savage is not, as we tend to think, a mere captive of strange fancies
and outlandish beliefs. He is actually more of an empiricist than the physicist because he perceives his world directly and immediately whereas the latter fi lters nature through an elabo- rate intellectual apparatus
made up of mathematical, theoreti- cal, and technological lenses. So the abstraction associated with literacy, civilization, and, above all, scientifi c investiga- tion is not natural but acquired — and only with great
difficulty after years of schooling.
Evenschooling cannotentirelyeradicate the innate pro- pensity for
concreteness in the human mind. For instance, we daily commit the
epistemological sin of reification — regarding abstractions or ideas, such as
energy or the market, as if they were somehow as real as rocks and trees
rather than constructsthat help us understand complex phenomena. Likewise, our opinions have a tendency to
become “ set in concrete, ” resist- ing all evidence to the contrary. 13 But perhaps the most egregious instance of what Whitehead called “ the fallacy of misplaced concreteness ” is that so many
otherwise sane human beings believe in the absolute, literal truth of the manifestly mythological accounts contained in various scriptures — refusing to accept archeological and
historical evidence to the contrary or even to entertain the possibility that these accounts could be fingers pointing at the
ineffable rather thanexpressions of concrete truth. 14 Sadly, many, if not most, human beings are not capable of rising
very far above Piaget ’ s concrete operational stage of cognition. 15 Hence they cannot be said truly to comprehendthe social and
physical reality of life in complex civilizations — a life far removed from the comparatively simple and concrete existence of the hunter-gatherer, which centered on day-to-day survival amid an intimate
circle of kinsmen and friends. As a corollary, the untutored human mind focuses on the present and the dramatic. The imperative of survival on the savannah made us sensitive to immediate or striking dangers —
but comparatively oblivious to long-term trends, risks, and consequences, especially ones that are inconspicuous. Our attention is not grabbed by the creeping destruction of habitat, the imperceptible extinction of
species, the continual accumu- lation of pollutants, the gradual loss of topsoil, the steady depletion of aquifers, and the like. Rather, we tend to fi xate on dramatic symptoms (such as the occasional major oil spill)
while ignoring the far greater long-term threat to ecosystems posed by quotidian events (such as the daily dribble of petro- chemicals from a multiplicity of sources, which is far greater and much more damaging
over the long term). Unfortunately, dribbles are not the stuff of melodrama and so tend not to register strongly, even when brought to our attention by the media. So it takes a crisis to thrust stealthy perils into full
awareness. Unfortunately, says biologist Richard Dawkins, the human brain was simply not built to understand slow, cumulative processes like evolutionary or ecological change, which demand an acute
sensitivity to the long-term consequences of small changes. 16 Since long-term observation and planning were not critical for our early survival, these mental attributes were not reinforced by evolutionary
selection. Ecology and its implications are therefore poorly understood, even by the informed public. More generally, the human mind ’ s inability to escape the clutches of the present leads to the habitual,
shortsighted pursuit of current advantage to the detriment of future well-being. In addition, the survival imperative endowed us with a host of cognitive shortcuts — unconscious mental algorithms that may have
been essential on the savannah but that must be consciously set aside if we humans are to live sanely in civiliza- tion. For example, the human mind tends to be quick to decide. Like any animal, we are
emotionally wired for fi ght or fl ight, which means that
our savage minds are also cognitively wired to jump to
conclusions. When early humans spotted a tan shape lurking in the elephant grass, the minds that decided “ lion ” soonest had the best chance to pass their genes down to posterity.
Thehumanmindisalsodualistic,soitisconstrained,ifnotcompelled,tochooseonepoleortheot
her — fi ghtorfl ight, blackorwhite, rightorwrong — not the middle ground. This has been experimentally
demonstrated at the perceptual level: when humans look at a classical optical illusion, they see either the lady or the vase, never both at once. In other words, the human mind
naturally dichotomizes, creating thecommonoppositionsof“ good ” and “ bad, ”“ us
”versus“ them, ”the“ two sides ”of any issue,“ left ”against“ right ”inpolitics,andsoon.
Unfortunately, as F. Scott Fitzgerald noted, it takes a fi rst-rate intelligence to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still continue to function,
sountutoredmindsreadilyaffixthemselvestooneofthepoles and oppose the other. This
explainstheperennial conflictbetween believers and infidels that has occasioned
untold historical misery
.
Discussing the environment in terms of human rights conflicts with the
right to development- the result is ecological decline
OpenDemocracy 15 (Independent and not-for-profit, openDemocracy is a leading independent
website on global current affairs. Editor in-chief is Anthony Barnett, who went to Cambridge. "Human
Rights - Help Or Hindrance to Combatting Climate Change?" OpenDemocracy. Jan 09 2015. ProQuest.
Web. 28 June 2015)
However, though initially appealing, articulating environmental struggles in the language of
rights may not be helpful for more effectively addressing ecological concerns. The
difficulty lies in the second of the barriers to cooperation noted above: the inability to
imagine development alternatives. When dominant development patterns continue to
demand infinite economic growth on a planet with a limited productive and adaptive
capacity, the result is inevitable ecological decline. Alongside ecological degradation,
current development patterns also exacerbate economic inequality between and within states,
creating systemic global economic and environmental injustice. In such a context, articulating
the problem in terms of achieving a balance between competing rights (the right to
development and the right to a healthy environment) is unconstructive unless a substitute
is found for the underlying economic system that demands limitless growth. Thus, the
human rights framework may not help to reconcile globalization with its ecological limits.
A more serious concern, however, is whether this framework may be part of the reason we
struggle to imagine sustainable ways of life. The phenomenal growth of rights-based
discourse has happened alongside ever-expanding fossil-fuel dependency, pollution and
waste; modern freedoms are increasingly understood as being contingent on a resourceintensive, mass-consumption lifestyle. Today, increasing numbers of people understand
themselves through a rights philosophy that privileges particular types of human
entitlement and systemically devalues the non-human. Such a philosophy is the epitome of
an obsessively anthropocentric worldview. It helps to propagate and entrench a particular
abstraction of the 'human' that is profoundly disconnected from knowing ourselves as a species
inextricably interconnected with other organic and inorganic life. In an intertwined state of
being, where each entity's survival depends on its relationship with others within an
ecosystem, the distinction between human and non-human is untenable; the non-human
'other' is essential for human life. Whatever we do to the other we are also doing to
ourselves.
Link
2NC Link Wall
Extend Humphrey – Value changes represent a long-term solution to a
short term problem – delaying the transition and gutting any chance of
environmental solvency
And, Lack of moral and political restraints perpetuate ecocide
Ophuls ’11 (Ophuls, William. Plato's Revenge : Politics in the Age of Ecology. Cambridge,
MA, USA: MIT Press, 2011. ProQuest ebrary. Page 18-22 Web. 24 June 2015. He served for
eight years as a Foreign Service Officer in Washington, Abidjan, and Tokyo before receiving a
PhD in political science from Yale University in 1973. After teaching briefly at Northwestern
University, he became an independent scholar and author. He has published three books on the
ecological, social, and political challenges confronting modern industrial civilization.
http://site.ebrary.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/lib/umich/reader.action?docID=10496263// 6-24-15 //
MC)
In other words, a limited government compatible with wide personal liberty requires a virtuous people ,
a point well understood by the framers of the American Constitution. As John Adams said, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious
people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.” 11 James Madison extended this understanding to all of politics: “To suppose that any
12 In the end, living legally
rather than morally is not desirable on political grounds alone: a lack of virtue in the people
entails a government of force, not consent. If we now turn our attention to humankind’s relation
with the natural world, the case for placing moral chains on human will and appetite becomes
even more compelling. When Hobbes “unleashed the passions,” he liberated men and women from imposed moral or religious strictures,
form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.”
but he also gave birth to what we know as economic development. Although the state no longer had the duty or even the right to inculcate or enforce
private virtue, it did nevertheless have a positive role beyond mere peacekeeping—to foster “commodious living.” Freed
of the obligation
to promote otherworldly ends, the state would henceforth dedicate itself to the things of this
world—to abetting human desire, especially the urge for material gratification. Following in Hobbes’s
footsteps, John Locke and Adam Smith made this profound shift in orientation from sacred to secular explicit: the purpose of politics is to facilitate the
But the unfortunate side effect of
unleashing human will and appetite in this fashion has been the destruction of nature. Nature
may not be a moral agent in the usual sense of the word—although a moral code is indeed
implicit within the natural order—but it does have physical laws and limits that cannot be
transgressed with impunity. Tragically, in the absence of mores that promote self-restraint and
respect for nature, the exploitation of the natural world is bound to turn into overexploitation, for
human wants are infinite. The long-term effect of unleashed passions therefore has been to
violate nature’s laws and limits and provoke an ecological crisis. Our escalating ecological problems have become
acquisition of private property and national wealth, along with the power that they confer.
both common knowledge and a growing focus of political concern but to very little effect. After all, our form of politics requires perpetual economic
we cherish the delusion that we can
overpower nature and engineer our way out of the crisis. We are not yet ready to admit that the
destruction of nature is the consequence not of policy errors that can be remedied by smarter management, better
technology, and stricter regulation but rather of a catastrophic moral failure that demands a radical shift in
consciousness. The antidote to political corruption and ecological degradation is therefore the
same—a moral order that governs human will and appetite in the name of some higher end than
continual material gratification. For this we need true laws, not merely prudent or expedient rules. But where shall we find such laws?
growth, so the idea of limits, much less retrenchment, is anathema. Besotted with hubris,
They will not be found in revealed religions, old or new. Whatever the virtues and advantages of premodern religious politics, the concomitant evils and
disadvantages were enormous, and Hobbes’s philosophical revolt was both intellectually and historically justified. Perhaps they can be found in some
new ideology? Again, surely not. If the history of the twentieth century has anything to teach, it is that secular ideologies are even worse than religious
creeds at fomenting cruelty and violence. This leaves only one possible source for a new moral code—natural law, the law “written on the tablets of
eternity.”
2NC Internals
America k2 Spillover
Collapse of liberal America will spill over to the rest of the world
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 117, MX)
The end of liberal America could be sooner than we may think. General Tommy Franks, who led the U.S.
military operation to liberate Iraq, says that if America is hit by a weapon of mass destruction that causes
large casualties, the Constitution will be discarded and the United States will have a
military form of government. In one interview he said that the result of a weapon of mass destruction hitting the United States would
mean "the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom
and liberty we’ve seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call
democracy."44 He continued that "it may be in the United States of America—that causes our population to question our own Constitution and
begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a, repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of
our Constitution?' In this context it is worth quoting the more recent remarks of the Australian cosmologist John O’Connor who has reminded us that
Civilization, warned us that societies,
however complex and solid they may appear, are in fact quite fragile. For example the almost total
civilizations typically collapse from within: Kenneth Clark in a famous television documentary series,
eclipse of the Greco-Roman civilization in western Europe after 600 years of predominance shows that collapse can occur when a society becomes
exhausted ... when its people become so used to the rights, privileges and material prosperity endowed by their civilization that they no longer value
them sufficiently to defend, maintain and build on them.46 Similar sentiments have been expressed about the survival of America by the respected
social theorist Chalmers Johnson in The Sorrows of Empire.' This is a perspective different from the one expressed in this book; Johnson sees America
as a new Roman Empire, but a more enlightened one. Nevertheless the expansion of the American empire has led to the "sorrows of empire,"
including America becoming a debtor nation, owing more money than it is ever likely to pay back. International finance has a death grip on the throat of
The arrogance
of empire blinds leaders to basic realities: A combination of imperial over-stretching,
rigid economic institutions, and an inability to reform weakens empires leaving them
fatally vulnerable in the face of disastrous wars, many of which the empires themselves
invited. There is no reason to think that an American empire will not go the same way
and for the same reasons. However given the global reach of the American empire, the
fall of America will be much like a large comet striking the ocean. The death of America
will mean the death of liberal democracy." Liberal democracy likewise suffers from these
sorrows of empire. The system is, in short, corrosive of social capital, the cultural glue
that holds society together.49 Although theorists differ about how and to what extent this
corrosion acts, it is clear that act it does. The difficulties, contradictions, and dilemmas
of liberal democracy are so great that that its demise is inevitable. What then will replace it, and what
the American economy. Running an empire was expensive for the Romans, and it is even more expensive for the Americans.
should replace it? The remainder of this book will consider these questions.
UQ
Authoritarianism Coming
2NC
Obama is shifting to Authoritarianism Now
a. Transitioning Government
Henninger 13
(Daniel, “Daniel Henninger: Obama's Creeping Authoritarianism,” pg online
@
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324136204578639953580480
838 //um-ef)
Obama states publicly what his intentions are. He is
doing that now. Toward the end of his speech last week in Jacksonville, Fla., he said: "So where I can act on my own, I'm
going to act on my own. I won't wait for Congress." (Applause.) The July 24 speech at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., has at
least four references to his intent to act on his own authority, as he interprets it: " That means whatever executive authority I have
to help the middle class, I'll use it." (Applause.) And: "We're going to do everything we can, wherever we can, with or without Congress."
Every president since George Washington has felt frustration with the American
Please don't complain later that you didn't see it coming. As always, Mr.
system's impediments to change. This president is done with Congress.
The political left,
historically inclined by ideological belief to public policy that is imposed rather than legislated, will support Mr. Obama's expansion of authority. The rest of us should not.
The U.S. has a system of checks and balances. Mr. Obama is rebalancing
the system toward a national-leader model that is alien to the American
tradition. To create public support for so much unilateral authority, Mr. Obama needs
to lessen support for the other two branches of government—Congress and the
judiciary. He is doing that. Mr. Obama and his supporters in the punditocracy are defending this escalation by arguing that Congress is "gridlocked."
But don't overstate that low congressional approval rating. This is the one branch that represents the views of all Americans. It's gridlocked because voters are. Take a closer
look at the Galesburg and Jacksonville speeches. Mr. Obama doesn't merely criticize Congress. He mocks it repeatedly. Washington "ignored" problems. It "made things
worse." It "manufactures" crises and "phony scandals." He is persuading his audiences to set Congress aside and let him act. So too the judiciary. During his 2010 State of the
Union speech, Mr. Obama denounced the Supreme Court Justices in front of him. The National Labor Relations Board has continued to issue orders despite two federal court
rulings forbidding it to do so. Attorney General Eric Holder says he will use a different section of the Voting Rights Act to impose requirements on Southern states that the
Supreme Court ruled illegal. Mr. Obama's repeated flouting of the judiciary and its decisions are undermining its institutional authority, as intended. The three administration
nominees enabled by the Senate's filibuster deal—Richard Cordray at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Thomas Perez at the Labor Department and EPA
Administrator Gina McCarthy—open a vast swath of American life to executive authority on steroids. There won't be enough hours in the day for Mr. Obama to "act on my own."
are few means to stop a president
who decides he is not obligated to execute laws as passed by Congress. So there's little
reason to doubt we'll see more Obamaesque dismissals of established law, as with ObamaCare's
In a recent Journal op-ed, "Obama Suspends the Law," former federal judge Michael McConnell noted there
Obama is pushing in a direction that has the potential for a
political crisis. A principled opposition would speak out. Barack Obama is right that he isn't running again. But the Democratic Party is. Their Republican
employer mandate. Mr.
opponents should force the party's incumbents to defend the president's creeping authoritarianism. If Democratic Senate incumbents or candidates from Louisiana, Alaska,
Missouri, Arkansas, North Carolina, Montana and Iowa think voters should accede to a new American system in which a president forces laws into place as his prerogative
rather than first passing them through Congress, they should be made to say so. And to be sure, the other purpose of the shafted middle-class tour is to demolish the GOP's
an
standing with independent voters and take back the House in 2014. If that happens—and absent a more public, aggressive Republican voice it may—
unchecked, unbalanced presidential system will finally arrive.
b. Limiting rights and increasing surveillance
AllGov 12
(“Obama Has Authoritarian Powers Bush Could Only Dream Of,” pg online
@ http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/obama-has-authoritarianpowers-bush-could-only-dream-of?news=844386 //ghs-ef)
Barack Obama campaigned in 2008 as a civil libertarian, a former professor of Constitutional Law who promised to
close the military prison at Guantánamo, Cuba, undo the unconstitutional excesses of the Bush administration’s “War on Terror” and stop the relentless
accumulation of power in the presidency.
Yet since taking power, Obama has undone little, and
has in fact been amassing additional powers to himself and the
presidency . In what ways has President Obama increased his arsenal of powers? Let us list the ways: • Obama has ordered
the killing of U.S. citizens abroad whom he has deemed terrorists, without any opportunity to deny the
accusation or present a defense. • Despite promising to shut down the Bush system of trying terrorism detainees before military tribunals where their
due process rights are severely limited, Obama instead signed the Military Commissions Act of 2009, essentially codifying the Bush policy. •
Obama has not only continued to use the Guantánamo prison, but also brought the
underlying policy home by signing the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, which
allows the military to arrest and indefinitely detain anyone, including citizens, merely
suspected of assisting terrorists. That codifies the Bush administration’s treatment of Jose Padilla, a citizen arrested in 2002
and transferred from civil to military custody. It also reverses the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act’s ban on the government using the military for domestic
matters. • Obama
has refused to reveal how his Justice Department is interpreting the Patriot
Act, despite requests from Democratic Senators and others. • One of George W. Bush’s
worst civil liberties violations, using the telecom system to spy on virtually all Americans
starting in 2003 ( which Obama has since defended in court) also has been
expanded . The National Security Agency (NSA) is now building its largest data processing center
ever, which will go beyond the public Internet by also snooping into password-protected
networks. The NSA is also relying on private corporations to mine data as a way to avoid
the Constitutional requirement of obtaining search warrants, as the Constitution limits only government
searches and seizures. The federal government continues to require that computer makers and big Web sites provide access for domestic surveillance
purposes.
Surveillance
Now
Congress enhancing the surveillance state now
Trimm ’15 (Trevor, March 14th, 2015 - Trevor Timm is a Guardian US columnist and executive director
of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a non-profit that supports and defends journalism dedicated to
transparency and accountability http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/14/congress-wontprotect-us-from-the-surveillance-state-theyll-enhance-it // 6-25-15 // )
The same Senator who warned the public about the NSA’s mass surveillance preSnowden said this week that the Obama administration is still keeping more spying
programs aimed at Americans secret, and it seems Congress only wants to make it
worse. In a revealing interview, Ron Wyden – often the lone voice in favor of privacy rights on
the Senate’s powerful Intelligence Committee – told Buzzfeed’s John Stanton that American
citizens are being monitored by intelligence agencies in ways that still have not been
made public more than a year and a half after the Snowden revelations and countless
promises by the intelligence community to be more transparent. Stanton wrote: Asked if
intelligence agencies have domestic surveillance programs of which the public is still unaware,
Wyden said simply, “Yeah, there’s plenty of stuff.” Wyden’s warning is not the first clue about
the government’s still-hidden surveillance; it’s just the latest reminder that they refuse to come
clean about it. For instance, when the New York Times’ Charlie Savage and Mark Manzetti
exposed a secret CIA program “collecting bulk records of international money transfers
handled by companies like Western Union” into and out of the United States in 2013, they
also reported that “several government officials said more than one other bulk collection
program has yet to come to light.” Since then – beyond the myriad Snowden revelations that
continue to pour out – the public has learned about the Postal Service’s massive database
containing photographs of the front and back of every single piece of mail that is sent in the
United States. There was also the Drug Enforcement Administration’s mass phone
surveillance program – wholly separate than the NSA’s – in which “phone records were
retained even if there was no evidence the callers were involved in criminal activity,”
according to the New York Times. And recently, the Justice Department’s “national database
to track in real time the movement of vehicles around the US”, reported by the Wall Street
Journal. That there are still programs aimed at Americans that the Obama administration is
keeping secret from the public should be a front page scandal. Instead of exposing and
informing these programs, however, Congress seems much more intent on giving the
intelligence agencies even more power. On the same day that Wyden issued his warning,
the Senate Intelligence Committee passed its latest version of CISA, a supposed
“cybersecurity” bill that allows companies to hand over large swaths of personal
information to the government without any court order at all – and gives the companies
immunity from any privacy lawsuits that may result. Wyden called it “a surveillance bill by
another name” – and was the only Senator on the Intelligence Committee member to vote
against it. The committee claims they passed some privacy amendments, but we have no idea
what since they did so in complete secrecy, and the announcement came after it had already
passed. The public has yet to see the bill. While members of Congress attempt to pass a
new way for the government – and the NSA – to get their hands on more data of Americans,
they’ve barely made a peep about reforming Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the controversial law
that was twisted and warped to allow the NSA to collect every phone record in the United
States. Soon they’ll have no choice but to address it: Section 215 has to be renewed by
Congress in June, or the law expires. With no progress on reforming, there will be a huge
push in the coming weeks for Congress to reject Section 215 entirely – and many people
believe the surveillance state might not have the votes to keep it. Congress can keep
trying to avoid change, but reform is coming one way or another.
Inevitable
Liberal Democracy inevitably turns to mass surveillance – the aff is just lip
service
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 109-110, MX)
This claim that liberalism is a socially destructive ideology has been made in the recent past by conservative thinkers.
Malcolm Muggeridge, a Christian conservative thinker, saw liberals as possessing a death wish. Reflecting on the cultural revolution of the West in the
1960s, he saw liberals as having a tendency to grovel before any tyrant and their regime, however brutal (Pol Pot, Mao, etc.), so long as the tyrant
mouthed the appropriate platitudes about the "brotherhood of man." Seeing humans as fallen and cursed by original sin, Muggeridge saw the liberal as
possessed by an irrational necessity to abolish a degenerating culture and reconstruct it to conform to his or her own prejudices, revolving around the
idea that human beings are fundamentally good. The notion that liberalism
is grounded upon a fundamentally
mistaken philosophy of human nature is also expressed by the conservative, former communist, writer James Burnham.6
For Burnham, liberalism is an ideology of national suicide that ultimately erodes a nation’s will to survive. During the cold war French writer JeanFrancois Revel thought that communism would ultimately defeat liberal democracy.' Liberal
democracy may only have been
an historical accident. This political system always allows internal enemies who seek to
destroy the system to flourish (such as communists for Revel or environmentalists for corporate empires). Liberal
democracies will self-destruct by following their own logic to extremes. The conservative intellectual
Paul Gottfried has agreed that, unlike nineteenth-century liberalism, the contemporary liberal state is concerned with
promoting uniformity, not individuality.' For Gottfried liberalism now only pays shallow lip
service to the philosophy of liberty; today the nanny state is more concerned with
democratic socialization and social control. There is no real mobilization by the oppressed against the new class elites
who run the state machine.9 Psychological weapons, with fear the most potent, are refined to
maintain social control, power, and community silence. Fear allows those in power to
enact sweeping counterterror legislation, spy on its citizens, kidnap, and torture in the
name of their protection.10 Secrecy and deception become a normal part of liberal
democracy, as was the case in totalitarian communism. The tenets of liberalism, such as
justice, are cast aside in the interests of political designs. Political attacks on the
judiciary became more and more open in Western democracy, reflecting liberalism’s
propensity to cast aside the collective good in favor of individual liberty. In a speech just after her
retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court, Sandra Day OonConnor took aim at those leaders whose repeated denunciation of courts for alleged liberal
bias could be contributing to a climate of bias against judges.' The leaders were political right-wingers flourishing in the free-for-all of liberalism. History
tells us that attacks on the judiciary are often the forerunner of dictatorship. Thus the masses become apathetic and lose hope. if they ever had any, of
self-government and are pacified by sexual bread and drug circuses, a quiet tyranny of tits, TV, and consumer consolation. In this sense, George
Orwellons 1984 has already arrived. Then the masses were pacified by Victory gin, "films football, beer and above all gambling filled up the horizon of
their minds," and "there were some millions of proles for whom the lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive."12 Gottfried’s line
of thought is that it was liberalism that destroyed the old monarchic order and concentrated power in the emerging modern state of Europe. At the time
of the 1917 Revolution, communists in the former Soviet Union found a concentration of power ready for them to take over. Liberalism thus, ironically,
laid the ground for the Soviet gulag.13 As discussed in chapter 6, liberal
societies are far from liberal, in that the
number of people killed by liberal democratic governments in the name of universal
human emancipation from the time of the Enlightenment to the second Iraqi war is far
greater than the number of people killed by communist regimes (thought by some authorities to be in
excess of 150 million).14 Often those liberal democracies strutting their freedom and opportunity for all
have transgressed the rights of others in the name of their own self-interest. The accusations of
Harold Pinter ring true in his Nobel Lecture: The United States supported and in many cases engendered
every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I
refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador and of course Chile. The horror the
United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven. Hundreds
took place throughout these countries.15
of thousands of deaths
Transition
2NC MUST READ Inevitable
Environmental decline makes the transition to authoritarianism inevitable--the only question is whether it can be effective
Beeson, PhD, 10 [professor in political science and international relations]
(Mark, March, Environmental Politics Vol 19 No 2 “The coming of environmental
authoritarianism” www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09644010903576918#.VY294vlViko)
The conclusions that emerge from the following discussion are necessarily impressionistic, speculative and rather dispiriting. The empirical
evidence upon which such inferences depend is, by contrast, more and more compelling and unequivocal . There is little
doubt that the natural environment everywhere is under profound, perhaps irredeemable stress. Parts of
Southeast Asia and China are distinctive only in having already gone further than the most of the West in
the extent of the degradation that has already occurred (see Jasparro and Taylor 2008).
The only issue that
remains in doubt is the nature of the response to this unfolding crisis.
The
extent of the problem, the seemingly implacable nature of the drivers of environmental decline, the limited capacity for action at the national level and
the region’s unimpressive record of cooperation and environmental management do not inspire confidence. Consequently,
the prospects for
an authoritarian response become more likely as the material base of existence becomes
less capable of sustaining life , let alone the ‘good life’ upon which the legitimacy of
democratic regimes hinges. At least equally important is the widespread realisation that the techno-managerial approaches of
ecological modernisation will not be sufficient for achieving sustainability (however defined). The proponents of these approaches had once reassured
policy makers and the public that a radical break with the established socio-economic order would not be required, but that sustainability can be
achieved within this order, if new efficiency-technologies, market instruments, consensus-oriented strategies of stakeholder governance and even the
consumer culture are wisely and strategically used. These promises resounded with the widespread commitment to consumer capitalism and liberal
democracy and were, therefore, readily taken up. Yet, despite all technological innovation and resource efficiency gains, the strategies of ecological
modernisation have never succeeded in stopping, let alone reversing, the over-exploitation of natural resources, the decline of bio-diversity, the
advance of global warming or the increase of social inequality. They have helped to sustain the unsustainable for an extra couple of decades but,
ultimately, they have only reinforced and radicalised, not suspended, the demand for policy measures which are less compatible with the principles of
both liberal democracy and consumer capitalism.
Humans are biologically determined to become authoritarian
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 101-103, MX)
Why then is the authoritarian state a natural choice for humanity? It is not necessarily a choice, it happens, because, as Richard Dawkins wrote, "If
you wish to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly
towards a common good you can expect little help from biological nature." When Rousseau said
that man was born free, this was far from the truth. We may not be happy with the thought, but there is much evidence to indicate that our evolutionary
past dictates our instinct and behavior. On reviewing the scientific evidence to substantiate this, Robert Winston concludes that while people have no
problem accepting our evolution from some form of ape, few of us accept the psychological implications. "Homo sapiens not only looks, moves and
breathes like an ape, he also thinks like one. Not only do we have a Stone Age body, with many vestiges of our past, but we also have a Stone Age
mind."43 This mind is ruled by such basic instincts of fear and flight by which automatic physiological responses occur in threatening situations, and by
the primacy of the sexual instinct to ensure survival of the species. The latter is the main determinant of our quest for power, goods, and status, and
when the chips are down, is more important to us than the governance system that we use to obtain it. The modular theory of evolutionary psychology
suggests that humans are born with minds that contain complex psychological mechanisms or modules so that the brain is hardwired for a wide range
of behaviors and instincts that are shared by all humanity. These range from an inherent fear of snakes to an innate structure of the brain that allows us
to learn language—according to the work of Chomsky.44 The modular theory is supported by studies on patients who have injury to the brain localized
by brain scanning, which shows a range of disabilities in speech and recall of words. These functions cannot be learned to any significant degree by
undamaged parts of the brain. This is not an agreeable theory for humanity to accept, for it offers little hope for reform! Indeed other scientists believe
that there is much plasticity in the brain that is adapted by our experience of the world around us. As with all diametrically opposed theories in science,
the truth will encompass some of both theories with the modular theory preeminent. With the modular theory in mind, it is important to note that Somit
and Peterson believe that our social evolution in tribal systems is framed around "dominance and submission, command and obedience."45
Dominance is a relationship between different individuals that is usually established by threat and display. It serves the important role of preventing
disputes that might lead to injury and turmoil. In evolutionary terms, violence would not be good for reproductive success. This system is seen in
primates where it contributes to reproductive success, and a hierarchy is established that leads to social stability.
Humanity uses
dominance and submission to organize society. The reproductive intent is more hidden
in the cloak of power and prestige of those who are leaders either elected or appointed.
Within democracy we are always on the move towards authoritarianism. Political parties
are hierarchical. Often they have cabals, each of which has its own hierarchy that selects
its candidates for government. We have to have visible and directive leaders, even though we may recognize that the leader is
constructed from cardboard and painted by spin-doctors and advertisers. Government, opposition and corporatism is hierarchical and cannot be
An exposure of misdoing or corruption by a whistle-blower is
not accepted as a service to society Instead of gratitude, there is discomfort, "outing,"
and unemployment. Those elected to leadership by democracy often move to
authoritarianism by using the system to retain power or to wage war. In particular they
consort with the rich and powerful corporations to usurp the needs of society, even to
the extent of destroying other democrat-les if they fail to satisfy the mold sought by
corporatism, for example, Allendeons Chile. All these human traits are genetic barriers to the
sustainability of democracy. Whatever social structure is freely created, it inherently
becomes hierarchical and authoritarian. It is difficult to comprehend how a simple universal message of love and humility
challenged from within without potential injury.
espoused by Christ and the disciples could be transformed into the pomp, power, and authoritarian dogma of the Roman Catholic Church. Obedience
Obedience is expected
within a so-called democratic party where the members are kept in line by whips, and in
the workplace where questioning of roles can be insubordination. An order may be
accepted when it involves personal sacrifice, and orders that are morally reprehensible
such as torture, massacre, and genocide are often carried out with alacrity by
individuals, formerly good family stalwarts of society. Obedience is necessary for the
functioning of the killing machines, the armies trained by democracies as well as the
tyrants. The scientific study of obedience using electric shocks shows that individuals
have an ingrained ability to obey even when injury is conferred on others.46 Observation of our
is part of this hierarchical system, and disobedience is rare. This is also an impediment to democracy.
closest primate relatives, chimpanzees, reveals a social and hierarchical structure uncannily similar to our own. Their society functions with a hierarchy
based on dominance and submission. The dominant male is the leader because of strength and creation of alliances. Murder and organized violence
are part of their society just as they are in ours. For example, male chimpanzees form alliances to seek revenge when a friend is killed. War parties are
formed from mature males who have grown up together, and the anticipation of battle may produce sickness and vomiting through fear. These
activities closely resemble the male bonding and platoon formation in human wars. This common behavior is summarized by Potts and Short as
follows: "The unique and bloody common characteristic of the chimpanzee Pan troglodytes and Homo sapiens is a propensity for a close knit group of
mature males to drop what they are doing, venture stealthily and deliberately into the territory of a neighboring group, seek out one or more individuals
they can outnumber, and then beat the living daylights out of them. This behavior has not been found in any other animal and it has all the attributes of
a war."47 Indeed, both societies sometimes choose warfare as a strategy, even perhaps to the extent of preemptive strikes. Both societies can revel in
the sight of violence, one need look no further than the television schedules. Liberal
democracy provides but sheep’s
clothing for its selfish authoritarian genes, an unjustified bias in favor of humans. We
agree that this is a fundamental problem of liberalism, but unlike these authors we will detail how liberalism is
destructive in other human and social spheres. We will see that the liberal attitudes that have corrupted the concept of environmental sustainability, for
this is incompatible with the growth economy, are the same ones that conflict with human values.
Even if not preferable, authoritarianism is inevitable with resource scarcity
Woods, PhD 10 [lecturer of political theory at Leeds]
(Kerri, January, Human Rights and Environmental Sustainability, Edward Elgar publishing, p
129-130)
Ophuls, writing in 1974, predicted ’the inevitable coming of scarcity to societies predicated on abundance', and with this, ‘almost equally inevitable, will be the end of political
Ophuls has been understood as claiming that we can
either have democracy and individual freedom, or we can have sustainability, but we cannot
democracy and a drastic reduction in personal liberty’ (Ophuls 1974. p. 47).
have both. Pursuing both would lead to the destruction of the environment
degree where scarcity caused societal breakdown and a return to authoritarianism as a matter of
necessity. Taking a similarly apocalyptic tone. Hardin laments ‘the tragedy of freedom in a commons* (Hardin 2005. p. 28). The freedom he has in mind is mostly
to the
economic, and, in particular, procreative freedom. In this regard, he specifically attacks the UDHR right to found a family, which is proclaimed in Article 16.1. Writing much later.
Beckerman argues that, rather than trying to predict future environmental demands and protect resources accordingly, 'our most important obligation to future generations is to
bequeath to them a “decent society" in which there is respect for basic human rights’ (Beckerman 2000. p. 22). The detail of the argument put forward by Ophuls and Hardin is
not quite the apology for environmental authoritarianism that has sometimes been presented. Neither embraces authoritarian government as a good way to live. Rather, they
absence of individual moral responsibility makes authoritarianism necessary
both hold that an
. Indeed. Hardin
states that ‘The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected’ (Hardin 2005, p. 34). It is Hardin's and
Ophuls's pessimism about the likelihood of self-motivated social change and the advent of a morally driven environmental citizenry that leads them to conclude that
authoritarianism is, if not desirable, certainly inevitable . The arguments regarding democracy and citizenship discussed in the previous
chapter suggest a greater degree of optimism among more contemporary green theorists.
Now
Environmental authoritarianism coming now
Beeson ‘10 (Mark, Beeson is a professor of Political Science and International Relations at
University of Western Australia - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/14676435.00198/epdf // 6-24-15 // MC)
The environment has become the defining public policy issue of the era. Not only will political
responses to environmental challenges determine the health of the planet, but continuing
environmental degradation may also affect political systems. This interaction is likely to be
especially acute in parts of the world where environmental problems are most pressing and the
state’s ability to respond to such challenges is weakest. One possible consequence of
environmental degradation is the development or consolidation of authoritarian rule as political
elites come to privilege regime maintenance and internal stability over political liberalisation.
Even efforts to mitigate the impact of, correspond to, environmental change may involve a
decrease in individual liberty as governments seek to transform environmentally destructive
behaviour. As a result, ‘environmental authoritarianism’ may become an increasingly common
response to the destructive impacts of climate change in an age of diminished expectations.
Long before the recent global economic crisis inflicted such a blow on Anglo-American forms of
economic organisation, it was apparent that there were other models of economic development
and other modes of political organisation that had admirers around the world. The rise of illiberal
forms of capitalism and an apparent ‘democratic recession’ serve as a powerful remin-ders that
there was nothing inevitable about the triumph of ‘Western’ political and economic practices or
values (Zakaria 2003, Diamond 2008).
Traditional western imperialism and modernization causing
authoritarianism now
Beeson, PhD, 10 [professor in political science and international relations]
(Mark, March, Environmental Politics Vol 19 No 2 “The coming of environmental
authoritarianism” www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09644010903576918#.VY294vlViko)
Historicising the East Asian experience is important because it highlights the path-dependent
nature of some of the region’s problems of governance, development and sustainability as
products of the impact of European and latterly American intrusion into the region.
Incorporation into extant systems of international political and economic order entailed structural changes of profound importance
with enduring long-term consequences for the entire region. The
introduction of Western political and economic
practices to Southeast Asia transformed the existing social order, even if Western imperialism was mediated
by contingent local realities (Elson 1992). Demographic change – especially population expansion and the introduction of migrant
labour – has had a major impact on both domestic politics and the natural environment in Southeast Asia (Tarling 2001). Many of
these changes are not, of course, unique to the region, but
features of a more generalised process of
‘ modernisation’ that has supported the sort of population growth and economic
development that is placing such pressure on the global environment. What is distinctive about much of
East Asia is the geopolitical context this modernisation has occurred in and the concomitant patterns of political order it has
encouraged at the domestic level. Despite a rhetorical preoccupation with the promotion of democracy
and economic reform, the imperative of geopolitical contestation with the Soviet Union meant
that the US tolerated – even encouraged – the development of authoritarian political allies in a
process that helped entrench authoritarian rule in non-capitalist East Asia too (Schaller 1990, WooCumings 2005). Far from ending after the Cold War, history has continued to unfold in distinctive ways that have often
circumscribed political liberalism. During the 1990s, when we might have expected increased reformist pressure on the region, the
general success of the ‘East Asian miracle’ and the performance legitimacy that accrued to Asian leaders militated against major
political change. Even the Asian economic crisis failed to bring about wholesale political change, despite the noteworthy downfall of
Suharto. Whether the democratic transition can be consolidated and entrenched even here is a moot point. On the one hand, the
democratic reform and
‘good governance’ have been further threatened by a deteriorating security situation and the
difficulty of managing the complex strategic and political tensions associated with the ‘war on
terror’ (Beeson 2004). The associated geopolitical constraints would have been difficult enough to manage for a country with a
extent of the reform process in Indonesia is questionable (Robison and Hadiz 2004). On the other,
large Muslim population, but the
growing threat of environmental degradation and food
insecurity further intensified the political pressures on the region’s principal democratic success
story (Adam 2008).
Collapse Inevitable
2NC
Collapse of Liberalism is inevitable - physical limits
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 115-116, MX)
A number of philosophers and social theorists have seen the liberal order as being at an
end. British philosopher Alasdair Maclntyre in After Virtue33 sees liberalism as an intrinsically flawed philosophy, for while
pretending to be a master system of morality it is really only one moral system among a
competing plurality of alternatives and cannot supply an objectively true justification of
its own foundations. Liberalism is seen to beg the question of its own truth by assuming
the primary value of its fundamental concept: freedom. Maclntyre concludes his work by seeing liberalism as not a
genuine morality at all, in the sense of providing a moral worldview compared to the heroic societies of Homeric times. Liberalism fails to
provide a philosophy of life.34 If one has no philosophy of life then one cannot accept the
value of nature. Perhaps the sense of this loss of a heroic view of life is what has made films such as Gladiator, Lord of the Rings, and Troy
so popular. Maclntyre sees liberalism as leading to the ultimate end of this social order, which will
inevitably break down or fall apart from a kind of moral entropy. Advocating a type of communitarian
survivalism, Maclntyre believes that only small state-independent Benedictine-style communities will survive the coming dark age that liberalism is
creating. Writing long before McIntyre in 1936, Lawrence Dennis35 saw capitalism and communism as both doomed because of ecological scarcity, as
capitalism is more than
just the private (i.e., nonstate) ownership of the means of production. The essence of
liberalism, Dennis and others have argued, is to give greater consideration to private property rights
than to human life. Thus modern liberal capitalism requires a market expanding in
geometrical progression for its successful operation. The physical limits to growth
dooms capitalism: "Even the harshest critics of modern capitalism have never for a moment questioned its ability to go on growing
there is a limit to economic growth. He was right about communism. With regard to capitalism, he argued that
indefinitely in geometrical progression."36 Of course that statement was made in America in 1936, and since that time many have asked that very
question. Dennis
believed that liberal capitalism would grow like a cancer, producing
environmental destruction in its wake. The system will inevitably destroy itself, to be
replaced by a type of steady-state authoritarianism.
Liberalism self-destructs by devouring its own moral capital
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 116-117, MX)
William Ophuls in Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity37 is one of the few ecology writers to reject democracy and favor an authoritarian solution to the
environmental crisis. In the second version of the book, the antidemocratic focus has unfortunately been revised.38 Nevertheless in his most recent
book, Requiem for Modern Politics,39 he returns to the theme of the rejection of liberalism. The thesis for Ophulson Requiem for Modern Politics is that
modern politics is at an end because the concepts and values of the Enlightenment of
individualism, liberty, and materialism are no longer viable. He states: Modern
civilization, in all of its aspects and everywhere on the planet, is plunging ever deeper
into a multiplicity of crises that call into question its governing principles, practices and
institutions. In this "crisis of crises," there is one that has yet to receive the attention it
deserves: the impending failure of liberal polity, the modern system of politics founded
on the tenets of classical liberalism and the rationalistic philosophy of the
Enlightenment. Liberal polity is based on intrinsically self-destructive and potentially
dangerous principles. It has already failed in its collectivist form and, contrary to the
view of many, is now moribund in its individualist form as well ... Thus the three main
components of modern civilization—liberal polity, exploitative economy, and purposive
rationality—are riddled with inner contradictions. Civilization is therefore collapsing. As a
result, the latent totalitarianism of modern politics is likely to manifest itself with
increasing force in the years to come. In short, without a major advance in civilization.
we confront a political debacle.40 Economic growth and development are the modern
liberal state’s raison d'etre—but these phenomena are challenged by ecological scarcity,
the idea that there are limits to growth. These are not the only self-destructive tendencies
in modern liberalism, Ophuls argues. Liberalism tends to moral entropy (i.e., moral decay) with individual
selfishness destroying civil society: "liberal policies destroy themselves by devouring their own moral
capital, the fund of fossil virtue they have inherited from the pre-modern past."41 This can be seen in various shapes
and forms: the destruction of civil society by a globalized market system;42 education,
which has become a prescription for intellectual uniformity; the decay of reason; crime;
violence; and family breakdown. In short, "America exemplifies the process of growing
barbarization that is pushing us towards a Hobbesian future."43 For Ophuls, the liberal order
has no future. Liberalism is also at an end.
Liberalism is logically inconsistent making collapse inevitable OR Political
correctness is merely an attempt to ignore logical inconsistencies in
liberalism
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 109-113, MX)
This claim that liberalism is a socially destructive ideology has been made in the recent past by conservative thinkers.
Malcolm Muggeridge, a Christian conservative thinker, saw liberals as possessing a death wish. Reflecting on the cultural revolution of the West in the
1960s, he saw liberals as having a tendency to grovel before any tyrant and their regime, however brutal (Pol Pot, Mao, etc.), so long as the tyrant
mouthed the appropriate platitudes about the "brotherhood of man." Seeing humans as fallen and cursed by original sin, Muggeridge saw the liberal as
possessed by an irrational necessity to abolish a degenerating culture and reconstruct it to conform to his or her own prejudices, revolving around the
idea that human beings are fundamentally good. The notion that liberalism
is grounded upon a fundamentally
mistaken philosophy of human nature is also expressed by the conservative, former communist, writer James Burnham.6
For Burnham, liberalism is an ideology of national suicide that ultimately erodes a nation’s will to survive. During the cold war French writer JeanFrancois Revel thought that communism would ultimately defeat liberal democracy.' Liberal
democracy may only have been
an historical accident. This political system always allows internal enemies who seek to
destroy the system to flourish (such as communists for Revel or environmentalists for corporate empires). Liberal
democracies will self-destruct by following their own logic to extremes. The conservative intellectual
Paul Gottfried has agreed that, unlike nineteenth-century liberalism, the contemporary liberal state is concerned with
promoting uniformity, not individuality.' For Gottfried liberalism now only pays shallow lip service to the philosophy of liberty;
today the nanny state is more concerned with democratic socialization and social control. There is no real mobilization by the oppressed against the
new class elites who run the state machine.9 Psychological
weapons, with fear the most potent, are refined
to maintain social control, power, and community silence. Fear allows those in power to
enact sweeping counterterror legislation, spy on its citizens, kidnap, and torture in the
name of their protection.10 Secrecy and deception become a normal part of liberal
democracy, as was the case in totalitarian communism. The tenets of liberalism, such as
justice, are cast aside in the interests of political designs. Political attacks on the
judiciary became more and more open in Western democracy, reflecting liberalism’s
propensity to cast aside the collective good in favor of individual liberty. In a speech just after her
retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court, Sandra Day OonConnor took aim at those leaders whose repeated denunciation of courts for alleged liberal
bias could be contributing to a climate of bias against judges.' The leaders were political right-wingers flourishing in the free-for-all of liberalism. History
tells us that attacks on the judiciary are often the forerunner of dictatorship. Thus the masses become apathetic and lose hope. if they ever had any, of
self-government and are pacified by sexual bread and drug circuses, a quiet tyranny of tits, TV, and consumer consolation. In this sense, George
Orwellons 1984 has already arrived. Then the masses were pacified by Victory gin, "films football, beer and above all gambling filled up the horizon of
their minds," and "there were some millions of proles for whom the lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive."12 Gottfried’s line
of thought is that it was liberalism that destroyed the old monarchic order and concentrated power in the emerging modern state of Europe. At the time
of the 1917 Revolution, communists in the former Soviet Union found a concentration of power ready for them to take over. Liberalism thus, ironically,
laid the ground for the Soviet gulag.13 As discussed in chapter 6, liberal
societies are far from liberal, in that the
number of people killed by liberal democratic governments in the name of universal
human emancipation from the time of the Enlightenment to the second Iraqi war is far
greater than the number of people killed by communist regimes (thought by some authorities to be in
excess of 150 million).14 Often those liberal democracies strutting their freedom and opportunity for all have transgressed the rights of others in the
name of their own self-interest. The accusations of Harold Pinter ring true in his Nobel Lecture: The United States supported and in many cases
engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil,
Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador and of course Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can
never be purged and can never be forgiven. Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries.15 The United States is not alone
in its actions for other liberal democracies, the UK, France, and others, have behaved similarly to protect their power and economic interests. The
American conservative philosopher John Kekes concludes that liberalism
is inconsistent "because the realization
of these liberal values would increase the evils liberals want to avoid and because the
decrease of these evils depends on creating conditions contrary to the liberal values."16 A
good example of this paradox is the liberal’s advocation of both antiracism and multiculturalism and also the right of free speech, a matter to be
discussed. For these thinkers, liberalism, in short, saws off the branch that supports it.17 These points can be developed by briefly considering some
arguments made along these lines by Paul Gottfried. Gottfried points out that liberalism, in embracing doctrines such as hard multiculturalism, has
generated further internal contradictions. For example, on the face of it, the 1972 French Gayssot Law seems reasonable enough. The law forbids
"provocation to discrimination, to violence, or to hatred against a person or groups of persons by reason of their origin,"18 Fair enough. Also prohibited
is "public defamation of a person or group of persons by reason of their origin or belonging or non-belonging to an ethnic body, nation, race or
determined religion."19 Again on the surface this seems reasonable. But although such laws have been used to put Holocaust deniers in their place,
they have also been used against those criticizing various aspects of France’s immigration policy. One would have thought that a liberal democratic
society would encourage, not suppress scholarly examination of its basic legal institutions.2° French actress Bridget Bardot’s criticism of Muslim
migrants’ mistreatment of animals, for example, fell under the French race hate legislation. She narrowly escaped two years in prison. In Germany the
use of ancient Germanic runic symbols (the same type of symbols as seen in movies such as The Lord of the Rings) has been banned because a
small minority of neoNazi groups decorated CD albums with them. Even the use of the Irish Celtic cross, a Celtic Christian symbol, has been banned
for fear that it may have racist implications. Canada has banned controversial, yet prima facie scientific texts on race and behavior, such as by
there is
no ban placed upon many American black rap songs, which often contain clearly racist
and violent lyrics often expressing desires to murder white people and rape white
women. Such albums often express racist sentiments towards whites, or "crackers" or
"rednecks," as white people are called. It may be thought that this is an understandable
revolt of an oppressed group of people against an elite group of people. Yet most of
these rappers are not ghetto youth but very rich black Americans who produce their
music for a largely white youth market, not for oppressed and poor black minorities who
could hardly afford these expensive CDs on their welfare checks. The black rap music is
the white middle class kids’ revolt against their parents who pay the bills. In Australia,
race hate legislation was even used against a humane and sensible liberal journalist,
Phillip Adams, for his controversial, but arguably right, condemnation of Americans for
their support of the war on Iraq. Adams had said no more than an American critic such
as Michael Moore had said, but an American in Australia was offended by Adamson
condemnation of Americans and took him to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity
Court through a race hate complaint. We are not saying that such legislation is wrong in
spirit, but it does seem to be inconsistently applied, and, as the Adamson case shows, can have some nasty and
Canadian psychologist J. Philippe Rushton21 and a critique of America’s immigration program by Wayne Lutton and John Tanton.22 Yet
unanticipated uses. In the future it could easily be used as a weapon of oppression to silence critics on a number of issues. As we see from the above
Although counterterror legislation itself has not
yet been used to explicitly suppress environmental criticism by labeling
environmentalists as extremists, the legal system of the modern state has adequate
means of doing so. Defamation laws in common law countries such as Australia are much stricter than in the United States. Australia has
examples, it is already being used to silence critics of immigration.
a poor legal framework for defending free speech, with no constitutional protection as the United States has in its First Amendment. Defamation law
arose in England as a way of protecting the reputation of noblemen from criticism and public exposure. Today defamation cases are big business,
where offended parties typically seek hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars of damage. Corporations and business people, typically
developers, have made use of "SLAPP suits" to silence environmental critics of projects. SLAP P suits are strategically planned litigation brought
against protesters to silence criticism—strategic lawsuits against public participation. This strategy is to threaten action against people who often have
no more assets than their house with massive damage claims unless they cease their protest and apologize. In Australia, legislation such as the Trade
Practices Act of 1974 (Commonwealth), which was originally devised as a form of consumer protection to produce a climate of fair trading, has been
used against various environmental protesters by certain business organizations. The idea is to show that the protesters are frustrating trade by the
protest itself, and massive damages are often sought. As we have no wish for such litigation against us, and in some cases even mentioning cases in
discussion has led to further litigation—the reader requiring more details will need to pursue this matter on the Internet through the use of any Internet
search engine with appropriate key words. Should one turn a blind eye to such inconsistencies in the name of tolerance? Liberals do so today just as a
previous generation of the Left whitewashed the horrors and genocide of the communist regimes. But it did not make such horrors go away.
Liberals lack a fundamental ability to be able to face up to the internal contradictions in
their own position. As Brian Appleyard in Understanding the Present has said with some rhetorical flourish: It is, I believe, humanly
impossible to be a liberal. Society may advocate liberal tolerance and open-mindedness, but nobody practices it. In fact, this is what preserves liberal
society. For
a complete personal acceptance of scientific-liberalism would reduce the
society to passive, bestial anarchy. There would be no reason to do anything, no
decisions worth making and certainly no point in defending one position as opposed to
another.23 The liberal difficulty in facing up to uncomfortable realities is well illustrated by
the debate about whether feminism and multiculturalism are compatible. Liberals
support women’s liberation and equality with men even though practical equality in the
workplace is not delivered by them. This parroting of equality is reminiscent of Animal
Farm and "some animals are more equal than others."24 Liberals also support antiracism, nondiscriminatory
immigration programs, and allowing diverse cultures to maintain their traditions. However, fundamentalist Islam is strongly
antifeminist and highly patriarchal. If in principle there is no reason for immigration restrictions based upon culture and
religion, there is no reason why a nation such as France should restrict building upon its already significant Muslim population. But what if this in turn
Thus feminism and
multiculturalism, products of liberalism, are mutually incompatible.25 The typical liberal
response to such questions is to slam the questioner with abuse, usually calling the
questioner a racist or fascist. But that doesn’t solve the problem. The messenger may be
silenced but the question remains. Political correctness is essentially about not asking
these types of uncomfortable questions. Clearly some differences are more "different" than others.
led to a cultural and ethnic change leading to a radical demographic change? This would undermine women’s rights?
Expanding populations make ecological crisis inevitable
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 59-67, MX)
A paper in the prestigious journal Science in July 2005 by a group of environmental scientists representing a wide range of scientific disciplines indicates that land use
practices are destroying ecosystems that are vital for global sustainability.1 The lead author, Jonathan
Foley, commented that "short of a collision with an asteroid, land use by humans is the most
significant impact on the world’s biosphere."2 Such dire warnings were used to describe
global warming in chapter 2. It is irrelevant to debate which of these two threats is the greater,
for they are synergistic and related to the many consequences of economic and
population growth. In this chapter we find that humanity possesses the scientific knowledge that the
depletion of ecological services is a threat to survival yet their protection is not a priority
for government action. Biodiversity is the variety of all life-forms: the different forms of animals, plants, and microorganisms, the genes they contain, and
the ecosystems of which they form a part. An ecosystem is a community of different species and their interactions in the habitat within which they live. What are ecological
All living things exist in
this web of life with mutual interdependence for food and other resources. Humans are
part of this web of life. Thus an ecological service is the provision of a resource to
humanity by other species. Examples are the provision to provide food, fiber, and purified water, degradation of wastes and pollutants, recycling of
services? Ecological science is the study of the ways in which all living things interact with each other and with their environment.
nutrients, stabilization of climate, protection against flood and storm, and provision of materials for shelter, medicines, and cultural activity. Clearly, therefore,
ecosystem services are an integral part of the health and well-being of humanity and
need to be maintained in perpetuity.' The remorseless damage to ecological services by
the growth economy and the population explosion since industrialization is the final
common pathway of, the environmental crisis. The biodiversity that provides these services is lost through deforestation and
overplanting of crops, leading to loss of soil, erosion, and desertification; overuse and pollution of rivers; urbanization, overfishing; and climate change. Pollution from mining and
oil wells, pipelines, and transport is also significant. The habitat of species becomes fragmented by development and replaced by invasive species brought by trade into
environments where there are no natural controls; as a consequence food production on land and in coastal waters is compromised. The overall effect of all these events is to
reduce the genetic pool of a species and to isolate it into pockets that cannot interbreed. Consequently there is a rapid increase in extinctions. The importance of biodiversity is
recognized in the Millennium Development Goals,4 which aim to fulfill the UN declaration of 2000 that stated: "We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and
children from the abject and dehumanising conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected." Goal 7 is to ensure environmental
Forests contribute to the livelihoods of many of the 1.2
billion people living in extreme poverty. They nourish the natural systems supporting the
agriculture and food supplies upon which many more people depend. They account for as much as 90
sustainability, and within this goal the role of forests is emphasized:
. But in most countries they are shrinking
percent of terrestrial biodiversity
.' In this chapter we will place some emphasis on the
ecological role of forests because this role is easily recognized by the reader, but the arguments we put forward apply equally to many other systems: rivers, soils, the oceans,
Ecological systems have an inherent strength and ability for repair.
But only to
a point. We will develop the argument that all these resources continue to be used to the point of stress
and potential collapse by the society in which we live, and this will threaten our survival.
wetlands, coral reefs, and many more.
Forests can grow again after logging, soils can regenerate after some degree of overcropping, and rivers can recover if their depleted flows are restored.
Let us look at a simple example. An ancient forest has valuable wood for harvesting, which can be used sustainably to provide a living for craftspeople. However, it is more
profitable in the short term for the owners, private or government, to chop it down, to make wood chips for paper, and then to optimize future production by converting the land to
plantation timber. If the forest is retained it continues to provide ecological services. It filters rainfall to provide pure water supplies at no cost to towns and cities, it evens out the
flow from rainfall to avoid flood and drought, and it provides a stable source of sequestrated carbon that would be released as greenhouse gas if the forest is felled. It will
maintain numerous species of trees and plants that will help provide a sustainable existence for humanity. Forests create increased rainfall and therefore stabilize climates.6
However, in economic terms, our value system describes a conserved forest as "locked up," implying that it cannot be used for immediate exploitation and the creation of jobs.
It is a measure of the values of wealthy Western civilization that more often than not the
forest will be felled. What does the collapse of an ecological system mean? Essentially the system no longer functions and is not available to provide
essential roles within the web of life, some of which may be essential to humanity. For example, overcropping and failure to provide natural manures leads to a reduction of the
microorganisms that constitute soil and maintain its structure. It is then susceptible to erosion by wind and flood and is lost to further cultivation. A river may die because its flow
is reduced by irrigation, and saline water is returned to the river from the irrigated regions. The animal and plant life of the river then dies, thus destroying the ecological
mechanisms that purify the water. The culmination of thousands of such events around the world, all of which are reducing biodiversity, is a global ecological crisis. We will
the basic philosophy of Western society embodied in liberal democracy is causing
this ecological crisis. But first we must substantiate the existence of the crisis. It is not sufficient to state that soil is blowing away and rivers are dying. Like
argue that
the issue of climate change we have to extrapolate into the future from existing evidence. We can measure the numbers of easily visible species and show a steady decline in
recent decades. The skin of frogs easily absorbs environmental pollutants, and we can regard the frog as the canary down the coal mine. Its demise is a measure of the health
of the environment.' Of the 5,743 know species of amphibians almost one third face extinction. In 1998 the Nair Scientist' reported that about 12 percent of bird species faced
extinction and that there has been a massive reduction in the numbers of more common species in countries with intensive agriculture. This reduction was caused mainly by a
loss of habitat and the use of chemicals that kill insects. In 2001 large reductions in the numbers of British woodland birds were reported due to climate change and to loss of
habitat and insects.9 Mostly due to encroachment on their habitat by human activities, 23 percent of the world's mammals also face extinction. Amongst these are our closest
Every two days 414,000 humans are born
with the requirement of land and fresh water for their survival. All apes are endangered and expected to become
relatives, the great apes.1° It is estimated that in 2003 there were 414,000 apes in the wild_
extinct within a few generations because their territory is being taken by humans. Science can use the health and numbers of certain species as a measure of the health of the
environment or more precisely of the ecosystem in which they live. Thus the health of fresh water streams is reflected in the numbers of frogs and of woodlands by the numbers
and variety of woodland birds. When the health of one particular species is monitored it is referred to as a "sentinel species." For example the slow decline of the sea otter is a
key indicator of the degradation of the Californian coast, which is increasingly polluted and infested with pathogens.11 The ill health or extinction of a sentinel species often
indicates the presence of an environment harmful to humans. Examination of fossil records indicates that the background rate of extinctions amounts to a few species per year.
Currently it is estimated that at least one thousand species are lost each year. This loss
is being increased by warming, and it is estimated that by 2050 15-37 percent of all
animals and plants will be threatened with extinction by greenhouse emissions
continuing at their present rate.12 In the past half billion years of vertebrate existence of life on the planet, sudden climate change, meteors, and
perhaps other catastrophic events caused five great natural extinctions, in which perhaps two thirds of species disappeared. Today, scientific opinion
is that we are in a sixth extinction period, and this is due to human activity. In simple terms the basic
cause is illustrated by the calculations of Vaclav Smil.13 Six billion humans weigh 100 million tons. If we weighed all
wild mammals in the world they would probably not reach 10 million tons, and the mass of all
domesticated animals would out-weigh all vertebrates twentyfold. Humans and their livestock consume 40 percent of the
planet's primary production of edible plants, and the other seven million species manage
on the rest. In biological terms, humans have been able to exist in plague proportions by
occupying the ecological space of other species and by using the earth’s stores of fossil
fuel.
Tragedy of the commons brings ruin to all
Hanson, 98
Consider capitalism as an organized process to ingest natural, living systems (including people) in one end, and excrete unnatural, dead garbage and waste (including wasted
people) out the other. From a thermodynamic view, capitalism may be seen as the conversion of low-entropy matter into high-entropy waste and garbage. From an economic
capitalism may be seen as the high-speed depletion of natural capital.
view,
Politics (self-organization) among human
animals is product of evolution. As soon as two or more people organize, the inevitable struggle for power ensues. This power struggle follows genetic patterns of exploitation,
lying, and self-deception. The triumph of capitalism and democracy could have been predicted by evolutionary theory. Capitalism extends the human genetic propensity to
exploit (make the best use of something: profit) and lie (meant to give a wrong impression: advertise). Democracy is simply the freedom to exploit and lie. Self-deception keeps
us from knowing what we are really up to. In his 1968 classic, "Tragedy of the Commons",[35] Garrett
Hardin illustrates why communities
everywhere are headed for tragedy -- it's because freedom in the "commons"[36] brings
ruin to all . Visualize a pasture as a system that is open to everyone. The carrying capacity of
is 10 animals. Ten herdsmen are each grazing an animal to fatten up, and the 10
animals are now consuming all the grass that the pasture can produce. Harry (one of the herdsmen) will add one more
this pasture
animal to the pasture if he can make a profit. Adding one more animal will mean less food for each of the present
animals, but since Harry only has only 1/10 of the herd, he has to pay only 1/10 of the cost . Harry
decides to exploit the commons, and the other herdsmen, so he adds an animal and takes a profit. Shrinking profit margins force the other herdsmen
either to go out of business or continue the exploitation by adding more animals. This process of mutual exploitation continues until overgrazing and erosion destroy the pasture
critical flaw of freedom in the commons: all
participants must agree to conserve the commons, but any one can force its destruction. Although
Hardin is describing exploitation by humans in an unregulated public pasture, his principle fits our entire society. Private property is inextricably part
system, and all the herdsmen are driven out of business. Most importantly, Hardin illustrates the
of our commons because it is part of our life support and social systems. Owners affect us all when they alter the emergent properties of our life support and social systems
Neighborhoods, cities and states are commons in the sense
that no one is denied entry. Anyone may enter and lay claim to the common resources. One can compare profits
to Hardin's "grass" when any corporation -- from anywhere in the world -- can drive down profits by competing with local
businesses for customers. One can see wages as "grass" when any number of workers -- from anywhere in the world -- can enter our community
(alter their land) to "make a profit" -- cover land with corn or with concrete.
and drive down wages by competing with local workers for jobs. Everywhere one looks, one sees the
Tragedy of the Commons . There is no tech nological solution , but governments
can act to limit access to the commons, at which time they are no longer commons. In the private-money-based political system we have in
America, everything (including people) becomes the commons because money is political power, and all political decisions are
reduced to economic ones. In other words, we have no true political system, only an economic system -- everything is for sale. Thus, America is
one large commons that will be exploited until it is destroyed . OVERSHOOT It was thus becoming apparent that
nature must, in the not far distant future, institute bankruptcy proceedings against industrial civilization, and perhaps against the standing crop of human flesh, just as nature had
done many times to other detritus-consuming species following their exuberant expansion in response to the savings deposits their ecosystems had accumulated before they
got the opportunity to begin the drawdown... Having become a species of superdetritovores, mankind was destined not merely for succession, but for crash. -- William Catton In
the language of ecology,
the human scenario can be predicted in four pungent words: "drawdown", "overshoot",
"crash", and " die-out ". "Drawdown" is the process by which we are using up the surrounding resources faster than
they can be replaced.For example, in the space of a little more than a hundred years we have used up perhaps half of all the buried remains of the
Carboniferous period -- oil, gas, and coal -- that were deposited over hundreds of millions years. Moreover, we have become totally dependent on continuing the process. One
might argue about the exact date that the global human "crash" will arrive, but the outcome is certain. "Overshoot" simply means that we have exceeded the "carrying
capacity"[37] of Earth: If just the present world population of 5.8 billion people were to live at current North American ecological standards (say 4.5 ha/person), a reasonable first
approximation of the total productive land requirement would be 26 billion ha (assuming present technology). However, there are only just over 13 billion ha of land on Earth, of
we would need an additional two planet
Earths to accommodate the increased ecological load of people alive today. If the population were to stabilize at
which only 8.8 billion are ecologically productive cropland, pasture, or forest (1.5 ha/person). In short,
between 10 and 11 billion sometime in the next century, five additional Earths would be needed, all else being equal -- and this just to maintain the present rate of ecological
decline.[38]
Links
Rights
General
The 1AC’s framework for interpreting rights only furthers ecocide - only
understanding our ethic of natural domination is impossible solves
Ophuls ’11 (Ophuls, William. Plato's Revenge : Politics in the Age of Ecology. Cambridge, MA, USA:
MIT Press, 2011. ProQuest ebrary. Page Web. 24 June 2015. He served for eight years as a Foreign
Service Officer in Washington, Abidjan, and Tokyo before receiving a PhD in political science from Yale
University in 1973. After teaching briefly at Northwestern University, he became an independent scholar
and author. He has published three books on the ecological, social, and political challenges confronting
modern industrial civilization.
http://site.ebrary.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/lib/umich/reader.action?docID=10496263 // 6-24-15 // MC)
Industrial civilization must indeed stop abusing nature and
depleting resources before it follows previous civilizations in committing ecological suicide. 7 But
the only real solution is to put an end to the hubris itself by dissolving the dread-driven, neurotic
hostility to nature that fuels the urge for domination. Ecology is the surest cure for modern hubris. To understand
ecology is to see that the goal of domination is impossible—in fact, mad—and that the crude means we
have employed to this end are destroying us. To understand ecology is also to see that some of the most vaunted achievements of modern
life—our extraordinary agricultural productivity, the dazzling wonders of technological medicine, and, indeed, even the affluence of the developed economies—are not at
all what they seem but instead are castles built on ecological sand that cannot be sustained
over the long term. In short, ecology exposes the grand illusion of modern civilization: our
apparent abundance is really scarcity in disguise, and our supposed mastery of nature is
ultimately a lie. 8 To put it more positively, ecology contains an intrinsic wisdom and an implied ethic that, by transforming man from an
enemy into a partner of nature, will make it possible to preserve the best of civilization’s
achievements for many generations to come and also to attain a higher quality of civilized life.
Preserving the environment is thus the lesser part of the problem.
Both the wisdom and the ethic follow directly from the ecological facts of life: natural limits, balance, and interrelationship necessarily entail human humility, moderation, and
connection. Like any other species, homo sapiens is subject to natural limits. Technology does give human beings an ability to manipulate the environment that other species
mostly lack. But humanity’s success in this regard is in large part illusory because it has been purchased at a high price—symbolized by the accelerated extinction of those
Technological man has neither abolished natural scarcity
nor transcended natural limits. He has merely arranged matters so that the effects of his
exploitation of nature are felt by others. Other species, other places, other people, other generations suffer the consequences of the intensified
ecological imperialism of the modern age. The current environmental problematique testifies to the impending
failure of this strategy. The limits on human action are physical, biological, and geological but
also systemic. Reserving a fuller discussion of complex adaptive systems governed by a multiplicity of interacting feedback loops for the next chapter, I simply note
other species, with all that this implies for our own long-term future.
here that the biosphere and all its subsidiary ecosystems are characterized by nonlinear dynamics that make them difficult to understand and harder to control. In fact, we
cannot really know what the ultimate limits are. To put it the other way around, just as games are constituted by the rules that regulate play, the limits themselves constitute
To be without limits is to be without structure and therefore to be entropic—chaotic,
useless, or unintelligible. And limits do not oppose freedom: “Structure and freedom,” says
Jeremy Campbell, “are not warring opposites but complementary forces.” 9
natural systems.
Liberal democracy’s provision of individual rights promotes ecocide
through lack of environmental regulation
Daniel ’12 (http://www.polis.leeds.ac.uk/assets/files/students/student-journal/ug-summer12/charles-daniel.pdf *add cites // 6-24-15 // MC)
The main point to take away from the case study is not to do with portraying the US as an enemy of the environment (it has, after all, provided some form of investment to the
natural world’s future, with $450 billion spent on research and development in the last ten years), it is more to do with the inescapable patterns of consumption that have
America’s national survival is contingent on continued
economic abundance to feed a growing population. Democracy has become reliant on and
indeed defined by this cycle, which is fuelled by unadulterated freedom for individuals and
become ingrained into the US political, social and cultural fabric.
corporations alike. Speth is thus able to conclude that our ‘economic and political system does
not work when it comes to protecting environmental resources’ (2004: 133). He believes that the amount of
faith placed upon privatisation and the free market is unfounded, as they cannot be relied upon
to provide the appropriate levels of environmental protection. Lack of regulation has resulted in
companies consuming cheap resources and not taking into account the external implications of
their actions. These ‘externalities’ are what Speth believes to be the main driver behind pollution (2004). What he means by this is that the producer’s financial costs
are different from their external ones. For example, when a company burns coal, its only financial concerns are
the labour it uses, capital and the outlay cost of raw materials; the price in the form of ‘dirty air’
is not their concern. Producers and consumers are not given the opportunity to see the damage of such patterns since air pollution is not literally visible to the
human eye, nor is it a threat to short-term well-being (Panayotou 1998). Due to the lack of public intervention or government
pressure, companies are free to act as they please as there is no downside for them in regards
to financial gain if they continue to pollute the air. Imposing stringent regulation on these actions by, for example a tax on dirty air, is
avoided as it is against democratic principles to over interfere with company activity and indeed there is nothing to be gained by regulators for favouring the environment (Speth
2004). This ties in with the mention of the US oil addiction in that numerous sources of wealth from within the country depend on these sources of energy and their processes.
To interfere with them or attempt to reduce their powers would be to limit the economic
capability of the nation and possibly hinder the standard of living of each individual therein. With
the case of America and indeed other consumer-based economies, it can be concluded that too
much freedom can, in certain circumstances, become a real barrier to necessary change. It can
potentially create social conditions where individuals and institutions become POLIS Journal Vol. 7, Summer 2012 ISSN 2047-7651 105 too comfortable in their habits. For
liberal democracy, these habits are an over emphasis of the free-market, continual growth of industries and a fixation on GDP targets. Liberal democracy’s success is contingent
The desire for actual
change has slowly been removed from politics, as governments seek to prioritise stability and to
satisfy the wants of the electorate so that they will continue to stay in power for a further term. The
on these and, therefore, those in power have no choice but to abide by them, constrained by the short fixed terms they have in office.
financial crisis was a poignant example of this. It was the first time since the Great Depression that the foundations of the free market were truly shaken, allowing certain groups
to question the success and stability of the economic systems we rely upon. An acceptance of certain failures and a move towards change could have provided the much-
Countries
have localised themselves even further, reluctant to contribute to global environmental projects
when their own economies are in dire need of assistance. The US congressional budget office in the wake of the financial crisis
needed stimulus for environmental investment. As it is, that door has been shut as the government is forced to solve the situation with patchwork policies.
conveyed this direction in fiscal policy. In a report to the IMF, they expressed a need to make significant policy changes in order to keep the Federal Reserve in a stable position
). Whilst it was not explicitly stated, the report suggested that the US government
planned to roll back some of their international economic commitments. The UK government is
equally guilty of attempting to localise their economy in favour of international commitments.
David Cameron’s decision to reject a EU wide treaty in order to maintain the strength of the
domestic economy is just one example of policy direction that favours isolation instead of
contribution (Grice 2012). Liberal democracy then, if defined in this way, can be seen as being
detrimental to current and future environmental policies and investment, as it is reluctant to
adjust its course, even in times of failure, favouring gradual social change that will not unsettle the electorate. It is here that I return to the
(Elmendorf 2010
suggestion that liberal democracy may not be the appropriate format to guide global society in its current period of over-development.
Privacy
Privacy key to human rights
Burow 2013 (Matthew L Candidate for JD @ New England School of Law; The
Sentinel Clouds above the Nameless Crowd: Prosecuting Anonymity from
Domestic Drones; 39 New Eng. J. on Crim. & Civ. Confinement 443)
Walking down the street. Driving a car. Sitting on a park bench. By themselves, these
actions do not exhibit an iota of privacy. The individual has no intention to conceal their
movements; no confidentiality in their purpose. The individual is in the open, enjoying a
quiet day or a peaceful Sunday drive. Yet as Chief Justice Rehnquist commented, there
is uneasiness if an individual suspected that these innocuous and benign movements
were being recorded and scrutinized for future reference. 119 If the "uneasy" reaction to
which the Chief Justice referred is not based on a sense of privacy invasion, it stems
from something very close to it-a sense that one has a right to public anonymity. 120
Anonymity is the state of being unnamed. 121 The right to public anonymity is the
assurance that, when in public, one is unremarked and part of the undifferentiated crowd
as far as the government is concerned. 122 That right is usually surrendered only when
one does or says something that merits government attention, which most often includes
criminal activity. 123 But when that attention is gained by surreptitiously operated UASs
that are becoming more affordable for local law enforcement agencies, 124 "it evades the
ordinary checks that constrain abusive law enforcement practices ... : 'limited police
resources and community hostility."' 12 5 This association of public anonymity and
privacy is not new. 126 Privacy expert and Columbia University Law professor Alan F.
Westin points out that "anonymity [] occurs when the individual is in public places or
performing public acts but still seeks, and finds, freedom from identification and
surveillance." 127 Westin continued by stating that: [A person] may be riding a subway,
attending a ball game, or walking the streets; he is among people and knows that he is
being observed; but unless he is a well-known celebrity, he does not expect to be
personally identified and held to the full rules of behavior and role that would operate if
he were known to those observing him. In this state the individual is able to merge into
the "situational landscape." 128 While most people would share the intuition of Chief
Justice Rehnquist and professor Westin that we expect some degree of anonymity in
public, there is no such right to be found in the Constitution. Therefore, with a potentially
handcuffed judiciary, the protection of anonymity falls to the legislature. Based on
current trends in technology and a keen interest taken by law enforcement in the
advancement of UAS integration into national airspace, it is clear that drones pose a
looming threat to Americans' anonymity. 129 Even when UASs are authorized for noble
uses such as search and rescue missions, fighting wildfires, and assisting in dangerous
tactical police operations, UASs are likely to be quickly embraced by law enforcement for
more controversial purposes. 130 What follows are compelling interdisciplinary reasons
why the legislature should take up the call to protect the subspecies of privacy that is
anonymity. A. Philosophic: The Panopticon Harm Between 1789 and 1812, the
Panopticon prison was the central obsession of the renowned English philosopher
Jeremy Bentham's life. 131 The Panopticon is a circular building with cells occupying the
circumference and the guard tower standing in the center. 132 By using blinds to
obscure the guards located in the tower, "the keeper [is] concealed from the observation
of the prisoners ... the sentiment of an invisible omnipresence."'133 The effect of such
architectural brilliance is simple: the lone fact that there might be a guard watching is
enough to keep the prisoners on their best behavior. 134 As the twentieth-century French
philosopher Michel Foucault observed, the major effect of the Panopticon is "to induce in
the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic
functioning of power."'135 In Bentham's vision, there is no need for prison bars, chains
or heavy locks; the person who is subjected to the field of visibility of the omnipresent
guard plays both roles and he becomes the subject of his own subjection. 136 For
Foucault, this "panopticism" was not necessarily bad when compared to other methods
of exercising control as this sort of "subtle coercion" could lead people to be more
productive and efficient members of society. 137 Following Foucault's reasoning, an
omnipresent UAS circling above a city may be similar to a Panopticon guard tower and
an effective way of keeping the peace. The mere thought of detection may keep streets
safer and potential criminals at bay. However, the impact on cherished democratic ideals
may be too severe. For example, in a case regarding the constitutionally vague city
ordinance that prohibited "nightwalking," Justice Douglas commented on the importance
of public vitality and locomotion in America: The difficulty is that [walking and strolling]
are historically part of the amenities of life as we have known them. They are not
mentioned in the Constitution or in the Bill of Rights. These unwritten amenities have
been in part responsible for giving our people the feeling of independence and selfconfidence, the feeling of creativity. These amenities have dignified the right of dissent
and have honored the right to be nonconformists and the right to defy submissiveness.
They have encouraged lives of high spirits rather than hushed, suffocating silence. 138
As Justice Douglas understood, government surveillance stifles the cherished ideal of an
American society that thrives on free-spiritedness in public. 39 Without the right to walk
the streets in public, free from the fear of high surveillance, our American values would
dissipate into that resembling a totalitarian state that attacks the idea of privacy as
immoral, antisocial and part of the dissident cult of individualism. 140
Freedom
Money
Money The freedom that comes with democracy makes people focus on the
trade, technology and money but not the environment
Daniel 12 (Charles Daniel is a University of Leeds Political Science graduate. “To what extent is democracy
detrimental to the current and future aims of environmental policy and technologies?” Journal of Politics and
International Studies. May 2012. Vol. 7. http://www.polis.leeds.ac.uk/assets/files/students/student-journal/ug-summer12/charles-daniel.pdf)
Democracy, through the development of political capability and the spread of freedom, has cemented its position within global society as ‘the most ideal form of government’
Democracy, whilst arguably impossible to define, is widely considered to be a "government
by the people, where liberty, equality and fraternity are secured to the greatest possible
degree and in which human capacities are developed to the utmost, by means of
including free and full discussion of common problems and interests." (Pennock 1979). Implicit in this
definition is the commitment to ensuring that fairness and equality trump oppression and fear. As a direct product of social development, democracy is aimed
at the progression of political culture that is now recognisably being expressed through
the phenomena of globalisation that is increasing speeds and volumes of trade,
improving technology and opening a whole array of opportunities to all areas of the
economy (Beck 2000).
available to any given nation-state.
General
Individual freedoms tolerate environmental destruction and make
democratic countries dependent on fossil fuels
Daniel 12 (Charles Daniel is a University of Leeds Political Science graduate. “To what extent is democracy
detrimental to the current and future aims of environmental policy and technologies?” Journal of Politics and
International Studies. May 2012. Vol. 7. http://www.polis.leeds.ac.uk/assets/files/students/student-journal/ug-summer12/charles-daniel.pdf)
This strand of democracy is seen by many scholars, most notably Francis Fukayama, as the end-point of man’s political development and thus is
generally recognised, by Western nation-states and global institutions alike, as the final
form of human government (Fukayama 1992). Whilst deliberative democracy is concerned with
the ‘bottom-up’ pressures the electorate forces upon government, liberal democracy has
a ‘top-down’ political structure where influences generally arise from established centres
of power in the state and, most importantly, from the world’s economic and financial forces
(Cox 1998). At the heart of liberal democracy lies the importance of freedom of the individual
to act as he/she pleases in accordance with the various legal and moral constraints placed
upon them by society. Whilst this has served to produce the best possible conditions for society to
flourish, it is the belief of this essay that these social conditions have
perpetuated an economic model that tolerates an unjustified amount of
freedom based on deregulation and has resulted in t he irreversible
destruction of the natural world (Speth 2008). This process has been fuelled by the growing dominance of economic globalisation to
liberal democracy is now typified by its desire to promote exponential growth as
the surest means of ensuring political stability (Beck 2000). Whilst democracy is not solely focused upon economic and material
conditions of society, with social issues such as the maintenance of freedom of speech given an
equally important role in political processes, controversy surrounding this mode of
government is centred upon the knock-on effects that its economic agenda has on the
the extent that
human and natural world. The most prominent of these controversies
surrounds issues of consumerism and the extent to which liberal democracy has
unintentionally fuelled the processes of globalisation, seen by many as the greatest threat to environmental security (Khor;
2001; Mol 2001; Speth 2004). James Speth (2004), in his work Red Sky at Morning, appropriately articulates this concern, citing the
ten drivers of environmental deterioration that all centered upon the habit of
consumption fuelled by globalisation. The most poignant of these drivers is the scale
and rate of economic growth that is occurring as a result of drastic increases in global
population numbers. He believes that current nation-states are not fully aware of the implications
that the vast global changes are having on the environment. The root of this problem lies
in the vested interests that those in power obtain from continual support towards the
‘tried and tested’ strengths of a neo-liberal agenda, particularly a strong support from
multinational corporations and the oil industry (Speth 2004). The reliance on large
companies, for our food, fuel and consumer products means that neo-liberalism can be
dictated and manipulated by a handful of powerful individuals that essentially decide the
direction of the economy (Shah 2011). Whilst growth in corporations has created
numerous jobs and a greater level of financial opportunity it has equally ensured that
Western populations have become dependent on consumer goods and fossil fuels.
Capitalism
Rights Inherent
Individual liberties in today’s neoliberal society inextricably link human
rights and environmental sustainability
Woods '10 (Kerri, Lecturer in Political Theory, specialising in contemporary political philosophy. I have
written about human rights theory, the idea of cosmopolitan friendship, solidarity, vulnerability,
environmental justice and global justice + member of the Global Network for the Study of Human Rights
and the Environment, and Treasurer of the 'Association for Social and Political Philosophy’ + PhD in
Political Science
https://books.google.com/books?id=6rUtFjptp3sC&pg=PA129&lpg=PA129&dq=ophuls+environment+auth
oritarianism&source=bl&ots=UcrwISx4XV&sig=viyslEqnH4_b3A96SasNHCcUHFQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jq1L
VaWpBYq_sAWju4HgBw&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=ophuls%20environment%20authoritaria
nism&f=false // 6-25-15 // MC)
Human rights and environmental sustainability inevitably come together and impact on
one another in a globalized or globalizing world. It is a necessary task for theorists of
human rights and of environmental sustain-ability to consider the conceptual and
normative issues at stake in this interaction. The globalization of human rights, we are
told, has brought greater freedom everywhere. But greater economic freedom and the
economic expansion attendant upon globalization has also wrought more environmental
degradation. Environmental degradation has in turn, in some parts of the world, undermined human rights, and has the potential to do so globally if unsustainable
practices remain unchecked. Human rights, as a global norm, have been taken up by environmental
activists from a wide range of cultural and political contexts. Globalization, then, is an
important variable in the tensions and connections between human rights and
environmental sustainability. Globalization has been defined in a number of ways. For
some it is purely economic, for others predominantly so, for others still it is a set of
intrinsi-cally linked and equally important processes of economic, political and cultural
phenomena. One prominent commentator offers this definition: Fundamentally, [globalization is] the closer integration of the countries and peoples of the world which
has been made possible by the enormous reduction of costs of transportation and communication, and the breaking down of artifi¬cial barriers to the flows of goods, services,
capital, knowledge, and (to a lesser extent) people across borders. (Stiglitz 2002, p.9) I am concerned here primarily with economic globalization and the implications that this
. Defining globalization principally in economic terms draws
out the relationship between the globalization of the world's economy and environmental
problems caused by unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, and the
consequent relationship between environmental problems and issues in human rights .
Economic globalization as understood here is driven or promoted by neoliberal
economic policies. In some writing on globalization such policies are responsible for all
the evils of the world. For instance, in a polemical article Adamantia Pollis asserts that `globalisation . . . is underpinned by the ideology of neoliberalism,
has for the environment, and thus for human rights
which is devoid of any normative principle of justice and humanity; it is market driven' (Pollis 2004, p.343). Though Pollis is justified in some of her concerns about the neoliberal
To be clear, neoliberalism is
understood here as an economic theory which can be most simply characterized in
terms of promoting the idea that the economy should be freed from government. Adherents of
model of economic globalization, it is misleading to suggest that neoliberalism has no normative principles of justice.
neoliberalism hold that government regulation or other interference in the market place (such as state ownership or provision of goods) should be minimized, so as to maximize
efficiency. Success is measured in terms of overall increases in economic activity. Neither justice nor humanity are absent from this theory: agents should receive the fruits of
their own labour, and should not be arbitrarily deprived of them by government (by way of taxation). Wealth is expected to 'trickle down' through society, thereby improving the
Links between
human rights and the environment are easy to find in academic discussion, nongovernmental organization (NGO) campaigns and intergovernmental initiatives
concerning the environment, sustainable development and development projects more
generally. A crude explanation of this interconnection might make reference to the global nature of environmental problems; the global
environment is everyone's home, and while there are highly localized instances of
environmental degradation, there are also global problems, such as climate change,
ozone depletion, biodiversity loss and so on, solutions to which require global
cooperation. Human rights are held to represent a global standard. Almost all states have, at least formally,
general welfare. I do not set out to demonize neoliberalism; what I argue here is that its environmental unsustainability raises human rights issues.
signalled their endorsement of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and so one might reasonably expect a global problem to be met with a global solution.
Starting from the environment side of the equation, greens often argue that a 'clean' or 'decent' environment is an essential precondition for the realization of human rights (see.
for example, Sachs 1995; Hancock 2003; Globalization, human rights and the enviromnent 5 Picolotti 2003). Starting from the human rights side, however, there is less
evidence of an unfailing commitment to environmental issues on the part of human rights activists and scholars. Prominent human rights theorists such as Jack Donnelly (2003)
and Michael Freeman (2002) mention environmental issues as a contemporary concern relevant perhaps to human rights theorizing, but the purported 'indivisibility of human
rights and the environment' (Picolotti 2003, p.49) is undermined somewhat, or at the very least requires explication, in view of the substantive exclusion of environmental issues
. If human
rights are claimed in defence of human security, and that security is threatened by
environmental degradation resulting from unsustainable economic practices, then there
would seem to be a prima facie case for considering the environment to be a human
rights issue. There is a great deal to be unpacked in this proposition; in what follows I deal with only part of it. I begin by unpacking the links between human rights
from most human rights theory. One way of approaching such explication is to consider the importance of environmental sustainability for human security
and globalization (Section 1.2). In Section 1.3 I demonstrate a link between human security and the environment. Following on from that, in Section 1.4 I illustrate some of the
ways in which the globalization of the economy has contributed to environmental degradation, but I postpone until Chapter 4 a substantive demonstration of the ways in which
contemporary economic practices are unsustainable from an environmental point of view. In Section 1.5 I offer a brief discussion of global environmental governance and
Section 1.6 concludes.
Liberties and capitalism are the root cause of environmental decline
Hanson, 98
(Jay, 2-20, Requiem, http://www.dieoff.org/page181.htm)
Consider capitalism as an organized process to ingest natural, living systems (including people) in one end, and excrete unnatural,
dead garbage and waste (including wasted people) out the other. From a thermodynamic view, capitalism may be seen as the
conversion of low-entropy matter into high-entropy waste and garbage. From an economic view, capitalism may be seen
as the high-speed depletion of natural capital. Politics (self-organization) among human animals is product of
evolution. As soon as two or more people organize, the inevitable struggle for power ensues. This power struggle follows genetic
patterns of exploitation, lying, and self-deception. The triumph of capitalism and democracy could have been predicted by
evolutionary theory. Capitalism extends the human genetic propensity to exploit (make the best use of something: profit) and lie
(meant to give a wrong impression: advertise). Democracy is simply the freedom to exploit and lie. Self-deception keeps us from
knowing what we are really up to. In his 1968 classic, "Tragedy of the Commons",[35] Garrett Hardin
illustrates why
communities everywhere are headed for tragedy -- it's because freedom in the
"commons"[36] brings ruin to all . Visualize a pasture as a system that is open to everyone.
The carrying capacity of this pasture is 10 animals. Ten herdsmen are each grazing an animal to
fatten up, and the 10 animals are now consuming all the grass that the pasture can produce. Harry (one of
the herdsmen) will add one more animal to the pasture if he can make a profit. Adding one more animal
will mean less food for each of the present animals, but since Harry only has only 1/10 of the herd, he
has to pay only 1/10 of the cost. Harry decides to exploit the commons, and the other herdsmen, so he
adds an animal and takes a profit. Shrinking profit margins force the other herdsmen either to go out of business or continue the
exploitation by adding more animals. This process of mutual exploitation continues until overgrazing and erosion destroy the pasture
system, and all the herdsmen are driven out of business. Most importantly, Hardin illustrates the critical
flaw of freedom in
the commons: all participants must agree to conserve the commons, but any one can force its
destruction. Although Hardin is describing exploitation by humans in an unregulated public pasture, his principle fits our
entire society. Private property is inextricably part of our commons because it is part of our life support and social systems.
Owners affect us all when they alter the emergent properties of our life support and social systems (alter their land) to "make a
Neighborhoods, cities and states are commons in the sense that no
may enter and lay claim to the common resources. One can compare
profits to Hardin's "grass" when any corporation -- from anywhere in the world -- can drive down profits by
competing with local businesses for customers. One can see wages as "grass" when any number of workers -- from anywhere in
the world -- can enter our community and drive down wages by competing with local workers for jobs.
profit" -- cover land with corn or with concrete.
one is denied entry. Anyone
Everywhere one looks, one sees the Tragedy of the Commons . There is no
tech nological solution , but governments can act to limit access to the commons, at which
time they are no longer commons. In the private-money-based political system we have in America, everything (including people)
becomes the commons because money
is political power, and all political decisions are reduced to
economic ones. In other words, we have no true political system, only an economic system -- everything is for sale. Thus,
America is one large commons that will be exploited until it is destroyed . OVERSHOOT It was thus
becoming apparent that nature must, in the not far distant future, institute bankruptcy proceedings against industrial civilization, and
perhaps against the standing crop of human flesh, just as nature had done many times to other detritus-consuming species
following their exuberant expansion in response to the savings deposits their ecosystems had accumulated before they got the
opportunity to begin the drawdown... Having become a species of superdetritovores, mankind was destined not merely for
succession, but for crash. -- William Catton In the language of ecology,
the human scenario can be predicted in four
"drawdown", "overshoot", "crash", and " die-out ". "Drawdown" is the process by which we
are using up the surrounding resources faster than they can be replaced.For example, in the space of a little
pungent words:
more than a hundred years we have used up perhaps half of all the buried remains of the Carboniferous period -- oil, gas, and coal - that were deposited over hundreds of millions years. Moreover, we have become totally dependent on continuing the process. One
might argue about the exact date that the global human "crash" will arrive, but the outcome is certain. "Overshoot" simply means
that we have exceeded the "carrying capacity"[37] of Earth: If just the present world population of 5.8 billion people were to live at
current North American ecological standards (say 4.5 ha/person), a reasonable first approximation of the total productive land
requirement would be 26 billion ha (assuming present technology). However, there are only just over 13 billion ha of land on Earth,
we would need an
additional two planet Earths to accommodate the increased ecological load of people alive
today. If the population were to stabilize at between 10 and 11 billion sometime in the next century, five additional Earths would be
of which only 8.8 billion are ecologically productive cropland, pasture, or forest (1.5 ha/person). In short,
needed, all else being equal -- and this just to maintain the present rate of ecological decline.[38]
Democracy
Environment
Democracy can’t solve – politicians won’t much environmental reform, it’s
political suicide
Humphrey 7 (Mathew Humphrey is a professor at the University of Nottingham. Ecological
Politics And Democratic Theory: the Challenge to the Deliberative Ideal. London: Routledge,
2007. Page 29)
Clearly, both of these conceptualisations can be, and have been challenged. One can argue against the eschatology of survivalism and suggest that, for all the environmental
problems that may exist in the world, there is no looming global environmental catastrophe (Lomborg, 2001). Second, one can challenge the conception of democracy on offer
here as too thin and inadequately demanding on citizens in terms of their democratic responsibilities. As we shall see both of these approaches have been developed within the
there are clearly many environmental problems in existence
today that are amenable to the kind of analysis offered by the eco- authoritarians, in
particular with regard to what democracy can deliver in the way of environmental policy.
sphere of environmental political thought. Nonetheless,
Problems with pollution caused by transport are a good example here. In the United Kingdom the fastest growing set of emissions contributing to global warming emanate from
There is a close-to-scientific consensus on the
existence global warming due to human activities, and broad (not universal) agreement upon the urgent need
for developed and developing nations to take measures to combat this.20 Global warming has
some strongly irreversible consequences and appears to be an environmental problem of the sort that fits with the eco-authoritarians'
representation. The production of greenhouse gas emissions represents a good example of the n-person prisoner's dilemma as modelled by the tragedy of the
commons. Any one person's efforts in making a reduction of C02 emissions would be dwarfed
by the continuing increases of the rest of the world. Furthermore, the potential for democratic
institutions to deliver reductions in C02 emissions of the required amount is
questionable, reflected in Tony Blair's comment that it would be political suicide to propose an ecologically inspired increase in the cost
the transport industry, in particular from rapidly growing road transport and aviation use.
of flying shortly before an election. For all that green political thinkers like to think that we have 'moved on' from the anti-democratic forms of ecological politics espoused by
we should
not underestimate the difficulties in achieving the kinds of cultural value changes that we
shall see green theorists are committed to. Ecocentrism, or even an environmentally enlightened anthropocentrism
does not come easily, and without such a change in values democracy's ability to deliver
ecologically sustainable outcomes remains in serious question.
Hardin, Ehrlich, Heilbroner, and Ophuls, their conceptualisation of environmental problems and democratic politics still has some purchase today, and
Democracy cannot address core issues like pollution and resource
depletion- authoritarianism is the only alternative
Humphrey 7 (Mathew Humphrey is a professor at the University of Nottingham. Ecological
Politics And Democratic Theory: the Challenge to the Deliberative Ideal. London: Routledge,
2007. Page 139-140)
The first part of the book examined the ways in which ecological politics and democracy can come apart, and whilst few would now argue for an authoritarian state as a
the dilemmas with which the eco- authoritarians wrestled remain with
us. The management of common resources, and the danger of the unsustainable
depletion of these resources, remains a thorny issue in environmental policy (Ellis, 2003).
Democracy, however, remains merely a contingently bad form of political organisation for these writers and if a form of democracy
can be found that addresses the depletion/population/pollution problems that they are
concerned with, it would be considered a viable political system. Given, however, the
Schumpetarian view of human mental capacities that underpins the eco-authoritarian
view, this outcome is unlikely.
response to environmental problems,
Naive
Green Democracy is based upon naïve antics
Beeson 10 (Mark, Professor of International Politics at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia,
Environmental politics, Environmental Politics, 15(5): 750–767.,Volume 19, issue 2)
Although deliberative democracy has been described as ‘the currently hegemonic approach to democracy within environmental
thinking’ (Arias-Maldonado 2007, p. 245), it has little obvious relevance to the situation in East Asia. While there is much that is
admirable about the central precepts of deliberative democracy (see Bohman 1998), its underlying assumptions about the
circumstances in which political activity actually occur are strikingly at odds with the lived reality outside North America and Western
Europe. This merits emphasis because for some writers rational, informed discourse is central to sustainable environmental
,
management and the resolution of the competing interests that inevitably surround it (Hamilton and Wills-Toker 2006). And yet
as the very limited number of studies that actually examine environmental politics under
authoritarian rule demonstrate, the reality is very different and the prospects for the
development of progressive politics are very limited (Doyle and Simpson 2006). Even if we assume that
political circumstances do actually allow for a politically unconstrained and informed discussion of complex issues, as AriasMaldonado (2007, p. 248) points out, ‘the belief that citizens in a deliberative context will
spontaneously acquire ecological enlightenment, and will push for greener decisions,
relies too much on an optimistic, naive view of human nature, so frequently found in
utopian political movements’. In much of East Asia, the population may not have the luxury or capacity even to
engage in these sorts of discursive practices, while the absence of effective democracy in much of the
region stands as a continuing obstacle to achieving anything approximating deliberative
democracy. Even more problematically in the long-run, there is no compelling evidence
that democracy of any sort will necessarily promote good environmental outcomes
(Neumayer 2002), or that rising living standards will inevitably deliver a sustainable
environment (Dinda 2004). On the contrary, there is evidence to suggest that in the initial phases at least, ‘democratisation
could indirectly promote environmental degradation through its effect on national income’ (Li and Reuveny 2006, p. 953). In other
words, even the best of all outcomes – rising living standards and an outbreak of democracy – may have unsustainable
environmental consequences that may prove to be their undoing in the longer-term. In such circumstances, ideas about possible
ways of reorganising societies to lessen their impact on the natural environment may not find sufficient support to make them
realisable or effective. As Lieberman (2002, p. 709) points out, ‘an idea's time arrives not simply because the idea is compelling on
its own terms, but because opportune political circumstances favor it’. In much of Southeast Asia and China the forces supporting
environmental protection are comparatively weak and unable to overcome powerful vested interests intent on the continuing
exploitation of natural resources.
Inevitable
Democracy fails – makes collapse inevitable
Hanson, 98
(Jay, 2-20, Requiem, http://www.dieoff.org/page181.htm)
What can we do to avoid the "crash"? As a society, Americans can do nothing because of at least two fundamental -- and apparently insoluble -- problems: (1) In principle,
democracy (i.e., government by the common people) can not direct a country to any specific goal because
democracy is "process" politics as opposed to "systems" politics: As the name implies, process politics emphasizes the adequacy and fairness of the rules
governing the process of politics. If the process is fair, then, as in a trial conducted according to due process, the outcome is assumed to be just -- or at least the best the
system can achieve. By contrast,
systems politics is concerned primarily with desired outcomes; means are subordinated to
democracy is not even true politics because it is based on money -- one-dollar,
predetermined ends.[42] (2) American
one-vote. What passes for politics in America is actually a subset of our economic system. In principle,
it is not possible for our economic
system to avoid the " crash " because its premise, the conversion of nature into commodities, is the
heart and soul of our system problems. Moreover, the doctrine of continuous and unlimited economic growth is a religious concept that serves
as a substitute for redistribution of wealth and true politics. It's a way for the plutocrats to maintain political superiority over the lesser classes while avoiding unpleasant political
questions:[43] It is the orthodox growth men who want to avoid the distribution issue. As Wallich so bluntly put it in defending growth, "Growth is a substitute for equality of
income. So long as there is growth there is hope, and that makes large income differentials tolerable" (1972). We are addicted to growth because we are addicted to large
inequalities in income and wealth. What about the poor? Let them eat growth! Better yet, let them feed on the hope of eating growth in the future![44] With no true political
system -- and no prospect of obtaining one -- we have no means to save ourselves. Unfortunately, several billion innocent people will die untimely deaths over the next hundred
years. Individuals in small communities can protect themselves somewhat through cooperation with others (reciprocal altruism). But groups larger than a few hundred will
environmental scarcities are already
contributing to violent conflicts in many parts of the developing world. These conflicts are probably the early signs of an
upsurge of violence in the coming decades that will be induced or aggravated by scarcity. The violence will usually be
sub-national, persistent, and diffuse. Poor societies will be particularly affected since they are less able to buffer themselves from environmental
disintegrate under competition for increasingly scarce resources: In brief, our research showed that
scarcities and the social crises they cause. These societies are, in fact, already suffering acute hardship from shortages of water, forests, and especially fertile land.[45]
Globalization
Globalization guts all forms of climate progress – individualism and
financial incentives preclude action
Jennings, 13-- Director of Bioethics at the Center for Humans and Nature
(Bruce, “Governance in a Post-Growth Society: An inquiry into the Democratic Prospect”, May,
Vol 6 Num 2, p. 12-13)
Before turning to the three types of ecological governance, consider further the contrasting benchmark of pluralistic interest group
democracy. All of the ecological types of governance I identify have one thing in common, namely, their critique and rejection of
interest group democracy. Interest
group democracy is concerned with aggregation and
accommodation of interests among individuals and groups in societies where religious
differences, ideological diversity, social competition, and conflict are widespread. This is the
political system of the Western world, certainly in the bicameral presidential system of the United States, but also in
parliamentary systems, systems with proportional legislative representation rather than single-member districts, and so on.
Pluralistic democracy is responsive to individual interests, concatenated or organized by the
formation of various group structures that compete for the attention of popularly elected officials.
Their competition in this regard consists both of the market place of ideas and the market place
of campaign contributions, and other financial incentives for public officials. Unlike discursive
democracy, in which the citizen role is actively and extensively participatory at multiple levels, in pluralistic democracy citizenship
consists essentially in the right to vote, with a relatively small number becoming directly involved financially or personally in the
process of electoral competition. Candidates and parties vie there for the support of self-interested voters, which is increasingly
determined by media advertisements and exposure Interest
group democracy is a kind of negative system of
governance. It is set up to form compromise among conflicting interests in that no one group
bears the cost of policy. This makes a win-win type of growth scenario very attractive and deters
policy makers from setting clear priorities, making trade-offs, especially sharp ones that have
been called “tragic choices,” such as rationing and redistributing resources (wealth and power)
explicitly.8 It has multiple veto points in its governing process that ensure these features. It is
prone to incrementalism and bias in favor of preserving the status quo . Against this
backdrop, I now turn to the three modes of governance that I think are reasonable options for a
degrowth transition and eventual steady state.
AT: We Transition, Solve Enviro
Best research proves communicative, deliberative forums are most likely to
move collective opinion further toward the preexisting views of the
majority, cause irrational decisions made to placate the loudest
participants, and dehumanizing violence against out-groups
Tina Nabatchi 7, Assistant Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs and a
Faculty Research Associate at the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and
Collaboration at Syracuse University, 2007, Deliberative Democracy: The Effects of
Participation on Political Efficacy, p. 67-69
Social psychology research on small groups highlights several potential pitfalls of deliberation (for an extensive review of this literature, see Mendelberg, 2002). In particular,
research suggests three psychological limits to participation: risky shift, the Abilene
paradox, and groupthink (e.g., Cooke and Kothari, 2002: 106-109; see also Torres, 2003: 72-73). Risky shift describes the
phenomenon thatgroup discussion can lead members to make riskier decisions than
they would have made as individuals. The Abilene paradox reflects the experience of
groups who make decisions and take actions thatcontradict their wants and interests in order to
alleviate the anxieties and tensions of individual members. Groupthink refers to
thereplacement of independent critical thinking withirrational and dehumanizing actions
against out-groups. As Sunstein (2003: 82) notes, "deliberative enclaves can bebreeding grounds for both
the development of unjustly suppressed viewsand forunjustified extremism, indeed
fanaticism." Research on small group deliberation supports these contentions. For example,
communication has been found to enhance cooperation among individuals at the expense of that between groups (Insko, et al., 1993). When group interests are consistent with
when group interests compete with
individual interests, individual and in-group cooperation increase at the expense of
cooperation across groups (Bornstein, 1992). Moreover, communication across groups of unequal size can make group differences more salient, and
thus decrease cooperation (Bettencourt and Dorr, 1998; Miller and Davidson-Podgorny, 1987). Other research suggests that individuals who are
perceived to have particular expertise in the subject under deliberation are more likely to
be influential in the group's decision (Bottger, 1984; Kirchler and Davis, 1986; Ridgeway, 1981, 1987). Moreover, groups tend
to use information that is already commonly shared, and focus less on distinctive
information held by specific individuals that could arguably improve the outcome or
decision (Gigone, and Hastie, 1993, 1997; Larson, et al, 1998; Stasser 1992, Stasser and Titus, 1985; Stasser, Taylor and Hanna, 1989; Wittenbaum. Hubbel, and
Zuckerman, 1999). The sum of these effectsnot only limits the potential benefits of participation,
but alsoincreases the potential for unwise decisions and polarization (e.g., Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, 2002;
individual interests, communication can increase cooperation among groups; however,
Huntington, 1975; Sunstein, 2003). The issue of group polarization is especially relevant: Though standard, the term "group polarization" is somewhat misleading. It is not meant
to suggest that group members will shift to the poles, nor does it refer to an increase in variance among groups, though this may be the ultimate result. Instead the term refers to
a predictable shift within a group discussing a case or problem As the shift occurs, groups, and group members, move and coalesce, not toward the middle of antecedent
dispositions, but toward a more extreme position in the direction indicated by those dispositions. The effect of deliberation is both to decrease variance among group members,
as individual differences diminish, and also to produce convergence on a relatively more extreme point among predeliberation judgments (Sunstein, 2003: 83). Indeed, research
discussion tends tomove collective opinion in the direction of the preexisting
views of the majority (Moscovici and Zavalloni, 1969; Myers and Lamm, 1976; Schkade, Sunstein, and Kahneman, 2000). Moreover, when unanimity is the
suggests that
decision rule, the chances of deadlock increase (Hastie, Penrod, and Pennington, 1983), as does polarization (Kaplan and Miller, 1987; Mendelberg and Karpowitz, 2000).
This is a reason the aff collapses any response to climate change--deliberative forums will be filled with conservatives screaming about
ClimateGate---means only authoritarianism solves
Ward 11
(Halina Ward 11, director of The Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development, “The
Future of Democracy in the Face of Climate Change,” http://www.fdsd.org/wordpress/wpcontent/uploads/Paper-Three-futures-of-SD-and-democracy.pdf)
Some literature on the future of democracy takes a far less dim view of the future of expertise. At the other end of the spectrum, Shearman and Wayne Smith predict that
democracy as we know it will fail to deliver solutions to the environmental crisis . They
argue that elected representatives ought to be replaced by a ruling elite of eco-philosopher kings. Their vision of the
future harks back to Plato’s; that “[t]here will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world”. 259 Shearman and Wayne
specially trained
eco-philosophers, who will either rule themselves oradvise an authoritarian government. They
Smith’s (anti-democratic) suggestion is that “*g]overnment in the future will be based on… a supreme office of the biosphere” 260 comprising
describe these eco-philosophers as “people of high intellect and moral virtue who are trained in a wide number of disciplines, ecology, the sciences, and philosophy (especially
ethics) for the purpose of dealing with the crisis of civilisation”. 261 Shearman and Wayne Smith call for the creation of what they call a ‘Real University’, delivering scientific
education which is immune to the influence of feelings, desires, interests, aspirations, values, economic forces and moral considerations. They highlight the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change as a potential forerunner. The notion of value-free scientific endeavour would seem bizarre to those of Stephen Jay Gould’s school of thought, who
believe that “[s]cience, since people must do it, is a socially embedded activity”. 262 And the value of scientific expertise within the realm of politics might be called into question
There is a strong basis in psychological studies for the argument that the
voting public allow “bias, prejudice, and emotion to guide their decisions+”, rather than
objective facts. 263 Roger PielkeJr argues that four categories (highlighted in Box 5 below) express the roles that experts can play in decision-making. A healthy
system of decision-making will benefit from the presence of all four kinds of advice. In particular, Pielke argues that when extra-scientific factors
play a role in influencing expert advice, they can lead to ‘stealth issue advocacy’; a phenomenon which can undermine
the authority and legitimacy of expert advice. Pure Scientist and Science Arbiter roles therefore make most sense when values are
on cognitive grounds.
broadly shared and scientific uncertainty is manageable. And when there are value conflicts or science is contested, the Issue Advocate and Honest Broker of Policy Options
responses to climate change have neglected the complexity of the
better decisions will be more likely if wepay attention to the
roles are more appropriate. Pielke suggests that policy
relationship between experts and decisionmakers: “
role of expertise in decision making and the different forms that it can take”. 264 Looking beyond the role of expertise in national democracies, former World
Bank Vice-President Jean-François Rischard calls for expertise to occupy a prominent position within future global governance. He acknowledges that international governance
structures will have to evolve to accommodate those global issues which extend beyond the territorially defined boundaries of states – such as forests which exist in one
country, but which generate rainfall in surrounding countries. In his book, High Noon, 265 Rischard envisages an important role for experts in a series of twenty ’Global Issues
Networks’ (GINs) designed to arrive at normative responses to the central global issues facing humanity. He sees precursors to the GIN approach in initiatives including the
World Commission on Dams and the Forestry Alliance. Rischard proposes that each Global Issues Network would consist of thirty experts; ten from NGOs, business and
government respectively. And whilst this idea appears to favour expertise over public representation, Rischard goes on to explain that these expert networks would be invited to
“represent all of us”. Here is a compromise system based on limited representation via expertise. Critics would argue that we should draw on expertise rather than be driven by
it. In contrast to Shearman and Wayne Smith’s or Rischard’s visions of an increasingly prominent role for scientific expertise in future democracies, there is also a body of
thinking which predicts a (partial, at least) shift away from elitist technocratic science towards post-normal science, as a means of helping politicians and citizens to fully engage
with the ideas of climate change and sustainability. Groups such as the UK think-tank Newton’s Apple, 266 or the UK government’s Sciencewise Expert Resource Centre 267
recognise the gap in communication and understanding between scientific experts and democratic policy-makers. They work to bridge the gap, recognising that its existence is
not only detrimental to both experts and policy-makers, but also to the public’s trust in each. Blowers et al also suggest that an effort must be made to engage a wider range of
stakeholders and the general public in the process of policy-making, rather than relying on technocratic positivist science as a way of informing policy. More confident
relationships between science and society might result. 268 And given the current and future pressures of climate change, where “the facts are uncertain, values in dispute,
stakes high and decisions urgent”, 269 it is not unreasonable to anticipate that new kinds – breeds – of post-normal science might evolve to cope with this uncertainty.
Blowers et al further argue that the post-normal emphasis on the ‘extended peer community’ 270 and the ‘democratization of
science’ 271 make this mode of scientific reasoning a complement to deliberative democracy. As they
suggest, deliberative democracy “must be inclusive and it must encourage unconstrained dialogue. Inclusiveness requires that insofar as possible all relevant viewpoints and
values should be represented”. 272 Deliberation may even have become what Graham Smith dubs “a new orthodoxy within contemporary democratic theory”. 273 Climate
deliberative democracy; but it could equally counteract another imperative of
climate-related policy: the (often urgent) need for a decision. For deliberation hasno point of
closure analogous to the vote in representative democracy. The future role of deliberation might therefore come to be
change might hasten the spread of
seen simply as a means of exposing inherent value conflicts surrounding an issue, before a decision is taken. 274 Closely linked to Ravetz’s ‘extended peer community’ 275 is
the notion of ‘the wisdom of crowds’. 276 In his book of the same name, James Surowiecki shows that certain kinds of decision involving quantitative rather than qualitative
judgements and formed on the basis of aggregated information submitted by collections of individuals are often better that those that could be made by any single individual,
members of crowds areall too easily influenced by the opinions of others,
particularly the media. And this hassignificant implications for climate change and for the role of
expertise in democratic decision-making on climate change. Media coverage of the ‘climategate’ email controversy (as to which see Paper One),
for instance, hasfuelled climate scepticism, as has the journalistic norm of presenting both
sides of a story despite theoverriding consensus regarding the severity, and
anthropogenic nature, of climate change. Therefore, in the words of journalist and commentator Will Hutton, “an independent, diverse
however expert. But
and inquiring press is also fundamental to collective wisdom”. 277 For a wide, crowd-based and democratic wisdom to emerge in the future, the media drivers of public opinion
and engagement in decision-making would need to evolve too.
Surveillance
Generic
Domestic Surveillance erodes civil liberties, the AFF reverses that
Wu 2006
(Edieth, Associate Dean and Professor, DOMESTIC SPYING AND WHY AMERICA SHOULD
AVOID THE SLIPPERY SLOPE, Thurgood Marshall School of
Law.,weblaw.usc.edu/why/students/orgs/rlsj/assets/docs/Wu_Final.pdf,vol 16:1)//ADS
After the New York Times exposed the NSA’s domestic spying program, the president immediately attempted to divert
attention from the civil liberties issue by characterizing warrantless surveillance— i.e.,
surveillance for which no warrant is issued—as essential to national security and
“critical to saving American lives.”4 But critics of the NSA program argued that “[warrantless domestic surveillance] contradicts
longstanding restrictions on domestic spying and subverts constitutional guarantees against unwarranted invasions of privacy.”5 In the wake
of the terrorist attacks, however, it seems that the unprecedented vulnerability felt by
many Americans helped galvanize support for the president and made many Americans
reluctant. Consequently, a meaningful, public debate about the course and direction of the war on terror is necessary.7 However, because
political pressures may deter publicly elected officials from speaking candidly about government programs, the media and third party experts have the
duty of creating and sustaining a meaningful public discourse about domestic spying.8 In that vein, we as jurists have the duty to analyze precarious
legal issues, even if it yields conclusions which are less than palatable. Recognizing that duty, this comment addresses the debate about the legality of
the president’s decision to conduct warrantless surveillance on United States citizens. Part II of this comment contends that the United
States
government should not resort to spying on its citizens because this abuse of power will
lead to the erosion of American civil liberties.
PRISM
Curtailing PRISM bolsters civil liberties
Bruer 15
(Wes, Graduate from the University of Georgia's School of Public and International
Affairs,www.cnn.com/2015/03/10/politics/nsa-spying-lawsuit-aclu/, Civil liberties groups file
lawsuit against NSA, March 10, 2015)//ADS
Nearly a dozen civil liberties groups have filed a lawsuit against the National Security
Agency regarding the agency's "upstream" surveillance, which is alleged to include
monitoring of almost all international, and many domestic, text-based communications.
The suit, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, was filed on Tuesday in a Maryland District Court "challenges the suspicion less seizure and
searching of internet traffic" by the NSA on U.S. soil, according to court documents. The plaintiffs argue that to do their jobs they must be able to
exchange information in confidence, free-from, warrantless government search which undermines the named organizations' ability to communicate with
NSA spying
violates the First and Fourth Amendments, as well as Article III of the Constitution,
because the surveillance orders are "in the absence of any case or controversy." The ACLU's
clients, victims of human rights abuses, government officials and other civil society groups. The plaintiffs also contend
concern is the government's interpretation of the updated Foreign Intelligence Surveillance law, which in 2011 allowed the government to collect 250
National Intelligence reported the
surveillance of almost 90,000 individuals or groups relied on a single court order. The
government contends that "upstream" surveillance is covered by the 2008 surveillance
law and the practice includes installing devices, with the assistance of companies such as Verizon and AT&T, onto the
million Internet communications under the FISA Amendment Acts. And In 2013, the director of
network of cables, switches and routers that Internet traffic flows through, known as it's "backbone." The ACLU further details the NSA's surveillance
program by intercepting massive amounts of communication in transit that are then searched alongside thousands of keywords associated with targets
of intelligence analysts. In addition to having weak limitations and numerous exceptions on who they can surveil, the program's pool of potential targets
can encompass completely innocent individuals as the only requisite is that the person is likely to communicate "foreign intelligence information, which
The "upstream" surveillance differs from another
spying program carried out by the NSA called "PRISM," where information is obtained
directly from U.S. companies providing communications services. "Upstream" allows the
government to connect surveillance devices at Internet access points, which are
controlled by telecommunications providers.
can include journalists, professors, attorneys or aid workers.
Drones
Restrictions on surveillance drones bolsters civil liberties
ACLU no date (ACLU ,Advocating individual rights by litigating, legislating, and educating
the public on a broad array of issues affecting individual freedom, DOMESTIC DRONES,
www.aclu.org/issues/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/domestic-drones)//ADS
U.S. law enforcement is greatly expanding its use of surveillance drones, and private actors are also
seeking to use the technology for personal and commercial use. Drones have many beneficial uses, including in search-and-rescue missions, scientific
research, mapping, and more. But
deployed without proper regulation, drones equipped with facial
recognition software, infrared technology, and speakers capable of monitoring personal
conversations would cause unprecedented invasions of our privacy rights. Interconnected drones
could enable mass tracking of vehi-cles and people in wide areas. Tiny drones could go completely unnoticed while
peering into the window of a home or place of worship. Surveillance drones have been
the subject of fierce debate among both legislators and the public, giving rise to an
impressive amount of state legislation—proposed and enacted—to protect individuals’
privacy. Uniform rules should be enacted to ensure that we can enjoy the benefits of this new technology without bringing us closer to a
“surveillance society” in which our every move is monitored, tracked, recorded, and scrutinized by the government.
Race
Restrictions on the domestic surveillances of specific races and ethnicity
bolsters civil liberties
Cyril 2015 (Malkia Amala, under and executive director of the Center for Media Justice (CMJ)
and co-founder of the Media Action Grassroots Network]; Black America's State of Surveillance;
Mar 30; www.progressive.org/news/2015/03/188074/black-americas-state-surveillance)//ADS
The NSA and FBI have engaged local law enforcement agencies and electronic
surveillance technologies to spy on Muslims living in the United States. According to FBI training
materials uncovered by Wired in 2011, the bureau taught agents to treat “mainstream” Muslims as supporters of terrorism, to view charitable donations
by Muslims as “a funding mechanism for combat,” and to view Islam itself as a “Death Star” that must be destroyed if terrorism is to be contained. From
New York City to Chicago and beyond, local
law enforcement agencies have expanded unlawful and covert
racial and religious profiling against Muslims not suspected of any crime. There is no national
security reason to profile all Muslims. At the same time, almost 450,000 migrants are in detention facilities throughout the
United States, including survivors of torture, asylum seekers, families with small children, and the elderly. Undocumented migrant
communities enjoy few legal protections, and are therefore subject to brutal policing
practices, including illegal surveillance practices. According to the Sentencing Project, of the more than 2 million
people incarcerated in the United States, more than 60 percent are racial and ethnic minorities. But by far, the widest net is cast over black
communities. Black people alone represent 40 percent of those incarcerated. More black men are incarcerated than were held in slavery in 1850, on
the eve of the Civil War. Lest
some misinterpret that statistic as evidence of greater criminality, a
2012 study confirms that black defendants are at least 30 percent more likely to be
imprisoned than whites for the same crime. This is not a broken system, it is a system working perfectly as intended, to
NSA could not have spied on millions of cellphones if it were
not already spying on black people, Muslims, and migrants. As surveillance technologies
the detriment of all. The
are increasingly adopted and integrated by law enforcement agencies today, racial disparities are being made invisible by a media environment that
has failed to tell the story of surveillance in the context of structural racism.
FISA
Restriction on FISA courts bolster civil liberties
Brennan Center for Justice 2015 (Brennan Center for Justice,at New York University
Law School is a nonpartisan left-leaning law and public policy institute, FISA Court Needs
Reform to Protect Americans' Civil Liberties, www.brennancenter.org/press-release/new-reportfisa-court-needs-reform-protect-americans-civil-liberties, March 18, 2015)//ADS
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is no longer serving its constitutional function
of providing a check on the executive branch’s ability to obtain Americans’ private
communications, concludes a new report released today by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. What Went Wrong with
the FISA Court finds that dramatic shifts in technology and law have changed the role of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA
Court) since its creation in 1978 — from reviewing government applications to collect
communications in specific cases, to issuing blanket approvals of sweeping data
collection programs affecting millions of Americans . These fundamental changes
not only erode Americans’ civil liberties, but likely violate Article III of the
U.S. Constitution, which limits courts to deciding concrete disputes between parties rather than issuing opinions on abstract
questions. The
FISA Court’s wholesale approval process also fails to satisfy standards set
forth in the Fourth Amendment, which protect against warrantless searches and
seizures. “Today’s FISA Court does not operate like a court at all, but more like an arm of the intelligence establishment,” said Elizabeth Goitein,
co-author of the report and co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “The Constitution’s vision of the
judiciary does not include issuing secret orders approving mass surveillance programs. The court has veered sharply off course, and nothing less than
a fundamental overhaul of surveillance oversight practices will restore it to its constitutional moorings.” “Although the FISA Court is held up as a
bulwark against overbroad spying, it barely fulfills that role,” said Faiza Patel, co-author of the report and co-director of the Center’s Liberty and
National Security Program. “The
court’s blanket approval of programs that sweep up the personal
information of millions of Americans looks nothing like a warrant or any other accepted
function of a court. As Congress considers surveillance reform this year, it must look seriously at overhauling the FISA Court to restore its
role as a robust protector of Americans’ privacy.”
Whistleblowers
Whistleblowers boslster civil liberties
Sonenstein 14
( Brian; a writer and activist with a passion for civil liberties and criminal justice reform, Civil
Liberties Advocates, Organizations and Whistleblowers Tell Congress to Oppose the USA
FREEDOM Act, www.rootsaction.org/news-a-views/828-civil-liberties-advocates-organizationsand-whistleblowers-tell-congress-to-oppose-the-usa-freedom-act,September 15, 2014)//ADS
Dear Members of Congress, We, the undersigned civil liberties advocates, organizations, and whistleblowers, are alarmed that
Senator Leahy’s recently introduced bill, the USA FREEDOM Act (S. 2685), legalizes currently illegal surveillance activities,
grants immunity to corporations that collaborate to violate privacy rights, reauthorizes the PATRIOT
Act for an additional 2.5 years, and fails to reform EO 12333 or Section 702, other authorities used to collect large amounts of information on
Americans. For these reasons, we encourage both the House and the Senate to oppose this legislation in its current form. Governmental security
agencies’ zeal for collecting Americans’ personal information without regard for cost, efficacy, legality, or public support necessitates that Congress act
fundamental civil rights – the human
rights we hold dear – are not adequately protected by either the Senate or House versions of
the USA FREEDOM Act. The reckless actions of top officials charged with ensuring national security – from lying to Congress to secretly
to protect the rights of residents across the United States and around the globe. Our
weakening security standards to hacking the communications of our allies – has undermined global confidence that the United States can act as an
ethical Internet steward. The 11th-hour gutting of the USA FREEDOM Act in the House of Representatives and the CIA’s recent illegal spying on the
U.S. Senate underscore just how powerful and out of control this surveillance regime has become. Time and again, these agencies have relied on
aggressive manipulation of legal loopholes to thoroughly undermine safeguards and checks and balances
Backdoor
Curtailing Backdoors bolsters Human rights
Fritz 15
(Jason ;doctoral student in the Department of Justice, Law and Criminology at American
University’s School of Public Affairs , COUNTERTERRORISM, BACKDOORS, AND THE RISK
OF “GOING DARK”, warontherocks.com/2015/06/counterterrorism-backdoors-and-the-risk-ofgoing-dark, June 25, 2015)
The terrorist threat to the United States is evolving rapidly, especially in terms of the
methods by which extremists communicate. Counterterrorism analysts and operators
face a variety of technical challenges to their efforts. In Oct. 2014, Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey warned of the growing risk of “going dark,”
whereby intelligence and law enforcement agencies “have the legal authority to intercept
and access communications and information pursuant to court order,” but “lack the
technical ability to do so.” European Police Chief Rob Wainwright has warned that
terrorists are using secure communications in their operations more frequently, a
technique the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is apparently pioneering. The
emergence of secure messaging applications with nearly unbreakable end-to-end
encryption capabilities such as surespot, Wickr, Telegram, Threema, and kik highlights
how rapid technological change presents a powerful challenge to security and
counterterrorism agencies Responding to such developments, the FBI has lobbied
Congress to legislate the mandatory creation of “backdoors” in commercially available
communications via an update to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement
Act. The Director of the National Security Agency (NSA), Adm. Michael Rogers,
suggested creating overt “front doors” to allow the U.S. government access to certain
devices and software. This scheme would split between agencies the “key” necessary to
decode encrypted information. British Prime Minister David Cameron, went as far as to
recommend legislation outlawing end-to-end encryption in the United Kingdom unless
the government had assured access to the data “in extremis.” President Barack Obama
declared that the absence of such backdoors is “a problem” and described the ability to
lawfully intercept all forms of communication as a “capability that we have to preserve.”
Such proposed steps are misguided and ill-advised. Creating backdoors in commercial
communications technology is not the answer. First and foremost, in an era where state,
terrorist, and criminal actors constantly strive toward — and succeed in — penetrating
American commercial and government networks, legislating holes in encryption is
dangerous. U.S. government networks themselves are clearly insecure, as the recently
identified electronic intrusion into Office of Personnel Management records, as well as
historical breaches of Department of Defense systems, indicates. ISIL has even
successfully hacked American military social media accounts. Unidentified criminals
stole the personal information of more than 100 million Target customers in a breach that
the company discovered in 2013. Requiring software companies to weaken their
encryption would provide hostile cyber actors additional vectors by which to harass, rob,
and spy on American citizens. Relying fail. In Sept. 2014, Apple announced that it was
upgrading on legislation to keep pace with technological advancement is impractical and
bound to the encryption of iOS 8 to make it technically impossible for anyone but the
device’s user to unlock it. This reversed a previous policy whereby Apple would unlock
devices if police issued a warrant requiring the company to do so. Apple’s move avoided
legal complications by making compliance with such requests impossible on a
technological level. Director Comey criticized this change in Apple’s policy the following
month, warning that “[s]ophisticated criminals will come to count on these means of
evading detection,” such as storing incriminating information on encrypted devices.
Through a relatively simple technical modification, Apple effectively locked the FBI out of
all devices it manufactures. To expect Congress to adapt constantly to such changes is
unrealistic. Mandating the weakening of commercially available encryption would not
only threaten the security and privacy of Americans, it would also require the
establishment of a bureaucracy dedicated to examining software code and deeming it
“backdoor compliant.” Such needless red tape would hamstring American technology
companies.
Metadata
Curtailing metadata storage bolsters civil liberties
Marrzorati 15
(Luca; intern at Capital, Appellate court invalidates N.S.A. metadata collection
program,www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2015/05/8567565/appellate-court-invalidatesnsa-metadata-collection-program, May 7, 2015)//ADS
"The government takes the position that the metadata collected—a vast amount of which
does not contain directly 'relevant' information, as the government concedes—are
nevertheless 'relevant' because they may allow the NSA, at some unknown time in the
future, utilizing its ability to sift through the trove of irrelevant data it has collected up to
that point, to identify information that is relevant," Lynch wrote. "We agree with
appellants that such an expansive concept of 'relevance' is unprecedented and
unwarranted." Because the court concluded that the program was not authorized by the
language of the USA PATRIOT Act, it did not take up the ACLU's constitutional challenge
to the program, based on Fourth Amendment unreasonable search and seizure grounds,
“The constitutional issues, however, are sufficiently daunting to remind us of the primary
role that should be played by our elected representatives in deciding, explicitly and after
full debate, whether such programs are appropriate and necessary," Lynch added. But
Lynch denied the ACLU's request for a preliminary injunction against the program,
leaving that decision to a district court. In a concurring opinion, U.S Circuit judge Robert
Sack reiterated a call for the Foreign Intelligence Surviellance Court to adopt an
adversary system, by which some party is arguing against the government.
Library
Curtailing Library archives bolster civil liberties
Walt 2002
(Walt; American social issues journalist and university professor of journalism, The Patriot Act
and Bookstores,www.counterpunch.org/2002/07/24/the-patriot-act-and-bookstores, JULY 24,
2002)//ADS
On the first floor are more than 10,000 books on more than 1,200 running feet of shelves
that create aisles only about three feet wide. On top of the shelves are stacks of 10, 15,
even 20 more books. On the floor are hundreds more, stacked spine out three- or fourfeet high. There are books in metal racks, drawers, and on counters. It’s hard to walk
through the store without bumping into a pile in the 1,000-square foot store. In the
basement, in reserve, are 2,000 more books. "Sometimes I order four or five copies of a
title, but often I only order one copy, but I want to have whatever my customers want,"
says owner Arline Johnson who founded the store in 1976 after working almost two
decades as a clinical psychologist and teacher. Unlike the chain stores with magazine
and newspaper racks, wide aisles, track lighting, and even a coffee shop, Friends-in-Mind
has only books and some greeting cards. Also unlike the chain stores with large budgets
for space and promotion to attract hundreds of customers a day, Johnson says she sees
"on a real good day" maybe 25 or 30 people; often she sees fewer than a dozen. In
September 1984, she saw someone she didn’t want to see. A week after the Naval
Institute Press shipped three copies of Tom Clancy’s cold war thriller, The Hunt for Red
October, the FBI showed up. The FBI, which apparently got the information from the
publisher, "wanted to know where the books were and who purchased them," says
Johnson. She says she told the two men that she couldn’t remember to whom she sold
two of the copies, but acknowledged she sent one copy to her cousin, who had served
aboard a nuclear submarine, "and haxd all kinds of clearances." Johnson says she
wasn’t pleased about the interrogation–"and my cousin certainly wasn’t happy about
anyone checking on what he was reading." The FBI never returned, but occasionally
residents in this rural conservative community will complain about what’s in the store.
She’s been challenged for selling books about Karl Marx, gay rights, and even dinosaurs.
Johnson says she tells the "book police" that "it’s important that people learn and read
about everything, whether they believe it or not." She also stocks copies of the
Constitution and the Federalist Papers. Left-wing. Right-wing. Business. Labor. Antiestablishment. Everything’s available in her store. "It’s not the government’s job to tell
me or anyone what they can read," she says. But the government has decided that under
the cloak of "national security" it can abridge the rights of the citizen. The base is the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Under that Act’s provisions, the government
may conduct covert surveillance of individuals only after seeking an order from a special
government-created secret court. However, that Court, in its first two decades, granted
every one of the government’s more than 12,000 requests. The most recent series of
intrusions upon civil liberties began in 1998 when special prosecutor Ken Starr
demanded a book store to release records of what Monica Lewinsky had purchased. It
was a sweeping allegation that had no reasonable basis of establishing any groundwork
in Starr’s attacks upon President Clinton. Since then, there have been several cases in
which police, operating with warrants issued in state courts, have demanded a
bookstore’s records. In state actions, individuals have the right to ask local and state
courts to quash subpoenas for records. If denied, they may appeal all the way to state
supreme courts. There is no such protection under FISA. Not only can’t individuals and
businesses be represented in that secret court, they’re bound by a federal gag order
prohibiting any disclosure that such an order was even issued. There is no recourse. No
appeal. Then came the USA Patriot Act, drafted by the Bush administration, and finetuned in secret by the House and Senate leadership following the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks. The Patriot Act, which incorporates and significantly expands FISA to include
American citizens, was overwhelmingly approved by the Congress, most of whom admit
they read only a few paragraphs, if any at all, of the 342-page document. President Bush
enthusiastically signed the bill, Oct. 26. Among its almost innumerable provisions, the
Act reduces judicial oversight of telephone and internet surveillance and grants the FBI
almost unlimited, and unchecked, access to business records without requiring it to
show even minimal evidence of a crime. The FBI doesn’t even need to give the individual
time to call an attorney. Failure to immediately comply could result in that person’s
immediate detainment. The federal government can now require libraries to divulge who
uses public computers or what books they check out, video stores to reveal what tapes
customers bought or rented, even grocery and drug stores to disclose what paperbacks
shoppers bought. The effect of the USA Patriot Act upon businesses that loan, rent, or
sell books, videos, magazines, and music CDs is not to find and incarcerate terrorists–
there are far more ways to investigate threats to the nation than to check on a terrorist’s
reading and listening habits–but to put a sweeping chilling effect upon Constitutional
freedoms. The Act butts against the protections of the First (free speech), Fourth
(unreasonable searches), Fifth (right against self-incrimination), and Sixth (due process)
amendments. If the Act is not modified, book publishers will take even fewer chances on
publishing works that, like The Hunt for Red October "might" result in the government
investigation; bookstore owners may not buy as many different titles; and the people,
fearing that whatever they read might be subject to Big Brother’s scrutiny, may not buy
controversial books or check books out of the library. Even worse, writers may not
create the works that a free nation should read. How ironic it is that a President who says
he wants everyone to read is the one who may be responsible for giving the people less
choice in what they may read. Chris Finan, president of the American Booksellers
Foundation for Free Expression, believes "we’ve seen some shift" in the hard-core
attitudes of the government’s position. He believes public opinion will eventually shift
"from the panic after Sept. 11 to allow a reasonable debate of the dangers" created by the
USA Patriot Act. The Act has a built-in sunset provision–several sections will expire,
unless Congress renews them, on Dec. 31, 2005. Judith Krug of the American Library
Association isn’t as optimistic as Finan. "It’s going to be used as long as they think they
can get away with it," says Krug, one of the nation’s leading experts in First Amendment
rights and civil liberties. Krug says until the people "start challenging the Act in the
federal courts, we’ll be lucky if we can ‘sunset’ out any of it." In the meantime, Arline
Johnson says she doesn’t keep computer records, accept credit cards, or even have a
store newsletter, all of which can compromise the Constitutional protections of her
customers. "I once lived and taught in Bulgaria," says Johnson, "and I don’t like
totalitarian regimes." It makes no difference if it’s a Balkan dictatorship or one created
out of fear in a democracy. The Bush administration has put far more fear into the
American people than any terrorist could. As Benjamin Franklin once argued, a nation
that gives up freedom to gain security deserves neither.
Impacts
War
Enviromental Decline
Energy resource depletion will lead to world wars – our government uses
more and more energy to solve economic and social problems, and that’s
unsustainable
Hanson 8 (Jay Hanson. June 24, 2008. “A BASIC IDEA OF HOW OUR GOVERNMENT WORKS”
JayHanson http://www.jayhanson.org/democratic.htm.)
Thermodynamic laws, evolution theory, and modern genetic sciences were unknown by our
Founders. Today, these laws and sciences signal the end of our form of government. The
first law of thermodynamics (conservation law) states that there can be no creation of
matter/energy. This means that the economy is totally dependent upon natural resources
for everything. The German physicist Helmholtz and the British physicist Lord Kelvin had
explained the principle by the middle of the 19th century. The second law of thermodynamics
(entropy law) tells us that energy is wasted in all economic activity. In 1824, the French
physicist Sadi Carnot formulated the second law’s concepts while working on “heat engines”.
Lord Kelvin and the German physicist Clausius eventually formalized Carnot’s concepts as the
second law of thermodynamics. Our government was designed to require more-and-more
energy (endless economic growth) to solve social problems, but the thermodynamic laws
described above limit the available energy. Energy “resources” must produce more energy
than they consume, otherwise they are called “sinks” (this is known as the “net energy”
principle). In other words, if it costs more-than-one-barrel-of-oil to “produce” one-barrel-of-oil,
then that barrel will never be produced – the money price of oil is irrelevant! Thus, the net
energy principle places strict limits (in the physical sense) on our government’s ability to
solve social problems. Although bankers can print money, they can not print energy!
Biologists have found that our genes predispose us to act in certain ways under certain
environments. This explains why history repeats itself and why humans have engaged in
war after war throughout history: from time-to-time an environment emerges when “inclusive
fitness”[5] is served by attacking your neighbor and stealing his resources. [6] Since our
government was designed to require ever-growing energy resources, but energy
resources are strictly limited by thermodynamic laws, sooner-or-later our government
will collapse into another orgy of world wars. It’s just a matter of time...
Biodiversity
Causes Extinction
Anthropogenic Biodiversity loss is causing the 6th mass extinction
Hayat 6/28 (Ariel Hayal, 6/28/15, [Senior Staff], "Study identifies 6th mass extinction event, lists
human activity as primary cause," The Daily Californian,
http://www.dailycal.org/2015/06/28/study-identifies-6th-mass-extinction-event-lists-humanactivity-as-primary-cause/, MX)
After years of warnings from ecologists about the dangers of biodiversity loss, a new study has quantified an ongoing mass
extinction event — the sixth in our planet’s history — and suggests humans are largely to blame. The
paper, published June 19 in the journal Science Advances, takes a “conservative” approach to measuring the extent of the situation because previous estimates have been
criticized for overestimating the severity of the extinction crisis. The primary researchers — from institutions such as UC Berkeley, Stanford University and the National
Autonomous University of Mexico — compared current extinction rates with a normal baseline rate of two mammal extinctions per 10,000 vertebrate species per 100 years.
the paper’s “conservative”
extinction count stands at 477, which should have taken as many as 10,000 years to
occur. Paul Ehrlich, senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and co-author of the study, notes that the species extinction
rate is the highest it has been in 65 million years. “We’re essentially doing to the planet
what the meteor did that took care of the dinosaurs,” he said of the data’s implications. Seth Finnegan, an assistant professor
Based on this measure, about nine vertebrate species should have disappeared from the earth since 1900. But
in UC Berkeley’s integrative biology department who specializes in mass extinction, said the researchers’ study contrasts with other studies that tend to estimate modern
extinction rates indirectly. For example, some measure areas of destroyed habitats and then extrapolate extinction predictions based on how many species are believed to exist
This study doesn’t take the inferential approach,” he said. “They are tallying up welldocumented, well-observed extinctions of mammals.” Though extinction can occur because of a variety of environmental
factors, the study emphasizes humans’ effect on the alarming rate of species loss . According to
Finnegan, industrialization has “drastically accelerated humans’ impact on Earth’s
ecosystems.” Co-author Anthony Barnosky, a campus professor of integrative biology, cited a high per-capita use of fossil fuels and the over-exploitation of
ecosystems for economic gain as major contributing factors. “In one or two human lifetimes, we are the ones wiping out
what evolution took millions of years to create,” he said. In addition to being the driving force
behind the sixth mass extinction, humans will ultimately face “high moral and aesthetic
costs” in as little as three lifetimes, according to Barnosky. Crucial ecosystem services, such as crop
pollination and water purification, will suffer if high rates of extinction persist, the study says.
Considering that it took up to millions of years for the planet to rediversify after the
previously recorded mass extinctions, the study says, these consequences would be effectively
permanent on human time scales.
in those areas. “
Warming
Recent Cards
Warming is real and anthro – only acknowledging this allows for reparative
action
Myers et al 3/26
[Research Assistant Professor at the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University]
(Teresa A, March 26 2015, "Simple Messages Help Set the Record Straight about Scientific Agreement on
Human-Caused Climate Change: The Results of Two Experiments" Plos
one. journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0120985)
The U.S. National Academies [1], the Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange [2], the U.S. National Climate
Assessment [3], and myriad other leading scientific societies around the world have concluded, with great
certainty, that human-caused climate change is occurring. Moreover, a growing body of literature demonstrates that the vast
majority of individual climate scientists are also convinced that human-caused climate change is happening. Several methods
have been used to estimate the extent of this agreement: both surveys of climate scientists [4–6] and empirical reviews of the peerreviewed literature [4, 7] estimate the consensus at approximately 97% , with some empirical literature reviews
suggesting even higher levels of consensus [8–9]. Yet, relatively few Americans know there is widespread
agreement among climatescientists that human-caused climate change is occurring. A 2013 survey showed that only 42% of
American adults believe “most scientists think global warming is happening .” Moreover, only about 1 in 5 survey
respondents (22%) estimated the level of agreement among climate scientists at more than 80%; the most common response was “don’t know” (28%
of the sample) with smaller proportions estimating 61–80% (19%), 41–60% (20%), and even lower estimates (10%) [10]. Several explanations
have been offered for why the public doesn’t know about the scientific consensus about human-caused climate change,including “ false
balance” in news coverage
[11] and organized efforts to create an
illusion of scientific disagreement
[12–15] Public
belief about the level of expert agreement on scientific issues appears to be an important factor in acceptance of scientific propositions across a variety
of scientific issues—including humans causing climate change, smoking causing lung cancer, and HIV causing AIDS [16]. In the context of climate
change, the evidence suggests that understanding the expert consensus is a “gateway” belief , such thatrecognition of a high
level of scientific agreement about human-caused climate change predisposes
people to be more certain that climate change is
happening, human-caused, serious, and solvable; in turn, these beliefs are associated with greater support
for societal responses to address climate change, and behavior to encourage societal responses [17–19], (but
see Kahan [20] for an alternative view). It stands to reason that members of the general public will be less convinced of—and concerned about—
climate change if they are under the impression that there is considerable disagreement among climate experts about the reality of human-caused
climate change.
Warming is exponentially accelerating species loss culminating in the 6th
mass extinction - analysis of 131 studies proves
Zielinski 4/30
(Sarah Zielinski, 4/30/15, award-winning science writer and editor, “Climate Change Will
Accelerate Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction,” Smithsonian.com,
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/climate-change-will-accelerate-earths-sixthmass-extinction-180955138/, MX)
Climate change is accelerating species loss on Earth, and by the end of this century, as
many as one in six species could be at risk of extinction. But while these effects are being
seen around the world, the threat is much higher in certain sensitive regions, according to two new comprehensive studies. The planet
is experiencing a new wave of die-offs driven by factors such as habitat loss, the introduction of exotic invaders and rapid changes to our climate.
Some people have called the phenomenon the sixth mass extinction, on par with the
catastrophic demise of the large dinosaurs 65 million years ago. To try and combat the declines, scientists
have been racing to make predictions about which species are most likely to go extinct, along with when and where it will happen, sometimes with
widely varying results. “Depending on which study you look at, you can come away with a rosy or gloomy view of climate change extinctions,” notes
Mark Urban of the University of Connecticut. “That’s because each study focuses on different species [and] regions of the world and makes different
assumptions about climate change and species’ responses.” In one of the two new studies published today in Science, Urban compensated for all
those differences by combining 131 previously published studies into one big prediction. If greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated, he
calculates, 16 percent of species will be threatened with extinction due to climate change by the end of the century. “Perhaps most surprising is that
extinction risk does not just increase with temperature rise, but accelerates, curving
upward as the Earth warms,” Urban says. If greenhouse gases were capped and temperatures
rose a couple degrees less, then the extinction threat would be nearly halved, he found. Urban’s
analysis focused on major land areas (minus Antarctica) and found that the risk of die-offs was not equal around the world. South America, Australia
and New Zealand will experience the most extinctions, probably because these regions have many species that are endemic and found nowhere else
in the world, and they rely on habitats that are not found anywhere else. In the second study, Seth Finnegan of the University of California, Berkeley
and colleagues drew from the fossil record to make predictions about modern extinction risk in the world’s coastal areas. “Extinction
is a
process that often plays out on very long timescales—thousands of years or more. But
our direct observations of modern species span, in even the best cases, only a few
hundred years,” notes Finnegan. “Fossils allow us to examine the entire histories of different groups, from their first appearance until their
final extinction.” Finnegan’s group used the fossil histories of six groups of marine animals—bivalves, gastropods, sea urchins, sharks, mammals and
stony corals—to determine which kinds of animals were inherently more likely to disappear, or the intrinsic risk of extinction. Similar groups of species
tend to have similar patterns of extinction, Finnegan notes, which makes fossil studies such as this one possible. They team also analyzed the
geographic locations where such extinctions were more likely to occur. The researchers then overlaid their map of intrinsic extinctions with data on
today's human impacts and climate change to determine probable hotspots of species loss. They found that coastal species will be especially at risk
near the tropics, including the Indo-Pacific, the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. “The implications of these broad-scale patterns for the future of
coastal marine ecosystems will depend on how intrinsic risk and current threats interact to determine future extinction risk,” the researchers note. In
some places, such as the North Atlantic, “anthropogenic
impacts may dwarf intrinsic risk effects and leave
a distinctly human fingerprint on future extinctions.”
Warming is an existential threat
Rampell 6/1
(Catherine Rampell, 6/1/15, [received the Weidenbaum Center Award for Evidence-Based
Journalism and is a Gerald Loeb Award finalist],The threat Republicans are ignoring, La Crosse
Tribune, http://lacrossetribune.com/news/opinion/catherine-rampell-the-threat-republicans-areignoring/article_59a51fc4-9f48-586f-a170-a249f091fa43.html, MX)
That’s because climate change is a national security issue. You can’t credibly claim to be tough on national security and terrorism
while simultaneously boasting how unconcerned you are about global warming. A scientific consensus has found that climate
change is real. It’s also man-made, and while it can’t be unmade, per se, it can be at least minimized. You wouldn’t know this from the GOP
presidential hopefuls, for whom climate denialism — or something close enough to it to amount to the same thing — is sadly considered a prerequisite for the nomination. Ted
Cruz said that people who are concerned about global warming are “the equivalent of the flat-Earthers”; Ben Carson argued climate change is fake and also “irrelevant.” Jeb
Bush, Rick Santorum, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul have, at best, equivocated, saying climate change is probably real but maybe not anthropogenic. So, you know, nothing to
be done. Scott Walker has largely avoided the issue, but his record on other environmental policies (including proposed cuts to recycling) isn’t encouraging. Meanwhile these
same candidates — including the once-isolationalist Paul — have been offering tough, if vague, platitudes about everything they would do to neutralize any security threat to the
extreme weather — high temperatures, droughts, storms, floods — is politically
destabilizing. It can lead to food and water shortages, mass migrations, destruction of
infrastructure, disputes over refugees, pandemics. Sure, it doesn’t directly create armed
conflict or militia groups, but it can generate the conditions under which these threats
are more likely to emerge and thrive. Such prospects are scarier when you consider that many of the parts of the
world most vulnerable to climate change are also areas with weak governance and civil
unrest. Global warming is, if nothing else, a threat multiplier. Don’t take my word for it; that term “threat
multiplier” comes directly from a recent Defense Department report about climate change.
United States. But
America’s military and intelligence branches and their scientific partners have been analyzing environmental data for decades, under both Democratic and Republican
administrations. In 2004, for example, the Pentagon developed a blueprint to “imagine the unthinkable”: how a sudden change in the world’s climate might affect national
Many military reports, task forces, advisory boards and conferences since then have looked at the
warned in no uncertain terms of the severe threats it poses to
the country’s strategic interests around the globe.
security.
consequences of more gradual warming — and
Warming is close to reaching a tipping point - it’s now or never
Ocko 6/9
(Ilissa Ocko, 6/9/15, Climate scientist at Environmental Defense Fund, "6 Climate Triggers That
Could Completely Change Our World," Yahoo News, news.yahoo.com/6-climate-triggers-couldcompletely-change-world-183504266.html, MX)
One of the biggest fears about climate change is that it may be triggering events that would dramatically alter Earth
as we know it. Known to scientists as "tipping events," they could contribute to the mass extinction of
species, dramatic sea level rise, extensive droughts and the transformation of forests
into vast grasslands — among other upheavals our stressed world can ill afford. Here are the top
six climate events scientists worry about today. 1. The Arctic sea ice melts The melting of the Arctic's summer ice is
considered to be the single greatest threat, and some scientists think we've already passed the tipping
point. As sea ice melts and the Arctic warms , dark ocean water is exposed that absorbs more
sunlight, thus reinforcing the warming. The transition to an ice-free Arctic summer can
occur rapidly — within decades — and this has geopolitical implications as nations compete for the newly opened space and petroleum resources.
Added to all that will be the damage that would result from the disruption of an entire
ecosystem. 2. Greenland becomes ice free The warming of the Arctic may also render Greenland largely ice free.
While Greenland's ice loss will likely reach the point of no return within this century, the full transition will take at least
a few hundred years. The impacts of the Greenland ice melt is expected to raise sea levels by up to 20
feet. Half of the 10 largest cities in the world, including New York City, and one-third of
the world's 30 largest cities are already threatened by this sea-level rise. Today, those cities
are home to nearly 1.8 billion people. Other vulnerable American cities include Miami, Norfolk and Boston. 3. The West Antarctic ice sheet
disintegrates. On the other side of Earth, the West Antarctic ice sheet is also disintegrating . Because the bottom of this glacier
is grounded below sea level, it's vulnerable to rapid breakup, thinning and retreat as warm ocean water
eats away at the ice. Scientists expect the West Antarctic ice sheet to "tip" this century, and
there is evidence that it already began happening in 2014. However, the entire collapse of the glacier, which would raise sea level by 16 feet,
could take a few hundred years. 4. El Niño becomes a more permanent climate fixture. The oceans absorb about 90 percent of the extra heat that is being trapped in the Earth
the
most likely consequence of ocean heat uptake is that El Niño, a natural climate phenomenon , could
become a more permanent part of our climate system. That would cause extensive
drought conditions in Southeast Asia and elsewhere, while some drought-prone areas such as California would get relief.
system by greenhouse gases. This could affect the ocean dynamics that control El Niño events. While there are several theories about what could happen in the future,
While the transition to a world with more El Niños is expected to be gradual and take around one hundred years, the event could be triggered during this century. 5. The
Deforestation, a longer dry season and rising summer temperatures are
threatening the amount of rainfall in the Amazon. At least half of the Amazon rainforest could
turn into savannah and grassland. Once that event is triggered, the changes could happen over just a few decades. This would make it very
difficult for the rainforest to reestablish itself and would lead to a considerable loss in biodiversity. However, the reduction of the
Amazon ultimately depends on what happens with El Niño, along with future land-use changes from human activities. 6. Boreal forests are cut in half Increased
water and heat stress are taking a toll on the large forests in Canada, Russia and other parts of the uppermost Northern
Hemisphere. So are their vulnerability to disease and fires. This could lead to a 50 percent reduction of the boreal forests — an
event from which they may never be able to recover. Instead, the forest would gradually
transition into open woodlands or grasslands over several decades. This would have a huge impact on the
world's carbon balance because forests can absorb much more carbon than grasslands
can. As the forest diminishes, the climate will be affected — as will the Earth's energy balance. However, the complex
Amazon rainforest dies back
interaction between tree physiology, permafrost and fires makes the situation tricky to understand.
Warming causes extinction - Currents attempts to solve fail
O'Callaghan 6/19
(Jonathan O'Callaghan, 6/19/15, [Southeast Asia director of publishing and partnerships], "Will
YOUR child witness the end of humanity? Mankind will be extinct in 100 years because of
climate change, warns expert," Daily Mail, www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article3131160/Will-child-witness-end-humanity-Mankind-extinct-100-years-climate-change-warnsexpert.html, MX)
Humans will be extinct in 100 years due to overcrowding, declining resources and climate change, according
to a prominent scientist. The comments were first made by Australian microbiologist Dr Frank Fenner in 2010, but engineer and science writer
David Auerbach has reiterated the doom-laden warning in his latest article. He criticises the recent G7 summit for failing
to deal with the problems facing the survival of humanity, such as global warming and
exhausting Earth's resources. Mr Auerbach goes on to say that experts have predicted that 21st century civilisation
faces a similar fate to the inhabitants of Easter Island, who went extinct when they
overexploited their natural habitat. A lot of other animals will, too. It's an irreversible situation. 'I think it's too late. I
try not to express that because people are trying to do something, but they keep putting it off.’ At the G7 talks in Bonn in Germany earlier this month, governments failed to
countries' current pledges for greenhouse gas
cuts will fail to achieve a peak in energy-related emissions by 2030. This will likely result
in a temperature rise of 2.6°C by the end of the century, the International Energy Agency said. ‘When the G7 called on
Monday for all countries to reduce carbon emissions to zero in the next 85 years, the scientific reaction was unanimous: That’s
far too late,’ Mr Auerbach wrote. The widely agreed goal is that global temperatures must be kept
below a rice of 2°C by the end of the century. A 5°C increase, as predicted to occur by
2100 at the moment, would cause widespread flooding, famine, drought and mass
extinction. ‘Even the 2°C figure predicts more than a metre’s rise in sea levels by 2100,
enough to displace millions,’ Mr Auerbach noted in his Reuters article. But he said that current targets are simply not
enough to keep under this 2°C target. The US has suggested cutting emissions by up to 28 per cent by 2025 from 2005 levels, the EU 40 per cent from
1990 to 2030, and China an unspecified amount. ‘Ultimately, we need a Cold War-level of investment in research into
new technologies to mitigate the coming effects of global warming,’ he concluded. ‘Without it, the UN’s
work is a nice gesture, but hardly a meaningful one.’
come up with a clear plan to cut emissions in the coming years. It emerged that
No Pause
There is no warming pause
Mathiesen 6/4
(Karl Mathiesen, 6/4/15, [environmental journalist; writes the Guardian's Eco Audit.], "Global
warming 'pause' didn't happen, study finds,”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/04/global-warming-hasnt-paused-studyfinds, MX)
Global warming has not undergone a ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’, according to US government research that undermines one of the key
arguments used by sceptics to question climate science. The new study reassessed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (Noaa)
temperature record to account for changing methods of measuring the global surface
temperature over the past century. The adjustments to the data were slight, but removed
a flattening of the graph this century that has led climate sceptics to claim the rise in
global temperatures had stopped. “There is no slowdown in warming, there is no hiatus,”
said lead author Dr Tom Karl, who is the director of Noaa’s National Climatic Data Centre. Dr Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist and the director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies said: “The fact that such
The results, published on Thursday in the journal
, showed the rate of warming over the past 15 years (0.116C per decade) was almost
exactly the same, in fact slightly higher, as the past five decades (0.113C per decade). In
small changes to the analysis make the difference between a hiatus or not merely underlines how fragile a concept it was in the first place.”
Science
2013, the UN’s most comprehensive report on climate science made a tentative observation that the years since 1998 had seen a “much smaller increasing trend” than the preceding half century. The results
highlighted the inadequacy of using the global mean surface temperature as the primary yardstick for climate change. Karl said: “There’s been a lot of work done trying to understand the so-called hiatus and
A series of studies have since identified a number of factors, including
heat transferred into deep oceans and small volcanic eruptions, that affected the
temperature at the surface of the Earth. “Those studies are all quite valid and what they
suggest is had those factors not occurred the warming rate would even be greater than
what we report,” said Karl. Dr Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring and attribution at the UK’s Met Office, said Noaa’s research was “robust” and mirrored an analysis the British team is
understand where is this missing heat.”
conducting on its own surface temperature record. “Their work is consistent with independent work that we’ve done. It’s within our uncertainties. Part of the robustness and reliability of these records is that there
are different groups around the world doing this work,” he said. But Stott argued that the term slowdown remained valid because the past 15 years might have been still hotter were it not for natural variations. In
the coming years the world is expected to move out of a period in which the gradient of warming has not slowed even though the temperature has been moderated. This means “we could have 10 or 15 years of
very rapid rates of warming,” he said. “Even though the observed estimate is increased, over and above that there is plenty of evidence that the rate of warming is still being depressed,” he said. “The caution is
around saying that that is our underlying warming rate, because the climate models are predicting substantially higher rates than that.” Noaa’s historical observations were thrown out by unaccounted-for
differences between the measurements taken by ships using buckets and ships using thermometers in their engine in-takes, the increased use of ocean buoys and a large increase in the number of land-based
Science can only progress based on as much information as we have and what
you see today is the most comprehensive assessment we can do based on all the
information that’s been collected,” said Karl. Schmidt called the new observations “state of the art” and said Nasa had been in discussions with Noaa about how to
monitoring stations. “
incorporate the findings into their own global temperature record. Prof Michael Mann, whose analysis of the global temperature in the 1990s revolutionised the field, said the work underlined the conclusions of his
there is no true ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ in warming,” he said. “To the extent
global warming continues unabated as we continue to burn fossil
fuels and warm the planet, it is nonetheless a useful contribution to the literature.” Bob Ward, policy and communications director at London’s Grantham Research Institute,
own recent research. “They’ve sort of just confirmed what we already knew,
that the study further drives home the fact ... that
said the news that warming had been greater than previously thought should cause governments currently meeting in Bonn to act with renewed urgency and lay foundations for a strong agreement at the pivotal
The myth of the global warming pause has been heavily promoted by
climate change sceptics seeking to undermine the case for strong and urgent cuts in
greenhouse gas emissions,” said Ward.
climate conference in Paris this December. “
No Pause - also awareness doesn’t solve
Note: Also kind of makes the humans don’t care about threats because they’re too far off
argument - doesn’t really have an impact though
Conca 6/15
(James Conca, 6/15/15, [scientist in the field of the earth and environmental sciences for 33
years], "A Pause In Global Warming? Not Really," Forbes,
www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/06/15/a-pause-in-global-warming-not-really/, MX)
The rate of global warming during the last 15 years has been as fast as the warming seen
during the last half of the 20th Century, according to new study published in Science this
month by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The new study used the latest global surface
This study refutes the notion that there has been
a slowdown, hiatus, or Pause, in the rate of global warming in recent years. The Pause
has been a rallying cry for those not wanting to accept climate change as real. Of course,
conspiracy theorists claim that NOAA purposefully tampered with the data to make sure
it showed a warming trend (The Week). Because that’s what scientists do. Right? The Pause was an idea
temperature data and other improvements in the quality of the observed record.
from a 2013 UN report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that concluded the upward global surface temperature trend from 1998 to 2012 was markedly
Director of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental
Information, says, “Our new analysis suggests that the apparent hiatus may have been
largely the result of limitations in past datasets, and that the rate of warming over the first 15 years of this century has, in fact,
been as fast or faster than that seen over the last half of the 20th century.” The Pause never made sense to me given the other warming data
available over this time period: - the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets lost huge ice mass - glaciers
continued to shrink worldwide - Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere spring snow
cover continued to decrease in extent - ocean warming continued unabated Besides, the IPCC
data in the 2013 report didn’t actually show much of a Pause anyway. The report actually
concluded, “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are
lower than the trend from 1951 to 2012. But Thomas Karl,
unprecedented over decades to millennia.” This is not the report I would cite if I wanted to show global warming was a fantasy. On the other hand, NOAA scientists have made
significant improvements in the calculation of trends since the release of the IPCC report, and now use a global surface temperature record that includes the most recent two
years of data, 2013 and 2014, the hottest year on record. The calculations also use improved versions of both sea surface temperature and land surface air temperature
datasets. A correction that accounts for the difference in data collected from buoys and ship-based data is probably the most substantial improvement in the calculations. Before
1974, the primary method for measuring sea surface temperatures was by ship. But since then, buoys, with greater accuracy, have been used in increasing numbers. Data
new
analysis also demonstrated that incomplete spatial coverage led to underestimates of the
true global temperature change previously reported in the 2013 IPCC report. The integration of dozens of data sets, including the International
collected from buoys are always cooler than ship-based data, and we’ve developed methods for accurately comparing these two crucial data sets. The
Surface Temperature Initiative databank, NOAA’s Global Historical Climatology Network-Daily dataset, and forty other historical data sources, has more than doubled the
number of weather stations available for analysis, especially for the Arctic, where temperatures have been increasing the most. But the results from the full data set over the last
century didn’t really change much with the new analysis. Before, it was 1.17°F/century. With this new analysis, it’s 1.22°F/century, not much different. The Pause was never
much of a pause. Data like this is about trends, not absolutes. These improvements in data analyses will not sit well with many people. “We’re all climate change deniers at
That’s a problem for more things than the environment. As a
species, we just don’t care as much about existential threats that are not immediately
obvious. We are hard-wired to care about things that are immediately important, both
good and bad. It’s why we keep doing stupid things, repeating history in bad ways, giving rise to the idea that we never seem to learn. Nobel Prize-winning
psychologist Daniel Kahneman states it more dolefully in terms of climate change, “ No amount of psychological awareness will
overcome people’s reluctance to lower their standard of living.”
heart,” says Oliver Burkeman of The Guardian.
Try or Die
There is an invisible threshold that will result in massive and unstoppable
feedback loops - it’s try or die
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 24-26, MX)
So far, we have discussed events that are predicted with a high degree of certainty. However science is discovering
mechanisms that may result in sudden irreversible changes in the earth's environment.
These are termed threshold events, whereby a further small increase in temperature
triggers a major change in the earth’s control mechanisms. The U.S. National Academy of
Sciences supports this concept and believes that there could be an abrupt climate
change. The following are a few examples of possible mechanisms. The gulf stream, flowing north in the North
Atlantic Ocean, warms northern Europe and returns deep cold waters flowing south. Studies
from the National Oceanographic Centre in the UK have shown that the returning current may have slowed by 30 percent since 1957.16 The
northward flow is weakening due to climate-related increases in the southward flow of
fresh water from melting ice. This event is depicted in the doomsday thriller The Day After Tomorrow. If the gulf stream
reversed, Europe would have the climate of Hudson Bay, despite a warming world. There
are a number of natural stores of greenhouse gases ("sinks") in the tundra, soils, and
oceans. These sinks could release their gases as the temperature increases, leading to a
rapidly accelerating global warming. The permafrost in the tundra of Siberia is thawing
rapidly and is releasing frozen stores of the greenhouse gas methane.17 The oceans
absorb 2 billion tons more carbon dioxide than they release each year, and this is about
one third of all carbon dioxide produced by humanity. In future, with warming of the
ocean’s water, this sink may be compromised and there may be a net release of carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere. However at present the Antarctic Ocean is becoming more acidic
due to absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The acidity will affect the
ability of tiny crustaceans to grow their calcium carbonate shells, and an important link
in the food chain may be lost.18 The forests of the world are an important carbon sink,
but as the temperature rises trees become sick and become net producers rather than
stores of carbon dioxide. British scientists have also discovered another feedback mechanism whereby warmer
temperatures have increased microbial activity in the soil, releasing greater than
expected amounts of carbon—quantities sufficient to reduce Britian’s attempt to curtail
greenhouse gas emissions.' There are other mechanisms whereby global warming is being accelerated. Arctic ice is
rapidly melting, being 20 percent less than normal during the summer of 2005. Dr. Mark Serreze of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data
Center, believes that a threshold may soon be reached beyond which sea ice will not recover. A
feedback process may be set in motion, accelerating the melting of ice, as there is more
open blue water to absorb solar energy and less white ice to reflect sunlight back into
space.20° The major threat of global sea level rising comes from the glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica. Greenland's glaciers are melting into the
sea at almost twice their previously observed rate in the last five years.' The average temperature of Greenland has
risen by 3°C (5.4°F) over the last two decades and between 1996 and 2006 the amount of water lost from Greenland’s ice sheet increased from
90 cubic kilometers (21.6 cubic miles) to 220 cubic kilometers (52.8 cubic miles) per year. Greenland’s ice sheet covers 1.7 million square kilometers
(0.66 million square miles) with
ice of up to 3 kilometers thick (1.86 miles), and if completely melted it
would raise global sea levels by around 7 meters (7.65 yards). The evidence that we are moving into an accelerated
phase of global warming is supported by data showing that 9 of the 10 warmest years since 1860 have occurred since 1990 and 19 since 1981, and
annual increases in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are
accelerating as shown by data from the U.S. Government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. These measurements are
damage to carbon sinks and other mechanisms
described above may be playing a part. James Lovelock is a scientist, respected internationally for his pioneering work on
sufficient for scientists to be increasingly concerned that
biological feedback systems. He introduced the Gaia concept of the living earth acting like a single organism by using feedback mechanisms to
global
warming will be amplified by the simultaneous malfunction of several feedback systems
due to human activities and it is already too late to stop catastrophic warming.22 One such
mechanism is that of global dimming, whereby aerosols in the atmosphere produced by global
industry are shielding the earth from part of the sun’s radiation. With a severe industrial
downturn, a sudden leap in global temperatures will be expected. Various events are likely to precipitate
maintain stability of temperature and climate over long periods of time. In 2006, in his book The Revenge of Gaia, he argued that
economic downturn, such as the likely oil shortage are discussed later in this chapter.
Systemic
Climate change is a systemic impact- it affects 325 million people today
and leads to both death and hardship
O’Hara and Abelsohn 11 (Dennis Patrick O'Hara PhD and Alan Abelsohn. “Ethical
Response to Climate Change” Ethics and the Environment, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Spring 2011), pp. 2550)
In 2000, in what was considered a conservative study, excluding many of the more indirect effects of climate change on health, climate
change “was estimated to have caused 150,000 deaths and 5.5 million DALYs [disability
adjusted life years]” (World Health Organization [WHO] 2003, 31). The majority of these effects are being felt
in developing countries, due to increasing incidence of diarrhea, malaria and
malnutrition (McMichael 2004). As the effects of climate change continue to grow, the incidence
of death and disease have likely increased from the levels of 2000 (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, Working Group II [IPCC WGII] 2007). In fact, in a recent report by the Global Humanitarian Forum, Kofi o’hara & abelsohn ethical response to
climate change is “the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge
of our times” (Global Humanitarian Forum 2009, 2). The report estimates that over 300,000 lives are lost each year
due to climate change, with the annual death toll estimated to reach 500,000 by 2030, and
that “climate change today seriously impacts on the lives of 325 million people” (Global
Humanitarian Forum 2009, 9, 11, 13). Due to indirect effects, climate change not only threatens each
person’s fundamental and inalienable “right to life, liberty, and personal security” as
guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations 1948, Article 3), it is
already responsible for considerable death and enormous hardship. The factors that cause climate
climate change 27 Annan stresses that
change, and the efforts to both mitigate and adapt to it, raise ethical issues that require ethical responses.
Economy
Climate change turns econ- efforts to mitigate climate change help the
economy
O’Hara and Abelsohn 11 (Dennis Patrick O'Hara PhD and Alan Abelsohn. “Ethical
Response to Climate Change” Ethics and the Environment, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Spring 2011), pp. 2550)
Fourthly, as the Stern Report has noted, “the evidence shows that ignoring climate change
will eventually damage economic growth.…Tackling climate change is the pro-growth
strategy for the longer term, and it can be done in a way that does not cap the aspirations
for growth of rich or poor countries. The earlier effective action is taken, the less costly it
will be” (Stern 2006, ii). Delaying action to reduce GHG emissions will actually be more costly
to economies in developed countries both in the near and long term. The “economic harm”
argument is a misguided and ill-informed prioritization of current investors’ interests at
the expense of the welfare of future generations. Ironically, when President H.W. Bush
addressed the Rio Earth Summit on June 15, 1992, he noted that, “It’s been said that we don’t
inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children” (Bush 1992). Regrettably,
this insight did not inform his response to climate change.
Violence
Best studies using meta-analyses show climate change leads to
widespread violence
Levy and Sidel 14 (Barry S. Levy, MD, MPH, is Adjunct Professor of Public Health at Tufts University
School of Medicine, Boston and Victor W. Sidel, MD, is Distinguished University Professor of Social Medicine
Emeritus at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and an Adjunct Professor of Public
Health at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York. “Collective Violence Caused by Climate Change and How It
Threatens Health and Human Rights.” Health and Human Rights, Vol. 16, No. 1, Climate Justice and the Right to
Health (June 2014), pp. 32-40)
Meta-analyses of numerous studies provide the strongest evidence of a causal link
between climate change and violence. The most comprehensive investigation on climate change and human conflict has been a metaanalysis by Hsiang et al., which was based on 60 longitudinal studies, mostly published since early 2009.
31 They found that deviations from normal precipitation and from mild temperatures
significantly increased the risk of conflict, especially in poorer populations. They estimated that each
standard deviation in climate toward more rainfall or warmer temperatures (equivalent to about a 3o C rise above average in New York City temperatures) increased the
, with rising temperatures
over future decades, there could be substantial increases in conflict.31 Although critics have suggested
frequency of intergroup conflict overall by 14%—and in some places by more than 50%. They appropriately concluded that
that this meta-analysis suffers from selection bias and conflates climate with weather, we believe that the authors have adequately refuted critiques concerning selection bias
and that their inclusion of papers that cover long time periods minimizes the concern about conflating climate with weather.32,33 We therefore find its results and conclusions to
be compelling evidence of a causal association between climate change and violent conflict.
AT: Warming Deniers
There are two types of warming deniers - those that do so unconsciously
and those that do so for money - either way, reject both
Ropeik 12
(David Ropeik [Instructor at Harvard, a consultant in risk perception and risk communication],
2012, "The Ethics of Climate Change Denial," Big Think, bigthink.com/risk-reason-andreality/the-ethics-of-climate-change-denial-2, MX)
Here is a version of The Trolley Problem, a classic experiment in ethics. Let’s say you are next to some train tracks, and down the tracks and behind a hill you see smoke and
hear the rumblings of what sounds like a train headed your way. You also see five people on the tracks who will be killed if it is a train. They are unaware of the danger, and too
far away to hear or see you. To save them, before you know for sure it’s a train, you can throw a switch which will divert the train to another track, where a single person is
standing. What’s the ethical thing to do? Now let’s add a twist. Let’s say you’re standing near the tracks with a friend, and she is sure a train is coming and wants to throw the
switch. But your deeply held religious faith says you are not supposed to interfere with what God has preordained. So you argue with your friend that, despite the smoke and
noise, she can’t be sure it’s a train and she shouldn’t do anything. Still, she goes to throw the switch, and you try to stop her, even though if it is a train, five people will die! Is
Now let’s make this hypothetical real, and substitute climate change for the train. One of the most extensive multidisciplinary research efforts in human history has determined that the climate is
changing in ways that will cause massive disruption of the biological systems on which
all life depends. The likelihood is that this will cause massive suffering and death, but the science
that ethical?
isn’t absolutely certain. Friends see that evidence and want to act. But your deep beliefs lead you to see the evidence through different lenses, so you both deny the evidence
There are
two populations of climate change deniers. Most, though they wield the weapons of fact in what sounds like an intellectual battle, are
actually fighting a much more profoundly emotional war. As we all do with many issues, climate change deniers are interpreting the
evidence so their view will agree with the group they identify with most strongly. That strengthens
and you try to keep your friends from acting. Is that denial of climate change ethical? Like most such dilemmas, it’s not as black and white as it seems.
their group’s dominance in society, and enhances the group‘s acceptance of them as members in good standing, both of which are vital for survival for social animals like us
This powerful tendency to interpret the facts so our views agree with our group, known as
Cultural Cognition, happens below consciousness, below purposeful choice, and beyond
what most would call free will. So, like the true believer near the train tracks whose beliefs caused him to honestly see things in a different way,
who depend on the tribe for our well being.
this sort of climate change denial is the product of powerful subconscious motivations. It is an honest result of the innate way human cognition works. Though I disagree with
climate change deniers, and I am frustrated by their stubborn rejection of overwhelming evidence, this version of denialism does not seem unethical. To blame behavior as
unethical requires belief that we have conscious control of our choices and actions, and the social science evidence is pretty persuasive that a lot of our ‘thinking’ happens
beyond our conscious awareness, or our ability to control it. But now let’s add another twist to the Trolley Problem. Let’s say you’re standing by the tracks because you’re
waiting for a train to deliver merchandise that will earn you hundreds of millions of dollars, but only if it arrives on time. You lose hundreds of millions if the train is late. Throwing
the switch might save those five people (and kill the one) but it will delay the train and cost you a TON of money. Is it ethical to try and keep your friend from throwing the switch
a small group of
people who have, for personal and economic reasons, consciously created doubt about
climate change, lobbying and campaigning against efforts to reduce the risk or even just
to adapt to its effects. These deniers are different. Their actions are a matter of will, conscious and
controlled, and their motives are personal wellbeing at the expense of others, at the
expense in fact of nothing less than the health of the biosphere of the planet. This
staggeringly selfish behavior embodies the purest example of what any fair minded
person would call unethical. Evil, even.
now?
Of course not. This is selfish and immoral by any reasonable standard. Yet this is precisely the nature of the climate denial by
Human Rights
CC kills HR
Empircs show climate change contributes to a litany of impacts including
collective violence, which threatens human rights for all people on Earth
Levy and Sidel 14 (Barry S. Levy, MD, MPH, is Adjunct Professor of Public Health at Tufts University
School of Medicine, Boston and Victor W. Sidel, MD, is Distinguished University Professor of Social Medicine
Emeritus at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and an Adjunct Professor of Public
Health at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York. “Collective Violence Caused by Climate Change and How It
Threatens Health and Human Rights.” Health and Human Rights, Vol. 16, No. 1, Climate Justice and the Right to
Health (June 2014), pp. 32-40)
Climate change causes or contributes to adverse environmental consequences, including global warming, extreme
deviations in rainfall, sea level rise, extreme weather events, and droughts, floods, and
wildfires. Climate change threatens human health and well-being by increasing the risk of heatrelated disorders; respiratory and allergic disorders; vectorborne, waterborne, and foodborne infectious diseases;
food insecurity and malnutrition; mental disorders; and violence, most notably, collective violence.
Collective violence due to climate change threatens basic human rights, as embodied in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and other international human rights instruments. For example, it threatens the rights enumerated in Article 25 of the UDHR,
including the right to a standard of living adequate for health and wellbeing , including rights to
food, clothing, housing, medical care, and social services, as well as the right to
security.1 In this paper, we review the evidence that climate change causes or contributes to collective
violence and the threats that this violence poses to health and human rights. In addition, we discuss challenges for future research on this subject, prevention of
collective violence due to climate change, and States’ obligations to prevent collective violence and protect human rights that are threatened by collective violence due to
Violence has long been recognized as a major public health problem
climate change.
.2 It is defined as “the
intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community that either results in or has a high likelihood of
resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation.”3 It
includes self-inflicted, interpersonal, and
collective violence. Collective violence is defined as “the instrumental use of violence by people who identify themselves as members of a group...against
another group or set of individuals, in order to achieve political, economic or social objectives.”4 It includes armed conflict, state-sponsored
violence (such as genocide and torture), and organized violent crime (such as gang
warfare). Collective violence causes much morbidity and mortality, damage to the
healthsupporting infrastructure of society, forced migration, environmental damag mage,
diversion of resources, and more violence.5 Historical studies on climate change and violence: Climate change has
been associated with violence for centuries. Three studies by Zhang and colleagues
provide strong evidence to support this association. Zhang et al. demonstrated that, in the Preindustrial
Era (from 1500 to 1800) in the Northern Hemisphere, climate change was the major driver of armed conflict and
other large-scale humanitarian crises, and that social mechanisms failed to prevent these crises.6 The study found that falling
ambient temperatures decreased agricultural production, which, in turn, led to war and other major social problems, including inflation,
famine, and population decline.6 In another study, Zhang et al. found that, in preindustrial Europe, cooling of the climate between 1560 and 1660
was the ultimate cause of successive agro-ecological, socioeconomic, and demographic catastrophes.7 In yet another study, Zhang et al. found that the frequency
of warfare in eastern China over the past millennium was significantly associated with
Northern Hemisphere temperature oscillations, especially cooling phases that
significantly decreased agricultural production.8
Turn: Climate change destroys human rights
Caney 8 (Simon Caney works in Department of Politics and International Relations, Oxford University,
UK. 2008 “Human rights, climate change, and discounting” Environmental Politics, 17:4, 536-555)
Some affirm a very minimal set of rights and would be sceptical of extending this set to include ‘environmental’ rights of any kind. Others do not take
such a hostile approach but do ask why we should accept a right to a safe environment. The Stern Review, for example, insists quite rightly that
rights ‘should be argued rather than merely asserted’ (Stern 2007, p. 47). In this paper I hope to have provided such an
argument. The kinds of considerations that we normally invoke to defend human rights, I
maintain, entail
that persons have a human right not to suffer from the ill-effects of global
climate change. Climate change undermines persons’ human rights to a decent standard
of health, to economic necessities, and to subsistence.18 I have, moreover, argued that this right should not be
discounted. Its moral importance does not diminish over time. In doing so, however, I have defended a scoperestricted view with respect to discounting. That is to say, I have defended a view which (1) holds that basic rights should not be discounted but (2)
allows for the possibility that that other values might be subject to a positive pure time discount rate.
CC O/W’s HR
States have a moral obligation to protect humanity from climate changeinduced collective violence
Levy and Sidel 14 (Barry S. Levy, MD, MPH, is Adjunct Professor of Public Health at Tufts University
School of Medicine, Boston and Victor W. Sidel, MD, is Distinguished University Professor of Social Medicine
Emeritus at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and an Adjunct Professor of Public
Health at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York. “Collective Violence Caused by Climate Change and How It
Threatens Health and Human Rights.” Health and Human Rights, Vol. 16, No. 1, Climate Justice and the Right to
Health (June 2014), pp. 32-40)
Because of their legal and moral obligations to protect human rights, States must work
to prevent collective violence and to protect human rights that are threatened by
collective violence due to climate change. States have legal and moral obligations to
mitigate climate change and thereby reduce the risk of its adverse consequences to
health and human rights. And, as convincingly described in a recent review article by two legal scholars, they have legal and moral
obligations to promote and support adaptation to climate change.44
Authoritarianism
Reform Fails
Epistomology
Discount affirmative authors’ flawed imperialist epistemology –
progressive politics fail in reality
Beeson, PhD, 10 [professor in political science and international relations]
(Mark, March, Environmental Politics Vol 19 No 2 “The coming of environmental
authoritarianism” www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09644010903576918#.VY294vlViko)
-also an indict of ekerskly
One of the most noteworthy aspects of analyses
of broadly conceived ‘Asian development’ is that it has been
understood through theoretical models and concepts that were developed elsewhere, and which
overwhelmingly reflect a ‘Western’ historical experience as a consequence (Acharya and
Buzan 2007). At its most extreme and abstract, mainstream international relations (IR) theory barely reflects the Western experience, let alone that of
the rest of the world. The criticisms of realism and neorealism are sufficiently well known to need little rehearsal here (see, for example, Legro and
Moravcsik 1999), but it
is important to emphasise how little help the universal claims, abstractions and
assumptions of much Western IR theory actually provide when trying to make sense of the very
different historical experience of the states in a region as diverse as East Asia. And what is true of much IR
theory is even more evident in the Eurocentric preoccupations in much of the theoretical discussion about environmental issues and their possible
political implications.
Much theorising about the sorts of political structures, personal practices and
normative values intended to conceptualise and even address environmental degradation is frequently
brilliant and inspiring. It is also often
incongruously at odds with the lived experiences of much
of the world’s population, many of whom find themselves engaged in an increasingly desperate
struggle for survival. For example, Linklater (1998, p. 8) suggests that ‘it is no longer utopian, at least as far as the relations
between like-minded states which are exposed to high levels of transnational harm are concerned, to imagine new forms of political
community and new conceptions of citizenship which bind sub-state, state and transnational authorities and their loyalties together in a
post-Westphalian society’. There is little in the experience of the East Asian region to suggest that such transnational responses are
likely to emerge from the present crisis. Indeed, where Asia’s ‘like-minded states’ have shown an interest in developing transnational structures they
have often been deliberately designed to reinforce the sovereignty of individual states, rather than collective action, and emerged as responses to
liberalising pressures elsewhere (Beeson 2009). As Campbell (2005, p. 229) points out, ‘the potential for environmental regionalism to increase
national political demand for more democratic and transparent environmental policy setting also raises governmental apprehension about the indirect
whatever we may think about Asia’s authoritarian
regimes, we need to recognise that they have frequently been associated with a (generally successful)
historical pattern of development that has prioritised the economic over the political, and that this model
effects of relinquishing sovereignty to a regional institution.’ Yet,
may continue to have appeal and potential efficacy
(Beeson 2007b). The possibility that the state will, for better
or worse, remain at the centre of attempts at environmental management is recognised by some scholars (Meadowcroft 2005), but even
some
of the most sophisticated analyses of the state’s role seem overwhelming Eurocentric, highly
abstract and not terribly helpful in explaining current or likely future political and environmental
outcomes in places like Southeast Asia. For example, Eckersley’s (2004, p. 178) belief that there is ‘the potential for a vibrant
public sphere and innovative discursive procedures to lift the horizons of not only democratic opinion formation but also democratic will-formation
beyond the territorially bounded community of citizens’, has little obvious resonance with the history of much of Southeast Asia [emphasis in original].
The reality is that the
Philippines, the country with arguably the most vibrant civil society in Southeast Asia, also
has one of the most appalling environmental records
(Fahn 2003, p. 117). Even in ‘developed’ industrial
democracies with long traditions of political pluralism and arguably more effective civil societies, it has long been recognised that the exercise of
effective ‘green’ agency is highly problematic and faces fundamental problems of mobilisation, organisation and collective action. The – perhaps
understandable – suspicion of traditional politics, hierarchy and political authority has often rendered green parties politically ineffective (Goodin 1992).
Even if we recognise the changes that have taken place in the social structures and even consciousness of many Western societies (Carter 2007), the
reality on the ground in much of Southeast Asia and China is very different. Quotidian reality becomes especially important when we consider the
potential efficacy of deliberative democracy, which some see as a way of resolving political conflicts over the environment. Although deliberative
democracy has been described as ‘the currently hegemonic approach to democracy within environmental thinking’ (AriasMaldonado 2007, p. 245), it
has little obvious relevance to the situation in East Asia. While there is much that is admirable about the central precepts of deliberative democracy
(see Bohman 1998), its underlying assumptions about Environmental Politics 281 Downloaded by [] at 11:04 26 June 2015 the
circumstances in which political activity actually occur are strikingly at odds with the lived reality
outside North America and Western Europe. This merits emphasis because for some writers rational, informed discourse is
central to sustainable environmental management and the resolution of the competing interests that inevitably surround it (Hamilton and Wills-Toker
2006). And yet, as the very limited number of studies that actually examine environmental politics under authoritarian rule demonstrate, the
reality
is very different and the prospects for the development of progressive politics are
very limited
(Doyle and Simpson 2006). Even if we assume that political circumstances do actually allow for a politically unconstrained and
informed discussion of complex issues, as Arias-Maldonado (2007, p. 248) points out, ‘the
belief that citizens in a deliberative
context will spontaneously acquire ecological enlightenment, and will push for greener
decisions, relies too much on an optimistic, naive view of human nature, so frequently found in
utopian political movements’ .
Authoritarianism Good
Compromise Fails
Compromise fails
Blühdorn, PhD, 2011
(Ingolfur, June 12, “Ingolfur Blühdorn: The Sustainability Of Democracy”
http://www.thenewsignificance.com/2011/07/12/ingolfur-bluhdorn-the-sustainability-ofdemocracy/)
Democracy and sustainability Doubts about the feasibility of democratic solutions to the sustainability crisis have commonly been
fended off with warnings that those who raise them are probably sympathetic to authoritarian approaches. Yet this logic disregards
two important points. First, in addition to the participatory-democratic and the expertocratic-authoritarian solutions to the
sustainability crisis, there is also the option of non-solution, i.e. a sustained politics of unsustainability[15] that seeks to extend the
status quo and manage its unpleasant implications for as long as possible. Second, democracy – depending on its
particular form – can be just as much part of the problem as part of the solution. There is
evidence to suggest that under the particular conditions of modern consumer society,
democracy may indeed be assuming a shape that is geared more towards stabilizing than
radically changing the unsustainable status quo. Doubts about the capacity of democracy to deal with
environmental problems are, of course, not entirely new. It has often been pointed out, for example, that democracy is
anthropocentric and has only limited potential to represent that which has no political voice. Notably, electoral democracy has a
strong fixation on the present, in other words it prioritizes the interests of today and is structurally inclined to discount those of future
generations. Moreover democracy encourages compromise, although compromise solutions are often ecologically ineffective.
Democratic procedures are time- and resource-consuming and therefore inappropriate wherever fast and decisive action is
necessary. Democracy is, at least in modern differentiated societies, highly individualistic and therefore ill-suited to
determining, let alone implementing, something like a Rousseauian volonté générale or public good. Instead, democracy aligns
politics with the electoral majority, even though the preferences of the majority – witness, for example, the addiction to car- or airtravel – are rarely sensible in terms of sustainability. Democratic systems are hard pushed to generate majorities for policies that
burden citizens with costs or restrictions mainly for the benefit of people in faraway parts of the world and for something as abstract
as the global climate. And, perhaps most importantly, democracy is always emancipatory, in other words it always
centres on the enhancement of rights and (material) living conditions. It is not really suited to restricting the rights or material
conditions affecting the majority – unless, as with the rule that red traffic lights must be observed, the benefits are immediately
tangible. All these concerns have articulated by eco-political sceptics of democracy for a long time. They have taken authors like
Paul Ehrlich, Robert Heilbroner or Herbert Gruhl, into eco-authoritarian terrain. In 1975 Wolfgang Harich considered a “strong,
rigorous allocation state”, an “ascetic distributive state”, as the only way out of the looming environmental crisis.[16] William Ophuls
believed that the crisis “may require the sacrifice of equality and majority rule” and that “democracy must give way to elite rule”.[17]
Hans Jonas mused about “a well-intentioned, well-informed tyranny” as the most promising solution.[18]But such elitist perspectives
have always triggered profound and very justified scepticism, and since the 1970s emancipatory social movements have forcefully
insisted that effective environmental policies can only be developed bottom-up and require broad democratic legitimation.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the
ongoing process of modernisation reinforced emancipatory claims
for individual freedom, self-determination and self-fulfilment, but also deepened doubts about
whether democracy is suitable as a political tool for restructuring contemporary societies
towards sustainability. Relevant developments have included: - Multiculturalism and the
pluralisation of social values and individual lifestyles, raising fundamental questions
about whether categorical ecological imperatives(most recently the IPCC’s famous 4°C threshold) really do
exist. - The functional differentiation of modern societies, implying that the democratic institutions of the state are less and less
able to integrate and control societal subsystems. The new patterns of governance are increasingly
undemocratic (opaque, unaecountable), with the state only one of several actors with its
sovereignty noticeably castrated. - The rapid increase of societal subsystems – most
notably the economy, science and the media – as well as individual lifeworlds and network,
beyond the boundaries of the nation-state, hence increasingly eluding the control of national
democratic politics. - The increasing abstraction and complexity of environmental
issues
The most important
risks cannot be directly perceived by citizens but are measured, framed and communicated by
(e.g. climate change, energy security, the environmental footprint of specific products).
scientific experts. Invariably, this implies the disempowerment of the democratic
sovereign. - The acceleration of change and the flexibilization of social norms, reinforcing a
fixation on the present. In both private life and public policy, thinking beyond the crises of the day and taking decisions for an entirely
unpredictable future becomes increasingly difficult. - Finally, the extension of the ecological
footprint of modern
consumer societies far beyond their national territory (and their respective present), invalidating the
democratic principle of congruence between the authors of political decisions and
those affected by them . Effectively, national democratic structures have turned into a
means of legitimizing the externalization of ecological and social costs. These developments,
which are inherent to the ongoing process of modernization and hardly controllable, progressively undermine the ability
of democracy to devise and implement appropriate strategies against the sustainability crisis. No
wonder that suspicions about the eco-political failure of liberal democracy re-emerged in the late 1990s. Contrary to the democratic
optimism of social movements and Green Parties, some, for example Laura Westra,[19] have seen democracy increasingly to be
part of the problem. More recently, David Shearman and Joseph Wayne Smith have concluded that the underlying cause of the
sustainability crisis is not the capitalist growth economy but, ultimately, liberal democracy itself.[20]Anthony Giddens, in his Politics
of Climate Change, regards the commitment of social movements and the Green parties to participatory democracy as ecopolitically ineffective.[21]Echoing Westra’s call for a “global regulatory authority” to pursue top-down policy implementation, Giddens
advocates an “active interventionist state” as the all-important eco-political actor. He explicitly calls for the de-politicization of climate
policy and insists that centralised planning and an “ensuring state” are the best strategies for making sure that politicians do not only
set well-sounding targets, but can actually guarantee policy delivery.
Now Key
transition now key – carrying capacity has been diminished
Hardin, no date, ecologist, (Garrett, "An Ecolate View of the Human Predicament, The Garrett
Hardin Societywww.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_ecolate_view_human_predicament.html
-we don’t endorse ableist language
That we have a higher regard for human life than we do for the life of other living things requires no apology. But the higher value placed on human life
calls for no change in our previous ethical conclusion, namely, that the sanctity
of the carrying capacity takes precedence
over the sanctity of life. Once we accept this conclusion we discover that contemporary population/environment
problems are even more terrible than we previously thought. Erik Eckholm in Losing Ground has painted a
graphic picture of the tragedy now overtaking the people in the tropical highlands.32 The energy that they need for cooking their food they get from
burning the wood of the trees around them. In addition, some highlanders make charcoal to heat little braziers in winter or to sell to outsiders, as the
Kashmiri do to Indians. Modern medicine and more food have enabled highland populations to outstrip the productivity of their lands for timber. As
carrying capacity
is progressively degraded. Soil lost to the highlands clogs irrigation systems in the lowlands-often of another nation-and silts up lakes
behind the dams, thus diminishing their useful life. The loss of water-holding capacity in the highlands causes floods
in the lowlands to peak higher and faster, destroying many more human lives and much more property. Only 10 percent of the
people deforest the land the soil washes off, making reforestation all but impossible on steep slopes. Once transgressed,
world's population lives in the highlands, but, as Eckholm points out, the harm
of their overpopulation affects 30 percent
of the world's people. What can be done? Conceivably rich countries might ship oil and oil-burners to some 400 million highlanders-but
how likely is such generosity now that the rich perceive the "energy shortage" as their major problem? To supply the poor with a great variety of solar
heaters and cookers would require an immense diversion of capital. Moreover, do we possess the anthropological expertise to bring about the
necessary change in folk-ways? As an alternate solution, people in adjacent lowlands might offer to take in some 200 million immigrants from the
highlands: but the lowlanders are themselves mostly wretchedly poor-think of Bangladesh, and the Bihar in India. Again there is an anthropological
question: How can one gently uproot a people and persuade them to live a different life elsewhere? Rich nations could more easily afford to take in
hundreds of millions of immigrants, but in that case the problem of ethnic adjustment would be even more severe. The unrealistic character of these
proposals is obvious. I think most people, untrained though they be in ecology, unconsciously weigh such proposals in an ecolate way, asking And
then what? After we transport the surplus poor to other areas, or ship extra energy into their homelands, will not the present rate of population increase
continue unabated? Such
populations now typically increase at 3 percent per year, which means that
their populations potentially increase nineteenfold per century. It is insanity to view poverty in
such circumstances as a problem of shortages: it is a longage problem. And we don't know what to do about it.
It is time to face the music. Discussing the human predicament in terms of carrying capacity-a concept that originated in animal husbandry and game
management-inevitably raises the suspicion that someone is about to propose treating human beings like cattle or wild animals. When a herd of
animals is overpopulated we do not hesitate to liquidate the excess, that is, to kill them. Anyone who speaks of carrying capacity in connection with
human population problems is suspected of following the lead of Nazi Germany or contemporary Cambodia. We must not repress this suspicion: We
must bring it out into the open so that we can discuss the human predicament frankly. At the barren and heartless level of pure logic a game
management solution should work for humans as it does for other animals: but the Heart won't stand for it. The Heart, too, is an ecologist, and asks
And then what? The liquidation of excess lives might be sincerely proposed as a solution for a temporary crisis; unfortunately every act potentially sets
a precedent. Liquidation can be both infectious and addictive. It can bring into existence a positive feedback system that is destructive both ethically
and politically. It can destabilize society, bringing on a new Dark Age. The ecolate Heart knows this. But in rejecting a policy of liquidation we must not
forget the fact that led us to consider it, namely, the primacy of the concept of carrying capacity in the theory of all populations, animal or human. In the
human situation technology can increase the carrying capacity of the environment, but it cannot do so at an arbitrarily rapid rate, and there may be
practical limits to what technology can do. Some optimists say that technology can always raise the carrying capacity of the human environment faster
in the existing political and
economic framework (which is resistant to change) it is hard to defend the thesis that the
present rate of population increase is nothing to worry about. Justifiably we complain of the population-related ills of
than the growth of human population. In some theoretical framework this may be true (for a while), but
poverty, pollution, inflation, and unemployment. We should suspect that the
has already been transgressed .
carrying capacity of our environment
General
Authoritarianism k2 replace faulty system of pluralistic democracy and
solve the environment
Jennings, 13-- Director of Bioethics at the Center for Humans and Nature
(Bruce, “Governance in a Post-Growth Society: An inquiry into the Democatic Prospect”, May,
Vol 6 Num 2, p. 12-13)
Ecological authoritarianism. Ecological authoritarians maintain that the successful governance in a
degrowth era will require centralized, elitist, and technocratic management at least in the areas
of economic and environmental policy.9 Mindful of the internal contradictions plural democratic
governance faces as it attempts to cope with problems of productivity, capital accumulation, and
growth, ecological authoritarians stress the need for policy makers and planners to be insulated
from democratic pressures and granted an increasing measure of autocratic
authority if they are to steer the economy on an ecologically rational and efficient course.
Ecological authoritarians are impressed, perhaps overly so, by the popular demand in pluralistic democratic systems for democratic
rights and material affluence. They speak of democratic overload in reference to those pressures and demands :
democratic
overload of policy makers leads to economic overload or overshoot of the carrying capacity of
ecosystems. The former has to be broken free from in order to prevent the latter. Indeed, ecological authoritarians see a vicious
cycle, a destructive feedback loop in this. As pluralistic democracies succeed in their aim to increase
economic prosperity for the population, the democratic assertiveness of citizens for more growth
and prosperity also increases. As the economic management of ever-higher levels of affluence becomes more complex,
the tension between democratic politics and “scientific” planning comes to a crisis point. The ecological authoritarians here make an
important point.
The fact that pluralistic democracy has demonstrated its inability to perform
ecologically precautionary governance in a consistent or timely way is not fortuitous; it is built
into the deep structure and political logic of this type of system as such. If pluralistic democratic
governments follow the dictates of ecological science and planning, they will restrict growth in ways that risk losing their popular
base of support. If, conversely, such governments attempt to maintain their legitimacy by bowing to short-term democratic
pressures, they will not be able to take (and require the private sector to take) the steps necessary to protect the environment.
Eventually economic downturn, inequality, and hardship will result from ecological degradation, and again the governments will lose
their popular support and legitimacy.10 Note, however, that the political costs of the first prong of this dilemma are more immediate
than those from the second prong, so pragmatism in a pluralistic democracy counsels the first course of action. Such pragmatism is
ecologically insane.
Asia
Asia proves environmental authoritarianism works
Beeson 10 (Mark, Professor of International Politics at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia,
Environmental politics, Environmental Politics, 15(5): 750–767.,Volume 19, issue 2)//ADS
The environment has become the defining public policy issue of the era. Not only will political responses to environmental challenges determine the
health of the planet, but continuing environmental degradation may also affect political systems.
This interaction is likely to be especially acute in parts of the world where environmental problems are most pressing and the state's ability to respond
to such challenges is weakest. One
possible consequence of environmental degradation is the
development or consolidation of authoritarian rule as political elites come
to privilege regime maintenance and internal stability over political
liberalisation. Even efforts to mitigate the impact of, or respond to, environmental
change may involve a decrease in individual liberty as governments seek
to transform environmentally destructive behaviour. As a result,
‘environmental authoritarianism’ may become an increasingly common
response to the destructive impacts of climate change in an age of diminished
expectations. Long before the recent global economic crisis inflicted such a blow on Anglo-American forms of economic organisation, it was
apparent that there were other models of economic development and other modes of political organisation that had admirers around the world. The rise
of illiberal forms of capitalism and an apparent ‘democratic recession’ serve as a powerful reminder that there was nothing inevitable about the triumph
of ‘Western’ political and economic practices or values (Zakaria 2003, Diamond 2008). Nowhere
has the potential
importance of authoritarian, state-led capitalist development been more evident than in
East Asia.1 An examination of East Asia's development and the concomitant environmental problems it generates highlights a number of broadranging trends that have widespread relevance. The point to emphasise at the outset is that the populations and governments of poorer regions of the
world might have very different developmental priorities than their more affluent counterparts in Europe and North America; consequently, they may
also have very different expectations about the appropriate role of government (Mahbubani 2008).
The possibility that East
Asia's political and economic elites might have distinctive views about politics,
economics and the environment merits emphasis because such ideas are often radically
at odds with much of the most influential – broadly ‘Western’ – scholarship about
environmental politics in particular and political development more generally. Consequently,
after providing a brief snapshot of development in East Asia, I highlight the incongruent nature of some of the most influential strands of western
an examination of the developmental
experience of East Asia generally is that powerful, even authoritarian states, have been
central components of the region's remarkable economic expansion, and that there is
consequently a pre-existing propensity toward authoritarianism that has been
entrenched by the region's trajectory of economic and political development (Haggard 1990). In
environmental and political theory. The major lesson that emerges from
what follows I suggest that the increasingly severe environmental challenges faced by the region, and the possibility that resource-intensive economic
development will prove unsustainable, are likely to entrench or encourage the return of authoritarian rule in many parts of the region. Not
only is
the emergence of an environmentally-conscious, politically-savvy, effective civil society
that can transform environmental practices obviated by uncertain economic
development and inequality, but economic and environmental failure are likely to give
authoritarianism increased salience in a region beset by intractable problems. As
a result, the ‘democratic moment’ (Acharya 1999) that was expected to sweep through East Asia, if not the world, will prove difficult to sustain in the
face of mounting political, economic and especially environmental challenges. I consider these challenges in the second part of this essay, where I
detail some of the forces that are likely to perpetuate and profit from environmental degradation and make recourse to authoritarianism likely.
Tragically, much of Southeast Asia may not only have missed the democratic moment, it may have missed its historical opportunity for widespread,
sustainable development, too: just when human beings seem to have discovered what some of the prerequisites of economic development might
actually look like (Collier 2007), the particular paradigm that underpinned the ‘rise of the West’ seems entirely unsustainable and simply unavailable to
the billions of poor in Asia and elsewhere (Diamond 2005).
Asia proves environmental authoritarianism works
Beeson 10 (Mark, Professor of International Politics at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia, Environmental politics,
Environmental Politics, 15(5): 750–767.,Volume 19, issue 2)
political responses to
environmental challenges determine the health of the planet , but continuing
The environment has become the defining public policy issue of the era. Not only will
environmental degradation may also affect political systems. This interaction is likely to be especially
acute in parts of the world where environmental problems are most pressing and the state's ability to respond to such challenges is
weakest. One
possible consequence of environmental degradation is the
development or consolidation of authoritarian rule as political elites come
to privilege regime maintenance and internal stability over political
liberalisation. Even efforts to mitigate the impact of, or respond to, environmental
change may involve a
decrease in individual liberty as
governments seek to transform environmentally destructive behaviour.
As a result,
‘environmental authoritarianism’ may become an
increasingly common response to the destructive impacts of climate change in an
age of diminished expectations. Long before the recent global economic crisis inflicted such a blow on AngloAmerican forms of economic organisation, it was apparent that there were other models of economic development and other modes
of political organisation that had admirers around the world. The rise of illiberal forms of capitalism and an apparent ‘democratic
recession’ serve as a powerful reminder that there was nothing inevitable about the triumph of ‘Western’ political and economic
practices or values (Zakaria 2003, Diamond 2008). Nowhere has the potential importance of authoritarian,
state-led capitalist development been more evident than in East Asia.1 An examination of East
Asia's development and the concomitant environmental problems it generates highlights a number of broad-ranging trends that have
widespread relevance. The point to emphasise at the outset is that the populations and governments of poorer regions of the world
might have very different developmental priorities than their more affluent counterparts in Europe and North America; consequently,
they may also have very different expectations about the appropriate role of government (Mahbubani 2008). The possibility
that East Asia's political and economic elites might have distinctive views about politics,
economics and the environment merits emphasis because such ideas are often radically
at odds with much of the most influential – broadly ‘Western’ – scholarship about
environmental politics in particular and political development more generally. Consequently,
after providing a brief snapshot of development in East Asia, I highlight the incongruent nature of some of the most influential
strands of western environmental and political theory. The major lesson that emerges from an examination of the
developmental experience of East Asia generally is that powerful, even authoritarian
states, have been central components of the region's remarkable economic expansion,
and that there is consequently a pre-existing propensity toward authoritarianism that has
been entrenched by the region's trajectory of economic and political development (Haggard
1990). In what follows I suggest that the increasingly severe environmental challenges faced by the region, and the possibility that
resource-intensive economic development will prove unsustainable, are likely to entrench or encourage the return of authoritarian
rule in many parts of the region. Not only is the emergence of an environmentally-conscious,
politically-savvy, effective civil society that can transform environmental practices
obviated by uncertain economic development and inequality, but economic and
environmental failure are likely to give authoritarianism increased salience in a
region beset by intractable problems. As a result, the ‘democratic moment’ (Acharya 1999) that was expected
to sweep through East Asia, if not the world, will prove difficult to sustain in the face of mounting political, economic and especially
environmental challenges. I consider these challenges in the second part of this essay, where I detail some of the forces that are
likely to perpetuate and profit from environmental degradation and make recourse to authoritarianism likely. Tragically, much of
Southeast Asia may not only have missed the democratic moment, it may have missed its historical opportunity for widespread,
sustainable development, too: just when human beings seem to have discovered what some of the prerequisites of economic
development might actually look like (Collier 2007), the particular paradigm that underpinned the ‘rise of the West’ seems entirely
unsustainable and simply unavailable to the billions of poor in Asia and elsewhere (Diamond 2005).
Asia proves environmental authoritarianism works
Beeson 10 (Mark, Professor of International Politics at Murdoch University in Perth, Western
Australia, Environmental politics, Environmental Politics, 15(5): 750–767.,Volume 19, issue
2)//ADS
The environment has become the defining public policy issue of the era. Not only will political responses to environmental challenges determine the
health of the planet, but continuing environmental degradation may also affect political systems.
This interaction is likely to be especially acute in parts of the world where environmental problems are most pressing and the state's ability to respond
to such challenges is weakest. One
possible consequence of environmental degradation is the
development or consolidation of authoritarian rule as political elites come
to privilege regime maintenance and internal stability over political
liberalisation. Even efforts to mitigate the impact of, or respond to, environmental
change may involve a decrease in individual liberty as governments seek
to transform environmentally destructive behaviour. As a result,
‘environmental authoritarianism’ may become an increasingly common
response to the destructive impacts of climate change in an age of diminished
expectations. Long before the recent global economic crisis inflicted such a blow on Anglo-American forms of economic organisation, it was
apparent that there were other models of economic development and other modes of political organisation that had admirers around the world. The rise
of illiberal forms of capitalism and an apparent ‘democratic recession’ serve as a powerful reminder that there was nothing inevitable about the triumph
of ‘Western’ political and economic practices or values (Zakaria 2003, Diamond 2008). Nowhere
has the potential
importance of authoritarian, state-led capitalist development been more evident than in
East Asia.1 An examination of East Asia's development and the concomitant environmental problems it generates highlights a number of broadranging trends that have widespread relevance. The point to emphasise at the outset is that the populations and governments of poorer regions of the
world might have very different developmental priorities than their more affluent counterparts in Europe and North America; consequently, they may
also have very different expectations about the appropriate role of government (Mahbubani 2008).
The possibility that East
Asia's political and economic elites might have distinctive views about politics,
economics and the environment merits emphasis because such ideas are often radically
at odds with much of the most influential – broadly ‘Western’ – scholarship about
environmental politics in particular and political development more generally. Consequently,
after providing a brief snapshot of development in East Asia, I highlight the incongruent nature of some of the most influential strands of western
an examination of the developmental
experience of East Asia generally is that powerful, even authoritarian states, have been
central components of the region's remarkable economic expansion, and that there is
consequently a pre-existing propensity toward authoritarianism that has been
entrenched by the region's trajectory of economic and political development (Haggard 1990). In
environmental and political theory. The major lesson that emerges from
what follows I suggest that the increasingly severe environmental challenges faced by the region, and the possibility that resource-intensive economic
development will prove unsustainable, are likely to entrench or encourage the return of authoritarian rule in many parts of the region. Not
only is
the emergence of an environmentally-conscious, politically-savvy, effective civil society
that can transform environmental practices obviated by uncertain economic
development and inequality, but economic and environmental failure are likely to give
authoritarianism increased salience in a region beset by intractable problems. As
a result, the ‘democratic moment’ (Acharya 1999) that was expected to sweep through East Asia, if not the world, will prove difficult to sustain in the
face of mounting political, economic and especially environmental challenges. I consider these challenges in the second part of this essay, where I
detail some of the forces that are likely to perpetuate and profit from environmental degradation and make recourse to authoritarianism likely.
Tragically, much of Southeast Asia may not only have missed the democratic moment, it may have missed its historical opportunity for widespread,
sustainable development, too: just when human beings seem to have discovered what some of the prerequisites of economic development might
actually look like (Collier 2007), the particular paradigm that underpinned the ‘rise of the West’ seems entirely unsustainable and simply unavailable to
the billions of poor in Asia and elsewhere (Diamond 2005).
China
Shift to authoritarianism now is key to avoid extinction – China proves it
works
Beeson, PhD, 10 [professor in political science and international relations]
(Mark, March, Environmental Politics Vol 19 No 2 “The coming of environmental
authoritarianism” www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09644010903576918#.VY294vlViko)
While evidence about the implications of environmental degradation and even global warming are increasingly uncontroversial, their possible political
consequences are more contentious. Although some of the preceding analysis is necessarily speculative and inferential, the experiences of China and
Southeast Asia highlight issues of unambiguously global significance. The central
question that emerges from this discussion is whether
democracy can be sustained in the region – or anywhere else for that matter – given the unprecedented
and unforgiving nature of the challenges we collectively face. Indeed, such is the urgency of the
environmental crisis that some have argued – alarmingly persuasively – that ‘humanity will have to trade
its
in favour of a system where survival is paramount’ (Shearman and
Smith 2007, p. 4). In such circumstances, forms of ‘good’ authoritarianism, in which environmentally unsustainable forms of behaviour are
liberty
to live as it wishes
become not only justifiable, but essential for the survival of humanity in
anything approaching a civilised form. Such ideas are difficult to accept, especially for societies steeped in traditions of liberalism,
individualism, freedom of choice and personal advancement. The US is, of course, such a country, where an entire national
simply forbidden, may
consciousness and way of life
is predicated upon liberal values – values which some consider profoundly
inimical to environmental sustainability
(Ophuls 1997). It is also the country that has done most to contribute
to global environmental problems like climate change, but which has until now seemed incapable of addressing them politically (Stephens 2007). In
China, by contrast, an authoritarian regime has arguably done more to mitigate environmental problems
than any other government on earth: without the one-child policy instigated in the 1970s, it is estimated that there would already be
another 400 million Chinese (Dickie 2008) and China’s environmental problems (and everyone else’s) would be that much worse. Luckily for the
world’s non-Chinese population, China does not enjoy the same living standards as the US, and it is impossible to imagine that the vast majority of its
citizens ever will. There
are, it seems, fundamental, implacable constraints on the carrying capacity of the
planet (Cohen 1995). The real tragedy about China’s development is not the failure to democratise rapidly, but that at the very moment that human
beings seem to have figured out how to generate economic development on a massive scale, it is becoming apparent that it cannot be sustained, at
least not by 6 billion people living Western lifestyles, and certainly not by the 9–12 billion or so that some think will mark the extent of human
expansion.6
Japan
Authoritarianism is empirically successful in Japan
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 71-72, MX)
In chapter 8 we ask whether authoritarian technocratic rule, by imposing necessary solutions,
could arrest the earth’s ecological decline. In history there are examples of
environmental decline that threatened the very nature of civilization, being reversed by
determined authoritarian rule. In his analysis of societies that fail or survive, Jared Diamond38 describes the reversal of
destructive deforestation in Japan by determined authoritarian rulers. In the mid-seventeenth century, Japan became
peaceful, prosperous, and self-sufficient after decades of civil war. The population and
the economy exploded, greatly accelerating the cutting of timber used to build houses,
castles, and ships, as a fuel for homes and industry, and as mulch for crops. The
hereditary rulers, the shoguns, recognized the environmental consequences of erosion
and the need to arrest the decline of a rapidly diminishing resource. They saw a threat to
the very fabric of their civilization and promulgated a series of complex measures of
reforestation in Japan over the subsequent 200 years. Elaborate systems of woodland management were
introduced and policed by magistrates and armed guards. Forests became a commons system sustainably managed for the benefit of each village
community by issuing separate leases for each household. Guard posts on highways inspected transported timber to ensure observation of rules, and
all timber was graded and allocated for specific purposes to avoid waste. The
science of silviculture was born and was
facilitated by uniform institutions and methods over the entire county. All this was
achieved by authoritarian rule in a peaceful society. It is tempting to contrast these events with those in some
liberal democracies, for example Tasmania, where all the stakeholders in the natural forests, government, industry, and workers, have united to pillage
the forests against the long-term interests of the world community. What lessons can we learn from the reforestation in Japan? As Diamond points out,
these visionary actions were carried out in a society that became destructive to
environments outside Japan, so it was not that Confucianism influenced them. Perhaps because there was a
recognition of self-interest, for timber was recognized as being of vital importance and
also because the hereditary rulers recognized the importance of protecting the needs of
future rulers, their offspring. This is not to say that leaders recognizing long-term stakes do not succumb to short-term profits, this
having become a hallmark of the democratic leader. But it raises the question as to whether Japan’s recovery could be accomplished today under
liberal democracy. Perhaps
the really big decisions that are vital to the future of humanity are
best imposed, and we need to look toward a form of governance that can do this. Hence our
assertion that climate change will determine the future of liberal democracy. This is not to deny that bottomup democratic management of environmental resources is unimportant in some circumstances, and Diamond cites numerous examples that have
developed over time and are in use today. Interestingly they encompass microcosms of governance in small rural communities in Swiss alpine villages
and in Spain and the Philippines. the most democratic of the liberal democracies that has a meticulous system of proportional representation built into
a representative democracy. This is the system in Tasmania, a state in wealthy Westernized Australia. There, it appears that the will of the people is to
continue to destroy the mature forests of Tasmania for the export of woodchips. Both major political parties support this endeavor, so the destruction
continues regardless of which party is in power. However, opinion polls indicate that a majority of the population wishes to preserve the forests and
their viewpoint is supported by a minority Green Party. The Green Party does not gain power because other aspects of its platform do not attract votes
and because the major parties use voting preferences at elections to exclude it. In terms of the future needs of the world, in Tasmania
representative democracy is the means whereby environmental destruction is planned
and executed against the will of the people.
Long Term Goals
Authoritarianism solves the environment better than democracy- more
state control means government can prioritize long-term goals
Daniel 12 (Charles Daniel is a University of Leeds Political Science graduate. “To what extent is democracy
detrimental to the current and future aims of environmental policy and technologies?” Journal of Politics and
International Studies. May 2012. Vol. 7. http://www.polis.leeds.ac.uk/assets/files/students/student-journal/ug-summer12/charles-daniel.pdf)
individual liberty
has led to ‘environmentally destructive behaviour’ (Beeson 2010: 276). Whilst democracy has allowed
for a more open discussion on environmental issues as well as raising awareness, there
has been too much trust put on ecological enlightenment through education. For Beeson, this
‘relies too much on an optimistic, naïve view of human nature’ (Beeson 2010: 282), the
idea that an attitude of respect, through the emergence of a shared cosmopolitan
rhetoric will produce environmental improvement is wide of the mark. As Beeson rightly points out, the
‘sobering reality’ is that as the human population continues to grow, consuming
resources on an unprecedented scale, ‘policy-makers will have less and less capacity to
intervene to keep damage to the environment from producing serious social disruption’
(Beeson 2010: 283). Liberal democracy, through the necessities dictated by a capitalist economy
has built its survival on the continued exploitation of environmental resources to a point
where an attempt to gain control of this practice has become almost impossible. The article,
This is exactly what Mark Beeson suggests in his argument for the coming of environmental authoritarianism. He acknowledges the fact that
whilst not wholly advocating the Asian political model (indeed Beeson highlights the fact that China is a ruthless exploiter of its own natural environment and sets a poor
. It therefore seems rational to put forward soft
authoritarianism as a viable alternative: for it avoids trust in the individual, taking a negative view of
human nature and advocates the need for state control, particularly surrounding urgent
policy issues like the environment. Whilst it is difficult to accept, it may be the case that
‘good forms of authoritarianism, in which environmentally unsustainable forms of
behaviour are simply forbidden, may become not only justifiable, but essential for the
survival of humanity’ (Beeson 2010: 289). It is all very well to put forward the theoretical arguments for the implementation of soft authoritarian rules
example for the rest of the continent), is appropriately pessimistic towards the success of liberal democracy
surrounding the environment, but the practical expression of this form of government has, up until recently, been abysmal in regards to meeting targets and contributing to
However over the last decade, the response from a number of countries,
which Western critics would view as authoritarian, has been overwhelmingly positive. Such
climate change (Day 2005).
an opinion is epitomised in projects like Masdar city in the UAE or the draconian environmental-social policies of Singapore. Whilst this has mainly been due to high profit
success has
been due to the strengths found within soft authoritarianism. In order for a balanced assessment to be given in the
paper, the second case study will be analysing the world’s other ‘superpower’, China .
margins in renewable energy investment as well as the vast expendable capital accumulated by such nations, there is scope to suggest that such
AT: Aff Answers
AT: Status Quo Solves
Authoritarianism is rising now–double bind-- if the affirmative dramatically
increases rights, they derail this shift and we can’t solve warming in time.
All current reforms are a drop in the ocean
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 36, MX)
It is relevant to ask whether democracies have made any effort to substantially reorient
their policies to energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. In the 1980s Denmark
began to develop wind energy that now provides 10 percent of its electricity, and other European
democracies have developed similar programs. Sweden is to take the biggest energy step of any advanced
Western economy by trying to wean itself off oil completely within 15 years—without building a
new generation of nuclear power stations. The intention is to replace all fossil fuels with renewable energy before climate change destroys economies
and growing oil scarcity leads to huge new price rises.' However
necessary reform.
these efforts are a drop in the ocean of
AT: Authoritarianism sucks
Not Our RIMAL
There are other versions
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 2, MX)
Let us be clear about one point from the very beginning of this text. The authors are not living fossil Marxists
attempting to rehabilitate the Soviet regime. We agree that existing authoritarian
societies, largely based upon Marxist doctrines, have had an appalling environmental
record. We accept that there is no example of an existing authoritarian government that
does not have a record of environmental abuse. We also accept that all existing
authoritarian governments have a worse environmental record than all liberal democratic
societies. Being "least worst" of a bad bunch is not a logically good argument for the
acceptability of the "least worst" option. As a matter of rational argument, defenders of liberal
democracy must be forced to do better than merely ignore the long existing problems of
democracy, first noted by Plato (427-347 B.c.). We contend that there are other forms of authoritarian
government beyond the failed Marxist version. We discuss a Platonic form of authoritarianism based upon the rule of
scientific experts, and, as we detail in chapter 8, this hypothetical system is not based upon Marxist principles. We are critics, on ecological grounds, of
the capitalist economic system and existing authoritarian systems. We argue that even the allegedly more environmentally preferable liberal
democratic societies fail to provide humanity with ecologically sustainable structures. We
accept that mention of
authoritarian government will horrify the reader with visions of dictators who have
strutted during the past century, but we remind that many have been elected under
democratic systems.
AT: Stalin and Hitler
Our vision of authoritarianism allows us to weed out people like Stalin and
Hitler
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 124-125, MX)
In proposing that liberal democracies will be replaced by authoritarian structures, we differ somewhat from a select group of environmentalist writers
who have also rejected a liberal democratic solution to the environmental crisis.12 In general, such writers have felt that only centrally commanded
economies can meet the challenge of dealing with the environmental crisis. We do not join that camp. We
recognize that command
economies committed to militarism and industrialization can be just as destructive, if not
more so than liberal democracies. The former Soviet Union is not our idea of paradise on
earth. Planned economies, where there is an attempt by a body of elite planners to
coordinate all aspects of an economy, is a recipe for disaster because there is simply too
much information, chaotic nonlinear effects, and unpredictable events to permit accurate
planning. However we believe that many aspects of the economy must be firmly
regulated. This position is a long way away from a planned economy. We have no lingering belief that
communism could or will save humanity, but we hold that when civilization-threatening
changes occur, liberal democratic solutions are the first things to go. The rule of law is
abandoned, and the rule of the strong dominates. We are not indicating that we like this;
we are maintaining as a matter of real politick that this is what occurs historically and is
likely to occur again. Nor are we supporting a form of authoritarianism as witnessed in
Nazi Germany where one Fuhrer makes fundamental decisions about life and death for
society. Such forms of authoritarianism typically lead to social disaster when the leader,
following the weaknesses of human will, succumbs to corruption or madness. Our form
of authoritarianism looks to the leadership of an entire stratum of society rather than one
individual or even party. and there is a better chance that corruption and madness of the
Hitler and Stalin levels can we weeded out. But there is no guarantee; human life is uncertain and down the track, human
life promises to be desperate. Thus unlike other antidemocratic theorists from Plato on, we do not have an alternative political ideology that we wish to
promote in the place of liberal democracy, beyond that of environmentalism. We have no vision of a set of wise liberal leaders sitting in the wings,
waiting to ride onto the set just in the nick of time to save us all by democratic means. Rather
we have a stark vision of
liberal democracy being destroyed by its own internal contradictions, in the process
being replaced by authoritarian structures. It is important therefore to ask whether there exist any state authoritarian
structures that are worthy of consideration. We believe that Singapore falls into the category.
AT: Democracy Key to Environment
Authoritarianism is the only solution to solve extinction – extend Shearman
and Smith – liberal consumerism results in ecocide –– the Beeson
evidence indicates that authoritarianism solves because of emphasis on
environmental regulation – reason to prefer because
Liberal democracy’s provision of individual rights promotes ecocide
through lack of environmental regulation
Daniel ’12 (http://www.polis.leeds.ac.uk/assets/files/students/student-journal/ug-summer12/charles-daniel.pdf *add cites // 6-24-15 // MC)
The main point to take away from the case study is not to do with portraying the US as an enemy of the environment (it has, after all, provided some form of investment to the
natural world’s future, with $450 billion spent on research and development in the last ten years), it is more to do with the inescapable patterns of consumption that have
America’s national survival is contingent on continued
economic abundance to feed a growing population. Democracy has become reliant on and
indeed defined by this cycle, which is fuelled by unadulterated freedom for individuals and
corporations alike. Speth is thus able to conclude that our ‘economic and political system does
not work when it comes to protecting environmental resources’ (2004: 133). He believes that the amount of
faith placed upon privatisation and the free market is unfounded, as they cannot be relied upon
to provide the appropriate levels of environmental protection. Lack of regulation has resulted in
companies consuming cheap resources and not taking into account the external implications of
their actions. These ‘externalities’ are what Speth believes to be the main driver behind pollution (2004). What he means by this is that the producer’s financial costs
are different from their external ones. For example, when a company burns coal, its only financial concerns are
the labour it uses, capital and the outlay cost of raw materials; the price in the form of ‘dirty air’
is not their concern. Producers and consumers are not given the opportunity to see the damage of such patterns since air pollution is not literally visible to the
human eye, nor is it a threat to short-term well-being (Panayotou 1998). Due to the lack of public intervention or government
pressure, companies are free to act as they please as there is no downside for them in regards
to financial gain if they continue to pollute the air. Imposing stringent regulation on these actions by, for example a tax on dirty air, is
become ingrained into the US political, social and cultural fabric.
avoided as it is against democratic principles to over interfere with company activity and indeed there is nothing to be gained by regulators for favouring the environment (Speth
2004). This ties in with the mention of the US oil addiction in that numerous sources of wealth from within the country depend on these sources of energy and their processes.
To interfere with them or attempt to reduce their powers would be to limit the economic
capability of the nation and possibly hinder the standard of living of each individual therein. With
the case of America and indeed other consumer-based economies, it can be concluded that too
much freedom can, in certain circumstances, become a real barrier to necessary change. It can
potentially create social conditions where individuals and institutions become POLIS Journal Vol. 7, Summer 2012 ISSN 2047-7651 105 too comfortable in their habits. For
liberal democracy, these habits are an over emphasis of the free-market, continual growth of industries and a fixation on GDP targets. Liberal democracy’s success is contingent
The desire for actual
change has slowly been removed from politics, as governments seek to prioritise stability and to
satisfy the wants of the electorate so that they will continue to stay in power for a further term . The
on these and, therefore, those in power have no choice but to abide by them, constrained by the short fixed terms they have in office.
financial crisis was a poignant example of this. It was the first time since the Great Depression that the foundations of the free market were truly shaken, allowing certain groups
to question the success and stability of the economic systems we rely upon. An acceptance of certain failures and a move towards change could have provided the much-
Countries
have localised themselves even further, reluctant to contribute to global environmental projects
when their own economies are in dire need of assistance. The US congressional budget office in the wake of the financial crisis
needed stimulus for environmental investment. As it is, that door has been shut as the government is forced to solve the situation with patchwork policies.
conveyed this direction in fiscal policy. In a report to the IMF, they expressed a need to make significant policy changes in order to keep the Federal Reserve in a stable position
). Whilst it was not explicitly stated, the report suggested that the US government
planned to roll back some of their international economic commitments. The UK government is
equally guilty of attempting to localise their economy in favour of international commitments.
David Cameron’s decision to reject a EU wide treaty in order to maintain the strength of the
domestic economy is just one example of policy direction that favours isolation instead of
contribution (Grice 2012). Liberal democracy then, if defined in this way, can be seen as being
(Elmendorf 2010
detrimental to current and future environmental policies and investment, as it is reluctant to
adjust its course, even in times of failure, favouring gradual social change that will not unsettle the electorate. It is here that I return to the
suggestion that liberal democracy may not be the appropriate format to guide global society in its current period of over-development.
AT: human rights k2 warming
Human rights don’t solve warming, their cameron evidence indicates that
civil rights groups could influence the political climate over warming – ecoauthoritarianism accesses the solution better because the population can’t
disobey environmental regulations
AT: racist/sexist
Our argument isn’t that certain groups are individualized and discriminated
against – it’s much like Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” where
everybody is equal, without the physical debilitation part
Our vision of authoritarianism allows us to weed out people who promote
discrimination
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 124-125, MX)
In proposing that liberal democracies will be replaced by authoritarian structures, we differ somewhat from a select group of environmentalist writers
who have also rejected a liberal democratic solution to the environmental crisis.12 In general, such writers have felt that only centrally commanded
We recognize that command
economies committed to militarism and industrialization can be just as destructive, if not
more so than liberal democracies. The former Soviet Union is not our idea of paradise on
earth. Planned economies, where there is an attempt by a body of elite planners to
coordinate all aspects of an economy, is a recipe for disaster because there is simply too
much information, chaotic nonlinear effects, and unpredictable events to permit accurate
planning. However we believe that many aspects of the economy must be firmly
regulated. This position is a long way away from a planned economy. We have no lingering belief that
communism could or will save humanity, but we hold that when civilization-threatening
changes occur, liberal democratic solutions are the first things to go. The rule of law is
abandoned, and the rule of the strong dominates. We are not indicating that we like this;
we are maintaining as a matter of real politick that this is what occurs historically and is
likely to occur again. Nor are we supporting a form of authoritarianism as witnessed in
Nazi Germany where one Fuhrer makes fundamental decisions about life and death for
society. Such forms of authoritarianism typically lead to social disaster when the leader,
following the weaknesses of human will, succumbs to corruption or madness. Our form
of authoritarianism looks to the leadership of an entire stratum of society rather than one
individual or even party. and there is a better chance that corruption and madness of the
Hitler and Stalin levels can we weeded out. But there is no guarantee; human life is uncertain and down the track, human
economies can meet the challenge of dealing with the environmental crisis. We do not join that camp.
life promises to be desperate. Thus unlike other antidemocratic theorists from Plato on, we do not have an alternative political ideology that we wish to
promote in the place of liberal democracy, beyond that of environmentalism. We have no vision of a set of wise liberal leaders sitting in the wings,
Rather we have a stark vision of
liberal democracy being destroyed by its own internal contradictions, in the process
being replaced by authoritarian structures. It is important therefore to ask whether there exist any state authoritarian
waiting to ride onto the set just in the nick of time to save us all by democratic means.
structures that are worthy of consideration. We believe that Singapore falls into the category.
AT: Can’t solve without China
China transitioning to eco-authoritarianism now
Gilley, 12 (Bruce, March 2012 Vo. 21, No. 2 Division of Political Science, Mark O. Hatfield School of
Government, Portland State University, USA - (Ph.D. 2008, Princeton University) is an Associate
Professor of Political Science. His research centers on democracy, legitimacy, climate change, and global
politics, and he is a specialist on the comparative politics of China and Asia. www.web.pdx.edu/~gilleyb/Gilley_AuthoritarianEnvironmentalism.pdf // 6-28-25 // MC)
China accounted for 25% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2009, up from just
11% in 1990, making it the world’s leading source of greenhouse gas emissions (which
are about 80% CO2 in China as elsewhere). By 2030, it will account for about half of
global CO2 emissions. China (along with India) is also a country where the absolute impacts of climate change will be greatest: melting Tibetan glaciers,
sinking Shanghai, inundating Hong Kong, devastating south coast typhoons, an expected 5–10% decline in agricultural production, and a rapid loss of biodiversity (Lai 2009).
Consistent with authoritarian environmentalism, the political response to climate change
in China has been centred on the top-down, regulatory powers of the central state. A
Climate Change Leadership Group was established Environmental Politics 289 within the
then-State Council’s Environmental Protection Commission in 1990. In 1998, a multiagency National Coordination Committee on Climate Change was established and upgraded in 2007
into a 20-ministry National Leading Group to Address Climate Change (NLGACC) (guojia yingdui qihou bianhua lingdao xiaozu ). The group is headed
by the premier and headquartered in the ministerial-level National Development and
Reform Commission’s (NDRC) Department of Climate Change. The only outside participation comes from a scientific
advisory committee, although most of its members are from government-funded or owned research institutes, especially the Energy Research Institute of the NDRC . The
policy outputs in China have been rapid and comprehensive since the submission to the
leadership of a national energy strategy in 2003 (Chen 2003). The report was taken up by the top leadership in 2004, leading to the
promulgation of a National Climate Change Program in 2007 (National Development and Reform Commission 2007 ). A Renewable Energy Law
was completed in 2004 after fewer than nine months of drafting (Tian 2004) and then passed into law with no
amendments by the unelected national legislature in 2005. In 2009, Beijing announced a national target of reducing CO2 emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by
The 40–45% target resulted from studies conducted within the
NDRC (Jiang et al. 2009) and the final decision was made by the ruling party’s Politburo.1
Following the announcement of the target, all agencies of government began issuing
extensive implementing legislation, regulations, and circulars dealing with energy
conservation, energy efficiency, and renewables as well as climate change mitigation. For
40–45% by 2020 compared with 2005 levels.
instance, under a national ‘energy savings and emissions reductions’ (ESER) policy (jieneng jianpai), environmental authorities in coordination with the central bank and
financial regulators began blacklisting polluting enterprises from receiving state bank loans or offering new shares (the so-called ‘green credit’ policy) (Wang and Chen 2010).
Consideration is also being given to an ‘environmental tax’ on each company’s pollution
footprint and to a ‘green export policy’ to sanction polluters engaged in foreign trade (Aizawa
and Yang 2010, p. 123). Power cuts to achieve energy reduction targets left 3500 households, as well as schools and hospitals, without indoor heat in one city in central China
). As to restrictions on liberties, a State Council circular of
2008 ‘required’ that all drivers leave their cars at home at least one day a week; that
elevators not be used to reach the first three floors of public buildings; and that public sector employees
in early 2011 as temperatures plunged to 7108C (Yan 2011
wear casual clothes to work in the summer (State Council 2008b). Local governments, meanwhile, are under pressure to impose their own rules ‘so that people have no
The state’s population control policies have been cited
as a model for future limits on individual choices related to climate change (Xinhua News Agency
2009). While policy-setting is done at the national level by the NLGACC, implementation is
left to each provincial government, which in turn delegates most decision-making to
lower level governments. Provincial, prefectural, county, and city governments have set up their own climate change leading groups to respond to
central demands for emissions intensity cuts as well as for climate change mitigation strategies (Qi et al. 2008, National Development and Reform Commission 2009). The
role of local governments is magnified by the number and scale of ‘clean development
mechanism’ projects under which local governments and corporations sell emissions
alternative but to adopt a low-carbon lifestyle’ (He 2010b, p. 21).
reductions to foreign buyers (National Development and Reform Commission Department of Climate Change 2010, Shin 2010). China’s
climate change policy is thus centred on the regulatory and coercive
powers of the central state and on the developmental and political
incentives of local governments.
Reform Fails
Tech
Technical policy fixes fail
Nordhas et al 2005
-- American author, environmental policy expert, and the chairman of The Breakthrough
Institute.
(Ted, Jan 14, "The Death of environmentalism: global warming politics in a post-environmental
world" Grist. grist.org/politics/doe-reprint/full/)
Over the last 15 years environmental foundations and organizations have invested
hundreds of millions of dollars into combating global warming. We have strikingly little to
show for it. From the battles over higher fuel efficiency for cars and trucks to the attempts to reduce carbon emissions through international treaties, environmental
groups repeatedly have tried and failed to win national legislation that would reduce the threat of global warming. As a result, people in the environmental movement today find
themselves politically less powerful than we were one and a half decades ago. Yet in lengthy conversations, the vast majority of leaders from the largest environmental
organizations and foundations in the country insisted to us that we are on the right track. Nearly all of the more than two-dozen environmentalists we interviewed underscored
that climate change demands that we remake the global economy in ways that will transform the lives of six billion people. All recognize that it’s an undertaking of monumental
But in their public campaigns,
not one of America’s environmental leaders is articulating a vision of the future
commensurate with the magnitude of the crisis. Instead they are promoting technical
size and complexity. And all acknowledged that we must reduce emissions by up to 70 percent as soon as possible.
policy fixes like pollution controls and higher vehicle mileage standards — proposals
that provide neither the popular inspiration nor the political alliances the community
needs to deal with the problem. By failing to question their most basic assumptions about the problem and the solution, environmental leaders
are like generals fighting the last war — in particular the war they fought and won for basic environmental protections more than 30 years ago. It was then that the community’s
political strategy became defined around using science to define the problem as “environmental” and crafting technical policy proposals as solutions. The greatest achievements
to reduce global warming are today happening in Europe. Britain has agreed to cut carbon emissions by 60 percent over 50 years, Holland by 80 percent in 40 years, and
Germany by 50 percent in 50 years. Russia may soon ratify Kyoto. And even China — which is seen fearfully for the amount of dirty coal it intends to burn — recently
Environmentalists are learning all the
wrong lessons from Europe. We closely scrutinize the policies without giving much
thought to the politics that made the policies possible. Our thesis is this: the environmental
community’s narrow definition of its self-interest leads to a kind of policy literalism
that undermines its power. When you look at the long string of global warming defeats under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, it is hard not
established fuel economy standards for its cars and trucks that are much tougher than ours in the US.
to conclude that the environmental movement’s approach to problems and policies hasn’t worked particularly well. And yet there is nothing about the behavior of environmental
groups, and nothing in our interviews with environmental leaders, that indicates that we as a community are ready to think differently about our work. What the environmental
movement needs more than anything else right now is to take a collective step back to rethink everything. We will never be able to turn things around as long as we understand
our failures as essentially tactical, and make proposals that are essentially technical. In Part II we make the case for what could happen if progressives created new institutions
a more powerful movement
depends on letting go of old identities, categories and assumptions , so that we can be truly open to
and proposals around a big vision and a core set of values. Much of this section is aimed at showing how
embracing a better model. We resisted the exhortations from early reviewers of this report to say more about what we think must now be done because we believe that the most
important next steps will emerge from teams, not individuals. Over the coming months we will be meeting with existing and emerging teams of practitioners and funders to
develop a common vision and strategy for moving forward.
tech solutions fail
Bluhdorn, Phd, 12, [Reader in Politics/Political Sociology at the University of Bath]
(Ingolfur, December 13, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Sustainability "Opening the discursive arena struggling for an innovative debate" www.fes-sustainability.org/en/nachhaltigkeit-unddemokratie/democracy-and-sustainability)
At least equally important is the widespread realisation that the techno-managerial approaches of ecological modernisation will not be
sufficient for achieving sustainability (however defined). The proponents of these approaches had once reassured policy makers and the public
that a radical break with the established socio-economic order would not be required, but that sustainability can be achieved within this order, if new efficiency-technologies,
promises
resounded with the widespread commitment to consumer capitalism and liberal democracy and
were, therefore, readily taken up. Yet, despite all technological innovation and resource efficiency gains, the
market instruments, consensus-oriented strategies of stakeholder governance and even the consumer culture are wisely and strategically used. These
strategies of
ecological modernisation have never succeeded in stopping, let alone reversing, the over-exploitation of
decline of bio-diversity, the advance of global warming or the increase of social inequality. They
natural resources, the
have helped to sustain the unsustainable for an extra couple of decades but, ultimately,
suspended, the
they have only reinforced and radicalised, not
demand for policy measures which are less compatible with the principles of both liberal
democracy and consumer capitalism.
Economic Rationalizations
Liberal Democracies will never reform because in the context of the
commons their destructive nature is rational
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 82-83, MX)
In most cases, however, it is the will of the people, fostered by the individualism of liberal
democracy, that treats the environment as a resource. It is now relevant to explain in more detail the thesis of
Garrett Hardin in his seminal paper, "The Tragedy of the Commons," published in the journal Science in 1968.13 This paper exposes the defect that
As a
rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximise his gain. Explicitly or implicitly, more or less consciously, he
makes democracy unsustainable. The commons of Anglo Saxon culture was the pasture open to the cattle of all villagers. Hardin explained:
asks "What is the utility to me of adding one more animal to my herd?" This utility has one positive and one negative component. The positive
component is the increment of one animal. Since the herdsman receives all the proceeds from the sale of the additional animal, the positive utility is
nearly +1. The negative component is a function of the additional overgrazing created by one more animal. Since however the effects of overgrazing
are shared by all herdsmen, the negative utility for any particular decision making herdsman is only a fraction of minus 1. Each herdsman concludes
that it is sensible to add another animal to his herd, and another, without limit ... Therein is the tragedy, and in a world that is limited, freedom in the
environmental commons brings ruin to all." The
"world commons" is the stability of the resources of land,
sea, air, and fresh water necessary for the health and well-being of humanity. We now have a
clear vision of the "ruin to all" predicted by Hardin. It is the confluence predicted this century of the above problems, population growth, depletion of
All our problems can be placed in the context of the
commons. Thus we see that it is in the interests of the individual to break the rules that
might be made for the survival of all herdsmen and the resource. This individual will
behave acquisitively only if he or she knows that everyone else will comply with the
rules. The rules must be strong and inviolate to stop conflict between individual
rationality and the common good. Even then there will have to be penalties to ensure
compliance. Democracy is indicted because it is unable to defend the commons. We find
that democratic states behave in the same way as individuals (e.g., European Community [EC] decisions on
fishing discussed in chapter 1). Thus both individuals and states act in ways that are individually
rational but environmentally destructive. A nation such as the United States may decide
to continue polluting the commons with greenhouse gases to the detriment of all other
states because it has immediate economic advantage. In the case of the EC it is of short-term advantage (i.e., job
stability) to continue fishing despite the recognition that it is unsustainable. Unless this problem can be resolved to
preserve a sustainable world there is no case for the continuation of liberal democracy or
nation states. There should be one government, and our argument in chapter 8 would make this government authoritarian. There are
additional cogent reasons why the commons cannot be saved, and these will become apparent in the next chapter. They
relate to the mutual dependence of liberal democracy and corporatism. Democracy has a
facade of environmental laws and protection but when a corporation wants a resource
invariably it will get it, laws will be changed, exceptions made, and rules bent for it is in
the personal interest of governments of elected representative to keep people in jobs and
collect taxes. Decade after decade the encroachments are remorseless.
resources, and the ravages of climate change.
Power Ceded
Power in a democratic society has already been ceded to the economic
elite
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 14-15, MX)
It is possible to see the control of society firmly grasped by a brotherhood that resembles a biological ecological system. Like the soil, the forest, or the
The web of power and profit
embraces the market, the banks and financial institutions, regulators (national and
international), the liberal democracies, the press, the media and advertising industries,
and the military industrial complex. The governments espousing liberal democracy are
but the compliant arms and hands of the system. They provide the human fodder from their universities. They
retain power by servitude. As we will show in chapters 6 and 10, those at the top of the food chain are
the corporations. They operate for profit alone, protected by law that absolves them from
other responsibility. Their leaders, who live a double life of family care and principle at
home, but plunder the world for gain, are the conquistadors of today. Like the Spanish noblemen, the
Chief Executive Officers have become the pillars of society. The spoil is no longer gold,
but black gold (oil), plantations, and water industries. They would not recognize
themselves as the ecology of evil, but for the future of the world's environment that's
what history may judge them as. For some, such as Clive Hamilton in The Disappointment of Liberalism and the Quest for Inner
Freedom,27 the source of our difficulties lies not in democracy itself but in its undermining by
lobbyists who act for corporatism and the market. Liberal capitalism, not liberal
democracy, is the real culprit. These thoughts are echoed by George Monbiot: Meaningful action on climate
change has been prohibited by totalitarian capitalism. When I use this term I don't mean that the people who
challenge it are rounded up and sent to break rocks in Siberia. I mean that it intrudes into every corner of our lives,
governs every social relation, becomes the lens through which every issue must be
seen. It is the total system which leaves no molecule of earth or air uncosted and
unsold.28 Surely Hamilton and Monbiot fail to understand the strength and complexity of this ecological system of evil into which democracy has
descended. Democracy is but a cog in this juggernaut causing environmental degradation.
Liberal capitalism and democracy have fused together. Liberal capitalism, the retrovirus,
has become part of the genetic material of democracy and is directing the enterprise. It is
not just an imperfection that can corrected without dismantling this relationship. As we will demonstrate, colossal environmental
problems, both existing and impending, have accelerated by the freedoms and
corruption of democracy and are unlikely to be solved by this system of governance. Thus
coral reef, its strength lies in mutual support and interdependence of all organisms and components.
we agree with well-known critique from left-environmental writers that the primary of the environmental crisis is the existence of an ecologically
unsustainable economic system, capitalism. However we go further than these critics implicating liberal democracy and democracy in general in
causing this environmental crisis and specifically preventing its solution. For a variety of reasons, detailed by us, democratic institutions are not suited
to deal with Cared situations. If you needed to have major heart surgery you would not wish your operation coordinated by a democratically elected
team of surgeons. With respect to liberal capitalism, in chapter 10 we come to the conclusions as John Perkins in Confessions of an Economic Hit
Man.' s worked for the covert U.S. National Security Agency. He has said, “ We
build a global empire. We are an elite
group of men and women who utilize international financial organizations to foment
conditions that make meteor nations subservient to the ‘corporatocracy' running our
biggest corporations, our government and our banks. The subservience is financial and
them government is that of the USA."30 Liberal capitalism, we will argue, is a force acting to
produce an authoritarian rule by corporate elites. Although enmeshed with liberal
democracy its ultimate goals are antagonistic to it, and in the long term act to undermine
it. We predict that democracy, like communism, will be but a moment in human history. Its
transformation into authoritarian rule is likely to be catalyzed by its failure to deliver
solutions to the environmental crisis. We can speculate on the preferred form of authoritarianism and in chapter 9, ''Platoons
Revenge," we define the essential ingredients. We can wish for the intensive care model, but we are unlikely to be so fortunate. However, a
consideration of the form of social cohesion necessary to maintain civilization in a no-growth economy is vital, for this is where we must go for survival.
A new religion or perhaps spirituality to replace the market and consumerism will necessarily embrace the earth and all its sacred life. To ask where
liberal democracy is leading us is not a welcome question, as the liberalism conferred by democracy is the linchpin of our culture.
Corporate influence ensures that all democratic reform will be
circumvented
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 91-92, MX)
Throughout this book examples have been given showing how corporate
influence on governments determines
poor environmental outcomes. In the United States intense lobbying by dedicated people
with ready access to government because of financial contributions to election
campaigns has thwarted the implementation of new environmental laws, neutered
existing laws, and sabotaged international agreements. Environmental laws are seen as
surmountable by transferring manufacturing to developing countries, and national
environmental regulations are denounced as hindrances to free trade by the World Trade
Organization. In all countries corporatism continues to use the environment for
externalities. While the public expression of social responsibility is now fashionable and is used by some corporates to emphasize branding,
the fundamental philosophy remains unchanged and enshrined in law. As held by Milton Friedman, there is but one social
responsibility of the corporation and this is to make as much money as possible for their
shareholders.4 This is a moral imperative, and to choose environmental goals instead of
profits is immoral. We believe that this is the rock upon which the leaking ship of democracy steered by Platoons savages will finally
founder. It is important to emphasize that the environment is not the only sector of society to
suffer under the corporate yoke. One cynical view of corporatism is that of Arundhati Roy given in the Sydney Peace Prize
Lecture, "Peace and the New Corporate Liberation Theology": the Lazy Managers Guide to Corporate Success, first stock your Board with senior
government servants. Next stock the government with members of your Board. Add oil and stir. When no one can tell where the government ends and
your company begins, collude with your government to equip and arm a cold blooded dictator in an oil rich country. Look away while he kills his own
people. Simmer gently. Use the time to collect a few billion dollars in government contracts.' Indeed, most so-called Western
societies
are not democracies as such but plutocracies, societies ruled by the wealthy. In this context
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s comments in the 1930s about the emerging fascist threat is just as relevant today about the corporate actions of an unallocated
The liberty of democracy is not safe if the people
tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than that of the
state itself. That, in essence, is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a
group, or any controlling private power.6 When in 1934 General Butler blew the whistle on a group of businessmen
economic elite who manipulate the life and destiny of humanity.
conspiring to obtain the backing of the army to overthrow President Roosevelt, it became clear that not even American democracy was safe from
private power. The conspirators were activated by Roosevelt’s conviction that the New Deal would end the Great Depression by replacing the market’s
invisible hand with government benevolence. Roosevelt wrote later: " 'The New Deal implied that the Government itself was going to use affirmative
action to bring about its avowed objectives rather than stand by and hope that the general economic laws would attain them... the American system
visualized protection of the individual against the misuse of private economic power, the New Deal would insist on curbing such power."' President
Theodore Roosevelt also recognized the existence of this invisible government: "Behind
the ostensible government sits
enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no
responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy
alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of statesmanship
today."8 The malign influence of business on governments has been documented with a legion of examples by many authors.' We will dwell on this
issue only insofar as it impacts the ability of liberal democracy to deliver sustainable environmental outcomes. The corporation is an institution with a
structure and imperatives that direct the actions of those within it. But it is also a legal institution whose existence and capacity to operate depend upon
the law. Its legally defined mandate is to pursue, relentlessly and without exception, its own self-interest regardless, of the often harmful consequences
As a result the corporation has become like a heartworm, Dirofilaria immitis,
eating the heart out of democracy. " Profit above all else" is best illustrated by the
involvement by corporations in the financing of Hitler’s rise to power and his war effort ,
from 1939 to 1945, as researched by Antony Sutton: Wall Street financed German cartels in the mid 1920s
which in turn proceeded to bring Hitler to power... the financing for Hitler and his SS street thugs came in part from
it might cause to others.1°
affiliates or subsidiaries of US firms, including Henry Ford in 1922, payments by IG Far-ben and General Electric in 1933, followed by Standard Oil of
New Jersey and I.T.T. subsidiary payments to Heinrich Himmler up to 1944... US multi-nationals under the control of Wall Street profited handsomely
these same international bankers used
political influence in the US to cover up their wartime collaboration and to do this
infiltrated the US control commission for Germany." There is no excuse that those
concerned did not know what they were doing. Standard Oil was assisting the development of synthetic gasoline for
from Hitler's military construction program in the 1930s and at least till 1942...
the German war effort and, as a result, received written protests from of reluctance by conservation groups to criticize the environmental record of
donors.17 Such funding may seem to be necessary because of meager income from the public. But why does the public fail to donate? It
may
well be that massive corporate funding and government assurances enable the public to
think that all is well with the environment. The influence and control of Theodore
Roosevelt’s "invisible government" now extends throughout society.
Profit
There will be no response under a democratic system because it’s just not
profitable
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 26-29, MX)
Regardless of whether climate change is the serious problem accepted by most national
governments or whether we are moving toward a catastrophic change as predicted by Lovelock will
continue to be debated, there is little action to prevent it. Why not? As discussed in chapter 1 there are a number
of psychological factors such as denial that prevent individual responses to potentially
catastrophic events. However these responses do not account for the actions of world leaders. As researched by Beder,23 prior to the
Kyoto conference in 1997, a U.S. consortium of 20 fossil fuel organizations launched a campaign
opposing the treaty on the basis that jobs would be lost and energy prices would rise.
Thereafter corporations used front groups, public relations firms, and conservative think
tanks to cast doubt on the science and impacts of global warming. The names of the organizations were
Orwellian, "Advancement of Sound Science Coalition," "The Coalition for Vehicle Choice," "Global Climate Information Project," "The Greening Earth
Society" The latter has stated that "using fossil fuels to enable our economic activity is as natural as breathing." 24 Senator James Inhofe, a
conservative Republican, called human-caused global warming "a hoax." He received an environmental award for his support of "rational, sciencebased thinking and policy-making" from the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy that receives funding from Exxon Mobil. Inhofe is chair of
As with any scientific consensus, there will be
dissidents. It would be expected that scientific conclusions that are in effect computer
forecasts based upon existing data might be open to differing interpretations. Indeed
detailed scholarly critiques of the conclusions have been published." But the skeptics
are a diminishing breed in the face of the mounting evidence from many scientists in
many disciplines, and their task is difficult because in the industry campaign to derail
Kyoto many, but not all, were well paid to travel the world to muddy the water by plying their
wares in the media. Since the media sometimes try to operate on the basis of balance,
they use apposing opinion even when there is only one opposing opinion to the views at
a thousand scientists. This has often allowed skeptics to have more exposure to the
public than their views deserved. Corporate think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation published in 1997, "The Road to Kyoto;
the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.'
How the Global Climate Treaty Fosters Economic Impoverishment and Endangers US Security."27 The foundation predicted that Kyoto would cost as
much as $30,000 in lost income per family per year. The
Competitive Enterprise Institute wrote that "the
likeliest global climate change is the creation of a milder, greener, more prosperous
world."' This was the background to George W. Bush’s succession to office in early 2001. He was an oil man who appointed oil men to his
cabinet and liras heavily indebted to them for political donations. In the words of the late Robin Cook, former UK foreign secretary, "there has never
been an administration with hands so dipped in Texas oil. There was a super-tanker somewhere out on the seven seas called the Condoleezza
Rice."29 The name Lai-this Chevron tanker was changed to "Altair Voyager" when Ms. Rice was appointed national security advisor in 2001. It was not
surprising that the president’s top policy was to increase the flow of petroleum from foreign suppliers to the U.S. market. Bush established the National
Energy Policy Development Group (NE PDG) chaired. Vice President Dick Cheney, formerly chair and CEO of Halliburson Oil. But even before the
report, Bush questioned the scientific evidence of warming and said that Kyoto was unfair and too expensive for the U.S. economy. In 2001 he
responded to a memorandum from Exxon asking that Dr. Robert Watson, chair of the I PCC, be replaced, because of his opinion that greenhouse
emissions must be reduced.31 Watson was emplaced. The NE PDG did not propose any reduction in oil consumption. Instead it proposed to slow the
growth in U.S. dependence on imported oil by increasing production at home by exploiting untapped reserves in wilderness areas. In effect Bush made
the decision to increase his dependence on oil. This decision and the continuing corporate opposition to greenhouse reduction has dictated the
government’s decisions to oppose any climate change negotiations culminating four years later in the continued obstructionism to future negotiations at
the climate meeting in Argentina in December 2004 and at the Montreal meeting of Kyoto parties in 2005. The Montreal meeting of 180 countries was
intended to commence a new negotiation on greenhouse emissions to be implemented in 2012 when the Kyoto agreement terminates. The succeeding
meeting in Nairobi in November 2006 also failed to draw a timetable for cuts in emissions. It is clear that the failure of the United States to participate
and its lack of leadership is a major impediment to progress. It would be wrong to conclude that the fossil fuel industries have influenced only U.S.
policy and not that of other countries. European countries have signed Kyoto and have developed alternative energy programs, but one has to look to
Australia, the other nonsigner of Kyoto, to see the malign influence. There the government relied heavily on figures and advice from the Bureau of
Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE), funded by business and fossil fuel industries.32 Places on the steering committee were offered for
$50,000 each, and those who took advantage included Mobil, Exxon, Texaco, BHP, and the Australian Aluminum Council. As happened in the United
States, ABARE predicted a huge loss of jobs and income if emission-reduction targets were to be met. The
Australian government
has worked secretly with the fossil fuel industry to produce an energy plan that will rely
on geosequestration of carbon dioxide, with neglect of alternative energy.33 Despite the
strengthening of scientific evidence that human influence is causing global warming. Determined resistance to these findings continues in the form of
so-called scientific societies such as the George C. Marshall Institute in the United States and the Scientific Alliance in the UK. In 2005, the United
States and Australia, the two main antagonists of the Kyoto agreement, joined with China, Japan, India, and South Korea to form the Asia- Pacific
Partnership for Clean Development and Climate. This rejects mandatory targets on greenhouse gas emissions and promotes technological solutions
instead. Opponents of the partnership accept that technological solutions must be sought but see dangers in relying solely on such developments. At
the first meeting of the partnership in Sydney in January 2006, India’s environment minister announced that India will not implement mandatory
emissions reduction of greenhouse gases. Since India is a signatory to the Kyoto agreement and is likely to have to adhere to mandatory reductions
after 2012, the partnership could be seen as a mechanism to destabilize Kyoto and continue with industrial activity as usual. This interpretation tends to
be confirmed by the minuscule commitment over five years of $100 million by Australia and $345 million by the United States to technological solutions
There are many other factors operating in the
United States that have allowed this misguided policy to progress without significant
opposition. These will be analyzed in later chapters, but they are overshadowed by the power, wealth, and
influence of the fossil fuel industries as the lynchpin of Western civilization. We have chosen to
compared to the hundreds of billons invested in the war on terror.
analyze the issue of oil for the addiction to it, like all addictions, overwhelms rational behavior. However the points we make are equally relevant to the
coal industry.
Law
Legal reform cannot be the first step
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 163, MX)
In conclusion, there needs to be major reform to the legal systems within nations and to
international law if environmental damage is to be arrested. We are highly skeptical of
the ability of the legal system to lead the way. Only when the larger political battle has
been won or when the ecological crisis is visible to all will legal reform follow. The law is
intrinsically a slow-moving, conservative beast, constructed for personal and property
protection, and we cannot expect much assistance from that source. Nevertheless that is not a reason
for defeatism and as environmental and human rights lawyers contrive to address these problems in the courts, we wish them well. But we are
skeptical of the long-term success of these endeavors unaided by political action, and
this is why our focus has been upon political and ideological change. This leads us to the question of
human capacity to share the common good instead of acquiring it.
Utopia
All re-affirmations of democracy’s ability to solve the ecological crisis are
descriptive of utopias OR collapse is inevitable - oil shortage
Shearman Smith 07
(David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, MD; Professor at University of Adelaid, August 30,
PhD and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia , The Climate Change Challenge and
the Failure of Democracy, Pages 121-124, MX)
Environmentalist writers have had a love affair with democracy. Numerous texts have
outlined the perils that the planet faces, only to conclude in the final chapter that all will
be well with more democracy and a world parliament,' or with the creation of direct democratic communities, locally
self-sufficient and living in harmony with their environment. These warm, cozy, and politically correct worlds
would no doubt be a joy to live in, but they are far from the likely realities that we face.
Before we can outline what sort of system we ought to have, we need to know what the likely end result will be of the dangers described in this book.
The most pessimistic response to the "crisis of civilization," that is, the multitude of
interconnected social, technological, and environmental problems that humanity faces,
is human extinction. The Canadian philosopher John Leslie in his book The End of the World takes that vie-w.2 Leslie considers
humanity to be more at threat from technological disasters such as nuclear war, the rise of intelligent robots, and asteroid collision, than from mundane
threats such as water shortages, soil erosion, and climate change. His view is very much a technical logician’s view of reality. It would take us into too
many technical matters to rebut Leslie’s view firsthand here. Generally, his critics seem to have established that, apart from four science fiction
scenarios (killer robots, runaway high-tech experiments with exotic matter, the creation on earth of black holes, nanotechnology "grey goo problems,
etc.), none of the scenarios sketched in his book will exterminate all human life. However these scenarios will destroy the present world as we know it
and necessarily cull the present human population of over six billion.3 Consider
but one of the problems that we have
discussed: the end of cheap oil. Suppose that the school of thought of the oil limitationists is right. Some estimates of the date of
peak oil production put this at the year 2008, others at 2012, still others somewhat later, but many experts believe that this date will be before the end
Although the oil optimists hope that rising oil prices will make
other fuels competitive and that by market forces other substitutes will replace oil, this
process will only occur if there really are substitutes. There are limits to all other forms
of energy, such as nuclear fission and solar energy.4 Even if there was an oil substitute,
there would need to be a replacement of the oil infrastructure—and our civilization could
not exist without oil. Plastics are made from it, and there could be no computer-based
society without plastics. The world’s 500 million cars depend upon oil; so does agricultural food production through fertilizers and
of the second decade of this century.
pesticides. Coal and natural gas offer only a stopgap measure, as these reserves will also deplete—at the price of perhaps making the earth
uninhabitable through global warming. Coal is mined using machinery that uses oil, and the extraction of coal will become increasingly expensive.'
social chaos is likely. For example, the globally connected
information economy depends upon an abundant and secure supply of electricity.
Without it, the security of the power grid is threatened, and with it goes the information
economy. Indeed, even regular blackouts could have major economic impacts, as the August 2003 outage in the United States showed.
Without a replacement of the oil infrastructure,
Likewise our agricultural systems face collapse from the same dilemma. The problem of depletion is made much worse of course by the vested interest
Even from an optimistic
viewpoint, oil reserves will decline and the price of oil will soar. There is no
comprehensive alternative in sight, so that even if civilization will not collapse, at least
this is a matter of the gravest concern. As we have seen, there is an inertia in liberal democracies that prevents governments
in the oil society not to seek alternatives with the same level of anxiety that one would approach a war.
dealing with long-term threats. Any government that acted to curb even one use of oil by the voting citizens of a liberal democracy would be thrown out
of office. If we are realistic and honest we must conclude that the inertia of liberal democracies will ensure that the problem of oil depletion is not solved
before it is too late.6 Yet already the
oil depletion problem has produced, at least in part, two wars in
the Middle East and restrictions of civil liberties through laws such as the U.S.A. Patriot
Act. The U.S. desire for oil reserves led the United States to support Saddam Hussein in the Iran/Iraq war and Osama bin Laden in the Afghanistan
war against the Soviet Union. The United States then waged two wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq.' The United States presently sends a quarter of all its
exported military weapons to Saudi Arabia, a regime that is at least as oppressive as Iraq was and probably will remain so. Some have argued that the
United States supports Israel in the Middle East because of the push of an extremely powerful Jewish lobby in the United States and also historically
because Israel served as a bulwark against what was thought to be a Sovietization of states such as Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Former Malaysian
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in an open letter to the American Muslim community has said: "In Palestine, Israeli gunship and tanks razed villages
and towns to the ground, killing innocent men, women and children." Some
have argued that the U.S. support of
Israeli human rights violations is one of the key issues that have made the United States
a target for Islamic terrorists. Israelis argue in reply that Palestinians violate Israeli human rights through suicide bombings and
terrorism and that Israelis have a right to self-defence.9 According to former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, because of the 9/11 attacks the
The CIA predicts that terrorists are
likely to explode a nuclear bomb on a major U.S. city such as New York in the next 20
years. New York is thought to be the target because of its high Jewish population. Osama bin
United States had embarked on a "thirty to forty year war against fundamentalist Islam."10
Laden in his first tape released after 9/11 stated that one of the reasons for the attacks was to punish the United States for its support of what he saw
a major terrorist
attack on a U.S. city using a weapon of mass destruction would likely lead to martial law.
Already under the U.S.A. Patriot Act a person can be arrested without probable cause
and detained indefinitely without being charged. Imagine then the measures that would
be put in place to save the system when the power elites are really under threat.
Therefore it is reasonable to suppose that liberal democratic structures will be
abandoned by the existing states in an attempt to deal with the crisis of their civilization.
More authoritarian structures than exist at present will arise. This, we contend, is the most reasonable
inference to make from the facts discussed in this book. We predict that these authoritarian structures will be
put into place to preserve the decaying status quo, rather than to begin to forge a new
system of governance. It would constitute a radical historical discontinuity if this was not
so, for throughout human history when those in power are under threat, they have
always held on until the bitter end. Then, they are usually replaced by force.
to be Israel’s oppression of the Palestine people, while others see this as mere rhetoric.' As we stated in our last chapter
Individualism
Democracy fails to combat climate change because of individualism—an
entirely new political system is needed
Blühdorn, PhD, 2011
(Ingolfur, June 12, “Ingolfur Blühdorn: The Sustainability Of Democracy”
http://www.thenewsignificance.com/2011/07/12/ingolfur-bluhdorn-the-sustainability-ofdemocracy/)
Yet, for all their undeniable achievements, techno-managerial policy approaches have so far been unable to
bring about anything like the profound structural transformations that are required if
internationalised consumer society is ever to become sustainable. After the fiasco of international climate politics
in Copenhagen, after international investment banks were declared too big to fail, and after the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, it is clear how
unambiguously priorities are set. There is little evidence that this will change in any substantial way in the foreseeable future.True to the tradition of the
emancipatory social movements, critics of established approaches have been calling for a bottom-up renewal of climate and environmental policy.
Claus Leggewie and Harald Welzer, for example, posit that “Only when [...] members of the political community are spoken to as active architects of
their society, can changes in lifestyle and options for action be realized.”[7] The remodelling of industrial society “will only function”, they suggest “if it is
posed as a project with which members of society identify. [...] Then it will become a generator of identity rather than a problem of implementation “.
The dysfunctional politics of the elites can be corrected only through “‘more democracy’, in other words innovative forms of direct participation.”
Similarly, Clive Hamilton
asserts that “the climate crisis is upon us because democracy has
been corrupted ”.[8]The “passivity of the public”, he believes, has bred a political class “who stand
for little other than self-advancement ”.[9] Aecordingly, he sees “reclaiming democracy for the citizenry” as the
only way to mitigate the effects of climate change and to “ensure that the wealthy and powerful cannot protect their own interests at the expense of the
rest”. In a manner truly reminiscent of political ecology at the time of the nuclear arms race he urges: “We
must democratise
survivability”[10] and adopt “a new radicalism [...] that refuses to be drawn into short-term
electoral trade-offs and aims to shift the ground of politics itself ”.[11]And in the same vein, Daniel
Hausknost insists: “Given the state’s inability to initiate radical change, it is down to civil society to mobilise political and social imagination and make
genuine alternatives to the current trajectory conceivable and tangible”.[12] For him, too, “the
refusal to participate in
ecologicalgovernance-processes”, would be a first decisive step towards “de-legitimating the
liberal state’s politics of simulation” (ibid.) and making authentic progress towards sustainability.
Undoubtedly, the radical criticism of de-politicization and expert rule implied in these statements is perfectly justified. The rule of experts is, and has
always been, the rule of vested interests, and no
structural change to the established order of unsustainability is
ever to be expected from those who confine themselves to stimulating ever new cycles of technomanagerial innovation, economic growth and mass consumption. There is also every reason to
be concerned about the global elites’ determination to buy their way out of the crisis and
maintain their lifestyles of unsustainability, whatever the costs for the vulnerable and excluded.
And thirdly, the demand for a new radicalism that re-opens a debate on the very principles of liberal
consumer capitalism is also fully justified: rising to the challenge of the climate and sustainability
crisis does indeed necessitate “thinking about a third industrial revolution in less instrumental
terms than the first and the second. Climate change means cultural change – and hence a
change in political culture.”[13]
Democracy fails – freedom makes people pursue person goals with no
regard for the environment
Daniel 12 (Charles Daniel is a University of Leeds Political Science graduate. “To what extent is democracy
detrimental to the current and future aims of environmental policy and technologies?” Journal of Politics and
International Studies. May 2012. Vol. 7. http://www.polis.leeds.ac.uk/assets/files/students/student-journal/ug-summer12/charles-daniel.pdf)
democracy, widely recognised as the most ideal form of politics, is detrimental to the current
and future aims of environmental technology and policies. It will be argued that the principles behind democracy, in
The paper is concerned with the fact that
e all importance of freedom for the people, whilst providing a suitable platform for
other areas of policy, is one of the main reasons why governments are not responding to
the very present dangers of environmental degradation. The paper will use America’s environmental failures as a key
example. It will then be argued that ‘eco-authoritarianism’, despite the negative connotations associated with this mode of government, could
potentially be the ideal system to ensure that appropriate environmental targets and necessary
investment is approached with an affirmative and robust policy direction. The paper will point to
China and suggest that, despite currently having an appalling environmental record, this country has the political potential to seize the
initiative and re-focus its long-term environmental goals. The paper will then take into account the shortcomings of both
systems and suggest that, theoretically, the best way to approach questions surrounding the environment is
through strengthening systems of global governance as well as accepting the reality that,
in order to attain environmental goals, we must accept limitations on our liberties.
particular th
Rights
Democracy takes too much time to implement action- too much debate
because too many people have rights
Daniel 12 (Charles Daniel is a University of Leeds Political Science graduate. “To what extent is democracy
detrimental to the current and future aims of environmental policy and technologies?” Journal of Politics and
International Studies. May 2012. Vol. 7. http://www.polis.leeds.ac.uk/assets/files/students/student-journal/ug-summer12/charles-daniel.pdf)
democracy’s chief premise, therefore, is a commitment to a positive view of human nature where individuals have a desire to be included in the process
attaches high expectations to the cognitive capacity and moral potential
of the participant to not only put forward rational and informed views surrounding environmental policy but also to engage in the
process of arriving at a collective decision even if the outcome may go against the
interests of the natural world. Such a positive view of human nature is always in danger of being open to a level of criticism. Deliberative democracy
is marred by its utopian aims and lack of empirical evidence to suggest that involving public reason will have a positive effect on environmental goals. The aim of
the ‘naturalisation of green policies’ into social consciousness is one that would take a
vast amount of time, a factor that Tim Flannery (2010) and Lovelock (2006) rightly proclaim, we don’t have. This
positive outlook is equally at odds with waves of political apathy that riddle even the highest levels of
political decision-making, let alone one that is perceived by the general public as not an immediate concern to their
well-being. Eckersley responds to this criticism by suggesting that the only way to avoid such a problem is to constitutionally entrench eco-centric attitudes so that the
Deliberative
of ecological decisions. It also
natural world’s ‘rights’ become similar to those of the individual (1992), forcing the issue to become part of everyday governing. However the moral and political implications of
perceiving the natural world as akin to human life, whilst probably being highly popular with environmentalists and ‘Gaia’ believers, would be difficult to implement as questions
Deliberative democracy also
suggests that every member of the public should have a right to participate, regardless of his or her
economic conditioning or class. As environmental concerns transcend national boundaries and are
recognised as ‘global issues’, only decisions reached after all 6.8 billion participants had
exercised their democratic right to engage in free and unconstrained deliberation could claim to be
legitimate. This would of course be wholly unpractical and result in the stagnation of
environmental decisions, where constant deliberation would take precedent over
necessary action and investment.
would arise as to who has the legitimate voice to speak ‘on behalf of Mother Nature’ (Lovbrand & Khan 2010).
Liberalism
The failures of liberalism mean that the affs solutions will fail
William Ophuls (political Science at Northwestern Requiem for Modern politics) 1997
a
realistic understanding of the political challenge confronting humanity on the threshold of the twenty-first
century. Indeed it is only by exposing the intrinsically self-destructive nature of modern politics
that we can reveal the only real solution to our multitude of problems – which is to
change the way of thinking that caused them. Unfortunately when most people call for
solutions a different way of thinking is usually the last thing they have in mind. What they
want instead is something that will not challenge their assumptions, shock their
sensibilities, or violate the conventional wisdom. Much of what follows is therefore designed to make it absolutely clear that
Thus harsh and sweeping assessment of our predicament which will be elaborated and supported in the main body of the book, is intended to promote not despair but simply
no such solution exists – that trying to solve our problems in terms of the basic
principles of liberal polity is a lost cause because it is these principles that have
created the problem in the first place. In this way, the necessity for a new vision of politics that
directly addresses the egotism and destructiveness of the modern way of life will follow
as a matter of course. In that sense, not just the Conclusions, wherein I briefly sketch the essential spirit of the new vision, but the work as a
whole is the “solution” to the problems it describes: it tries to exemplify a different way of thinking.
Economics
Reliance on purely economic solutions to enviro degradation fails
Lack, 2011 - MA in Environmental Politics, Phd in politics
(Martin, September 27, Lack of Environment, "Can modernisation be 'ecological'? - Part 3?
https://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/category/william-ophuls/)
It has been demonstrated that dematerialisation alone cannot deal with the problem of resource depletion unless the increase
in unit efficiency is greater than the increase in scale of production (i.e. something that cannot be sustainable indefinitely). Furthermore, whereas it may be
possible to partially decouple environmental degradation from economic growth, pursuit of this
as a sole objective is a dangerous strategy. This is because to do so is to remain ambivalent about the
existence and significance of limits to growth; indeed it is to deny that growth itself may be the
problem. In the final analysis, the only thing that will be sustainable is progression towards the steady-state economy
proposed by Daly and others; combined with qualitative development instead of quantitative growth. Therefore , the only form of modernisation that
could be ecological is one that places the intrinsic value of vital resources such as clean air and
clean water – and the inherent value of a beautiful landscape – well above the instrumental value of money or precious metals.
***Affirmative Answers***
2ac
Even if environmental collapse dooms human rights, authoritarianism is
not the solution
De Schutter ’12 (Olivier De Schutter Tuesday 24 April 2012 03.00 EDT UN Special
Rapporteur on the right to food Olivier De Schutter (LL.M., Harvard University ; Ph.D., University
of Louvain (UCL)), the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food since May 2008, is a
Professor at the Catholic University of Louvain and at the College of Europe (Natolin). He is also
a Member of the Global Law School Faculty at New York University and is Visiting Professor at
Columbia University. April http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/apr/24/climatechange-human-rights-issue // 6-27-15 // MC)
Global climate-change talks often resemble the scene of a traffic accident. Multiple voices shout each
other down in a bid to tell their own version of events . What is the real damage, how quickly must it be repaired, and
who should foot the bill? But the real concern is not that the debate is congested and
gridlocked; it is that the current clamour masks a deeper failing, namely to identify an
honest starting point. In Prosperity Without Growth, the economist Tim Jackson convincingly expounds the myth of "absolute decoupling" of emissions
from economic growth. The growth of emissions can be slowed, relative to the growth rate of the
economy. However, emissions cannot conceivably be stalled or reversed while the
economy continues to expand, however great the carbon-saving technologies of the
coming years. If our political processes cannot conceive of a non-growth future, and yet
a fundamental rethink of growth is the only honest starting point for the fight against
climate change, then those political processes are clearly not fit for purpose. Does this
mean that democracy has failed, and must be sacrificed for authoritarian solutions? The
solution may in fact be the polar opposite. A system where failing governance
procedures are forced to think long-term does not necessarily require anti-democratic
"climate tzars". Instead, this revolution can be hyper-democratic and guided by human
rights. Climate change represents an enormous threat to a whole host of human rights:
the right to food, the right to water and sanitation, the right to development. There is
therefore huge scope for human rights courts and non-judicial human rights bodies to
treat climate change as the immediate threat to human rights that it is. Such bodies could
therefore take government policy to task when it is too short-sighted, too unambitious, or
too narrowly focused on its own constituents at the expense of those elsewhere. Fossil
fuel mining, deforestation, the disturbance of carbon sinks, and the degradation of the
oceans are developments that can be blocked on human rights grounds. Human rights
bodies can, and must, increasingly play this reactive role at the local level, in order to
ward off the multitude of developments that simultaneously violate human rights and
aggravate climate change. But that will not suffice. They must also become proactive and
holistic in warding off human rights violations, and by extension, the advance of climate
change at the global level. Where human rights deficits are detected, governments are
required to put monitoring systems in place. They must also improve coordination within
government, encourage the participation of all stakeholders – especially the most
vulnerable – and define the responsibilities of institutions and set deadlines by which the
human right in question must be met . In short, they must adopt multi-year strategies towards the fulfilment of human rights and increase
the political cost of not moving fast enough. This approach is, in fact, also ideal for tackling climate change…
Soviet Union proves authoritarianism fails- corruption and resentful public
mean environmental goals cannot be met
Humphrey 7 (Mathew Humphrey is a professor at the University of Nottingham. Ecological
Politics And Democratic Theory: the Challenge to the Deliberative Ideal. London: Routledge,
2007. Page 140)
For all that the problems with which eco-authoritarians struggled were and remain real, the faith
they placed in an authoritarian state to resolve these problems was surely misguided.
Whilst the inferior ecological record of non- democratic states in itself proves nothing (how many
of these states actually prioritised environmental goals?), the ability of a state to impose its
'green will' on an unwilling and resentful public who see their taken-for-granted freedoms
being curtailed is questionable, in the absence of a monstrous architecture of green
totalitarianism. Authoritarian states have often not been good at achieving those policy
goals that they have prioritised, as the forlorn ambition of the Soviet Union to outstrip the
productive capacity of the capitalist West testifies. There is no obvious reason to expect an
authoritarian green state to be better than the Soviet Union at overcoming the internal
divisions, inefficiencies, corruption, and perverse incentives that plague such states.
Democracy more sustainable than authoritarianism- transition not
inevitable
Davis 15 (Davis, Michael C has an LLM from Yale and teaches at the University of Hong
Kong. "East Asia After the Crisis: Human Rights, Constitutionalism, and State Reform." Human
Rights Quarterly 26.1 (2004): 126-51. ProQuest. Web. 29 June 2015.)
In assessing the debates over political and economic reform, it becomes apparent that
constitutionalism has a central role to play. Studies in the political economy literature appear to
verify that regime type ultimately matters in the achievement of economic development goals.96
While authoritarianism with proper developmental institutions can do reasonably well at
early-stage development, this is not invariably so. Furthermore, as economic development
proceeds the developmental potential of the authoritarian model may be exhausted.
Recent studies have shown that the developmental achievement of authoritarian regimes in
East Asia is not uniformly positive. Latent costs are just now being appreciated. In addition to
the deficiencies of authoritarian practices in respect to democracy, human rights, and
the rule of law, there have also been high levels of corruption. Corruption appears to be a
consequence of both early predatory practices and a lack of transparency, and subsequent
incapacity of authoritarian regimes to respond to the interests that economic development
creates. Rent-seeking evolves from a top-down predatory behavior in the authoritarian period
when the state is strong, to a bottom-up predatory behavior in the early stages of democracy as
business becomes stronger and the state weaker. Corruption may serve as a substitute for
adequate state institutions. Democratic consolidation will aim to curb corruption by
affording greater transparency and stable institutions for checks and balances. Greater
dispersal and open competition in the society should accompany this consolidation. Local
institutions shape investor confidence. Either extreme concentrations of power or extreme
dispersal appears to have worked poorly; the former is too volatile and the latter too rigid.
Liberal constitutionalism, including democracy, human rights and the rule of law,
appears to provide the tools to engender the degree of public engagement and political
reliability needed for sustained development. Finding the proper institutional balance is by
no means an easy task. The constitutional fundamentals are essential. Minimally maintaining
the protections embodied in human rights and the rule of law is important to achieving
transparency and accountability, while sustaining confidence in political and legal
institutions. Constitutional institutions must be shaped to the local condition. This reality is
demonstrated by the varied consequences of importing similar institutions into different
countries. Constitutional systems deeply influenced by the American model work very
differently in Japan, the Philippines, and the United States. Getting the fit just right is the
challenge of local politics.
Authoritarianism and the power grab causes ACCELERATION of
environmental crises
Carter, 13, professor of philosophy
(Alan, A Radical Green Political Theory pg 5-6 Routledge publishing,
https://books.google.com/books?id=1DxdAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=ophuls+environ
ment+authoritarianism&source=bl&ots=r7M8u_gAt8&sig=-U8c8U6ONL2oLY-yAzTKeAMqgc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jq1LVaWpBYq_sAWju4HgBw&ved=0CCgQ6AEwBA#v=onepage
&q=%22given%20the%20justified%22&f=false)
If we are to stand up to such a serious environmental threat as many insist we currently face, and if we need to respond to it quickly,
isn’t some highly authoritarian, centralized state that can enforce strict environmental policies the obvious solution? At its most
attractive, eco-authoritarianism presents itself as a form of benevolent dictatorship - an environmentally benevolent dictatorship, as it
were. Unfortunately, as
obvious a solution as eco-authoritarianism appears to be, its flaws seem
equally obvious . As with any benevolent dictatorship, how can it be guaranteed that it will
remain benevolent? It is difficult to see how whatever structures empower an authoritarian,
centralized leadership to exercise power effectively will, at the same time, inhibit exercises of that
power which take a non- benevolent form; unless it is the people themselves who constrain such a leadership. But
then, why is a leader necessary in the first place? If a leader is necessary, it must it because he or she has real power, and now can
its exercise of guaranteed to remain benevolent?
Even if a particular leader does turn out to be genuinely
benevolent, even if he or she is not corrupted by the exercise of power or the need to retain it.
How can it be guaranteed that those who inherit his or her position will be equally benevolent?
Hierarchical structures, by their very nature, seem to make it easy for the most competitive,
most ruthless and least caring to attain power. Moreover, the centralized exercise of
authoritarian rule is an ever- attractive goal for would be usurpers , whose vision is usually less pure
than that of those whom they usurp, as the history of many coups can be argued to attest to. In short, all of the arguments
tint hive been rehearsed against ostensibly benevolent dictatorships appear equally pertinent to
environmentally benevolent ones. If an autocrat wished to use his or her power to protect the
environment, the structures which enabled that power to be exercised could, presumably, just
as easily be used by his or her successors to degrade the planet further , or even at an
accelerated rate, for their short-term or localized enjoyment. In fact, there is a powerful argument that can be
deployed which seems to establish that any authoritarian response to the mounting environmental crises
will accelerate them rather than provide a solution. But because of the theoretical assumptions underpinning that
argument, it will have to wait until Chapter 6 before being presented, and until Chapter 7 before being deployed against ecoauthoritarianism. Suffice it to say that we already have some reason to think that an
effective long term response to
the ecological threat which environmentalists claim to have identified would require an
alternative political theory to that propounded by eco authoritarians 2.2
Eco-Authoritarian problems are resolved by expanding democracy, not
abolishing of it
Humphrey 7 (Mathew Humphrey is a professor at the University of Nottingham. Ecological
Politics And Democratic Theory: the Challenge to the Deliberative Ideal. London: Routledge,
2007. Page 11)
Knowledge of eco-authoritarian literature is essential for understanding what came in its wake,
which was, to a large degree, a reaction to the anti-democratic despair that the survivalists
expressed. I want to emphasise in this chapter elements of this literature which give it
continuing relevance today. One such element is the specific analysis of democracy that
underpinned the politics of eco-authoritarianism. Whilst the authoritarian solutions suggested
in this literature are widely criticised, the conception of democracy that underpinned the
(often reluctant) advocacy of non-democratic politics is less frequently considered. As
we shall see, there was a strong Schumpeterian strain to the eco-authoritarians' understanding
of democracy. In particular, the view that ordinary citizens are politically incompetent,
especially at times of crisis, was deeply held. In this regard I want to draw an important
distinction between the eco-authoritarian analysis of the relationship between ecological
problems and democracy on the one hand, and their prescriptive political solutions on the other.
I will argue that in many respects the analysis of the problems of collective action
involved in environmental politics is accurate and well-judged,1 but that the conclusions
that were drawn from it were certainly not the only logically compelling ones. In fact they were
conclusions that were more likely to compound the problems than resolve them. The
questions that the survivalists raise are difficult and profound, but it will be the ultimate
argument of this book that these problems show the need for more, and more radical
forms, of democracy rather than less of it .
Authoritarianism’s racial and patriarchal structure promotes structural
violence in the form of gendered violence and racial profiling- Hungary
proves
McRobie '14 (novelist, journalist, co-editor of openDemocracy 50.50, and editor of the Oxford
Human Rights Hub. She is completing a PhD on the 2011 Egyptian revolution at Oxford
University and holds an MA focusing on Balkan studies from the University of Sarajevo. Her
latest book Literary Freedom: a Cultural Right to Literature was published in December 2013
https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/heather-mcrobie/it-takes-broken-bones-authoritarianismand-violence-against-women-in-hungary // 6-26-15 // MC)
Authoritarianism is never good news for women – as citizens or as the structurally more
marginalised gender – and Hungary’s continued shift away from democracy and
upholding human rights under the right-wing Fidesz government is mirrored by its
regressive backsliding on gender equality. Last week, Hungarian feminist groups spoke out
to condemn a public service announcement made by a Hungarian police department that
blamed women for ‘inviting’ sexual violence. In a shockingly misguided attempt to mark the
International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the video showed
young women drinking, dancing and flirting before cutting to what looked like the
aftermath of a sexual assault. The video ended with the warning “it’s your
responsibility”, implying that women invite sexual violence through ‘irresponsibility’.
Compounding the erroneous messages the Hungarian public are given on violence
against women, another Hungarian police department issued a statement last week on
‘rape prevention’ that claimed "flirting by young women can often elicit violence." This
isn’t the first time in recent years that Hungarian officials and government departments have
communicated victim-blaming messages on the subject of violence against women, erroneously
shifting the blame away from the responsibility of the perpetrator. In 2012, MP Istvan Varga,
from the ruling Fidesz party claimed that domestic violence could be solved if women fulfilled
their natural role and gave birth to several children. (The “logic” being that if women fulfilled their
societal duty and reproduced, their partners would respect them more and therefore stop
beating them). The popular protests and campaigns by Hungarian feminist groups in the
face of this statement were part of what pushed the parliament to agree to legally
demarcate domestic violence as a specific offence in the new criminal code. Previously,
abusers could only be prosecuted for individual acts of assault and there was no legal
recognition of the wider violence and oppression of abusive relationships. However, an
extensive Human Rights Watch report in November 2013, ‘Unless Blood Flows’, documented
both the gaps in the new legal provisions for domestic violence, and the inadequate
implementation of existing laws and lack of funding and provisions for violence against women.
It pointed both to the lack of political will to address violence against women, and to
entrenched patriarchal norms as barriers to combatting violence against women and
achieving gender equality in both the private and public spheres. Hungarian women’s
rights organisations pointed out that, although the rates of domestic violence and
violence against women are in keeping with the (lamentable) European average, Hungary
lagged behind other European countries in terms of both legal and societal recognition
of this abuse: “it takes broken bones” for a case of domestic violence to be brought to court,
both preventing catching domestic violence at an earlier stage (in light of the fact that domestic
abuse often operates on an escalating dynamic) and sending a message that it is not taken
seriously by legal and governmental institutions. Screenshot of 2014 'anti-rape' video made by
Hungarian police. The Fidesz party spent the last four years gutting independent media and
social provisions, and won a second term by a landslide in the elections of April this year, in
which the far-right, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic Jobbik party also won 20% of the votes.
Fidesz has brought with it a plethora of bizarre and reactionary policies and statements from
government officials, most recently the widely-protested proposed Internet tax. And the rightwing discourse dominating politics weaves into it a regressive construction of gender
relations, in which Fidesz and other right-wing political voices trade on the concept of
“family values” in which women are reduced solely to their supposedly ‘natural’ role as
mothers and submissive wives. Such a conception of gender relations constructed by
right-wing authoritarianism and exclusivist nationalism – in which women are seen as
mere vessels for childbearing and subordinate units within the all-important traditional
“family – delegates women to the ‘private sphere’ whilst giving men dominance within
both the public and the private spheres. In such a conception, domestic violence
becomes a matter both of “no-one else’s business” and “she was probably asking for it.”
One instance of violence against women did, however, become a public issue – when
last November Fidesz politician Jozsef Balogh admitted to beating his wife, yet refused
to resign from public office. Hungary’s chief prosecutor found that Mr Balogh’s wife had been
struck in the face with “more than medium force”, dragged by her hair, and suffered facial
fractures after being assaulted by her husband when the couple returned home from a wedding
party. Although Mr Balogh was expelled from the Fidesz party in the wake of public outcry over
his violence, his behaviour seemed not far removed from the official message
communicated by the government: the patriarchal family with its dominating male ‘head’
is all-important, and domestic violence is a private matter which concerns neither society
nor government. The continued lack of government funding for domestic violence shelters –
and the victim-blaming “public service announcements” – communicate the same message, that
violence against women is both a trivial and a private matter for which the abused can be
blamed. Hungary’s right-ward shift and slide away from liberal democracy is bad news for
women, not because liberal democracy “guarantees” the decline of violence against women (the
cases of several Scandinavian countries show that even high levels of “gender equity” in public
life, and gender-sensitive welfare provisions, can coexist with high levels of domestic violence
and violence against women in the private sphere) but because, under the current prevailing
ideology in Hungary women are sidelined as all structurally marginalised groups are sidelined –
if not targetted. Over the same period as the rise of Fidesz and the far-right Jobbik party,
Hungary has slipped down the World Economic Forum’s ranking on gender-equity, from
55th place in 2006 to 93 in 2014 (although the number of ranked countries expanded from 115
to 142 in the same period). The alarming rise (or resurgence) of anti-Semitism and antiRoma sentiment shows the corrosive right-wing discourse eating at Hungary’s society as
anyone who occupies the marginal position – as an ethnic minority, or immigrant, or on
the grounds of their gender or sexual orientation – is sidelined, demonised and targetted,
as if in a Nietzschean reading of social order enacting a sociopathic mindset in which the
structurally weaker are punished for “being weak”. The public service announcement telling
women “it is your responsibility” to prevent sexual assault by 'not flirting and drinking' is in
keeping with the regressive worldview of rightwing discourse swirling in Hungarian political life,
with its fetishisation of the patriarchal family and its increasing persecution of minorities and the
structurally disadvantaged. In such a climate, violence against women is both a “private” issue
of the exalted family-unit and a “natural” situation in which the dominant enacts its will on the
disadvantaged. And so the structural and social violence the Hungarian state is waging upon its
marginalised is enacted again, as if in aftershock, over and over upon the bodies of women.
squo cap solves warming – tech developments
Starck, PhD, Feb 2015, (Walter, "The Climate Scam's Meltdown" Ausmarine 37.4: 26-27.
Proquest. search.proquest.com/docview/1666284048?pq-origsite=gscholar)
Capitalism will find a way With or without any agreement or government initiatives, economics,
technological developments and demographic changes will in due course inevitably
reduce the demand for fossil fuels and replace them with other and cleaner sources
of energy. Thorium- and fusion-reactor developments are showing increasing promise of
providing effectively unlimited cheap and clean energy within a few decades. For domestic use,
solar voltaic technology is beginning to become competitive with mains electricity, with further
gains in cost effectiveness near certain in the near future. Major advances in storage technology
are also well underway and expected to become Commercially available within a few years.
Better, cheaper solar technology to power homes and vehicles is likely to drive the beginning of
mass uptake within a decade. This will be impelled by cost effectiveness, with subsidies
unnecessary. Indeed, such support risks doing more harm than good if it diverts development
and uptake from the best and most efficient technologies emerging from a complex, rapidly
changing and impossible-to-predict scientific frontier.
There is no impact to warming- trends prove no disasters
Kreutzer 3/31
(David Kreutzer [the senior research fellow in energy economics and climate change at The
Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis], 3/31/15, "Five Myths About Extreme Weather
and Global Warming," The Daily Signal, dailysignal.com/2014/03/31/five-myths-extremeweather-global-warming/, MX)
There is broad (though not unanimous) agreement, even among skeptic scientists, that the earth has warmed moderately over the past 60 years and that some portion of that
warming can be attributed to anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. However, despite the hoopla surrounding the recent report on the economic impacts of global warming
there is no consensus that temperatures are
increasing at an accelerating rate or that we are headed to a climate catastrophe. In fact, far
from increasing at an accelerating rate, the best measures of world average temperatures
indicate that there has been no significant warming for the past 15 years—something that the IPCC’s
climate models are unable to explain. Perhaps frustrated by the climate’s unwillingness to follow the globalwarming script, the hard-core advocates for costly, energy-killing programs now point to
every weather event as the wages of carbon-emitting sins. However, the numbers tell a
different story: Upward trends for extreme weather events just aren’t there. Myth #1: Hurricanes are
becoming more frequent. Even the IPCC notes there is no trend over the past 100 years. Here’s what the IPCC says in its latest science report: Current data
sets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the
past century and it remains uncertain whether any reported long-term increases in tropical cyclone frequency are robust, after accounting for past changes in
from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),
observing capabilities.… No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the
North Atlantic basin. [Emphasis added.] Some people will make a big deal about an increase in North Atlantic hurricanes since the 1970s. As the IPCC chart below (Panel b)
shows, the 1970s had the lowest frequency of landfalling hurricanes in the past 100 years. Hurricane Sandy seems to be an argument in a class by itself. It should be noted that
Sandy became an extratropical cyclone before it made landfall. Here is what the IPCC says about historical trends in extratropical cyclones: “In summary, confidence in large
scale changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones since 1900 is low.” Also, data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) covering the
years 1851—2004 show that hurricanes made a direct hit on New York State about every 13 years on average. Over the period, there were a total of 12 hurricanes that made
landfall along the New York coastline. Five of them were major hurricanes. Myth #2: Tornadoes are becoming more common. The experts at the National Climatic Data Center
(part of NOAA) say: To better understand the variability and trend in tornado frequency in the United States, the total number of EF-1 and stronger, as well as strong to violent
tornadoes (EF-3 to EF-5 category on the Enhanced Fujita scale) can be analyzed. These tornadoes would have likely been reported even during the decades before Doppler
radar use became widespread and practices resulted in increasing tornado reports. The bar charts below indicate there has been little trend in the frequency of the stronger
tornadoes over the past 55 years. [Emphasis added.] That is, once we account for the apparent increase in tornado counts that are due to much improved technology for
identifying them, tornadoes occur no more frequently now than in the past. Even more striking is the history of F3 and stronger tornadoes (shown below), which were even less
likely to be missed before Doppler radar. That trend is actually down compared to the 1955–1975 period: Myth #3: Droughts are becoming more frequent and more severe. In
the IPCC finds little evidence to support the myth regarding droughts, and it
the current assessment concludes that
there is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a globalscale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th century, owing to lack of direct observations,
the recent science report, even
backs off from its support in a previous report. Here is a quote from the AR5: In summary,
geographical inconsistencies in the trends, and dependencies of inferred trends on the index choice. Based on updated studies, AR4 conclusions regarding global increasing
In
summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding
the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale.” For the
U.S., the story is the same. Some places will always be drier and some wetter in
trends in drought since the 1970s were probably overstated. Myth #4: Floods are becoming more frequent and severe. The IPCC’s science report states, “
comparison to an earlier period. However, for the U.S. overall, there has been no trend . The chart below of the
Palmer Hydraulic Drought Index (PHDI) shows no trend for increasing droughts (represented by bars with negative values). From 1930 to 1941, the PHDI was consistently
negative and set annual records that have not been matched.
N/U- Democracy Solves Now
Squo Solves
Environmental authoritarianism isn’t uniquely key in solving ecocide,
status quo can solve with the right efforts.
White, 10 (Micah, Senior editor at Adbusters and an award-winning activist, “An alternative to the new wave of
ecofascism”, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/sep/16/authoritarianism-ecofascismalternative)
Environmentalism is currently marketed as a luxury brand for guilty consumers. The prevailing
assumption is that a fundamental lifestyle change is unnecessary: being green means paying
extra for organic produce and driving a hybrid. The incumbent political regime remains in power
and the same corporations provide new "green" goods; the underlying consumerist ideology is
unquestioned. This brand of environmentalism only emboldens ecofascists who rightly claim
that shopping green can never stop the ecological crisis. And yet, ecofascists are wrong
to suggest that the suspension of democracy is the only alternative.
Humanity can avert climate catastrophe without accepting ecological
tyranny. However, this will take an immediate, drastic reduction of our consumption.
This requires the trust that the majority of people would voluntarily reduce their standard
of living once the forces that induce consumerism are overcome. The future of
environmentalism is in liberating humanity from the compulsion to consume. Rampant,
earth-destroying consumption is the norm in the west largely because our imaginations are
pillaged by any corporation with an advertising budget. From birth, we are assaulted by
thousands of commercial messages each day whose single mantra is "buy". Silencing this
refrain is the revolutionary alternative to ecological fascism. It is a revolution which is already
budding and is marked by three synergetic campaigns: the criminalisation of advertising, the
revocation of corporate power and the downshifting of the global economy. In São Paulo, the
seventh largest city in the world, outdoor advertising has been banned. Meanwhile, artists in
New York City and Toronto are launching blitzkrieg attacks on billboards, replacing commercials
with art. Their efforts have put one visual polluter out of business. Grassroots organisers in
the US are pushing for an amendment to the constitution that will end corporate
personhood while others are fighting to revive the possibility of death penalties for
corporations. The second international conference on degrowth economics met recently in
Barcelona. In Ithaca, New York a local, time-based currency is thriving. Buy Nothing Day
campaign is celebrated in dozens of nations and now Adbusters is upping the ante with a call
for seven days of carnivalesque rebellion against consumerism this November. And, most
important of all, across the world everyday people are silently, unceremoniously and
intentionally spending less and living more. Authoritarian environmentalists fail to imagine a
world without advertising, so they dream of putting democracy "on hold". In Linkola's
dystopian vision, the resources of the state are mobilised to clamp down on individual liberty.
But there is no need to suspend democracy if it is returned to the people.
Democratic, anti-fascist environmentalism means marshalling the strength
of humanity to suppress corporations. Only by silencing the consumerist
forces will both climate catastrophe and ecological tyranny be averted.
Yes, western consumption will be substantially reduced. But it will be
done voluntarily and joyously.
Democracy solves better than Authoritarianism
*Eco-Authoritarian problems are resolved by expanding democracy, not
abolishing of it
Humphrey 7 (Mathew Humphrey is a professor at the University of Nottingham. Ecological
Politics And Democratic Theory: the Challenge to the Deliberative Ideal. London: Routledge,
2007. Page 11)
Knowledge of eco-authoritarian literature is essential for understanding what came in its wake,
which was, to a large degree, a reaction to the anti-democratic despair that the survivalists
expressed. I want to emphasise in this chapter elements of this literature which give it
continuing relevance today. One such element is the specific analysis of democracy that
underpinned the politics of eco-authoritarianism. Whilst the authoritarian solutions suggested
in this literature are widely criticised, the conception of democracy that underpinned the
(often reluctant) advocacy of non-democratic politics is less frequently considered. As
we shall see, there was a strong Schumpeterian strain to the eco-authoritarians' understanding
of democracy. In particular, the view that ordinary citizens are politically incompetent,
especially at times of crisis, was deeply held. In this regard I want to draw an important
distinction between the eco-authoritarian analysis of the relationship between ecological
problems and democracy on the one hand, and their prescriptive political solutions on the other.
I will argue that in many respects the analysis of the problems of collective action
involved in environmental politics is accurate and well-judged,1 but that the conclusions
that were drawn from it were certainly not the only logically compelling ones. In fact they were
conclusions that were more likely to compound the problems than resolve them. The
questions that the survivalists raise are difficult and profound, but it will be the ultimate
argument of this book that these problems show the need for more, and more radical
forms, of democracy rather than less of it .
Democracies are key to solving climate change- environmentalists
movements lead to legislation
Carbonell and Allison 15 (Joel Carbonell and Juliann Allison both have PhD’s from the
University of California Los Angeles. "Democracy And State Environmental Commitment To International
Environmental Treaties." International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law & Economics 15.2
(2015): 79-104. GreenFILE. Web. 26 June 2015.
In light of the democratic institutional argument, Midlarsky (1998) identifies five democratic
influences on environmental policy-making (Midlarsky 1998, 344): 1. ‘‘In contrast to
authoritarian states, democracies respect individual rights. Thus, environmentalists are
able to freely market their ideas and transform them into environmental legislation. 2.
Democratic governments are inherently more responsive to their citizenry. 3. Freely
flowing information in democracies allows for a form of political learning. 4. Democratic
states tend to cooperate with each other within international environmental agencies. 5.
Because all democracies also have free-market economies, businesses in the marketplace
can be subject both to environmental incentives and sanctions,’’ (Midlarsky 1998, 344).
These five environmental characteristics of democracy parallel the current liberal institutional
measures of democracy identified by Freedom House, such as freedom of speech, competitive
elections, protections of human rights, freedoms of media and assembly (see Methodology
section for operational definition of democracy through Freedom House Methodology on Civil
Liberties and Political Rights measures, Freedom House 2000).
Liberalism cannot exist without democracy
Plattner '98 (Marc F. Marc F. Plattner is founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy, vice-president for
research and studies at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and co-chair of the Research Council of the
International Forum for Democratic Studies. NED's director of program from 1984 to 1989. During the 2002–2003
academic year, he was a visiting professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European
University Institute in Florence, Italy. Fellow at the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, North
Carolina; advisor on Economic and Social Affairs at the United States Mission to the United Nations ; program officer
at the Century Foundation; and managing editor of the Public Interest, a quarterly journal on public policy. Graduated
Suma Cum Laude at Yale University and received his Ph.D. in government from Cornell University, where his
principal area of study was political philosophy. He is the author of Democracy Without Borders? Global Challenges
to Liberal Democracy (2008) and Rousseau's State of Nature (1979), a study of the political thought of Jean Jacques
Rousseau. His articles on a wide range of international and public policy issues have appeared in numerous books
and journals. Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World (2014); Will China Democratize? (2013, also
with Andrew J. Nathan); Democracy in East Asia: A New Century (2013, also with Yun-Han Chu); Liberation
Technology; and Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy (2012, also with Francis
Fukuyama).https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1998-03-01/liberalism-and-democracy-cant-have-one-withoutother // 6-26-15// MC)
Today the two strands of liberal democracy, interwoven in the Western political fabric,
are coming apart in the rest of the world. Democracy is flourishing; constitutional
liberalism is not." Drawing upon this distinction, Zakaria recommends that Western
policymakers not only increase their efforts to foster constitutional liberalism but
diminish their support for elections, and suggests that "liberal autocracies" are
preferable to illiberal democracies. DECONSTRUCTING DEMOCRACY The basic distinction
made by all these authors is both valid and important. Liberal democracy-which is what most
people mean today when they speak of democracy-is indeed an interweaving of two
different elements, one democratic in a stricter sense and the other liberal. As its
etymological derivation suggests, the most basic meaning of the word "democracy" is the rule of
the people. As the rule of the many, it is distinguished from monarchy (the rule of one person),
aristocracy (the rule of the best), and oligarchy (the rule of the few). In the modern world, where
the sheer size of states has rendered impossible the direct democracy once practiced by some
ancient republics, the election of legislative representatives and other public officials is the chief
mechanism by which the people exercise their rule. Today it is further presumed that
democracy implies virtually universal adult suffrage and eligibility to run for office.
Elections, then, are regarded as embodying the popular or majoritarian aspect of
contemporary liberal democracy. The word "liberal" in the phrase liberal democracy
refers not to the matter of who rules but to the matter of how that rule is exercised.
Above all, it implies that government is limited in its powers and its modes of acting. It is
limited first by the rule of law, and especially by a fundamental law or constitution, but
ultimately it is limited by the rights of the individual. The idea of natural or inalienable
rights, which today are most commonly called "human rights," originated with liberalism.
The primacy of individual rights means that the protection of the private sphere, along
with the plurality and diversity of ends that people seek in their pursuit of happiness, is a
key element of a liberal political order. The fact that democracy and liberalism are not
inseparably linked is proven by the historical existence both of nonliberal democracies and of
liberal nondemocracies. The democracies of the ancient world, although their citizens were
incomparably more involved in governing themselves than we are today, did not provide
freedom of speech or religion, protection of private property, or constitutional government.
AT: Democracy = enviro destrucion
History shows democracies solve environmental problems and cooperate
with environmental treaties better than authoritarian regimes
Wilks-Heeg 14 (Stuart Wilks-Heeg has a PhD and works at the University of Liverpool. "The politics
of sustainability: Democracy and the Limits of Policy Action." H. Atkinson and R. Wade (eds) (2014) The
Challenge of Sustainability: Linking Politics, Learning and Education, Bristol: Policy Press.
www.academia.edu/6264139/The_Politics_of_Sustainability_Democracy_and_the_Limits_of_Policy_Acti
on_2014_) *Neumayer has a PhD from the University of London
Political theory is one thing. But do democracies ever live up to the ideal type put forward by
Payne? Evidence on the benefits of democracy for environmental outcomes is mixed
(Winslow, 2005; Li and Reuveny, 2006; Ward, 2008), but certainly strong enough to confirm
that democracies generally outperform non-democracies in environmental protection. An
array of quantitative studies have identified that democracy has a positive effect with respect to
a range of environmental policy commitments and outcomes. Neumayer (2002, p 155) finds
that democracy is positively associated with making environmental data available and with
ensuring a higher percentage of land is subject to special environmental protection. Both
Torras and Boyce (1998) and Barrett and Graddy (2000) find that higher levels of political
and civil rights lead to lower levels of air and water pollution. Harbaugh et al. (2002) and
Gleditsch and Svedrup (2002) produce similar findings with regard to the positive effect of
democracy on, respectively, sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide emissions. Li and Reuveny
(2006) reaffirm these findings with respect to sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide, as well as
finding that democracy is associated with lower levels of organic water pollution,
deforestation and land degradation. There is also evidence to suggest that democracies
play a more constructive role in attempts to forge international cooperation to tackle crossborder environmental problems. Gleditsch and Sverdrup (2002) find a positive correlation
between democracy and the ratification of environmental treaties. Similarly, Neumayer
(2002) finds that, among both developed and less developed countries, there is strong evidence
that democracies are more likely to sign and ratify environmental agreements, take part in
multilateral environmental organisations. With regard to international cooperation generally,
it has also been demonstrated that democracies rarely, if ever, go to war with one
another (Dorussen and Ward, 2008: Inglehart and Welzel, 2009).
And international environmental treaties effectively change state behavior
Carbonell and Allison 15 (Joel Carbonell and Juliann Allison both have PhD’s from the
University of California Los Angeles. "Democracy And State Environmental Commitment To International
Environmental Treaties." International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law & Economics 15.2
(2015): 79-104. GreenFILE. Web. 26 June 2015.
First, the traditional international institutional argument that formal international organizations
affect state environmental commitment and compliance is supported in the two-stage
simultaneous equation model. The empirical results indicate that countries that are
members of international environmental organizations are more likely to comply with
international environmental treaties and agreements. These international environmental
organizations matter in shaping state behavior toward international environmental
protection; here, international environmental institutions may be able to compel and
constrain states through resource distribution, technology transfer, rules enforcement,
information sharing, and reduction in pollution control costs to facilitate state
commitment and compliance behaviors
Authoritarianism fails
Power Abuse
*Soviet Union proves authoritarianism fails- corruption and resentful public
mean environmental goals cannot be met
Humphrey 7 (Mathew Humphrey is a professor at the University of Nottingham. Ecological
Politics And Democratic Theory: the Challenge to the Deliberative Ideal. London: Routledge,
2007. Page 140)
For all that the problems with which eco-authoritarians struggled were and remain real, the faith
they placed in an authoritarian state to resolve these problems was surely misguided.
Whilst the inferior ecological record of non- democratic states in itself proves nothing (how many
of these states actually prioritised environmental goals?), the ability of a state to impose its
'green will' on an unwilling and resentful public who see their taken-for-granted freedoms
being curtailed is questionable, in the absence of a monstrous architecture of green
totalitarianism. Authoritarian states have often not been good at achieving those policy
goals that they have prioritised, as the forlorn ambition of the Soviet Union to outstrip the
productive capacity of the capitalist West testifies. There is no obvious reason to expect an
authoritarian green state to be better than the Soviet Union at overcoming the internal
divisions, inefficiencies, corruption, and perverse incentives that plague such states.
Threshold for power abuse in eco-authoritarian societies high
Shahar ‘15, (Dan Coby, PhD student in the University of Arizona’s Department of Philosophy
and a fellow at the Arizona Center for the Philosophy of Freedom.
www.erica.demon.co.uk/EV/papers/Shahar.pdf // 6-25-15//))
Traditionally, critics of authoritarianism have worried that unrestrained power granted to
government officials could fall into the wrong hands, resulting in a serious potential for
tyrannical despotism.53 Despotism is obviously problematic due to the harms it typically
generates for citizens living under its rule, but in the current context we may also worry
that a despotic regime would end up neglecting to prioritize environmental protection,
thereby failing to ameliorate the crisis that would have motivated the shift toward
authoritarianism in the first place. In order to avoid this problem, Eco-Authoritarians would
need to provide reason to think that following their prescriptions would mean putting our
collective futures not into the hands of injurious despots but rather into those of
administrators who possess both the capacity to address an impending environmental
crisis effectively and the motivation 53 Locke 1764 [1689]: Bk. II, ch. 19; Hume, 1987 [1741];
Madison, 2001 [1788]. to do so. This challenge has two interrelated aspects: first, it must be
shown that a capable and benevolent “eco-elite” could be generated in the first place to
rule over our society; and second, it must be shown that a system of rule by “eco-elites” could
be effectively perpetuated over a long period of time. To my knowledge, the only contemporary
Eco-Authoritarians who have taken up this challenge are also the most extreme
proponents of the view: David Shearman and Joseph Wayne Smith. In The Climate Change
Challenge and the Failure of Democracy, Shearman and Smith contend that successful EcoAuthoritarianism would require leaders of a caliber far higher than we find in contemporary
society, and that producing such leaders would require a radically different system of education.
This new system would be built around superior “real universities” that would
purportedly “train holistic thinkers in all of the arts and sciences necessary for tough
decision making that the environmental crisis confronts us with.”54 The products would
be “true public intellectuals with knowledge well grounded in ecology,”55 who would be
charged with preserving “remnants of our civilization when the great collapse comes” as
“the new priesthood of the new dark age.”56 Perhaps unsurprisingly, the authors give only
sketchy details on exactly how “real universities” would achieve these felicitous results. Their
main proposals in The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy seem limited to
focusing scholarly research on problems that are important to human well-being,57 expanding
the role of informationsharing among the intellectual community,58 and accelerating the
development of programs in environmental studies.59 Although many of these proposals seem
reasonable and even attractive, they hardly seem like the sorts of revolutionary changes that
would equip 54 Shearman and Smith, 2007: 133. 55 Ibid.: 133-134. 56 Ibid.: 152. 57 Ibid.: 143147. 58 Ibid.: 147-149. 59 Ibid.: 151. This theme is developed further in Smith et al., 2007: 152170. graduating students with the capacities and motivations needed to effectively rule over
complex modern societies. Even if a capable and benevolent eco-elite could be produced, a
further hurdle for Eco-Authoritarianism would involve demonstrating that the quality of
elite rule could be maintained over time. Shearman and Smith do not take up this aspect
of the issue in a substantive way, and to my knowledge neither does any other
contemporary EcoAuthoritarian. But the challenge of sustaining a capable and
benevolent ruling class over time is a notoriously difficult one for an authoritarian regime
to overcome. As the eco-anarchist philosopher Alan Carter has quite reasonably worried:
Even if a particular leader does turn out to be genuinely benevolent, even if he or she is
not corrupted by the exercise of power or the need to retain power, how can it be
guaranteed that those who inherit his or her position will be equally benevolent?
Hierarchical structures, by their very nature, make it easy for the most competitive, most
ruthless and least caring to attain power. Moreover, the centralized exercise of authoritarian
rule is an ever-attractive goal for would-be usurpers, whose vision is usually less pure
than those whom they usurp, as the history of many coups attests to.60 At the very least,
it seems that Eco-Authoritarians owe us some account of how their proposed regimes
could predictably avoid corruption over time.
Authoritarianism fails – environmental leaders will never give up their
power
Woods, PhD 10 [lecturer of political theory at Leeds]
(Kerri, January, Human Rights and Environmental Sustainability, Edward Elgar publishing, p
129-130)
Nevertheless, it is worth considering the argument that either environmental sustainability or
human rights should be prioritized, looking firstly at the idea that the former should be prioritized
over the latter. What this might mean in practice is that democratic rights to elect
representatives who would have a say in deciding environmental policies might be waived, or
the right to protest against unwanted policies might be denied both in terms of freedom of
speech and of association, or perhaps it would become acceptable for governments to detain
without charge or trial individuals thought likely to impede environmental sustainability in some
way. Would this deliver environmental sustainability? Perhaps, if governments were led by
environmental philosopher-kings, but I suspect that few environmental activists would feel
confident in surrendering the means of holding governments to account on environmental
policy.
Authoritarianism only works on the small scale- large states have too many
levels of administration and prioritize the economy
Ortmann 9 (Dr. Stephan Ortmann has a PhD in Political Science. "Environmental Governance under
Authoritarian Rule: Singapore and China" September 25 2009. Vergleichende Kidtatur- Und
Extremismusforschung. p. 19
www.academia.edu/1000215/Environmental_Governance_under_Authoritarian_Rule_Singapore_and_Ch
ina)
In summary, while an authoritarian model of environmental protection can work in a small
place with a committed leadership, it is very unlikely that such a model would work in much
greater states with multiple levels of administration. Generally speaking, liberal
democracy, despite its problems, has a much better chance of conducting sound
environmental governance. That is due to the fact that even a technocratic regime such
as Singapore is primarily motivated by economic concerns and not the environment. It is
therefore unlikely that environmental concerns will trump in authoritarian regimes when they are
in opposition to economic goals.
Authoritarianism False
Popular pressure gets tanked by eco-authoritarian reliance on false claims
Lewis '14 (Martin W., October 9th, 2014 Martin W. Lewis has taught college-level geography for
20 years, and is currently a senior lecturer at Stanford University. Source:
http://www.geocurrents.info/about/martin-lewis#ixzz3eO80OzAT www.geocurrents.info/physicalgeography/eco-authoritarian-catastrophism-dismal-deluded-vision-naomi-oreskes-erik-mconway // 6-28-15 // MC)
As with so many other hot-button debates, the climate change controversy leaves me repelled
by the clamoring extremists on both sides. Global-warming denialists, as some are aptly
called, regard the scientific establishment with such contempt that they abandon the
realm of reason. In comment after comment posted on on-line articles and blogs, self-styled
skeptics insist that carbon dioxide is such a scant component of the atmosphere that it could not
possibly play any climatic role, while castigating mainstream climatologists as malevolent
conspirators dedicated to destroying civilization. Yet on the equally aptly named alarmist side
of the divide, reasonable concerns often yield to dismal fantasies of the type so elegantly
described by Pascal Bruckner in The Fanaticism of the Apocalypse, upheld by
exaggeration to the point of absurdity. More alarmingly, climate activism seems to be
veering in an unabashedly authoritarian direction. In such a heated atmosphere,
evenhanded positions are at the risk of being flooded out by a rising sea of mutual invective and
misinformation. This essay addresses only one side of this spectrum, that of the doomsayers
who think we must forsake democracy and throttle our freedoms if we are to avoid a
planetary catastrophe. Although it may seem paradoxical, my focus on the green extreme
stems precisely from my conviction that anthropogenic climate change is a huge
problem that demands determined action. Yet a sizable contingent of eco-radicals, I am
convinced, consistently discredit this cause. By insisting that devastating climate
change is only a few years away, they will probably undermine the movement’s public
support, given the vastly more likely chance that warming will be gradual and
punctuated. By engaging in mendacious reporting and misleading argumentation, they provide
ample ammunition for their conspiracy-minded opponents. And by championing illiberal politics,
they betray the public good that they ostensibly champion. It is a sad day indeed when an icon
of liberalism such as Robert Kennedy Jr. can plausibly be deemed an “aspiring tyrant” for
wanting to punish global-warming deniers.
Transition Impossible
the neg’s dichotomy of democracy and totalitarianism is utopian and
totalizing –fails
Bluhdorn, Phd, 12 [Reader in Politics/Political Sociology at the University of Bath]
(Ingolfur, December 13, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Sustainability "Opening the discursive arena struggling for an innovative debate" www.fes-sustainability.org/en/nachhaltigkeit-unddemokratie/democracy-and-sustainability)
Common questions which, in addition to the ones cited at the beginning of this essay, figure
prominently in the current debate include: How does the eco-political performance of democratic
systems compare to that of authoritarian systems? Will our democratic systems collapse under
the pressure of the environmental crisis? May the achievement of sustainability necessitate a
change of political regime? Like those cited earlier, these questions make a range of implicit
assumptions which are themselves not subjected to any critical enquiry. They pre-structure
the debate in ways that, from the outset, preclude certain lines of investigation. For example,
such questions, in a simplifying and generalising manner, juxtapose democratic and
authoritarian systems. However, given that both democratic and autocratic systems come in a
large variety of shapes and that, furthermore, contemporary democracies are, as outlined
above, rapidly acquiring expertocratic-authoritarian features, while authoritarian systems like
China are experimenting with strategies of decentralisation and local empowerment, such a
simplistic binary distinction is manifestly unhelpful – if not outright ideological. It ignores
factual political developments and instead focuses public attention on a hypothetical
alternative . In fact, if there is any truth in the diagnosis of a post-political condition,
democratic and autocratic modes of government might find themselves located on the same
side of the new cleavage between the political formulation and implementation of competing
visions of societal organisation and development and the purely managerial execution of
systemic imperatives which are non-negotiable, self-legitimizing and allow for no alternative. In
any case, the alleged choice between democratic and authoritarian policy approaches does
not occur in practical day-to-day politics . And given that in eco-political matters
democratic and autocratic forms of government both have a frighteningly poor performance
record, ecologists may feel they are being offered the choice between a rock and a hard place.
These observations also raise doubts about the ever renewed academic efforts to compare the
eco-political performance of democratic systems to that of autocracies. Prima facie, these
efforts are triggered by demands for eco-authoritarian policy approaches which some
environmentalists had already articulated in the 1970s and which have regularly been reiterated
ever since. Studies undertaking such comparisons commonly specify a number of performance
indicators (e.g. resource preservation, land use, biodiversity protection, renewable energy),
undertake an elaborate comparative analysis and then, more or less predictably, come to the
conclusion that claims about the eco-political effectiveness of authoritarian policy approaches
are unfounded and that democratic systems, whilst displaying undeniable weaknesses, are
performing better than non-democratic systems. However, such studies not only run into
problems regarding the factual hybridisation of democracy and its assumed counterpart, but
their eco-political confirmation of the Churchill Hypothesis may, as indicated above, also not be
particularly helpful, if the sustainability crisis is really becoming as alarmingly acute as many
have suggested. Moreover, such comparisons are problematic in that they cannot easily
account for the massive externalisation of ecological as well as social costs (e.g. relocation of
energy- and resource-intensive industries) which in the era of global interconnectedness is
endemic – and which is an integral part of western (democratic) strategies of ecological
modernisation. Thus one may wonder what exactly such comparisons between democratic and
non-democracy systems actually achieve. More than anything they may serve to provide
reassurance that western capitalist democratic post-industrial societies are, at least in principle,
on the right track, and just need to fine-tune their democratic institutions and policy instruments
so as to fully realise the untapped sustainability-potentials of the established order.
Turn- Authoritarianism hurts enviro
Transition to authoritarianism bad
*Authoritarianism and the power grab causes ACCELERATION of
environmental crises
Carter, 13, professor of philosophy
(Alan, A Radical Green Political Theory pg 5-6 Routledge publishing,
https://books.google.com/books?id=1DxdAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=ophuls+environ
ment+authoritarianism&source=bl&ots=r7M8u_gAt8&sig=-U8c8U6ONL2oLY-yAzTKeAMqgc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jq1LVaWpBYq_sAWju4HgBw&ved=0CCgQ6AEwBA#v=onepage
&q=%22given%20the%20justified%22&f=false)
If we are to stand up to such a serious environmental threat as many insist we currently face, and if we need to respond to it quickly,
isn’t some highly authoritarian, centralized state that can enforce strict environmental policies the obvious solution? At its most
attractive, eco-authoritarianism presents itself as a form of benevolent dictatorship - an environmentally benevolent dictatorship, as it
were. Unfortunately, as
obvious a solution as eco-authoritarianism appears to be, its flaws seem
equally obvious . As with any benevolent dictatorship, how can it be guaranteed that it will
remain benevolent? It is difficult to see how whatever structures empower an authoritarian,
centralized leadership to exercise power effectively will, at the same time, inhibit exercises of that
power which take a non- benevolent form; unless it is the people themselves who constrain such a leadership. But
then, why is a leader necessary in the first place? If a leader is necessary, it must it because he or she has real power, and now can
its exercise of guaranteed to remain benevolent?
Even if a particular leader does turn out to be genuinely
benevolent, even if he or she is not corrupted by the exercise of power or the need to retain it.
How can it be guaranteed that those who inherit his or her position will be equally benevolent?
Hierarchical structures, by their very nature, seem to make it easy for the most competitive,
most ruthless and least caring to attain power. Moreover, the centralized exercise of
authoritarian rule is an ever- attractive goal for would be usurpers , whose vision is usually less pure
than that of those whom they usurp, as the history of many coups can be argued to attest to. In short, all of the arguments
tint hive been rehearsed against ostensibly benevolent dictatorships appear equally pertinent to
environmentally benevolent ones. If an autocrat wished to use his or her power to protect the
environment, the structures which enabled that power to be exercised could, presumably, just
as easily be used by his or her successors to degrade the planet further , or even at an
accelerated rate, for their short-term or localized enjoyment. In fact, there is a powerful argument that can be
deployed which seems to establish that any authoritarian response to the mounting environmental crises
will accelerate them rather than provide a solution. But because of the theoretical assumptions underpinning that
argument, it will have to wait until Chapter 6 before being presented, and until Chapter 7 before being deployed against ecoauthoritarianism. Suffice it to say that we already have some reason to think that an effective long term response
the ecological threat which environmentalists claim to have identified would require an
alternative political theory to that propounded by eco authoritarians 2.2
to
AT: Rights=Enviro destruction
Human rights are key to combatting climate change
Cameron and Limon 12 (Edward Cameron and Marc Limon. "Restoring The Climate By
Realizing Rights: The Role Of The International Human Rights System." Review Of European Community
& International Environmental Law 21.3 (2012): 204-219. Academic Search Complete. Weeb. 28 June
2015.)
As a result, for many years, this approach represented a high-risk and often unwelcome
strategy. However, five years on from the Male’ Declaration, the tables have turned. Professor
Daniel Magraw, former President of the Center for International Law and one of the earliest
proponents of the link between human rights and climate change, has said that when this nexus
was first mooted ‘people laughed at the very thought; but no one is laughing now’.16 Today
human rights are seen as a legitimate and powerful element of a wider climate change
regime complex, stretching across a wide range of multilateral processes.17 Rather than
being shunned, the succession of Human Rights Council resolutions, the explosion of
academic and civil society output on this issue, and the increasing call to human rights
norms within the UNFCCC suggest that human rights is increasingly viewed as a
potentially transformational part of tackling the climate challenge.18 The climate justice
narrative has become a powerful advocacy tool for civil society organizations and
vulnerable countries, which is helping to evolve our analysis of socioecological thresholds and is
enhancing political processes both internationally and domestically to better account for the
experience of vulnerable populations.
Authoritarianism worse- violence
Structural Violence
*Authoritarianism’s racial and patriarchal structure promotes structural
violence in the form of gendered violence and racial profiling- Hungary
proves
McRobie '14 (novelist, journalist, co-editor of openDemocracy 50.50, and editor of the Oxford
Human Rights Hub. She is completing a PhD on the 2011 Egyptian revolution at Oxford
University and holds an MA focusing on Balkan studies from the University of Sarajevo. Her
latest book Literary Freedom: a Cultural Right to Literature was published in December 2013
https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/heather-mcrobie/it-takes-broken-bones-authoritarianismand-violence-against-women-in-hungary // 6-26-15 // MC)
Authoritarianism is never good news for women – as citizens or as the structurally more
marginalised gender – and Hungary’s continued shift away from democracy and
upholding human rights under the right-wing Fidesz government is mirrored by its
regressive backsliding on gender equality. Last week, Hungarian feminist groups spoke out
to condemn a public service announcement made by a Hungarian police department that
blamed women for ‘inviting’ sexual violence. In a shockingly misguided attempt to mark the
International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the video showed
young women drinking, dancing and flirting before cutting to what looked like the
aftermath of a sexual assault. The video ended with the warning “it’s your
responsibility”, implying that women invite sexual violence through ‘irresponsibility’.
Compounding the erroneous messages the Hungarian public are given on violence
against women, another Hungarian police department issued a statement last week on
‘rape prevention’ that claimed "flirting by young women can often elicit violence." This
isn’t the first time in recent years that Hungarian officials and government departments have
communicated victim-blaming messages on the subject of violence against women, erroneously
shifting the blame away from the responsibility of the perpetrator. In 2012, MP Istvan Varga,
from the ruling Fidesz party claimed that domestic violence could be solved if women fulfilled
their natural role and gave birth to several children. (The “logic” being that if women fulfilled their
societal duty and reproduced, their partners would respect them more and therefore stop
beating them). The popular protests and campaigns by Hungarian feminist groups in the
face of this statement were part of what pushed the parliament to agree to legally
demarcate domestic violence as a specific offence in the new criminal code. Previously,
abusers could only be prosecuted for individual acts of assault and there was no legal
recognition of the wider violence and oppression of abusive relationships. However, an
extensive Human Rights Watch report in November 2013, ‘Unless Blood Flows’, documented
both the gaps in the new legal provisions for domestic violence, and the inadequate
implementation of existing laws and lack of funding and provisions for violence against women.
It pointed both to the lack of political will to address violence against women, and to
entrenched patriarchal norms as barriers to combatting violence against women and
achieving gender equality in both the private and public spheres. Hungarian women’s
rights organisations pointed out that, although the rates of domestic violence and
violence against women are in keeping with the (lamentable) European average, Hungary
lagged behind other European countries in terms of both legal and societal recognition
of this abuse: “it takes broken bones” for a case of domestic violence to be brought to court,
both preventing catching domestic violence at an earlier stage (in light of the fact that domestic
abuse often operates on an escalating dynamic) and sending a message that it is not taken
seriously by legal and governmental institutions. Screenshot of 2014 'anti-rape' video made by
Hungarian police. The Fidesz party spent the last four years gutting independent media and
social provisions, and won a second term by a landslide in the elections of April this year, in
which the far-right, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic Jobbik party also won 20% of the votes.
Fidesz has brought with it a plethora of bizarre and reactionary policies and statements from
government officials, most recently the widely-protested proposed Internet tax. And the rightwing discourse dominating politics weaves into it a regressive construction of gender
relations, in which Fidesz and other right-wing political voices trade on the concept of
“family values” in which women are reduced solely to their supposedly ‘natural’ role as
mothers and submissive wives. Such a conception of gender relations constructed by
right-wing authoritarianism and exclusivist nationalism – in which women are seen as
mere vessels for childbearing and subordinate units within the all-important traditional
“family – delegates women to the ‘private sphere’ whilst giving men dominance within
both the public and the private spheres. In such a conception, domestic violence
becomes a matter both of “no-one else’s business” and “she was probably asking for it.”
One instance of violence against women did, however, become a public issue – when
last November Fidesz politician Jozsef Balogh admitted to beating his wife, yet refused
to resign from public office. Hungary’s chief prosecutor found that Mr Balogh’s wife had been
struck in the face with “more than medium force”, dragged by her hair, and suffered facial
fractures after being assaulted by her husband when the couple returned home from a wedding
party. Although Mr Balogh was expelled from the Fidesz party in the wake of public outcry over
his violence, his behaviour seemed not far removed from the official message
communicated by the government: the patriarchal family with its dominating male ‘head’
is all-important, and domestic violence is a private matter which concerns neither society
nor government. The continued lack of government funding for domestic violence shelters –
and the victim-blaming “public service announcements” – communicate the same message, that
violence against women is both a trivial and a private matter for which the abused can be
blamed. Hungary’s right-ward shift and slide away from liberal democracy is bad news for
women, not because liberal democracy “guarantees” the decline of violence against women (the
cases of several Scandinavian countries show that even high levels of “gender equity” in public
life, and gender-sensitive welfare provisions, can coexist with high levels of domestic violence
and violence against women in the private sphere) but because, under the current prevailing
ideology in Hungary women are sidelined as all structurally marginalised groups are sidelined –
if not targetted. Over the same period as the rise of Fidesz and the far-right Jobbik party,
Hungary has slipped down the World Economic Forum’s ranking on gender-equity, from
55th place in 2006 to 93 in 2014 (although the number of ranked countries expanded from 115
to 142 in the same period). The alarming rise (or resurgence) of anti-Semitism and antiRoma sentiment shows the corrosive right-wing discourse eating at Hungary’s society as
anyone who occupies the marginal position – as an ethnic minority, or immigrant, or on
the grounds of their gender or sexual orientation – is sidelined, demonised and targetted,
as if in a Nietzschean reading of social order enacting a sociopathic mindset in which the
structurally weaker are punished for “being weak”. The public service announcement telling
women “it is your responsibility” to prevent sexual assault by 'not flirting and drinking' is in
keeping with the regressive worldview of rightwing discourse swirling in Hungarian political life,
with its fetishisation of the patriarchal family and its increasing persecution of minorities and the
structurally disadvantaged. In such a climate, violence against women is both a “private” issue
of the exalted family-unit and a “natural” situation in which the dominant enacts its will on the
disadvantaged. And so the structural and social violence the Hungarian state is waging upon its
marginalised is enacted again, as if in aftershock, over and over upon the bodies of women.
Authoritarian governmental practices promote violence against vestiges of
its social contract – including minorities, women, and people in poverty
Giroux '15 (Henry A., Global TV Network Chair Professor at McMaster University in the
English and Cultural Studies Department and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Ryerson
University www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/30/terrorism-violence-and-the-culture-of-madness/ //
6-26-15 // MC)
George Orwell’s nightmarish vision of a totalitarian society casts a dark shadow over the
United States. The consequences can be seen clearly in the ongoing and ruthless assault
on the social state, workers, unions, higher education, students, poor minorities and any
vestige of the social contract. Free market policies, values, and practices with their emphasis
on the privatization of public wealth, the elimination of social protections, and the deregulation
of economic activity now shape practically every commanding political and economic
institution in the United States. Public spheres that once offered at least the glimmer of
progressive ideas, enlightened social policies, non-commodified values, and critical
dialogue and exchange have been increasingly militarized—or replaced by private
spaces and corporate settings whose ultimate fidelity is to increasing profit margins.
Citizenship is now subsumed by the national security state and a cult of secrecy, organized
and reinforced by the constant mobilization of fear and insecurity designed to produce a
form of ethical tranquilization and a paralyzing level of social infantilism. Chris Hedges
crystalizes this premise in arguing that Americans now live in a society in which “violence is the
habitual response by the state to every dilemma,” legitimizing war as a permanent
feature of society and violence as the organizing principle of politics.[1] Under such
circumstances, malevolent modes of rationality now impose the values of a militarized
neoliberal regime on everyone, shattering viable modes of agency, solidarity, and hope.
Amid the bleakness and despair, the discourses of militarism, danger and war now fuel a war on
terrorism “that represents the negation of politics—since all interaction is reduced to a test of
military strength war brings death and destruction, not only to the adversary but also to one’s
side, and without distinguishing between guilty and innocent.”[2]
Authoritarian ecological practices make the government vulnerable to
racist, right-wing policies – empirics
Zimmerman '14 (Michael E., June 3, 2014 Michael E. Zimmerman is Professor of Philosophy
and Director of the Center for Humanities and the Arts at CU, Boulder.
www.colorado.edu/philosophy/paper_zimmerman_ecofascism.pdf // 6-28-15 // MC)
Some environmentalists regard the takings issue as spurious, whereas others agree that
it has some merit. Almost all environmentalists, however, claim that the charge of
ecofascism is the ludicrous creation of anti-environmental corporations and extractive
industries. Even though this evaluation may be accurate, I argue that the threat of ecofascism
cannot be dismissed out of hand. True, ecofascism is unlikely to occur in the United States
any time soon, but environmentalists need to be aware that ecofascism was a
component of German National Socialism, and that even today neo-fascists and
members of far right-wing groups in Europe and the United States put to dark uses
concepts drawn from the environmental movement. Twenty years ago, far right-wing
groups in Germany were already linking their anti-immigrationist platform to the
mainstream concern about the environmental impacts of human population growth and
population density. These days, even mainstream German politicians link immigration to
environmental concerns, only now in the context of the renewal of anti-Semitism.2 Far
right-wing groups in the United States have begun to tie public concern about urban
sprawl and environmental pollution to immigrants from countries that 2 allegedly fail to
respect the natural environment. In the current global situation, environmentalists should
continue to promote their agenda, but should also be prepared to dissociate themselves from
those who might exploit aspects of it for their own ends. Before beginning my discussion of
ecofascism, let me make some comments about how I depict positions on the political
spectrum. I distinguish between right-wing and far right-wing. Ron Arnold’s political views are
right-wing, insofar as he strongly endorses limited government and affirms the primacy of
individual liberty. His views on these point are consistent with neo-classical liberalism, which is
often described as “conservatism” these days, and which is to be distinguished from the
“welfare” liberalism that most people now identity as liberalism. The latter favors some state
intervention to level the playing field and to provide a safety net for people with economic and
social problems. Most Americans, including welfare liberals, have strong commitments to
some variety of individualism, and most Americans also support a significant role for
government in many domains of life. Despite what right-wing commentators like Arnold
may say, there is not a strong left-wing presence in American politics, if left-wing is
understood to mean socialist or communist. Far right-wingers demand that the state take
very strong measures to save “the people” from alleged danger. Upon taking power, far
right-wingers would “temporarily” suspend constitutional freedoms in order to have a
free hand to destroy “the enemy within.” Limited individual “freedom” may eventually be
restored, but only to those who are sufficiently like those who are in power. Whereas
American right-wing individualists are suspicious of the state and its coercive powers,
many far right-wingers seek to use such powers to suppress or eradicate those whose
politics, economic status, race, class, religion, or national origin are regarded as
unacceptably “different.” The far right-wing becomes fascist when it describes the state itself
in semi-religious terms, for example, as the life-giving organism whose organs are constituted
by the people. The fascist state controls everything; individuals have no status apart from what
the state permits. In requiring that individuals sacrifice their own “selfish” interests for the higher
interests of the social 3 whole, fascism is similar to communism. This similarity explains why
someone like Ron Arnold describes radical environmentalists now as communists, now as
ecofascists.
Nuclear War
Authoritarian leaders lash out with nukes.
Holdorf, 10 (Polly M. Holdorf, MA in International Security and a BA in International
Studies, Limited Nuclear War in the 21st Century,
http://csis.org/files/publication/110916_Holdorf.pdf)
There are four specific objectives that nuclear-armed regional adversaries might seek to
achieve through the use of nuclear weapons. They might seek to deter the United States
from intervening in a conflict or projecting military power into the region by threatening
escalation. If the United States is not deterred by threats of escalation, the adversary
might consider using its nuclear weapons to limit or defeat U.S. military operations. The
adversary might seek to intimidate U.S. allies or friends within the region, or to split
regional political coalitions apart. Certainly the adversary would attempt to limit U.S.
objectives in the confrontation and try to dissuade the United States from seeking to
impose regime change. For authoritarian or despotic leaders, nuclear weapons may be
seen as a means of survival. These types of leaders may be preoccupied with the
survival not just of their regimes, but of their own personal survival. Regional
adversaries facing a confrontation with the United States would know beyond any doubt
that they faced an opponent with vastly superior military forces and resources.
Adversarial leaders may not be prepared to face the disastrous consequences of a military
defeat, particularly one that would result in their removal from power. Such leaders may feel
that their only hope for survival would be to attempt to stave off, or at least delay, a
defeat by employing a nuclear weapon against U.S. forces. It is also possible that an
adversary, knowing that it cannot and will not prevail, may wish to “go out with a bang”; or they
may wish to be remembered as the leader who stood up to the United States by utilizing nuclear
weapons. A number of factors exist that could serve as catalysts for future nuclear use. Latent
conflicts within a regional setting could ignite and nuclear threats may be signaled by one or
both sides in order to influence the opposing states’ actions. A nuclear state on the verge of
losing a conventional war might employ its nuclear weapons in order to avert defeat.
Small nuclear states which harbor feelings of isolation (such as North Korea) could
perceive the actions of others as threatening and therefore be intimidated into employing
nuclear weapons as a means to protect their interests. Traditional means of deterrence
may not work the same way between small states as they did with the United States and
the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Strategic discourse between two small nuclear-armed
states may be lacking, thus elevating the prospect for the collapse of deterrence at the regional
level. Small nuclear states may have flawed or incomplete intelligence regarding their relative
positions in a conflict. A misperception regarding an adversary’s intentions could compel a
country to conduct a preemptive strike on the opponent’s nuclear arsenal or
conventional military forces. There is also the possibility that a small nuclear armed state
may have a deficient command and control structure, increasing the risk of an accidental
or unauthorized nuclear launch. The use of nuclear weapons in a regional setting could
support a range of objectives including coercion, war termination, regime preservation or
even revenge. Some states could view the use of nuclear weapons as a means-of-last
resort, while others may view them as the only viable means to alter the status quo or to
remedy a deteriorating regional security situation. In some circumstances a state may
view the use of nuclear weapons as the best, or the “least bad,” option available to them.
The fear of regime change may be a compelling reason for a nuclear-armed regional adversary
to consider employing nuclear weapons during a conflict. For leaders who are concerned about
their ability to remain in power in the event of a war with a superiorly armed adversary, nuclear
weapons could be viewed as a valuable tool to have in their arsenal. “If an attack by a U.S.-led
coalition would pose a significant threat to your regime and your nation cannot afford
conventional forces capable of deterring or defeating such an attack, you may regard
nuclear weapons as the answer. “One can be certain that the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001
and Saddam Hussein in 2003 are still very fresh, particularly in the minds of the Iranian and
North Korean regimes. These regimes are also aware that they have been identified as security
threats to the United States.
AT: Warming Impact
No Impact
*squo cap solves warming – tech developments
Starck, PhD, Feb 2015, (Walter, "The Climate Scam's Meltdown" Ausmarine 37.4: 26-27.
Proquest. search.proquest.com/docview/1666284048?pq-origsite=gscholar)
Capitalism will find a way With or without any agreement or government initiatives, economics,
technological developments and demographic changes will in due course inevitably
reduce the demand for fossil fuels and replace them with other and cleaner sources
of energy. Thorium- and fusion-reactor developments are showing increasing promise of
providing effectively unlimited cheap and clean energy within a few decades. For domestic use,
solar voltaic technology is beginning to become competitive with mains electricity, with further
gains in cost effectiveness near certain in the near future. Major advances in storage technology
are also well underway and expected to become Commercially available within a few years.
Better, cheaper solar technology to power homes and vehicles is likely to drive the beginning of
mass uptake within a decade. This will be impelled by cost effectiveness, with subsidies
unnecessary. Indeed, such support risks doing more harm than good if it diverts development
and uptake from the best and most efficient technologies emerging from a complex, rapidly
changing and impossible-to-predict scientific frontier.
*There is no impact to warming- trends prove no disasters
Kreutzer 3/31
(David Kreutzer [the senior research fellow in energy economics and climate change at The
Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis], 3/31/15, "Five Myths About Extreme Weather
and Global Warming," The Daily Signal, dailysignal.com/2014/03/31/five-myths-extremeweather-global-warming/, MX)
There is broad (though not unanimous) agreement, even among skeptic scientists, that the earth has warmed moderately over the past 60 years and that some portion of that
warming can be attributed to anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. However, despite the hoopla surrounding the recent report on the economic impacts of global warming
there is no consensus that temperatures are
increasing at an accelerating rate or that we are headed to a climate catastrophe. In fact, far
from increasing at an accelerating rate, the best measures of world average temperatures
indicate that there has been no significant warming for the past 15 years—something that the IPCC’s
climate models are unable to explain. Perhaps frustrated by the climate’s unwillingness to follow the globalwarming script, the hard-core advocates for costly, energy-killing programs now point to
every weather event as the wages of carbon-emitting sins. However, the numbers tell a
different story: Upward trends for extreme weather events just aren’t there. Myth #1: Hurricanes are
becoming more frequent. Even the IPCC notes there is no trend over the past 100 years. Here’s what the IPCC says in its latest science report: Current data
sets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the
past century and it remains uncertain whether any reported long-term increases in tropical cyclone frequency are robust, after accounting for past changes in
from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),
observing capabilities.… No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the
North Atlantic basin. [Emphasis added.] Some people will make a big deal about an increase in North Atlantic hurricanes since the 1970s. As the IPCC chart below (Panel b)
shows, the 1970s had the lowest frequency of landfalling hurricanes in the past 100 years. Hurricane Sandy seems to be an argument in a class by itself. It should be noted that
Sandy became an extratropical cyclone before it made landfall. Here is what the IPCC says about historical trends in extratropical cyclones: “In summary, confidence in large
scale changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones since 1900 is low.” Also, data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) covering the
years 1851—2004 show that hurricanes made a direct hit on New York State about every 13 years on average. Over the period, there were a total of 12 hurricanes that made
landfall along the New York coastline. Five of them were major hurricanes. Myth #2: Tornadoes are becoming more common. The experts at the National Climatic Data Center
(part of NOAA) say: To better understand the variability and trend in tornado frequency in the United States, the total number of EF-1 and stronger, as well as strong to violent
tornadoes (EF-3 to EF-5 category on the Enhanced Fujita scale) can be analyzed. These tornadoes would have likely been reported even during the decades before Doppler
radar use became widespread and practices resulted in increasing tornado reports. The bar charts below indicate there has been little trend in the frequency of the stronger
tornadoes over the past 55 years. [Emphasis added.] That is, once we account for the apparent increase in tornado counts that are due to much improved technology for
identifying them, tornadoes occur no more frequently now than in the past. Even more striking is the history of F3 and stronger tornadoes (shown below), which were even less
likely to be missed before Doppler radar. That trend is actually down compared to the 1955–1975 period: Myth #3: Droughts are becoming more frequent and more severe. In
the IPCC finds little evidence to support the myth regarding droughts, and it
the current assessment concludes that
there is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a globalthe recent science report, even
backs off from its support in a previous report. Here is a quote from the AR5: In summary,
scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th century, owing to lack of direct observations,
geographical inconsistencies in the trends, and dependencies of inferred trends on the index choice. Based on updated studies, AR4 conclusions regarding global increasing
In
summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding
the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale.” For the
U.S., the story is the same. Some places will always be drier and some wetter in
trends in drought since the 1970s were probably overstated. Myth #4: Floods are becoming more frequent and severe. The IPCC’s science report states, “
comparison to an earlier period. However, for the U.S. overall, there has been no trend . The chart below of the
Palmer Hydraulic Drought Index (PHDI) shows no trend for increasing droughts (represented by bars with negative values). From 1930 to 1941, the PHDI was consistently
negative and set annual records that have not been matched.
Newest study shows that warming predictions are greatly exaggerated erroneous feedback assumptions
Woollaston 1/21
(Victoria Woollaston [Deputy Science and Technology Editor], 1/21/15, "Is climate change really
that dangerous? Predictions are 'very greatly exaggerated', claims study," Daily Mail,
www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2920311/Is-climate-change-really-dangerousPredictions-greatly-exaggerated-claims-study.html, MX)
Since 1990, scientists have used complex models to predict how climate change and manmade greenhouse
emissions will affect the world. But a team of experts - including an astrophysicist, statistician, and geography professor – has
claimed these models ‘very greatly exaggerate’ the effects of global warming. Using a
simpler, solar-based model, the researchers arrived at figures that are more than half those
previously predicted. The paper, ‘Why models run hot: results from an irreducibly simple climate model’, was written by Lord
Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, astrophysicist and geoscientist Willie Soon,
Professor of Geography at the University of Delaware David Legates, and statistician Dr
Matt Briggs. It has been peer reviewed and is published in the journal Science Bulletin. Mathematical equations used for
large climate model typically require supercomputers that perform calculations quickly - some make more than 80 million calculations an hour. Sophisticated climate models
take into account the amounts of animals and plants, or biosphere, the hydrosphere’s oceans and other bodies of water, sea ice and ice sheets in the cryosphere, and the
geosphere, that measures tectonic variations such as volcanic eruptions and moving continents. By comparison, the team’s simple model looked at temperatures caused
by so-called anthropogenic radiative forcings and consequent ‘temperature feedbacks’ over a given timeframe. Anthropogenic radiative forcings, put simply, are
measured by the difference between the amount of sunlight absorbed by Earth, and the energy that is radiated back to space. A temperature feedback is created by albedo - the
amount of shortwave radiation from solar energy reflected by Earth. Ice and snow is highly reflective, so has a high albedo, for example. This means the majority of sunlight that
hits snow is sent back towards space. When ice and snow melts, as temperatures rise, the darker soil or grass lowers the albedo. This increases the ground’s temperature,
causing more snow to melt, leading to a further rise in temperature. Temperature feedbacks can also be affected by water vapour and cloud cover. Both of these measurements
The researchers tested their so-called
‘simple’ model and its global warming predictions against the complex models used by climate
scientists. In particular, those complex models involved in the UN and World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) report. They also compared their predictions against real-world temperature changes.
The paper claims that the measured, real-world rate of global warming over the past 25
years, equivalent to less than 1.4° C per century, is ‘half the IPCC's central prediction in 1990.’ In
can be used to suggest global temperatures, radiation and energy levels in the atmosphere and the Earth.
1990, the UN's climate panel predicted with ‘substantial confidence’ that the world would warm at twice the rate that has been observed since. According to the study,
another error made by the complex climate models, include the assumption that
‘temperature feedbacks’ would double or triple direct manmade greenhouse warming.
The simple model instead found that feedbacks could reduce warming. Also, modellers are said to have
failed to cut their estimate of global warming in line with a new, lower feedback estimate from the IPCC. They still predict 3.3°C of warming per CO2 doubling, when on this
ground alone they should only be predicting 2.2°C - about half from direct warming and half from feedbacks,’ said the researchers. ‘Though the complex models say there is
0.6°C manmade warming "in the pipeline" even if we stop emitting greenhouse gases, the simple model - confirmed by almost two decades without any significant global
Once these errors are corrected, the
researchers predict that the most likely global warming in response to a doubling of CO2
is not 3.3°C, but 1°C or less. And, even if all available fossil fuels were burned, less than
2.2°C warming would result, they claim. Author Dr Willie Soon, an solar physicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, said: ‘Our work
suggests that man's influence on climate may have been much overstated. ‘The role of the sun has been
warming - shows there is no committed but unrealised manmade warming still to come.’
undervalued. Our model helps to present a more balanced view.’ ‘A high-school student with a pocket scientific calculator can now use this model and obtain credible estimates
of global warming simply and quickly, as well as acquiring a better understanding of how climate sensitivity is determined,’ added statistician and co-author Dr Matt Briggs.
As a statistician, I know the value of keeping things simple and the dangers in thinking
that more complex models are necessarily better. ‘Once people can understand how climate sensitivity is determined, they will
realise how little evidence for alarm there is.’ While Lord Monckton said: 'Our irreducibly simple climate model does not
replace more complex models, but it does expose major errors and exaggerations in
those models. ‘For instance, take away the erroneous assumption that strongly net‘
positive feedback triples the rate of manmade global warming and the imagined climate
crisis vanishes.’
Climate activism is filled with non-factual rhetoric- there is no real impact
Heartland Institute 3/13
(The Heartland Institude, 3/13/15, "Naomi Klein Showcases What’s Wrong With Climate
Alarmism," https://www.heartland.org/sites/default/files/iernaomi_klein_showcases_whats_wrong_with_climate_alarmism.pdf, MX)
In an extended essay for the Guardian excerpted from her new book, Naomi Klein showcases everything wrong with climate alarmism. First, she slings out a string
of dire warnings that are preposterous, going far beyond what the “consensus science” of the
latest IPCC report says. Then, after terrifying her readers with bogus warnings, Klein then calls for massive government action on the scale of the “Marshall Plan” in
order to achieve all sorts of progressive goals, including a more equal society. Klein’s essay shows that she too—just like outgoing IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri—views climate activism
not merely as a scientific endeavor, but as a secular religion. Naomi Klein’s Preposterous Warnings Here are some examples of the absurd rhetoric in Klein’s essay: Faced with a crisis
that threatens our survival as a species , our entire culture is continuing to do the very thing that caused the crisis…[T]he global economy is upping the ante from conventional sources of fossil fuels to even dirtier
and more dangerous versions – bitumen from the Alberta tar sands, oil from deepwater drilling, gas from hydraulic fracturing (fracking), coal from detonated mountains, and so on. Meanwhile, each supercharged
natural disaster produces new irony laden snapshots of a climate increasingly inhospitable to the very industries most responsible for its warming. Like the 2013 historic floods in Calgary that forced the head
offices of the oil companies mining the Alberta tar sands to go…Or the drought that hit the Mississippi river one year earlier, pushing water levels so low that barges loaded with oil and coal were unable to move
for days… Living with this kind of cognitive dissonance is simply part of being alive in this jarring moment in history, when a crisis we have been studiously ignoring is hitting us in the face – and yet we are
doubling down on the stuff that is causing the crisis in the first place. … [W]e look but try to be hyper-rational about it (“dollar for dollar it’s more efficient to focus on economic development than climate change,
since wealth is the best protection from weather extremes”) – as if having a few more dollars will make much difference when your city is underwater. … We know that if we continue on our current path of allowing
emissions to rise year after year, climate change will change everything about our world. Major cities will very likely drown, ancient cultures will be swallowed by the seas, and there is a very high chance that our
Homo sapiens,
is not threatened by climate change in even the most extreme scenarios studied in the
literature. Yes, it is theoretically possible that runaway climate change could wipe out our
species, just as it’s theoretically possible that emitting radio waves will alert hostile
aliens to our presence and lead to the destruction of humanity. That is hardly an argument for banning radios. Regarding sea
level rise, the latest IPCC report (the Fifth Assessment Report or AR5) says that in a business-asusual scenario—meaning governments don’t take drastic new measures to restrict carbon dioxide
emissions— concludes that the “likely” sea level rise by the year 2100 will be between 26 and 82 centimeters. It is true that some experts warn
policymakers that they should prepare for a “worst case” scenario of 190 centimeters. But these outcomes are hardly a given, contrary to Naomi Klein’s casual
children will spend a great deal of their lives fleeing and recovering from vicious storms and extreme droughts. [Bold added.] I hope I don’t have to even argue that our species,
references to major cities being underwater. And even in those circumstances—again contrary to Klein—many analysts think the rational thing to do would be to continue using efficient, affordable energy in order
to develop these coastal regions and fortify them against rising sea levels. Remember, the type of drastic emission cutbacks Klein has in mind would literally cost the world many trillions of dollars in forfeited
economic output. That estimate comes not from skeptical groups who are pro-business, but rather from William Nordhaus’s own modeling. (See the “abatement costs” of various policies in Table 4 of my journal
Humanity is very resourceful and can do a lot with many trillions of dollars and 85
years to prepare, especially if we’re talking about what even the IPCC’s own computer
models consider to be an unlikely threat. Regarding extreme weather events, here too the actual published science doesn’t support Klein’s rhetoric. As I
explained in this previous IER post, the latest IPCC report doesn’t support the claims that many current
extreme weather events are due to manmade climate change. Here are some excerpts from the IPCC’s Working Group I (AR5)
article here.)
report: “Overall, the most robust global changes in climate extremes are seen in measures of daily temperature, including to some extent, heat waves. Precipitation extremes also appear to be increasing, but
There is limited evidence of changes in extremes associated with other
climate variables since the mid-20th century.” “Current datasets indicate no significant
observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century … No robust
trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts
have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin.” “In summary,
there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of
trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale.” “In summary, there is low
confidence in observed trends in small-scale severe weather phenomena such as hail
and thunderstorms because of historical data inhomogeneities and inadequacies in monitoring systems.” “In summary, the current assessment
concludes that there is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low
confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th
century…” Finally, regarding Klein’s claims that our children will be threatened by the ravages of climate change: She is apparently unaware that according to one of the three
climate models selected by the Obama Administration to estimate the “social cost of carbon,” manmade global
warming will confer net benefits on humanity through the year 2065 or so.[1] (See my treatment of Claim #3 in this
there is large spatial variability.” “
earlier IER post for the details.) I don’t know how old Klein’s children are, but I can say that one of the leading computer models predicts that my son will be around 60 years old at the point when human carbon
dioxide emissions stop helping humanity on net and turn into a nuisance. Is the general public getting this aspect of the “consensus science” on climate change? Would the average person have any idea that one
Climate Alarmism Later in her essay, Klein unwittingly reveals why she is so
relies on over-the-top rhetoric to scare her readers into action. Just look at these amazing quotations:
of the Obama Administration’s own computer models contains this prediction? Klein Reveals the Real Driver of
unconcerned with the actual facts, and instead
Data Manipulation
The warming pause is real -don’t trust other research - it manipulates data
Lott 6/10
(Maxim Lott [Writer for FoxNews.com and producer for John Stossel], 6/10/15, "Climate
scientists criticize government paper that erases ‘pause’ in warming," Fox News,
www.foxnews.com/science/2015/06/10/climate-scientists-criticize-government-paper-thaterases-pause-in-warming/, MX)
Until last week, government data on climate change indicated that the Earth has warmed
over the last century, but that the warming slowed dramatically and even stopped at
points over the last 17 years. But a paper released May 28 by researchers at the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration has readjusted the data in a way that makes the reduction in warming
disappear, indicating a steady increase in temperature instead. But the study’s
readjusted data conflict with many other climate measurements, including data taken by
satellites, and some climate scientists aren’t buying the new claim. “While I’m sure this latest
analysis from NOAA will be regarded as politically useful for the Obama administration, I
don’t regard it as a particularly useful contribution to our scientific understanding of
what is going on,” Judith Curry, a climate science professor at Georgia Tech, wrote in a response to the study. And in an interview, Curry told FoxNews.com
that that the adjusted data doesn’t match other independent measures of temperature. “The
new NOAA dataset disagrees with a UK dataset, which is generally regarded as the gold
standard for global sea surface temperature datasets,” she said. “The new dataset also disagrees with ARGO buoys and
satellite analyses.” The NOAA paper, produced by a team of researchers led by Tom Karl, director of the agency’s National Climatic Data Center, found most of its new warming
trend by adjusting past measurements of sea temperatures. Global ocean temperatures are estimated both by thousands of commercial ships, which record the temperature of
the water entering their engines, and by thousands of buoys – floatation devices that sit in the water for years. The buoys tend to get cooler temperature readings than the ships,
likely because ships’ engines warm the water. Meanwhile, in recent years, buoys have become increasingly common. The result, Karl says, is that even if the world’s oceans
are warming, the unadjusted data may show it not to be warming because more and more buoys are being used instead of ships. So Karl’s team adjusted the buoy data to
make them line up with the ship data. They also double-checked their work by making sure that the readjusted buoy readings matched ships’ recordings of nighttime air
The paper came out last week, and there has not been time for skeptical scientists to independently check the adjustments, but some are questioning it
disagrees with the readings of more than
3,000 “ARGO buoys,” which are specifically designed to float around the ocean and measure temperature. Some scientists view their data as the most
temperatures.
because of how much the adjusted data vary from other independent measurements. First, it
reliable. The ARGO buoy data do not show much warming in surface temperature since they were introduced in 2003. But Karl’s team left them out of their analysis, saying that
they have multiple issues, including lack of measurements near the Arctic. In an email, Karl told FoxNews.com that the ARGO buoy readings may be added to his data “if
scientific methods can be found to line up these two types of temperatures together … (of course after correcting the systematic offsets) … This is part of the cumulative and
progressive scientific process.” Karl’s study also clashes with satellite measurements. Since 1979, NOAA satellites have estimated the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere. They
show almost no warming in recent years and closely match the surface data before Karl’s adjustments. The satellite data is compiled by two separate sets of researchers,
whose results match each other closely. One team that compiles the data includes Climate Professors John Christy and Roy Spencer at the University of Alabama in Huntsville,
The study is one more example that you can get any answer you
want when the thermometer data errors are larger than the global warming signal you are
looking for,” Spencer told FoxNews.com.
both of whom question Karl’s adjusted data. “
Scientists manipulate data to suit their “trends”
Tracinski 6/8
(Robert Tracinski [a senior writer at The Federalist. He studied philosophy at the University of
Chicago and for more than 20 years has written about politics, markets, and foreign policy],
6/8/15, "Global Warming: The Theory that Predicts Nothing and Explains Everything," The
Federalist, thefederalist.com/2015/06/08/global-warming-the-theory-that-predicts-nothing-andexplains-everything/, MX)
A lot of us having been pointing out one of the big problems with the global warming
theory: a long plateau in global temperatures since about 1998. Most significantly, this
leveling off was not predicted by the theory, and observed temperatures have been
below the lowest end of the range predicted by all of the computerized climate models.
So what to do if your theory doesn’t fit the data? Why, change the data, of course! Hence a
blockbuster new report: a new analysis of temperature data since 1998 “adjusts” the numbers and
magically finds that there was no plateau after all. The warming just continued. Starting in at least
early 2013, a number of scientific and public commentators have suggested that the rate of recent global warming has slowed or even stopped. The phenomena has been
a team of federal scientists report today in the
prestigious journal Science, there may not have been any “pause” at all. The researchers
from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) adjusted their data on land
and ocean temperatures to address “residual data biases” that affect a variety of measurements, such as those taken by
ships over the oceans. And they found that “newly corrected and updated global surface
temperature data from NOAA’s NCEI do not support the notion of a global warming
‘hiatus.’” How convenient. It’s so convenient that they’re signaling for everyone else to get on board. One question raised by the research is whether
variably termed a “pause,” a “slowdown,” and a “hiatus.”… But as
other global temperature datasets will see similar adjustments. One, kept by the Hadley Center of the UK Met Office, appears to support the global warming “hiatus” narrative—
Before this update, we were the slowest rate of warming,” said
Karl. “And with the update now, we’re the leaders of the pack. So as other people make
updates, they may end up adjusting upwards as well.” This is going to be the new party line. “Hiatus”? What hiatus? Who
are you going to believe, our adjustments or your lying thermometers? The new adjustments are suspiciously convenient, of
course. Anyone who is touting a theory that isn’t being borne out by the evidence and
suddenly tells you he’s analyzed the data and by golly, what do you know, suddenly it
does support his theory—well, he should be met with more than a little skepticism. If we look,
but then, so did NOAA’s dataset up until now. “
we find some big problems. The most important data adjustments by far are in ocean temperature measurements. But anyone who has been following this debate will notice
something about the time period for which the adjustments were made. This is a time in which the measurement of ocean temperatures has vastly improved in coverage and
accuracy as a whole new set of scientific buoys has come online. So why would this data need such drastic “correcting”? As climatologist Judith Curry puts it: The greatest
changes in the new NOAA surface temperature analysis is to the ocean temperatures since 1998. This seems rather ironic, since this is the period where there is the greatest
coverage of data with the highest quality of measurements–ARGO buoys and satellites don’t show a warming trend. Nevertheless, the NOAA team finds a substantial increase
NOAA corrected the ocean temperature measurements to
be more consistent with a previous set of measurements. But those older measurements
were known to be a problem. Scientists relied on measurements from merchant vessels,
which had slowly switched from measuring water in buckets dipped over the side to
measuring it on its way through intake ports for cooling the ship’s engines. But that
meant that water temperatures were more likely to be increased by contact with the ship,
producing an artificial warming. Hence the objection made by Patrick Michaels, Richard Lindzen, and Chip Knappenberger: As has been
in the ocean surface temperature anomaly trend since 1998.
acknowledged by numerous scientists, the engine intake data are clearly contaminated by heat conduction from the engine itself, and as such, never intended for scientific use.
On the other hand, environmental monitoring is the specific purpose of the buoys. Adjusting good data upward to match bad data seems questionable. That’s putting it mildly.
They also point to another big change in the adjusted data: projecting far northern land temperatures out to cover gaps in measurement over the Arctic Ocean. Yet the land
the warmists are desperate, but they might
not have thought through the overall effect of this new “adjustment” push. We’ve been
told to take very, very seriously the objective data showing global warming is real and is
happening—and then they announce that the data has been totally changed post hoc.
This is meant to shore up the theory, but it actually calls the data into question. Anthony Watts,
one of the chief questioners of past “adjustments,” points out that to make the pause disappear, they didn’t just increase
temperatures since 1998. They also adjusted downward the temperatures immediately
before that. Starting from a lower base of temperature makes the “adjusted” increase
look even bigger. That’s a pattern that invariably shows up in all these adjustments: the past is always adjusted downward to make it cooler, the present
upward to make it warmer—an amazing coincidence that guarantees a warming trend. All of this fits into a wider pattern: the global warming theory
has been awful at making predictions about the data ahead of time. But it has been great
at going backward, retroactively reinterpreting the data and retrofitting the theory to mesh with it. A line I saw from one commenter, I can’t remember where
temperatures are likely to be significantly warmer than the ocean temperatures. I realize
(update: it was David Burge), has been rattling around in my head: “once again, the theory that predicts nothing explains everything.” There is an important difference between
prediction before the fact and explanation after the fact. Prediction requires that you lay down a marker about what the data ought to be, to be consistent with your theory, before
you actually know what it is. That’s something that’s very hard to get right. If your theory is going to be able to consistently predict data before it is gathered, it has got to be
But explanations of data after the fact
are a lot easier. As they say, hindsight is 20/20. It’s a lot easier to tweak your theory to
make it a better fit to the data, or in this case, to tweak the way the data is measured and
analyzed in order to make it better fit your theory. And then you proclaim how amazing it
is that your theory “explains” the data. The whole political cause of global warming is based on the theory’s claim to make predictions
pretty darned good. Global warming theories have a wretched track record at making predictions.
before the fact. If this difference between prediction and explanation seems merely technical, remember that the whole political cause of global warming is based on the theory’s
claim to make predictions before the fact—way before the fact, projecting temperatures for the next century. We’re supposed to base the whole organization of our civilization, at
a cost of many trillions of dollars, on those ultra-long-term predictions. So exulting that they can readjust the data for the last few years to jibe with their theory after the fact is
Anyone with the slightest familiarity with science ought to be
immediately skeptical of this new claim, so naturally mainstream media “science reporters” repeat it with complete credulity and even prenot exactly the reassurance we need.
emptively inoculate us against the sin of doubt. The Washington Post report/press-release-transcription has a nice little passive-aggressive twist, sneering that “The details of
the data adjustments quickly get complicated—and will surely be where global warming doubters focus their criticism.” Those global warming doubters, always finding
something to kvetch about! What are you gonna do? Worse, the Post ends by passing along a criticism of mainstream scientists for even discussing the global warming pause
before now. Harvard science historian Naomi Oreskes recently co-authored a paper depicting research on the “hiatus” as a case study in how scientists had allowed a
“seepage” of climate skeptic argumentation to affect the formal scientific literature. Of the new NOAA study, she said in an e-mail: “I hope the scientific community will do a bit of
soul searching about how they got pulled into this framework, which was clearly a contrarian construction from the start.” Remember that everybody’s data was showing a
plateau in global temperatures, and many of the studies focused on this were attempting to uphold the global warming theory in the face of that evi dence. Yet now some of the
theory’s own supporters are going to be thrown under the bus for showing too much faith in the data and too little faith in the cause. They will get the message stated bluntly by
That gives us a pretty good idea of what is going on here.
Because any field where people say this sort of thing is by that very fact not a field of
science any longer.
Oreskes: science must never be contaminated by skepticism.
climate change is a scam – alarmists are unqualified and self interested
Starck, PhD, Feb 2015, (Walter, "The Climate Scam's Meltdown" Ausmarine 37.4: 26-27.
Proquest. search.proquest.com/docview/1666284048?pq-origsite=gscholar)
"A conspiracy does not require secret planning"
An argument is often made that the climate-change threat must be real because a conspiracy
involving an overwhelming majority of the world's scientists is simply not credible. This is
disingenuous in that the climate threat, as exemplified by the IPCC's scare machine , is
far from representing a scientific consensus , even a majority. Global scientific
opinion on this matter is highly mixed with the alarmist position concentrated in Europe and the
Anglosphere. Even here thousands of dissenters exist, including many highly qualified and
respected researchers with very relevant expertise. The core alarmist proponents only comprise
a few dozen, mostly third-rate, academics whose scientific reputations are minimal outside of
climate alarmism. They co-opted the niche, little known interdisciplinary field of climatology,
proclaimed themselves to be the world authorities, declared a global crisis, received lavish
funding to research it and gained global attention. They have been aided and abetted by sundry
fellow travellers who see advantage for various other agendas. A conspiracy does not require
secret planning. It can be implemented just as easily with a wink and a nod when the aims and
methods are apparent to all the participants. It is time to recognise the climate scam for what it
is: a conspiracy to defraud on a monumental scale. Although climate itself is presenting its
irrefutable opposing argument, failed prophets never willingly concede defeat until their mouths
are stopped with the dust of reality. In this instance gob-stopping reality seems likely to take the
form of severe winter weather leading to a widespread collapse of electrical power in an
overloaded grid suffering from underinvestment, malinvestment, restraints and neglect. All these
stem from years of misguided climate policies. Until the crunch comes, the rent-seekers and
their useful idiots in the press will rant and rage without pause, their livelihoods and careers
hanging on their ability to perpetuate the hoax they foisted on the rest of us. As so often,
Shakespeare said it best: "A tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Doesn’t Justify authoritarianism
Using warming to justify authoritarianism encourages additional denial
Oreskes 6/16
(Naomi Oreskes [professor of the history of science and affiliated professor of earth and
planetary sciences at Harvard University], 6/16/15, "The Hoax of Climate Denial," Huffington
Post, www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-oreskes/the-hoax-of-climate-denial_b_7595154.html, MX)
Many Republicans resist accepting the overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change
because they fear it will be used as an excuse to expand big government. Here’s what should give them
pause: by delaying action on reducing global carbon emissions for more than two decades, we have already significantly increased the likelihood that disruptive global warming
will lead to the kinds of government interventions they most fear and seek to avoid. Climate change is, in fact, already causing an increase in the sorts of extreme weather
events -- particularly floods, extreme droughts, and heat waves -- that almost always result in large-scale government responses. The longer we wait, the more massive the
as the devastating effects of climate change unfold here in the
United States, natural disasters will result in a greater reliance on government -especially the federal government. (Of course, our grandchildren will not call them “natural” disasters, because they will know all too well who
required intervention will be. In the future,
caused them.) What this means is that the work climate deniers are now doing only helps ensure that we will be less ready for the full impact of climate change, which means
greater government interventions to come. Put another way, climate deniers are now playing a crucial role in creating the nightmare they most fear. They are guaranteeing the
As climate change unfolds around the globe, climate
disasters will give undemocratic forces the justification they seek to commandeer
resources, declare martial law, interfere with the market economy, and suspend
democratic processes. This means that Americans who care about political freedom shouldn’t hold back when it comes to supporting climate scientists
very future they claim to want to avoid. And not just at home.
and acting to prevent the threats they have so clearly and fulsomely documented.
Warming is a rationalization for authoritarianism
Trujillo 4/30
(Aaron Trujillo, 4/30/15, [Writer], "Will: ‘Global Warming Is Socialism by the Back Door’," The
Daily Signal, dailysignal.com/2014/04/30/will-global-warming-socialism-back-door/,MX)
George Will said recently “global warming is socialism by the back door.” In an interview with The Daily Caller’s Jamie Weinstein,
Will points out that progressives use warming to rationalize “more and more power in
Washington” to “micromanage the lives of the American people—our shower heads, our
toilets, our bathtubs, our garden hoses.” Watch:
Political lies
Global warming is a liberal lie - they’re all commies
McFarlane 6/19
(Bonnie McFarlane, 6/19/15, [Totally serious standup comedian], "Global warming is totally a lie
liberals tell to distract us from their commie agendas," The Guardian,
www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2015/jun/19/global-warming-lie-liberals-telldistract-us, MX)
Everybody is talking about global warming. Clearly, it’s got a great publicist. My guess is it’s the same one that Amy Schumer uses. However, unlike Schumer – whom I have on
Global Warming is a big fat lie
good authority is real –
. Now, before you spit out your fair trade coffee and start yelling about carbon emissions, let
me assure you that this is not a conclusion that came easily to me. I thought about it a lot. Just this morning I was in the shower for a good two hours debating the pros and cons
This so-called
“environmental Armageddon” is a fictitious construction cooked up by the left so we’ll
spend all our time (or at least a half hour a week) changing out our light bulbs and flattening cardboard
and completely overlooking their pinko/commie/socialist agendas. I’m on to you, liberals! You’re trying to be
heroes to humanity. You want everyone to pat you on the back and say, “Oh, look who saved the planet!” Well, I have news for you. The planet doesn’t
need saving. After all, it’s been around for almost 2,000 years. It was fine before you got
here, and it’ll be fine after the apocalypse destroys most of humankind for the sins of homosexuality and
of dating someone with a giant global footprint. Once the water went cold and I dried myself off with a hair dryer, I knew I had my answer.
shellfish consumption. God hates Shrimp Scampi, but He doesn’t seem to have a problem with littering. (Leviticus 10:10) I wish people would stop incessantly asking, “Don’t we
care what kind of planet we’re going to leave our children?” First of all, I’m pretty sure any child psychologist would agree that leaving a whole planet to a kid is an appalling
idea. I wouldn’t dream of spoiling my daughter with an entire planet. You don’t have to give your kids the world; just spend some time with them once in a while. That’s what they
I wish scientists would stop blaming us humans for
causing global warming. This is patently false, since global warming is not real! If the
fact that we’ve just experienced the coldest spring on record isn’t enough to sway you, I’ve
got other anecdotal evidence that should be plenty convincing. For example: my sister went to Greenland and never saw any
polar bears stranded on tiny ice floes. In fact, my sister didn’t see any live polar bears at all, so there. But the most
telling sign that global warming is not an actual threat is this: the Republican presidential
candidates aren’t trying to scare us with the prospect that we’re all doomed to die from
toxic air and scorching temperatures. And Republican presidential candidates love
scaring the public. It’s their passion. If they could put a gun to each of our heads individually and say, “Vote for me or else you die”, I think
they would. That’s why, despite the numerous scientific claims and all those hockey-stick graphs
showing the sharp rise in temperatures, I don’t think there’s any truth to this whole global warming thing. At
the very least, the declarations are exaggerated and we have nothing to worry about for
at least a decade.
really want. That, and a Mercedes SUV for their sweet 16.
Climate change is a fraud
Starck, PhD, Feb 2015, (Walter, "The Climate Scam's Meltdown" Ausmarine 37.4: 26-27.
Proquest. search.proquest.com/docview/1666284048?pq-origsite=gscholar)
The rent-seekers, opportunists, third-rate academics, carbon-market scam artists and peddlers
of catastrophic prophecy can see the alarmist bubble deflating, so they're trying harder than
ever to sustain the scare. Problem is, Mother Nature isn't cooperating This doesn't mean the
climate change "debate" will stop, the news media will cease reporting weather as a dire threat,
or that the true believers will no longer be obsessed by it. However, the ultimate arbiter, climate
itself, has made clear its decision by ceasing to warm for over 18 years. Despite the ongoing
use of fossf^fuels, a proclaimed 95 per cent certainty of 97 per cent of scientists and Jhg highpoyyered projections of the world's most advanced climate models, the climate has refused to
pay the slightest heed. Contrary to all the confidence and* predictions of alleged experts, storms
are no more intense nor frequent, while droughts, floods and sea levels have declined to
confirm alarmists' barely concealed hopes of disasters. The simple fact is that the alleged
experts and their high-powered models were wrong . The climate has ceased to warm
and, with little or no greenhouse warming, the entire theory of Catastrophic Anthropogenic
Global Warming (CAGW), aka Climate Change (CC), aka Global Warming, aka Extreme
Weather, is left with no basis. "All who disagreed were deemed to be fools" The debate over CC
has been unique in the history of science in that its proponents have largely abandoned the
primacy of evidence and openly declared methodology in favour of self-proclaimed authority
backed by their own confidential methods and models. It is also unique in that the alarmists
refuse to directly address their arguments, preferring to ignore, censor and personally denigrate
them. In a few instances in the early part of the public debate, the proponents attempted direct
debate with their critics but came away looking decidedly second-best and they soon refused
any further direct discussion . With no convincing answers to the uncertainties and
conflicting evidence raised by their opponents they simply chose to ignore them, declare the
váence "settled" and anoint themselves as the only experts. All who disagreed were deemed to
be fools, knaves and/or in the pay and pocket of Big Energy. With a naive and compliant news
media steeped in the same politically correct, left wing academic indoctrination as the
researchers, the latter enjoyed-a near monopoly on favourable news coverage. Self-serving
publicity releases were regurgitated undigested? beneath the by-lines of environmental
"reporters", who eagerly reduced themselves to unquestioning stenographers. Yet even as the
alarmists' received kidglove treatment in the mainstream media, the Internet has been a very
different story. Not only did the climate alarmists have no advantage online, the thinking public
was increasingly looking to the Web as their primary source for news. This digital realm was
outside'any particular control or influence, open to the airing of opposing argument and
evidence. It was also a forum for the exposure of malpractice, regularly producing exposés that
would shatter the façade of scientific expertise and propriety the alarmists had erected around
themselves. Think here of how Wattsupwiththat demolished the charlatan Michael Mann and his
infamous hockey stick, and the Climategate emails revealed the lengths professional warmists
are prepared to go in order to silence sceptics, not least by debasing the conventions of the
peer-review process. Fiddling the temperature record In retreat, climate alarmists are now trying
to deny the lack of warming while 3 fiddling the temperature record in an effort to
"prove* it is continuing. Their ever-more imaginative explanations - the heat is hiding at the
bottom of the ocean; trade winds are skewing sea-temperature readings - increasingly smack of
desperation. Making matters worse for the alarmists, there is increasing evidence that the global
climate has not only ceased to warm but may || actually be starting to cool . Severe, often!
record-breaking* winter, weather demanding J more and more undeclared "adjustments" I to the
temperature record are being! exposed. Overwhelmingly these serve to ( fa reduce past
temperatures and increase more^K . recent ones without which the lack of waripiav would be
mör&rtwtous1*^
AT: Util
Focus on environmental util doesn’t solve alt causes to inequality – sole
focus fails
Davidson, 6-4-15, [faculty member in the science department at the Universiteit van
Amsterdam] (Marc D. "Climate Change and the ethics of discounting" WIREs Climate Change,
Wiley Online Library, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.347/full
A common criticism of the utilitarian approach is that it would be overdemanding to treat
other people's happiness as being fully on par with one's own and would alienate people from
their personal projects and commitments (see e.g., Ref [50]; Ref [69], p. 277; Ref [70]; see
Ref[71] for a defense of the demands of utilitarianism). If applied across the board in
intergenerational policy making, i.e., beyond climate policy as well, it would require governments
to tax away present consumption to the benefit of future consumption; see e.g., Refs [7, 41, 7275]; Ref [26], p. 155; Ref [76], p. 47. If applied across the board in intra-generational policy,
utilitarianism would require a massive redistribution from the currently rich to the
currently poor. However, if the utilitarian approach is restricted to climate policy, it may be
queried whether such an approach is coherent (see e.g., Ref [9], p. 230). The objection is not
that utilitarianism does not correspond to revealed public preferences, an objection refuted in
the section on the prescriptive-descriptive debate, but that it is incoherent if the same
government advocates fundamentally different moral principles in different policy areas.
AT: Transition Inevitable
*Democracy more sustainable than authoritarianism- transition not
inevitable
Davis 15 (Davis, Michael C has an LLM from Yale and teaches at the University of Hong
Kong. "East Asia After the Crisis: Human Rights, Constitutionalism, and State Reform." Human
Rights Quarterly 26.1 (2004): 126-51. ProQuest. Web. 29 June 2015.)
In assessing the debates over political and economic reform, it becomes apparent that
constitutionalism has a central role to play. Studies in the political economy literature appear to
verify that regime type ultimately matters in the achievement of economic development goals.96
While authoritarianism with proper developmental institutions can do reasonably well at
early-stage development, this is not invariably so. Furthermore, as economic development
proceeds the developmental potential of the authoritarian model may be exhausted.
Recent studies have shown that the developmental achievement of authoritarian regimes in
East Asia is not uniformly positive. Latent costs are just now being appreciated. In addition to
the deficiencies of authoritarian practices in respect to democracy, human rights, and
the rule of law, there have also been high levels of corruption. Corruption appears to be a
consequence of both early predatory practices and a lack of transparency, and subsequent
incapacity of authoritarian regimes to respond to the interests that economic development
creates. Rent-seeking evolves from a top-down predatory behavior in the authoritarian period
when the state is strong, to a bottom-up predatory behavior in the early stages of democracy as
business becomes stronger and the state weaker. Corruption may serve as a substitute for
adequate state institutions. Democratic consolidation will aim to curb corruption by
affording greater transparency and stable institutions for checks and balances. Greater
dispersal and open competition in the society should accompany this consolidation. Local
institutions shape investor confidence. Either extreme concentrations of power or extreme
dispersal appears to have worked poorly; the former is too volatile and the latter too rigid.
Liberal constitutionalism, including democracy, human rights and the rule of law,
appears to provide the tools to engender the degree of public engagement and political
reliability needed for sustained development. Finding the proper institutional balance is by
no means an easy task. The constitutional fundamentals are essential. Minimally maintaining
the protections embodied in human rights and the rule of law is important to achieving
transparency and accountability, while sustaining confidence in political and legal
institutions. Constitutional institutions must be shaped to the local condition. This reality is
demonstrated by the varied consequences of importing similar institutions into different
countries. Constitutional systems deeply influenced by the American model work very
differently in Japan, the Philippines, and the United States. Getting the fit just right is the
challenge of local politics.
Democracy inevitable- More sustainable than authoritarian regimes
Slater and Bennis 90 (Philip Slater and Warren Bennis “Democracy is Inevitable” Harvard
Business review. THE SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 1990 ISSUE.
Democracy has been so widely embraced not because of some vague yearning for human
rights but because under certain conditions it is a more “efficient” form of social organization.
(Our concept of efficiency includes the ability to survive and prosper.) It is not accidental that
those nations of the world that have endured longest under conditions of relative wealth
and stability are democratic, while authoritarian regimes have, with few exceptions,
either crumbled or eked out a precarious and backward existence. Despite this evidence,
even so acute a statesman as Adlai Stevenson argued in a New York Times article on
November 4, 1962, that the goals of the Communists are different from ours. “They are
interested in power,” he said, “we in community. With such fundamentally different aims, how is
it possible to compare communism and democracy in terms of efficiency?” Democracy
(whether capitalistic or socialistic is not at issue here) is the only system that can
successfully cope with the changing demands of contemporary civilization. We are not
necessarily endorsing democracy as such; one might reasonably argue that industrial
civilization is pernicious and should be abolished. We suggest merely that given a desire to
survive in this civilization, democracy is the most effective means to this end.
Democracy is the only system capable of adapting to change- that makes it sustainable
Slater and Bennis 90 (Philip Slater and Warren Bennis “Democracy is Inevitable” Harvard
Business review. THE SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 1990 ISSUE.
And here we come to the point. For the spirit of inquiry, the foundation of science, to
grow and flourish, there must be a democratic environment. Science encourages a
political view that is egalitarian, pluralistic, liberal. It accentuates freedom of opinion and
dissent. It is against all forms of totalitarianism, dogma, mechanization, and blind
obedience. As a prominent social psychologist has pointed out, “Men have asked for
freedom, justice, and respect precisely as science has spread among them.” 2 In short,
the only way organizations can ensure a scientific attitude is to provide the democratic
social conditions where one can flourish. In other words, democracy in industry is not an
idealistic conception but a hard necessity in those areas where change is ever present
and creative scientific enterprise must be nourished. For democracy is the only system
of organization that is compatible with perpetual change.
Democracy is the most sustainable- history proves- if we choose to stay committed, it will
expand over the next century
Diamon 3 (Diamond, Larry. "Universal Democracy?" Policy Review.119 (2003): 3. ProQuest.
Web. 29 June 2015.)
The fully global triumph of democracy is far from inevitable, yet it has never been more
attainable. If we manage to sustain the process of global economic integration and
growth while making freedom at least an important priority in our diplomacy, aid, and
other international engagements, democracy will continue to expand in the world.
History has proven that it is the best form of government . Gradually, more countries
will become democratic while fewer revert to dictatorship. If we retain our power, reshape
our strategy, and sustain our commitment , eventually - not in the next decade, but
certainly by mid-century - every country in the world can be democratic.