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Last modified by Jaden Lessnick on 2014/02/01 21:11
| Tournament | Round | Opponent | Judge | Cites | Round Report | Open Source | Edit/Delete |
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| Alta | Octas | St Marks JM | Sam Allen, Sam Haley-Hill, Clara Purk |
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| Bingham | Semis | Juan Diego AC | Weiner, Tippets, Delgadillo |
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| Bingham | Quarters | Bingham NW | Sharif, and I dont remember who else |
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| Bingham | 1 | Copper Hills something | Delgadillo |
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| Bingham | 5 | Juan Diego WF | Warren |
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| Bingham | 3 | Lehi something | Matea Ivanovi |
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| Golden Desert | 2 | Alpharetta RS | Josh Martin |
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| Golden Desert | 4 | Alpharetta KK | Ben Wolch |
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| Meadows | 1 | Encinatas DZ | Brian Brantley |
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| Meadows | 3 | St Vincent De Paul DG | Hines |
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| Notre Dame | 1 | Bishop Guertin DI | Matea Ivanovic |
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| Notre Dame | 4 | Carrolton School of Sacred Heart DW | Christian Rodriguez |
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| Notre Dame | 5 | Hamilton AZ CP | Nathaniel Haas |
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| Notre Dame | Doubles | St Francis RS | Tippets, Phillips, Hill |
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| Young Lawyers | 4 | Skyview KR | Cant remember |
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| Young Lawyers | 5 | Juan Diego DZ | Irvin something I have a terrible memory |
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| Young Lawyers | 2 | East DW | Katie Butterfield |
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| Tournament | Round | Report |
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| Alta | Octas | Opponent: St Marks JM | Judge: Sam Allen, Sam Haley-Hill, Clara Purk 1AC was Cuban Securitization |
| Bingham | Semis | Opponent: Juan Diego AC | Judge: Weiner, Tippets, Delgadillo 1AC was a new fiated cap aff or something (doesn't really matter) |
| Bingham | Quarters | Opponent: Bingham NW | Judge: Sharif, and I dont remember who else 1AC was Maquiladoras |
| Bingham | 1 | Opponent: Copper Hills something | Judge: Delgadillo 1AC was Embargo |
| Bingham | 5 | Opponent: Juan Diego WF | Judge: Warren 1AC was Cuban Embargo |
| Bingham | 3 | Opponent: Lehi something | Judge: Matea Ivanovi 1AC was a fiated cap aff that said the US should economically engage with Venezuela in a socialist manner |
| Golden Desert | 2 | Opponent: Alpharetta RS | Judge: Josh Martin 1AC was imperialism |
| Golden Desert | 4 | Opponent: Alpharetta KK | Judge: Ben Wolch 1AC was Cuban Embargo |
| Meadows | 1 | Opponent: Encinatas DZ | Judge: Brian Brantley 1AC was Tomatoes |
| Meadows | 3 | Opponent: St Vincent De Paul DG | Judge: Hines 1AC-IFFs (econ cartels) |
| Notre Dame | 1 | Opponent: Bishop Guertin DI | Judge: Matea Ivanovic 1AC was an agamben aff about the drug war |
| Notre Dame | 4 | Opponent: Carrolton School of Sacred Heart DW | Judge: Christian Rodriguez 1AC was Mexican Biofuels (Mexico stability ag ex-im) |
| Notre Dame | 5 | Opponent: Hamilton AZ CP | Judge: Nathaniel Haas 1AC was Maquiladoras |
| Notre Dame | Doubles | Opponent: St Francis RS | Judge: Tippets, Phillips, Hill 1AC was Cuban embargo (ethics) |
| Young Lawyers | 4 | Opponent: Skyview KR | Judge: Cant remember 1AC was a Mexico Electricity aff that had a kritikal poverty advantage |
| Young Lawyers | 5 | Opponent: Juan Diego DZ | Judge: Irvin something I have a terrible memory 1AC was ease sanctions on Cuba with OFAC and Multilat advantages |
| Young Lawyers | 2 | Opponent: East DW | Judge: Katie Butterfield 1AC was Cuban Oil |
To modify or delete round reports, edit the associated round.
Cites
| Entry | Date |
|---|---|
1NC Alta OctosTournament: Alta | Round: Octas | Opponent: St Marks JM | Judge: Sam Allen, Sam Haley-Hill, Clara Purk The Mary Nardini gang explains what the anti-queer world looks like and how queer bodies are forced to encounter violence in every part of their lives … A fag is …for¶ the Totality. The AFF stabilizes a world that is antiqueer – this allows for assimilation strategies that allows “good white gays and lesbians” to be part of a larger power structure of capitalism, patriarchy, and heteronormativity that is violent against difference. The only strategy is a total conflict with the totality . In the discourse …is our¶ history. The alternative is to hate straightness and to embrace that which is undesirable. And so, like … with explicit imagery. Welcome to the gagapocalypse! … of “normal¶ life.” We don’t want to assimilate – we want to embrace queerness as a radical act of defiance. A member of Queer Nation tells us that … Let Yourself Be …up and listen. | 12/9/13 |
1NC Bingham QuartersTournament: Bingham | Round: Quarters | Opponent: Bingham NW | Judge: Sharif, and I dont remember who else With each moment … to the impossible. This mortal anxiety establishes an ascetic hatred of the world that denies life. The only escape is through a chaotic embrace of life. The craving for … the fly-bottle" (PI §309). The alternative is to sacrifice the 1AC. The anxious desire … of the sacred. Off For this reason, … anthropocentrism passes unchallenged.1 Anthropocentrism subjects animals to an eternal Treblinka. Trillions of animals have already been slaughtered in factor farms and viviosected in laboratories. Current society views the animal other as an object that only as useful as what it provides to its human oppressors. In the face of this institutionalized speciescide virtually nothing has been done. The time for action is now. Isacat tells us in 2008, Mass extinction is … the extermination camps..." (4) While other political projects work toward inclusion and equal rights Animal Liberation works toward a total exclusion of the animal. This is because human nature is founded upon a violent speciesism and any inclusion can only lead to further genocidal violence. We will put the animal first in every instance and will only settle for total liberation by any means necessary. Screaming Wolf explains, If an animal … for these conclusions. Off Case Even as I …forms of resistance. Turn – they see themselves as the outsiders fighting the hegemonic insiders – they base all of their aff off a static position of what they oppose – and thus define themselves by what they oppose – they just entrench it The position is …other tactical forms. Their speech act comes from a position of privilege that not only epistemically impacts their presentation, but is discursively dangerous and should be rejected. These examples demonstrate … oppressed groups themselves.6 | 1/19/14 |
1NC Bingham SemsTournament: Bingham | Round: Semis | Opponent: Juan Diego AC | Judge: Weiner, Tippets, Delgadillo In the next …everything that is lived. Their ableism makes the “disabled” into non-human others. Those associated with variation are oppressed and discriminated against. Causes genocide, violence, and military intervention against groups to purge their deviance. Also means you are the root cause of all forms of oppression. Disqualification as a … identities achieved expression. Ethical reason to reject the team The West's mission … condemnation of — itself. Off The craving for ..the fly-bottle" (PI §309). The alternative is to sacrifice the 1AC. The anxious desire … of the sacred. Off Case A politics aiming … ideology itself. Their resistance only serves to prove the existence of the system by negating it. Criticism allows the system to fake its own death and entrench itself – without negation the system collapses. Conjunction of the …its already dead. Negation is dead; it was eaten by the system. Their resistance will fail because evil has stolen their ability to resist. The system blatantly critiques itself and in doing so shows that it no longer cares about criticism. Instead of fighting evil we should get out of the way and let it cannibalize itself – their silencing of the voice of evil only slows its self-destruction. THIS IS THE … that comes through. They only reinforce the system by attacking it on the plane of the real. | 1/19/14 |
1NC Bingham rd 1Tournament: Bingham | Round: 1 | Opponent: Copper Hills something | Judge: Delgadillo In the discourse … is our¶ history. Phallicized Whiteness
Three most significant … an environmental ethic. 2. Anthropocentric ideologies cause ecocide- the alternative is the only unique try or die scenario Here I will …, but for us all. For some, guided … or repress it. Savages have no …act of exchange. Honored members of …made a report. Ableism My argument is … their very legitimization. Case The "problem of … type of tyrant (Nietzsche 1986, pp. 137, 168; 1974, pp. 117-18, 213, 288-89, 303-4). Recognition of our individual responsibility to affect the world around us is a form of politics that refuses to be complicit with the violence perpetrated by others. Only individual action to resist violence can create change. A politics aiming … of ideology itself. | 1/19/14 |
1NC Bingham rd 3Tournament: Bingham | Round: 3 | Opponent: Lehi something | Judge: Matea Ivanovi The Mary Nardini gang explains what the anti-queer world looks like and how queer bodies are forced to encounter violence in every part of their lives … A fag is … for¶ the Totality. The AFF stabilizes a world that is antiqueer through a passive reformation– this allows for assimilation strategies that allows “good white gays and lesbians” to be part of a larger power structure of capitalism, patriarchy, and heteronormativity that is violent against difference. The only strategy is a total and violent conflict with the totality . The Mary Nardini Gang explains that In the discourse … is our¶ history. We should hate straightness and to embrace that which is undesirable. And so, like … with explicit imagery. Welcome to the … of “normal¶ life.” We don’t want to assimilate – we want to embrace queerness as a radical act of defiance. A member of Queer Nation tells us that … Let Yourself Be …, then you'll hear what they have to say about queer anger. Otherwise, tell them to shut up and listen. The targeted violence and killings of queers result in omnicide | 1/19/14 |
1NC Bingham rd 5Tournament: Bingham | Round: 5 | Opponent: Juan Diego WF | Judge: Warren F/w Ableism Their ableist policies makes the “disabled” into inhuman others. Those associated with variation are oppressed and discriminated against resulting in genocide, violence, and endless intervention. Disqualification as a … identities achieved expression. The alternative is to reject the affirmative team for their attempt to change country. Vote negative to embrace our disability. Before proceeding further …of its boundaries' (l997: 178).3 K All such expenditures …immanence’, or continuity (Hollier 1998: 65). This mortal anxiety establishes an ascetic hatred of the world that denies life. The only escape is through a chaotic embrace of life. The craving for … the fly-bottle" (PI §309). The alternative is to sacrifice the 1AC. The anxious desire …of the sacred. Case A politics aiming … of ideology itself. The term “Latin America” is violent – It homogenizes an entire region and washes over cultural difference of native peoples in favor of European imperialism and should be rejected Colonial Latin America, … find other examples. Their politics leads to passivity The "problem of … type of tyrant (Nietzsche 1986, pp. 137, 168; 1974, pp. 117-18, 213, 288-89, 303-4). | 1/19/14 |
1NC Golden Desert rd 2Tournament: Golden Desert | Round: 2 | Opponent: Alpharetta RS | Judge: Josh Martin Motion DA The Roman jurists …separated and petrified. The passage from … a new happiness. DA In the next …that is lived. Their ableist policies makes the “disabled” into inhuman others. Those associated with variation are oppressed and discriminated against resulting in genocide, violence, and endless intervention. Disqualification as a …identities achieved expression. Rather, you should acknowledge that everyone is differently-abled Before proceeding further …of its boundaries' (l997: 178).3 The American response …facilitate preemptive security. This state of exception reduces everything to bare life as the distinction between life and the law blurs – this justifies acts of genocide against the homo sacer DA Case For Baudrillard, the system …collapse of meaning. Solvency deficit, all of their evidence indicates that things like imperialism are inevitable if the embargo is not lifted, but they don’t lift the embargo The position is …other tactical forms. "Life," I said, "…used for impalement. | 2/1/14 |
1NC Golden Desert rd 4Tournament: Golden Desert | Round: 4 | Opponent: Alpharetta KK | Judge: Ben Wolch In the discourse … is our¶ history. Welcome to the … of “normal¶ life.” 2 Only by realizing that we are powerless to death can we gain personal agency. We are the naked sovereign, gaining freedom only through sacrifice. I picture the …ceasing is killed The environment always exceeds human meddling—more intervention only worsens the cycle of crisis, guaranteeing ecological extinction- this turns the case. Commoner also presents … recreations are mutable. 4 The American response … facilitate preemptive security. This state of exception reduces everything to bare life as the distinction between life and the law blurs – this justifies acts of genocide against the homo sacer Multilat Relations DG/DS You often allude … change anything at all. The term “Latin America” is violent – It homogenizes an entire region and washes over cultural difference of native peoples in favor of European imperialism and should be rejected Colonial Latin America, …find other examples. Recognition of our individual responsibility to affect the world around us is a form of politics that refuses to be complicit with the violence perpetrated by others. Only individual action to resist violence can create change. A politics aiming …of ideology itself. | 2/1/14 |
1NC Meadows rd 1Tournament: Meadows | Round: 1 | Opponent: Encinatas DZ | Judge: Brian Brantley This is a gateway issue—before they weigh the merits of the plan, they need to justify the use of a future oriented framework and prove that extinction level impacts are good for debate. If they win that, we have a test WITHIN their method as well. Used before a … an endangered species. B. Vote negative –
3 Economic engagement – a …in international relations. Violation: The aff engages with private groups or non-governmental organizations in Cuba, Mexico, or Venezuela, not the target country’s government. C. Vote Negative:
4
Ask a transportation … from the gas tax. President Barack Obama … other conservative groups. CommentsAs a result, …strength of the US. The benefits of … unforeseen crises goes up.¶ 5
Three most significant … an environmental ethic. Anthropocentric ideologies cause ecocide- the alternative is the only unique try or die scenario. Here I will … but for us all. The alternative is to undergo the thought experiment in order to embrace the global suicide of humanity. The alternative solves the anthropocentric ideology. For some, guided ….or repress it. Tomatoes Is the demise … more peaceful one. No resource wars -- scarcity doesn’t cause war. Resource wars are highly unlikely and never escalate. Resource wars theoretical – They rarely occur Rising energy prices … dearth in governance. Scarcity doesn’t cause conflict – no evidence otherwise First, aside from a few anecdotes, … and natural disasters. Protectionism | 10/25/13 |
1NC Meadows rd 3Tournament: Meadows | Round: 3 | Opponent: St Vincent De Paul DG | Judge: Hines A. Violation -- Economic engagement requires a quid pro quo – the aff doesn’t. The term engagement … has important disagreements. Ground – requiring a qpq is key to disad links, case args, and kritiks based on attaching strings – their interp explodes the topic, crushing neg predictability. Policy 1NC Shell One way to … more direct results. Solving corruption solves the drug war – cartels cannot operate without corruption To reiterate, the … has become a cancer.”5 Three most significant …an environmental ethic. Anthropocentric ideologies cause ecocide- the alternative is the only unique try or die scenario. Here I will … but for us all. The alternative is to undergo the thought experiment in order to embrace the global suicide of humanity. The alternative solves the anthropocentric ideology. For some, guided …or repress it. Econ The rationalist theory … that larger debate. Economic crisis won’t cause war When the global …liberal trade order. Mexico’s economy will be resilient – Successful foreign and economic policies. It’s all hyped nonsense Cartels And yet, the … to be disappointed. Drug violence has no significant impact on the economy, other alt causes are more important The finance minister … tenth suffering most. 210 A ‘collapsed’ state, however, as postulated in the Pentagon JOE paper, suggests ‘a total vacuum of authority’, the state having become a ‘mere geographical expression’. Such an extreme hypothesis of Mexico disappearing like those earlier European states seems implausible for a country that currently has the world’s 14th largest economy and higher predicted growth than either the UK, Germany or the USA; that has no external threat from aggressive neighbours, which was the ‘one constant’ in the European experience according to Tilly; and does not suffer the ‘disharmony between communities’ that Rotberg says is a feature common among failed states. 17 , 18 A review of the literature does not reveal why the JOE paper might have suggested criminal gangs and drug cartels as direct causes leading to state collapse. Crime and corruption tend to be described not as causes but as symptoms demonstrating failure. For example, a study for Defence Research and Development Canada attempting to build a predictive model for proximates of state failure barely mentions either. 19 One of the principal scholars on the subject, Rotberg, says that in failed states, ‘corruption flourishes’ and ‘gangs and criminal syndicates assume control of the streets’, but again as effect rather than trigger. 20 The Fund for Peace Failed States Index does not use either of them as a ‘headline’ indicator, though both are used as contributory factors. This absence may reflect an assessment that numerous states suffer high levels of organised crime and corruption and nevertheless do not fail. Mandel describes the corruption and extreme violence of the Chinese Triads, Italian Mafia, Japanese Yakuza and the Russian Mob that, in some cases, has continued for centuries 21 Yet none of these countries were singled out as potential collapsed or failed states in the Pentagon’s paper. Indeed, thousands of Americans were killed in gang warfare during Prohibition and many people ‘knew or at least suspected that politicians, judges, lawyers, bankers and business concerns collected many millions of dollars from frauds, bribes and various forms of extortion’. 22 Organised crime and corruption were the norm in the political, business, and judicial systems and police forces ran their own ‘rackets’ rather than enforcing the law. 23 Neither the violence nor the corruption led to state failure. No risk of state collapse – they have no political agenda However, Clausewitz, Garzón … terrorists and insurgents. | 10/25/13 |
1NC Notre Dame DoublesTournament: Notre Dame | Round: Doubles | Opponent: St Francis RS | Judge: Tippets, Phillips, Hill
Three most significant … an environmental ethic. 2. Anthropocentric ideologies cause ecocide- the alternative is the only unique try or die scenario Here I will … for us all. For some, guided… or repress it. K K B) Link Because of its … is our soul. C) Impacts It is never … with the sublime. D) The alternative is to love what the Aff hates. Each biographical exemplifies …symptom of calling. Case The only political tool we have is our own thoughts and actions – vote negative to answer the question ‘what should we do?’ instead of ‘what should they do?’ 2: The aff engages in organized irresponsibility – claiming that the problems isolated in the 1AC are the product of decisions made by external structures creates a mental deputy politics – we become complacent bystanders too apathetic to create change | 11/3/13 |
1NC Notre Dame rd 1Tournament: Notre Dame | Round: 1 | Opponent: Bishop Guertin DI | Judge: Matea Ivanovic K The alternative is to vote negative to tarnish the aff’s public image with a mask of evil. It allows for them to continue their heroism without recognition Heroic exceptionism undermines the law—multiplication would completely collapse it. The aff must become indistinguishable with evil in order to avoid this, otherwise debate would collapse because there would be so many people operating as the exception that there would be no stable forum for them to create their change—turns the case K K Grotius and Hobbes …ordering of war. Anthropocentric ideologies cause ecocide- the alternative is the only unique try or die scenario. Here I will … for us all. For some, guided … or repress it. Case The UN Single …recently, outright decriminalization. The position is …other tactical forms. We must propose positions without attaching ourselves to them – by affirming their movement but not giving it the ballot you take their movement underground The standpoint, identification … the following manner: | 11/2/13 |
1NC Notre Dame rd 4Tournament: Notre Dame | Round: 4 | Opponent: Carrolton School of Sacred Heart DW | Judge: Christian Rodriguez O spec Used before a … an endangered species. B. Vote negative –
K
Three most significant …an environmental ethic. 2. Anthropocentric ideologies cause ecocide- the alternative is the only unique try or die scenario Here I will …but for us all. For some, guided … life to others. ¶ It should be …or repress it. Until Persephone has … of existential dread. B) Link The closeness of …the Narcissus myth. It is never …with the sublime. D) Alternative Humanism’s psychology follows …imaginally “unreal” reality. Ex im
A candidate for … of "incontrovertible" evidence. 2. Long timeframe prevents solvency – any effect takes decades and we can’t reverse CO2 already in the air. It's summer, it's … and inevitable adaptation Zero risk of nuclear terrorism There is no credible connection between the drug cartels and terrorist groups But despite the …at the border. Ag With food prices …bullish for producers. Food Prices high now and inevitable – 6 reasons. Members of … … markets, he said. | 11/2/13 |
1NC Notre Dame rd 5Tournament: Notre Dame | Round: 5 | Opponent: Hamilton AZ CP | Judge: Nathaniel Haas
Here the concept …of the present. 2. The distribution of visas as a political strategy for inclusion injects sovereign authority into migration – turns the case by making all inclusion temporary and fleeting. Sovereignty is performed …in capricious sovereignty. ? To be an … may well bring. C. Alternative- Refuse visas as an acceptable form of inclusion and instead struggle to negotiate a hospitable welcome for those to whom the affirmative appeals. So far, a ... logic of IR. K Turn – they see themselves as the outsiders fighting the hegemonic insiders – they base all of their aff off a static position of what they oppose – and thus define themselves by what they oppose – they just entrench it The position is …other tactical forms. The standpoint, identification …their institutional interiority. It will certainly … much less fuss! | 11/3/13 |
1NC Round 4 Young LawyersTournament: Young Lawyers | Round: 4 | Opponent: Skyview KR | Judge: Cant remember Non-Economic Engagement and International Exchange: The Case of Environmental Treaties We examine the role of non-economic partnerships in promoting international economic exchange. Since far-sighted countries are more willing to join costly international partnerships such as environmental treaties, environmental engagement tends to encourage international lending. Countries with such non-economic partnerships also find it easier to engage in economic exchanges since they face the possibility that debt default might also spill over to hinder their non-economic relationships. We present a theoretical model of these ideas, and then verify their empirical importance using a bilateral cross-section of data on international cross-holdings of assets and environmental treaties. Our results support the notion that international environmental cooperation facilitates economic exchange. Countries, like people, interact with each other on a number of different dimensions. Some interactions are strictly economic; for instance, countries engage in international trade of goods, services, capital, and labor. But many are not economic, at least not in any narrow sense. For instance, the United States seeks to promote human rights and democracy, deter nuclear proliferation, stop the spread of narcotics, and so forth. Accordingly America, like other countries, participates in a number of international institutions to further its foreign policy objectives; it has joined security alliances like NATO, and international organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency. In this paper, we concentrate on the interesting and understudied case of international environmental arrangements (IEAs). We ask whether participation in such non-economic partnerships tends to enhance international economic relations. The answer, in both theory and practice, is positive. B. Vote Neg – First, Ground – allowing energy affs adds a whole new topic into an already broad resolution – narrow limits are key to a fair research burden and innovation. Second, Education – only the neg interp limits the topic to the core of economic engagement – allowing energy affs skews the focus of the resolution to the fringe, decking topic specific education 2
Three most significant and pressing factors contributing to the environmental crisis are the ever increasing human population, the energy crisis, and the abuse and pollution of the earth’s natural systems. These and other factors contributing to the environmental crisis can be directly linked to anthropocentric views of the world. The perception that value is located in, and emanates from, humanity has resulted in understanding human life as an ultimate value, superior to all other beings. This has driven innovators in medicine and technology to ever improve our medical and material conditions, in an attempt to preserve human life, resulting in more people being born and living longer. In achieving this aim, they have indirectly contributed to increasing the human population. Perceptions of superiority, coupled with developing technologies have resulted in a social outlook that generally does not rest content with the basic necessities of life. Demands for more medical and social aid, more entertainment and more comfort translate into demands for improved standards of living. Increasing population numbers, together with the material demands of modern society, place ever increasing demands on energy supplies. While wanting a better life is not a bad thing, given the population explosion the current energy crisis is inevitable, which brings a whole host of environmental implications in tow. This is not to say that every improvement in the standard of living is necessarily wasteful of energy or polluting to the planet, but rather it is the cumulative effect of these improvements that is damaging to the environment. The abuses facing the natural environment as a result of the energy crisis and the food demand are clearly manifestations of anthropocentric views that treat the environment as a resource and instrument for human ends. The pollution and destruction of the non-human natural world is deemed acceptable, provided that it does not interfere with other human beings. It could be argued that there is nothing essentially wrong with anthropocentric assumptions, since it is natural, even instinctual, to favour one’s self and species over and above all other forms of life. However, it is problematic in that such perceptions influence our actions and dealings with the world to the extent that the well-being of life on this planet is threatened, making the continuance of a huge proportion of existing life forms "tenuous if not improbable" (Elliot 1995: 1). Denying the non-human world ethical consideration, it is evident that anthropocentric assumptions provide a rationale for the exploitation of the natural world and, therefore, have been largely responsible for the present environmental crisis (Des Jardins 1997: 93). Fox identifies three broad approaches to the environment informed by anthropocentric assumptions, which in reality are not distinct and separate, but occur in a variety of combinations. The "expansionist" approach is characterised by the recognition that nature has a purely instrumental value to humans. This value is accessed through the physical transformation of the non-human natural world, by farming, mining, damming etc. Such practices create an economic value, which tends to "equate the physical transformation of ‘resources’ with economic growth" (Fox 1990: 152). Legitimising continuous expansion and exploitation, this approach relies on the idea that there is an unending supply of resources. The "conservationist" approach, like the first, recognises the economic value of natural resources through their physical transformation, while at the same time accepting the fact that there are limits to these resources. It therefore emphasises the importance of conserving natural resources, while prioritising the importance of developing the non-human natural world in the quest for financial gain. The "preservationist" approach differs from the first two in that it recognises the enjoyment and aesthetic enrichment human beings receive from an undisturbed natural world. Focusing on the psychical nourishment value of the non-human natural world for humans, this approach stresses the importance of preserving resources in their natural states. All three approaches are informed by anthropocentric assumptions. This results in a one-sided understanding of the human-nature relationship. Nature is understood to have a singular role of serving humanity, while humanity is understood to have no obligations toward nature. Such a perception represents "not only a deluded but also a very dangerous orientation to the world" (Fox 1990: 13), as only the lives of human beings are recognised to have direct moral worth, while the moral consideration of non-human entities is entirely contingent upon the interests of human beings (Pierce and Van De Veer 1995: 9). Humanity is favoured as inherently valuable, while the non-human natural world counts only in terms of its use value to human beings. The "expansionist" and "conservationist" approaches recognise an economic value, while the "preservationist" approach recognises a hedonistic, aesthetic or spiritual value. They accept, without challenge, the assumption that the value of the non-human natural world is entirely dependent on human needs and interests. None attempt to move beyond the assumption that nature has any worth other than the value humans can derive from it, let alone search for a deeper value in nature. This ensures that human duties retain a purely human focus, thereby avoiding the possibility that humans may have duties that extend to non-humans. This can lead to viewing the non-human world, devoid of direct moral consideration, as a mere resource with a purely instrumental value of servitude. This gives rise to a principle of ‘total use’, whereby every natural area is seen for its potential cultivation value, to be used for human ends (Zimmerman 1998: 19). This provides limited means to criticise the behaviour of those who use nature purely as a warehouse of resources (Pierce and Van De Veer 1995: 184). It is clear that humanity has the capacity to transform and degrade the environment. Given the consequences inherent in having such capacities, "the need for a coherent, comprehensive, rationally persuasive environmental ethic is imperative" (Pierce and Van De Veer 1995: 2). The purpose of an environmental ethic would be to account for the moral relations that exist between humans and the environment, and to provide a rational basis from which to decide how we ought and ought not to treat the environment. The environment was defined as the world in which we are enveloped and immersed, constituted by both animate and inanimate objects. This includes both individual living creatures, such as plants and animals, as well as non-living, non-individual entities, such as rivers and oceans, forests and velds, essentially, the whole planet Earth. This constitutes a vast and all-inclusive sphere, and, for purposes of clarity, shall be referred to as the "greater environment". In order to account for the moral relations that exist between humans and the greater environment, an environmental ethic should have a significantly wide range of focus. I argue that anthropocentric value systems are not suitable to the task of developing a comprehensive environmental ethic. Firstly, anthropocentric assumptions have been shown to be largely responsible for the current environmental crisis. While this in itself does not provide strong support for the claim, it does cast a dim light on any theory that is informed by such assumptions. Secondly, an environmental ethic requires a significantly wide range of focus. As such, it should consider the interests of a wide range of beings. It has been shown that anthropocentric approaches do not entertain the notion that non-human entities can have interests independent of human interests. "Expansionist", "conservationist" and "preservationist" approaches only acknowledge a value in nature that is determined by the needs and interests of humans. Thirdly, because anthropocentric approaches provide a moral account for the interests of humans alone, while excluding non-humans from direct moral consideration, they are not sufficiently encompassing. An environmental ethic needs to be suitably encompassing to ensure that a moral account is provided for all entities that constitute the environment. It could be argued that the indirect moral concern for the environment arising out of an anthropocentric approach is sufficient to ensure the protection of the greater environment. In response, only those entities that are in the interest of humans will be morally considered, albeit indirectly, while those entities which fall outside of this realm will be seen to be morally irrelevant. Assuming that there are more entities on this planet that are not in the interest of humans than entities that are, it is safe to say that anthropocentric approaches are not adequately encompassing. Fourthly, the goals of an environmental ethic should protect and maintain the greater environment. It is clear that the expansionist approach, which is primarily concerned with the transformation of nature for economic return, does not meet these goals. Similarly, neither does the conservationist approach, which is arguably the same as the expansionist approach. The preservationist approach does, in principle satisfy this requirement. However, this is problematic for such preservation is based upon the needs and interests of humans, and "as human interests and needs change, so too would human uses for the environment" (Des Jardins 1997: 129). Non-human entities, held captive by the needs and interests of humans, are open to whatever fancies the interests of humans. In light of the above, it is my contention that anthropocentric value systems fail to provide a stable ground for the development of an environmental ethic. Here I will at least begin in agreement with Levinas. As he rejects an ethics proceeding on the basis of self-interest, so I believe the anthropocentric perspectives of conservation or liberal environmentalism cannot take us far enough. Our relations with nonhuman nature are poisoned and not just because we have set up feedback loops that already lead to mass starvations, skyrocketing environmental disease rates, and devastation of natural resources.¶ The problem with ecocide is not just that it hurts human beings. Our uncaring violence also violates the very ground of our being, our natural body, our home. Such violence is done not simply to the other -- as if the rainforest, the river, the atmosphere, the species made extinct are totally different from ourselves. Rather, we have crucified ourselves-in-relation-to-the-other, fracturing a mode of being in which self and other can no more be conceived as fully in isolation from each other than can a mother and a nursing child.¶ We are that child, and nonhuman nature is that mother. If this image seems too maudlin, let us remember that other lactating women can feed an infant, but we have only one earth mother.¶ What moral stance will be shaped by our personal sense that we are poisoning ourselves, our environment, and so many kindred spirits of the air, water, and forests?¶ To begin, we may see this tragic situation as setting the limits to Levinas's perspective. The other which is nonhuman nature is not simply known by a "trace," nor is it something of which all knowledge is necessarily instrumental. This other is inside us as well as outside us. We prove it with every breath we take, every bit of food we eat, every glass of water we drink. We do not have to find shadowy traces on or in the faces of trees or lakes, topsoil or air: we are made from them.¶ Levinas denies this sense of connection with nature. Our "natural" side represents for him a threat of simple consumption or use of the other, a spontaneous response which must be obliterated by the power of ethics in general (and, for him in particular, Jewish religious law(23) ). A "natural" response lacks discipline; without the capacity to heed the call of the other, unable to sublate the self's egoism. Worship of nature would ultimately result in an "everything-is-permitted" mentality, a close relative of Nazism itself. For Levinas, to think of people as "natural" beings is to assimilate them to a totality, a category or species which makes no room for the kind of individuality required by ethics.(24) He refers to the "elemental" or the "there is" as unmanaged, unaltered, "natural" conditions or forces that are essentially alien to the categories and conditions of moral life.(25)¶ One can only lament that Levinas has read nature -- as to some extent (despite his intentions) he has read selfhood -- through the lens of masculine culture. It is precisely our sense of belonging to nature as system, as interaction, as interdependence, which can provide the basis for an ethics appropriate to the trauma of ecocide. As cultural feminism sought to expand our sense of personal identity to a sense of inter-identification with the human other, so this ecological ethics would expand our personal and species sense of identity into an inter-identification with the natural world.¶ Such a realization can lead us to an ethics appropriate to our time, a dimension of which has come to be known as "deep ecology."(26) For this ethics, we do not begin from the uniqueness of our human selfhood, existing against a taken-for-granted background of earth and sky. Nor is our body somehow irrelevant to ethical relations, with knowledge of it reduced always to tactics of domination. Our knowledge does not assimilate the other to the same, but reveals and furthers the continuing dance of interdependence. And our ethical motivation is neither rationalist system nor individualistic self-interest, but a sense of connection to all of life.¶ The deep ecology sense of self-realization goes beyond the modern Western sense of "self" as an isolated ego striving for hedonistic gratification. . . . . Self, in this sense, is experienced as integrated with the whole of nature.(27)¶ Having gained distance and sophistication of perception from the development of science and political freedoms we can turn and recognize who we have been all along. . . . we are our world knowing itself. We can relinquish our separateness. We can come home again -- and participate in our world in a richer, more responsible and poignantly beautiful way.(28)¶ Ecological ways of knowing nature are necessarily participatory. This knowledge is ecological and plural, reflecting both the diversity of natural ecosystems and the diversity in cultures that nature-based living gives rise to.¶ The recovery of the feminine principle is based on inclusiveness. It is a recovery in nature, woman and man of creative forms of being and perceiving. In nature it implies seeing nature as a live organism. In woman it implies seeing women as productive and active. Finally, in men the recovery of the feminine principle implies a relocation of action and activity to create life-enhancing, not life-reducing and life-threatening societies.(29)¶ In this context, the knowing ego is not set against a world it seeks to control, but one of which it is a part. To continue the feminist perspective, the mother knows or seeks to know the child's needs. Does it make sense to think of her answering the call of the child in abstraction from such knowledge? Is such knowledge necessarily domination? Or is it essential to a project of care, respect and love, precisely because the knower has an intimate, emotional connection with the known?(30) Our ecological vision locates us in such close relation with our natural home that knowledge of it is knowledge of ourselves. And this is not, contrary to Levinas's fear, reducing the other to the same, but a celebration of a larger, more inclusive, and still complex and articulated self.(31) The noble and terrible burden of Levinas's individuated responsibility for sheer existence gives way to a different dream, a different prayer:¶ Being rock, being gas, being mist, being Mind,¶ Being the mesons traveling among the galaxies with the speed of light,¶ You have come here, my beloved one. . . . ¶ You have manifested yourself as trees, as grass, as butterflies, as single-celled beings, and as chrysanthemums;¶ but the eyes with which you looked at me this morning tell me you have never died.(32)¶ In this prayer, we are, quite simply, all in it together. And, although this new ecological Holocaust -- this creation of planet Auschwitz -- is under way, it is not yet final. We have time to step back from the brink, to repair our world. But only if we see that world not as an other across an irreducible gap of loneliness and unchosen obligation, but as a part of ourselves as we are part of it, to be redeemed not out of duty, but out of love; neither for our selves nor for the other, but for us all. For some, guided by the pressure of moral conscience or by a ¶ practice of harm minimisation, the appropriate response to historical ¶ and contemporary environmental destruction is that of action guided ¶ by abstention. For example, one way of reacting to mundane, ¶ everyday complicity is the attempt to abstain or opt-out of certain ¶ aspects of modern, industrial society: to no= eat non-human animals, ¶ to invest ethically, to buy organic produce, to not use cars and buses, ¶ to live in an environmentally conscious commune. Ranging from small ¶ personal decisions to the establishment of parallel economies (think of ¶ organic and fair trade products as an attempt to set up a quasi-parallel ¶ economy), a typical modern form of action is that of a refusal to be ¶ complicit in human practices that are violent and destructive. Again, ¶ however, at a practical level, to what extent are such acts of nonparticipation rendered banal by their complicity in other actions? In a ¶ grand register of violence and harm the individual who abstains from ¶ eating non-human animals but still uses the bus or an airplane or ¶ electricity has only opted out of some harm causing practices and ¶ remains fully complicit with others. One response, however, which ¶ bypasses the problem of complicity and the banality of action is to ¶ take the non-participation solution to its most extreme level. In this ¶ instance, the only way to truly be non-complicit in the violence of the ¶ human heritage would be to opt-out altogether. Here, then, the ¶ modern discourse of reflection, responsibility and action runs to its ¶ logical conclusion – the global suicide of humanity – as a free-willed ¶ and ‘final solution’.¶ While we are not interested in the discussion of the ‘method’ of the ¶ global suicide of humanity per se, one method that would be the least ¶ violent is that of humans choosing to no longer reproduce. 10 The ¶ case at point here is that the global suicide of humanity would be a ¶ moral act; it would take humanity out of the equation of life on this ¶ earth and remake the calculation for the benefit of everything nonhuman. While suicide in certain forms of religious thinking is normally ¶ condemned as something which is selfish and inflicts harm upon borderlands 7:3¶ 17¶ loved ones, the global suicide of humanity would be the highest act of ¶ altruism. That is, global suicide would involve the taking of ¶ responsibility for the destructive actions of the human species. By ¶ eradicating ourselves we end the long process of inflicting harm upon ¶ other species and offer a human-free world. If there is a form of divine ¶ intelligence then surely the human act of global suicide will be seen ¶ for what it is: a profound moral gesture aimed at redeeming humanity. ¶ Such an act is an offer of sacrifice to pay for past wrongs that would ¶ usher in a new future. Through the death of our species we will give ¶ the gift of life to others. ¶ It should be noted nonetheless that our proposal for the global suicide ¶ of humanity is based upon the notion that such a radical action needs ¶ to be voluntary and not forced. In this sense, and given the likelihood ¶ of such an action not being agreed upon, it operates as a thought ¶ experiment which may help humans to radically rethink what it means ¶ to participate in modern, moral life within the natural world. In other ¶ words, whether or not the act of global suicide takes place might well ¶ be irrelevant. What is more important is the form of critical reflection ¶ that an individual needs to go through before coming to the conclusion ¶ that the global suicide of humanity is an action that would be ¶ worthwhile. The point then of a thought experiment that considers the ¶ argument for the global suicide of humanity is the attempt to outline ¶ an anti-humanist, or non-human-centric ethics. Such an ethics ¶ attempts to take into account both sides of the human heritage: the ¶ capacity to carry out violence and inflict harm and the capacity to use ¶ moral reflection and creative social organisation to minimise violence ¶ and harm. Through the idea of global suicide such an ethics reintroduces a central question to the heart of moral reflection: To what ¶ extent is the value of the continuation of human life worth the total ¶ harm inflicted upon the life of all others? Regardless of whether an ¶ individual finds the idea of global suicide abhorrent or ridiculous, this ¶ question remains valid and relevant and will not go away, no matter ¶ how hard we try to forget, suppress or repress it. 3 Observation 1: Competition
The United States has a basic national security in- terest in Brazil’s continuing democratic and market- oriented success, which improves its will and capacity to help address pressing global problems. We are in a rapidly changing period of international relations, in which a high premium is put on skilled and effective diplomacy in order to provide a measure of management to situa- tions that could spin out of control. We are still haunted by nuclear weapons. In these circumstances, Brazil plays an important role. It is in the U.S. interest to find as many ways as possible not only to cooperate with Brazil, but also to engage with Brasilia as a regional and global partner in the maintenance of peace and prosperity. A prerequisite for improved mutual engagement will be changes in perspective on both sides. Mutually benefi- cial engagement requires the United States to welcome Brazil’s emergence as a global power. Brazil is more than a tropical China35; it is culturally and politically close to the United States and Europe. Brazil, in turn, needs to realize that the United States accepts its rise. Brazil also needs to recognize that the United States still matters greatly to Brasilia and that more can be achieved work- ing with Washington than against it. The United States and Brazil have vast overlapping in- terests, but a formal strategic partnership is probably out of the question for both countries. In the United States, Brazil must compete for policy attention with China, India, Rus- sia, Japan, Mexico, and several European countries. It poses no security threat to the United States. Moreover, despite Brazil’s importance in multilateral organizations, particu- larly the UN, Brazil can be of limited practical assistance at best to the United States in its two current wars. Brazil’s interests, in turn, may be fairly said to include the need to distinguish itself from the United States. Diplomatically, this means neither country can expect automatic agreement from the other. Interests differ and it may be politically nec- essary to highlight differences even when interests are simi- lar. But both countries should make every effort to develop a habit of “permanent consultation” in an effort to coordinate policies, work pragmatically together where interests are common, and reduce surprises even while recognizing that specific interests and policies often may differ. A first operational step, therefore, is for both countries to hold regular policy-level consultations, increase exchanges of information, and coordinate carefully on multilateral matters. This is much easier said than done. The list of global issues on which Brazil is becoming a major player includes conflict resolution, all aspects of energy, including nuclear matters, all types of trade, the environment, space, and the development of internation- al law, including law of the seas and nonproliferation. To share information and ensure effective consultation on so many functional issues will require finding ways to lessen the geographic stovepiping natural to bureaucracy. The U.S. Department of State, for example, has historically organized itself into geographical bureaus responsible for relations with countries in particular regions, leaving functional issues to offices organized globally. This orga- nization hampers the exchange of information and con- sultation with countries such as Brazil, whose reach and policies go beyond their particular geographic region. One result is that multilateral affairs are still often an isolated afterthought in the U.S. Government. Are there things the United States and Brazil could do, whether bi- laterally or in the World Trade Organization, that would offset some of the negative effects of the China trade on manufacturing in both their countries?36 Just posing the question reveals the complexity of the task. Strong US-Brazil relations solve every major global problem. Cooperation between the United States and Brazil holds too much promise for miscommunication or inevitable disagreements to stand in the way of potential gains. A strengthened U.S.-Brazil relationship could be the basis for economic growth in Brazil, the United States, and globally, as well as for lasting peace and democratic stability in the region, nuclear nonproliferation, international progress on combating climate change, development of a global renewable energy market, global food security, and more legitimate and effective international institutions. Presidents Obama and Rousseff have laid the groundwork for progress on many of these fronts. The moment to build on this positive foundation is now. 4. f/w (Paper) CASE On the first day of his trip to Mexico and Costa Rica, President Obama was in Mexico City for meetings and a joint press conference with President Peña Nieto. The two leaders, who first met in Washington, DC last November, discussed the broad range of issues that bind our nations and affect the daily lives of citizens in both countries, and renewed their commitment to a strong relationship between the United States and Mexico. While working together to confront urgent challenges like security, “we can’t lose sight of the larger relationship between our peoples, including the promise of Mexico’s economic progress,” President Obama said. “I believe we’ve got a historic opportunity to foster even more cooperation, more trade, more jobs on both sides of the border, and that’s the focus of my visit.” The United States and Mexico have one of the largest economic relationships in the world. Our annual trade has now surpassed $500 billion -- more than $1 billion every day. We are your largest customer, buying the vast majority of Mexican exports. Mexico is the second largest market for U.S. exports. So every day, our companies and our workers -— with their integrated supply chains —- are building products together. And this is the strong foundation that we can build on. Status quo solves – recent Obama and Nieto meeting solidified green energy cooperation In terms of renewable energy, the U.S. president pledged to secure an energy future including the need to develop clean energy to fight against climate change. The responsible use of natural resources that each country possess is a must, he said, in order to secure the sustainable development of any country and population. Climate change has impacted various ecosystems, climate patterns, and represents a challenge that humans will have to eventually face. By promoting investment to reduce carbon emissions through clean and renewable energy, natural resources will be preserved and climate change can be significantly slowed. The United States, being one of the biggest producer of greenhouse gasses in the world has made historic commitments to promote the use of renewable energy. Similarly, Mexico is a leader in cutting carbon emission and encourages other developed countries to follow these actions. “Together, let’s keep building new clean energy partnerships by harnessing wind and solar and the good jobs that come with them. Let’s keep investing in green buildings and smart grid technologies so we’re making our planet cleaner and safer for future generations,” said Obama. The meeting between Obama and Peña Nieto ended with very positive propositions from both sides, encouraging the commitment of both countries to cooperate in the most important issues that both countries face and ensuring the welfare of future generations. Empirically denied – Worse oil shocks happened in the 1970s. Plus real oil prices rose over 100 percent from 2002 to 2006 because of Iraq and nothing happened. What is the impact of oil price shocks on the economies of importing nations? At first glance, there appears to be large-scale and extremely adverse repercussions for rising oil prices. However, a study published this month by researchers in the IMF Working Paper group suggests a different picture altogether (it is worth mentioning that the IMF has not endorsed its findings.) The study (Tobias N. Rasmussen and Agustin Roitman, "Oil Shocks in a Global Perspective: Are They Really That Bad?", IMF Working Paper, August 2011) mentions that “Using a comprehensive global dataset … we find that the impact of higher oil prices on oil-importing economies is generally small: a 25 percent increase in oil prices typically causes GDP to fall by about half of one percent or less.” The study elaborates on this by stating that this impact differs from one country to another, depending on the size of oil-imports, as “oil price shocks are not always costly for oil-importing countries: although higher oil prices increase the import bill, there are partly offsetting increases in external receipts represented in new and additional expenditures borne by both oil-exporting and oil-importing countries”. In other words, the more oil prices increase, benefiting exporting countries, the more these new revenues are recycled, for example through the growth in demand for new services, labor, and commodity imports. The researchers argue that the series of oil price rallies (in 1983, 1996, 2005, and 2009) have played an important role in recessions in the United States. However, Rasmussen and Roitman state at the same time that significant changes in the U.S. economy in the previous period (the appearance of combined elements, such as improvements in monetary policy, the institution of a labor market more flexible than before and a relatively smaller usage of oil in the U.S. economy) has greatly mitigated the negative effects of oil prices on the U.S. economy. A 10 percent rise in oil prices before 1984, for instance, used to lower the U.S. GDP by about 0.7 percent over two to three years, while this figure started shrinking to no more than 0.25 percent after 1984, owing to these accumulated economic changes. This means that while oil price shocks continue to adversely impact the U.S. economy, the latter has managed, as a result of the changes that transpired following the first shock in the seventies, to overcome these shocks, and subsequently, the impact of oil price shocks has become extremely limited compared to previous periods. The world has enormous spare capacity – Reserves minimize disruption. While oil prices have declined somewhat of late, the volatility of the market and the political and religious unrest in major oil-producing countries has Americans worrying more than ever about energy security. But they have little to fear — contrary to common understanding, there are robust stockpiles of oil around the globe that could see us through any foreseeable calamities on the world market. True, trouble for the world’s energy supplies could come from many directions. Hurricanes and other natural disasters could suddenly disrupt oil production or transportation. Iran loudly and regularly proclaims that it can block oil exports from the Persian Gulf. The anti-American rhetoric of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela raises fears of an export cutoff there. And ongoing civil unrest wreaks havoc with Nigeria’s output. GHOLZ AND PRESS CONTINUE – PARAGRAPH LATER But such fears rest on a misunderstanding. The world actually has enormous spare oil capacity. It has simply moved. In the past, major oil producers like Saudi Arabia controlled it. But for years the world’s major consumers have bought extra oil to fill their emergency petroleum reserves. Moreover, whereas the world’s reserve supply once sat in relatively inaccessible pools, much of it now sits in easily accessible salt caverns and storage tanks. And consumers control the spigots. During a supply disruption, Americans would no longer have to rely on the good will of foreign governments. The United States alone has just more than 700 million barrels of crude oil in its Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Government stockpiles in Europe add nearly another 200 million barrels of crude and more than 200 million barrels of refined products. In Asia, American allies hold another 400 million barrels. And China is creating a reserve that should reach more than 100 million barrels by 2010. GHOLZ AND PRESS CONTINUE – PARAGRAPH LATER Some policy makers and analysts worry that these emergency stocks are too small. For example, they sometimes compare the American strategic reserve to total American consumption, so the reserves appear dangerously inadequate. The United States consumes about 20 million barrels of oil every day, so the Strategic Petroleum Reserve could only supply the country for 35 days. (Furthermore, the United States could not draw oil out of the reserve at anything approaching a rate of 20 million barrels per day.) This is why President Bush in his 2007 State of the Union address called for doubling the strategic reserve. But this vulnerability is a mirage. The size of plausible disruptions, not total consumption, determines the adequacy of global reserves. The worst oil disruptions in history deprived global markets of five million to six million barrels per day. Specifically, the collapse of the Iranian oil industry during the revolution in 1978 cut production by nearly five million barrels a day, and the sanctions on Iraq after its conquest of Kuwait in 1990 eliminated 5.3 million barrels of supply. If a future disruption were as bad as history’s worst, American and allied governments’ crude oil stocks alone could replace every lost barrel for eight months. Current fears about energy security focus on Iran. For example, Tehran could sharply cut its oil exports to drive up global prices. Of course, this would be the economic equivalent of suicide terrorism: oil exports provide more than 80 percent of Iranian government revenues, and a major cutback would wreck Iran’s economy. It would also be futile because the industrialized world could easily replace Iranian oil. Iran only exports 2.5 million barrels each day. A coordinated release of reserve crude by the United States and its European and Asian allies could replace missing Iranian barrels for a year and a half. Iran is vulnerable; the West is not. GHOLZ AND PRESS CONTINUE – 4 PARAGRAPHS LATER Make no mistake, any major disruption — from a war, a terrorist attack or a natural disaster — would make prices jump until markets realized that the pipes feeding crude into refineries were not going to run dry. But recognizing the great capacity of global reserves to weather disruptions will go a long way to minimizing panic. The rationalist theory of war suggests that ‘war is costly and risky, so rational states should have incentives to locate negotiated settlements that all would prefer to the gamble of war’ (Fearon, 1995). However, states are not always able to find negotiated settlements, and inter-state war does occur, often because states are uncertain about the private information of other states, such as resolve and capabilities, which can lead to miscalculation, escalation and conflict. Costly signalling, including through the use of economic costly signals as described above, is a means of overcoming uncertainty. However, economic costly signalling theorists have not described under what conditions economic costly signals are useful for settling disputes short of the use of force. For example, how useful is signalling among divergent types of political systems (autocratic and democratic), economic systems (capitalist and socialist) and dependency levels (asymmetric and co-dependent)? Each of these conditions are worthy of further study. This section considers the impact of economic crises on the practicality of ECST. I propose that economic crises have a dichotomous effect on the utility of economic costly signals. On the one hand, crises decrease the willingness of states to undertake economic costly signals because they are relatively more costly during crises. On the other hand, the very fact that they are more costly should increase the efficacy of such signals should they be used. However, the potential for states to ‘underbalance’ against foreign threats, including by declining to send economic costly signals, also increases as a result of economic crises. This tendency undermines the practical utility of ECST during and following economic crises. As economic growth becomes scarce, its value increases to states and their societies. Negative economic shocks, therefore, increase the costs of economic costly signals, because those signals further undercut the prospects for economic growth at a time when it is scarce. A corollary of this argument would be that a state that enjoys strong economic stability can accept economic (trade and financial) costs vis-a` -vis a potential adversary with less relative repercussion than an economically weakened state. At times of general economic growth, accepting some economic costs for the sake of national security is a more palatable policy adjustment than during times of economic weakness. Along with increasing economic (monetary) costs, the political costs of economic costly signals also increase as a result of economic crises. Economic stability is a key public good for which leaders of states, particularly in open societies, are held responsible. Given that leaders desire to retain power, and given that leaders consider their political survivability when crafting foreign policies (Bueno deMesquita, Smith, Siverson, and Morrow,2003), leaders are thus unlikely voluntarily to undermine economic recovery during and following economic crises. In other words, domestic political interests in economic growth are relatively stronger during an economic crisis, leading to a greater probability that a political leader would be punished by an electorate or selectorate for undermining foreign trade and financial linkages that promote economic growth.6 This problem of increased cost sought to be particularly acute for states that increase their role in the economy as a mechanism of supporting Economic recovery from a crisis. That is, governments have a strong interest in immediate stabilization of the domestic economy during a crisis. They may undertake interventionist policies such as economic stimulus packages, bailouts for vulnerable industries or even nationalization of companies that are particularly important for the country’s overall economic health. As a result, the involvement of the state in commerce, trade and financial flows tends to increase during economic crises as it takes a more activist role In directing the economy’s recovery. In the most recent economic crisis of 2007–2009, French President Nicholas Sarkozy went so far to announce that ‘laissez-faire is dead’, an emotive claim that can be attributed to political posturing rather than historical clairvoyance. Nevertheless, it does poignantly convey how an economic crisis can draw governments into new levels of engagement and commitment in the private sector. The increasing government role in the economy can lead to a blending of national and private sector interests: governments want to protect their investments. The problem for economic signaling is that states begin to act on this new set of interests in their foreign policies. The government is incentivized to ensure public funds are not lost, reducing its willingness to allow the very industries it has propped up to suffer for the sake of foreign policy posturing. The result is a further internal constraining of a state’s capacity to undertake economic costly signals. The link between changes in the amount of a government’s intervention in its domestic economy and changes in its foreign policy is an area worthy for further study in the economic-security literature. Yet another perspective of how economic crises increase the costs of signalling can be observed among the broader international audience. Where many states depend on a single system for their economic well-being, the costs of any one state signalling within that system impact the many. In periods of economic health, a costly move by one state would likely have little impact on the integrity of the system. However, during an economic crisis when the entire system is under duress, adverse economic moves by those relatively important to the functioning of the entire system could be interpreted by third-party states as undermining their own economic well-being. This external constraint is thus manifested as diplomatic audience costs. Indeed, one could posit that the aggregate level of importance of an interdependent dyad to crisis recovery would be inversely related to their willingness to take punitive economic measures. Pressure by third-party states on the dyad to support the integrity of the system through continued integration would be at a maximum during a period of economic crisis. Although states may be less inclined to undertake economic costly signals, the simple fact that they are so costly during an economic crisis should indicate that, if undertaken, the signal itself will be more credible and thus more effective. A receiving (targeted) state that recognises the severity of the cost assumed by the sending state ought to be more convinced of the genuine nature of the signal. The efficacy of the signal is made stronger by the elevated cost. One can therefore come to the conclusion that economic crises strengthen the conditions for economic costly signals to be successful. There is, however, another trend at play. Economic crises tend to fragment regimes and divide polities. A decrease in cohesion at the political leadership level and at the electorate level reduces the ability of the state to coalesce a sufficiently strong political base required to undertake costly balancing measures such as economic costly signals. Schweller (2006) builds on earlier studies (see, e.g., Christensen, 1996; Snyder, 2000) that link political fragmentation with decisions not to balance against rising threats or to balance only in minimal and ineffective ways to demonstrate a tendency for states to ‘underbalance’. Where political and social cohesion is strong, states are more likely to balance against rising threats in effective and costly ways. However, ‘unstable and fragmented regimes that rule over divided polities will be significantly constrained in their ability to adapt to systemic incentives; they will be least likely to enact bold and costly policies even when their nation’s survival is at stake and they are needed most’ (Schweller, 2006, p. 130). Papayoanou (1997) observes this tendency in British, French and American behavior towards Germany in the1930s.The Great Depression led states to become inward-looking, prioritizing domestic economic interests above external national security threats. The inherent weakness in the disparate political outlooks that coincided with the economic crisis hindered their ability to balance effectively against Germany .Indeed, in the case of Great Britain, Papayoanou indicates that even though the political elite wanted to break Britain’s strong economicties with Germany for fear of ‘sleeping with the enemy’, a weak political base and relatively stronger interests in domestic economic growth bound the hands of the British government. Great Britain thus elected not to undertake economic costly signals despite the presence of a clear and growing threat. Papayoanou (1997, pp.114–115) concludes that when ‘status quo powers have strong economic links with threatening powers, weaker balancing postures and conciliatory policies by status quo powers, and aggression by aspiring revisionist powers, are more likely’. Under balancing (In this case, by not sending economic costly signals) during economic crisis’s consistent with a growing body of literature on the influence of domestic ‘veto players’ on the decision to use force. Veto players are those vested interests within an electorate or selectorate that have the authority to resist change in status quo policies. The tendency to under- balance is disproportionately strong in states with large numbers of veto players, a situation more prevalent in democracies than autocracies. Where relatively higher numbers of veto players exist within a polity, the opportunity to change status quo economic and trade policies, for example, through costly signaling, decreases (Tsebelis,2002; Mansfield, Milner, and Pevehouse, 2008; St. Marie, Hansen, and Tuman, 2006; MacIntyre, 2001; Walsh, 2007). In summary, I hypothesize that the occurrence of an economic crisis increases the cost associated with ECST and thus decreases the willingness of states to send economic costly signals. Although the fact that increased costs should make the signal more effective, scholarship on under balancing theory and veto player theory provide rationale for why economic crises may inhibit the use of economic costly signals, even in the face of a direct threat.7 The logic of ECST supports arguments for greater economic interdependence to reduce the likelihood of conflict. This chapter does not argue against the utility of signaling theory. It does, however, suggest that when considering the occurrence of and conditions created by economic crisis, ECST logic is dubious as an organizing principle for security policymakers. The discussion pulls together some distinct areas of research that have no yet featured prominently in the ECST literature. Studies associating economic interdependence, economic crises and the potential for external conflict indicate that global interdependence is not necessarily a conflict-suppressing process and may be conflict enhancing at certain points. Furthermore, the conditions created by economic crisis decrease the willingness of states to send economic costly signals, even though such signals may be most effective during an economic crisis. These two points warrant further consideration in the debate over ECST and, more broadly, theories linking interdependence and peace. The debate takes on particular importance for policymakers when considering the increasingly important US-China relationship and the long-term prospects for peace in the Asia-Pacific. Recent US policy towards China, such as the ‘responsible stakeholder’ approach, assumes that greater interdependence with China should decrease the likelihood for conflict. Some have even suggested that the economic relationship is necessary to ensure strategic competition does not lead to major war (see e.g., Kastner, 2006). If US or Chinese policymakers do indeed intend to rely on economic interdependence to reduce the likelihood of conflict, much more study is required to understand how and when interdependence impacts the security and the defense behavior of states. This chapter contributes some thoughts to that larger debate. "Latin America is violent and dangerous." Yes, but not unstable. Latin American countries have among the world's highest rates of crime, murder, and kidnapping. Pockets of abnormal levels of violence have emerged in countries such as Colombia -- and more recently, in Mexico, Central America, and some large cities such as Caracas. With 140,000 homicides in 2010, it is understandable how Latin America got this reputation. Each of the countries in Central America's "Northern Triangle" (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) had more murders in 2010 than the entire European Union combined. Violence in Latin America is strongly related to poverty and inequality. When combined with the insatiable international appetite for the illegal drugs produced in the region, it's a noxious brew. As strongly argued by a number of prominent regional leaders -- including Brazil's former president, Fernando H. Cardoso, and Colombia's former president, Cesar Gaviria -- a strategy based on demand reduction, rather than supply, is the only way to reduce crime in Latin America. Although some fear the Mexican drug violence could spill over into the southern United States, Latin America poses little to no threat to international peace or stability. The major global security concerns today are the proliferation of nuclear weapons and terrorism. No country in the region is in possession of nuclear weapons -- nor has expressed an interest in having them. Latin American countries, on the whole, do not have much history of engaging in cross-border wars. Despite the recent tensions on the Venezuela-Colombia border, it should be pointed out that Venezuela has never taken part in an international armed conflict. Ethnic and religious conflicts are very uncommon in Latin America. Although the region has not been immune to radical jihadist attacks -- the 1994 attack on a Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, for instance -- they have been rare. Terrorist attacks on the civilian population have been limited to a large extent to the FARC organization in Colombia, a tactic which contributed in large part to the organization's loss of popular support. The Ecocasa Program’s most important impact is a development impact: It will enable low-income households to either make savings in their energy bills, or improve their living conditions (by improving the comfort of their homes): ? In the case of households that lack air conditioning or heating devices (even in the hot regions of the country the majority of low-income households lack air conditioning), the benefits of the program will be in terms of improved comfort. Living in an uncomfortable home is one of the symptoms of energy poverty, and improving comfort is one way of combatting poverty. Since women use to spend more time than men at home, they will benefit more from the improvement in comfort. ? In the case of households that own air conditioning or heating devices, the program will lead to savings in their energy bills. The program will also have development impacts on the national economy, namely: increased energy security, and reduced expenditure in energy subsidies. It should be stressed that, since climate change models foresee an increase in temperatures in the hot areas of Mexico, the construction of low-carbon housing contributes to increasing the resilience vis-à-vis climate change. This project contributes therefore to both climate change mitigation and adaptation. Renewable energy might reduce air pollution (although no actual evidence of this exists). It will certainly create a few construction jobs. And you can bet that government mandates and subsidies for renewable energy will benefit renewable energy developers. But when the entire economic ledger is tallied, the net impact of renewable energy subsidies will be reduced economic growth and fewer jobs overall. In effect, “green” energy mandates like those of California and New Jersey are a new version of “Gresham’s Law,” in which subsidized renewable resources will drive out competitive generators, lead to higher electric prices, and reduce economic growth. One of the most egregious examples of the green energy fallacy is the proposed Cape Wind project, which is to be built off the coast of Nantucket Island. Cape Wind, which is ardently supported by Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick and state attorney general Martha Coakley, is expensive — more expensive, in fact, than onshore wind resources, which themselves require Jonathan A. Lesser is founder and president of Continental Economics Inc. government subsidies. Even Cape Wind’s proponents admit to this. So, to sidestep the high-cost problem, Cape Wind’s advocates have cobbled together all manner of arguments to justify its development, most notably how it will spur a new offshore wind industry in Massachusetts. Several economic fallacies underlie green energy and green jobs policies. For example, some renewable energy proponents and green jobs advocates fundamentally misrepresent wealth transfers as wealth benefits. Stealing money from Peter and giving it to Paul may benefit Paul, but it hardly creates wealth. Moreover, a number of “green jobs” studies have touted renewables development as a source of unbridled economic growth. These studies all contain one striking omission: they ignore the adverse economic effects of the resulting higher electricity prices that high-cost renewable generation brings. They are cost-benefit analyses that ignore the “cost” part. No wonder the results are so encouraging. Bane suggests that policymakers should consider changing their language. Instead of “helping the poor,” they should focus on “helping people who can’t take care of themselves,” “aiding struggling working families,” and “guaranteeing food and shelter.” She also suggests that American policy analysts 26 should pay more attention to the high poverty rates in developing countries, both because globalization has increased linkages between countries and because immigration to the United States would be likely to fall as living standards increase in sending countries, such as Mexico. Reducing energy poverty in Mexico is insufficient to solve energy poverty – 1.2 billion people will still lack access and the aff doesn’t do enough to solve this So how are we doing then? Well, according to the report, 1.2 billion people still don't have access to electricity. That's almost the population of India. A whopping 2.8 billion people still have to use wood to cook and heat their homes, and of this, every year 3.5 million women and children die from respiratory illness directly related to inhaling the wood and biomass fumes. This is more than twice as high as deaths due to malaria (1.2 million) and even HIV/AIDS (1.5 million). So you can say that energy poverty is a gigantic problem.¶ A seemingly encouraging statistic shows that 1.7 billion people did gain access to electricity between 1990 to 2010, however, factoring in population growth of 1.6 billion during that time and the numbers don't look so good. In fact, the pace of electricity expansion needs to double to meet the 100 energy access target by 2030. And to put that into perspective of just how much energy we in the developed world use, bringing electricity to that 1.2 billion people using conventional energy sources would only increase global carbon dioxide emissions by less than one percent.¶ What about the largest polluters, China and India? Both countries have achieved a lot, but they still face huge challenges. India has moved faster than any other country in the world to deliver electricity to people, extending its grid to reach over 24 million more people each year since 1990. China has been the best in the world at achieving energy efficiency, with energy savings that add up over the past 20 years to an amount equal to the amount of energy the nation used over the same time frame. To date, there are still 306.2 million people in India without electricity and 705 million still relying on wood and biomass cooking fuels. In china the number is at 621.8 million. Both countries have come a long way, hopefully they will keep at it.¶ The report recommends that a broad range of initiatives be used to fight energy poverty and boost clean energy development, including government actions to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, establishing a carbon floor price. It also claims that achieving the massive funding necessary to achieve these goals will not be possible without "substantial investment" from the private sector. And as for the public, we too can do our part, by supporting non-profits that aim to end energy poverty and engaging with our politicians and asking them to put energy poverty at the top of their agendas. The energy poverty issue is one that is larger than most of us realize, but is one that is so fundamental to human development. Providing access to clean fuel and electricity is the foundation that enables improvements and developments in health, education and business and provides the key to leaving poverty behind. Renewables | 10/6/13 |
1NC Round 5 Young LawyersTournament: Young Lawyers | Round: 5 | Opponent: Juan Diego DZ | Judge: Irvin something I have a terrible memory Economic engagement – a policy of deliberately expanding economic ties with an adversary in order to change the behavior of the target state and improve bilateral political relations – is a subject of growing interest in international relations. Violation: The aff engages with private groups or non-governmental organizations in Cuba, Mexico, or Venezuela, not the target country’s government. C. Vote Negative:
Three most significant and pressing factors contributing to the environmental crisis are the ever increasing human population, the energy crisis, and the abuse and pollution of the earth’s natural systems. These and other factors contributing to the environmental crisis can be directly linked to anthropocentric views of the world. The perception that value is located in, and emanates from, humanity has resulted in understanding human life as an ultimate value, superior to all other beings. This has driven innovators in medicine and technology to ever improve our medical and material conditions, in an attempt to preserve human life, resulting in more people being born and living longer. In achieving this aim, they have indirectly contributed to increasing the human population. Perceptions of superiority, coupled with developing technologies have resulted in a social outlook that generally does not rest content with the basic necessities of life. Demands for more medical and social aid, more entertainment and more comfort translate into demands for improved standards of living. Increasing population numbers, together with the material demands of modern society, place ever increasing demands on energy supplies. While wanting a better life is not a bad thing, given the population explosion the current energy crisis is inevitable, which brings a whole host of environmental implications in tow. This is not to say that every improvement in the standard of living is necessarily wasteful of energy or polluting to the planet, but rather it is the cumulative effect of these improvements that is damaging to the environment. The abuses facing the natural environment as a result of the energy crisis and the food demand are clearly manifestations of anthropocentric views that treat the environment as a resource and instrument for human ends. The pollution and destruction of the non-human natural world is deemed acceptable, provided that it does not interfere with other human beings. It could be argued that there is nothing essentially wrong with anthropocentric assumptions, since it is natural, even instinctual, to favour one’s self and species over and above all other forms of life. However, it is problematic in that such perceptions influence our actions and dealings with the world to the extent that the well-being of life on this planet is threatened, making the continuance of a huge proportion of existing life forms "tenuous if not improbable" (Elliot 1995: 1). Denying the non-human world ethical consideration, it is evident that anthropocentric assumptions provide a rationale for the exploitation of the natural world and, therefore, have been largely responsible for the present environmental crisis (Des Jardins 1997: 93). Fox identifies three broad approaches to the environment informed by anthropocentric assumptions, which in reality are not distinct and separate, but occur in a variety of combinations. The "expansionist" approach is characterised by the recognition that nature has a purely instrumental value to humans. This value is accessed through the physical transformation of the non-human natural world, by farming, mining, damming etc. Such practices create an economic value, which tends to "equate the physical transformation of ‘resources’ with economic growth" (Fox 1990: 152). Legitimising continuous expansion and exploitation, this approach relies on the idea that there is an unending supply of resources. The "conservationist" approach, like the first, recognises the economic value of natural resources through their physical transformation, while at the same time accepting the fact that there are limits to these resources. It therefore emphasises the importance of conserving natural resources, while prioritising the importance of developing the non-human natural world in the quest for financial gain. The "preservationist" approach differs from the first two in that it recognises the enjoyment and aesthetic enrichment human beings receive from an undisturbed natural world. Focusing on the psychical nourishment value of the non-human natural world for humans, this approach stresses the importance of preserving resources in their natural states. All three approaches are informed by anthropocentric assumptions. This results in a one-sided understanding of the human-nature relationship. Nature is understood to have a singular role of serving humanity, while humanity is understood to have no obligations toward nature. Such a perception represents "not only a deluded but also a very dangerous orientation to the world" (Fox 1990: 13), as only the lives of human beings are recognised to have direct moral worth, while the moral consideration of non-human entities is entirely contingent upon the interests of human beings (Pierce and Van De Veer 1995: 9). Humanity is favoured as inherently valuable, while the non-human natural world counts only in terms of its use value to human beings. The "expansionist" and "conservationist" approaches recognise an economic value, while the "preservationist" approach recognises a hedonistic, aesthetic or spiritual value. They accept, without challenge, the assumption that the value of the non-human natural world is entirely dependent on human needs and interests. None attempt to move beyond the assumption that nature has any worth other than the value humans can derive from it, let alone search for a deeper value in nature. This ensures that human duties retain a purely human focus, thereby avoiding the possibility that humans may have duties that extend to non-humans. This can lead to viewing the non-human world, devoid of direct moral consideration, as a mere resource with a purely instrumental value of servitude. This gives rise to a principle of ‘total use’, whereby every natural area is seen for its potential cultivation value, to be used for human ends (Zimmerman 1998: 19). This provides limited means to criticise the behaviour of those who use nature purely as a warehouse of resources (Pierce and Van De Veer 1995: 184). It is clear that humanity has the capacity to transform and degrade the environment. Given the consequences inherent in having such capacities, "the need for a coherent, comprehensive, rationally persuasive environmental ethic is imperative" (Pierce and Van De Veer 1995: 2). The purpose of an environmental ethic would be to account for the moral relations that exist between humans and the environment, and to provide a rational basis from which to decide how we ought and ought not to treat the environment. The environment was defined as the world in which we are enveloped and immersed, constituted by both animate and inanimate objects. This includes both individual living creatures, such as plants and animals, as well as non-living, non-individual entities, such as rivers and oceans, forests and velds, essentially, the whole planet Earth. This constitutes a vast and all-inclusive sphere, and, for purposes of clarity, shall be referred to as the "greater environment". In order to account for the moral relations that exist between humans and the greater environment, an environmental ethic should have a significantly wide range of focus. I argue that anthropocentric value systems are not suitable to the task of developing a comprehensive environmental ethic. Firstly, anthropocentric assumptions have been shown to be largely responsible for the current environmental crisis. While this in itself does not provide strong support for the claim, it does cast a dim light on any theory that is informed by such assumptions. Secondly, an environmental ethic requires a significantly wide range of focus. As such, it should consider the interests of a wide range of beings. It has been shown that anthropocentric approaches do not entertain the notion that non-human entities can have interests independent of human interests. "Expansionist", "conservationist" and "preservationist" approaches only acknowledge a value in nature that is determined by the needs and interests of humans. Thirdly, because anthropocentric approaches provide a moral account for the interests of humans alone, while excluding non-humans from direct moral consideration, they are not sufficiently encompassing. An environmental ethic needs to be suitably encompassing to ensure that a moral account is provided for all entities that constitute the environment. It could be argued that the indirect moral concern for the environment arising out of an anthropocentric approach is sufficient to ensure the protection of the greater environment. In response, only those entities that are in the interest of humans will be morally considered, albeit indirectly, while those entities which fall outside of this realm will be seen to be morally irrelevant. Assuming that there are more entities on this planet that are not in the interest of humans than entities that are, it is safe to say that anthropocentric approaches are not adequately encompassing. Fourthly, the goals of an environmental ethic should protect and maintain the greater environment. It is clear that the expansionist approach, which is primarily concerned with the transformation of nature for economic return, does not meet these goals. Similarly, neither does the conservationist approach, which is arguably the same as the expansionist approach. The preservationist approach does, in principle satisfy this requirement. However, this is problematic for such preservation is based upon the needs and interests of humans, and "as human interests and needs change, so too would human uses for the environment" (Des Jardins 1997: 129). Non-human entities, held captive by the needs and interests of humans, are open to whatever fancies the interests of humans. In light of the above, it is my contention that anthropocentric value systems fail to provide a stable ground for the development of an environmental ethic. Anthropocentric ideologies cause ecocide- the alternative is the only unique try or die scenario. Here I will at least begin in agreement with Levinas. As he rejects an ethics proceeding on the basis of self-interest, so I believe the anthropocentric perspectives of conservation or liberal environmentalism cannot take us far enough. Our relations with nonhuman nature are poisoned and not just because we have set up feedback loops that already lead to mass starvations, skyrocketing environmental disease rates, and devastation of natural resources.¶ The problem with ecocide is not just that it hurts human beings. Our uncaring violence also violates the very ground of our being, our natural body, our home. Such violence is done not simply to the other -- as if the rainforest, the river, the atmosphere, the species made extinct are totally different from ourselves. Rather, we have crucified ourselves-in-relation-to-the-other, fracturing a mode of being in which self and other can no more be conceived as fully in isolation from each other than can a mother and a nursing child.¶ We are that child, and nonhuman nature is that mother. If this image seems too maudlin, let us remember that other lactating women can feed an infant, but we have only one earth mother.¶ What moral stance will be shaped by our personal sense that we are poisoning ourselves, our environment, and so many kindred spirits of the air, water, and forests?¶ To begin, we may see this tragic situation as setting the limits to Levinas's perspective. The other which is nonhuman nature is not simply known by a "trace," nor is it something of which all knowledge is necessarily instrumental. This other is inside us as well as outside us. We prove it with every breath we take, every bit of food we eat, every glass of water we drink. We do not have to find shadowy traces on or in the faces of trees or lakes, topsoil or air: we are made from them.¶ Levinas denies this sense of connection with nature. Our "natural" side represents for him a threat of simple consumption or use of the other, a spontaneous response which must be obliterated by the power of ethics in general (and, for him in particular, Jewish religious law(23) ). A "natural" response lacks discipline; without the capacity to heed the call of the other, unable to sublate the self's egoism. Worship of nature would ultimately result in an "everything-is-permitted" mentality, a close relative of Nazism itself. For Levinas, to think of people as "natural" beings is to assimilate them to a totality, a category or species which makes no room for the kind of individuality required by ethics.(24) He refers to the "elemental" or the "there is" as unmanaged, unaltered, "natural" conditions or forces that are essentially alien to the categories and conditions of moral life.(25)¶ One can only lament that Levinas has read nature -- as to some extent (despite his intentions) he has read selfhood -- through the lens of masculine culture. It is precisely our sense of belonging to nature as system, as interaction, as interdependence, which can provide the basis for an ethics appropriate to the trauma of ecocide. As cultural feminism sought to expand our sense of personal identity to a sense of inter-identification with the human other, so this ecological ethics would expand our personal and species sense of identity into an inter-identification with the natural world.¶ Such a realization can lead us to an ethics appropriate to our time, a dimension of which has come to be known as "deep ecology."(26) For this ethics, we do not begin from the uniqueness of our human selfhood, existing against a taken-for-granted background of earth and sky. Nor is our body somehow irrelevant to ethical relations, with knowledge of it reduced always to tactics of domination. Our knowledge does not assimilate the other to the same, but reveals and furthers the continuing dance of interdependence. And our ethical motivation is neither rationalist system nor individualistic self-interest, but a sense of connection to all of life.¶ The deep ecology sense of self-realization goes beyond the modern Western sense of "self" as an isolated ego striving for hedonistic gratification. . . . . Self, in this sense, is experienced as integrated with the whole of nature.(27)¶ Having gained distance and sophistication of perception from the development of science and political freedoms we can turn and recognize who we have been all along. . . . we are our world knowing itself. We can relinquish our separateness. We can come home again -- and participate in our world in a richer, more responsible and poignantly beautiful way.(28)¶ Ecological ways of knowing nature are necessarily participatory. This knowledge is ecological and plural, reflecting both the diversity of natural ecosystems and the diversity in cultures that nature-based living gives rise to.¶ The recovery of the feminine principle is based on inclusiveness. It is a recovery in nature, woman and man of creative forms of being and perceiving. In nature it implies seeing nature as a live organism. In woman it implies seeing women as productive and active. Finally, in men the recovery of the feminine principle implies a relocation of action and activity to create life-enhancing, not life-reducing and life-threatening societies.(29)¶ In this context, the knowing ego is not set against a world it seeks to control, but one of which it is a part. To continue the feminist perspective, the mother knows or seeks to know the child's needs. Does it make sense to think of her answering the call of the child in abstraction from such knowledge? Is such knowledge necessarily domination? Or is it essential to a project of care, respect and love, precisely because the knower has an intimate, emotional connection with the known?(30) Our ecological vision locates us in such close relation with our natural home that knowledge of it is knowledge of ourselves. And this is not, contrary to Levinas's fear, reducing the other to the same, but a celebration of a larger, more inclusive, and still complex and articulated self.(31) The noble and terrible burden of Levinas's individuated responsibility for sheer existence gives way to a different dream, a different prayer:¶ Being rock, being gas, being mist, being Mind,¶ Being the mesons traveling among the galaxies with the speed of light,¶ You have come here, my beloved one. . . . ¶ You have manifested yourself as trees, as grass, as butterflies, as single-celled beings, and as chrysanthemums;¶ but the eyes with which you looked at me this morning tell me you have never died.(32)¶ In this prayer, we are, quite simply, all in it together. And, although this new ecological Holocaust -- this creation of planet Auschwitz -- is under way, it is not yet final. We have time to step back from the brink, to repair our world. But only if we see that world not as an other across an irreducible gap of loneliness and unchosen obligation, but as a part of ourselves as we are part of it, to be redeemed not out of duty, but out of love; neither for our selves nor for the other, but for us all. The alternative is to undergo the thought experiment in order to embrace the global suicide of humanity. The alternative solves the anthropocentric ideology. For some, guided by the pressure of moral conscience or by a ¶ practice of harm minimisation, the appropriate response to historical ¶ and contemporary environmental destruction is that of action guided ¶ by abstention. For example, one way of reacting to mundane, ¶ everyday complicity is the attempt to abstain or opt-out of certain ¶ aspects of modern, industrial society: to no= eat non-human animals, ¶ to invest ethically, to buy organic produce, to not use cars and buses, ¶ to live in an environmentally conscious commune. Ranging from small ¶ personal decisions to the establishment of parallel economies (think of ¶ organic and fair trade products as an attempt to set up a quasi-parallel ¶ economy), a typical modern form of action is that of a refusal to be ¶ complicit in human practices that are violent and destructive. Again, ¶ however, at a practical level, to what extent are such acts of nonparticipation rendered banal by their complicity in other actions? In a ¶ grand register of violence and harm the individual who abstains from ¶ eating non-human animals but still uses the bus or an airplane or ¶ electricity has only opted out of some harm causing practices and ¶ remains fully complicit with others. One response, however, which ¶ bypasses the problem of complicity and the banality of action is to ¶ take the non-participation solution to its most extreme level. In this ¶ instance, the only way to truly be non-complicit in the violence of the ¶ human heritage would be to opt-out altogether. Here, then, the ¶ modern discourse of reflection, responsibility and action runs to its ¶ logical conclusion – the global suicide of humanity – as a free-willed ¶ and ‘final solution’.¶ While we are not interested in the discussion of the ‘method’ of the ¶ global suicide of humanity per se, one method that would be the least ¶ violent is that of humans choosing to no longer reproduce. 10 The ¶ case at point here is that the global suicide of humanity would be a ¶ moral act; it would take humanity out of the equation of life on this ¶ earth and remake the calculation for the benefit of everything nonhuman. While suicide in certain forms of religious thinking is normally ¶ condemned as something which is selfish and inflicts harm upon borderlands 7:3¶ 17¶ loved ones, the global suicide of humanity would be the highest act of ¶ altruism. That is, global suicide would involve the taking of ¶ responsibility for the destructive actions of the human species. By ¶ eradicating ourselves we end the long process of inflicting harm upon ¶ other species and offer a human-free world. If there is a form of divine ¶ intelligence then surely the human act of global suicide will be seen ¶ for what it is: a profound moral gesture aimed at redeeming humanity. ¶ Such an act is an offer of sacrifice to pay for past wrongs that would ¶ usher in a new future. Through the death of our species we will give ¶ the gift of life to others. ¶ It should be noted nonetheless that our proposal for the global suicide ¶ of humanity is based upon the notion that such a radical action needs ¶ to be voluntary and not forced. In this sense, and given the likelihood ¶ of such an action not being agreed upon, it operates as a thought ¶ experiment which may help humans to radically rethink what it means ¶ to participate in modern, moral life within the natural world. In other ¶ words, whether or not the act of global suicide takes place might well ¶ be irrelevant. What is more important is the form of critical reflection ¶ that an individual needs to go through before coming to the conclusion ¶ that the global suicide of humanity is an action that would be ¶ worthwhile. The point then of a thought experiment that considers the ¶ argument for the global suicide of humanity is the attempt to outline ¶ an anti-humanist, or non-human-centric ethics. Such an ethics ¶ attempts to take into account both sides of the human heritage: the ¶ capacity to carry out violence and inflict harm and the capacity to use ¶ moral reflection and creative social organisation to minimise violence ¶ and harm. Through the idea of global suicide such an ethics reintroduces a central question to the heart of moral reflection: To what ¶ extent is the value of the continuation of human life worth the total ¶ harm inflicted upon the life of all others? Regardless of whether an ¶ individual finds the idea of global suicide abhorrent or ridiculous, this ¶ question remains valid and relevant and will not go away, no matter ¶ how hard we try to forget, suppress or repress it. Case Lifting the embargo just sends the signal that we’ll do the same for them—they’ll expect too much which kills our bargaining power which is the only chance to stop their nuclear program The typical argument favouring multilateralism is a simple one, sum- marized by Ramesh Thakur: ‘Because the world is essentially anarchi- cal, it is fundamentally insecure, characterized by strategic uncertainty and complexity because of too many actors with multiple goals and interests and variable capabilities and convictions. Collective action embedded in international institutions that mirror mainly U.S. value preferences and interests enhances predictability, reduces uncertainty, and cuts the transaction costs of intemational action.’" With respect to peacekeeping, for example, Thakur argues that if ‘the UN helps to mute the costs and spread the risks of the terms of intemational engagement to maximise these benefits, the United States will need to instill in others, as well as itself embrace, the principle of multilateralism as a norm in its own right: states must do X because the United Nations has called for X, and good states do what the United Nations asks them to do.’l2 But there are several problems with Thakur's defence of collective action and associated policy recommendations, particularly in relation to multilateral approaches to security in a post-9/11 setting. First, and foremost, state leaders often refuse to do what the UN asks of them, are often more than prepared to have their publics suffer the consequences of whatever sanctions the UN can mount, and are rarely directly affected by the sanctions that are implemented – assuming the permanent members of the Security Council find it in their collective interest to implement a sanctions regime in the first place. The lessons from UN intervention and sanction efforts over the past decade are not at all encouraging in this regard. Second, many state and non-state actors fall outside the institutional constraints imposed on the system through global norms and regimes. As the capacity spreads for smaller and smaller groups to inflict increasingly devastating levels of damage on larger states, international institutions will lose the capacity to force or coerce compliance with international law. Consequently, leaders of major powers, such as the United States, will be compelled to respond to security threats through unilateral initiatives. This compulsion will force other powers to push that much harder to control American impulses by demanding that multilateral consensus remain the sole guarantor of legitimacy. These tensions will be exacerbated by the prevailing perception in the United States that these same multilateral institutions are constraining the power and capacity of the U.S. government to protect American citizens from emerging threats of terrorism and proliferation. Third, the collective-action argument put forward by Thai-cur typically (and erroneously) assumes that most states are governed by a similar set of political priorities, share common concerns about similar combinations of security threats, are stimulated into action (or inaction) by the same set of economic imperatives, are inspired by a common set of interests and overarching values (such as peace, security, stability), and are encouraged by their respective publics to meet their demands for a common set of public goods. But the differences, tensions, and overall level of competition among states in the system are far greater than proponents of multilateralism acknowledge. Some states are more threatened by terrorism and proliferation than others, have more substantial and direct economic interest in particular regions, are less interested in securing peace, and experience pressure from their respective publics to pursue very distinct foreign and security policies. Consequently, there is no guarantee that a collection of states will have the same motivation to change the status quo, or experience the same imperative to address the same security threats with the same level of resolve, commitment, or resources (relative to their size). In sum, multi- lateral organizations are less likely today to act with the same level of urgency to address security threats that Washington considers imperative. The costs of inaction (derived from exclusive reliance on multilateral consensus) are now perceived as being higher than the costs of unilateralism. Although similar threats may have guided collective action through multilateral alliances for much of the cold war, these imperatives were a product of a common Soviet threat. But threats today are many and varied, and few states share the same concerns or face the same obligations to respond. No case more clearly illustrates the growing divisions among former allies than the 2003 Iraq war. Fourth, decreasing transaction costs may be a valid argument in favour of multilateral cooperation in some cases (e. g., to facilitate post- conflict reconstruction, political reforms, democratization, elections run by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, food aid, water distribution, and the provision of medical supplies and facilities), but this is not true for all security challenges. In a post-9/11 environment, the transaction costs that are saved through joint efforts will always be compared with the costs of depending exclusively on collective-action mechanisms that ultimately may fail - multilateralism is not free of costs or risks. For example, one of the many important lessons of the 2003 Iraq war, at least for American officials, is that there are no collective-security guarantees any longer, even from traditional allies. The UN Security Council did not function as a separate entity committed to facilitating and coordinating diplomatic exchanges towards a common good. The UN functions in a highly competitive environment in which traditional power politics plays out. Proponents of multilateralism through the UNSC do not espouse that doctrine in the interest of global security; their efforts are typically designed to use the institution to limit the capacity of the U.S. to act unilaterally to protect American interests. That level of competition, itself driven by competing interpretations of interests, values, and threats, does not lend itself well to the kind of multilateralism its proponents aspire to achieve. Of course, if France shared the same concerns about terrorism, or if leaders in Paris were equally motivated to address the potential for WMD proliferation in and through Iraq, the transaction costs incurred by responding through the UN would be more acceptable. But as threat perceptions continue to diverge, the risks associated with waiting for multilateral consensus are simply too high. The complex nature of contemporary security threats virtually guarantees that similar conflicts will plague multilateral institutions in the future. Even if they send a signal of multilateralism to other countries they do nothing to change US policy away from unilateralism The spread and global importance of internal conflicts in the 1990s, together with the increasing diversity of players in international affairs, has led to a certain multilateralization of conflict prevention efforts. This multilateralization presupposes that international and regional organizations, States and non-State entities would combine their efforts to fight the spread of deadly conflicts, in other words that all parties involved should accept a policy scheme that subscribes to a common vision on conflict resolution. But the diversity of mission mandates, the respective organizational turf, the bureaucratic red tape, national interests and conflicting views on conflict prevention and humanitarian actions set limits to effective multilateral action. Among the various players, the United Nations remains the only institution with global legitimacy for conflict prevention. Yet regional organizations have been gaining importance in security cooperation over the last few years. While this type of cooperation is invaluable, the division of labour between the UN and regional organizations has run into trouble. For example, with regard to the NATO military intervention in Kosovo, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that “conflict prevention, peace-keeping and peacemaking must not become an area of competition between the United Nations and regional organizations”. 9 NGOs and humanitarian organizations play an integral and increasingly important role in conflict prevention, owing to their knowledge of and involvement in potential conflict areas. There is, however, an uneasy relationship between humanitarian organizations and other parties engaged in conflict prevention and peace implementation. In the final analysis, States remain the most important players in today’s international system, and if their national interests are at stake, they may tend to short-cut international organizations in favour of international contact groups or unilateral action. The following section will briefly examine each of these entities and their ability and willingness to engage in multilateral preventive action. These apocalyptic warnings fly in the face of history: no nations have gone to war specifically over water resources for thousands of years. International water disputes—even among fierce enemies—are resolved peacefully, even as conflicts erupt over other issues. In fact, instances of cooperation between riparian nations outnumbered conflicts by more than two to one between 1945 and 1999. Why? Because water is so important, nations cannot afford to fight over it. Instead, water fuels greater interdependence. By coming together to jointly manage their shared water resources, countries can build trust and prevent conflict. Water can be a negotiating tool , too: it can offer a communication lifeline connecting countries in the midst of crisis. Thus, by crying “water wars,” doomsayers ignore a promising way to help prevent war: cooperative water resources management. No Water Wars No Resource wars-not inevitable Resource Wars Is the demise of war reversible? In recent years, the metaphor of a new ‘‘Dark Age’’ or ‘‘Middle Ages’’ has flourished. 57 The rise of political Islam, Western policies in the Middle East, the fast development of emerging countries, population growth, and climate change have led to fears of ‘‘civilization,’’ ‘‘resource,’’ and ‘‘environmental’’ wars. We have heard the New Middle Age theme before. In 1973, Italian writer Roberto Vacca famously suggested that mankind was about to enter an era of famine, nuclear war, and civilizational collapse. U.S. economist Robert Heilbroner made the same suggestion one year later. And in 1977, the great Australian political scientist Hedley Bull also heralded such an age. 58 But the case for ‘‘new wars’’ remains as flimsy as it was in the 1970s. Admittedly, there is a stronger role of religion in civil conflicts. The proportion of internal wars with a religious dimension was about 25 percent between 1940 and 1960, but 43 percent in the first years of the 21st century. 59 This may be an effect of the demise of traditional territorial conflict, but as seen above, this has not increased the number or frequency of wars at the global level. Over the past decade, neither Western governments nor Arab/Muslim countries have fallen into the trap of the clash of civilizations into which Osama bin Laden wanted to plunge them. And ‘‘ancestral hatreds’’ are a reductionist and unsatisfactory approach to explaining collective violence. Professor Yahya Sadowski concluded his analysis of post-Cold War crises and wars, The Myth of Global Chaos, by stating, ‘‘most of the conflicts around the world are not rooted in thousands of years of history they are new and can be concluded as quickly as they started.’’ 60 Future resource wars are unlikely. There are fewer and fewer conquest wars. Between the Westphalia peace and the end of World War II, nearly half of conflicts were fought over territory. Since the end of the Cold War, it has been less than 30 percent. 61 The invasion of Kuwait -- a nationwide bank robbery -- may go down in history as being the last great resource war. The U.S.-led intervention of 1991 was partly driven by the need to maintain the free flow of oil, but not by the temptation to capture it. (Nor was the 2003 war against Iraq motivated by oil.) As for the current tensions between the two Sudans over oil, they are the remnants of a civil war and an offshoot of a botched secession process, not a desire to control new resources. China’s and India’s energy needs are sometimes seen with apprehension: in light of growing oil and gas scarcity, is there not a risk of military clashes over the control of such resources? This seemingly consensual idea rests on two fallacies. One is that there is such a thing as oil and gas scarcity, a notion challenged by many energy experts. 62 As prices rise, previously untapped reserves and non-conventional hydrocarbons become economically attractive. The other is that spilling blood is a rational way to access resources. As shown by the work of historians and political scientists such as Quincy Wright, the economic rationale for war has always been overstated. And because of globalization, it has become cheaper to buy than to steal. We no longer live in the world of 1941, when fear of lacking oil and raw materials was a key motivation for Japan’s decision to go to war. In an era of liberalizing trade, many natural resources are fungible goods. (Here, Beijing behaves as any other actor: 90 percent of the oil its companies produce outside of China goes to the global market, not to the domestic one.) 63 There may be clashes or conflicts in regions in maritime resource-rich areas such as the South China and East China seas or the Mediterranean, but they will be driven by nationalist passions, not the desperate hunger for hydrocarbons. Only in civil wars does the question of resources such as oil, diamonds, minerals, and the like play a significant role; this was especially true as Cold War superpowers stopped their financial patronage of local actors. 64 Indeed, as Mueller puts it in his appropriately titled The Remnants of War, ‘‘Many existing wars have been labeled ‘new war,’ ‘ethnic conflict,’ or, most grandly ‘clashes of civilization.’ But in fact, most. . .are more nearly opportunistic predation by packs, often remarkably small ones, of criminals, bandits, and thugs.’’ 65 It is the abundance of resources, not their scarcity, which fuels such conflicts. The risk is particularly high when the export of natural resources represents at least a third of the country’s GDP. 66 What about fighting for arable land, in light of population growth in Africa and Asia? Even in situations of high population densities, the correlation between the lack of arable lands and propensity to collective violence remains weak. 67 Neo-Malthusians such as Jared Diamond believe that the Rwanda tragedy was driven by such scarcity. 68 But there was no famine in Rwanda at the time. And the events of 1994 were not a revolt of the poor: Hutu landowners were amongst the most active perpetrators of genocide. There was, however, a significant youth bulge: the 15 —24 age group represented 38 percent of the adult population. 69 Land scarcity played a role, but at best as a factor explaining the intensity of the violence in some areas. 70 As per ‘‘climate’’ or ‘‘environmental’’ wars, this author has demonstrated in a previous article in this journal that such notions are not solidly grounded. 71 Suffice it to say there is no evidence that global warming will lead to an increase in the number of conflicts. And if history is any guide, a warmer world may be, all things equal, a more peaceful one. No resource wars -- scarcity doesn’t cause war. Resource wars are highly unlikely and never escalate. Protectionism Other even bigger crises prove resilience | 10/6/13 |
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