2014 NDI 6WS – Fitzmier,
Lundberg, Abelkop
Aff Critique Answers
Framework
2AC – Framework/Students Key
Academic debate over energy policy in the face of environmental
destruction is critical to shape the direction of change and create a
public consciousness shift---the K’s esoteric abstractions allow for
extinction---action now is key
Crist 4 (Eileen, Professor at Virginia Tech in the Department of Science and Technology,
“Against the social construction of nature and wilderness”, Environmental Ethics 26;1, p 13-6,
http://www.sts.vt.edu/faculty/crist/againstsocialconstruction.pdf)
Yet, constructivist analyses of "nature" favor remaining in the comfort zone of zestless
agnosticism and noncommittal meta-discourse. As David Kidner suggests, this intellectual stance
may function as a mechanism against facing the devastation of the biosphere—an undertaking
long underway but gathering momentum with the imminent bottlenecking of a triumphant global consumerism and
unprecedented population levels. Human-driven extinction—in the ballpark of Wilson's estimated 27,000 species per
year—is
so unthinkable a fact that choosing to ignore it may well be the psychologically risk-free
option. Nevertheless, this is the opportune historical moment for intellectuals in
the humanities and social sciences to join forces with conservation scientists in order to
help create the consciousness shift and policy changes to stop this irreversible
destruction. Given this outlook, how students in the human sciences are trained to regard
scientific knowledge, and what kind of messages percolate to the public from
the academy about the nature of scientific findings, matter immensely. The
"agnostic stance" of constructivism toward "scientific claims" about the environment—a stance
supposedly mandatory for discerning how scientific knowledge is "socially assembled"[32]—is, to borrow a legendary oneliner, striving to interpret the world at an hour that is pressingly calling us to change it.
Ocean literacy is integral for sound decision making and global
sustainability – ever changing climate and oceanic patterns
Schoedinger et al ’06 [September 2006. Sarah Schoedinger is a program officer in the
Office of Education at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA). Francesca
Cava is the Ocean Literacy Program Manager for the National Geographic Society. Beth Jewell is
an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow and teacher at West Springfield High School.
“The Need for Ocean Literacy in the Classroom: Part I” The Science Teacher. 73.6 (Sept. 2006):
p44-47]
All life, including our own, is dependent on the ocean. The ocean covers almost three-quarters of
our planet, supplies most of the freshwater, and much of the atmospheric oxygen. The ocean
also significantly influences Earth's climate by storing, transporting, and releasing carbon,
energy, and water. The ocean serves as a source of food, jobs, and medicine. Understanding the
ocean is integral to comprehending the planet on which we live. More and more, our lives have been
affected by ocean-related events-from disasters like Hurricane Katrina in the United States to the
devastating December 2004 tsunami in the Pacific-and concerns about global climate change.
Unfortunately, the United States educational system does not adequately include the concepts
necessary for students, and thus the public at large, to develop a coherent understanding of the
importance of the ocean to our daily lives-that its health and the future welfare of humankind
are intertwined. Society is largely ocean illiterate and a basic understanding of the key concepts
needed for sound decision making on matters related to sustainability and the health of
humankind is lacking. The need for ocean literacy has been recognized by at least two pivotal
national commissions, which call for the inclusion of ocean concepts and topics in K-12 curricula and encourage teaching
and learning about the ocean by students of all ages (U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy 2004; Pew Oceans Commission 2003).
Framework – Debate Key/Public Advocacy Good
Public advocacy of climate solutions key to change governmental
policy---individual change insufficient
CAG 10—Climate Change Communication Advisory Group. Dr Adam Corner School of Psychology, Cardiff University - Dr
Tom Crompton Change Strategist, WWF-UK - Scott Davidson Programme Manager, Global Action Plan - Richard Hawkins Senior
Researcher, Public Interest Research Centre - Professor Tim Kasser, Psychology department, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois,
USA. - Dr Renee Lertzman, Center for Sustainable Processes & Practices, Portland State University, US. - Peter Lipman, Policy
Director, Sustrans. - Dr Irene Lorenzoni, Centre for Environmental Risk, University of East Anglia. - George Marshall, Founding
Director, Climate Outreach , Information Network - Dr Ciaran Mundy, Director, Transition Bristol - Dr Saffron O’Neil, Department
of Resource Management and Geography, University of Melbourne, Australia. - Professor Nick Pidgeon, Director, Understanding
Risk Research Group, School of Psychology, Cardiff University. - Dr Anna Rabinovich, School of Psychology, University of Exeter Rosemary Randall, Founder and director of Cambridge Carbon Footprint - Dr Lorraine Whitmarsh, School of Psychology, Cardiff
University & Visiting Fellow at the, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. (Communicating climate change to mass public
audience, http://pirc.info/downloads/communicating_climate_mass_audiences.pdf)
This
paper
¶ focus is
not upon motivating small private-sphere behavioural changes on a piece-meal basis Rather, it
marshals evidence about how best to motivate the
systemic behavioural change
necessary including, crucially greater public engagement with the policy process
¶ Political leaders
have drawn attention to the
imperative for more vocal public pressure to create the ‘political space’ for them to enact more
ambitious policy interventions
individuals making small private-sphere
behavioural changes
do not,
represent a proportional
response to
climate
Don’t be distracted by the
myth that ‘every little helps’. If everyone does a little, we’ll achieve only a little
¶ The task
of
communicators
must
be to motivate
active demand for – ambitious new policy interventions ¶
short advisory
collates a set of recommendations about how best to shape mass public communications aimed at increasing concern about climate change and motivating commensurate behavioural changes.
Its
.
ambitious and
–
that is
,
(through, for example, lobbying
decision-makers and elected representatives, or participating in demonstrations), as well as major lifestyle changes.
themselves
. 1 While this paper does not dismiss the value of
(for example, adopting simple domestic energy efficiency measures) it is clear that such behaviours
the challenge of
in themselves,
change. As David MacKay, Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Department of Energy and Climate change writes: “
” (MacKay, 2008).
campaigners and
behavioural changes; and (ii) widespread acceptance of – and indeed
from government, business and non-governmental organisations
therefore
both (i) widespread adoption of ambitious private-sphere
.
Current public communication
campaigns, as orchestrated by government, business and non-governmental organisations, are not achieving these changes. This paper asks: how should such communications be designed if they are to have optimal impact in motivating these changes? The response
to this question will require fundamental changes in the ways that many climate change communication campaigns are currently devised and implemented. ¶ This advisory paper offers a list of principles that could be used to enhance the quality of communication
around climate change communications. The authors are each engaged in continuously sifting the evidence from a range of sub-disciplines within psychology, and reflecting on the implications of this for improving climate change communications. Some of the
organisations that we represent have themselves at times adopted approaches which we have both learnt from and critique in th is paper – so some of us have first hand experience of the need for on-going improvement in the strategies that we deploy. ¶ The changes
we advocate will be challenging to enact – and will require vision and leadership on the part of the organisations adopting them. But without such vision and leadership, we do not believe that public communication campaigns on climate change will create the
necessary behavioural changes – indeed, there is a profound risk that many of today’s campaigns will actually prove counter -productive. ¶ Seven Principles¶ 1. Move Beyond Social Marketing¶ We believe that too little attention is paid to the understanding that
psychologists bring to strategies for motivating change, whilst undue faith is often placed in the application of marketing strategies to ‘sell’ behavioural changes. Unfortunately, in the context of ambitious pro-environmental behaviour, such strategies seem unlikely to
motivate systemic behavioural change.¶ Social marketing is an effective way of achieving a particular behavioural goal – dozens of practical examples in the field of health behaviour attest to this. Social marketing is really more of a framework for designing
behaviour change programmes than a behaviour change programme - it offers a method of maximising the success of a specific behavioural goal. Darnton (2008) has described social marketing as ‘explicitly transtheoretical’, while Hastings (2007), in a recent
overview of social marketing, claimed that there is no theory of social marketing. Rather, it is a ‘what works’ philosophy, based on previous experience of similar campaigns and programmes. Social marketing is flexible enough to be applied to a range of different
social domains, and this is undoubtedly a fundamental part of its appeal. ¶ However, social marketing’s 'what works' status also means that it is agnostic about the longer term, theoretical merits of different behaviour change strategies, or the cultural values that
specific campaigns serve to strengthen. Social marketing dictates that the most effective strategy should be chosen, where effective means ‘most likely to achieve an immediate behavioural goal’. ¶ This means that elements of a behaviour change strategy designed
according to the principles of social marketing may conflict with other, broader goals. What if the most effective way of promoting pro-environmental behaviour ‘A’ was to pursue a strategy that was detrimental to the achievement of long term pro-environmental
strategy ‘Z’? The principles of social marketing have no capacity to resolve this conflict – they are limited to maximising the success of the immediate behavioural programme. This is not a flaw of social marketing – it was designed to provide tools to address specific
behavioural problems on a piecemeal basis. But it is an important limitation, and one that has significant implications if social marketing techniques are used to promote systemic behavioural change and public engagement on an issue like climate change.
¶ 2. Be
honest and forthright about the probable impacts of climate change, and the scale of the challenge we confront in avoiding th ese. But avoid deliberate attempts to provoke fear or guilt. ¶ There is no merit in ‘dumbing down’ the scientific evidence that the impacts of
climate change are likely to be severe, and that some of these impacts are now almost certainly unavoidable. Accepting the impacts of climate change will be an important stage in motivating behavioural responses aimed at mitigating the problem. However,
deliberate attempts to instil fear or guilt carry considerable risk. ¶ Studies on fear appeals confirm the potential for fear to change attitudes or verbal expressions of concern, but often not actions or behaviour (Ruiter et al., 2001). The impact of fear appeals is context
- and audience - specific; for example, for those who do not yet realise the potentially ‘scary’ aspects of climate change, people need to first experience themselves as vulnerable to the risks in some way in order to feel moved or affected (Das et al, 2003; Hoog et al,
2005). As people move towards contemplating action, fear appeals can help form a behavioural intent, providing an impetus or spark to ‘move’ from; however such appeals must be coupled with constructive information and support to reduce the sense of danger
(Moser, 2007). The danger is that fear can also be disempowering – producing feelings of helplessness, remoteness and lack of control (O’Neill and Nicholson-Cole, 2009). Fear is likely to trigger ‘barriers to engagement’, such as denial2 (Stoll-Kleemann et al., 2001;
Weber, 2006; Moser and Dilling, 2007; Lorenzoni, Nicholson-Cole & Whitmarsh, 2007). The location of fear in a message is also relevant; it works better when placed first for those who are inclined to follow the advice, but better second for those who aren't (Bier,
2001).¶ Similarly, studies have shown that guilt can play a role in motivating people to take action but can also function to stimulate defensive mechanisms against the perceived threat or challenge to one’s sense of identity (as a good, moral person). In the latter
case, behaviours may be left untouched (whether driving a SUV or taking a flight) as one defends against any feelings of guilt or complicity through deployment of a range of justifications for the behaviour (Ferguson & Branscombe, 2010). ¶ Overall, there is a need
for emotionally balanced representations of the issues at hand. This will involve acknowledging the ‘affective reality’ of the situation, e.g. “We know this is scary and overwhelming, but many of us feel this way and we are doing something about it”. ¶ 3. Be honest and
forthright about the impacts of mitigating and adapting to climate change for current lifestyles, and the ‘loss’ - as well as the benefits - that these will entail. Narratives that focus exclusively on the ‘up-side’ of climate solutions are likely to be unconvincing. While
narratives about the future impacts of climate change may highlight the loss of much that we currently hold to be dear, narratives about climate solutions frequently ignore the question of loss. If the two are not addressed concurrently, fear of loss may be ‘split off’
and projected into the future, where it is all too easily denied. This can be dangerous, because accepting loss is an important step towards working through the associated emotions, and emerging with the energy and creativity to respond positively to the new
situation (Randall, 2009). However, there are plenty of benefits (besides the financial ones) of a low-carbon lifestyle e.g., health, community/social interaction - including the ‘intrinsic' goals mentioned below. It is important to be honest about both the losses and the
benefits that may be associated with lifestyle change, and not to seek to separate out one from the other. ¶ 3a. Avoid emphasis upon painless, easy steps. ¶ Be honest about the limitations of voluntary private-sphere behavioural change, and the need for ambitious
new policy interventions that incentivise such changes, or that regulate for them. People know that the scope they have, as individuals, to help meet the challenge of climate change is extremely limited. For many people, it is perfectly sensible to continue to adopt
high-carbon lifestyle choices whilst simultaneously being supportive of government interventions that would make these choices more difficult for everyone. ¶ The adoption of small-scale private sphere behavioural changes is sometimes assumed to lead people to
adopt ever more difficult (and potentially significant) behavioural changes. The empirical evidence for this ‘foot-in-thedoor’ effect is highly equivocal. Some studies detect such an effect; others studies have found the reverse effect (whereby people tend to ‘rest on
their laurels’ having adopted a few simple behavioural changes - Thogersen and Crompton, 2009). Where attention is drawn to simple and painless privatesphere behavioural changes, these should be urged in pursuit of a set of intrinsic goals (that is, as a response to
people’s understanding about the contribution that such behavioural change may make to benefiting their friends and family, their community, the wider world, or in contributing to their growth and development as individuals) rather than as a means to achieve
social status or greater financial success. Adopting behaviour in pursuit of intrinsic goals is more likely to lead to ‘spillover’ into other sustainable behaviours (De Young, 2000; Thogersen and Crompton, 2009).¶ People aren’t stupid: they know that if there are
wholesale changes in the global climate underway, these will not be reversed merely through checking their tyre pressures or switching their TV off standby. An emphasis upon simple and painless steps suppresses debate about those necessary responses that are less
palatable – that will cost people money, or that will infringe on cherished freedoms (such as to fly). Recognising this will be a key step in accepting the reality of loss of aspects of our current lifestyles, and in beginning to work through the powerful emotions that this
will engender (Randall, 2009). ¶ 3b. Avoid over-emphasis on the economic opportunities that mitigating, and adapting to, climate change may provide. ¶ There will, undoubtedly, be economic benefits to be accrued through investment in new technologies, but there
will also be instances where the economic imperative and the climate change adaptation or mitigation imperative diverge, and periods of economic uncertainty for many people as some sectors contract. It seems inevitable that some interventions will have negative
economic impacts (Stern, 2007).¶ Undue emphasis upon economic imperatives serves to reinforce the dominance, in society, of a set of extrinsic goals (focussed, for example, on financial benefit). A large body of empirical research demonstrates that these extrinsic
goals are antagonistic to the emergence of pro-social and proenvironmental concern (Crompton and Kasser, 2009). ¶ 3c. Avoid emphasis upon the opportunities of ‘green consumerism’ as a response to climate change. ¶ As mentioned above (3b), a large body of
research points to the antagonism between goals directed towards the acquisition of material objects and the emergence of pro-environmental and pro-social concern (Crompton and Kasser, 2009). Campaigns to ‘buy green’ may be effective in driving up sales of
particular products, but in conveying the impression that climate change can be addressed by ‘buying the right things’, they risk undermining more difficult and systemic changes. A recent study found that people in an experiment who purchased ‘green’ products
acted less altruistically on subsequent tasks (Mazar & Zhong, 2010) – suggesting that small ethical acts may act as a ‘moral offset’ and licence undesirable behaviours in other domains. This does not mean that private-sphere behaviour changes will always lead to a
reduction in subsequent pro-environmental behaviour, but it does suggest that the reasons used to motivate these changes are critically important. Better is to emphasise that ‘every little helps a little’ – but that these changes are only the beginning of a process that
must also incorporate more ambitious private-sphere change and significant collective action at a political level. ¶ 4. Empathise with the emotional responses that will be engendered by a forthright presentation of the probable impacts of climate change. ¶ Belief in
climate change and support for low-carbon policies will remain fragile unless people are emotionally engaged. We should expect people to be sad or angry, to feel guilt or shame, to yearn for that which is lost or to search for more comforting answers (Randall, 2009).
Providing support and empathy in working through the painful emotions of 'grief' for a society that must undergo changes is a prerequisite for subsequent adaptation to new circumstances. ¶ Without such support and empathy, it is more likely that people will begin
to deploy a range of maladaptive ‘coping strategies’, such as denial of personal responsibility, blaming others, or becoming apathetic (Lertzman, 2008). An audience should not be admonished for deploying such strategies – this would in itself be threatening, and
could therefore harden resistance to positive behaviour change (Miller and Rolnick, 2002). The key is not to dismiss people who exhibit maladaptive coping strategies, but to understand how they can be made more adaptive. People who feel socially supported will be
more likely to adopt adaptive emotional responses - so facilitating social support for proenvironmental behaviour is crucial. ¶ 5. Promote pro-environmental social norms and harness the power of social networks ¶ One way of bridging the gap between private-sphere
behaviour changes and collective action is the promotion of pro-environmental social norms. Pictures and videos of ordinary people (‘like me’) engaging in significant proenvironmental actions are a simple and effective way of generating a sense of social normality
around pro-environmental behaviour (Schultz, Nolan, Cialdini, Goldstein and Griskevicius, 2007). There are different reasons that people adopt social norms, and encouraging people to adop t a positive norm simply to ‘conform’, to avoid a feeling of guilt, or for fear
of not ‘fitting in’ is likely to produce a relatively shallow level of motivation for behaviour change. Where social norms can be combined with ‘intrinsic’ motivations (e.g. a sense of social belonging), they are likely to be more effective and persistent. ¶ Too often,
environmental communications are directed to the individual as a single unit in the larger social system of consumption and political engagement. This can make th e problems feel too overwhelming, and evoke unmanageable levels of anxiety. Through the enhanced
awareness of what other people are doing, a strong sense of collective purpose can be engendered. One factor that is likely to influence whether adaptive or maladaptive coping strategies are selected in response to fear about climate change is whether people feel
supported by a social network – that is, whether a sense of ‘sustainable citizenship’ is fostered. The efficacy of groupbased programmes at promoting pro-environmental behaviour change has been demonstrated on numerous occasions – and participants in these
projects consistently point to a sense of mutual learning and support as a key reason for making and maintaining changes in behaviour (Nye and Burgess, 2008). There are few influences more powerful than an individual’s social network. Networks are instrumental
not just in terms of providing social support, but also by creating specific content of social identity – defining what it means to be “us”. If environmental norms are incorporated at this level (become defining for the group) they can result in significant behavioural
change (also reinforced through peer pressure).¶ Of course, for the majority of people, this is unlikely to be a network that has climate change at its core. But social networks – Trade Unions, Rugby Clubs, Mother & Toddler groups – still perform a critical role in
spreading change through society. Encouraging and supporting pre-existing social networks to take ownership of climate change (rather than approach it as a problem for ‘green groups’) is a critical task. As well as representing a crucial bridge between individuals
and broader society, peer-to-peer learning circumnavigates many of the problems associated with more ‘top down’ models of communication – not least that government representatives are perceived as untrustworthy (Poortinga & Pidgeon, 2003). Peer-to-peer
learning is more easily achieved in group-based dialogue than in designing public information films: But public information films can nonetheless help to establish social norms around community-based responses to the challenges of climate change, through clear
visual portrayals of people engaging collectively in the pro-environmental behaviour.¶ The discourse should be shifted increasingly from ‘you’ to ‘we’ and from ‘I’ to ‘us’. This is starting to take place in emerging forms of community-based activism, such as the
Transition Movement and Cambridge Carbon Footprint’s ‘Carbon Conversations’ model – both of which recognize the power of groups to help support and maintain lifestyle and identity changes. A nationwide climate change engagement project using a group-based
behaviour change model with members of Trade Union networks is currently underway, led by the Climate Outreach and Information Network. These projects represent a method of climate change communication and engagement radically different to that typically
pursued by the government – and may offer a set of approaches that can go beyond the limited reach of social marketing techniques. ¶ One potential risk with appeals based on social norms is that they often contain a hidden message. So, for example, a campaign
that focuses on the fact that too many people take internal flights actually contains two messages – that taking internal flights is bad for the environment, and that lots of people are taking internal flights. This second message can give those who do not currently
engage in that behaviour a perverse incentive to do so, and campaigns to promote behaviour change should be very careful to avoid this. The key is to ensure that information about what is happening (termed descriptive norms), does not oversha dow information
about what should be happening (termed injunctive norms). ¶ 6. Think about the language you use, but don’t rely on language alone¶ A number of recent publications have highlighted the results of focus group research and talk-back tests in order to ‘get the
language right’ (Topos Partnership, 2009; Western Strategies & Lake Research Partners, 2009), culminating in a series of suggestions for framing climate-change communications. For example, these two studies led to the suggestions that communicators should use
the term ‘global warming’ or ‘our deteriorating atmosphere’, respectively, rather than ‘climate change’. Other research has identified systematic differences in the way that people interpret the terms ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’, with ‘global warming’
perceived as more emotionally engaging than ‘climate change’ (Whitmarsh, 2009). ¶ Whilst ‘getting the language right’ is important, it can only play a small part in a communication strategy. More important than the language deployed (i.e. ‘conceptual frames') are
what have been referred to by some cognitive linguists as 'deep frames'. Conceptual framing refers to catchy slogans and clever spin (which may or may not be honest). At a deeper level, framing refers to forging the connections between a debate or public policy and a
set of deeper values or principles. Conceptual framing (crafting particular messages focussing on particular issues) cannot work unless these messages resonate with a set of long-term deep frames.¶ Policy proposals which may at the surface level seem similar
(perhaps they both set out to achieve a reduction in environmental pollution) may differ importantly in terms of their deep framing. For example, putting a financial value on an endangered species, and building an economic case for their conservation ‘commodifies’
them, and makes them equivalent (at the level of deep frames) to other assets of the same value (a hotel chain, perhaps). This is a very different frame to one that attempts to achieve the same conservation goals through the ascription of intrinsic value to such species
– as something that should be protected in its own right. Embedding particular deep frames requires concerted effort (Lakoff, 2009), but is the beginning of a process that can build a broad, coherent cross-departmental response to climate change from
Private-sphere behavioural change is not enough, and
may
become a diversion from the more important process of bringing political pressure to
bear on policy-makers. The importance of public demonstrations of frustration at the lack of
political progress on climate
is widely recognised including by government
itself Climate change communications
should work to normalise public
displays of frustration with the slow pace of political change.
communications can
play a role in fostering demand for - as well as acceptance of - policy change
government.¶ 7. Encourage public demonstrations of frustration at the limited pace of government action ¶
even at times
both
change and the barriers presented by vested interests
.
–
, including government communication campaigns,
Ockwell et al (2009) argued that
. Climate change communication could (and should) be
used to encourage people to demonstrate (for example through public demonstrations) about how they would like structural barriers to behavioural/societal change to be removed.
SSD Good --- Environment --- Mitchell
SSD facilitates deliberation and more effective decision-making--especially true in the context of energy and the environment where
special interests poison neutrality
Mitchell 10 (Gordon R, Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the
Department of Communication at the University of Pittsburgh, where he also directs the
William Pitt Debating Union, “SWITCH-SIDE DEBATING MEETS DEMAND-DRIVEN
RHETORIC OF SCIENCE”, http://www.pitt.edu/~gordonm/JPubs/Mitchell2010.pdf)
Yet the picture grows more complex when one considers what is happening over at
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), where
environmental scientist Ibrahim Goodwin is collaborating with John W. Davis on a project that
uses switch-side debating to clean up air and water. In April 2008, that initiative brought
top intercollegiate debaters from four universities to Washington, D.C., for a series of debates on the topic
of water quality, held for an audience of EPA subject matter experts working on interstate
river pollution and bottled water issues. An April 2009 follow-up event in Huntington Beach, California,
featured another debate weighing the relative merits of monitoring versus remediation as
beach pollution strategies. “We use nationally ranked intercollegiate debate programs to
research and present the arguments, both pro and con, devoid of special interest in the outcome,”
explains Davis. “In doing so, agency representatives now remain squarely within the decision-making
role thereby neutralizing overzealous advocacy that can inhibit learned discourse.”7 The intelligence
community and EPA debating initiatives vary quite a bit simply by virtue of the contrasting policy objectives pursued by their sponsoring
agencies (foreign policy versus environmental protection). Significant process-level differences mark off the respective initiatives as well; the
former project entails largely one-way interactions designed to sluice insight from “open sources” to intelligence analysts working in classified
environments and producing largely secret assessments. In contrast, the
EPA’s debating initiative is conducted
through public forums in a policy process required by law to be transparent . This granularity
troubles Greene and Hicks’s deterministic framing of switch-side debate as an ideologically smooth and consistent cultural technology. In an
alternative approach, this
essay positions debate as a malleable method of decision making, one
utilized by different actors in myriad ways to pursue various purposes. By bringing forth
the texture inherent in the associated messy “mangle of practice,”8 such an approach has
potential to deepen our understanding of debate as a dynamic and contingent, rather
than static, form of rhetorical performance. Juxtaposition of the intelligence community and EPA debating
initiatives illuminates additional avenues of inquiry that take overlapping elements of the two projects as points of departure. Both tackle
complex, multifaceted, and technical topics that do not lend themselves to reductionist, formal analysis, and both tap into the creative energy
latent in what Protagoras of Abdera called dissoi logoi, the process of learning about a controversial or unresolved issue by airing opposing
viewpoints.9 In short, these
institutions are employing debate as a tool of deliberation, seeking
outside expertise to help accomplish their aims. Such trends provide an occasion to revisit a
presumption commonly held among theorists of deliberative democracy—that debate and
deliberation are fundamentally opposed practices—as the intelligence community’s Analytic
Outreach program and the EPA’s debating initiatives represent examples where debating
exercises are designed to facilitate, not frustrate, deliberative goals.
2AC – Environmental Pragmatism Good
Pragmatism is best---the K’s theorizing results in endless
philosophical debates which prevent good policies in an attempt to
create ideal ones
Light 96 (Andrew, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress working with the
Energy and Environmental Policy program, associate professor of philosophy and
environmental policy, and director of the Center for Global Ethics, at George Mason University,
Ed. by Eric Katz, Environmental Pragmatism, p. 1-2)
As environmental ethics approaches its third decade it is faced with a curious problem. On the one hand, the discipline has made
significant progress in the analysts of the moral relationship between humanity and the non-human natural world. The field has
produced a wide variety of positions and theories' in an attempt to derive morally justifiable and adequate environmental policies.
On the other hand, it
is difficult to see what practical effect the field of environmental ethics has had
on the formation of environmental policy. The intramural debates of environmental
philosophers, although interesting, provocative and complex, seem to have no real impact on
the deliberations of environmental scientists, activists and policy-makers. The ideas within
environmental ethics are, apparently, inert — like Hume's Treatise, they fall deadborn from the press. The problematic situation of
environmental ethics greatly troubles us, both as philosophers
and as citizens. We are deeply concerned about
the precarious stare of the natural world, the environmental hazards that threaten humans, and the
maintenance of long-term sustainable life on this planet. The environmental crisis that surrounds us is a fact of
experience. It is thus imperative that environmental philosophy, as a discipline, address this crisis - its meaning, its causes and its
possible resolution. Can philosophers contribute anything to an investigation of environmental problems? Do the traditions, history
and skills of philosophical thought have any relevance to the development of environmental policy? We believe that the answer is
yes. Despite the problematic (and, heretofore, ineffectual) status of environmental ethics as a practical discipline, the field has much
to offer. Rut the
fruits of this philosophical enterprise must be directed towards the practical
resolution of environmental problems — environmental ethics cannot remain mired in longrunning theoretic debates in an attempt to achieve philosophical certainty. As Mark Sagoff has written:
|W]e have to get along without certainty; we have to solve practical, not theoretical, problems; and
we must adjust the ends we pursue to the means available to accomplish them. Otherwise, method
becomes an obstacle to morality, dogma the foe of deliberation, and the ideal society we aspire
to in theory will become a formidable enemy of the good society we can achieve in fact.' In short,
environmental ethics must develop for itself a methodology of environmental pragmatism —
fueled by a recognition that theoretical debates arc problematic for the development of
environmental policy.
Alt Fails – Prag
The alt fails---forces us to abandon the familiar for leaps of faith that
are illogical---only working within the system prevents tyranny and
destructive individualism
Humphrey 1 (Dr. Mathew Humphrey, Reader in Political Philosophy and Deputy Director
of the Center for the Study of Social and Global Justice at the University of Nottingham, Political
Theory and the Environment, 2001, p. 98-100)
This is. of course, a caricature, and a fairly crude one at that. And yet. like any caricature, it does contain a grain of truth. One might
even profess a certain perverse sympathy with its redescription of, and prescriptions for. our present predicament. Bui at the same
time, one is bound to have grave doubts as to whether the entire human species, or a substantial portion thereof, can create and
learn an entirely new moral language within the ever-diminishing time available to them. Some few might effect a Nictzschian
transvaluation of values. But as Nietzsche rightly recognized, many - perhaps most - lack the resources or the will to transvalue. We
might then be in the paradoxical position described long ago by the Roman historian Livy. 'In our times', Livy lamented, 'we
can
neither endure our faults nor the means of correcting them* (quoted in Connolly [1988: I]). One can
acknowledge that our faults are evident and legion - as I certainly do - while doubling that the means
of their correction can only come through arriving at and applying a radically new ethic with a
concern for nature and future generations of humans and other species at its centre. To pose my main question crudely and bluntly:
the prospects for devising or arriving at a radically new ethic - an environmentally sensitive, earthcentred, post-humanist 'planetary' ethic? To answer it in equally blunt terms: Not very likely . If the fate of the earth
and of future generations requires that most of us must abandon the familiar and become Buddhists or
Deep Ecologists or Ecofeminists or indigenous earth-worshippers, then the earth and its future inhabitants are in
very grave peril indeed. The condemnation of 'individualism' (or 'Western individualism') that is the stockin-trade of much radical environmental discourse does of course have a point. But it also seems to me to be both self-defeating
and dangerous. It is certainly true that, as Clifford Gecrtz observes, 'The Western conception of the person as a bounded,
What are
unique, more or less integrated motivational and cognitive universe, a dynamic center of awareness, emotion, judgment and action
organized into a distinctive whole |is| ... a rather peculiar idea within the context of the world's cultures" [Geeriz. 1979: 229). Yet the
peculiarity of this idea is hardly sufficient reason for discarding it. On the contrary, we
have good reason to retain the
idea of 'the individual' and sec it for what it is - a unique and morally noteworthy evolutionary
achievement deserving of recognition and respect and, of course, rational criticism. Individualism,
like any idea, can of course be perverted and put to destructive uses, as Tocqueville and many modern ecologically minded writers
rightly remind us. But we must not forget the destruction wrought earlier during the last century by anti-individualist ideologies
which gave pride of place to race, Volk, nation and other such supra-individual and collective entities - and which professed to
identify with, if not worship, 'the soil' and 'nature' [Pais, J987). We had best beware of being too ready to reject 'humanism' or
'individualism' in the name of some supra-individual or post-humanist ethic. We
should also beware of modeling our
actions, institutions and practices on the animal kingdom or taking 'nature' as the standard or measure of value or right, or
of merging ourselves into or 'identifying' with nature.3 It is one thing to respect or to 'get along
with' nature [Bern; 1987], and quite another - and more insidious - thing to somehow identify with nature.
The naive and too-often unargued assertions of romantic nature-worshippers notwithstanding, nature's standard would appear to be
Nature is indifferent to
tyranny . Justice and fairness are unknown among non-human animals (although some among the higher
that might makes right. When 'nature takes its course', the weak perish and the strong survive.
primates are arguably a possible if perhaps doubtful exception); they arc human inventions and achievements (albeit too often
honoured in the breach). Lest we forget: there was at the turn of the last century a political perspective that purported to take its
norms from 'nature'. It was called Social Darwinism. It viewed human life as a struggle for existence in which the 'fittest' survived
and the 'unfit* did not [Hawkins, 1997]. As one of its American champions proclaimed. Nature's
remedies against vice
are terrible. She removes the victims without pity. A drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be, according to the fitness
and tendency of things. Nature has set up on him the process of decline and dissolution by which she removes things which have
survived their usefulness [Sumner. 1883: 114]. We
had therefore best beware of a too-ready recourse to
'nature' as an alternative to, or antidote for, our 'humanism* or 'anthropocentrism*. Having said that,
however, it is clear that we cannot continue to live as we have, without regard to the rights and interests of generations yet unborn.
The fate of future people hangs upon our ability and willingness to expand and enlarge our ethical universe so as to include them as
One cannot simply create moral codes or
concepts, much less an entirely 'new ethic *, ex nlhilo. Modem conceptual historians who study the processes
and mechanisms of 'conceptual change* arc pretty much agreed on this point. If a conceptual
innovation has any hope of succeeding, its proponents must satisfy two desiderata: intelligibility
and legitimacy. In order to be intelligible to others, a would-be innovator must draw upon the
ideas and idioms that are already available to her fellow citizens. She must practice what Walzer aptly calls
members of our moral community. But how might we gel there from here?
'connected social criticism* [1987; I988\. These must, moreover, be invoked in ways that will legitimize new ways of speaking,
thinking, and acting. As Qucntin Skinner notes. however revolutionary the [innovating] ideologist ... he will nevertheless be
committed, once he has accepted the need to legitimate his behaviour, to attempting to show that some of the existing range of
favourable evaluative-descriptive terms can somehow be applied as apt descriptions of his own apparently untoward actions. Every
revolutionary is to this extent obliged to march backward into battle [Skinner. 1988: U2\. And this, of course, is precisely what
Deep Ecologists and other radical environmentalists have so signally failed to do. As innovating ideologists they
have been singularly inept and unsuccessful. They have engaged in a kind of disconnected social criticism that
is largely unintelligible to most of their fellow citizens. And this is why Anna Bramwcll [I994\ and other critics
may well be correct, if perhaps a bit premature, in announcing 'the fading of the greens' and the demise of green politics, or at any
rate its more radical variants. If the greens - amongst whom I count myself - are to succeed politically, some
way must be
found to connect with, to use, and perchance to alter the dominant discourses, and particularly that of
liberal individualism, from within. What is needed, then, is (in an older philosophical idiom) an immanent critique. Only through
such a critique can conceptual innovation come about and succeed in reshaping the way we think and therefore act. Absent that, the
greens arc foredoomed to fail. And the failure
of the green movement will not be due to its unimportance,
but to the unintelligibility and thus the perceived illegitimacy of its discourse. At or near the top of any
green agenda or political programme is the need to pay conscious and articulate attention to the rights and interests of posterity and
to the grounds and extent of our obligation to recognise, respect and protect them. What follows is not a systematic inquiry into what
Brian Barry calls the 'mind-bending topic' of intergenerational justice [1989: 9], but a list of queries and concerns that would surely
be central to such an inquiry.
Alt Fails
2AC – Cede the Political
The alt forecloses effective political action and cedes control to rightwing anti-environmental groups---ensures extinction
York 10 (Richard, associate professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and co-editor
of the Sage journal Organization & Environment, and Brett Clark, assistant professor of
sociology at North Carolina State University, “Critical Materialism: Science, Technology, and
Environmental Sustainability”, Sociological Inquiry, Volume 80, Issue 3, pages 475–499,
August)
It is in many ways surprising that some factions of the environmental movement and more than a few scholars in the social sciences
and humanities who study environmental problems have taken a philosophical position that rejects scientific epistemology.
Various ecological perspectives, such as deep ecology (Devall and Sessions 1985), what O’Connor (1998:21–22)
identifies as “Romantic ecology,” and what Foster (2000) refers to as “green theory,” are founded on philosophical
idealism, spiritualism, or postmodernism. These approaches identify the scientific worldview as a force driving environmental
degradation and exploitation of people.9 The problem with these types of approaches is that they ultimately
deny (if sometimes unintentionally) the existence of real environmental problems, since they challenge the
idea that we can have objective knowledge of an external world. This opposition to rational
analysis and materialism undermines political action, potentially preventing societies from
taking actions to ensure their long-term survival. Wood (1997:14) writes: Postmodernism is…a ruthlessly
“totalizing” system, which forecloses a vast range of critical thought and emancipatory politics…. Its epistemological assumptions
make it unavailable to criticism, as immune to critique as the most rigid kind of dogma (how do you criticize a body of ideas that a
priori rules out the very practice of “rational” argument?). And
they preclude—not just by dogmatically rejecting
but also by rendering impossible—a systematic understanding of the historical moment, a
wholesale critique of capitalism, and just about any effective political action. Even worse, as Foster
(1997:193) explains: The irony of post-modernism is that while purporting to have transcended modernity, it
abandons from the start all hope of transcending capitalism itself and entering a post-capitalist era.
Postmodernist theory is therefore easily absorbed within the dominant cultural frame…. Perhaps this will be the final destiny of
postmodernist theory—its absorption by the vast marketing apparatus of the capitalist economy, adding irony and color to a
commercial order…. Meanwhile, historical materialism will remain the necessary intellectual ground for all those who seek, not to
revel in the “carnival” of capitalist productive and market relations, but to transcend them. This
propensity for
postmodernist ideology to aid the economic elite has been realized on the environmental front.
There is a right-wing industry that seeks to deny the reality of anthropogenic climate change,
and they use the rhetoric of scientific uncertainty that was pioneered by postmodernists to
support their agenda (Jacques, Dunlap, and Freeman 2008; McCright and Dunlap 2000, 2003). For example, scientific
experts for the Global Climate Coalition, an organization representing major industries who opposed
regulations to limit emissions of greenhouse gases, indicated in internal reports that the science
behind global climate change was irrefutable. Nonetheless, this group lobbied representatives to
hobble climate legislation and conducted a major public relations campaign suggesting that
there was scientific uncertainty regarding climate change in order to foster public doubt and to
delay social action that would hinder business (Revkin 2009). Likewise, postmodernist rhetoric has
also been appropriated by religious fundamentalists, who attempt to undermine the teaching of evolution in
public schools by arguing that “intelligent design” and Darwinian evolutionary theory are competing scientific paradigms and,
therefore, intelligent design deserves representation in the curriculum (Forrest and Gross 2004; Foster, Clark, and York 2008).
Radical Environmentalism Fails
The alt fails---doesn’t recognize interconnectedness of problems and
furthers environmental destruction
Glover 6 (Leigh, policy fellow and assistant professor in the Center for Energy and
Environmental Policy at the University of Delaware, “Postmodern Climate Change”, Psychology
Press, August 31, Google Books, p. 58)
A major liability of postmodernity's contribution to environmentalism is its inability to
construct political programs based on firm critiques of society's dominant power relationships.
In this sense, Gare draws a contrast between postmodernity and what he regards as the useful and insightful critique of political
economy. Global
environmental destruction has involved far more than individual power
relationships and 'discursive formations,' he argues, as they result from the power of market
institutions, corporations, and nations states operating at the global scale, and various power
relationships between groups within societies. It is these latter forms of power that
postmodernity must inform if it is to assist in addressing ecological problems. Yet
postmodernity cannot do so, being (1995:98) "simply committed to the defense of local knowledge
and local power against global knowledge and global power." Not only do poststructuralists "fail to reveal the
interconnectedness of environmental problems" but also "invalidate the efforts of those who are
striving to reveal them" (Gare 1995: 99). Because of the way postmodernists (and poststructuralists) have developed an
ambivalence over any simple relationship between object and language (especially in the hands of Baudrillard), discourse
becomes inwardly focused on discourse itself. If theories are increasingly defined and developed in relation to other
theories, environmental destruction becomes "incomprehensible;" then, in a telling phrase (1995: 99): "This
inability to deal with the phenomenon of a global environmental crisis manifests the loss of
contact with the world." Environmentalism is popular in the post- modern era, matching with a general skepticism towards
the concept of progress and concomitant with an acceptance of diverse cultures and beliefs, with special sympathies towards those
diminished by progress. Although
postmodernism fosters alterative perspectives, so that deep ecology,
eco- feminism and New Age thinking offer greater respect for nature and opportunities for
alternative values (Gare 1995: 100). " hardly any of this support has translated into effective action,
into changing the way people live and the way the economy is organized to make society less
environmentally destructive."
Prior Questions
AT: Prior Questions
Prioritization claims are counter-productive---you should evaluate
the veracity of the 1ac’s claims about the world while embracing a
plurality of (methods / ontologies)
Andrew Bennett 13, government prof at Georgetown, The mother of all isms: Causal
mechanisms and structured pluralism in International Relations theory, European Journal of
International Relations 2013 19:459
The political science subfield of International Relations (IR) continues to undergo debates on whether and in what sense it is a 'science,1 how it should organize its inquiry into
an 'inter-paradigm' debate, while less prominent than during the
1990s, has continued to limp along among researchers who identify their work as fitting within the
research agenda of a grand school of thought, or 'ism,' and the scholar most closely associated with it, including neorealism
(Waltz, 1979), neoliberalism (Keohane, 1984), constructivism (Wendt, 1992), or occasionally Marxism (Wallerstein, 1974) or feminism
(Tickner, 1992). Scholars participating in this debate have often acted as if their preferred 4 ism' and its competitors
were either "paradigms" (following Kuhn, 1962) or "research programs' (as defined by Lakatos, 19701. and some have explicitly framed their
approach as paradigmatic or programmatic (Hopf, 1998).¶ A second level of the debate involves post-positivist critiques of IR
international politics, and how it should build and justify its theories. On one level,
as a "scientific' enterprise (Lapid, 1989). While the vague label "post-positivist, encompasses a diverse group of scholars, frequent post-positivist themes include arguments that
observation is theory-laden (Kuhn, 1962), that knowledge claims are always part of mechanisms of power and that meaning is always social (Foucault, 1978), and that individual
agents and social structures are mutually constitutive (Wendt, 1992). Taken together, these arguments indicate that the social sciences face even more daunting challenges than
A third axis of contestation has been methodological
the physical sciences.¶
, involving claims regarding the strengths and limits of
statistical, formal, experimental, qualitative case study, narrative, and other methods. In the last two decades the argument that there is 'one logic of inference1 and that this
logic is 'explicated and formalized clearly in discussions of quantitative research methods' (King et al., 1994: 3) has generated a useful debate that has clarified the similarities,
These debates have each
proved fruitful, increasing the theoretical, epistemological, and methodological diversity of the field (Jordan el al.,
2009). The IR subfield has also achieved considerable progress in the last few decades in its
theoretical and empirical understanding of important policy-relevant issues, including the inter-democratic
differences, uses, and limits of alternative methods ( Brady and Collier, 2010; George and Bennett, 2005; Goertz and Mahoney, 2006).¶
in their own way
peace, terrorism, peacekeeping, international trade, human rights, international law, international organizations, global environmental politics, economic sanctions, nuclear
Yet there is a widespread sense that this progress has arisen in
spite of interparadigmatic debates rather than because of them. Several prominent scholars, including Rudra Sil and Peter
Katzenstein, have argued that although research cast within the framework of paradigmatic debates has contributed useful concepts and findings, framing the IR
field around inter-paradigmatic debates is ultimately distracting and even counterproductive (Sil and
proliteration, military intervention, civil and ethnic conflicts, and many other topics.¶
Katzenstein, 2010; see also David Lake, 2011, and in this special issue, and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson and Daniel Nexon, 2009, and in this special issue). These scholars agree
IR researchers have misapplied Kuhn's notion of paradigms in ways that imply that grand theories of
tightly connected ideas — the isms — are the central focus of IR theorizing, and that such isms
should compete until one wins general consensus. Sil and Katzenstein argue that the remedy for this is to draw
on pragmatist philosophers and build upon an 'eclectic' mix of theories and methods to better
understand the world (Sil and Katzenstein, 2010). In this view, no single grand theory can capture the
complexities of political life, and the real explanatory weight is carried by more fine-grained
theories about 'causal mechanisms."¶ In this article I argue that those urging a pragmatic turn in IR are
correct in their diagnosis of the drawbacks of paradigms and their prescription tor using theories about causal mechanisms as the basis for explanatory progress in IR.
Yet scholars are understandably reluctant to jettison the "isms' and the inter-paradigmatic debate not only
that
because they fear losing the theoretical and empirical contributions made in the name of the isms, but because framing the field around the isms has proven a useful shorthand
for classroom teaching and field-wide discourse. The 'eclectic' label that Sil and Katzenstein propose can easily be misinterpreted in this regard, as the Merriam-Webster online
dictionary defines 'eclectic* as 'selecting what appears to be best in various doctrines, methods, or styles,' as Sil and Katzenstein clearly intend, but it also includes as synonyms
"indiscriminate" and 'ragtag.'1 By using the term 'eclecticism' and eschewing any analytic structure for situating and translating among different examples of IR research, Sil and
Katzenstein miss an opportunity to enable a discourse that is structured as well as pluralistic, and that reaches beyond IR to the rest of the social sciences.¶ I maintain that in
order to sustain the genuine contributions made under the guise of the inter-paradigmatic debate and at the same time get beyond it to focus on causal mechanisms rather than
grand theoretical isms, four additional moves are necessary. First, given that mechanism-based approaches are generally embedded within a scientific realist philosophy of
science, it is essential to clarify the philosophical and definitional issues associated with scientific realism, as well as the benefits — and costs — of making hypothesized causal
IR theory cannot sidestep metatheoretical
debates. Second, it is important to take post-positivist critiques seriously and to articulate standards
for theoretical progress, other than paradigmatic revolutions, that are defensible even if they are fallible. Third, achieving a
mechanisms the locus of explanatory theories. As Christian Reus-Smit argues in this special issue,
shift toward mechanismic explanations requires outlining the contributions that diverse methods can make to the study of causal mechanisms. Finally, it is vital to demonstrate
that a focus on mechanisms can serve two key functional roles that paradigms played for the IR subfield: first, providing a framework for cumulative theoretical progress; and,
second, constituting a useful, vivid, and structured vocabulary for communicating findings to fellow scholars, students, political actors, and the public (see also Stefano Guzzini's
'structured pluralism' best captures this last move, as it conveys the sense that IR
scholars can borrow the best ideas from different theoretical traditions and social science
disciplines in ways that allow both intelligible discourse and cumulative progress.¶ Alter briefly outlining the
article in this special issue). I argue that the term
problems associated with organizing the IR field around the "isms/ this article addresses each of these four tasks in turn. First, it takes on the challenges of defining "causal
mechanisms' and using them as the basis of theoretical explanations. Second, it acknowledges the relevance and importance of post-positivist critiques of causal explanation, yet
scientific realism and
interpretivism are compatible
it argues that
some approaches to
, and that there are standards upon which they
can agree forjudging explanatory progress. Third, it very briefly clarifies the complementary roles that alternative methods can play in elucidating theories about causal
mechanisms. Finally, the article presents a taxonomy of theories about social mechanisms to provide a pluralistic but structured framework for cumulative theorizing about
politics. This taxonomy provides a platform for developing typological theories — or what others in this special issue, following Robert Merton, have called middle-range theories
I join Lake in this special issue in urging that IR
theorizing be centered around middle-range theories, and I take issue with Jackson and Nexon's suggestion herein that such
theorizing privileges correlational evidence, and their assertion that statistical evidence is inherently associated with Humean notions of causation. I argue that my
taxonomy of mechanisms offers a conceptual bridge to the paradigmatic isms in IR. adopting
and organizing their theoretical insights while leaving behind their paradigmatic pretensions . The
article concludes that, among its other virtues, this taxonomy can help reinvigorate dialogues between IR theory and
the fields of comparative and American politics, economics, sociology, psychology, and history, stimulating
cross-disciplinary discourses that have been inhibited by the scholasticism of IR's ingrown 'isms.'
— on the ways in which combinations of mechanisms interact to produce outcomes. Here,
AT: Methodology First
Focus on method prevents effective deliberation and isolates
environmental philosophy
Norton 3 (Bryan, Professor of Philosophy, Science, and Technology, School of Public Policy,
Georgia Institute of Technology, Which Morals Matter? Freeing Moral Reasoning from Ideology,
27 Environs Envtl. L. & Pol'y J. 81, Fall)
We should hope for an end to the Age of Ideology because the
effects of ideological environmentalism are
disastrous in many ways. Academically, ideological commitments (sometimes masquerading as methodological
commitments) have polarized discourse about environmental values, setting ethicists and economists on a
rhetorical collision course. Environmental ethicists, under the guise of claiming the moral high ground
against the economic Philistines, have reduced the role of public philosopher to that of blatant
propagandist.7 Concentration on foundational issues by environmental ethicists has created a polarized
discourse about environmental values, a discourse in which practitioners of the two most relevant disciplines for the
discussion of environmental values - environmental ethics and environmental economics - speak past each other,
characterizing their differences in non-negotiable and incommensurable terminology. Continued emphasis on
foundational issues by environmental ethicists simply exacerbates the ideological ferment and blocks
reasonable deliberation about what to do. Politically, ideological environmentalism has led to "policy whiplash," where
every change of parties and administrations results in efforts by the incoming party to undo the accomplishments of the previous
administration. Because of the polarized rhetoric, each side in the controversy characterizes any gain by their opponents as the
Every problem is posed as a zero-sum game despite
overwhelming evidence that environmental improvements are almost always also good for the
economy. Worse, by expressing their views ideologically, discussants are locked into polarized viewpoints, from
which they have stooped to name calling, rhetoric and dismissal of others as representatives of the forces of evil, rather than
engaging in rational deliberation. The current concentration on foundational issues - which Stone
wishes to extend - effectively prohibits communication among participants in the public discourse about environmental
values and goals, blocking the search for win-win solutions or acceptable compromises. In the process,
experimentation and social learning have become impossible and citizens are ignorant about the extent to which
policy changes dissipate the public values associated with an integral environment. II. MORE
IDEOLOGY? I accept Stone's data, which shows that environmental ethicists have had little impact on
policymaking, and his analysis, which concludes that concentration on foundational issues makes the work
of environmental ethicists irrelevant to policymakers. However, I am unwilling to accept his counsel that
advance of evil, needing to be stamped out at any cost.
ethicists continue down the same failed ideological path. How can Stone and I agree on so much yet offer such contradictory advice
on making the future of environmental ethics relevant to environmental law? The explanation I offer is that Stone misses
alternatives to the currently failed strategy of environmental ethicists because he has not been sufficiently critical of the rhetorical
barriers imposed by ideology. He does not see any alternatives to foundational conflict because ideology has infected the definitions
of key terms that he uses in his analysis. Stone's use of these ideologically
skewed definitions has the effect of
posing ethical questions such that a position counts as "ethical" only if it is based on a
"foundation" that stands in opposition to the foundations of economic theory. In Stone's critique,
environmental ethicists can contribute to the policy conversation only by rejecting all economic inputs
AT: Epistemology First
The neg should have to win reasons why our specific knowledge
claims are wrong---even if our epistemology in the abstract could be
suspect, policy debates that use science and diverse opinions identify
practical truths to make sound environmental decisions---this means
you should err aff because in the face of extinction, the necessity of
acting outweighs
Norton 5 (Bryan G, professor of philosophy at the Georgia Institute of Technology,
“Sustainability: A Philosophy of Adaptive Ecosystem Management”, University of Chicago Press,
November 1, 2005, pp. 151-154)
Pragmatists pay attention to the particularities of unique situations. In action-forcing situations, it is often possible
to provide helpful, if context- sensitive, guidance to decide what to accept as certain enough to guide action and what is not so certain and therefore requires further
decisions, which occur within a value-laden context, allow us to use agreements
about values—however limited and situation-specific—to accept certain goals as consensus goals. Then we can pursue
observations and management experiments to reduce debilitating uncertainty regarding
techniques to achieve those goals. Shared values and goals can, in this way, sometimes serve as the solid ground
on which to stand to undertake experimentation with means to achieve the goals, thereby reducing uncertainty about system functioning. At other
times, of course, beliefs about the system and its behavior seem undeniable, and we can stand on these planks to deliberate about realistic and wise goals. The
epistemology of adaptive management thus provides for gradual progress and improvement of
both our belief system and our preferences and values, by using experience to triangulate between
temporarily accepted beliefs and values. The most controversial aspect of this knowledge- seeking strategy, perhaps, is the idea that
study. These
in concrete situations shared values can sometimes serve as a solid basis upon which to pursue mission-oriented science to reduce uncertainty about outcomes of our
choices. To explore this idea, it is essential that we understand environmental values in such a way that through successive applications of our method, values can be
improved over time. In this and the remaining chapters in part 2,1 provide such a context-sensitive approach that can serve to bootstrap both our values and our
factual understanding of management situations simultaneously.
we can
understand our problem as one of deciding which of our beliefs to accept as strong enough
and which should be submitted to immediate and critical review and testing. Sailors on the boat are motivated by their desire to
Likening our epistemological problem to a ride on Neuraths boat, which is required to stay afloat indefinitely while repairs are made,
survive, and so they undertake the repairs on the boat with great deliberation and care. They must not only make important technical judgments regarding which
planks are becoming weak with age and rot, but they must also make judicious choices regarding which planks must, given the importance of their function, be given
as adaptive managers, we are driven by the desire to stay afloat and to prosper
as a community, and we must similarly decide carefully what beliefs to accept as given,
which should be doubted, and which points of uncertainty are of highest priority, given the
shared goals of the community. Like Neuraths sailors, we must make such epistemological
judgments under pressure; if we guess wrong and stand on a weak board to fix a stronger one, we face danger, if we stand on a strong board and
priority. Analogously,
fix a weak one, we could still face danger if, for example, we choose to fix weak boards of no direct importance to the seaworthiness of the vessel and ignore others that
might fail catastrophically. We must, like Justice Holmes's judge, act in a way that fulfills several social demands, including the demand that the present decision be
both consistent with precedent and legal tradition and also responsive to the new demands of a new situation.
The particular context of a real management dilemma—a context always suffused with value—can be very important for pragmatists in determining which beliefs
The necessity of
acting—and refraining from action is itself an action—enforces a kind of discipline, a discipline felt in a
particular situation with real values at stake. In some situations, for example when the very existence
of the community is threatened, decisions can be seen against a backdrop of unquestioned
values (community survival); in these situations consensus on values may be far stronger than
consensus on science. Epistemological decisions, in situations where decisions are forced and important values are at stake, thus involve judgments
should be accepted, however provisionally, and which should be submitted to more intense scrutiny by observation and experiment.
of importance as well as truth. We can only examine our whole belief system and try to find some beliefs we can temporarily place beyond doubt. Given the goal of
management, we first concentrate on beliefs that are most important to the ongoing voyage, postponing examination of others until later: we keep our ship afloat,
gradually transforming it plank by plank. Similarly, adaptive managers sometimes, by hypothesis, help themselves to a platform of beliefs in order to question the
goals that should be pursued; and at other times we assume our goals are worthy ones and proceed to test appropriate scientific hypotheses related to the attainment
this platform, which shifts over time and in the
process of many trials, yields improved understanding and improved goals through an
of those goals. Optimistically, the adaptive manager believes that
action and reflection. This may be the only effective way to respond to wicked
problems as they arise in a community with diverse and sometimes competing values.
alternation between
one might object that this whole process is circular
Of course
and that no "true" justification of goals or actions takes place.
We assume facts to support values, and we then stand on the values to support the importance of scientific research to reduce uncertainty and to allow actions to
we play our epistemological trump card—the ability of diverse communities,
to focus attention on weak assumptions and unjustifiable
principles. In open public debate and open public processes, when well-informed stakeholders have free
access to information and to political institutions, diverse members of a community will
have an incentive to identify weaknesses—scientific, economic, and moral—in policies proposed by competing
support those values. Now
if they operate in an open, democratic mode—
groups. If a process can be created that mimics the process the repairmen on Neuraths boat must develop if they are to survive, then we can give up the dry dock of a
priori, self-evident truths and trust science and the observational method, especially if empowered by a strong sense of shared community values, to identify weak
a reasonable way to proceed, in an adaptive management framework, is to inspire
stakeholders and participants to challenge and question both the beliefs of science and the
proposed goals and values. Democracy, in this sense, can be a powerful engine of truth-seeking. A
diverse population, in adaptive management as well as in Darwinian evolution, increases adaptability, by exploring a
variety of available options, winnowing out the weak assumptions, and pursuing the most
justifiable goals within a particular situation.
planks and keep the boat afloat. So
Provided Neuraths analogy is apt, we can proceed with our analysis, having established a crucial role for values in our epistemological choices; now we turn our
attention to improving our understanding of, and language for describing, environmental values. We want to understand environmental values theoretically. As
I have
emphasized the practical costs of not having at our disposal a coherent and intelligible
language, and an associated explanatory theory, for discussing environmental values and policy. These practical difficulties were
adaptive managers, however, we are also interested in the way they function in a process of local, community-based experimental management. So far
symbolized by the crooked corridors at EPA; and none of EPA's corridors of communication are more crooked and blocked than those through which information
about environmental values and goals should flow.
One important requirement of straightened corridors of communication is the creation of an integrative language that allows cross-disciplinary and cross-interestgroup communication. So one task is to develop some clearer ways of talking about environmental values, relating them to the statements of disciplinary and
integrative sciences, and—most importantly and most practically—creating an enlightening, integrative discourse about environmental science, values, and policy
If we are to go beyond simply improving communication, however, and move toward
substantive agreements about what to do to protect resources and live sustainably, we must also
provide a theoretical structure that connects the ideal of sustainability to justifiable
environmental policy goals that can be operationalized, goals that can be stated and pursued in real-life
goals.
communities with real-life problems. The purpose of this part of the book is two-fold: to improve our linguistic tools for communication about environmental values
and to offer the broad outlines of a positive theory of environmental values.
Pragmatists, from Peirce to Leopold, and adaptive managers are not anti-theory; they are; however, very wary of theory
cut loose from possible observation. No beliefs are ultimately immune from revision in the face of
experience; all theory must sooner or later stand the test of experience, which helps us to separate truth from falsehood
and nonsense. This generalization applies to theories of environmental value no less than to empirical hypotheses about causal factors. The goal of such a
process is to create theory as a general reflection of experience and to avoid a priori theory invoked to dictate the general shape of any environmental values. By
testing proposed theories against their performance in articulating, clarifying, and justifying real
environmental goals of real communities, we gradually hone a language that will help communities in the
future to ask the right questions and to improve their chances of achieving meaningful improvements in their
policies.
AT: X Comes First
Debates over prior questions are unproductive for creating change --pragmatism overcomes these flaws
Hirokawa 2 (Keith, L.L.M., Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College; J.D.,
University of Connecticut, Some Pragmatic Observations About Radical Critique In
Environmental Law, 21 Stan. Envtl. L.J. 225, June)
In championing an idea, theory, or method of reasoning, one must begin with an explanation of that idea, theory or method. When
the subject is pragmatism, however, this task is difficult. The pragmatist is less familiar with what she is than with what she is not,
given that she "turns away from abstraction and insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a priori reasons, from fixed
principles, closed systems, and pretended absolutes and origins." n102 The pragmatist quickly grows weary of philosophical debates
on meta-theories and purportedly universal "first principles," leaving himself armed only with a common sense, n103 justified by the
premise that "contemplative thinking originates in the practical need to solve [*248] real problems." n104 However, pragmatic
common sense is not itself common, even if due only to the types of challenges to which pragmatic common sense is put. The
pragmatist canonizes instrumentalism in problem solving, and, although unbounded by theory, the pragmatist is open to the
employment of visionary ideas. Kant was the first to formulate the need for practical reason under the auspices of "pragmatic"
thought. His project in The Critique of Pure Reason was to establish the metaphorical tribunal of pure reason, in which all claims to
knowledge could be conclusively adjudicated. n105 By subjecting all propositions to the review of pure reason, and adjudicating
these claims a priori, the tribunal of pure reason would separate justified claims from groundless ones. n106 However, Kant
discovered that the reach of pure reason was not infinite, and the precise limitations of pure reason called into question the wisdom
of his project. Kant realized that human reason provoked inquiry into very important questions, the answers for which lay beyond
the limits of reason. Hence, the problem was that human reason has this peculiar fate that in one species of its knowledge [pure
reason] it is burdened by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as
transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer. n107 Pragmatic reason does not find itself confronted with the antinomy
faced by pure reason. "Pragmatic"
beliefs, for Kant, are "contingent" and provide "a ground for the actual
employment of means to certain actions." n108 At the limits of pure reason, Kant focused human thought on the
"actual employment" of practical reason to assess solutions to actual problems. By freeing us from having to submit
every claim of belief to the tribunal of pure reason, Kant sought to avoid subjecting us to the
frustrating antinomy of our human condition. So, for practical needs for which purely analytic
reasoning is of no help (such as grounding religious belief), even Kant made the subtle but important departure, and [*249]
turned to practical reason. n109 In Kant's departure from pure reason, "thought was no longer to be conceived as
something distinct from practice, but rather it simply was practice, or activity, in its deliberative or
reflective aspect." n110 In contemporary theory, pragmatism was established with the rise of consequentialist thinkers in liberal
political and philosophical theory. n111 As philosophers questioned our ability to discover our true natures and basic metaphysical
principles, the pragmatists questioned whether we needed to be philosophizing in such grand meta-philosophical ways at all. Taking
Kant's lead, the pragmatists offered an alternative to foundationalism - "the age-old philosopher's dream that knowledge might be
grounded in a set of fundamental and indubitable beliefs." n112 The
pragmatist dismissed the search for absolute
foundations as antiquated, positing that "no rational God guarantees in advance that important areas of practical activity
will be governed by elegant theories." n113 Foundationalism hinders useful discussion by disputing the justifiability of conclusions
not firmly grounded in theory, while being unable to prove, conclusively, the soundness of a particular theoretical ground. For the
pragmatist, debates
involving competition between "foundationalist" types of theories demonstrate
a failure to find common context in which to converse. As a result, such debates are often
unproductive. Accordingly, the pragmatist has abandoned both the dream of discovering the "world as it really is" and circular
justifications of such meta-theories. The pragmatist's resulting loyalty is to the practical goals of resolving conflicts, engaging in an
inclusive dialogue and determining a course of action. In James' words: Is the world one or many? - fated or free? - material or
spiritual? - here [*250] are notions either of which may or may not hold good of the world; and disputes over such notions are
unending. The
pragmatic method in such cases is to try to interpret each notion by tracing its
respective consequences. What difference would it practically make to any one if this notion rather than that notion were
true? If no practical difference whatever can be traced, then the alternatives mean practically the same thing, and the dispute is idle.
Whenever a dispute is serious, we ought to be able to show some practical difference that must
follow from one side or the other's being right. n114 By rejecting commitments to theory and the notion that such
commitments will direct us to optimal solutions, the focus of pragmatic inquiry turns to an empirical, practical mode of inquiry that
takes context as the basis for knowledge and consequences as a basis for judgment. n115 Pragmatism,
the "futureoriented instrumentalism that tries to deploy thought as a weapon to enable effective action," n116
embodies the notion that practical reason produces more successful action than dwelling on the
theoretical, abstract "nature of things." In this manner, the pragmatist avoids Holmes' feared "Can't Helps." n117 By
rejecting commitments to theory, pragmatists are denied the benefit of having a justifying principle (such as free will, equality,
utility, ecocentrism, etc.) under which they can rally support. However, what pragmatists lose by rejecting meta-theory they replace
by widening the field of potential solutions. Avoiding commitment to a substantive meta-theory frees the environmental thinker
from worry about whether the solutions proposed for a given problem are consistent with an ultimate theoretical grounding; that is,
the pragmatist is not bound by deductive reasoning within the confines of any particular analytic scheme. Visionary reasoning
becomes an eclectic array of possibilities, limited only by those contextual needs that make the inquiry important in the first place.
AT: Root Cause
The aff accesses the best explanation of violence, reject their root
cause claims
Boucher 3 (Geoff, interdisciplinary PhD from U of Melbourne, lecturer in literary studies at
Deakin University, Australia, The Theory of Structuration & the Politics of the Third Way
Reflexive Modernity, http://ethicalpolitics.org/geoff-boucher/2001/politics8.htm)
Giddens theory is a theory of the uniqueness of modernity. The foundations of Giddens’ theory (structuration, the historical and
political alternatives to historical materialism) are employed in The Consequences of Modernity (1990) and Beyond Left and Right
(1994) to theorise the contemporary social world. The main difference between modernity and traditional social formations is the
dynamism of the modern. A second feature is the existence of modern institutions: the nation state, modern political systems,
mechanised and technological production, wage labour, commodification and urbanisation. Three processes generate the dynamism
of modernity: the separation of time and space (“space-time distanciation”); the “disembedding” mechanism of modern culture;
modernity’s self-reflexive character. organisational form of process of modernity Modernity begins in Europe at the start of the
1600s. The organisational
forms of modernity are conditioned by a four dimensional process (already
seen in the analysis of the nation state): surveillance potential, military power, capitalism and
industrialisation. The diagram below represents the institutional dimensions of modernity: The precondition for the efficient
operation of a modern enterprise or institution is “space-time distanciation,” that is, the ability to coordinate the actions of persons
distributed through time and space, and not necessarily present for face-to-face interactions. Time is standardised and globalised,
while space is reconfigured politically and mapped as an abstract terrain. Technological processes “shrink” time and space, creating
a global social environment, while at the same time making these autonomous domains of human experience: the instant of the
“here and now” is potentially separable and transmissible. In modernity, social relations are lifted from their context and
“disembedded” on the basis of space-time distanciation. Two mechanisms create disembedding: symbolic tokens and expert
systems. Symbolic tokens are independent media of exchange which create abstract mediations between individuals - money being
the paradigm. Symbolic tokens transpose standardised social and political relations from their original context into new contexts
and thereby function as intensifiers of space-time distanciation and forms of disembedding or decontextualisation. Expert systems
similarly work to shift social relations between contexts, this time by the employment of abstract knowledge systems. Expert systems
are constituted by transport and communications networks, social and political institutions, media and economic networks, banks,
and so forth. They enable agents to locate themselves and operate within technological and social systems environments that the
agent cannot comprehend or reproduce. Therefore they work to disembed agents from the context of the local community and
lifeworld. Reflexivity exists, for Giddens, in two forms: the reflexive monitoring of action is characteristic of all forms of practical
consciousness, but the second form of reflexivity, the regular and constant deployment of knowledge as a condition for agency (and
therefore for social continuity, institutional duration and the maintenance of actors) is characteristic of modernity alone. This means
that social practices in modernity are reflexive practices, continuously modified on the basis of what another tradition would call
“the dialectic of theory and practice”. It is the profoundly self-reflexive character of the social practices of modernity that invest
history with its decisive meaning: modernity and history as a concept and as a category of social life are intertwined. As Marx
emphasised, world
history is the creation of a determinate moment in the history of social
formations - it did not always exist . Indeed, this historical knowledge entails historicism, that is, the relativisation of
the truth claims of knowledge because of the fundamental uncertainty as to the truthfulness of a knowledge which we can be
reasonably sure will be shortly superseded. Moreover, the reflexive character of social practice means that social agents in modernity
“make history” (as opposed to being affected by history) and they do so on the basis of knowledges relating to the “meaning of
history” or the “lessons of history”. While increased reflexivity does not automatically entail better knowledge, complete control of
social processes or higher intelligence, it leads in Giddens’ term to the emergence of “clever people": social agents whose capacities
are fundamentally constituted not by manual skills but by technical knowledges. The reflexivity of modernity and the plurality of the
institutional dimensions of modernity are, for Giddens, related. Where for Marx, Weber and Durkheim, society could be explained
with reference to a single explanatory principle and the dominance of one factor in history and society (the productive forces and
capitalism, rationalisation, industrialisation, respectively), Giddens believes that the monocausality of classical social theory
rendered it profoundly reductionist and therefore prone to over-simplification. In opposition to classical social theory, Giddens
proposes are four-dimensional,
multi-causal model of explanation of the institutional dimensions of
modernity. This represents a synthesis of the positions of classical social theory with Giddens’ emphasis on the external relations
of social formations in the form of war and international relations. This is Giddens’ central thesis in social theory - fundamental even
to structuration theory - that the
institutions of modernity contain four independent but inter-related
dimensions: surveillance and control, military power and the monopoly of violence,
industrialisation and capitalism. I reproduce the diagram referred to earlier once again: Industrialism means the
deployment of nature as raw materials and as an inanimate source of power in the production or circulation of goods and services.
The mechanisation of production and the industrialisation of warfare are consequences of industrialism, which transforms the
workplace, transport and communications and affects domestic life. Capitalism is regarded as a system of generalised commodity
production centred on the relations between private ownership of capital and the propertyless wage labourer. Capitalism means a
competitive market system and the drive towards technological innovation in the endless quest for profit.[43] The institutional
separation between economics and politics is constitutive of private property rights and also serves to prevent economic democracy
from being anything more than a slogan. Capitalism
is vital for the expansion of industrialism, since the
process of the accumulation of capital and the development of technology are intertwined.
Surveillance explains the necessity of the national state form for the inherently transnational
processes of capitalism and industrialism: capitalism and industrialism are rooted not in the
national territory but in the national state. This is regarded by Giddens as an independent entity and not
fundamentally a capitalist state (or a technocratic state). This effectively means that bureaucracy and the growth in the power and
efficiency of the administrative apparatus represents an autonomous dynamic in modernity. The supervision and control of
administered and docile populations is essential for capitalism (the management of class conflict through its institutionalisation).
Military force is an extension of the dimension of surveillance. The state’s development of a
national territory with demarcated borders and the surveillance of the population parallel the
growth of military power. With the complete monopoly over the means of violence, inter-state warfare assumes the
dimensions of total war and the industrialisation of the military becomes the critical determinant of
military success. The claim that modernity represents a radical historical break with traditional social formations is the
effect - according to Giddens - of a unique interaction between the four institutional dimensions of
modernity during the 1600s and subsequently. The individual dimensions all possess independent
logics and their own dynamics, which cannot be reduced to that of any of the others. None of the
four conditions determines the others nor the social totality . They form a dense and
interconnected network where they mutually affect and reinforce each other.[44] For Giddens, the core
definition of modernity is exactly this interrelation between capitalism, industrialism, and the nation state (surveillance and
violence) - this is historically unique and constitutive of the dynamics of modernity, especially self-reflexivity.
Structural Violence Decreasing
The causality of their impact is backwards
Zack Beauchamp 12/11, “5 Reasons Why 2013 Was The Best Year In Human,
Reporter/Blogger for ThinkProgress.org. He previously contributed to Andrew Sullivan’s The
Dish at Newsweek/Daily Beast, and has also written for Foreign Policy and Tablet magazines,
holds B.A.s in Philosophy and Political Science from Brown University and an M.Sc in
International Relations from the London School of Economics,
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/12/11/3036671/2013-certainly-year-human-history/#
Between the brutal civil war in Syria, the government shutdown and all of the deadly dysfunction it represents, the NSA spying revelations, and massive inequality, it’d be easy to
We have every reason to believe that 2013 was , in
fact, the best year on the planet for humankind. Contrary to what you might have heard, virtually all of the most important
forces that determine what make people’s lives good — the things that determine how long they
live, and whether they live happily and freely — are trending in an extremely happy direction.
While it’s possible that this progress could be reversed by something like runaway climate change, the effects will
have to be dramatic to overcome the extraordinary and growing progress we’ve made in making
the world a better place. Here’s the five big reasons why. 1. Fewer people are dying young, and more are living longer. The greatest story in recent human
history is the simplest: we’re winning the fight against death. “ There is not a single country in the world where infant or child
mortality today is not lower than it was in 1950,” writes Angus Deaton, a Princeton economist who works
on global health issues. The most up-to-date numbers on global health, the 2013 World Health Organization (WHO)
statistical compendium, confirm Deaton’s estimation. Between 1990 and 2010, the percentage of children who died before their fifth
for you to enter 2014 thinking the last year has been an awful one. But you’d be wrong.
birthday dropped by almost half. Measles deaths declined by 71 percent, and both tuberculosis and maternal deaths by half again. HIV, that modern plague, is also being held
And that’s not only true in
rich countries: life expectancy has gone up between 1990 and 2011 in every WHO income
bracket. The gains are even more dramatic if you take the long view: global life expectancy was 47 in the early 1950s, but had risen to 70 — a 50 percent jump — by 2011.
back, with deaths from AIDS-related illnesses down by 24 percent since 2005. In short, fewer people are dying untimely deaths.
For even more perspective, the average Briton in 1850 — when the British Empire had reached its apex — was 40. The average person today should expect to live almost twice as
long as the average citizen of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful country in 1850. In real terms, this means millions of fewer dead adults and children a year, millions
fewer people who spend their lives suffering the pains and unfreedoms imposed by illness, and millions more people spending their twilight years with loved ones. And the
trends are all positive — “progress has accelerated in recent years in many countries with the highest rates of mortality,” as the WHO rather bloodlessly put it. What’s going on?
Obviously, it’s fairly complicated, but the most important drivers have been technological and political innovation. The Enlightenment-era advances in the scientific method got
people doing high-quality research, which brought us modern medicine and the information technologies that allow us to spread medical breakthroughs around the world at
increasingly faster rates. Scientific discoveries also fueled the Industrial Revolution and the birth of modern capitalism, giving us more resources to devote to large-scale
application of live-saving technologies. And the global spread of liberal democracy made governments accountable to citizens, forcing them to attend to their health needs or pay
the electoral price. We’ll see the enormously beneficial impact of these two forces, technology and democracy, repeatedly throughout this list, which should tell you something
about the foundations of human progress. But when talking about improvements in health, we shouldn’t neglect foreign aid. Nations donating huge amounts of money out of an
altruistic interest in the welfare of foreigners is historically unprecedented, and while not all aid has been helpful, health aid has been a huge boon. Even Deaton, who wrote one
of 2013′s harshest assessments of foreign aid, believes “the case for assistance to fight disease such as HIV/AIDS or smallpox is strong.” That’s because these programs have
demonstrably saved lives — the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a 2003 program pushed by President Bush, paid for anti-retroviral treatment for over 5.1
we’re outracing the Four Horseman, extending our lives
faster than pestilence, war, famine, and death can take them. That alone should be enough to
say the world is getting better. 2. Fewer people suffer from extreme poverty, and the world is getting happier.
There are fewer people in abject penury than at any other point in human history, and middle
class people enjoy their highest standard of living ever. We haven’t come close to solving poverty: a number of African countries in
million people in the poor countries hardest-hit by the AIDS epidemic. So
particular have chronic problems generating growth, a nut foreign aid hasn’t yet cracked. So this isn’t a call for complacency about poverty any more than acknowledging
: as a whole, the world is much richer in 2013 than
it was before. 721 million fewer people lived in extreme poverty ($1.25 a day) in 2010 than in 1981,
according to a new World Bank study from October. That’s astounding — a decline from 40 to
about 14 percent of the world’s population suffering from abject want. And poverty rates are
declining in every national income bracket: even in low income countries, the percentage of people living in extreme poverty ($1.25 a
day in 2005 dollars) a day gone down from 63 in 1981 to 44 in 2010. We can be fairly confident that these trends are continuing.
For one thing, they survived the Great Recession in 2008. For another, the decline in poverty has been fueled by global economic growth,
victories over disease is an argument against tackling malaria. But make no mistake
which looks to be continuing: global GDP grew by 2.3 percent in 2012, a number that’ll rise to 2.9 percent in 2013 according to IMF projections. The bulk of the recent decline in
poverty comes form India and China — about 80 percent from China *alone*. Chinese economic and social reform, a delayed reaction to the mass slaughter and starvation of
Mao’s Cultural Revolution, has been the engine of poverty’s global decline. If you subtract China, there are actually more poor people today than there were in 1981 (population
growth trumping the percentage declines in poverty). But we shouldn’t discount China. If what we care about is fewer people suffering the misery of poverty, then it shouldn’t
matter what nation the less-poor people call home. Chinese growth should be celebrated, not shunted aside. The poor haven’t been the only people benefitting from global
growth. Middle class people have access to an ever-greater stock of life-improving goods. Televisions and refrigerators, once luxury goods, are now comparatively cheap and
commonplace. That’s why large-percentage improvements in a nation’s GDP appear to correlate strongly with higher levels of happiness among the nation’s citizens; people like
having things that make their lives easier and more worry-free. Global economic growth in the past five decades has dramatically reduced poverty and made people around the
world happier. Once again, we’re better off. 3. War is becoming rarer and less deadly. APTOPIX Mideast Libya CREDIT: AP Photo/ Manu Brabo Another massive conflict could
war, too, may be losing its fangs
overturn the global progress against disease and poverty. But it appears
. Steven Pinker’s 2011 book The Better Angels
Of Our Nature is the gold standard in this debate. Pinker brought a treasure trove of data to bear on the question of whether the world has gotten more peaceful, and found that,
in the long arc of human history, both war and other forms of violence (the death penalty, for instance) are on a centuries-long downward slope. Pinker summarizes his
the worldwide rate of death
from interstate and civil war combined has juddered downward…from almost 300 per 100,000
world population during World War II, to almost 30 during the Korean War, to the low teens
during the era of the Vietnam War, to single digits in the 1970s and 1980s, to less than 1 in the
twenty-first century.” Here’s what that looks like graphed: Pinker CREDIT: Steven Pinker/The Wall Street Journal So it looks like the smallest percentage of
humans alive since World War II, and in all likelihood in human history, are living through the horrors of war. Did 2013 give us any reason to
believe that Pinker and the other scholars who agree with him have been proven wrong?
Probably not. The academic debate over the decline of war really exploded in 2013, but the “declinist” thesis has fared pretty well. Challenges to Pinker’s conclusion
argument here if you don’t own the book. Most eye-popping are the numbers for the past 50 years; Pinker finds that “
that battle deaths have gone down over time have not withstood scrutiny. The most compelling critique, a new paper by Bear F. Braumoeller, argues that if you control for the
larger number of countries in the last 50 years, war happens at roughly the same rates as it has historically. There are lots of things you might say about Braumoeller’s argument,
and I’ve asked Pinker for his two cents (update: Pinker’s response here). But most importantly, if battle deaths per 100,000 people really has declined, then his argument doesn’t
mean very much. If (percentage-wise) fewer people are dying from war, then what we call “war” now is a lot less deadly than “war” used to be. Braumoeller suggests population
growth and improvements in battle medicine explain the decline, but that’s not convincing: tell me with a straight face that the only differences in deadliness between World
War II, Vietnam, and the wars you see today is that there are more people and better doctors. There’s a more rigorous way of putting that: today, we see many more civil wars
than we do wars between nations. The former tend to be less deadly than the latter. That’s why the other major challenge to Pinker’s thesis in 2013, the deepening of the Syrian
civil war, isn’t likely to upset the overall trend. Syria’s war is an unimaginable tragedy, one responsible for the rare, depressing increase in battle deaths from 2011 to 2012.
However, the overall 2011-2012 trend “fits well with the observed long-term decline in battle deaths,” according to researchers at the authoritative Uppsala Conflict Data
Program, because the uptick is not enough to suggest an overall change in trend. We should expect something similar when the 2013 numbers are published. Why are smaller
and smaller percentages of people being exposed to the horrors of war? There are lots of reasons one could point to, but two of the biggest ones are the spread of democracy and
humans getting, for lack of a better word, better. That democracies never, or almost never, go to war with each other is not seriously in dispute: the statistical evidence is
ridiculously strong. While some argue that the “democratic peace,” as it’s called, is caused by things other than democracy itself, there’s good experimental evidence that
democratic leaders and citizens just don’t want to fight each other. Since 1950, democracy has spread around the world like wildfire. There were only a handful of democracies
after World War II, but that grew to roughly 40 percent of all by the end of the Cold War. Today, a comfortable majority — about 60 percent — of all states are democracies. This
freer world is also a safer one. Second — and this is Pinker’s preferred explanation — people have developed strategies for dealing with war’s causes and consequences. “Human
ingenuity and experience have gradually been brought to bear,” Pinker writes, “just as they have chipped away at hunger and disease.” A series of human inventions, things like
U.N. peacekeeping operations, which nowadays are very successful at reducing violence, have given us a set of social tools increasingly well suited to reducing the harm caused
War’s decline isn’t accidental, in other words. It’s by design. 4. Rates of murder and other violent
crimes are in free-fall. Britain Unrest CREDIT: Akira Suemori/AP Photos Pinker’s trend against violence isn’t limited just to war. It seems likes crimes, both
by armed conflict.
of the sort states commit against their citizens and citizens commit against each other, are also on the decline. Take a few examples. Slavery, once commonly sanctioned by
governments, is illegal everywhere on earth. The use of torture as legal punishment has gone down dramatically. The European murder rate fell 35-fold from the Middle Ages to
the beginning of the 20th century (check out this amazing 2003 paper from Michael Eisner, who dredged up medieval records to estimate European homicide rates in the
swords-and-chivalry era, if you don’t believe me).
The decline has been especially marked in recent years. Though homicide crime
rates climbed back up from their historic lows between the 1970s and 1990s, reversing progress made since the late 19th century, they have collapsed worldwide in the 21st
century. 557,000 people were murdered in 2001 — almost three times as many as were killed in war that year. In 2008, that number was 289,000, and the homicide rate has
been declining in 75 percent of nations since then. Statistics from around the developed world, where numbers are particularly reliable, show that it’s not just homicide that’s on
the wane: it’s almost all violent crime. US government numbers show that violent crime in the United States declined from a peak of about 750 crimes per 100,000 Americans to
under 450 by 2009. G7 as a whole countries show huge declines in homicide, robbery, and vehicle theft. So even in countries that aren’t at poor or at war, most people’s lives are
getting safer and more secure. Why? We know it’s not incarceration. While the United States and Britain have dramatically increased their prison populations, others, like
Canada, the Netherlands, and Estonia, reduced their incarceration rates and saw similar declines in violent crime. Same thing state-to-state in the United States; New York
imprisoned fewer people and saw the fastest crime decline in the country. The Economist’s deep dive into the explanations for crime’s collapse provides a few answers. Globally,
police have gotten better at working with communities and targeting areas with the most crime. They’ve also gotten new toys, like DNA testing, that make it easier to catch
criminals. The crack epidemic in the United States and its heroin twin in Europe have both slowed down dramatically. Rapid gentrification has made inner-city crime harder.
And the increasing cheapness of “luxury” goods like iPods and DVD players has reduced incentives for crime on both the supply and demand sides: stealing a DVD player isn’t as
profitable, and it’s easier for a would-be thief to buy one in the first place. But there’s one explanation The Economist dismissed that strikes me as hugely important: the
abolition of lead gasoline. Kevin Drum at Mother Jones wrote what’s universally acknowledged to be the definitive argument for the lead/crime link, and it’s incredibly
compelling. We know for a fact that lead exposure damages people’s brains and can potentially be fatal; that’s why an international campaign to ban leaded gasoline started
around 1970. Today, leaded gasoline is almost unheard of — it’s banned in 175 countries, and there’s been a decline in lead blood levels by about 90 percent. Drum marshals a
wealth of evidence that the parts of the brain damaged by lead are the same ones that check people’s aggressive impulses. Moreover, the timing matches up: crime shot up in the
mid-to-late-20th century as cars spread around the world, and started to decline in the 70s as the anti-lead campaign was succeeding. Here’s close the relationship is, using data
from the United States: Lead_Crime_325 Now, non-homicide violent crime appears to have ticked up in 2012, based on U.S. government surveys of victims of crime, but it’s
very possible that’s just a blip: the official Department of Justice report says up-front that “the apparent increase in the rate of violent crimes reported to police from 2011 to
2012 was not statistically significant.” So we have no reason to believe crime is making a come back, and every reason to believe the historical decline in criminal violence is here
5. There’s less racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination in the world. Nelson Mandela
Racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and other forms of
discrimination remain, without a doubt, extraordinarily powerful forces. The statistical and experimental evidence
to stay.
CREDIT: Theana Calitz/AP Images
is overwhelming — this irrefutable proof of widespread discrimination against African-Americans, for instance, should put the “racism is dead” fantasy to bed. Yet the need to
Over the centuries, humanity has made extraordinary
progress in taming its hate for and ill-treatment of other humans on the basis of difference
alone. Indeed, it is very likely that we live in the least discriminatory era in the history of modern
civilization. It’s not a huge prize given how bad the past had been, but there are still gains worth celebrating. Go back 150 years in time and the point should be
combat discrimination denial shouldn’t blind us to the good news.
Take four prominent groups in 1860: African-Americans were in chains, European Jews
were routinely massacred in the ghettos and shtetls they were confined to, women around the
world were denied the opportunity to work outside the home and made almost entirely
subordinate to their husbands, and LGBT people were invisible. The improvements in each of
these group’s statuses today, both in the United States and internationally, are incontestable. On closer look, we have
reason to believe the happy trends are likely to continue. Take racial discrimination. In 2000, Harvard sociologist Lawrence Bobo
obvious.
penned a comprehensive assessment of the data on racial attitudes in the United States. He found a “national consensus” on the ideals of racial equality and integration. “A
nation once comfortable as a deliberately segregationist and racially discriminatory society has not only abandoned that view,” Bobo writes, “but now overtly positively endorses
the goals of racial integration and equal treatment. There is no sign whatsoever of retreat from this ideal, despite events that many thought would call it into question. The
magnitude, steadiness, and breadth of this change should be lost on no one.”
The norm against overt racism has gone global. In her book
on the international anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s, Syracuse’s Audie Klotz says flatly that “the illegitimacy of white minority rule led to South Africa’s persistent
diplomatic, cultural, and economic isolation.” The belief that racial discrimination could not be tolerated had become so widespread, Klotz argues, that it united the globe —
including governments that had strategic interests in supporting South Africa’s whites — in opposition to apartheid. In 2011, 91 percent of respondents in a sample of 21 diverse
countries said that equal treatment of people of different races or ethnicities was important to them. Racism obviously survived both American and South African apartheid,
albeit in more subtle, insidious forms. “The death of Jim Crow racism has left us in an uncomfortable place,” Bobo writes, “a state of laissez-faire racism” where racial
discrimination and disparities still exist, but support for the kind of aggressive government policies needed to address them is racially polarized. But there’s reason to hope that’ll
change as well: two massive studies of the political views of younger Americans by my TP Ideas colleagues, John Halpin and Ruy Teixeira, found that millenials were
significantly more racially tolerant and supportive of government action to address racial disparities than the generations that preceded them. Though I’m not aware of any
similar research of on a global scale, it’s hard not to imagine they’d find similar results, suggesting that we should have hope that the power of racial prejudice may be waning.
The story about gender discrimination is very similar: after the feminist movement’s enormous victories in the 20th century, structural sexism still shapes the world in profound
ways, but the cause of gender equality is making progress. In 2011, 86 percent of people in a diverse 21 country sample said that equal treatment on the basis of gender was an
important value. The U.N.’s Human Development Report’s Gender Inequality Index — a comprehensive study of reproductive health, social empowerment, and labor market
equity — saw a 20 percent decline in observable gender inequalities from 1995 to 2011. IMF data show consistent global declines in wage disparities between genders, labor force
participation, and educational attainment around the world. While enormous inequality remains, 2013 is looking to be the worst year for sexism in history. Finally, we’ve made
astonishing progress on sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination — largely in the past 15 years. At the beginning of 2003, zero Americans lived in marriage equality
states; by the end of 2013, 38 percent of Americans will. Article 13 of the European Community Treaty bans discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, and, in 2011, the
UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution committing the council to documenting and exposing discrimination on orientation or identity grounds around the world. The
public opinion trends are positive worldwide: all of the major shifts from 2007 to 2013 in Pew’s “acceptance of homosexuality” poll were towards greater tolerance, and young
people everywhere are more open to equality for LGBT individuals than their older peers. best_year_graphics-04 Once again,
these victories are partial
and by no means inevitable . Racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination aren’t just “going away” on their own. They’re losing their
hold on us because people are working to change other people’s minds and because governments are passing laws aimed at promoting equality. Positive trends
don’t mean the problems are close to solved, and certainly aren’t excuses for sitting on our
hands. That’s true of everything on this list. The fact that fewer people are dying from war and disease doesn’t lessen the moral imperative to do something about those
that are; the fact that people are getting richer and safer in their homes isn’t an excuse for doing more to address poverty and crime. But too often, the worst
parts about the world are treated as inevitable , the prospect of radical victory over pain and suffering dismissed as utopian fantasy.
The overwhelming force of the evidence shows that to be false. As best we can tell, the reason humanity is getting better is
because humans have decided to make the world a better place. We consciously chose to develop lifesaving medicine and build freer political systems; we’ve passed laws against
workplace discrimination and poisoning children’s minds with lead. So far, these choices have more than paid off. It’s up to us to make sure they continue to.
Enviro Economics Good
Economic Valuation Good – Policy Effectiveness
Economic valuation of the environment is good---key to policy
effectiveness
Economist 5 (The Economist, April 21, “Rescuing environmentalism”,
http://www.economist.com/node/3888006)
“THE
environmental movement's foundational concepts, its method for framing legislative
proposals, and its very institutions are outmoded. Today environmentalism is just another special
interest.” Those damning words come not from any industry lobby or right-wing think-tank. They are drawn from “The Death of
Environmentalism”, an influential essay published recently by two greens with impeccable credentials. They claim that
environmental groups are politically adrift and dreadfully out of touch. They are right. In America,
greens have suffered a string of defeats on high-profile issues. They are losing the battle to prevent oil drilling
in Alaska's wild lands, and have failed to spark the public's imagination over global warming. Even the stridently ungreen George
Bush has failed to galvanise the environmental movement. The
solution, argue many elders of the sect, is to step back from
ordinary punters with talk of global-warming calamities
and a radical “vision of the future commensurate with the magnitude of the crisis”. Europe's green
day-to-day politics and policies and “energise”
groups, while politically stronger, are also starting to lose their way intellectually. Consider, for example, their invocation of the
woolly “precautionary principle” to demonise any complex technology (next-generation nuclear plants, say, or genetically modified
crops) that they do not like the look of. A
more sensible green analysis of nuclear power would weigh its
costs and (fairly low) safety risks against the important benefit of generating
electricity with no greenhouse-gas emissions. Small victories and bigger defeats The coming into force of the UN's
(very high) economic
Kyoto protocol on climate change might seem a victory for Europe's greens, but it actually masks a larger failure. The most
promising aspect of the treaty—its innovative use of market-based instruments such as carbon-emissions trading—was resisted
tooth and nail by Europe's greens. With courageous exceptions,
American green groups also remain deeply
suspicious of market forces. If environmental groups continue to reject pragmatic solutions and
instead drift toward Utopian (or dystopian) visions of the future, they will lose the battle of ideas . And
that would be a pity, for the world would benefit from having a thoughtful green movement. It would also be ironic, because farreaching advances are already under way in the management of the world's natural resources—
changes that add up to a different kind of green revolution. This could yet save the greens (as well as doing the planet a world of
good). “Mandate,
regulate, litigate.” That has been the green mantra. And it explains the world's topdown, command-and-control approach to environmental policymaking. Slowly, this is changing.
Yesterday's failed hopes, today's heavy costs and tomorrow's demanding ambitions have been driving
public policy quietly towards market-based approaches. One example lies in the assignment of property rights
over “commons”, such as fisheries, that are abused because they belong at once to everyone and no one. Where tradable fishing
quotas have been issued, the result has been a drop in over-fishing. Emissions trading is also taking off. America led the way with its
sulphur-dioxide trading scheme, and today the EU is pioneering carbon-dioxide trading with the (albeit still controversial) goal of
slowing down climate change. These, however, are obvious targets. What is really intriguing are efforts to value previously ignored
“ecological services”, both basic ones such as water filtration and flood prevention, and luxuries such as preserving wildlife. At the
same time, advances
in environmental science are making those valuation studies more accurate.
Market mechanisms can then be employed to achieve these goals at the lowest cost . Today, countries
from Panama to Papua New Guinea are investigating ways to price nature in this way (see article). Rachel Carson meets Adam Smith
If this new green revolution is to succeed, however, three things must happen. The most important is
that prices must be set correctly. The best way to do this is through liquid markets, as in the case of
emissions trading. Here, politics merely sets the goal. How that goal is achieved is up to the traders. A proper price, however,
requires proper information. So the second goal must be to provide it. The
tendency to regard the environment as a
“free good” must be tempered with an understanding of what it does for humanity and how.
Thanks to the recent Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the World Bank's annual “Little Green Data Book” (released this week),
that is happening. More work is needed, but thanks
to technologies such as satellite observation, computing
and the internet, green accounting is getting cheaper and easier. Which leads naturally to the third goal,
the embrace of cost-benefit analysis. At this, greens roll their eyes, complaining that it reduces
nature to dollars and cents. In one sense, they are right. Some things in nature are irreplaceable—
literally priceless. Even so, it is essential to consider trade-offs when analysing almost all green
problems. The marginal cost of removing the last 5% of a given pollutant is often far higher than
removing the first 5% or even 50%: for public policy to ignore such facts would be inexcusable. If
governments invest seriously in green data acquisition and co-ordination, they will no longer be flying blind. And by
advocating data-based, analytically rigorous policies rather than pious appeals to “save the
planet”, the green movement could overcome the scepticism of the ordinary voter. It might even move
from the fringes of politics to the middle ground where most voters reside. Whether the big environmental groups join or not, the
next green revolution is already under way. Rachel Carson, the crusading journalist who inspired greens in the 1950s and 60s, is
joining hands with Adam Smith, the hero of free-marketeers. The
world may yet leapfrog from the dark ages of
clumsy, costly, command-and-control regulations to an enlightened age of informed, innovative,
incentive-based greenery.
Economic Valuation Good – CBA
Cost-benefit analysis and economic valuation are necessary for
effective marine sustainable development – necessary in a world
where human welfare depends on the ocean
Ledoux and Turner ’02 [2002. L. Ledoux, Centre for Social and Economic Research on
the Global Environment (CSERGE), School of Environmental Science, University of East Anglia,
Norwich, UK. R.K. Turner, Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment
(CSERGE), School of Environmental Science, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. “Valuing
ocean and coastal resources: a review of practical examples and issues for further action” Ocean
& Coastal Management, Volume 45, Issues 9–10, 2002, Pages 583–616]
Moving towards sustainable use of coastal resources means that we must take stock of the
resources we have, determine the full range of costs and benefits that management options
provide and develop flexible policies accordingly [46]. Valuing ocean and coastal resources can
provide significant insights into decision-making with sustainable development goals. Even
when environmental sustainability standards are advocated, it is still necessary to quantify the
opportunity costs of such standards, and in general to compare the costs of current and prospective
protection measures. The critical importance of making value-laden assumptions transparent in
sustainable development policies needs to be highlighted. Valuation studies were undertaken before the earth Summit, but
Agenda 21 has pushed the need for the integration of environmental and economic dimensions in decision-making to the
foreground, and encouraged research on economic approaches of sustainable development. Valuation studies have been used by
local authorities, national governments and international organisations more extensively since, as summarised in Appendix A,
providing a useful indication of the range of estimates for different categories of values. The emphasis of the earth summit on
various issues of environmental and economic integration has influenced economic valuation in a variety of ways. The
perspective of risk and uncertainty has lead to better tools to deal with these aspects in decisionmaking [47]. Sensitivity analysis and scenarios are used more and more frequently in cost–benefit
analysis and in other approaches. Agenda 21 also emphasised the need to include stakeholders at a variety of stages in
decision-making. This has lead to a whole range of alternatives to cost–benefit analysis, but also to the refining of valuation methods
such as contingent valuation to make them more inclusionary in nature, with the use of focus groups and other devices to engage
with relevant stakeholders. One of the most important aspects of the Summit was the introduction and widespread dissemination of
the notion of precautionary principle. The impact in decision-making was to shift the emphasis somewhat from classical cost–
benefit analysis to approaches such as SMS. But the latter still has a cost dimension and therefore some quantification of the damage
costs avoided in monetary terms will be useful in the political economy context. Human
welfare depends on ocean
and coastal resources in many ways. Further research is needed to understand the basic functions
which ecosystem provide and translate these into the various socio-economic and cultural
(monetary and non-monetary) values to society. Although techniques have gained in reliability through numerous empirical
applications, and more refined statistical tests and controls have been introduced, economic valuation approaches are still
controversial. Issues such as scale and aggregation, risk and uncertainty, and benefit transfer continue to pose challenges to
environmental economists. More benefit transfer studies are needed to avoid the need for too many costly original valuation
exercises.
A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods can in general be advocated in
order to generate a blend of different types of policy relevant information . It is also useful to
emphasise that evaluation is more than just the assignment of monetary values and includes
multi-criteria methods and techniques in order to identify practicable trade-offs. The latter, however,
are themselves not free of technical limitations and should not seek to shroud subjective judgements behind a veil of technical
analysis. Finally, it is worth emphasising that the section of Agenda 21 on integration of environment and development in decisionmaking also underlines the need for a broad range of analytical methods to provide a variety of points of view. Sustainable
development requires mechanisms to allow holistic decision making. Economic valuation is an
important but not the only component of this process. Capacity building for sustainable
development should include more practical applications of economic valuation methods, but
also dissemination of decision-making systems integrating economic, social and natural science
components.
Environmental research involving cost-benefit and risk analysis is
necessary for results to be policy relevant – manage changing
ecological integrity of world
Fisher et al ‘8 [December 2008. Brendan Fisher Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment,
School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom. Kerry Turner Centre for Social and
Economic Research on the Global Environment, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United
Kingdom. Matthew Zylstra Environmental Systems Analysis Group, Wageningen, The Netherlands. Roy Brouwer Institute for
Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Rudolf de Groot Environmental Systems
Analysis Group, Wageningen, The Netherlands. Stephen Farber Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of
Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Paul Ferraro Department of Economics, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State
University, Atlanta, Georgia. Rhys Green Conservation Science Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing
Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom. David Hadley Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment, School of
Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom. Julian Harlow Natural England, East Parade,
Sheffield, United Kingdom. Paul Jefferiss Sita Trust, Brinkmarsh Lane, Falfield, South Gloucestershire United Kingdom. Chris
Kirkby Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East
Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom. Paul Morling Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, The Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire, United
Kingdom. Shaun Mowatt, Department of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, London, United Kingdom. Robin Naidoo,
Conservation Science Program, World Wildlife Fund, Washington, D.C. Jouni Paavola, Sustainability Research Institute, School of
Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, United Kingdom. Bernardo Strassburg, Centre for Social and Economic Research on
the Global Environment, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom. Doug Yu, Centre
for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia,
Norwich, United Kingdom. Andrew Balmford Conservation Science Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge,
Downing Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom. “ECOSYSTEM SERVICES AND ECONOMIC THEORY: INTEGRATION FOR
POLICY-RELEVANT RESEARCH” Ecological Applications 18:2050–2067.]
As highlighted by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the
ecological integrity of our world is rapidly
changing. This will certainly affect human welfare. Our collective ability to manage these changes faces
many obstacles including gaps in our ecological knowledge (Carpenter et al. 2006), shortcomings in
our economic approaches (Barnes 2006), and flaws in our decision support systems and policy
responses (Sachs and Reid 2006). As currently conceptualized, ecosystem service research is relatively new. However, there is an
emerging theoretical base, a growing understanding of how human and ecological systems are linked, and rising public awareness of
the importance of well-functioning ecosystems. In this paper, we used a theoretical economic framework to highlight several
concepts critical for formalizing ecosystem service research within a decision support system. Since
political decisions
often happen at the margin (i.e., what to do with the next unit?), and cost–benefit analysis drives many
resource decisions, marginal analysis, and safe minimum standards are crucial. This is because
they identify where valuation is appropriate and where some sort of wider risk/uncertainly
analysis is necessary. From the literature review, we learned that currently, case studies rarely discuss marginal changes,
SMS is rarely operationalized, but compensation schemes linking ecosystem service research and policy are more commonly
considered. We
therefore call for future research in this field to not only understand, but also incorporate the
concept of marginality and/or ecosystem transition states so that the results can more
immediately be policy relevant . We also call for empirical studies of the amount of structure and function
needed to produce a sustainable flow of services across a landscape, with special consideration to nonlinearities as we approach
some minimum level. With this type of study we
can begin to see where on the ecosystem service provision
continuum (x-axis in Fig. 2) we currently stand, so that we can inform policy on which tradeoffs
society can and cannot make. Finally, we call for researchers to think about the distribution of ecosystem service
provision and use across a landscape and its associated human populations so that a variety of benefits capture mechanisms can be
considered with due regard to local institutional and cultural contexts. This
an optimal level of ecosystem services.
is essential for a societal move toward
AT: Luke
Perm
Only reforming technology solves—the alt tries to abandon it
completely—turns the kritik
Shellenberger and Nordhaus 11 - co-founders of American Environics and the Breakthrough Institute a
think tank that works on energy and climate change, health care, social inequality, and human rights (Michael and Ted, Monsters of
Bruno Latour, Breakthrough Journal, NO. 2 / FALL 2011, http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/past-issues/onlinecontent/the-monsters-of-bruno-latour )italics in orig
But according to Bruno Latour, France's most influential living intellectual since the death of Jacques Derrida in 2004, we have
Frankenstein all wrong. The
man -- Dr. Frankenstein -- was not the monster. And Dr. Frankenstein's
sin was not his hubris to create life but rather his fright that led him to abandon rather than
care for his creation. And therein lies the true lesson for anyone who cares about the future of the
planet: love and raise your technologies as though they were your children. So argues Latour in a new
essay for the Breakthrough Journal, "Love Your Monsters," which has significant implications for the future of green politics, the
precautionary principle, and controversial new technologies like genetically modified crops and next generation nuclear energy.
Latour has been writing about environmentalism -- écologie politique --since his 2004 book, The Politics of Nature, in which he
lambasted politics done in the name of "Nature" as naive. "France, for its part, has never believed in the notion of a pristine Nature
that has so confused the 'defense of the environment' in other countries,' Latour writes in his Breakthrough Journal article, aimed at
an American audience. "What we call a 'national park' is a rural ecosystem complete with post offices, well-tended roads, highly
subsidized cows, and handsome villages." But if nature is more than Yosemite -- if it is everything and thus nothing -- then how
could mere scientific descriptions of it ever guide human behavior? It was this insight -- that science is an intrinsically value-laden
and political enterprise, not a simple representation of reality -- that catapulted Latour to fame with his now-classic 1979 Laboratory
Life (written with British sociologist Steve Woolgar), an ethnography of how scientific facts were constructed at the Salk Institute in
San Diego. Because so much experiment data is inconclusive, Latour and Woolgar observed, scientists were constantly making
subjective decisions about what data was right and worth keeping, and what data was wrong and should be thrown away. Just
because scientific facts are made up doesn't make them false; on the contrary, Latour and Woolgar argued, it makes them true. At
one end of the truth scale are assumed facts about reality -- so well constructed as to become autonomous -- and at the other are wild
speculations. The authors weren't trying to understand how human subjectivity resulted in bad science. They were trying to
understand how subjectivity resulted in good science. (Their study was aided by the fact that Jonas Salk himself authored the book's
introduction). During the science wars of the 1990s, Latour came under harsh criticism from some in the United States, including
the philosopher John Searle, who accused him of being a relativist, and Alan Sokal. Like Derrida, Latour employs mischievous
means to deadly serious ends. Nothing so upset American scientists like Sokal than Latour's insistence that Pharaoh Ramses could
not have died of tuberculosis because tuberculosis had not yet been invented. To Latour's critics, this was reality-denying relativism.
But for Latour, who is today professor and Vice President of Research at Sciences Po, one of the most prestigious universities in
Europe, what is unreal is to erase the historical contingency and subjectivity of science, and the social forces that shape it. There is
no TB without its construction through scientific discourse and practice. The accusation that upsets Latour the most is that his
writings are anti-science, or anti-scientist. In
truth, Latour said, he loves science for what it actually is -messy, political, impure, and subjective -- not for what it claims to be. The 2010 "Climategate" episode -the unauthorized release of emails from Britain's East Anglia University's Climate Research Unit -- vindicated much of Latour's
work. Those emails showed climate scientists engaging in precisely the kind of subjective conversations over what what data was
relevant and what data should be thrown away. It showed the scientists engaging in small-p politics -- strategizing, for instance,
about how to keep articles they disagreed with out of mainstream scientific journals. Skeptics pointed to the emails as evidence that
scientists make up facts -- and thus that global warming is not happening. Defenders of climate science defensively insisted that the
emails revealed absolutely nothing of importance. But by idealizing climate scientists as dispassionate, objective, and neutral voices,
liberal policy makers and environmentalists made it easy for skeptics to dismiss the whole of climate science on evidence of their
passions and politicking. Now, in "Love Your Monsters," Latour, who is a 2010 Breakthrough Senior Fellow, turns
his gaze
squarely to the question of technology to protect the planet from ecological crisis. Where many
American environmental philosophers draw on the German philosopher Martin Heidegger to
reject technological solutions as one-dimensional, Latour rejected Heidegger's assumptions in
We Have Never Been Modern. Technology does not disenchant the world, Latour argued,
depriving it of mystery and magic and spirit. "The gods are in here, too," Latour quotes the Greek
philosopher Heraclitus saying, in reference to human made machines. In a world made by humans, the
"precautionary principle" -- long evoked by greens to argue against any innovation unless it can
be proven 100 percent safe -- must be reformed, Latour writes. Our technologies, like our children,
will go wrong. They will create new problems. We cannot create perfectly formed new
technologies, only flawed ones. We must, thus, continually care for and improve them, just as
we do our children. "He who fights with monsters," Nietzsche famously warned, "should be careful lest
he thereby become a monster." Latour not only cautions us against fighting them, he also insists
that we learn to love them.
No Impact Managerialism
Environmental management doesn't cause instrumental domination
of nature --- more managerialism is necessary to solve their impacts
Latour 12
(Bruno, French sociologist of science and anthropologist and an influential theorist in the field of Science and Technology Studies
(STS). After teaching at the École des Mines de Paris (Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation) from 1982 to 2006, he is now Professor
and vice-president for research at Sciences Po Paris (2007), where he is associated with the Centre de sociologie des organisations
(CSO), http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/past-issues/issue-2/love-your-monsters, Love Your Monsters Why We Must
Care for Our Technologies As We Do Our Children, Breakthrough Journal Winter 2012)
The goal of political ecology must not be to stop innovating, inventing, creating,
and intervening. The real goal must be to have the same type of patience and
commitment to our creations as God the Creator, Himself. And the comparison is not blasphemous: we have
taken the whole of Creation on our shoulders and have become coextensive with
the Earth. What, then, should be the work of political ecology? It is, I believe, to
modernize modernization , to borrow an expression proposed by Ulrich Beck.5 This challenge demands more of us
than simply embracing technology and innovation. It requires exchanging the
modernist notion of modernity for what I have called a "compositionist" one that
sees the process of human development as neither liberation from Nature nor as a
fall from it, but rather as a process of becoming ever-more attached to, and
intimate with, a panoply of nonhuman natures. 1. At the time of the plough we could only scratch the surface of the soil.
Three centuries back, we could only dream, like Cyrano de Bergerac, of traveling to the moon. In the past, my Gallic ancestors were afraid of nothing except that the "sky will fall
Today we can fold ourselves into the molecular machinery of soil bacteria
through our sciences and technologies. We run robots on Mars. We photograph and dream of further galaxies. And yet
we fear that the climate could destroy us. Everyday in our newspapers we read about more entanglements of all those things that
on their heads."
were once imagined to be separable -- science, morality, religion, law, technology, finance, and politics. But these things are tangled up together everywhere: in the
If you envision a future in
which there will be less and less of these entanglements thanks to Science, capital
S, you are a modernist. But if you brace yourself for a future in which there will
always be more of these imbroglios, mixing many more heterogeneous actors, at a greater and greater scale and at an ever-tinier level of
intimacy requiring even more detailed care, then you are... what? A compositionist! The
dominant, peculiar story of modernity is of humankind's emancipation from Nature.
Modernity is the thrusting-forward arrow of time -- Progress -- characterized by its
juvenile enthusiasm, risk taking, frontier spirit, optimism, and indifference to the past. The spirit can be summarized in a single sentence: "Tomorrow, we
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in the space shuttle, and in the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
will be able to separate more accurately what the world is really like from the subjective illusions we used to entertain about it." The very forward movement of the arrow of time
due to a certain conception of knowledge: "Tomorrow, we will
thanks to Science." Science is the
shibboleth that defines the right direction of the arrow of time because it, and only
it, is able to cut into two well-separated parts what had, in the past, remained
hopelessly confused: a morass of ideology, emotions, and values on the one hand,
and, on the other, stark and naked matters of fact. The notion of the past as an
archaic and dangerous confusion arises directly from giving Science this role. A
and the frontier spirit associated with it (the modernizing front) is
be able to differentiate clearly what in the past was still mixed up, namely facts and values,
modernist, in this great narrative, is the one who expects from Science the revelation that Nature will finally be visible through the veils of subjectivity -- and subjection -- that
here has been the great failure of political ecology . Just when all of
the human and nonhuman associations are finally coming to the center of our
consciousness, when science and nature and technology and politics become so confused and mixed up as to be impossible to untangle, just as these
hid it from our ancestors. And
, this is when a new
apartheid is declared: leave Nature alone and let the humans retreat -- as the
English did on the beaches of Dunkirk in the 1940s. Just at the moment when this fabulous dissonance inherent in the
associations are beginning to be shaped in our political arenas and are triggering our most personal and deepest emotions
modernist project between what modernists say (emancipation from all attachments!) and what they do (create ever-more attachments!) is becoming apparent to all, along come
Instead of deciding that the
great narrative of modernism (Emancipation) has always resulted in another
history altogether (Attachments), the spirit of the age has interpreted the
dissonance in quasi-apocalyptic terms: "We were wrong all along, let's turn our
back to progress, limit ourselves, and return to our narrow human confines,
leaving the nonhumans alone in as pristine a Nature as possible, mea culpa, mea
maxima culpa..." Nature, this great shortcut of due political process, is now used to
forbid humans to encroach. Instead of realizing at last that the emancipation narrative is bunk, and that modernism was always about
attachments, modernist greens have suddenly shifted gears and have begun to oppose the
promises of modernization. Why do we feel so frightened at the moment that our dreams of modernization finally come true? Why do we
those alleging to speak for Nature to say the problem lies in the violations and imbroglios -- the attachments!
suddenly turn pale and wish to fall back on the other side of Hercules's columns, thinking we are being punished for having transgressed the sign: "Thou shall not transgress?"
Was not our slogan until now, as Nordhaus and Shellenberger note in Break Through, "We shall overcome!"?6 In the name of indisputable facts portraying a bleak future for the
green politics has succeeded in leaving citizens nothing but a gloomy
asceticism, a terror of trespassing Nature, and a diffidence toward industry,
innovation, technology, and science. No wonder that, while political ecology claims to embody the political power of the future, it is
human race,
reduced everywhere to a tiny portion of electoral strap-hangers. Even in countries where political ecology is a little more powerful, it contributes only a supporting force. Political
It thinks it is speaking of Nature,
System, a hierarchical totality, a world without man, an assured Science, but it is precisely these overly
ecology has remained marginal because it has not grasped either its own politics or its own ecology.
ordered pronouncements that marginalize it . Set in contrast to the modernist narrative, this idea of
political ecology could not possibly succeed. There is beauty and strength in the modernist story of emancipation. Its
picture of the future is so attractive, especially when put against such a repellent
past, that it makes one wish to run forward to break all the shackles of ancient
existence. To succeed, an ecological politics must manage to be at least as powerful
as the modernizing story of emancipation without imagining that we are
emancipating ourselves from Nature. What the emancipation narrative points to
as proof of increasing human mastery over and freedom from Nature -agriculture, fossil energy, technology -- can be redescribed as the increasing
attachments between things and people at an ever-expanding scale. If the older narratives imagined
humans either fell from Nature or freed themselves from it, the compositionist narrative describes our everincreasing degree of intimacy with the new natures we are constantly creating.
Only "out of Nature" may ecological politics start again and anew. 2. The paradox
of "the environment" is that it emerged in public parlance just when it was starting
to disappear. During the heyday of modernism, no one seemed to care about "the environment" because there existed a huge unknown reserve on which to
discharge all bad consequences of collective modernizing actions. The environment is what appeared when unwanted consequences came back to haunt the originators of such
they will see the return of "the environment" as
incomprehensible since they believed they were finally free of it. The return of
consequences, like global warming, is taken as a contradiction, or even as a monstrosity, which it is, of
course, but only according to the modernist's narrative of emancipation . In the compositionist's
narrative of attachments, unintended consequences are quite normal -- indeed, the most expected things on earth!
actions. But if the originators are true modernists,
Environmentalists, in the American sense of the word, never managed to extract themselves from the contradiction that the environment is precisely not "what lies beyond and
should be left alone" -- this was the contrary, the view of their worst enemies! The environment is exactly what should be even more managed, taken up, cared for, stewarded, in
brief, integrated and internalized in the very fabric of the polity. France, for its part, has never believed in the notion of a pristine Nature that has so confused the "defense of the
environment" in other countries. What we call a "national park" is a rural ecosystem complete with post offices, well-tended roads, highly subsidized cows, and handsome
villages. Those who wish to protect natural ecosystems learn, to their stupefaction, that they have to work harder and harder -- that is, to intervene even more, at always greater
levels of detail, with ever more subtle care -- to keep them "natural enough" for Nature-intoxicated tourists to remain happy. Like France's parks, all of Nature needs our
constant care, our undivided attention, our costly instruments, our hundreds of thousands of scientists, our huge institutions, our careful funding. But though we have Nature,
and we have nurture, we don't know what it would mean for Nature itself to be nurtured.7 The word "environmentalism" thus designates this turning point in history when the
unwanted consequences are suddenly considered to be such a monstrosity that the only logical step appears to be to abstain and repent: "We should not have committed so
many crimes; now we should be good and limit ourselves." Or at least this is what people felt and thought before the breakthrough, at the time when there was still an
what is the breakthrough itself then? If I am right, the breakthrough involves no longer
seeing a contradiction between the spirit of emancipation and its catastrophic
outcomes, but accepting it as the normal duty of continuing to care for unwanted
"environment." But
consequences, even if this means going further and further down into the
imbroglios.
Environmentalists say: "From now on we should limit ourselves." Postenvironmentalists exclaim: "From now on, we should stop flagellating
ourselves and take up explicitly and seriously what we have been doing all along at an ever-increasing scale, namely, intervening, acting, wanting, caring." For environmentalists,
the return of unexpected consequences appears as a scandal (which it is for the modernist myth of mastery). For postenvironmentalists, the other, unintended consequences are
part and parcel of any action. 3. One way to seize upon the breakthrough from environmentalism to postenvironmentalism is to
definition of the "precautionary principle."
reshape the very
This strange moral, legal, epistemological monster has appeared in European and
especially French politics after many scandals due to the misplaced belief by state authority in the certainties provided by Science.8 When action is supposed to be nothing but
it is quite normal to wait for the
certainty of science before administrators and politicians spring to action. The problem
begins when experts fail to agree on the reasons and facts that have been taken as
the necessary premises of any action. Then the machinery of decision is stuck until experts come to an agreement. It was in such a
the logical consequence of reason and facts (which the French, of all people, still believe),
situation that the great tainted blood catastrophe of the 1980s ensued: before agreement was produced, hundreds of patients were transfused with blood contaminated by the
AIDS virus.9 The precautionary principle was introduced to break this odd connection between scientific certainty and political action, stating that even in the absence of
certainty, decisions could be made. But of course, as soon as it was introduced, fierce debates began on its meaning. Is it an environmentalist notion that precludes action or a
postenvironmentalist notion that finally follows action through to its consequences? Not surprisingly, the enemies of the precautionary principle -- which President Chirac
enshrined in the French Constitution as if the French, having indulged so much in rationalism, had to be protected against it by the highest legal pronouncements -- took it as
proof that no action was possible any more. As good modernists, they claimed that if you had to take so many precautions in advance, to anticipate so many risks, to include the
unexpected consequences even before they arrived, and worse, to be responsible for them, then it was a plea for impotence, despondency, and despair. The only way to innovate,
they claimed, is to bounce forward, blissfully ignorant of the consequences or at least unconcerned by what lies outside your range of action. Their opponents largely agreed.
Modernist environmentalists argued that the principle of precaution dictated no
action, no new technology, no intervention unless it could be proven with certainty
that no harm would result. Modernists we were, modernists we shall be! But for its postenvironmental
supporters (of which I am one) the principle of precaution, properly understood,
is exactly the change of zeitgeist needed: not a principle of abstention -- as many
have come to see it -- but a change in the way any action is considered , a deep tidal
change in the linkage modernism established between science and politics. From
now on, thanks to this principle, unexpected consequences are attached to their
initiators and have to be followed through all the way . 4. The link between technology and theology hinges on the
notion of mastery. Descartes exclaimed that we should be "maîtres et possesseurs de la
nature."10 But what does it mean to be a master? In the modernist narrative, mastery was supposed to require such total dominance by the master that he was
emancipated entirely from any care and worry. This is the myth about mastery that was used to describe the technical, scientific, and economic dominion of Man over Nature.
where have we ever seen a master freed
from any dependence on his dependents? The Christian God, at least, is not a master who is freed from dependents, but who, on
But if you think about it according to the compositionist narrative, this myth is quite odd:
the contrary, gets folded into, involved with, implicated with, and incarnated into His Creation. God is so attached and dependent upon His Creation that he is continually forced
(convinced? willing?) to save it. Once again,
the sin is not to wish to have dominion over Nature, but to
believe that this dominion means emancipation and not attachment . If God has not abandoned
His Creation and has sent His Son to redeem it, why do you, a human, a creature, believe that you can invent, innovate, and proliferate -- and then flee away in horror from what
you have committed? Oh, you the hypocrite who confesses of one sin to hide a much graver, mortal one! Has God fled in horror after what humans made of His Creation? Then
have at least the same forbearance that He has.
The dream of emancipation has not turned into a
nightmare. It was simply too limited : it excluded nonhumans. It did not care
about unexpected consequences; it was unable to follow through with its
responsibilities; it entertained a wholly unrealistic notion of what science and
technology had to offer; it relied on a rather impious definition of God, and a totally absurd notion of what creation, innovation, and mastery could
provide. Which God and which Creation should we be for, knowing that, contrary to Dr. Frankenstein, we cannot suddenly stop being involved and "go home?" Incarnated we
are, incarnated we will be. In spite of a centuries-old misdirected metaphor, we should, without any blasphemy, reverse the Scripture and exclaim: "What good is it for a man to
gain his soul yet forfeit the whole world?" /
AT: Heidegger
Environmental Utilitarianism Good
Critics of environmental utilitarianism stifle action and ill-prepare
students to make policy decisions
Wolff ’08 [December 2008. Brian G. Wolff University of Minnesota Conservation Biology
Program “Environmental Studies and Utilitarian Ethics”
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ859824.pdf]
The environmental challenges today's students will face are truly daunting, and a strong
environmental ethic, capable of discouraging destructive environmental policies, is desperately
needed. Unfortunately, environmental ethicists have not yet produced a widely-accepted
"environmental ethic" policymakers can fruitfully apply to the variety of "real world" problems they face,
and it is still unclear what the attributes of such an ethic should be. The majority of environmental ethicists appear to
believe that a true environmental ethic is one that makes other organisms and/or holistic entities, like
species and ecosystems, subjects of direct moral concern. This definition has helped to establish and define the
scope of environmental ethics as an academic discipline, but it is too narrow to serve the present and future
needs of environmental advocates and policymakers. It is also alienating , and environmental
biology programs that are dominated by such a view not only risk producing graduates that are
ill-prepared to participate in public policy debates, they risk losing potential students and
collaborators with an interest in law, economics, civil engineering, etc. As Soule and Press (1998) have
pointed out, mainstream neoclassical economists, for example, are rare in environmental studies programs, and this is probably
because they find their views and those of their peers and professors ideologically incompatible. Environmental ethics should not be
shaped by practical concerns alone, but arguments
that appeal to the moral standing of trees, species and
ecosystems have not proven themselves to be logically superior to their more traditional
alternatives, and should not be taught as such. Many environmental ethicists and educators
unjustly equate anthropocentric ethics and utilitarianism, in particular, with destructive
environmental policies and methods of valuation that lead to environmental degradation. This is
extremely unfortunate because traditional utilitarian and rights- based ethics can be used to reject the
very practices they are often blamed for endorsing, and resonate with most Americans . When
anthropocentric arguments are used to defend destructive and unsustainable environmental policies, the benefits to humans are
nearly always exaggerated and/or the costs of environmental degradation to present and future human beings are underestimated.
This being the case, such policies can usually be shown to be unethical from a utilitarian perspective. In many environmental studies
and policy classrooms, utilitarian ethics are unquestionably discussed in a fair and unbiased manner, but the
tendency to
associate utilitarianism with environmental problems and "environmental ethics" with their
solutions is too often readily apparent. In one otherwise well-written environmental studies textbook, for example, the
"western worldview" is described as "human-centered and utilitarian. It mirrors the beliefs inherent in the 18th Century frontier
attitude" and is associated with "a desire to conquer and exploit nature as quickly as possible." The same textbook goes on to
describe the principles of deep ecology in panegyric terms. "Deep ecology stresses harmony with nature," and a "respect for life"
(Raven & Berg 2004). Another popular text claims that the "ecocentric environmental worldview is the environmental wisdom
worldview" and differs from the "planetary management worldview" in holding that some forms of economic growth are
environmentally harmful and should not be encouraged; inaccurately implying that ecologically enlightened homocentric views fail
to recognize this fact (Miller, 2003).
Environmental utilitarianism is effective – does not arbitrarily favor
humans in consideration of decisions
Wolff ’08 [December 2008. Brian G. Wolff University of Minnesota Conservation Biology
Program “Environmental Studies and Utilitarian Ethics”
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ859824.pdf]
Human beings and other sentient organisms depend on the ecological services natural
environments and wild organisms provide. Natural systems and wild organisms regulate climate
and biogeochemical cycles, are an important source of food, produce and protect fertile soils,
pollinate crops, produce pharmacologically active compounds, control pests, and increasingly
serve as a source of unique genetic material. The estimated economic value of all these and other
ecological services easily exceeds the world's economic output (Myers 1996, environmental ethic. To be taken
seriously, however, proponents of utilitarianism must respond to a handful of claims environmental ethicists have made regarding
the nature of utilitarian ethics. In particular, proponents of utilitarianism must address claims that utilitarian ethics: • Are
inherently anthropoccntric and/or sentientist. • Ignore the rights and/or intrinsic value of other species and biological entities, and •
Justify environmentally destructive policies by making sentient individuals, rather than species and ecosystems, the locus of moral
concern. The
claim that utilitarian ethics are anthropocentric constitutes a valid criticism of the way
a utilitarian ethic that recognizes the pain and suffering of
all sentient organisms does not arbitrarily favor humankind. Utilitarians were, in fact, ahead of
their time in recognizing the moral standing of other animals (Bentham 1823), and have denounced
anthropocentrism (i.e., "speciesism") (Singer 1974, 1975). It is certainly true that utilitarian ethics ignore the rights and
utilitarian ethics have generally been applied, but
intrinsic value some ethicists believe insentient life forms possess, but this might well be considered a virtue of utilitarianism rather
than a liability. Utilitarians
can, of course, recognize legal rights and value species, ecosystems, etc.,
intrinsically - in the sense of valuing these entities for what they are and "as is." Ethicists that wish to go further
and appeal to "natural rights" or "intrinsic value" in order to establish the moral standing of insentient entities have the burden of
proving that such rights and/or values actually exist, are identifiable, and are of a very special kind. Insentient
entities must
be shown, that is, to have the same kind of rights and/or value that other entities with moral
standing have (e.g., human beings). Demonstrating the existence of such rights and/or value has
proven to be a difficult problem for environmental ethicists and they have largely failed to
convince policymakers that trees, microorganisms, and communities have rights, or the kind of value
that makes them legitimate objects of direct moral concern. Furthermore, no proof of such rights and/or value seems possible. The
assertion that utilitarianism can justify policies that environmentalists disapprove of has been made by ethicists claiming, in
particular, that a utilitarian interest in individual welfare conflicts with bioengineering, law, and economics. In all of these fields,
utilitarianism has its proponents and utilitarian arguments are common.
Instrumental Rationality Good
Instrumental rationality is inevitable and good---rejecting it results in
incoherent stances incapable of dealing with existential crises
Bronner 4—Professor of Political Science, Comparative Literature, and German Studies at
Rutgers University (Stephen Eric, Reclaiming the Enlightenment, 159-60)
Much has been written about the need for a "new science" no longer defined by instrumental
rationality and incapable of reifying the world. But these new understandings always seem to
ignore the need for criteria of verification or falsification; science without such criteria is , however, no
science at all . Contempt for "instrumental" scientific rationality , moreover, undermines the
possibility of meaningful dialogue between the humanities and the sciences. And that is a matter
of crucial importance: popular debates are now taking place on issues ranging from the eco-system to
cloning, the assumptions of western medicine to the possibilities of acupuncture, using animals for experiments to state support for
space travel. ¶ This shows ethical progress, again perhaps not in the sense that people have become more "moral," but surely in the sense that
more questions of every-day life have become open to moral debate. Science has not eroded ethics. The Frankfurt School misjudged
the impact of science from the beginning. It is still the case that science plays a crucial role in subverting religious authority--considering only the battle
between evolutionists and the Christian coalition--and fostering political equality by enabling each to judge the veracity of truth claims. There is also
nothing exaggerated in the claim that "the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century was perhaps the single greatest influence on the development
of the idea that political resistance is a legitimate act."6¶ Critics of the Enlightenment may have correctly
emphasized the price of
costs of alienation and reification, and the dangers posed by technology and scientific
expertise for nature anda democratic society. Even so, this does not justify romantic attempts to roll back
technology . They conflate far too easily with ideological justifications for rolling back the
interventionist state and progressive legislation for cleaning up the environment. Such a stance
also pits the Enlightenment against environmentalism: technology, instrumental rationality, and
progress are often seen as inimical to preserving the planet. Nevertheless, this is to misconstrue the
problem . ¶ Technology is crucial for dealing with the ecological devastation brought about by
modernity. A redirection of technology will undoubtedly have to take place: but seeking to confront the decay of the
environment without it is like using an umbrella to defend against a hurricane. Institutional
action informed by instrumental rationality and guided by scientific specialists is unavoidable .
Investigations are necessary into the ways government can influence ecologically sound
production , provide subsidies or tax-benefits for particular industries , fund particular forms of knowledge
creation, and make “risks” a matter of public debate. It is completely correct to note that: “neither controversial social issues nor
progress, the
cultural concerns can be settled simply by scientific fiat, particularly in a world where experts usually disagree and where science can be compromised
by institutional sponsors. No
laboratory can dictate what industrial practices are tolerable or what degree of
questions transcend the crude categories of technical criteria and slide-
industrialization is permissible. These
rule measurements.”7
AT: Psychoanalysis
Alt Fails
Ecopsychology is pseudoscience that prevents material focus
Campbell 12—creator of Science 2.0 and co-author of Science Left Behind. Prior to founding
Science 2.0 he was a senior executive at various physics software companies. Finishing graduate
work in therapy (Hank, Ecopsychology - For People Who Think Social Psychology Is Too
Credible,
www.science20.com/science_20/ecopsychology_people_who_think_social_psychology_too_c
redible-92463)
Sure, environmental problems may seem like material ones - we simply need cows that burp less, plants that
require fewer pesticides and more natural gas - but people in Ecopsychology are much more nuanced than
rubes in the real world and know environmental problems are simply human behavioral ones . If
we teach everyone to not brush their teeth with the water running, Greenland won't melt. The field covers areas such as ecospirituality, experiential learning about environmental harmony and the interdependence between our physical and psychological
health and that of the planet. It even has a peer-reviewed journal. You can imagine the downside to a peer-reviewed journal
regarding something as mystical as ecopsychology. Ain't no one critical passing that peer review, any more than non-believers in
astrology or homeopathy are passing their peer-reviews. That's not to say their isn't a legitimate psychology issue. Some
people
on the right are not going to believe that anything we do to the planet matters. And every plant
geneticist, no matter how liberal they are politically, regards anti-GMO protesters as creepy and
dangerous, for good reason. Those are valid psychological barriers to getting responsible
discourses on science policy. But a field based on 'coping with anxiety or grief about
environmental destruction'? 'Investigations into the subjective, experiential, and existential states associated with
connectedness to nature and ecocentric conceptions of self and identity'? 'Spiritual practices that support a healthy environment'? I
know there is a left/right divide about some science issues - kooky science bloggers who think the only anti-science issues in America
are stem cells, evolution and global warming come to mind (you know who you are; not that you read actual science9* sites, so you
do not see me making fun of you) - but can we not all agree that this
is a waste of money? I don't mind if some rich kid or
sort of major is ground zero
in the growing 'psychology is not science' movement regarding funding. The problem will be
that, since this article is critical, a whole bunch of people in psychology will insist maybe this is science instead of driving the quacks out of their field. Think medicine before 1850, people. It was all skull
drilling and leeches and no interest at all in germs. But finally one medical school in the world decided
medicine should be a real thing and not full of charlatans and now when people hear 'doctor' they think of 'Medical
athletic scholarship type takes this stuff if all of the basket weaving classes are full, but this
Doctor', when in the past that 'Medical' had to be a prefix because Doctors (PhDs) wanted no part of their silliness so M.D.s had to be
ghetto-ized . Psychology
needs its 1850 version of Harvard Medical School.
AT Can't Control Nature---Risk Calc
We don't have absolute control over nature, but measures to reduce
existential environmental risks are still good---we can use science to
confirm environmental trends which solves extinction
Highfield 4--editor of New Scientist and former Telegraph science editor. DPhil in physical
chemistry, conducted at Oxford University and the Institut Laue Langevin (Roger, We can't
control nature, but we can prepare for the worst,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3613845/We-cant-control-nature-butwe-can-prepare-for-the-worst.html)
We can't control nature, but we can prepare for the worst. This week's devastating tsunami came
as no surprise to scientists. The quake that triggered the destruction was just off the western tip of Sumatra in a
geologically violent region where two of the plates that make up the Earth's surface collide, and where similar upheavals have been
seen before. The Indian Ocean floor is being pushed under Eurasia along a long fault line known as a subduction zone. A few miles
beneath the ocean floor, the plates slipped violently and abruptly over a 700-mile stretch, creating a seabed cliff as tall as 10 metres
and a tsunami that moved at 560mph. The death toll in its wake is still rising. Once again, scientists
will ask whether
society should do more to prepare for such rare but catastrophic events. Although earthquakes
are unpredictable, tsunamis are not. An international warning system in the Pacific was first considered in 1960, when
around 1,000 people died after a tsunami struck Chile, Hawaii, Japan and elsewhere. In 1964, a 9.2-magnitude quake in Alaska
triggered a wave that killed more than 100 people as it swept down the west coast. Driven by this modest death toll, relative to the
tragedy of the past few days, the
United States and Japan have prepared evacuations, special construction
codes for coastal buildings and shoreline embankments to lessen the impact of these waves.
Within 15 minutes of this week's earthquake, scientists running the Pacific warning system sent an alert to 26
participating countries, including Thailand and Indonesia, that destructive waves might be generated. The
problem is that not all submarine earthquakes make waves. To turn earthquake detection into tsunami
prediction, America uses pressure sensors that sit on the ocean floor to measure the water
column and detect any tsunami in the deep ocean. That information is relayed to a buoy that sends the data via
satellite to tsunami warning centres in Hawaii and Alaska, where computers can model their threat. The detection system was
transferred to the US National Data Buoy Centre in October 2003. A month later, the system had its first operational test. A 7.5magnitude earthquake off the Aleutian Islands generated a tsunami that led to Alaska issuing a warning. Importantly, this alert was
subsequently cancelled, based on the buoy information. Hawaii has had a number of false alarms about pending tsunamis. These
evacuations cost millions in lost productivity. Tsunami prediction is still a budding science. Much of the size,
direction and speed of a wave is determined by the contours of the seabed and local topography. More ocean-bed data collection is
needed to make predictions more accurate. But in
southern Asia there were no tidal gauges, no buoys and
thus no warning. Close to the epicentre of the 9.0-magnitude earthquake that triggered the waves of destruction, any warning
given by an alert system would have been too late, given that the waves move as fast as a jumbo jet. At best, those on the Sumatran
coast would have known of impending disaster when the sea moved out abnormally far and fast. That would have given them as
much as 10 minutes to flee. An early warning system still could have saved many lives. The deadly surge struck southern Thailand
about an hour after the earthquake. After two or so hours, the torrents had travelled some 1,000 miles and slammed India and Sri
Lanka. At a meeting in June of the UN's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, experts concluded that the Indian Ocean
should have a warning network. The problem is that tsunamis
as large and destructive as that seen this week
happen only a few times in a century, a threat that countries find hard to take seriously.
Governments change over much shorter time scales, undermining the political will to prepare
for such events. And here we are talking about more than tsunamis. Many other hazards fall into
the same huge-but-rare category. Today's increasingly populous and mobile world faces a rising
threat of pandemics. Despite the horrors of the 1918 influenza outbreak that killed some 40 million, politicians seem
strangely unmoved by the threat of a new bird flu strain called H5N1. The disease could result in 100 million deaths
if the virus responsible adapts to spread from person to person, according to one World Heath Organisation
estimate. We can do something. An analysis of the 1918 outbreak by a team at the Harvard School of Public Health
suggests a number of measures to prepare for the worst, notably stockpiling antiviral drugs in the
Far East, where pandemics originate because of the proximity of birds and people. Then there is the risk of a
doomsday asteroid. An impact equivalent to 10 million tons of TNT, which could kill millions of
people, is thought likely to occur about once every 1,000 years. The fossil record suggests there
have been several mass extinctions where impacts may have contributed, notably one coinciding with the
death of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, and the "great dying" - which wiped out 95 per cent of species - 200 million years ago.
Again,
it is possible to warn of catastrophe and, Bruce Willis capers aside, there are some serious proposals for a "track
The
appliance of science has seen a huge surge in the Earth's population, lifespan and in the extent
of civilised society. The tsunami has taught us humility, once again underlining how nature, and
not mankind, is still the real master. The plates that slide, shift and grind under our feet, the
viruses that multiply in our bodies and objects in orbit are indifferent to our plight. The chances
of a natural Armageddon might be remote, but the destruction of human life and impact on
modern lifestyles would be so extreme that we should use science to defend ourselves better.
and whack" policy to scan the skies in a systematic way and avert disaster by diverting or destroying incoming objects.
AT: Anthropocentrism
No Link
We don't link to their impacts - we can respect other species without
abandoning anthropocentrism
Schmidtz 98 (David, "Are All Species Equal?" Journal of Applied Philosophy, Vol 15, No 1,
http://akbar.marlboro.edu/~wedelglass/Edelglass,%20Osher.%2010.25.%20Reading%202.%2
0David%20Schmidtz,%20Are%20All%20Species%20Equal.pdf)
Thus, a broad respect for living or beautiful or well-functioning things need not translate into equal respect.
It need not translate into universal respect, either. I can appreciate mosquitoes to a degree. My wife (a biochemist who studies
mosquito immune systems) even finds them beautiful, or so she says. My own appreciation, by contrast, is thin and grudging and
purely intellectual. In neither degree nor kind is it anything like the appreciation I have for my wife, or for human beings in general,
or even for the rabbits I sometimes find eating my flowers in the morning. Part
of our responsibility as moral agents
is to be somewhat choosy about what we respect and how we respect it. I can see why people shy
away from openly accepting that responsibility, but they still have it. Johnson says speciesism is
as arbitrary as racism unless we can show that the differences arc morally relevant (p. 51). This is, to be sure, a popular
sentiment among radical environmentalists and animal liberationists[15). But are we really like racists when we
think it is worse to kill a dolphin than to kill a tuna? The person who says there is a relevant similarity between
speciesism and racism has the burden of proof: go ahead and identity' the similarity. Is seeing moral significance in
biological differences between chimpanzees and potatoes anything like seeing moral significance
in biological differences between races? I think not.
Extinction First
Prioritize human existence --- we’re the only species that can protect
the entire biosphere from inevitable extinction
Matheny 9 (Jason Gaverick, research associate with the Future of Humanity Institute at
Oxford University, where his work focuses on technology forecasting and risk assessment particularly of global catastrophic risks and existential risks, Sommer Scholar and PhD
candidate in Applied Economics at Johns Hopkins University, March 14, “Ought we worry about
human extinction? [1]”, http://jgmatheny.org/extinctionethics.htm)
At the same time, we’re
probably the only animal on Earth that routinely demonstrates compassion
for other species. Such compassion is nearly universal in developed countries but we usually know too little, too late, for
deeply ingrained habits, such as diets, to change. If improvements in other public morals were possible
without any significant biological change in human nature, then the same should be true for our
treatment of nonhuman animals, though it will take some time. Even without any change in public morals, it seems
unlikely we will continue to use animals for very long – at least, nowhere near 50 billion per year. Our most
brutal use of animals results not from sadism but from old appetites now satisfied with inefficient
technologies that have not fundamentally changed in 10,000 years. Ours is the first century where newer technologies -- plant
or in vitro meats, or meat from brainless animals -- could satisfy human appetites for meat more efficiently and safely (Edelman et
al, 2005). As these technologies
mature and become cheaper, they will likely replace conventional
meat. If the use of sentient animals survives much beyond this century, we should be very surprised. This thought is a cure for
misanthropy. As long as most humans in the future don't use sentient animals, the vast number of good lives we can
create would outweigh any sins humanity has committed or is likely to commit. Even if it takes a
century for animal farming to be replaced by vegetarianism (or in vitro meats or brainless farm animals), the
century of factory farming would represent around 1012 miserable life-years. That is onebillionth of the 1021 animal life-years humanity could save by protecting Earth from asteroids
for a billion years. The century of industrialized animal use would thus be the equivalent of a
terrible pain that lasts one second in an otherwise happy 100-year life. To accept human
extinction now would be like committing suicide to end an unpleasant itch. If human life is
extinguished, all known animal life will be extinguished when the Sun enters its Red Giant
phase, if not earlier. Despite its current mistreatment of other animals, humanity is the animal
kingdom’s best long-term hope for survival.
Alt Fails – Utopian
Alt fails --- it’s utopian to expect every human to suddenly embrace
animal equality --- prefer pragmatic steps like the plan
Light 2 [Light, Andrew, Assistant Professor of Environmental Philosophy and Director,
Environmental Conservation Education Program, 2002 (Environmental Ethics: What Really
Matters What Really Works David Schmidtz and Elizabeth Willott, p. 556-57)]
In recent years a critique of this predominant trend in environmental ethics has emerged from within the pragmatist tradition in American philosophy.'
The force of this critique is driven by the intuition that environmental
philosophy cannot afford to be quiescent about the
public reception of ethical arguments over the value of nature. The original motivations of environmental philosophers for
turning their philosophical insights to the environment support such a position., Environmental philosophy evolved out of a concern
about the state of the growing environmental crisis, and a conviction that a philosophical contribution could be made to the resolution of this crisis. But if environmental philosophers spend all of their time debating non-human centered forms
of value theory they will arguably never get very far in making such a contribution. For example, to continue to
ignore human motivations for the act of valuing nature causes many in the field to overlook the fact that most people find it very difficult to extend
moral consideration to plants and animals on the grounds that these entities possess some form of intrinsic, inherent, or otherwise conceived
Claims about the value of
nature as such do not appear to resonate with the ordinary moral intuitions of most people who, after
all, spend most of their lives thinking of value, moral obligations, and rights in exclusively human terms. Indeed, while most
nonanthropocentric value. It is even more difficult for people to recognize that nonhumans could have rights.
environmental philosophers begin their work with the assumption that most people think of value in human-centered terms (a problem that has been
decried since the very early days of the field), few have considered the problem of how a non-human-centered approach to valuing nature can ever
appeal to such human intuitions. The particular version of the pragmatist critique of environmental ethics that I have endorsed recognizes that we
need to rethink the utility of anthropocentric arguments in environmental moral and political theory, not necessarily because the traditional nonanthropocentric arguments in the field are false, but because they hamper
attempts to contribute to the public discussion of environmental problems, in terms familiar to the
public.
Alt Bad – Animal Extinction
The alternative dooms millions of animals to extinction
Michael Pollan 2, Professor of Journalism at UC-Berkeley, “An Animal’s Place,” The New
York Times Magazine, 11-10-02, http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/an-animals-place/
For any animal, happiness seems to consist in the opportunity to express its creaturely
character–its essential pigness or wolfness or chickenness. Aristotle speaks of each creature’s “characteristic form of life.” For
domesticated species, the good life, if we can call it that, cannot be achieved apart from humans–apart from
our farms and, therefore, our meat eating. This, it seems to me, is where animal rightists betray a profound
ignorance about the workings of nature. To think of domestication as a form of enslavement or
even exploitation is to misconstrue the whole relationship, to project a human idea of power
onto what is, in fact, an instance of mutualism between species. Domestication is an
evolutionary, rather than a political, development. It is certainly not a regime humans imposed on animals some 10,000
years ago. Rather, domestication happened when a small handful of especially opportunistic species
discovered through Darwinian trial and error that they were more likely to survive and prosper in an alliance
with humans than on their own. Humans provided the animals with food and protection, in exchange for which the animals
provided the humans their milk and eggs and–yes–their flesh. Both parties were transformed by the relationship:
animals grew tame and lost their ability to fend for themselves (evolution tends to edit out unneeded traits),
and the humans gave up their hunter-gatherer ways for the settled life of agriculturists. (Humans
changed biologically, too, evolving such new traits as a tolerance for lactose as adults.) From the animals’ point of view, the bargain
with humanity has been a great success, at least until our own time. Cows, pigs, dogs, cats and chickens have thrived, while their wild
ancestors have languished. (There are 10,000 wolves in North America, 50,000,000 dogs.) Nor
does their loss of
autonomy seem to trouble these creatures. It is wrong, the rightists say, to treat animals as “means” rather than
“ends,” yet the happiness of a working animal like the dog consists precisely in serving as a
“means.” Liberation is the last thing such a creature wants . To say of one of Joel Salatin’s caged chickens that
“the life of freedom is to be preferred” betrays an ignorance about chicken preferences–which on this farm are heavily focused on
not getting their heads bitten off by weasels. But haven’t these chickens simply traded one predator for another–weasels for
humans? True enough, and for the chickens this is probably not a bad deal. For brief as it is, the
life expectancy of a farm
animal would be considerably briefer in the world beyond the pasture fence or chicken coop. A
sheep farmer told me that a bear will eat a lactating ewe alive, starting with her udders. “As a rule,” he explained, “animals don’t get
‘good deaths’ surrounded by their loved ones.” The
very existence of predation–animals eating animals–is
the cause of much anguished hand-wringing in animal rights circles. “It must be admitted,” Singer writes,
“that the existence of carnivorous animals does pose one problem for the ethics of Animal Liberation, and that is whether we should
do anything about it.” Some animal rightists train their dogs and cats to become vegetarians. (Note: cats will require nutritional
supplements to stay healthy.)
Matthew Scully calls predation “the intrinsic evil in nature’s design . . .
among the hardest of all things to fathom.” Really? A deep Puritan streak pervades animal rights
activists, an abiding discomfort not only with our animality, but with the animals’ animality too.
Alt Bad – Enviro Destruction
Rejecting anthropocentrism causes worse environmental destruction
Watson 7 (Richard, Philosopher, " A Critique of Anti-Anthropocentric Ethics,"
http://ocw.capilanou.ca/philosophy/phil-208-environmental-ethics/non-anthropocentric.htm)
If we accept biospherical egalitarianism, then humans should be treated in no special way; humans
are not to be set part from nature. But by arguing that natural states occur only when an ecosystem is left
untouched by humans, Naess and others are implicitly separating humans from nature. What human do
turns out to be unnatural. Hence, there is an internal inconsistency. Further, all human actions must be seen
as natural -- including environmentally destructive ones. Only then do we have humans as being
intimately part of nature. Watson then asks: Should we not, though, halt our environmentally destructive behaviour? Yes,
he answers, but only because it is in our best interests to do so. Clearly, then, we have reduced the outlook back to anthropocentrism.
Human beings ought to curb their evolutionary tendencies, rather than let them flow as Naess and
others argue, because we have such a great potential for being destructive. The fact that only human
behaviour is subject to moral evaluation does set us apart. If we really are merely members of the
biotic community, then surely egalitarianism implies that we ought not to be treated differently.
But most non-anthropocentric ethical systems prescribe constraints only on human conduct.
Anthro Inevitable/Good
Anthropocentrism is inevitable and good --- the alternative makes it
impossible to protect the biosphere --- we are a benign form of it
Grey 93 — William Grey, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Queensland, 1993
(“Anthropocentrism and Deep Ecology,” Australiasian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 71,
Number 4)
The attempt to provide a genuinely non-anthropocentric set of values, or preferences seems to
be a hopeless quest. Once we eschew all human values, interests and preferences we are
confronted with just too many altematives, as we can see when we consider biological history over a billion year time
scale. The problem with the various non-anthropocentric bases for value which have been proposed is that they permit
too many different possibilities, not all of which are at all congenial to us. And that matters. We
should be concerned to promote a rich, diverse and vibrant biosphere. Human flourishing may certainly
be included as a legitimate part of such a flourishing. The preoccupations of deep ecology arise as a result of
human activities which impoverish and degrade the quality of the planet's living systems. But these judgments are
possible only if we assume a set of values (that is, preference rankings), based on human preferences. We
need to reject not anthropocentrism, but a particularly short term and narrow conception of
human interests and concerns . What's wrong with shallow views is not their concern about the well-being
of humans, but that they do not really consider enough in what that well-being consists. We need to
develop an enriched, fortified anthropocentric notion of human interest to replace the dominant
short-term, sectional and self-regarding conception. Our sort of world, with our sort of fellow occupants is an
interesting and engaging place. There is every reason for us to try to keep it, and ourselves, going for a
few more cosmic seconds.
Defense of Warming
Warming Key to Motivate Action
**In Defense of Science as well
Science is critical to motivate policy action on environmental
problems—promotes logical decisionmaking with reliable
information
Clarke 6 (Ann, Chair, Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Law Section, Federal Bar Association, Washington, D.C.,
Seeing Clearly: Making Decisions under Conditions of Scientific Controversy and Incomplete and Uncertain Scientific Information,
46 Nat. Resources J. 571, Summer, Google Scholar)
systematically using science to analyze the
potential effects of our use of ¶ science and technology on society and nature.17
Congress did not define ¶ science , but rather sought to infuse agency decision making
with reliable ¶ information: Enlistment of science on behalf of policy was necessary
¶ because only through science , broadly defined, could the ¶ impact of man's
Caldwell has written that NEPA provided a vehicle for ¶
activities upon the environment ¶ adequately be assessed and remedial measures
be applied ¶ where needed. Achievement of the NEPA policy ¶ declaration required that reliable analyses
of environmental ¶ effects and relationships be built into and guide the ¶ planning
and decision processes of government, but ¶ without predetermining final action.
Such analyses were to ¶ be derived from the sciences, but could not be obtained ¶
through the ways governments had traditionally used ¶ science. To achieve NEPA goals, an
integrated inter- ¶ disciplinary use of science was necessary to address ¶ complex
and interrelated environmental problems . ¶ Recognition of the need to redeploy and
reintegrate ¶ scientific knowledge to respond to the complex challenges ¶ of
environmental policy gave practical expression to the ¶ theoretical unity of
science....Science therefore provided ¶ the substantive element in redirecting national
policy for ¶ the environment through procedural reform . The critical ¶ procedure—the
environmental impact statement— became ¶ the vector, carrying integrated
interdisciplinary sciences ¶ into the shaping of public policy.ß
Apocalyptic Rhetoric Good
Apocalyptic climate change rhetoric good—promotes action to
prevent environmental destruction
Spoel et al 2008
(Philippa Spoel-associate professor of rhetorical studies @LaurentianUniversity, David Goforth, Hoi Cheu, and David Pearson—
Laurentian University “Public Communication of Climate Change Science: Engaging Citizens Through Apocalyptic Narrative
Explanation,” Technical Communication Quarterly 18(1) p.49-81
According to Killingsworth and Palmer (1996),
apocalyptic narratives in the environmental
movement have appeared at historical moments when the movement is seeking to
expand its base of support and engage new publics. They argue that "millennial rhetoric bears a
dialectical relation to public support for the environmental movement" (p. 22). Its primary aim is transform the
consciousness that a problem exists into acceptance of action toward a solution by
prefacing the solution with a future scenario of what could happen if action is not
taken, if the problem goes untreated" (p. 22). By recounting past and present
evidence for climate change and the future scenarios that can be predicted based
on this evidence, and by using these predictions to persuade audiences for the
need to take action to avoid these scenarios, both An Inconvenient Truth and Climate Change Show enact
basic features of the apocalyptic narrative structure though, in the latter case, the style and tone are not alarmist. Our claim is that,
in the context of each work's explanation of climate change science, this basic apocalyptic framework combines
with the
communicative strategy of narrative explanation that Norris et al. (2005) have identified as
an important—but not widely recognized or practiced— mode of science education. As a number of
professional communication scholars have demonstrated, narrative plays a central role in multiple types of science communication,
ranging from stories about the human actors and institutions involved in scientific enterprises, to the narrative structure of scientific
reports and the narrative logic of equation, to narrative explanations of scientific discoveries in both expert and public contexts, to
the narrative invention of scientific knowledge (e.g., Johnson-Sheehan & Rode, 1999; Myers, 1990, 1994; Bazerman, 1997; Barton &
Barton, 1998; Bryson, 2003). Not only communication scholars but also complex systems scientists argue that,
in order to
understand the natural world, science must embrace narrative as a valid
scientific method . Per Bak (1996) explains in How Nature Works that the behavior of any nonlinear, self-organizing
critical structure (such as a sand pile, a brain network, or an ecological system) can be understood only in terms of dynamic
interrelations, and such complexity cannot be reduced to a sheer cause-effect chain. In such cases,
only the
epistemological perspective of narrative or story can describe the emergent
property of the scientific subject. For Bak, narrative is not just a communication device; like a
chemical formula or a mathematical equation, it is a way to describe nature, and, perhaps more
importantly, a method of modeling to predict the future based on existing
knowledge.
Apocalyptic narratives good—spurs the critical public debate and
action on climate change necessary to avoid environmental
destruction
Spoel et al 2008
(Philippa Spoel-associate professor of rhetorical studies @LaurentianUniversity, David Goforth, Hoi Cheu, and David Pearson—
Laurentian University “Public Communication of Climate Change Science: Engaging Citizens Through Apocalyptic Narrative
Explanation,” Technical Communication Quarterly 18(1) p.49-81
As teachers of science communication, we have sought in this paper to identify and
investigate the role that communication with the public plays in the process of
developing policy around matters of science and technology. Successful policy is
undeniably dependent on public input, debate , and support. To participate in this
scientific citizenship, people need both to understand and be engaged with the
science. Such an engaged understanding involves more than the kind of basic scientific
literacy that was the objective of earlier approaches to public communication of
science. In the case of climate change , as we have attempted to show, public
engagement in the science means appealing to the whole person through all three
modes of rhetorical proof: The logos of the scientific narrative must be integrated with a
trustworthy ethos to scaffold the understanding, and the technical details must be reinterpreted
within a framework of cultural rationality that engenders a sense of social significance
and personal caring. For An Inconvenient Truth and Climate Change Show—as for many other
instances of environmental and climate change communication—the apocalyptic narrative
structure functions as a powerful rhetorical resource for integrating these modes of proof into
politically and ethically as well as technically compelling science stones. In terms of climate
change policy, the kind of public expertise and scientific citizenship fostered by
these sorts of narratives can and should contribute to more than public awareness
aimed at promoting individual behavioral change and uncritical acceptance of official
policies. As the scientific apocalyptic predictions for climate change continue to
grow, now more than ever citizens need to use their political power, science
knowledge, and cultural rationality to participate actively in the policy
development process. In this context, science communicators likewise have a crucial role to
play in meeting the rhetorical challenge of communicating climate change science in
ways that facilitate the public's situationally meaningful engagement in this
process.
Apocalyptic warming rhetoric changes disbelief and mobilizes
effective public responses
Romm 12 (Joe, Fellow at American Progress and is the editor of Climate Progress, which New York Times columnist Tom
Friedman called "the indispensable blog" and Time magazine named one of the 25 “Best Blogs of 2010.″ In 2009, Rolling Stone put
Romm #88 on its list of 100 “people who are reinventing America.” Time named him a “Hero of the Environment″ and “The Web’s
most influential climate-change blogger.” Romm was acting assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy
in 1997, where he oversaw $1 billion in R&D, demonstration, and deployment of low-carbon technology. He is a Senior Fellow at
American Progress and holds a Ph.D. in physics from MIT, 2/26, “Apocalypse Not: The Oscars, The Media And The Myth of
‘Constant Repetition of Doomsday Messages’ on Climate”, http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/02/26/432546/apocalypse-notoscars-media-myth-of-repetition-of-doomsday-messages-on-climate/#more-432546)
The two greatest myths about global warming communications are 1) constant
repetition of doomsday messages has been a major, ongoing strategy and 2) that
strategy doesn’t work and indeed is actually counterproductive! These myths are so deeply
ingrained in the environmental and progressive political community that when we finally had a serious shot at a climate bill, the
powers that be decided not to focus on the threat posed by climate change in any
serious fashion in their $200 million communications effort (see my 6/10 post “Can you solve
global warming without talking about global warming?“). These myths are so deeply ingrained in the mainstream media that such
messaging, when it is tried, is routinely attacked and denounced — and the flimsiest studies are interpreted exactly backwards to
drive the erroneous message home (see “Dire straits: Media blows the story of UC Berkeley study on climate messaging“)The only
time anything approximating this kind of messaging — not “doomsday” but what I’d call blunt, science-based
messaging that also makes clear the problem is solvable — was in 2006 and 2007 with the release of An Inconvenient Truth
(and the 4 assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and media coverage like the April 2006 cover of
Time). The data suggest that strategy
measurably moved the public to become more concerned
about the threat posed by global warmin g (see recent study here). You’d think it would be pretty obvious
that the public
is not going to be concerned about an issue unless one explains why
they should be concerned about an issue. And the social science literature,
including the vast literature on advertising and marketing, could not be clearer
that only repeated messages have any chance of sinking in and moving the needle.
Because I doubt any serious movement of public opinion or mobilization of
political action could possibly occur until these myths are shattered, I’ll do a
multipart series on this subject, featuring public opinion analysis, quotes by
leading experts, and the latest social science research. Since this is Oscar night, though, it seems
appropriate to start by looking at what messages the public are exposed to in popular culture and the media. It ain’t
doomsday. Quite the reverse, climate change has been mostly an invisible issue for
several years and the message of conspicuous consumption and business-as-usual reigns supreme. The motivation for this
post actually came up because I received an e-mail from a journalist commenting that the “constant repetition of doomsday
messages” doesn’t work as a messaging strategy. I had to demur, for the reasons noted above. But it did get me thinking about what
messages the public are exposed to, especially as I’ve been rushing to see the movies nominated for Best Picture this year. I am a
huge movie buff, but as parents of 5-year-olds know, it isn’t easy to stay up with the latest movies. That said, good luck finding a
popular movie in recent years that even touches on climate change, let alone one a popular one that would pass for doomsday
messaging. Best Picture nominee The Tree of Life has been billed as an environmental movie — and even shown at environmental
film festivals — but while it is certainly depressing, climate-related it ain’t. In fact, if that is truly someone’s idea of environmental
movie, count me out. The closest to a genuine popular climate movie was the dreadfully unscientific The Day After Tomorrow, which
is from 2004 (and arguably set back the messaging effort by putting the absurd “global cooling” notion in people’s heads! Even
Avatar, the most successful movie of all time and “the most epic piece of environmental advocacy ever captured on celluloid,” as one
producer put it, omits the climate doomsday message. One of my favorite eco-movies, “Wall-E, is an eco-dystopian gem and an anticonsumption movie,” but it isn’t a climate movie. I will be interested to see The Hunger Games, but I’ve read all 3 of the bestselling
post-apocalyptic young adult novels — hey, that’s my job! — and they don’t qualify as climate change doomsday messaging (more on
that later). So, no, the movies certainly don’t expose the public to constant doomsday messages on climate. Here are the key points
about what repeated messages the American public is exposed to: The broad American public is exposed to virtually no doomsday
messages, let alone constant ones, on climate change in popular culture (TV and the movies and even online). There is not one single
TV show on any network devoted to this subject, which is, arguably, more consequential than any other preventable issue we face.
The same goes for the news media, whose coverage of climate change has collapsed (see “Network News Coverage of Climate Change
Collapsed in 2011“). When
the media do cover climate change in recent years, the
overwhelming majority of coverage is devoid of any doomsday messages — and
many outlets still feature hard-core deniers. Just imagine what the public’s view of
climate would be if it got the same coverage as, say, unemployment, the housing
crisis or even the deficit? When was the last time you saw an “employment denier” quoted on TV or in a newspaper?
The public is exposed to constant messages promoting business as usual and indeed idolizing conspicuous consumption. See, for
instance, “Breaking: The earth is breaking … but how about that Royal Wedding? Our political elite and intelligentsia, including
MSM pundits and the supposedly “liberal media” like, say, MSNBC, hardly even talk about climate change and when they do, it isn’t
doomsday. Indeed, there isn’t even a single national columnist for a major media outlet who writes primarily on climate. Most
“liberal” columnists rarely mention it. At
least a quarter of the public chooses media that devote a
vast amount of time to the notion that global warming is a hoax and that
environmentalists are extremists and that clean energy is a joke. In the MSM, conservative
pundits routinely trash climate science and mock clean energy. Just listen to, say, Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe mock
clean energy sometime. The major energy companies bombard the airwaves with millions and millions of dollars of repetitious profossil-fuel ads. The environmentalists spend far, far less money. As noted above, the one time they did run a major campaign to push
a climate bill, they and their political allies including the president explicitly did NOT talk much about climate change, particularly
doomsday messaging Environmentalists when they do appear in popular culture, especially TV, are routinely mocked. There is very
little mass communication of doomsday messages online. Check out the most popular websites. General silence on the subject, and
again, what coverage there is ain’t doomsday messaging. Go to the front page of the (moderately trafficked) environmental websites.
Where is the doomsday? If you want to find anything approximating even modest,
blunt, science-based messaging built around the scientific literature, interviews
with actual climate scientists and a clear statement that we can solve this problem
— well, you’ve all found it, of course, but the only people who see it are those who go looking for it. Of course, this blog is not even
aimed at the general public. Probably 99% of Americans haven’t even seen one of my headlines and 99.7% haven’t read one of my
climate science posts. And Climate Progress is probably the most widely read, quoted, and reposted climate science blog in the
world. Anyone
dropping into America from another country or another planet who
started following popular culture and the news the way the overwhelming majority
of Americans do would get the distinct impression that nobody who matters is
terribly worried about climate change. And, of course, they’d be right — see “The failed presidency of Barack
Obama, Part 2.” It is total BS that somehow the American public has been scared and overwhelmed by repeated doomsday
messaging into some sort of climate fatigue. If the public’s concern has dropped — and public opinion analysis suggests it has
dropped several percent (though is bouncing back a tad) — that is primarily due to the conservative media’s disinformation
campaign impact on Tea Party conservatives and to the treatment of this as a nonissue by most of the rest of the media, intelligentsia
and popular culture. What’s
amazing to me is not the public’s supposed lack of concerned
about global warming — another myth, debunked here — but that the public is as
knowledgable and concerned as it is given the realities discussed above!
Uncertain Knowledge – Avoids Eco Destruction
Acting on uncertain knowledge is critical to avoid ecological
destruction—only an integrated analysis through the plan solves
Polasky et. al 11
(Stephen Polasky- Department of Applied Economics & Department of Ecology, Evolution and
Behavior, University of Minnesota Stephen R. Carpenter- Center for Limnology, University of
Wisconsin, Madison, Carl Folke- Beijer Institute, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Bonnie
Keeler- Institute on the Environment, University of Minnesota , “Decision-making under great
uncertainty: environmental management in an era of global change” Trends in Ecology and
Evolution V26 Issue 8 August 2011 p. 398-404, Google Scholar)
Humanity faces unprecedented challenges arising from the scale of human activity
and its impacts 1 and 2. In the ‘Anthropocene’ [3] (see Glossary), human actions are important
drivers of global change, including changes in land use and biogeochemical cycling, emergent
diseases, invasive species, biodiversity loss and climate. Global change could have a
potentially large impact upon ecosystems, biodiversity, and the well-being of
current and future generations. Analyzing the impacts of human actions on the trajectory of global
change and human well-being requires integrated analysis of the dynamics of social–
ecological systems. The rapid rate of change, the lack of a historical analog and the complexity of feedback
effects in social–ecological systems shroud the future trajectory in uncertainty and attempts to
compare the probable consequences of alternative decisions have large elements of guesswork. Although difficult,
trying to understand the future trajectory of global change is, in some sense,
unavoidable . Sustainable development, as articulated by the World Commission on Environment and Development (the
‘Brundtland Commission’), aims to meet ‘the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs’ [4]. Actions taken to meet the needs of the present can have long-lasting and potentially unforeseen consequences
for future generations (e.g. carbon emissions). Many innovations during the 20th century were quite successful in their intended use
(e.g. CFCs for use in refrigerators and aerosols), but these ‘successes’ also led to unintended and damaging consequences (e.g.
depletion of the ozone layer). Without
reliable information about how current actions are
likely to affect the trajectory of global change, and how global change is likely to
alter the well-being of future generations, it is hard to provide sensible advice to
decision-makers. How then can one best guide decision-making to meet present and
future human needs given pervasive uncertainty? Managing in an era of global change requires
an enhanced ability to gather new information and perspectives to better
anticipate future conditions. In addition, it requires the ability to make good decisions
without full knowledge , but using fully what is known at the time . Furthermore, with
iterated decision-making through time, prior decisions will help determine the conditions under which following decisions will be
made. It is important then to consider not only the future impacts of current decisions, but also the potential for learning from
decisions that can help inform future decisions. Here, we discuss several approaches that, in combination, address learning and
application of existing knowledge in iterated decision-making under uncertainty. We begin with a brief review of decision theory,
which provides a systematic approach to decision-making under uncertainty. Decision theory is a powerful tool for providing advice
on which management alternative is optimal given the available information. Decision theory, however, requires information about
probabilities of various outcomes under alternative management options and the desirability of those outcomes. Such information is
unlikely to be readily available in the context of global change issues. We next discuss threshold approaches that focus attention on
critical values and try to limit the chance that these values will be exceeded. We then review scenario planning and resilience
approaches. These approaches are well suited to scoping problems from broad perspectives and from multiple viewpoints and so can
reduce the danger of unforeseen events or unintended consequences. In our view, an approach to decision-making under
uncertainty has value if it helps clarify the effect that alternative decisions have on the probable desirability of outcomes in terms of
stated objectives. Although there is no perfect approach to decision-making for global change, various approaches contain
potentially useful components that help address different aspects of learning and decision-making. Indeed, we argue that there can
be great
value in using a combination of approaches.
***obviously in the perm section as welll
Acting with uncertain knowledge is key—climate change is a global
threat
*permutation combines multiple modes of decisionmaking which is
key to avoid global catastrophe—climate change is a unique threat
Polasky et. al 11
(Stephen Polasky- Department of Applied Economics & Department of Ecology, Evolution and
Behavior, University of Minnesota Stephen R. Carpenter- Center for Limnology, University of
Wisconsin, Madison, Carl Folke- Beijer Institute, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Bonnie
Keeler- Institute on the Environment, University of Minnesota , “Decision-making under great
uncertainty: environmental management in an era of global change” Trends in Ecology and
Evolution V26 Issue 8 August 2011 p. 398-404, Google Scholar)
The future of complex social–ecological systems under global change, and how that future
might be influenced by alternative decisions, is subject to considerable uncertainty. Although classical
decision theory brings a powerful set of tools to bear on problems of decision-making under uncertainty, it is not directly applicable
to the analysis of global change because it requires a fully specified set of future potential states and probabilities of their occurrence,
an understanding of how states and actions combine to yield outcomes, and an understanding of the net benefits of each potential
outcome. Implementing decision theory for global change would require extensive reliance on subjective probability assessments
over which reasonable observers will probably disagree. In
situations of profound uncertainty,
threshold approaches, scenario planning and resilience thinking can be useful
ways to both expand the scope of what is considered, thereby reducing the risk of
unintended consequences, and to organize complex materials to focus on key
factors and boundaries (Box 3). Providing advice to decision-makers in complex systems with great uncertainty can be
aided by bringing in diverse viewpoints and using multiple tools. Decision-making for global change issues
is an iterated process that can be thought of as involving two phases with
continuous feedbacks. One phase involves scoping the problem as broadly as
possible to expand the space of imaginable states and associated outcomes. Such
thinking can provide impetus to explore widely for evidence beyond what is
currently considered probable 48 and 49. Scenario planning and resilience thinking are ways, among others, of
expanding the frame of reference to anticipate unexpected outcomes for complex
systems [44]. Analyses that take a broad view of the space of plausible outcomes
can generate a richer understanding of complex system dynamics, a more accurate
and comprehensive assessment of uncertainties, and deeper insights into potential
threats to human well-being [50]. The other phase involves actually making decisions
given current understanding. Guidance to decision-makers should rely on a broad
set of models, data and experience to generate insights about the probable
desirability of alternative decisions. Analyses should bring to bear what is known as well as what is possible
although unknown. For complex systems, scientific approaches are often more successful
in finding major vulnerabilities than in accurately predicting the future [51]. In this sense, analysis of complex
systems might be well suited to highlighting potential thresholds and choosing robust decisions that do well under a wide variety of
circumstances. Analyses are also useful for pointing out gaps in understanding that should guide future research efforts. Scoping of
possible futures, analysis and decision-making are revisited in a continuous loop as conditions, information and understanding of
the complex system evolves. How much broad scoping and research should be done before any given decision depends on the cost of
major
challenge in global change decision-making is that it is global. Although we share
one common planet, we do not all share common viewpoints or values. Multiple decisionscoping and research as well as on the benefits of improved decision-making with improved information. A
makers whose actions affect others but whose interests are not aligned raise difficult governance issues 52 and 53. In addition,
groups with different agendas have incentives to misuse, obfuscate, or ignore
information 54 and 55. A challenge for scientific assessments of global change is to
provide credible and transparent analyses presented in a clear manner to
minimize the potential for manipulation in the face of uncertainty. Collaborative
approaches that generate trust and common understanding improve the chance of successful joint governance. Decisionmaking on global change involves combining what is known, what is possible but
unknown, along with judgements about the net benefits of different potential
futures. This process inevitably involves value judgments. In classic decision theory, value judgements
enter when subjective probabilities are used because objective probabilities are not available and when a common metric is used to
measure all benefits. Avoiding embedding value judgements in the analysis can be important when dealing with multiple groups
who hold different values. As discussed in Box 1, some approaches do not require probabilities (e.g. maxi-min and mini-max regret).
Furthermore, some approaches do not require measuring all benefits in a common metric. For example, Polasky et al. [56] derive an
efficiency frontier that shows the feasible tradeoffs between biodiversity conservation and value of commodity production without
attempting to value biodiversity in monetary terms. Evaluation of multiple dimensions [7] and multi-criteria analysis [57] can also
be used to demonstrate how alternatives fare on different desirable attributes.
The potential of human action to
cause global change with significant impacts on current and future well-being
makes it important to consider potential consequences when making choices.
Turning a blind eye to potentially large problems and simply hoping that things
will work out is not a sensible approach. The only unsurprising thing about the future is that there will be
surprises. Enhancing the ability to learn and maintaining the ability to respond are
important elements of successfully dealing with surprises. Scientific assessments
have a key role to play in improving decision-making regarding global change.
Making good decisions, even with limited information and great uncertainty, is
necessary if we hope to steer the global social–ecological system towards
sustainable trajectories and away from potentially destructive trajectories.
Perm
Perm combines multiple modes of decision-making which is key to
avoid global catastrophe—climate change is a unique threat
Polasky et. al 11
(Stephen Polasky- Department of Applied Economics & Department of Ecology, Evolution and
Behavior, University of Minnesota Stephen R. Carpenter- Center for Limnology, University of
Wisconsin, Madison, Carl Folke- Beijer Institute, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Bonnie
Keeler- Institute on the Environment, University of Minnesota , “Decision-making under great
uncertainty: environmental management in an era of global change” Trends in Ecology and
Evolution V26 Issue 8 August 2011 p. 398-404, Google Scholar)
The future of complex social–ecological systems under global change, and how that future
might be influenced by alternative decisions, is subject to considerable uncertainty. Although classical
decision theory brings a powerful set of tools to bear on problems of decision-making under uncertainty, it is not directly applicable
to the analysis of global change because it requires a fully specified set of future potential states and probabilities of their occurrence,
an understanding of how states and actions combine to yield outcomes, and an understanding of the net benefits of each potential
outcome. Implementing decision theory for global change would require extensive reliance on subjective probability assessments
over which reasonable observers will probably disagree. In
situations of profound uncertainty,
threshold approaches, scenario planning and resilience thinking can be useful
ways to both expand the scope of what is considered, thereby reducing the risk of
unintended consequences, and to organize complex materials to focus on key
factors and boundaries (Box 3). Providing advice to decision-makers in complex systems with great uncertainty can be
aided by bringing in diverse viewpoints and using multiple tools. Decision-making for global change issues
is an iterated process that can be thought of as involving two phases with
continuous feedbacks. One phase involves scoping the problem as broadly as
possible to expand the space of imaginable states and associated outcomes. Such
thinking can provide impetus to explore widely for evidence beyond what is
currently considered probable 48 and 49. Scenario planning and resilience thinking are ways, among others, of
expanding the frame of reference to anticipate unexpected outcomes for complex
systems [44]. Analyses that take a broad view of the space of plausible outcomes
can generate a richer understanding of complex system dynamics, a more accurate
and comprehensive assessment of uncertainties, and deeper insights into potential
threats to human well-being [50]. The other phase involves actually making decisions
given current understanding. Guidance to decision-makers should rely on a broad
set of models, data and experience to generate insights about the probable
desirability of alternative decisions. Analyses should bring to bear what is known as well as what is possible
although unknown. For complex systems, scientific approaches are often more successful
in finding major vulnerabilities than in accurately predicting the future [51]. In this sense, analysis of complex
systems might be well suited to highlighting potential thresholds and choosing robust decisions that do well under a wide variety of
circumstances. Analyses are also useful for pointing out gaps in understanding that should guide future research efforts. Scoping of
possible futures, analysis and decision-making are revisited in a continuous loop as conditions, information and understanding of
the complex system evolves. How much broad scoping and research should be done before any given decision depends on the cost of
major
challenge in global change decision-making is that it is global. Although we share
one common planet, we do not all share common viewpoints or values. Multiple decisionscoping and research as well as on the benefits of improved decision-making with improved information. A
makers whose actions affect others but whose interests are not aligned raise difficult governance issues 52 and 53. In addition,
groups with different agendas have incentives to misuse, obfuscate, or ignore
information 54 and 55. A challenge for scientific assessments of global change is to
provide credible and transparent analyses presented in a clear manner to
minimize the potential for manipulation in the face of uncertainty. Collaborative
approaches that generate trust and common understanding improve the chance of successful joint governance. Decisionmaking on global change involves combining what is known, what is possible but
unknown, along with judgements about the net benefits of different potential
futures. This process inevitably involves value judgments. In classic decision theory, value judgements
enter when subjective probabilities are used because objective probabilities are not available and when a common metric is used to
measure all benefits. Avoiding embedding value judgements in the analysis can be important when dealing with multiple groups
who hold different values. As discussed in Box 1, some approaches do not require probabilities (e.g. maxi-min and mini-max regret).
Furthermore, some approaches do not require measuring all benefits in a common metric. For example, Polasky et al. [56] derive an
efficiency frontier that shows the feasible tradeoffs between biodiversity conservation and value of commodity production without
attempting to value biodiversity in monetary terms. Evaluation of multiple dimensions [7] and multi-criteria analysis [57] can also
be used to demonstrate how alternatives fare on different desirable attributes.
The potential of human action to
cause global change with significant impacts on current and future well-being
makes it important to consider potential consequences when making choices.
Turning a blind eye to potentially large problems and simply hoping that things
will work out is not a sensible approach. The only unsurprising thing about the future is that there will be
surprises. Enhancing the ability to learn and maintaining the ability to respond are
important elements of successfully dealing with surprises. Scientific assessments
have a key role to play in improving decision-making regarding global change.
Making good decisions, even with limited information and great uncertainty, is
necessary if we hope to steer the global social–ecological system towards
sustainable trajectories and away from potentially destructive trajectories.
Perm—Environ Prag Good—Warming
Pragmatic warming policies are key to prevent extinction—only the
perm bridges the gap between action and the endless theorizing of the
k
Simpson 10 (Francis, College of Engineering, Vanderbilt University, “Environmental
Pragmatism and its Application to Climate Change The Moral Obligations of Developed and
Developing Nations to Avert Climate Change as viewed through Technological Pragmatism”,
Spring 2010 | Volume 6 | Number 1)
Environmental pragmatism is a relatively new field of environmental ethics that
seeks to move beyond the strictly theoretical exercises normal in philosophy and
allows the environmental movement to formulate substantial new policies (Light, l).
Environmental Pragmatism was initially posited by Bryan Norton and evolved to not take a stance over the dispute between nonanthropocentric and anthropocentric ethics. Distancing himself from this dispute, he preferred to distinguish between strong and
weak anthropocentricism (Light, 290-291, 298). The main philosophers involved in advancing the debate in environmental
pragmatism include Eric Katz, Andrew Light, and Bryan Norton. This particular discipline advocates
moral
pluralism, implying that the environmental problems being faced have multiple
correct solutions. Light argues that the urgency of ecological crises requires that action
is necessary through negotiation and compromise. While theorists serve to further the field of
environmental ethics and to debate the meta-ethical basis of various environmental philosophies, some answers to questions are
best left to private discussion rather than taking time to argue about them publically (introduction of pragmatism). Pragmatism
believes that if
two theories are equally able to provide solutions to a given problem
then debate on which is more is argued that: "the commitment to solving
environmental problems is the only precondition for any workable and democratic political theory"
(Light, Il). While the science behind a footprint is well understood, what can the synthesis of environmental
pragmatism and footprinting tell us about the moral obligation to avert climate
change? How does grounding the practice of sustainability footprinting in environmental
pragmatism generate moral prescriptions for averting climate change ? Environmental
Pragmatism necessitates
the need for tools in engineering to be developed and applied
to avert the climate change problem , since pragmatism inherently calls for
bridging the gap between theory and policy / practices. With the theory of pragmatism in mind,
further research and development of tools such as life-cycle analysis and footrprinting are potential policy tools that are necessary
under a pragmatist viewpoint so that informed decisions can be made by policy makers. Since the role of life-cycle analysis and
footprinting attempt to improve the efficiency and decrease the overall environmental impact of a given process, good, or service,
environmental pragmatism would call for the further development and usage of
these tools so that we can continue to develop sustainably and fulfill our moral
obligation to future generations. By utilizing footprinting and life-cycle analysis, it becomes possible to make
environmentally conscious decisions not only based upon a gut instinct but additionally based on sound science. Finally , in
regards to averting climate change, footprinting and life-cycle analysis offer
another dimension to traditional cost-benefit analysis and can allow for our moral
obligation to future generations to weigh into final decisions which will eventually
result in policies and/ or a production of a good or service. Since traditional costbenefit analysis
does not account for the environment explicitly, pragmatism would call for the application of these
tools to ensure that the environment is adequately protected for future
generations. Climate change modeling inherently contains many unknowns in terms of
future outcomes and applied simpli fications, but
these factors should not be enough to hold us
back from an environmental pragmatism stand point. Rather than hiding behind a
veil of uncertainty with the science, the uncertainty of the possible catastrophic
out comes demands action on the part of every human indi vidual . Environmental
pragmatism could also adopt a view point like the precautionary principle where a
given action has great uncertainty, but also great consequence (Haller). Since we are
attempting to protect human lives and prevent unnecessary suffering,
environmental pragmatism would dictate that we should take action now and stop
debating the theoretical aspects of this problem . A moral obligation exists to
protect human life, and it becomes our obligation to avert climate change. Despite
the relatively high eco- nomic costs of averting climate change, it is worth noting
that the creation of green jobs and new sectors will help to stimulate the economy
rather than completely hindering it. People inherently fear change, and it is my opinion that averting climate
change requires a drastic change in our consumption patterns, an important reason why people are resisting averting climate
change. From an environmen- tal pragmatism viewpoint,
it is humanities responsibility to avert climate
change before it is too late since we have a moral obligation to protect the future
of humanity and the biosphere.
Warming Predictions Good
Risk assessment is good in the context of climate – allows effective
policy making
Schneider and Lane 6 (Stephen, Prof. Bio. Sci., Senior Fellow of Institute for Int’l.
Studies, Co-Director of Center for Environmental Science and Policy @ Stanford, and Janica,
Research Assistant to Dr. Schneider, “An Overview of ‘Dangerous’ Climate Change”,
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/adcc/BookCh2Jan2006.pdf)
The Role of Science Ultimately, scientists cannot make expert value judgments about
what climate change risks to face and what to avoid, as that is the role of policy
makers, but they can help policymakers evaluate what “dangerous” climate
change entails by laying out the elements of risk , which is classically defined as
probability x consequence . They should also help decision-makers by identifying
thresholds and possible surprise events , as well as estimates of how long it might
take to resolve many of the remaining uncertainties that plague climate
assessments. There is a host of information available about the possible consequences of
climate change, as described in our discussion of the SRES scenarios and of the impacts of
climate change, but the SRES scenarios do not have probabilities assigned to them, making risk
management difficult. Some would argue that assigning probabilities to scenarios based on
social trends and norms should not be done (e.g., [15]), and that the use of scenarios in and of
itself derives from the fact that pr obabilities can’t be analytically estimated. In fact, most
models don’t calculate objective probabilities for future outcomes, as the future has not yet
happened and “objective statistics” are impossible in principle before the fact. However,
modelers can assign subjective confidence levels to their results by discussing how well
established the underlying processes in a model are, or by comparing their results to
observational data for past events or elaborating on other consistency tests of their performance
(e.g., [14]). It is our belief that qualified assessment of (clearly admitted) subjective
probabilities in every aspect of projections of climatic changes and impacts would
improve climate change impact assessments , as it would complete the risk
equation, thereby giving policymakers some idea of the likelihood of threat
associated with various scenarios, aiding effective decision-making in the riskmanagement framework. Uncertainties A full assessment of the range of climate
change consequences and probabilities involves a cascade of uncertainties in
emissions, carbon cycle response, climate response, and impacts. We must
estimate future populations, levels of economic development, and potential
technological props spurring that economic development, all of which will
influence the radiative forcing of the atmosphere via emissions of greenhouse
gases and other radiatively active constituents. At the same time, we also must deal with
the uncertainties associated with probabilities generated with carbon cycle modeling, and,
equally important, confront uncertainties surrounding climate sensitivity estimated from
climate models tested on paleoclimatic situations, as well as perform other “validation”
exercises. Figure 4 shows the “explosion” that occurs as the different elements of uncertainty are
combined. This should not be interpreted as a sign that scientists cannot assign a high degree of
confidence to any of their projected climate change impacts, but rather that the scope of possible
consequences is quite wide. There are many projected effects, on both global and regional scale
s, that carry high confidence estimates, but the figure suggests that there still are many impacts
to which we ca n only assign low confidence ratings and others that have not yet been
postulated—i.e., “sur prises” and irreversible impacts. One other aspect of Figure 4 needs
mentioning: Current decision makers aware of potential future risks might
introduce policies to reduce the risks over time—also know as “reflexive”
responses—which would be equivalent to a feedback that affects the size of the bars on Figure
4 merely because the prospects for risks created precautionary responses. That possibility is pa
rtly responsible for the at titudes of some who are reluctant to assign probabilities—even
subjective ones—to the components of Figure 4. If no probabilities are associated with
scenarios, then the problem still remains for decision makers to weigh the
importance of climate risks against other pressing social is sues competing for
limited resources .
Alt Fails- Theory Can’t Solve
The K’s theoretical abstractions reduce everything to
signifiers/discourse/desire which stifles productive solutions to
warming
Bryant 12—professor of philosophy at Collin College (Levi, Social Constructivism Again:
What SR Means to Me, larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/social-constructivism-againwhat-sr-means-to-me/)
Rather, what I discovered was that the
Lacanian axiom I had advocated for so many years– that “the universe is the flower of
rhetoric” (Seminar XX) –was limited in its ability to respond to the problems that were of importance to me. Marx was
an adequate theoretical framework for thinking the dynamics of global capital. Thinkers like Zizek and Adorno were adequate for
thinking ideology. Thinkers like Lacan and Deleuze and Guattari (though I think D&G are realists) were adequate for
thinking desire. Thinkers like Foucault were adequate for thinking about how institutions and scientific discourses in the social sciences
discursively and through power produce subjects. Thinkers like Baudrillard and Bourdieu were adequate for explaining why certain
objects take on cultural value. Thinkers like Butler were adequate for thinking the social construction of gender. Etc.¶ Yet none
of these things were adequate for thinking problems like climate change, the impact of
technologies on the world, or the impact of geography on social formations. (Tim, if you’re listening this is my explanation of why I think
realism, materiality, and networks are philosophically important. Perhaps we’re just asking very different questions?). If you’re going to
think seriously about things like climate change, for example, discussions of lived experience or how “the
universe is the flower of rhetoric” will not do. You need to take seriously real properties of
greenhouse gases, the earth’s albedo, methane gases released from garbage dumps, cow farts, diets, the flight of people to the
suburbs and what this entails as a result of car travel, fluctuations in the sun’s output, ocean temperatures, etc. Analyses of lived
experience or the social construction of objects are thoroughly inadequate for responding to these things. At some point you need to
hang your hat on the peg and recognize that you’re not just talking about discourses or signifiers.
Yes, yes, you want to talk about discourses, texts, and signifiers too. Yes, yes, you want to talk about lived experience
too. But this is not enough. You need to take into account the mind, language, and sign independence of these beings as well. There’s no
way around this. At least, I don’t think there’s any way around this.¶ I want to have my social constructivism and have my realism too. In fact, I want to
go so far in my realism that I even count social constructions as real. They are all too real for those who live with their negative effects and like an
ecosystem they regulate the possibilities of lives, our ability to respond to pressing problems like climate change, and the lives of countless nonhuman
beings. However, recognizing that a theoretical framework is limited and that more theoretical work needs to be done broaching different domains of
analysis does not leave the original theory unchanged. In The Democracy of Objects (sorry to plug my latest book so much in this post), I claim that I’m
able to integrate the findings of Zizek. In Tim’s post, a participant who describes me as a psychotic because I treat words like things, says that I can’t
really integrate Zizek unless I embrace his Hegelianism. Apparently this reader forgets that 1) Freud describes the psychotic as revealing on the surface
the truth of the unconscious, and 2) forgets that in his final teaching Lacan described himself as a psychotic and praised Joyce for finding a non-Oedipal
solution in the case of his own psychosis. I’d say I’m in good company, especially for those who have understood the argument of Anti-Oedipus (which
Lacan, incidentally, praised)! Finally, I would argue that this reader seems not to understand the difference between the letter and the signifier in
Lacan. Based on over 15 years of engagement with Lacanian theory both in the clinic and in the letter of the text, working, in both the clinic and with the
theory, with some of the most eminent Lacanian theorists alive today, I’d be more than happy to go toe to toe with him if he’d like a more detailed
debate.¶ Setting that silliness aside, this respondent doesn’t seem to recognize that
integration doesn’t entail sublation of all
elements of a theoretical edifice . Theoretical changes, even where they don’t reject all elements of the previous theoretical edifice, do
not leave that previous theoretical edifice unchanged. Things need to be reworked in light of the new additions. Other
claims need to be abandoned. New elements need to be introduced into the previous theory. The previous theory, while not rejected, is
not the same as it was before. And this is how it is with Zizek’s Hegelianism. I believe that I can
integrate the framework of Lacanian theory of the subject, desire, and jouissance within a
Luhmannian framework of sociological autopoietic theory, but this is a far cry from endorsing the
claim that there is an identity of substance and subject. No, the whole point of the realist move
with respect to problems like climate change was that we can no longer claim that signifying
articulations are the structuring agency of all being. We can no longer say that “reality is a
synthesis of the imaginary and the symbolic” (Lacan, Television). No, reality has to become something closer to the Lacanian
real, and the Hegelian real is something that evades all dialectical sublation, even the fraught, contradictory, Goedelian, and open sublation that Zizek
advocates. At best Zizek
gives us a nuanced version of commodity fetishism. But there’s more to heaven
and earth than commodity fetishism. In this framework, all sorts of things, following Guattari, would have to be included in the
Lacanian framework that tend to be ignored: the literal architecture of the institution where the clinic is practiced, the relations between the people
that are there, the sort of work that is done by “patients” and “analysts”, the media used, artistic practices, economics, the material sociological setting
of the neighborhood, etc., etc., etc. In addition to the signifier, we would have to attend to the role these things play.
Alt Fails- Can’t Solve Warming/Indiv Orientation
Alternative doesn’t solve—trying to change individual orientations
toward climate change inevitably fails—only political action like the
plan is effective
McKibben 12 (Bill, Environmental Studies and Schumann Distinguished Scholar @
Middlebury where he directs the Middlebury Fellowships in Environmental Journalism and a
fellow at the Post Carbon Institute, August 2, “Global Warming's Terrifying New Math”, Rolling
Stone, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math20120719?print=true)
So far, as I said at the start, environmental efforts to tackle global warming have
failed. The planet's emissions of carbon dioxide continue to soar, especially as
developing countries emulate (and supplant) the industries of the West. Even in rich
countries, small reductions in emissions offer no sign of the real break with the status quo we'd
need to upend the iron logic of these three numbers. Germany is one of the only big countries
that has actually tried hard to change its energy mix; on one sunny Saturday in late May, that
northern-latitude nation generated nearly half its power from solar panels within its borders.
That's a small miracle – and it demonstrates that we have the technology to solve our problems.
But we lack the will. So far, Germany's the exception; the rule is ever more carbon . This
record of failure means we know a lot about what strategies don't work. Green
groups, for instance, have spent a lot of time trying to change individual lifestyles :
the iconic twisty light bulb has been installed by the millions, but so have a new
generation of energy-sucking flatscreen TVs. Most of us are fundamentally
ambivalent about going green: We like cheap flights to warm places, and we're
certainly not going to give them up if everyone else is still taking them. Since all of us are in
some way the beneficiaries of cheap fossil fuel, tackling climate change has been
like trying to build a movement against yourself – it's as if the gay-rights movement
had to be constructed entirely from evangelical preachers, or the abolition movement from
slaveholders. People perceive – correctly – that their individual actions will not
make a decisive difference in the atmospheric concentration of CO2; by 2010, a poll
found that "while recycling is widespread in America and 73 percent of those polled are paying
bills online in order to save paper," only four percent had reduced their utility use and only three
percent had purchased hybrid cars. Given a hundred years, you could conceivably change
lifestyles enough to matter – but time is precisely what we lack. A more efficient
method, of course, would be to work through the political system, and
environmentalists have tried that, too, with the same limited success. They've
patiently lobbied leaders, trying to convince them of our peril and assuming that politicians
would heed the warnings. Sometimes it has seemed to work. Barack Obama, for instance,
campaigned more aggressively about climate change than any president before
him – the night he won the nomination, he told supporters that his election would mark
the moment "the rise of the oceans began to slow and the planet began to heal."
And he has achieved one significant change : a steady increase in the fuel efficiency
mandated for automobiles. It's the kind of measure, adopted a quarter-century ago, that would
have helped enormously. But in light of the numbers I've just described, it's obviously a very
small start indeed.
Sust Focus Good
Ecological sustainability focus good---Permutation recognizes the
social components of science to protect the environment
York 10 (Richard, associate professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and co-editor
of the Sage journal Organization & Environment, and Brett Clark, assistant professor of
sociology at North Carolina State University, “Critical Materialism: Science, Technology, and
Environmental Sustainability”, Sociological Inquiry, Volume 80, Issue 3, pages 475–499,
August)
Human activities are the primary forces responsible for the warming of the earth's
atmosphere, as well as a variety of other detrimental ecological transformations
(Halpern et al. 2008; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007). Vitousek (1994: 1862), a natural scientist, explained that
humans are fundamentally altering "the structure and function of Earth as a system." Hansen (2008), a leading climatologist in the
United States, notes that the
current "business-as-usual" practices of human society are
generating major transformations in the global environment, which could lead to
an ecological tipping point, after which the conditions of life will be drastically
different than they have been throughout human history. Such a dire situation
demands that we take science and technology seriously, if we are going to address
issues of environmental sustainability. At the same time, technological optimism can no longer be deemed a
saving angel that will materialize, giving us a free lunch—a world free from ecological contradictions. Nature provides irreplaceable
ecological services for which there is no technological surrogate. Therefore, we cannot simply overcome ecological challenges
through technological means. Addressing ecological crises requires changes in the conditions of society at large. Therefore, our
approach to science, technology, and environmental sustainability must be rooted
in a materialist orientation that comprehends how science and technology are
immersed in particular, historical social and ecological relationships. A critical
materialist—a critical realist—approach takes the sustainability crisis seriously, as
it stresses the importance of natural science for helping us understand the world
while also recognizing the social embeddedness of the scientific establishment and
the need to challenge the manipulation of science by the elite (Bhaskar 1979; Carolan 2005b). It
employs a dialectical approach, which is critical of reductionism, in order to understand the complex
interactions between nature and society and the contingent history of each realm. It acknowledges that
social relations exert influence on science and technology, as well as the material conditions of the world. It notes that pervasive,
historical conditions influence the organization of society and its internal relations, but abrupt socio-historical change remains an
ever-present possibility (York and Clark 2006, 2007). Marx pointed out that for a more democratic and sustainable society it is
necessary to "convert science from an instrument of class rule into a popular force" and to transform scientists "into free agents of
thought" (Marx and Engels 1985:162). This approach recognizes the social-historical constructionist aspects of science. In this, we
accept that the scientific
establishment must be transformed to bring about ecological
sustainability and social justice, but we do not follow postmodernists down the
road of factual relativism or denial of the power of science to help us understand
the world. Although it is true that modern science emerged during a period of social revolution and upheaval among the social
elite (drawing upon the knowledge of craftsman and artisans) as capitalism constituted itself and that it has been exploited by those
in power to maintain their social advantage, it
does not follow that the philosophical underpinnings
of science are tied to oppressive and exploitative systems (Conner 2005; Therborn 1980). By
analogy, consider the role literacy has played in human history. Like science, literacy emerged among the social elite, was primarily
the exclusive domain of the social elite through subsequent history, and was used to maintain social inequality since its origin.
However, we do not observe scholars arguing that we should renounce literacy in order to end inequality or to achieve sustainability,
which is unsurprising since all scholars, particularly text-centric postmodernists, have intellectual lives dependent on the written
word. We cannot remove literacy from the world. Those of us who seek to bring about social justice and environmental sustainability
would be foolish to renounce literacy, since doing so would not cause those in power to do the same. Thus, we
should use
the written word to further our cause, recognizing that literacy, although
historically tied to unjust social systems, does not in and of itself make or
necessitate such systems. In fact, revolutionary societies throughout history
generally make literacy one of their primary objectives, as they attempt to educate
and empower the public (Friere 2000). Likewise, although the scientific worldview
originated among the social elite and scientists have often contributed to the
exploitation of people and the environment, we cannot wipe scientific
epistemology from the earth by renouncing it. The causes of social justice and
environmental sustainability will be better served if we use both scientific
reasoning and literacy to fight the exploitative systems in which they developed. As
we noted above, science, like other social institutions, is embedded in the social world and is influenced and shaped by a variety of
social forces. y of the questions asked and much of the research pursued are often reflections of class interests and technical
problems tied to industry. However, science
not only provides explanations for why the world is
the way it is, but it also shows how the world can be changed (Lewontin 1991:3—4). In this,
science can highlight social contradictions. Gould (1996:53—54) explained that while science is a social activity,
firmly immersed in the social world, it does seek to understand and describe "a
factual reality." Rather than succumbing to postmodernists' claims "that truth is a meaningless notion outside cultural
assumptions, and that science can therefore provide no enduring answers," we must recognize how science is
socially situated as it "progresses by hunch, vision, and intuition" (Gould 1996:53—54).
Scientific debate remains an essential component of this process. The goal of a
critical-materialist science is to provide a sophisticated understanding of the
organization of the world, one in which the scientific process is demystified and
transformed to encourage critical questions about the historical realities we
confront. And when fully realized, it can provide, in part, the means through which we not
only come to understand the world, but also to change it favorably rather than
destructively. The concept of environmental sustainability demands that we take
a realist position in regard to the material world .
Simulation/Policy Discourse Key
Scientific discussion of warming is key—educating students how to
reason and argue scientifically is critical for action on climate change
Liu et. Al 14
(Shiyu Liu-Dept of Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota, Keisha Varma-Assistant Professor at the Dept of
Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota, Gillian Roehrig- Associate Director and Associate Professor STEM
Education Center at the University of Minnesota, Future Earth: Advancing Civic Understanding of the Anthropocene, Chapter 4:
Climate Literacy and Scientific Reasoning, p.37-38, June 2014)
Global climate change is a problem that calls not only ¶ for social awareness but also individual
actions [Feierabend ¶ and Eilks, 2010] Enhancing the public's climate literacy is ¶ an
interdisciplinary issue that requires scientists and educators to work together to synthesize and
share the ¶ scientific knowledge of an immensely complex system ¶ encompassing the climate,
the economy, and society ¶ (Sterman, 2011 ). With the growing body of scientific ¶ findings for global
climate change, there is a growing gap ¶ between the scientific and public understanding about
this ¶ issue (Gallup, 2010). Because many factors may exacerbate ¶ this gap, such as the complexity of
climate science and ¶ personal ideological orientations, there is an immediate ¶ need for the
discussion of cognitive processes that may ¶ promote the understanding of complex climate
science. ¶ This chapter introduced scientific reasoning into the ¶ endeavor of enhancing the public's
climate literacy. As a crucial cognitive mechanism, scientific reasoning is ¶ essential in not only scientific
inquiry but also in our ¶ thinking and learning in everyday lives. In the context of ¶ climate
change education, developing appropriate ¶ scientific reasoning skills will facilitate conceptual ¶
understanding of climate science, encourage critical ¶ thinking of public media messages, and enhance the ¶ quality of information
communication about global ¶ climate change issues in the general public. Therefore, ¶ given its importance, we have emphasized three
aspects of ¶ scientific reasoning and their importance in enhancing ¶ climate literacy. First, we
suggested that scientists develop ¶ and employ more effective analogies as a reasoning tool¶ to help the
public coordinate their prior knowledge and ¶ the growing scientific evidence of global climate
change. ¶ Because good analogies make it easier for people to relate ¶ the complex science to things they are familiar with, ¶ reasoning with
analogies should be paid more attention to ¶ in climate change education. Second, we focused on the ¶ importance of
encouraging more evidence-based ¶ argumentation in the discussions of climate issues. ¶
Scientists and educators should provide opportunities to ¶ enhance argumentation skills in the
classrooms and ¶ strengthen its relationship with climate change education. ¶ Last, we discussed
how epistemological representations ¶ may influence reasoning processes and their role in
helping ¶ people to fully understand climate science. Developing an ¶ accurate epistemological
representation will help individuals to avoid absolutist perspectives when faced with the ¶
complexity and uncertainty of climate science. One of the most critical educational objectives is
for ¶ students to learn about how socioscientific issues are ¶ handled and evaluated within society
so as to be able to ¶ act as responsible citizens in the future le.g., Höttecke ¶ et al., 2010. Incorporating
scientific reasoning into cli ¶ mate change education will help fulfill this goal. It is ¶ essential that
the general public come to appreciate the ¶ relevance Of scientific reasoning and its impact on cli
¶ mate literacy. And to facilitate scientific reasoning and ¶ climate literacy, it is crucial that
scientists and educators ¶ collaborate closely to provide more scientific information ¶ on global
climate change that is compatible with the pub ¶ lic's cognitive processes and encourage more
discussions ¶ Of global climate change in society as well as situating ¶ school science in such discussions. We have by no means provided in this
chapter an ¶ exhaustive account of what needs to be done to incorpo ¶ rate scientific reasoning into climate change education. ¶ However, by sampling
from the three broad areas of ¶ scientific reasoning, we convey an idea of the necessarily ¶ wide scope required in detailing the relationship between ¶
scientific reasoning and climate change education.
Policy deliberation good—simulation of climate change impacts
mobilizes effective public action Marx et al 7 (Sabine M, Center for Research on
Environmental Decisions (CRED) @ Columbia University, Elke U. Weber, Graduate School of Business and Department of
Psychology @ Columbia University, Benjamin S. Orlovea, Department of Environmental Science and Policy @ University of
California Davis, Anthony Leiserowitz, Decision Research, David H. Krantz, Department of Psychology @ Columbia University,
Carla Roncolia, South East Climate Consortium (SECC), Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering @ University of
Georgia and Jennifer Phillips, Bard Centre for Environmental Policy @ Bard College, “Communication and mental processes:
Experiential and analytic processing of uncertain climate information”, 2007,
http://climate.columbia.edu/sitefiles/file/Marx_GEC_2007.pdf)
Based on the observation that experiential and analytic processing systems compete and that
personal experience and vivid descriptions are often favored over statistical information, we
suggest the following research and policy implications. Communications designed to
create, recall and highlight relevant personal experience and to elicit affective re
sponses can lead to more public attention to, processing of, and engagement with
forecasts of climate variability and climate change. Vicarious experiential
information in the form of scenarios, narratives , and analogies can help the
public and policy makers imagine the potential consequences of climate
variability and change , amplify or attenuate risk perceptions, and influence both
individual behavioral intentions and public policy preferences. Likewise, as
illustrated by the example of retranslation in the Uganda studies, the translation of statistical
information into concrete experience with simulated forecasts, decision making and its
outcomes can greatly facilitate an intuitive understanding of both probabilities and the
consequences of incremental change and extreme events, and motivate contingency planning.
Yet, while the engagement of experience-based, affective decision-making can make risk
communications more salient and motivate behavior, experiential processing is also subject to
its own biases, limitations and distortions, such as the finite pool of worry and single action bias.
Experiential processing works best with easily imaginable , emotionally laden
material, yet many aspects of climate variability and change are relatively abstract
and require a certain level of analytical understanding (e.g., long-term trends in mean
temperatures or precipitation). Ideally, communication of climate forecasts should
encourage the interactive engagement of both analytic and experiential
processing systems in the course of making concrete decisions about climate,
ranging from individual choices about what crops to plant in a particular season to
broad social choices about how to mitigate or adapt to global climate change. One
way to facilitate this interaction is through group and participatory decision-making. As the
Uganda example suggests, group processes allow individuals with a range of knowledge,
skills and personal experience to share diverse information and perspectives and
work together on a problem. Ideally, groups should include at least one member trained to
understand statistical forecast informa tion to ensure that all sources of information both
experiential and analytic—are considered as part of the decision-making process.
Communications to groups should also try to translate statistical information into formats
readily understood in the language, personal and cultural experience of group members. In a
somewhat iterative or cyclical process, the shared concrete informa tion can then be reabstracted to an analytic level that leads to action. Risk and uncertainty are
inherent dimensions of all climate forecasts and related decisions. Analytic products
like trend analysis, forecast probabilities, and ranges of uncertainty ought to be valuable
contributions to stake holder decision-making. Yet decision makers also listen to the inner and
communal voices of personal and collective experience, affect and emotion, and cultural values.
Both systems—analytic and experiential should be considered in the design of
climate forecasts and risk communications. If not, many analytic products will fall
on deaf ears as decision makers continue to rely heavily on personal experience
and affective cues to make plans for an uncertain future. The challenge is to find
innovative and creative ways to engage both systems in the process of individual
and group decision-making.
Defense of Science
Science Key to Motivate Action
**In Defense of Science as well
Science is critical to motivate policy action on environmental
problems—promotes logical decisionmaking with reliable
information
Clarke 6 (Ann, Chair, Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Law Section, Federal Bar Association, Washington, D.C.,
Seeing Clearly: Making Decisions under Conditions of Scientific Controversy and Incomplete and Uncertain Scientific Information,
46 Nat. Resources J. 571, Summer, Google Scholar)
systematically using science to analyze the
potential effects of our use of ¶ science and technology on society and nature.17
Congress did not define ¶ science , but rather sought to infuse agency decision making
with reliable ¶ information: Enlistment of science on behalf of policy was necessary
¶ because only through science , broadly defined, could the ¶ impact of man's
Caldwell has written that NEPA provided a vehicle for ¶
activities upon the environment ¶ adequately be assessed and remedial measures
be applied ¶ where needed. Achievement of the NEPA policy ¶ declaration required that reliable analyses
of environmental ¶ effects and relationships be built into and guide the ¶ planning
and decision processes of government, but ¶ without predetermining final action.
Such analyses were to ¶ be derived from the sciences, but could not be obtained ¶
through the ways governments had traditionally used ¶ science. To achieve NEPA goals, an
integrated inter- ¶ disciplinary use of science was necessary to address ¶ complex
and interrelated environmental problems . ¶ Recognition of the need to redeploy and
reintegrate ¶ scientific knowledge to respond to the complex challenges ¶ of
environmental policy gave practical expression to the ¶ theoretical unity of
science....Science therefore provided ¶ the substantive element in redirecting national
policy for ¶ the environment through procedural reform . The critical ¶ procedure—the
environmental impact statement— became ¶ the vector, carrying integrated
interdisciplinary sciences ¶ into the shaping of public policy.ß
Cede the Political—Environment
The kritik of science prevents the possibility of actual change—it gets
co-opted by right wing pundits to inhibit action on environmental
problems
Gleick 9 (Dr. Peter, president of the Pacific Institute, an internationally recognized water expert and a MacArthur Fellow,
“New McCarthyism: Fear of science and the war on rationality,” http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/blogs/gleick/detail??blogid=104&entry_id=47022)
¶
As more and more of the world looks to knowledge, education, and science as the routes out of poverty and conflict, parts of
America seems to be slipping back toward the Dark Ages, when fear of knowledge
and science led to an impoverishment of civilization that had lasting effects for
centuries.¶ ¶ I’ve recently returned from two weeks in northern Europe and a series of scientific water meetings and
discussions with people from over 130 countries. They read the news from the United States with incredulity. America is still seen as
the place to come for aspiring students and scientists around the world. Our public universities, despite assaults on budgets,
independence, and knowledge, still struggle to maintain their excellence. But my friends and colleagues from overseas are
increasingly shocked, as are many of us in the U.S., by the
expanding efforts of home-grown extremists
to undermine rational discourse, eliminate the use of fact and science in
policymaking, and shut down public debate over the vital issues of our times through
hate, vitriol, and ad hominem attacks.¶ ¶ Looking through the eyes of my overseas colleagues, what do we see?¶ ¶ We see a debate
over providing health care to every American that is based — not on facts or civilized discourse — but on screaming mobs shutting
down public discussions and the use of straw man arguments to promote fear among the public and policymakers. Yet every major
country of Europe provides basic health care for its population.¶ ¶ We see President Obama appoint one of the nation’s best scientists
in the areas of energy, environment, and national security — Dr. John Holdren — to be his Science Advisor, and then have rightwing mouthpieces like Glenn Beck spread ad hominem lies about him because of their fear that facts and actual science may once
again inform Presidential action. This should be a recognizable tactic to us — lying about a person to diminish their effectiveness. In
fact, these extremists want to undermine the forward-looking policies that would prevent the very draconian measures they say they
deplore.¶ ¶ We see unambiguous
evidence that climate change is already affecting human
health and the global economy — evidence often collected by world-leading
American scientists and scientific institutions — while public opinion polls show
that the American people continue to be misled about the risks facing us by
conservative pundits who ignore, misunderstand, or intentionally misuse that science to
mislead the public into fear of change . Yet we already see huge economic and
environmental opportunities in adapting to the reality of climate change.¶ ¶ Fear is
an effective tool — as hate groups and extremists know. It is no accident that repressive regimes of
all kinds — fascists, the Nazis, Stalin, religious states, madrasses — use tools of hatred, antiintellectualism, and fear to control knowledge, universities, and intellectuals. Fear grows best
when sown in fields of ignorance, while science, rationality, and education are the
greatest weapons modern societies have against irrational fear.
No wonder Beck and his ilk
have intellectuals in their sights; so do the leaders of Iran, and Burma, and the Taliban, and North Korea, for similar reasons.
The kritik gets co-opted by the Right to prevent any action for
environmental protection
York 10 (Richard, associate professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and co-editor
of the Sage journal Organization & Environment, and Brett Clark, assistant professor of
sociology at North Carolina State University, “Critical Materialism: Science, Technology, and
Environmental Sustainability”, Sociological Inquiry, Volume 80, Issue 3, pages 475–499,
August)
The problem with these types of approaches is that they ultimately deny (if
sometimes unintentionally) the existence of real environmental problems, since they
challenge the idea that we can have objective knowledge of an external world. This
opposition to rational analysis and materialism under- mines political action,
potentially preventing societies from taking actions to ensure their long-term
survival. Wood (1997:14) writes: Postmodernism is.. .a ruthlessly "totalizing" system,
which forecloses a vast range of critical thought and emancipatory politics.... Its epistemological
assumptions make it unavailable to criticism, as immune to critique as the most rigid kind of
dogma (how do you criticize a body of ideas that a priori rules out the very practice of "rational"
argument?). And they preclude—not just by dogmatically rejecting but also by rendering
impossible—a systematic understanding of the historical moment, a wholesale critique of
capitalism, and just about any effective political action. Even worse, as Foster 195) explains: The
irony of post-modernism is that while purporting to have transcended modernity, it abandons
from the start all hope of transcending capitalism itself and entering a post-capital- ist
era. Postmodernist theory is therefore easily absorbed within the dominant
cultural frame.... Perhaps this will be the final destiny of postmodernist theory—its absorption
by the vast marketing apparatus of the capitalist economy, adding irony and color to a commercial order.... Meanwhile, historical materialism will remain the necessary intellectual ground for
all those who seek, not to revel in the "carnival" of capitalist productive and market relations,
but to transcend them. This propensity for postmodernist ideology to aid the economic
elite has been realized on the environmental front. There is a right-wing industry
that seeks to deny the reality of anthropogenic climate change, and they use the
rhetoric of scientific uncertainty that was pioneered by postmodernists to support their agenda (Jacques, Dunlap, and Freeman 2008; McCright and Dunlap 2000,
2003). For example, scientific experts for the Global Climate Coalition, an
organization representing major industries who opposed regulations to limit
emissions of greenhouse gases, indicated in internal reports that the science
behind global climate change was irrefutable. Nonetheless, this group lobbied
representatives to hobble climate legislation and conducted a major public relations
campaign suggesting that there was scientific uncertainty regarding climate
change in order to foster public doubt and to delay social action that would hinder
business (Revkin 2009). Likewise, postmodernist rhetoric has also been appropriated by
religious fundamentalists, who attempt to undermine the teaching of evolution in public schools
by arguing that "intelligent design" and Darwinian evolutionary theory are competing scientific
paradigms and, therefore, intelligent design deserves representation in the curriculum (Forrest
and Gross 2004; Foster, Clark, and York 2008).
Alt Fails/Turns K
The alternative ignores the scientific backing of our authors and
assumes a prejudicial mistrust—turns the kritik because it
encourages false conspiracy theories and prevents the ability to ever
act
Latour 4 (Bruno, French sociologist of science and anthropologist and an influential theorist in the field of Science and Technology Studies
(STS). After teaching at the École des Mines de Paris (Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation) from 1982 to 2006, he is now Professor and vice-president
for research at Sciences Po Paris (2007), where he is associated with the Centre de sociologie des organisations (CSO), “Why Has Critique Run out of
Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern, Critical Inquiry”, http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/89-
CRITICAL-INQUIRY-GB.pdf)
Do you see why I am worried? I myself have spent some time in the past¶ trying to show “‘¶ the lack of scientific certainty¶ ’” inherent
in the construction¶ of facts. I too made it a “‘primary issue.’” But I did not exactly aim at fooling¶ the public by obscuring the
certainty of a closed argument—or did I? After¶ all, I have been accused of just that sin. Still, I’d like to believe that, on the¶ contrary,
I intended to¶ emancipate¶ the public from prematurely naturalized¶ objectified facts. Was I foolishly mistaken? Have things
changed so fast?¶
In which case the danger would no longer be coming from an
excessive¶ confidence in ideological arguments posturing as matters of fact—as
we¶ have learned to combat so efficiently in the past—but from an excessive¶
distrust¶ of good matters of fact disguised as bad ideological biases!
trying to detect the real prejudices hidden behind the ap-¶ pearance of objective statements ,
While¶ we spent years
do we now have to
reveal the real objective¶ and incontrovertible facts hidden behind the¶ illusion¶ of
prejudices? And yet¶ entire Ph.D. programs are still running to make sure that
good American¶ kids are learning the hard way that facts are made up, that there is
no such¶ thing as natural, unmediated, unbiased access to truth, that we are
always¶ prisoners of language, that we always speak from a particular standpoint,¶ and so on, while
dangerous extremists are using the very same argument of¶ social construction to
destroy hard-won evidence that could save our lives .¶ Was I wrong to participate in the invention of
this field known as science¶ studies? Is it enough to say that we did not really mean what we said? Why¶ does it burn my
tongue to say that global warming is a fact whether you like¶ it or not? Why can’t I
simply say that the argument is closed for good?¶ Should I reassure myself by simply saying that bad
guys can use any¶ weapon at hand, naturalized facts when it suits them and social construction ¶ when it suits them? Should we
apologize for having been wrong all along?¶ Or should we rather bring the sword of criticism to criticism itself and do¶ a bit of soulsearching here: what were we really after when we were so intent¶ on showing the social construction of scientific facts? Nothing
guarantees,¶ after all, that we should be right all the time. There is no sure ground even¶ for criticism.¶ Isn’t this what criticism
intended to say: that there is no sure¶ ground anywhere? But
what does it mean when this lack of sure
ground is¶ taken away from us by the worst possible fellows as an argument
against the¶ things we cherish?¶ Artificially maintained controversies are not the
only worrying sign. Conspiracy theories have always¶ existed; what is new in instant revisionism is
how much scientific proof they claim to imitate. What has critique become when a French general, no, a
marshal of critique,¶ namely, Jean Baudrillard, claims in a published book that the Twin Towers¶ destroyed themselves under their
own weight, so to speak, undermined by¶ the utter nihilism inherent in capitalism itself—as if the terrorist planes¶ were pulled to
suicide by the powerful attraction of this black hole of noth-¶ ingness?¶ What has become of critique when a book that claims that
no¶ plane ever crashed into the Pentagon can be a bestseller? I am ashamed to¶ say that the author was French, too.¶ Remember the
good old days when¶ revisionism arrived very late, after the facts had been thoroughly estab-¶ lished, decades after bodies of
evidence had accumulated? Now we have the¶ benefit of what can be called¶ instant revisionism¶ . The smoke of the event has¶ not
yet finished settling before dozens of conspiracy theories begin revising¶ the official account, adding even more ruins to the ruins,
adding even more¶ smoke to the smoke. What has become of critique when my neighbor in¶ the little Bourbonnais village where I
live looks down on me as someone¶ hopelessly naı¶ ̈ve because I believe that the United States had been attacked¶ by terrorists?
Remember the good old days when university professors¶ could look down on unsophisticated folks because those hillbillies naı¶
̈vely¶ believed in church, motherhood, and apple pie? Things have changed a lot,¶ at least in my village.
I am now the one
who naı¶ ̈vely believes in some facts¶ because I am educated, while the other guys
are too¶ un¶ sophisticated to be¶ gullible: “Where have you been? Don’t you know that the Mossad and the¶
CIA did it?” What has become of critique when someone as eminent as¶ Stanley Fish, the “enemy of promises” as Lindsay Waters
calls him, believes¶ he defends science studies, my field, by comparing the laws of physics to the¶ rules of baseball?¶ 7¶ What has
become of critique when there is a whole in-¶ dustry denying that the Apollo program landed on the moon? What has¶ become of
critique when DARPA uses for its Total Information Awareness¶ project the Baconian slogan¶ Scientia est potentia¶ ? Didn’t I read
that some-¶ where in Michel Foucault? Has knowledge-slash-power been co-opted of¶ late by the National Security Agency? Has¶
Discipline and Punish¶ become the¶ bedtime reading of Mr. Ridge (Let me be mean for a second. What’s
the real
difference between con¶ aspiracists and a popularized, that is a teachable version
of social critique¶ inspired by a too quick reading of, let’s say, a sociologist as eminent as Pierre ¶ Bourdieu (to be polite I
will stick with the French field commanders)? In¶ both cases, you have to learn to become
suspicious of everything people say¶ because of course we all know that they live in
the thralls of a complete¶ illusio¶ of their real motives. Then, after disbelief has
struck and an explanation is¶ requested for what is really going on, in both cases
again it is the same appeal¶ to powerful agents hidden in the dark acting always
consistently, continu¶ ously, relentlessly. Of course, we in the academy like to use
more elevated¶ causes—society, discourse, knowledge slash power, fields of forces,
em¶ pires, capitalism—while conspiracists like to portray a miserable bunch of¶
greedy people with dark intents, but I find something troublingly similar¶ in the
structure of the explanation, in the first movement of disbelief and,¶ then, in the
wheeling of causal explanations coming out of the deep dark¶ below. What if
explanations resorting automatically to power, society, dis¶ course had outlived their
usefulness and deteriorated to the point of now feeding the most gullible sort of critique? 8 Maybe I
am taking conspiracy ¶ theories too seriously, but it worries me to detect, in those mad mixtures ¶ of kneejerk disbelief, punctilious
demands for proofs, and free use of pow ¶ erful explanation from the social neverland many of the weapons of social ¶ critique. Of
course conspiracy
theories are an absurd deformation of our ¶ own arguments, but, like weapons smuggled through a
is easy to
recognize, still burnt in the steel, our trademark: Made ¶ in Criticalland. Do you see
why I am worried? Threats might have changed so much that¶ we might still be
directing all our arsenal east or west while the enemy has¶ now moved to a very
different place. After all, masses of atomic missiles are¶ transformed into a huge
pile of junk once the question becomes how to¶ defend against militants armed
with box cutters or dirty bombs. Why would¶ it not be the same with our critical
arsenal, with the neutron bombs of de construction, with the missiles of discourse
analysis? Or maybe it is that¶ critique has been miniaturized like computers have. I have always
fancied¶ that what took great effort, occupied huge rooms, cost a lot of sweat and¶ money, for
people like Nietzsche and Benjamin, can be had for nothing,¶ much like the supercomputers of
the 1950s, which used to fill large halls and¶ expend a vast amount of electricity and heat, but
now are accessible for a¶ dime and no bigger than a fingernail. As the recent advertisement of a
Hol lywood film proclaimed, “Everything is suspect . . . Everyone is for sale . . .¶ And
nothing is what it seems.”
fuzzy border to the ¶ wrong party, these are our weapons nonetheless. In spite of all the defor ¶ mations, it
Science Education Key
Science education key—sound epistemology and reasoning skills
Matthews 98
(Michael R Matthews,“In Defense of Modest Goals When Teaching
about the Nature of Science,” Journal of Research in Science
Teaching V35 No2 p 161 174, Google Scholar)
Teaching about the nature of science—its history, sociology, and philosophy—has found a place
in major international science curriculum proposals and standards. It has a place, for instance,
in the British National Curriculum, in the American Association for the Advancement of
Science’s Project 2061, in a number of Canadian provincial curricula, and in the new Spanish
and Danish curricula (Matthews, 1994). And of course, after traveling a somewhat rocky road, it
is part of the U.S. National Science Education Standards (Collins, 1995; Holton, 1996).
Unfortunately, the nature of science finds its place in the curriculum just when academic wars
are erupting over the very subject. It is an interesting postmodern time for educationalists to
embrace the history, sociology, and philosophy of science: Each of these subdisciplines is riven
with internal dispute over fundamentals. It is this debate that prompts the subject matter of this
article: What do we want to achieve when teaching about the nature of science? I will argue on
both educational and philosophical grounds for modest goals in this area. I have indicated
elsewhere (Matthews, 1994) that questions about the nature of science have long been of
concern to science teachers and curriculum developers. It has been hoped that science education
would have a beneficial impact on the quality of culture and public life in virtue of students
knowing some science subject matter, having some competence in and appreciation of scientific
method, and internalizing something of the scientific frame of mind. Dewey well expressed this
Enlightenment hope for science education when he said: Our predilection for premature
acceptance and assertion, our aversion to suspended judgement, are signs that we tend
naturally to cut short the process of testing. We are satisfied with superficial and immediate
short visioned applications. . . . Science represents the safeguard of the race against these
natural propensities and the evils which flow from them .... It is artificial (an acquired art), not
spontaneous; learned, not native. To this fact is due the unique, the invaluable place of science
in education.
Scientific Reasoning Inev
Scientific reasoning is inevitable—our authors just utilize a more
precise method that best accounts for the data
Bricmont 1 (Jean, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Louvain, “Defense of
a Modest Scientific Realism”, September 23,
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/bielefeld_final.pdf)
So, how does one obtain evidence concerning the truth or falsity of scientific ¶ assertions? By the
same imperfect methods that we use to obtain evidence about ¶ empirical assertions generally.
Modern science, in our view, is nothing more or less ¶ than the deepest (to date) refinement of
the rational attitude toward investigating ¶ any question about the world, be it atomic spectra, the etiology of smallpox, or ¶
the Bielefeld bus routes. Historians, detectives and plumbers ¶ indeed, all human ¶ beings ¶ use the same
basic methods of induction, deduction and assessment of ¶ evidence as do physicists or
biochemists.18 Modern science tries to carry out these ¶ operations in a more careful and
systematic way, by using controls and statistical ¶ tests, insisting on replication, and so forth.
Moreover, scientific measurements are ¶ often much more precise than everyday observations;
they allow us to discover hitherto ¶ unknown phenomena; and scientific theories often conflict with "common sense" . But ¶ the
conflict is at the level of conclusions, not the basic approach. As Susan Haack ¶ lucidly observes: Our standards of
what constitutes good, honest, thorough inquiry and what ¶ constitutes good, strong, supportive
evidence are not internal to science. In ¶ judging where science has succeeded and where it has
failed, in what areas and ¶ at what times it has done better and in what worse, we are appealing to the ¶ standards by which we judge the
solidity of empirical beliefs or the rigor and ¶ generally. 19 ¶ thoroughness of empirical inquiry,
Scientists' spontaneous epistemology the one that animates their work, regard- ¶ less of what they may say when
philosophizing ¶ is thus a rough-and-ready realism: ¶ the goal of science is to discover (some aspects of)
how things really are. More ¶ precisely, ¶ The aim of science is to give a true (or approximately true) description of ¶ reality. This goal is realizable , because: ¶ 1.
Scientific theories are either true or false. Their truth (or falsity) is literal ¶ not metaphorical; it
does not depend in any way on us, or on how we test ¶ those theories, or on the structure of our
minds, or on the society within ¶ which we live, and so on. ¶ 2. It is possible to have evidence for
the truth (or falsity) of a theory. (It ¶ remains possible, however, that all the evidence supports some theory T, ¶ 20 ¶ yet T is false.) The most powerful
objections to the viability of scientific realism consist in various theses showing that theories are underdetermined by data. In its most common ¶
formulation, the underdetermination thesis says that, for any finite (or even infinite) ¶ set of data, there are infinitely many mutually incompatible theories
that are "com- ¶ patible" with those data. This thesis, if not properly understood , can easily lead ¶ to radical conclusions. The biologist who believes that a disease is
caused by a virus ¶ presumably does so on the basis of some "evidence" or some "data". Saying that a ¶ disease is caused by a virus presumably counts as a "theory" (e.g. it involves, implic- ¶ itly, many
But if there are really infinitely many distinct ¶ theories that are compatible with
those "data" , then we may legitimately wonder on ¶ what basis one can rationally choose
between those theories. In order to clarify the situation, it is important to understand how the
underde- ¶ termination thesis is established; then its meaning and its limitations become much ¶
clearer. Here are some examples of how underdetermination works; one may claim ¶ that: ¶ The past did not exist: the universe was created five minutes ago along with ¶ all the documents and all our
counterfactual statements).
memories referring to the alleged past in their present ¶ state. Alternatively, it could have been created 100 or 1000 years ago. ¶ The stars do not exist: instead, there are spots on a distant sky that emit exactly ¶
the same signals as those we receive. ¶ All criminals ever put in jail were innocent. For each alleged criminal, explain ¶ away all testimony by a deliberate desire to harm the accused; declare that all evidence ¶
awas fabricated by the police and that all confessions were obtained by force. ¶ Of course, all these "theses" may have to be elaborated, but the basic idea is clear: ¶ given any set of facts, just make up a story, no
under- ¶ determination
thesis. Moreover, this thesis, although it played an important role in ¶ the refutation of the most extreme versions of logical positivism, is not very different ¶ from the
observation that radical skepticism or even solipsism cannot be refuted: all ¶ our knowledge
about the world is based on some sort of inference from the observed ¶ to the unobserved, and
matter how ad hoc, to "account" for ¶ the facts without running into contradictions. It is important to realize that this is all there is to the general (Quinean)
no such inference can be justified by deductive logic alone. ¶ However, it is clear that, in practice, nobody ever takes
seriously such "theories" as those mentioned above, any more than they take seriously solipsism or radical skepticism. Let us call these "crazy theories” (of course it is not easy to say
exactly what¶ it means for a theory to be non-crazy). Note that these theories require no work: ¶ they can be formulated entirely a priori. On the
other hand, the difficult problem ¶ given some set of data, is to find even one non-crazy theory
that accounts for them . ¶ Consider, for example, a police enquiry about some crime: it is easy enough to invent ¶ a story that "accounts for the facts" in an ad hoc fashion (sometimes
lawyers do just ¶ that); what is hard is to discover who really committed the crime and to obtain evi- ¶ dence demonstrating that beyond a reasonable doubt. Reflecting on this elementary ¶ example clarifies the
Despite the existence ¶ of innumerable "crazy theories" concerning any given
crime, it sometimes happens in ¶ practice that there is a unique theory (i.e. a unique story about
who committed the ¶ crime and how) that is plausible and compatible with the known facts; in that
meaning of the underdetermination thesis.
case, ¶ one will say that the crirninal has been discovered (with a high degree of confidence, ¶ albeit not with certainty). It may also happen that no plausible theory is found, or ¶ that we are unable to decide which
one among several suspects is really guilty: in ¶ these cases, the underdetermination is real. One might next ask whether there exist more subtle forms of underdetermination ¶ than the one revealed by a Duhem—
Quine type of argument. In order to analyze ¶ this question, let us consider the example of classical electromagnetism. This is a ¶ theory that describes how particles possessing a quantifiable property called
no
one ever "sees" directly an electromagnetic field or an electric ¶ charge. So, should one interpret
this theory "realistically" , and if so, what should it ¶ be taken to mean? ¶ Classical electromagnetic theory is
immensely well supported by precise experiments and forms the basis for a large part of modern
technology. It is "confirmed" ¶ every time one of us switches on his or her computer and finds
that it works as ¶ designed.28 Does this overwhelming empirical support imply that there are "really" ¶ electric and magnetic fields propagating in vacuum? In support of the idea
that there ¶ are, one could argue that electromagnetic theory postulates the existence of those ¶ fields and that there is no known non-crazy theory that accounts
equally well for the ¶ same data; therefore it is reasonable to believe that electric and magnetic
fields really ¶ exist. But is it in fact true that there are no alternative non-crazy theories? Here is one ¶
"electric charge" produce "electromagnetic fields" that "propagate in vacuum" in a certain ¶ precise fashion and then "guide" the motion of charged particles when they encounter ¶ them.27 Of course,
possibility: Let us claim that there are no fields propagating "in vacuum" but that, ¶ rather, there are only "forces" acting directly between charged particles. Of course, ¶ in order to preserve the empirical adequacy
of the theory, one has to use exactly the ¶ same Maxwell—Lorentz system of equations as before (or a mathematically equivalent ¶ system). But one may interpret the fields as a mere "calculational device" allowing
Almost every physicist reading these lines will say
that this is some kind ¶ of metaphysics or maybe even a play on words ¶ that this "alternative
theory" is ¶ really just standard electromagnetic theory in disguise. Now, although the precise ¶
meaning of "metaphysics" is hard to pin down31 there is a vague sense in which if ¶ we use
exactly the same equations (or a mathematically equivalent set of equations) ¶ and make exactly
the same predictions in the two theories, then they are really the ¶ same theory as far as
"physics" is concerned, and the distinction between the two if any ¶ lies outside of its scope. ¶ The
¶ us to compute more easily the net effect of the "real" forces acting between charged ¶ particles.30
same kind of observation can be made about most physical theories: In ¶ classical mechanics, are there really forces acting on particles, or are the particles ¶ instead following trajectories defined by variational
this kind of
underdetermination "genuine" , ¶ as opposed to the "crazy" underdeterminations of the usual
Duhern—Quine thesis. ¶ By "genuine" we do not mean that these underdeterminations are
necessarily worth ¶ losing sleep over, but simply that there is no rational way to choose (at least
on ¶ empirical grounds alone) between the alternative theories ¶ if indeed they should be ¶
regarded as different theories.
principles? In general relativity, ¶ is space-time really curved, or are there, rather fields that cause particles to move as ¶ If space-time were curved? 32 Let us call
Sound Method
Scientific method is sound—provides the soundest description of
reality that stands up to scrutiny, isolated instances don’t disprove the
method’s validity
Bricmont 1 (Jean, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Louvain, “Defense of
a Modest Scientific Realism”, September 23,
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/bielefeld_final.pdf)
Given that instrumentalism is not defensible when it is formulated as a rigid ¶ doctrine, and since redefining truth leads us from bad
to worse, what should one do? ¶ A hint of one sensible response is provided by the following comment of Einstein: ¶ Science
without epistemology is ¶ insofar as it is thinkable at all primitive ¶ and muddled. However, no sooner
has the epistemologist, who is seeking a clear ¶ system, fought his way through such a system, than he is inclined to interpret ¶ the
thought-content of science in the sense of his system and to reject whatever ¶ does not fit into his system. The scientist, however,
cannot afford to carry his ¶ striving for epistemological systematic that far. . ¶ He therefore must appear ¶ 56 ¶ to the systematic
epistemologist as an unscrupulous opportunist. So let us try epistemological opportunism.
We are, in some sense, ¶
"screened" ¶ from reality (we have no immediate access to it, radical skepticism cannot be refuted ¶ etc.). There are no
absolutely secure foundations on which to base our knowledge. ¶ Nevertheless, we all assume
implicitly that we can obtain some reasonably reliable ¶ knowledge of reality, at least in
everyday life. Let us try to go farther, putting to work ¶ all the resources of our fallible and finite
minds: observations, experiments, reasoning. ¶ And then let us see how far we can go. In fact,
the most surprising thing, shown by ¶ the development of modern science, is how far we seem to
be able to go. ¶ Unless one is a solipsist or a radical skeptic ¶ which nobody really is ¶ one ¶ has to be a realist about something:
about objects in everyday life, or about the ¶ past, dinosaurs, stars, viruses, whatever. But there is no natural border where one ¶
could somehow radically change one's basic attitude and become thoroughly instru- ¶ mentalist or pragmatist (say, about atoms or
quarks or whatever). There are many
differences between quarks and chairs, both in the nature of the evidence
they are basi- ¶ cally differences of
supporting ¶ their existence and in the way we give meaning to those words, but
degree. Instrumentalists are right to point out that the meaning ¶ of statements involving unobservable entities (like "quark") is in
part related to the ¶ implications of such statements for direct observations. But only in part: though ¶ it is difficult to say exactly how
we give meaning to scientific expressions, it seems ¶ plausible that we do it by combining direct observations with mental pictures
and ¶ mathematical formulations, and there is no good reason to restrict oneself to only ¶ one of these. Likewise, conventionalists like
Poincaré are right to observe that some ¶ scientific "choices" ¶ like the preference for inertial over noninertial reference frames, ¶ are
made for pragmatic rather than objective reasons. In
all these senses, we have to ¶ be epistemological
"opportunists". But a problem worse than the disease arises when ¶ any of these ideas are taken
as rigid doctrines replacing "realism". A friend of ours once said: "I am a naive realist. But I admit that knowledge ¶ is
difficult." This is the root of the problem. Knowing how things really are is the ¶ goal of science; this goal is
difficult to reach, but not impossible (at least for some ¶ parts of reality and to some degrees of
approximation). If we change the goal ¶ for example, we seek instead a consensus, or (less
radically) aim only at empirical ¶ adequacy ¶ then of course things become much easier; but as
Bertrand Russell ¶ observed in a similar context, this has all the advantages of theft over honest
toil. It is important to remember that scientific knowledge needs no "justification" from ¶ the
outside. The justification for the objective validity of scientific theories (in the ¶ sense of being at
least approximate truths about the world) lies in specific theoretical ¶ and empirical arguments.
Of course, philosophers, historians or sociologists may be ¶ impressed by the successes of the natural sciences (as the logical
positivists were) ¶ and seek to understand how science works. But
there are two frequent mistakes to ¶ avoid: One
is to think that, because some particular account fails (say, the logical- ¶ positivist one or the Popperian one),
then some alternative account (e.g. the socio- ¶ historical one) must work. But that is an obvious fallacy;
perhaps no existing account ¶ works.57 The second, and more fundamental, mistake is to think that our
inability to ¶ account in general terms for the success of science somehow makes scientific
knowledge ¶ less reliable or less objective. That confuses accounting and justifying. After all ¶ Einstein and
Darwin gave arguments for their theories, and those arguments were far ¶ from being all
erroneous. Therefore, even if Carnap's and Popper's episternologies ¶ were entirely misguided,
that would not begin to cast doubt on relativity theory or ¶ evolution. Moreover, the
underdetermination thesis, far from undermining scientific objec- ¶ tivity, actually makes the success of
science all the more remarkable. Indeed, what ¶ is difficult is not to find a story that "fits the
data", but to find even one non-crazy ¶ such story. How does one know that it is non-crazy? A
combination of factors: its predictive power, its explanatory value, its breadth and simplicity,
etc. Nothing in the ¶ (Quinean) underdetermination thesis tells us how to find inequivalent theories with ¶ some or all of these
properties. In fact, there are vast domains in physics, chemistry ¶ and biology where there is only one58 known noncrazy theory that accounts for the ¶ known facts and where many alternative theories have been
tried and failed because ¶ their predictions contradicted experiments. In those domains, one can
reasonably ¶ think that our present-day theories are at least approximately true, in some sense or ¶ other. An important (and diffcult)
problem for the philosophy of science is to clarify ¶ the meaning of "approximately true" and its implications for the ontological
status of ¶ unobservable theoretical entities. We do not claim to have a solution to this problem ¶ but we would like to offer a few
ideas that might prove useful.
Uncertainty is an escapable part of scientific process—it encourages
critical thinking—acting on incomplete knowledge is key
Clarke 6 (Ann, Chair, Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Law Section, Federal Bar Association, Washington, D.C.,
Seeing Clearly: Making Decisions under Conditions of Scientific Controversy and Incomplete and Uncertain Scientific Information,
46 Nat. Resources J. 571, Summer, Google Scholar)
Scientific uncertainty, incomplete information, and controversy ¶ among experts are
inescapable facets of the scientific process. Uncertainty will be present due to
such factors as complexity , natural ¶ variability, random variation, measurement
error, and lack of ¶ knowledge .37 Information will be incomplete to some degree
because the ¶ subject of the study is itself dynamic and, as time passes, new ¶
opportunities for data collection and testing may occur or new ¶ instruments may
be developed to measure what could not be measured ¶ earlier.38 Scientists will
inevitably disagree to some extent since the ¶ scientific process, by definition,
encourages testing and critical thinking. ¶ Congress and the agencies in these early
statutes and regulations ¶ emphasized relevance, inclusiveness, objectivity, transparency and ¶
openness, timeliness, and consultation such as through peer review by ¶ subject matter experts39
or an interdisciplinary consultative process.40 ¶ This essay will examine the continuing
applicability of these principles in ¶ light of judicial deference to agencies in reviewing
environmental ¶ information and recent suggestions to the courts to apply evidentiary ¶
tests and data quality standards. This essay will discuss the growing ¶ need to augment
insights from "reductionist" science with those of ¶ systems theory—both within
the prevailing empiricist scientific ¶ perspective. It will also discuss the need not
only for science, but for ¶ better decision systems, and will examine emerging
fields such as ¶ sustainability science and its component, vulnerability science. It
will ¶ explore innovative uses of the laws of thermodynamics to facilitate ¶ sustainability in
business and of collaboration between scientists and the ¶ potentially affected community to
clarify goals and inform research ¶ design.
Legal implementation has built in mechanisms to promote scientific
integrity
Clarke 6 (Ann, Chair, Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Law Section, Federal Bar Association, Washington, D.C.,
Seeing Clearly: Making Decisions under Conditions of Scientific Controversy and Incomplete and Uncertain Scientific Information,
46 Nat. Resources J. 571, Summer, Lexis)
The NEPA review process, moreover, provides
a mechanism for ¶ assuring information quality
under conditions of scientific uncertainty, ¶ incomplete information, and
controversy among experts and the ¶ public.117 The NEPA process is, as mentioned, also subject to
judicial ¶ review under the APA, which provides an additional forum and specific ¶ rules
of procedure for supplementing or correcting the record. But from ¶ a historical perspective,
Congress addressed NEPA to agencies with ¶ technical expertise in their respective areas of jurisdiction in part to ¶ return disputes to
the agencies. Congress also granted administrative ¶ agencies considerable technical deference. Caldwell notes that, until ¶ NEPA
was enacted, agencies had argued that their statutory authorities ¶ did not provide for consideration of environmental impacts. In
section ¶ 103 of NEPA, Congress directed agencies to bring their authorities into ¶ conformance with NEPA. In section 105, Congress
established NEPA as ¶ a supplement to the existing authorities of agencies.118 As
an additional ¶ measure to
assure effective use of science in reviewing agency proposals, ¶ Congress also
directed agencies to use an interdisciplinary approach,119 ¶ assure scientific and
professional integrity , disclose methodology and ¶ references,120 and
communicate or consult with agencies with expertise ¶ or jurisdiction by law.121 To
further allay agency concerns that ¶ environmental review would delay decisions, NEPA and the CEQ ¶ regulations, as mentioned,
provided for addressing uncertainty, ¶ incomplete or unavailable information,122
and controversy123 while still ¶ assuring rigori24 and accuracy. ¶ The National Research
Council has suggested that what is ¶ needed is for agencies to present more carefully drafted explanatory findings.126 CEQ
regulations, in
addressing incomplete and unavailable ¶ information, require that
agencies discuss existing credible scientific ¶ evidence relevant to evaluating
reasonably foreseeable significant ¶ adverse impacts where "for purposes of this
section (section 1502.221 ¶ 'reasonably foreseeable' includes impacts which have
catastrophic ¶ consequences, even if their probability of occurrence is low,
provided ¶ that the analysis of the impacts is supported by credible scientific ¶
evidence , is not based on pure conjecture, and is within the rule of ¶ reason." 127
Bryant suggests that agencies develop and present the ¶ foundation for their findings
in terms that will facilitate understanding ¶ by the public, other agencies, and the courts of the
agencies' reasoning. ¶ Executive Order 11,990, Protection of Wetlands,128 and Exec. Order ¶ 11,988, Floodplain Management,129
both signed on May 24, 1977, by ¶ President Carter, provide detailed examples of how to prepare the ¶ foundation for and the
statement of specific findings.
Defense Environ Affs—Perm
Only the permutation creates an effective middle ground of
sustainability science that analyzes the long term consequences of our
actions
Clarke 6 (Ann, Chair, Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Law Section, Federal Bar Association, Washington, D.C.,
Seeing Clearly: Making Decisions under Conditions of Scientific Controversy and Incomplete and Uncertain Scientific Information,
46 Nat. Resources J. 571, Summer, Google Scholar)
Analysts in conducting NEPA reviews
have tended to empha- ¶ size specific problem definition
¶ approach has
tended to work well with discrete actions. In the context of ¶ more complex actions,
adaptive governance and adaptive management ¶ approaches, such as collaborative
problem solving,136 have gained ¶ saliency. Adaptive governance offers a middle ground
for people with ¶ varying perceptions of risk and differing desires for certainty.
Adaptive ¶ governance allows the possibility of making mid-course corrections137 while
gathering information to assist in resolving difficult and ¶ overarching social and political value
choices.138 The challenge of ¶ adaptive governance is in developing requisite monitoring
protocols that ¶ affected parties agree are appropriate.139 Adaptive governance is more ¶ likely to
(purpose and need for the action), ¶ information gathering, alternatives analysis, and selection. This
succeed if a collaborative atmosphere of trust has been ¶ established.140 Further, if a programmatic141 or tiered approach142 is used
¶ in the NEPA process, agencies can resolve issues of when and under ¶ what circumstances they will reopen reviews and decisions
can be ¶ resolved. Otherwise, agencies may be reluctant to reopen decisions.143 ¶ Under Executive Order 13,148, Greening the
Government Through ¶ Leadership in Environmental Management,144 agency environmental ¶ management systems have the
potential to dampen the abruptness of ¶ changing course by adding adaptive elements, such as audit functions ¶ (monitoring and
evaluation) and corrective action functions (mitigation), ¶ before and after agency NEPA reviews of proposed actions.145 ¶ To put
problem definition, alternatives analysis, and monitoring ¶ functions into context, systems theorists in studying human- ¶
environment interactions have
suggested creating a new discipline of ¶ "sustainability
science" and have outlined its core research questions.146 ¶ Kates et al. argue that "the sustainability science
that is necessary to ¶ address these questions differs to a considerable degree in
structure, ¶ methods, and content from science as we know it." 147 Critics have ¶ suggested that
there is no need for a new discipline that would in effect be "the science of everything. "148 Regardless, "science for sustaina- ¶
bility"149 would acknowledge
the complex , non-linear nature of systems ¶ with long
time lags between actions and their consequences.1 50 ¶ NEPA analysts depend , in
part, on using scientific information ¶ to describe the potentially affected
environment and reasonably ¶ foreseeable effects of human actions on the
environment. Analysts may ¶ consider feedback responses to determine whether the
impact will be ¶ significant. The question of vulnerability, or resilience of the nature- ¶ society system, which is one of
the core questions of sustainability ¶ science (science for sustainability),151 is especially relevant. According to ¶ Turner et al., ¶
Vulnerability is the degree to which a system, subsystem, ¶ or system component is likely to experience harm due to ¶ exposure to a
hazard, either a perturbation or stress/ ¶ stressor. ...A central lesson of this (research and practice) ¶ recognizes
that a focus
limited to perturbations and ¶ stressors is insufficient for under-standing the
impacts on ¶ and responses to the affected system or its components . ¶ This lesson is
underscored by two archetypal reduced-form ¶ models that have informed vulnerability analysis: the risk- ¶ hazard (RH) and
pressure-and-release (PAR) models.152a RH models do ¶ not treat: (i) the ways in which the systems in question ¶ amplify or
attenuate the impacts of the hazard; (ii) the ¶ distinctions among exposed subsystems and components ¶ that lead to significant
variations in the consequences of the ¶ hazards, and (iii) the role of political economy, especially ¶ social structures and institutions,
in shaping differential ¶ exposure and consequences. 153 The PAR model explicitly draws attention to the root causes of ¶ the risk.
The PAR model is limited in that it does not address the ¶ hazard's causal sequence or "nested scales of interactions." 154 Turner et ¶
al. argue further that vulnerability analysis addresses issues of resource ¶ capacity, coping capacity, and adaptive capacity. Resource
capacity or ¶ entitlement refers to legal and customary rights to exercise control over ¶ resources necessary to life and varies among
individuals and groups and ¶ by location. Coping capacity refers to the ability to respond to or avert ¶ the harm. Multiple coping
mechanisms provide a stronger safety net. ¶ Coping capacity, like resource capacity, varies across social units. ¶ Adaptive capacity or
resilience refers to the ability to bounce back to a ¶ reference state after disturbance. The alternative is to shift to a different ¶ state.
Adaptive capacity similarly varies from social unit to social unit.155 ¶ Because social factors, such as the availability of resources,
safety ¶ nets, and flexibility, affect the degree of vulnerability or risk, the process ¶ of knowing need not and cannot be exclusive to
scientists located outside ¶ the potentially affected community.156 People and their changing ¶ environment are in a co-evolutionary
race.157 A mapr question is ¶ whether people have the adaptive capacity to learn enough fast enough ¶ to make decisions well enough
to sustain society and the environment.158
Scientists must be open to defining the research
problem in light ¶ of the concerns of potentially affected communities,159 and
potentially ¶ affected conununities must become knowledgeable of and engaged in ¶
the scientific process to understand sources of scientific uncertainty and ¶
controversy, and make decisions accordingly. Erlich and Kennedy, for ¶ example, take this challenge a
step further and proposed a Millennium ¶ Assessment of Human Behavior to intentionally bring people
together in ¶ small groups throughout the world to "focus on the way in which
people ¶ make decisions about resource allocation and risk."160 ¶ But before controversies reach
the courts, and ideally before ¶ conflict arises, agencies may want to turn to the field of policy science. ¶ Policy science
can provide a problem-oriented, contextual, and multi- method decision
framework for applying science in a circumspect, ¶ pragmatic, and creative
process to meet human needs.
The concept for ¶ policy science was introduced by Harold LassweII,161 who has
argued ¶ that leadership and "followership" are about giving and receiving ¶ orientation, respectively. In this sense, the
scientist and the community ¶ with local knowledge can participate sometimes as
leaders and ¶ sometimes as followers in the scientific endeavor at hand.162 Such an ¶
approach addresses values of both for enlightenment, respect, power, ¶ rectitude,
affection, skill, wealth, and well-being that people strive for ¶ the rough institutions
affecting resources. 163
Permutation solves—scientific principles are improving value to life
and environmental quality worldwide
Clarke 6 (Ann, Chair, Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Law Section, Federal Bar Association, Washington, D.C.,
Seeing Clearly: Making Decisions under Conditions of Scientific Controversy and Incomplete and Uncertain Scientific Information,
46 Nat. Resources J. 571, Summer, Google Scholar)
Within the policy sciences framework,171 collaborative ¶ approaches in carrying
out the scientific process can and are being used ¶ effectively.172 Growing evidence is suggesting
that such approaches ¶ enable creative problem solving, maintain and even
strengthen scientific rigor, resolve seemingly intractable controversies, and foster
enduring ¶ policies.173 These approaches go beyond collaboration among scientists ¶ and
across disciplines to involve potentially affected and interested ¶ communities in the
scientific process. While scientists have tended to ¶ refrain from becoming involved in the
fray, so to speak, collaborative ¶ approaches are consistent with efforts in other
sectors, such as medicine, ¶ law, and government, to be more client-oriented. At minimum,
such ¶ approaches address basic human needs for rectitude.174 Decision support ¶ systems that
continue to provide scientific information, for example, ¶ from satellites, in a usable
form over time sustain knowledge even as ¶ controversies wax and wane and
groups dissolve and regroup. ¶ 175 ¶ As an immediate and practical approach, business and
industry, ¶ in certain instances, have effectively adopted the laws of ¶ thermodynamics to
develop guiding principles in their decision ¶ making.176 In brief, the law of entropy
indicates that the structure of ¶ matter eventually breaks down; however,
biological systems have ¶ evolved to capture energy, typically sunlight, to create
and maintain ¶ structure on which we depend. Preserving these self-sustaining
systems ¶ is thus paramount. The laws of conservation of energy and matter indicate that
energy and matter do not disappear. Recapturing and retaining energy and matter in the
"technological" cycle, therefore, becomes important. This includes recapturing energy, such as
coal and petroleum, their byproducts, and other minerals, such as mercury, that had been
sequestered in the Earth's crust over the past 4.5 billion years. Such process changes would
protect biological systems that have evolved to require a specific temperature range, or only
trace amounts of a chemical, or that have not evolved to metabolize artificial substances. These
relatively straightforward principles have led to profound reengineering of business
processes and products with often positive results not only for environmental
quality, but also for human well-being and corporate success.17 More recently, law firms
have begun to develop niche markets in facilitating transactions compatible with sustainability
principles, and some have themselves adopted such principles in their offices.178 Financial
institutions, asset managers, and government agencies are disclosing environmental risk on
their balance sheets.179
Even if science isn’t perfect, it’s a necessary component of the process—
regulations promote effective self-regulation of its standards
Clarke 6 (Ann, Chair, Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Law Section,
Federal Bar Association, Washington, D.C., Seeing Clearly: Making Decisions under
Conditions of Scientific Controversy and Incomplete and Uncertain Scientific
Information, 46 Nat. Resources J. 571, Summer, Google Scholar)
Science is a necessary but insufficient component of agency decision
making.180 Uncertainty, incompleteness, and controversy are inescapable
aspects of science. Policy fills the gaps left by incomplete science181 just as
it does in law.182 Likewise, public participation is necessary, but is not sufficient to counter abuses of expert authority.183
Science is not democratic.184 However, science cannot be "owned" in the sense that its
production and use can be controlled.185 Indeed, cooperative research need not be any less rigorous
and may even be more rigorous. Data sources can be distinguished as those that are collected independent of the user or affected
community and those that are collected by the user or affected community, with the latter serving to supplement and corroborate
the former.186 Each source of data is subject to questioning and critique by the other. In areas where trust exists between the
scientific community and the user community, the flow of information in both directions increases and becomes "data rich." 187
Agency decisions and legal disputes often cannot wait until the science is
settled. Scientific controversy is often difficult for lay practitioners to
understand. In such situations, the NRC notes that even the "best science"
"cannot win." 188 Managers and judges take the risk of prematurely
selecting one choice over another189 or of allowing science to be "swamped repeatedly for reasons of economics,
convenience, or preference." 190 To mitigate against such outcomes, the NRC
recommends that not only should scientists improve communication to
experts in other disciplines, lay practitioners, and the public,191 agencies also should provide more
findings to inform the record and the judicial review processing and provide public
accountability'.193 The NRC notes: The rules for judicial review of science based administrative choices are well known, but only in
a general and frustratingly indeterminate fashion. Operative here is the so called hard look doctrine of judicial review that insists
courts require agencies to explain, justify, and defend their decisions with a comfortable wrap of good sense, plausibility, and fair
process. In several "best scientific information available" cases, the courts disapproved of the agency's treatment of science,
condemning uses of poor analogy, stale data, end run procedures, implausible assumptions, unexplained and erratic changes of
course, failures to answer forceful objections, and fanciful esswork.... 194 Further, "Clourts also afford agencies ample room to
make predictions, order their own affairs, and experiment with process." 195 "Courts (also) afford a continuing scrutiny of and
commentary on agency performance on matters of scientific information that are not available from other entities." 1% The NRC
also noted that although "(courts have reversed and remanded agency decisions contrary' to 'best scientific
information available' concepts that are intuitive, ad hoc, and derived from values articulated in individual judicial decisionsl,l...the
'common law' of judicial review of 'best scientific information available' is insufficiently mature, elaborate, and credible for day to
day use.... Scientists play a critical role in assisting agencies in complying with other environmental laws during frie NEPA process.
The principles of relevance, inclusiveness, objectivity, transparency and openness, timeliness, and an interdisciplinary, consultative
Science, due to inherent
uncertainty, cannot be asked to answer what are essentially policy
questions such as the decision to shift risk between the user and the
resource. What decision makers must recognize is the difference between
Type 1 and Type 2 errors, and they must explain their rationale. Through early and
process are essential to addressing the "ownership" challenge and improving the record.
continued collaboration, self leaning and self correcting mechanisms198 can reduce risk for all. Il Lis is one experiment we cannot
afford to fail. Agencies that can marshal the resources for fostering early dialogue are likely to be seen as wise: At its heart, the
NEPA process is grounded on certain basic beliefs about the relationship between citizens and their government. Those core beliefs
include an assumption that citizens should actively participate in the government, that information matters, that the environmental
impact assessment process should be implemented with both common sense and imagination, and that there is much about the
world that we do not yet understand.199 "197
Perm
Science is a self-correcting process—theories refine themselves based
on new empirical evidence and must stand up to rigorous scrutiny
Hutcheon 93—former prof of sociology of education at U Regina and U British Columbia.
Former research advisor to the Health Promotion Branch of the Canadian Department of Health
and Welfare and as a director of the Vanier Institute of the Family. Phd in sociology, began at
Yale and finished at U Queensland. (Pat, A Critique of "Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of
DNA", http://www.humanists.net/pdhutcheon/humanist%20articles/lewontn.htm)
The introductory lecture in this series articulated the increasingly popular "postmodernist"
claim that all science is ideology. Lewontin then proceeded to justify this by stating the obvious:
that scientists are human like the rest of us and subject to the same biases and socio-cultural
imperatives. Although he did not actually say it, his comments seemed to imply that the
enterprise of scientific research and knowledge building could therefore be no different and no
more reliable as a guide to action than any other set of opinions. The trouble is that, in order to
reach such an conclusion, one would have to ignore all those aspects of the scientific endeavor
that do in fact distinguish it from other types and sources of belief formation.¶ ¶ Indeed, if the
integrity of the scientific endeavor depended only on the wisdom and objectivity of the
individuals engaged in it we would be in trouble. North American agriculture would today be in
the state of that in Russia today. In fact it would be much worse, for the Soviets threw out
Lysenko's ideology-masquerading-as-science decades ago. Precisely because an alternative
scientific model was available (thanks to the disparaged Darwinian theory) the former Eastern
bloc countries have been partially successful in overcoming the destructive chain of
consequences which blind faith in ideology had set in motion. This is what Lewontin's old
Russian dissident professor meant when he said that the truth must be spoken, even at great
personal cost. How sad that Lewontin has apparently failed to understand the fact that while
scientific knowledge -- with the power it gives us -- can and does allow humanity to change the
world, ideological beliefs have consequences too. By rendering their proponents politically
powerful but rationally and instrumentally impotent, they throw up insurmountable barriers to
reasoned and value-guided social change.¶ ¶ What are the crucial differences between ideology
and science that Lewonton has ignored? Both Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn have spelled these
out with great care -- the former throughout a long lifetime of scholarship devoted to that
precise objective. Stephen Jay Gould has also done a sound job in this area. How strange that
someone with the status of Lewontin, in a series of lectures supposedly covering the same
subject, would not at least have dealt with their arguments!¶ ¶ Science has to do with the search
for regularities in what humans experience of their physical and social environments, beginning
with the most simple units discernible, and gradually moving towards the more complex. It has
to do with expressing these regularities in the clearest and most precise language possible, so
that cause-and-effect relations among the parts of the system under study can be publicly and
rigorously tested. And it has to do with devising explanations of those empirical regularities
which have survived all attempts to falsify them. These explanations, once phrased in the form
of testable hypotheses, become predictors of future events. In other words, they lead to further
conjectures of additional relationships which, in their turn, must survive repeated public
attempts to prove them wanting -- if the set of related explanations (or theory) is to continue to
operate as a fruitful guide for subsequent research.¶ ¶ This means that science, unlike mythology
and ideology, has a self-correcting mechanism at its very heart. A conjecture, to be classed as
scientific, must be amenable to empirical test. It must, above all, be open to refutation by
experience. There is a rigorous set of rules according to which hypotheses are formulated and
research findings are arrived at, reported and replicated. It is this process -- not the lack of
prejudice of the particular scientist, or his negotiating ability, or even his political power within
the relevant university department -- that ensures the reliability of scientific knowledge. The
conditions established by the community of science is one of precisely defined and regulated
"intersubjectivity". Under these conditions the theory that wins out, and subsequently prevails,
does so not because of its agreement with conventional wisdom or because of the political power
of its proponents, as is often the case with ideology. The survival of a scientific theory such as
Darwin's is due, instead, to its power to explain and predict observable regularities in human
experience, while withstanding worldwide attempts to refute it -- and proving itself open to
elaboration and expansion in the process. In this sense only is scientific knowledge objective
and universal. All this has little relationship to the claim of an absolute universality of objective
"truth" apart from human strivings that Lewontin has attributed to scientists.¶ ¶ Because
ideologies, on the other hand, do claim to represent truth, they are incapable of generating a
means by which they can be corrected as circumstances change. Legitimate science makes no
such claims. Scientific tests are not tests of verisimilitude. Science does not aim for "true"
theories purporting to reflect an accurate picture of the "essence" of reality. It leaves such claims
of infallibility to ideology. The tests of science, therefore, are in terms of workability and
falsifiability, and its propositions are accordingly tentative in nature. A successful scientific
theory is one which, while guiding the research in a particular problem area, is continuously
elaborated, revised and refined, until it is eventually superseded by that very hypothesis-making
and testing process that it helped to define and sharpen. An ideology, on the other hand, would
be considered to have failed under those conditions, for the "truth" must be for all time. More
than anything, it is this difference that confuses those ideological thinkers who are compelled to
attack Darwin's theory of evolution precisely because of its success as a scientific theory. For
them, and the world of desired and imagined certainty in which they live, that very success in
contributing to a continuously evolving body of increasingly reliable -- albeit inevitably tentative
-- knowledge can only mean failure, in that the theory itself has altered in the process.
The kritik misrepresents our scientific method—it’s reductionist and
assumes that we are trying to portray a universal truth—perm
recognizes the multidimensional interactions of humans
Hutcheon 93—former prof of sociology of education at U Regina and U British Columbia.
Former research advisor to the Health Promotion Branch of the Canadian Department of Health
and Welfare and as a director of the Vanier Institute of the Family. Phd in sociology, began at
Yale and finished at U Queensland. (Pat, A Critique of "Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of
DNA", http://www.humanists.net/pdhutcheon/humanist%20articles/lewontn.htm)
It is difficult to take seriously Lewontin's description of science as merely an "institution of
social legitimation" no different from the Christian Church in an earlier historical era. Does he
really rub shoulders with scientists so naive or confused about epistemology that they believe
their products to represent a "universal truth" beyond the possibility of human experience:
perhaps a truth revealed only in technical jargon and statistical symbols to the Harvardanointed priesthood? And does this circle of Harvard scientists actually still see all reality -including living organisms and the social level of relations -- in terms of the two-century-old
Newtonian machine model (still unarguably useful and reliable at the level of physical
interaction on planet earth, by the way)? Apparently presuming to speak for all scientists he
says, "We think it is a clock!" -- not merely like a clock in much of its workings. Really? What a
pity!¶ It was sad to find Lewontin resorting to the old bogey man of "reductionism" in reference
to the science of genetics. So "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts". Big deal! What
modern scientist, necessarily beginning with the analysis of those relations most simple and
accessible, would claim that what he has thus discovered amounts to all there is? In fact,
legitimate science does not employ "holistic" conceptions at all! And Lewontin refutes the
obsolete nature/nurture dichotomy. Another earth-shattering discovery! But that's not all. He
informs us that the organism and environment actually interact, and in the process both are
altered. Another breakthrough! How could he not be aware that Darwin's principle of natural
selection implies and requires precisely such interaction? Perhaps Lewontin should read the
works of interactionists like John Dewey, George Herbert Mead, Julian Huxley, Jean Piaget and
-- yes, that former Harvard colleague, B.F. Skinner, who wrote, "The human skin is not really
that important a boundary".¶ One of the many unfortunate consequences of Lewontin's
confused message is that the only sound part of it might well be overlooked. His rejection of the
harmful old doctrine that "human nature cannot be changed" indicates that he is at least aware
of the fundamental premise of social science. And his warning concerning the foolishness of the
currently popular, romantic notion of disallowing any environmental change so as to maintain
"harmony with nature" is badly needed. This is the arena where we can really benefit from the
advice of biologists, but only if it is based on science and not on personal ideology. However,
when Lewontin reveals that he does not yet know the difference between the two, he forfeits all
claim to credibility.
Permutation solves—it combines the spirit of the kritik with the plan
to renew empiricism Latour 4 (Bruno, French sociologist of science and anthropologist and an influential
theorist in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). After teaching at the École des Mines de Paris (Centre de Sociologie de
l'Innovation) from 1982 to 2006, he is now Professor and vice-president for research at Sciences Po Paris (2007), where he is
associated with the Centre de sociologie des organisations (CSO), “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to
Matters of Concern, Critical Inquiry”, http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/89-CRITICAL-INQUIRY-GB.pdf)
My argument is that a certain form of critical spirit has sent us down the wrong path ,
encouraging us to fight the wrong enemies and, worst of all, to be considered as friends by the
wrong sort of allies because of a little mistake in the definition of its main target. The
question was never to get away from facts but closer to them, not fighting
empiricism but, on the contrary, renewing empiricism. What I am going to argue is
that the critical mind, if it is to renew itself and be relevant again, is to be found in
the cultivation of a stubbornly realist attitude—to speak like William James—but a
realism dealing with what I will call matters of concern, not matters of fact. The
mistake we made, the mistake I made, was to believe that there was no efficient
way to criticize matters of fact except by moving away from them and directing
one's attention toward the conditions that made them possible. But this meant
accepting much too uncritically what matters of fact were. This was remaining too
faithful to the unfortunate solution inherited from the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Critique
has not been critical enough in spite of all its sorescratching. Reality is not defined by matters of
fact. Matters of fact are not all that is given in experience. Matters of fact are only very partial
and, I would argue, very polemical, very political renderings of matters of concern and only a
subset of what could also be called states of affairs. It is this second empiricism, this
return to the realist attitude, that I'd like to offer as the next task for the critically
minded. To indicate the direction of the argument, I want to show that while the
Enlightenment profited largely from the disposition of a very powerful descriptive
tool, that of matters of fact, which were excellent for debunking quite a lot of
beliefs, powers, and illusions, it found itself totally disarmed once matters of fact,
in turn, were eaten up by the same debunking impetus. After that, the lights of the
Enlightenment were slowly turned off, and some sort of darkness appears to have fallen on
campuses. My question is thus: Can we devise another powerful descriptive tool that
deals this time with matters of concern and whose import then will no longer be
to debunk but to protect and to care, as Donna Haraway would put it? Is it really
possible to transform the critical urge in the ethos of someone who adds reality
to matters of fact and not subtract reality? To put it another way, what's the
difference between deconstruction and constructivism?
Kritik fails at deconstructing science—it accurately explains reality,
only the permutation solves
Latour 4 (Bruno, French sociologist of science and anthropologist and an influential theorist in the field of Science and
Technology Studies (STS). After teaching at the École des Mines de Paris (Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation) from 1982 to 2006,
he is now Professor and vice-president for research at Sciences Po Paris (2007), where he is associated with the Centre de sociologie
des organisations (CSO), “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern, Critical Inquiry”,
http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/89-CRITICAL-INQUIRY-GB.pdf)
The mistake would be to believe that we too have given a social expla- ¶ nation of
scientific facts . No, even though it is true that at first we tried, like ¶ good critics
trained in the good schools, to use the armaments handed to ¶ us by our betters
and elders to crack open—one of their favorite expres- ¶ sions, meaning to destroy—
religion, power, discourse, hegemony. But, for- ¶ tunately (yes, fortunately!), one after
the other, we witnessed that the black ¶ boxes of science remained closed and that it
was rather the tools that lay in ¶ the dust of our workshop, disjointed and broken.
Put simply, critique was ¶ useless against objects of some solidity . You can try the
projective game on ¶ UFOs or exotic divinities, but don't try it on neurotransmitters,
on gravi- ¶ tation, on Monte Carlo calculations. But critique is also useless when it be- ¶
gins to use the results of one science uncritically, be it sociology itself, or ¶ economics, or
postimperialism, to account for the behavior of people. You ¶ can try to play this miserable game
of explaining aggression by invoking the ¶ genetic makeup of violent people, but try to do that
while dragging in, at ¶ the same time, the many controversies in genetics, including evolutionary
¶ theories in which geneticists find themselves so thoroughly embroiled.23 On both accounts,
matters of concern never occupy the two positions ¶ left for them by critical barbarity. Objects
are much too strong to be treated ¶ as fetishes and much too weak to be treated as indisputable
causal expla- ¶ nations of some unconscious action. And this is not true of scientific states ¶ of
affairs only; this is our great discovery, what made science studies commit ¶ such a felicitous
mistake, such a felix culpa. Once you realize that scientific ¶ objects cannot be socially
explained, then you realize too that the so-called ¶ weak objects, those that appear
to be candidates for the accusation of an- ¶ tifetishism, were never mere
projections on an empty screen either.24 They too act, they too do things, they too
make you do things. It is not only the ¶ objects of science that resist, but all the
others as well, those that were sup- ¶ posed to have been ground to dust by the
powerful teeth of automated re- ¶ flex-action deconstructors. To accuse something of
being a fetish is the ¶ ultimate gratuitous, disrespectful, Insane, and barbarous gesture.2 ¶ Is it
not time for some progress? To the fact position, to the fairy position, ¶ why not add a third
position, a fair position? Is it really asking too much ¶ from our collective
intellectual life to devise, at least once a century, some ¶ new critical tools? Should
we not be thoroughly humiliated to see that mili- ¶ tary personnel are more alert,
more vigilant, more innovative than we, the ¶ pride of academia, the creme de la
creme, who go on ceaselessly transform- ¶ ing the whole rest of the world into naive
believers, into fetishists, into hap- ¶ less victims of domination, while at the same
time turning them into the ¶ mere superficial consequences of powerful hidden
causalities coming from ¶ infrastructures whose makeup is never interrogated? All
the while being ¶ intimately certain that the things really close to our hearts would In no way ¶ fit
any of those roles. Are you not all tired of those "explanations"? I am, I ¶ have always
been, when I know, for instance, that the God to whom I pray, ¶ the works of art I cherish, the
colon cancer I have been fighting, the piece ¶ of law I am studying, the desire I feel, indeed,
the very book I am writing ¶ could in no way be accounted for by fetish or fact, nor by
any combination ¶ of those two absurd positions?
Not as Good FW Stuff
Oceans
Ocean and Climate Literacy is necessary to maintain America’s
competitiveness – increased educational awareness to instigate pride
and awareness within students
Sea Grant ’12 [November 1, 2012. The National Sea Grant College Program is administered
by the National Sea Grant Office, a program within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA). “2014-2017 Strategic Plan: Sustaining Alabama and Mississippi’s ocean
and coastal resources through university-based research, communications, education, extension
and legal programs”
http://seagrant.noaa.gov/Portals/0/Documents/network_resources/planning/strategic_plans/
final_plans_2014-2017/MSAL_2014-2017plan.pdf]
The scientific, technical and communication skills needed to address the daunting
environmental challenges confronting our nation are critical to developing a national workforce
capacity. The Congressional report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm15, states that building a workforce literate in
science, technology, engineering and mathematics is crucial to maintaining America's
competitiveness in a rapidly changing global economy. These skills are also necessary to
advance cutting-edge research and to promote enhanced resource management . In recognition of
these needs, the America COMPETES Act16 mandates that NOAA build on its historic role in stimulating excellence in the
advancement of ocean and atmospheric science and engineering disciplines. The Act also mandates that NOAA provide
opportunities and incentives for the pursuit of academic studies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Workforce
needs are reflected in the broader science and technology communities of both the private and public sectors with whom Sea Grant
works to fulfill its mission. An
environmentally literate person is someone who has a fundamental
understanding of the systems of the natural world, the relationships and interactions between
the living and non- living environment and the ability to understand and utilize scientific
evidence to make informed decisions regarding environmental issues17. These issues involve
uncertainty and require the consideration of economic, aesthetic, cultural and ethical values.
Alabama and Mississippi stand at a critical juncture to shape its future. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), Alabama
ranks 46,h, Mississippi, 51SI in the nation in childhood obesity with 36% and 44%, respectively, of its school-age population
considered overweight or obese. Irrespective of the methodology or statistic chosen, Alabama and Mississippi students rank among
the bottom tier of all 50 states in educational achievement. The states face a number of environmental problems, including water
quality, air quality, land use issues (such as urbanization and land loss) and climate change impacts, particularly in their coastal
regions. Additionally, the needs of the Alabama and Mississippi workforce are changing. Alabama and Mississippi cite health-related
and computer-related jobs as the fastest growing occupations in the next 10 years. Both states offer a rich array of outdoor habitats
and experiences: Alabama is even one of the most bio-diverse states in the United States. Increasing
environmental
literacy through place-based and other environmental education programs is one way to address
these problems and increase the sense of pride and stewardship among the area's school-age
students. A wealth of research shows that environmental education programs can engage students,
improve student performance, promote action and instill stewardship. The Coastal Roots program in
Louisiana, in which students grow coastal plants for dune and marsh restoration, demonstrated high science test scores among
participants than in a control group18. Active
and personally relevant environmental education enhances
recall of information in the long term and participation with "wild" nature before age 11 was a critical element in
determining both environmental attitudes and behaviors in adulthood19. The face-to-face element to environmental education by
teachers increases the likelihood of environmental education programs being taught to students20. Environmental
education involving students (and people of all ages) in the restoration of native habitats contributed
to both individual (sense of place, community participation, pro-environmental behavior) and ecological (biodiversity,
ecosystem health) outcomes21. Environmental education in the context of resilience of socialecological systems increases the development of characteristics of resilient social-ecological
systems 22. With the adoption of common core standards, the development of literacy principles in many Science,
Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields (e.g. Ocean
Literacy Principles, Climate Literacy Principles, Earth
Science Literacy Principles, and others), the drive to integrate STEM education, the impending adoption of the Next Generation
Science Standards, and the environmental education certification movement, it is
critical that MASGC continues to engage
and support environmental education leaders in its area.
Ocean education is lacking in schools – more information is
necessary to promote a citizenry that feels responsible towards the
oceans
Schulte ’09 [May 17, 2009. Philip James Schulte. Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies with a
Concentration in Education/Leadership Systems and a Specialization in Marine-Science
Curricula: Primary and Elementary at the Union Institute & University Cincinnati, Ohio. “A
Model Marine-Science Curriculum for Fourth-Grade Pupils in Florida”
http://media.proquest.com/media/pq/classic/doc/1957707321/fmt/ai/rep/SPDF?_s=xeXjqPxe
JGQPyekpFFdYdQ02IoU%3D]
There are some elementary magnet schools that are designated as marine- science centers but they are few and far between. Marinescience organizations that lay outside the school boundaries continually lobby to have marine-science content placed in the
curriculum. For example, the National Marine Educators Association (NMEA) promotes marine-science education in schools. In
addition, the Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence (COSEE) not only promote partnerships
between research
scientists and educators and disseminate best practices in ocean sciences education, but they also
promote ocean education as a charismatic, interdisciplinary vehicle for creating a more
scientifically literate workforce and citizenry . Moreover, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) provide education through developed curricula and education alliances throughout the United States. However, despite
these organizations' attempts to promote marine- science education, there remains a major
challenge: science content standards in most states have little or no curriculum dedicated to the
marine sciences. Fortunately, as outlined in its pamphlet entitled. Ocean Literacy, the NMEA has gained some national
momentum in its recent effort to promote ocean literacy. According to the NMEA, ocean literacy is defined as an
understanding of the ocean's influence on an individual and such individual's influence on the
ocean (NMEA, 2006). Ocean literacy is valid for every grade level and into adulthood. The definition for ocean literacy is
supported by seven essential principles and concepts that are aligned with the National Science Education Standards (NSES). The
campaign to promote marine-science education through ocean literacy was developed by a team of educators and researchers,
organized by the aforementioned educational organizations. When the NSES were published in 1996, members of the ocean sciences
and ocean education communities were dismayed to find that there was little mention of ocean topics in the content standards. As a
result, most
state standards do not include standards related to the ocean, coasts, or watersheds.
Consequently, understanding about these ocean topics has been ignored in most K-12 classrooms,
although there are exceptions. However, ocean educators and scientists began to realize that these topics would remain on the
margins of teaching and learning about science unless a coherent framework of concepts was developed (Strang, 2005). Given
the declining quality of the marine environment, ocean educators have the responsibility to
teach not only the science of the ocean, but also the interdependence between humans and the
ocean . Interdependence is at the heart of ocean literacy, as recently defined by a national consensus of marine
scientists and educators. An ocean-literate person understands ocean science, can communicate about
the ocean, and is able to make informed decisions about ocean policy (COSEE, 2005). Further attempts are
being made to deliver quality marine-science education into the K-8 classroom. On Maryland's Chesapeake Bay, for example,
elementary students are given an opportunity to study real marine science (Bell, 2003). Lessons that employ authentic
environmental data can enhance the ability of students to understand fundamental science concepts. This differs from traditional
environmental education because the school's curricula did not necessarily set a specific time for educators to teach only
environmental topics. Rather, the environment is used to advance student learning in science and technology.
Student ocean literacy can become an instrument for change
Strang et al ’06 [December 2006. Strang, C.; Lemus, J.; Schoedinger, S. “Ocean Literacy:
Tools for Scientists and Educators to use in the Development of Education and Outreach
Programs About the Ocean” http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006AGUFM.U51A0012S]
Ocean sciences were idiosyncratically left out of the National Science Education Standards and most state
standards, resulting in a decline in the public's attention to ocean issues. Concepts about the ocean are hardly
taught in K-12 schools, and hardly appear in K-12 curriculum materials, textbooks, assessments or standards. NGS, COSEE, NMEA,
NOAA, the US Commission on Ocean Policy, the Pew Ocean Commission have all urgently called for inclusion of
the ocean in science standards as a means to increase ocean literacy nationwide. There has never been
consensus, however, about what ocean literacy is or what concepts should be included in future standards. Scientists interested in
education and outreach activities have not had a framework to guide them in prioritizing the content they present or in determining
how that content fits into the context of what K-12 students and the public need to know about science in general. In 2004, an online workshop on Ocean Literacy Through Science Standards began the process of developing consensus about what that framework
should include. Approximately 100 ocean scientists and educators participated in the workshop, followed by a series of meetings and
extensive review by leading scientists, resulting in a series of draft documents and statements. The
importance of
community-wide involvement and consensus was reinforced through circulation of the draft documents for
public comment April -May, 2005. The community agreed on an Ocean Literacy definition, tagline, seven ocean principles, 44
concepts and a matrix aligning the concepts to the National Science Education Standards (NSES). The elements are described in
more detail in the final Ocean Literacy brochure. Broad ownership of the resulting documents is a tribute to the inclusiveness of the
Ocean Literacy has become an instrument for
change , and has served as an important tool guiding the ocean sciences education efforts of
scientists, educators, and most importantly, has provided a common language for scientists and
educators working together. In this past year, a similar community-wide effort has been mounted to develop an "Ocean
process used to develop them. The emerging consensus on
Literacy Scope and Sequence" to serve as a critical companion to "Ocean Literacy: The Essential Principles of Ocean Sciences Grades
K-12." The Scope and Sequence shows how the principles and concepts develop and build in logical and developmentally sound
learning progressions across grade spans K-12. This document will provide further guidance to teachers, curriculum developers,
textbook writers, and ocean scientists, as to what concepts about the ocean are appropriate to introduce at various grade spans. It
will show the relationship between the new discoveries of cutting edge science and the basic science concepts on which they are built
and which students are accountable to understand. Those
concerned about science education and about the
future health of the ocean must be poised to influence the development of science standards by
local educational agencies, state departments of education and professional societies and
associations. In order to be effective, we must have tools, products, documents, web sites that
contain agreed upon science content and processes related to the ocean.
Study of the policy process and the motivations for legislation is
imperative – understanding of polcies?
Cicin-Sain and Knecht ‘00[January 2, 2000. Dr. Biliana Cicin-Sain, Director, Gerard J.
Mangone Center for Marine Policy, and Professor, College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment,
Department of Political Science and International Relations, and School of Urban Affairs and
Public Policy, University of Delaware, Co-Chair and Head of Secretariat, Global Forum on
Oceans, Coasts, and Islands. Robert W. Knecht pioneered the practice of coastal management in
the U.S. in the 1970s, serving as the first assistant administrator for Coastal Zone Management
at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), responsible for
implementing the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972. “The Future of U.S. Ocean Policy:
Choices For The New Century” p. 53-54.]
Policy initiation represents the first step in the policy process, whereby the large number of
problems that government could address is reduced to the much smaller number of problems
that government will address. The study of policy initiation, in effect, is the study of change.
Significant obstacles to change exist at individual, organizational, and societal levels, and these must be overcome before problems
can be placed on the public agenda (Brewer and deLeon 1983, Chapter 2). Policy
formulation, the next step in the
policy cycle, concerns the process of deliberation and bargaining that occurs after sufficient
momentum has been built up to induce decision makers to "do something" about an issue. A narrowing
of debate takes place among key actors found in the congressional committees, in the relevant administrative agencies, and in the
affected interest groups. Out
of these political interactions and consideration of the merits of
alternative policy options, a policy decision ultimately emerges and a particular piece of legislation is
enacted. Studying the origins of policy and the congressional dynamics that accompany the
enactment process is imperative for understanding what happens, and why, later in the
implementation stage . Legislative enactment often contains multiple (and sometimes
contradictory) goals and objectives—the result of bargaining and compromise reached among
many diverse interests. To more fully understand how and why statutory goals and objectives are
translated and interpreted by a variety of bureaucratic and interest-group actors in
implementation, one must first understand the combination of forces that are responsible for
the passage of an act in Congress.
(probably about the alt) Public education on marine issues is critical
to improving marine environmental health – effective citizenship
McKinley and Fletcher ’12 [May 2012. Emma McKinley, School of Enterprise,
Management and Leadership, University of Chichester, Upper Bognor Road, Bognor Regis,
West Sussex, UK. Stephen Fletcher, Centre for Marine and Coastal Policy Research, University
of Plymouth, Portland Square, Drake Circus, Plymouth UK. “Improving marine environmental
health through marine citizenship: A call for debate” Marine Policy Volume 36, Issue 3, May
2012, Pages 839–843]
2. Awareness, values, and action Dr. Earle has described the greatest threat facing the oceans as “ignorance” and asserted that “you
have to know about it to care about it”, which are powerful arguments for knowledge and education being at the heart of marine
citizenship [29]. Public perception studies suggest that awareness
and knowledge of the marine environment is
poor, awareness of what behaviours can reduce personal impact on the marine environment is
low, and consideration of the implications of personal behaviour on the marine environment is
rare [30], [31], [32] and [33]. Despite this, a general sense of admiration for the marine environment
and desire to take a more active role in marine management has been noted amongst the public [32].
However, it has also been found that the public do not feel they have sufficient information to become
fully engaged in marine issues [32] and [34]. These present serious challenges to the application of marine citizenship as
a policy channel given the key role of awareness in both McKinley's [24] marine citizenship and Hawthorne and Alabaster's [19]
environmental citizenship models. The observed lack
of marine awareness and knowledge has partially been
attributed to a lack of information available to individuals, limited marine education in schools,
and the perception that individual changed behaviour will be futile [35,30,32]. More broadly, previous
studies have noted that the value of the marine environment to society is significantly underappreciated [35], [30] and [36], which is
partially attributable to a lack of evidence of the full range of beneficial services provided to the society by the marine environment
[37] and [38]. In order to overcome the lack of public awareness and knowledge of the marine environment, Steel et al. [30] and
Castle et al. [35] suggested that
the currently limited levels of public marine education should be
improved. This recommendation was not restricted to formal education but includes all forms
of raising marine awareness, including community education and outreach programmes [11] and
[7]. Examples of small scale community marine education programmes in Indonesia [39] and Scotland [40] have demonstrated an
increased understanding of community impacts on the marine environment and resulted in more ‘marine-aware’ communities [41].
These findings support the view that higher
levels of public awareness and understanding are fundamental
to improve marine environmental health through prompting changed behaviour [11] and [30]. But
importantly, several authors point out that other factors play a role in changing personal behaviour, including age, gender, income,
and family background, which suggests that awareness and knowledge are not the only important considerations in developing
marine citizenship [42], [19], [43], [44], [45], [46] and [47]. Socio-economic and demographic variables therefore present potential
barriers to marine citizenship by undermining personal capacity to act.
Environment
Also maybe about the alt
Jenkins ’3 [October 2003. Edgar Jenkins is Emeritus Professor and, until 2000, was
Professor of Science Education Policy at the University of Leeds. He is a former Head of the
School of Education (1980-84 and 1991-5) and was Director of the Centre for Studies in Science
and Mathematics Education from 1997-2000. “Environmental Education and the Public
Understanding of Science” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 1: 437–443]
Environmental education cannot be equated with providing knowledge about the environment
or remedying its deficit, important though these matters are. It must also address the issues referred to above and, in
particular, recognize that knowledge about the environment is likely to be evaluated alongside other,
often more personal and local perceptions of environmental issues. The claim of environmental
education to a place as a fundamental component of basic education thus tests upon the attempt
to present the personal, social, economic, and scientific, not as components of the traditional disciplines, but
as an integral whole . From this perspective, environmental education constitutes a challenge to the subject-based
curriculum and, as noted above, demands new approaches to both teaching and assessment. Whether such integration is
in the longer term interests of science education is open to question (Donnelly 2002). To the extent that environmental
education may engage with sociopolitical activism, it challenges the purposes of schooling that
traditionally relate to the transmission and acquisition of knowledge. This challenge raises questions about
the control, location, and deployment of scientific research and authority (Irwin 1995; Roth and Desautels 2C02) and, ultimately,
about what constitutes "the environment" and the terms in which environmental questions are framed. For
some, the
environment is primarily something to be appreciated and preserved. For others, it is a resource
to be managed and developed, a problem to be avoided or overcome, or simply somewhere to
live in and get to know. Likewise, environmental problems are seen by some as essentially
technical in nature and thus capable of solution by technical means. Critics of this stance point out its
implications for the role of non-experts in democratic decision making (Habermas 1971), and suggest that it is impossible to separate
an environmental problem framed in scientific terms from its wider personal, social, or political dimensions. Such advice is well
substantiated by qualitative work in the public understanding of science (Yearley 1996). All this
points towards the need
for diversity, local sensitivity, and experimentation in programs of environmental education, and towards
encouraging students to ask appropriate questions and search for answers rather than simply
acquiring a body of knowledge . Insights into how this might be done can be found in Hart and Nolan 1999, Knain 1999,
and Kolsns 2000 and 2001. The goal should be to enable students to engage in an informed
conversation with expertise about the environment and help them develop the confidence and
skill to add to it and, when appropriate, to challenge it.
Environmental change creates the need for learning and building the
capacities of citizens with the environment at the center of study
Gordon ‘9 [2009. Doctor Gordon Wilson is Director of the inter-faculty Environment,
Development and International Studies curriculum area at the UK Open University. “The
world has problems while universities have disciplines: Universities meeting the challenge
of environment through interdisciplinary partnerships” Journal of the World Universities
Forum, Volume 2, Issue 2, pp.57-62. http://wuj.cgpublisher.com/product/pub.173/prod.144]
Some issues,
like environmental change, are perceived to be so important that they create a thirst
for knowledge among citizens and professionals to understand and ultimately act. This thirst is,
moreover, global in nature as the issues usually span national borders. It is incumbent on Universities,
whose missions by definition concern knowledge, to
engage in teaching and learning on such issues in order
to build the capacities of citizens and professionals. Designing environment curriculum to meet
the needs and demands of students requires, however, putting the subject at the centre of study.
This emphasis on the issue – environment – potentially creates a tension with the usual discipline-centred foci of curriculum, while
further challenges concern maintaining rigour and the capability of the Universities to be flexible and predictive. At root is the ability
of Universities to address major global issues. The
global nature of the environmental challenge and the need for
opportunity for Universities to work
together in partnership, drawing on their respective, usually disciplinary, strengths . In this scenario
the necessary interdisciplinarity, as a pre-condition for relevant curriculum, comes through scholarly
working together at the respective disciplinary interfaces to create world-class teaching and learning to address
a global challenge.
interdisciplinary approaches to its curriculum, also present, however, an
Climate change makes policy relevant research on the
implementation of specific technologies essential
Pitman ‘5 [2005. A.J. Pitman, Department of Physical Geography, Macquarie University, North Ryde, Sydney, NSW 2109,
Australia “On the role of Geography in Earth System Science” Geoforum 36 (2005) 137–148,
http://www.ige.unicamp.br/site/aulas/119/pitman1.pdf]
This range
in scenarios or ‘‘storylines’’ therefore contributes a huge uncertainty regarding the future of
the Earth. Minimizing this uncertainty requires reducing our uncertainty on population change (the field
of population geographers) and changes in economic growth (economic geographers) and development (development
geographers). Policy relevant research on minimizing the development of inequities in future
development (social geography), providing advice to government on socially sensitive policy (social
geography) and the development and implementation of appropriate technologies are all essential .
It is important here to recognize that the future scenarios for emissions are written in terms of storylines.
Thus, all Human Geographers have to do to contribute to this particular area is to communicate their knowledge and expertise in
words—they do not have to become experts in mathematics. Some of the uncertainty in Fig. 3 comes from the lack of understanding
about the nature of the real world and the lack of understanding of how biophysical processes operate in the real world. These are
areas where Physical Geography can assist. Thus, Geographers, as a group, could contribute in virtually all of the areas which lead to
the uncertainty in our estimates of global temperature rise, but again,
it requires a critical mass of like-minded
individuals to be involved, not just a small number of committed individuals.
(dece…) Policy discourse on environmental policy allows individuals
to understand the moral nature of science while also creating policies
that are adequate for practical purposes
Galvin ’11 [January 2011. Raymond James Galvin has a Ph.D. from the University of East
Anglia in Environmental Science and Politics. “Discourse and Materiality in Environmental
Policy: the Case of German Federal Policy on Thermal Renovation of Existing Homes”
http://justsolutions.eu/resources/phdgalvinfinal.pdf]
This thesis extends policy
discourse theory to enable researchers to take fuller account of the interplays
between environmental policy discourse, and the material objects that such policies aim to
influence. It defends the social constructivist basis of policy discourse theories, but addresses their lack of methodological means
to judge the comparative reliability of competing discourses about the material objects of policy. In particular, it shows how their
ontology and epistemology cause them to treat the knowledge of materiality produced in the
natural sciences as of no more value than knowledge produced in any other realm. It proposes a
‘modest realist’ solution that draws on Roy Bhaskar’s historical account of the pragmatic success of
natural science, Rom Harrés understanding of science as a ‘moral’ endeavour, and both these
philosophers’ robust theorising as to the ‘real’ nature of the objects of scientific enquiry. This approach preserves
a thoroughly social constructivist view of knowledge, while showing how we can judge the reliability of discourses
about material reality in a way that is adequate for most practical purposes. It then tests the usefulness
of this theoretical framework in a case study, namely an analysis of German Federal policy on thermal renovation of existing homes,
evaluating the policy’s effectiveness in achieving its stated aims, which are material in nature. This trans-disciplinary investigation
comprises both policy discourse analysis, based on interviews and document research, and natural science-based research on salient
features of the German built environment. It finds clear mismatches between the policy, with its accompanying discourse, and the
material realities of its target environment, and makes recommendations for policy change. The approach developed in the thesis is
therefore offered as a useful extension to policy discourse theory.
Economics
Policy relevant research about economics and globalization is vital in
an increasingly interconnected world
Asheim 11 [June 30, 2011. Dr. Bjørn Asheim is a Professor in Economic Geography,
Department of Social and Economic Geography / Deputy Director at CIRCLE (Centre for
Innovation, Research and Competence in the Learning Economy), Lund University, Sweden and
Professor II at University of Agder, Norway. “Diversity, innovation and globalization: A new
context of regional innovation systems for constructing regional advantage”
http://www.wigeo.unihannover.de/fileadmin/wigeo/Geographie/startseite/Seoul_Conference/abstracts.pdf]
Thus, the
global dimension of distributed knowledge networks has increased dramatically in
importance over the last decade. This means that it is more than ever vital for policy relevant research to
understand how globalization interacts with nation-, sector-, and region-specific conditions in
affecting competitiveness and innovativeness. Arguably, an efficient knowledge economy is based
on regional innovation systems with a high degree of openness and diversity, not only concerning
knowledge strictly defined, but also with respect to tolerance towards the cultural, religious and ethnic
characteristics of the carriers (e.g. entrepreneurs and researchers) of that knowledge. The context of the
globalizing knowledge economy, thus, represents important challenges for research on and
policies of regional innovation systems for constructing regional advantage.