Anthro K vs. CTS

BOOOOHOOOOOO ANIMALS HAVE
FEELINGS TOO
BOOOOOOOHOOOOOOO

Notes

If run with Rights Malthus they can combine to make an impact turn strategy in the 2NR with
the environment ethics cards from the rights Malthus file in a pretty sick way

Use the role of the ballot argument as an answer to the perm.

THE CARDS ARE SOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOD

1NCs
1NC
The 1AC operates under a destructive humanist worldview that ensures that
anthropocentrism continues causes extinction
Bell, York University department of education, and Russell, Lakehead University
associate professor, 2k (Anne C. and Constance L., department of education, York
University, Canada, and Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, Beyond Human, Beyond
Words: Anthropocentrism, Critical Pedagogy, and the Poststructuralist Turn, CANADIAN
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 25, 3 (2000):188203, http://www.csse-
scee.ca/CJE/Articles/FullText/CJE25-3/CJE25-3-bell.pdf, p. 192)
We come to critical pedagogy with a background in environmental thought and education. Of primary concern and interest
to us are relationships among humans and the more-than-human world (Abram, 1996), the
ways in which those relationships are constituted and prescribed in modern industrial
society, and the implications and consequences of those constructs. As a number of scholars and nature
advocates have argued, the many manifestations of the current environmental crisis (e.g., species
extinction, toxic contamination, ozone depletion, topsoil depletion, climate change, acid rain,
deforestation) reflect predominant Western concepts of nature, nature cast as mindless
matter, a mere resource to be exploited for human gain (Berman, 1981; Evernden, 1985; Merchant, 1980).
An ability to respond adequately to the situation therefore rests, at least in part, on a willingness to
critique prevailing discourses about nature and to consider alternative representations (Cronon,
1996; Evernden, 1992; Hayles, 1995). To this end, poststructuralist analysis has been and will continue to be invaluable. It would be
an all-too-common mistake to construe the task at hand as one of interest only to environmentalists. We believe, rather, that
disrupting the social scripts that structure and legitimize the human domination of nonhuman
nature is fundamental not only to dealing with environmental issues, but also to examining
and challenging oppressive social arrangements. The exploitation of nature is not separate
from the exploitation of human groups . Ecofeminists and activists for environmental justice
have shown that forms of domination are often intimately connected and mutually reinforcing
(Bullard, 1993; Gaard, 1997; Lahar, 1993; Sturgeon, 1997). Thus, if critical educators wish to resist various
oppressions, part of their project must entail calling into question, among other things, the
instrumental exploitive gaze through which we humans distance ourselves from the rest of
nature (Carlson, 1995). For this reason, the various movements against oppression need to be aware of
and supportive of each other. In critical pedagogy, however, the exploration of questions of
race, gender, class, and sexuality has proceeded so far with little acknowledgement of the
systemic links between human oppressions and the domination of nature. The more-than-
human world and human relationships to it have been ignored, as if the suffering and
exploitation of other beings and the global ecological crisis were somehow irrelevant. Despite the
call for attention to voices historically absent from traditional canons and narratives (Sadovnik, 1995, p. 316), nonhuman
beings are shrouded in silence. This silence characterizes even the work of writers who call for a rethinking of all
culturally positioned essentialisms. Like other educators influenced by poststructuralism, we agree that there is a need to scrutinize
the language we use, the meanings we deploy, and the epistemological frameworks of past eras (Luke & Luke, 1995, p. 378). To
treat social categories as stable and unchanging is to reproduce the prevailing relations of
power (Britzman et al., 1991, p. 89). What would it mean, then, for critical pedagogy to extend this investigation and critique to
include taken-for-granted understandings of human, animal, and nature? This question is difficult to raise precisely because
these understandings are taken for granted. The anthropocentric bias in critical pedagogy manifests itself
in silence and in the asides of texts. Since it is not a topic of discussion, it can be difficult to situate a critique of it.
Following feminist analyses, we find that examples of anthropocentrism, like examples of gender symbolization,
occur in those places where speakers reveal the assumptions they think they do not need
to defend , beliefs they expect to share with their audiences (Harding, 1986, p. 112). Take, for example,
Freires (1990) statements about the differences between Man and animals. To set up his discussion of praxis and the importance
of naming the world, he outlines what he assumes to be shared, commonsensical beliefs about humans and other animals. He
defines the boundaries of human membership according to a sharp, hierarchical dichotomy that establishes human superiority.
Humans alone, he reminds us, are aware and self-conscious beings who can act to fulfill the objectives they set for themselves.
Humans alone are able to infuse the world with their creative presence, to overcome situations that limit them, and thus to
demonstrate a decisive attitude towards the world (p. 90). Freire (1990, pp. 8791) represents other animals in terms of their
lack of such traits. They are doomed to passively accept the given, their lives totally determined because their decisions belong not
to themselves but to their species. Thus whereas humans inhabit a world which they create and transform and from which they
can separate themselves, for animals there is only habitat, a mere physical space to which they are organically bound. To accept
Freires assumptions is to believe that humans are animals only in a nominal sense. We are different not in degree but in kind, and
though we might recognize that other animals have distinct qualities, we as humans are somehow more unique. We have the edge
over other creatures because we are able to rise above monotonous, species-determined biological existence. Change in the
service of human freedom is seen to be our primary agenda. Humans are thus cast as active agents whose very
essence is to transform the world as if somehow acceptance, appreciation, wonder, and
reverence were beyond the pale. This discursive frame of reference is characteristic of critical
pedagogy. The human/animal opposition upon which it rests is taken for granted, its cultural
and historical specificity not acknowledged. And therein lies the problem. Like other social
constructions, this one derives its persuasiveness from its seeming facticity and from the
deep investments individuals and communities have in setting themselves off from others
(Britzman et al., 1991, p. 91). This becomes the normal way of seeing the world, and like other
discourses of normalcy, it limits possibilities of taking up and confronting inequities (see
Britzman, 1995). The primacy of the human enter- prise is simply not questioned. Precisely how an
anthropocentric pedagogy might exacerbate the environmental crisis has not received much
consideration in the literature of critical pedagogy, especially in North America. Although there may be
passing reference to planetary destruction, there is seldom mention of the relationship
between education and the domination of nature, let alone any sustained exploration of the
links between the domination of nature and other social injustices. Concerns about the
nonhuman are relegated to environmental education. And since environmental education, in
turn, remains peripheral to the core curriculum (A. Gough, 1997; Russell, Bell, & Fawcett, 2000),
anthropocentrism passes unchallenged.1 p. 190-192

The alternative is to endorse global suicide of humanity. The role of the ballot is
to evaluate alternatives to the status quo that allows for critical discussion
and problematizes status quo issues
Kochi, Queen's University School of Law lecturer, and Ordan, linguist, 08 (Tarik
and Noam, Borderlands Volume 7 Number 3, 2008, "An Argument for the Global Suicide of
Humanity," p. 3)
However, is the form of reflection offered by Hawking broad or critical enough? Does his mode of reflection pay enough attention
to the irredeemable moments of destruction, harm, pain and suffering inflicted historically by human action upon the non-human
world? There are, after all, a variety of negative consequences of human action, moments of
destruction, moments of suffering, which may not be redeemable or ever made better.
Conversely there are a number of conceptions of the good in which humans do not take centre stage at the expense of others.
What we try to do in this paper is to draw out some of the consequences of reflecting more
broadly upon the negative costs of human activity in the context of environmental
catastrophe. This involves re-thinking a general idea of progress through the historical and
conceptual lenses of speciesism, colonialism, survival and complicity. Our proposed conclusion
is that the only appropriate moral response to a history of human destructive action is to give
up our claims to biological supremacy and to sacrifice our form of life so as to give an eternal
gift to others. From the outset it is important to make clear that the argument for the global
suicide of humanity is presented as a thought experiment. The purpose of such a proposal in
response to Hawking is to help show how a certain conception of modernity, of which his
approach is representative, is problematic. Taking seriously the idea of global suicide is one
way of throwing into question an ideology or dominant discourse of modernist-humanist
action. [3] By imagining an alternative to the existing state of affairs, absurd as it may seem to some
readers by its nihilistic and radical solution, we wish to open up a ground for a critical discussion of
modernity and its negative impacts on both human and non-human animals, as well as on the
environment. [4] In this respect, by giving voice to the idea of a human-free world, we attempt to draw attention to some of
the asymmetries of environmental reality and to give cause to question why attempts to build bridges from the human to the non-
human have, so far, been unavailing.
1NC with Rights Malthus
The aff is anthropocentric notions of human progress and equality strengthen
anthro notions anthro justifies oppression turns the affirmative
Words: Anthropocentrism, Critical Pedagogy, and the Poststructuralist Turn, p. 192-194,
CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 25, 3 (2000):188203, http://www.csse-
scee.ca/CJE/Articles/FullText/CJE25-3/CJE25-3-bell.pdf)
Bowers (1993a, 1993b) has identified a number of root metaphors or ana- logs in critical pedagogy that
reinforce the problem of anthropocentric thinking. These include the notion of change as
inherently progressive, faith in the power of rational thought, and an understanding of
individuals as potentially free, voluntaristic entities who will take responsibility for creating
themselves when freed from societal forms of oppression (1993a, pp. 2526). Such assumptions,
argues Bowers, are part of the Enlighten- ment legacy on which critical pedagogy, and indeed
liberal education generally, is based. In other words, they are culturally specific and stem from a
period in Western history when the modern industrial world view was beginning to take
shape. To be fair, Bowers understates the extent to which these assumptions are being questioned within critical pedagogy (e.g.,
Giroux, 1995; Peters, 1995; Shapiro, 1994; Weiler & Mitchell, 1992, pp. 1, 5). Nevertheless, his main point is well taken:
proponents of critical pedagogy have yet to confront the ecological consequences of an
educational process that reinforces beliefs and practices formed when unlimited economic
expansion and social progress seemed promised (Bowers, 1993b, p. 3). What happens when the expansion of
human possibilities is equated with the possibilities of con- sumption? How is educating for freedom predicated on
the exploitation of the nonhuman? Such queries push against taken-for-granted understand-
ings of human, nature, self, and community, and thus bring into focus the underlying tension
between freedom as it is constituted within critical pedagogy and the limits that emerge
through consideration of humans interdependence with the more-than-human world. This
tension is symptomatic of anthropocentrism. Humans are assumed to be free agents separate
from and pitted against the rest of nature, our fulfillment predicated on overcoming material
constraints. This assumption of human difference and superiority, central to Western thought since Aristotle (Abram,
1996, p. 77), has long been used to justify the exploitation of nature by and for humankind
(Evernden, 1992, p. 96). It has also been used to justify the exploitation of human groups (e.g., women,
Blacks, queers, indigenous peoples) deemed to be closer to nature that is, animalistic, irrational,
savage, or uncivilized (Gaard, 1997; Haraway, 1989, p. 30; Selby, 1995, pp. 1720; Spiegel, 1988). This organic
apartheid (Evernden, 1992, p. 119) is bolstered by the belief that language is an exclusively human
property that elevates mere biological existence to meaningful, social existence. Understood in this
way, language undermines our embodied sense of interdependence with a more-than-human world. Rather than being a
point of entry into the webs of communication all around us, language becomes a medium
through which we set ourselves apart and above. This view of language is deeply embedded
in the conceptual framework of critical pedagogy, including poststructuralist approaches. So
too is the human/nature dichotomy upon which it rests. When writers assume that it is
language that enables us to think, speak and give meaning to the world around us, that
meaning and consciousness do not exist outside language (Weedon, 1987, p. 32) and that
subjectivity is constructed by and in language (Luke & Luke, 1995, p. 378), then their transformative
projects are encoded so as to exclude any consideration of the nonhuman. Such assumptions
effectively remove all subjects from nature. As Evernden (1992) puts it, if subjectivity, willing,
valuation, and meaning are securely lodged in the domain of humanity, the possibility of
encountering anything more than material objects in nature is nil (p. 108). What is forgotten? What
is erased when the real is equated with a proliferating culture of commodified signs (see Luke &
Luke, 1995, on Baudrillard)? To begin, we forget that we humans are surrounded by an astonishing
diversity of life forms. We no longer perceive or give expression to a world in which
everything has intelligence, personality, and voice. Polyphonous echoes are reduced to homophony, a term
Kane (1994) uses to denote the reduced sound of human language when it is used under the assumption that speech is something
belonging only to human beings (p. 192). We forget too what Abram (1996) describes as the gestural, somatic dimension of
language, its sensory and physical resonance that we share with all expressive bodies (p. 80). The vast forgetting to which these
scholars allude is a culturally and historically specific phenomenon. In Western culture, explains Evernden (1992), it is to the
Renaissance that we owe the modern conceptualization of nature from which all human qualities, including linguistic
expression, have been segregated and dismissed as projection. Once scoured of any
normative content assigned to humanity, nature is strictly constrained, knowable, and ours to
interrogate (pp. 28, 3940, 48). It is objectified as a thing, whereas any status as agent or social being is reserved for humans
(Haraway, 1988, p. 592).

The alternative is to endorse global suicide of humanity. The role of the ballot is
to evaluate alternatives to the status quo that allows for critical discussion
and problematizes status quo issues
Humanity," p. 3)
However, is the form of reflection offered by Hawking broad or critical enough? Does his mode of reflection pay enough attention
to the irredeemable moments of destruction, harm, pain and suffering inflicted historically by human action upon the non-human
world? There are, after all, a variety of negative consequences of human action, moments of
destruction, moments of suffering, which may not be redeemable or ever made better.
Conversely there are a number of conceptions of the good in which humans do not take centre stage at the expense of others.
What we try to do in this paper is to draw out some of the consequences of reflecting more
broadly upon the negative costs of human activity in the context of environmental
catastrophe. This involves re-thinking a general idea of progress through the historical and
conceptual lenses of speciesism, colonialism, survival and complicity. Our proposed conclusion
is that the only appropriate moral response to a history of human destructive action is to give
up our claims to biological supremacy and to sacrifice our form of life so as to give an eternal
gift to others. From the outset it is important to make clear that the argument for the global
suicide of humanity is presented as a thought experiment. The purpose of such a proposal in
response to Hawking is to help show how a certain conception of modernity, of which his
approach is representative, is problematic. Taking seriously the idea of global suicide is one
way of throwing into question an ideology or dominant discourse of modernist-humanist
action. [3] By imagining an alternative to the existing state of affairs, absurd as it may seem to some
readers by its nihilistic and radical solution, we wish to open up a ground for a critical discussion of
modernity and its negative impacts on both human and non-human animals, as well as on the
environment. [4] In this respect, by giving voice to the idea of a human-free world, we attempt to draw attention to some of
the asymmetries of environmental reality and to give cause to question why attempts to build bridges from the human to the non-
human have, so far, been unavailing.

2NC Blocks
2NC Overview
K outweighs and turns the case
a. Our Bell evidence indicates that the 1AC is rooted in a humanist
worldview whereby the issues worth fixing are dictated by the extent to
which they benefit human life that ensures their impacts continue and
transforms the non-human as something to be dominated
b. Their anthropocentric notions create a false dichotomy of the human vs.
non-human squo inequities become impossible to fix because we are
blinded by our humanist relations with the world we indict humanism
as being the creator of these issues of violence
Impact debate
Our Bell evidence indicates that this perpetuates the exploitation of nature in
the name of human progress that results in extinction and turns their impacts
Human rights violations become inevitable Bell also indicates that a world in
which the humanist assumptions of the 1AC are not challenged their impacts
continue humans who are portrayed as closer to nature considered savages
become the subject of human domination and justify nature as something to be
brought under human control
Humans cannot be saved and we control the root cause the impacts they
outline are the result of humanitys capability to enact uniquely organized
forms of violence and destruction
Humanity," p. 9-10)
Within the picture many paint of humanity, events such as the Holocaust are considered as an
exception, an aberration. The Holocaust is often portrayed as an example of evil, a moment of
hatred, madness and cruelty (cf. the differing accounts of evil given in Neiman, 2004). The event is also treated as one
through which humanity might comprehend its own weakness and draw strength, via the
resolve that such actions will never happen again. However, if we take seriously the differing
ways in which the Holocaust was evil, then one must surely include along side it the almost
uncountable numbers of genocides that have occurred throughout human history. Hence, if
we are to think of the content of the human heritage, then this must include the annihilation
of indigenous peoples and their cultures across the globe and the manner in which their
beliefs, behaviours and social practices have been erased from what the people of the West generally consider to be the content
of a human heritage. Again the history of colonialism is telling here. It reminds us exactly how normal, regular
and mundane acts of annihilation of different forms of human life and culture have been
throughout human history. Indeed the history of colonialism, in its various guises, points to the fact
that so many of our legal institutions and forms of ethical life (i.e. nation-states which pride
themselves on protecting human rights through the rule of law) have been founded upon
colonial violence, war and the appropriation of other peoples land (Schmitt, 2003; Benjamin, 1986).
Further, the history of colonialism highlights the central function of race war that often
underlies human social organisation and many of its legal and ethical systems of thought
(Foucault, 2003). This history of modern colonialism thus presents a key to understanding that events
such as the Holocaust are not an aberration and exception but are closer to the norm, and sadly,
lie at the heart of any heritage of humanity. After all, all too often the European colonisation of the globe was
justified by arguments that indigenous inhabitants were racially inferior and in some
instances that they were closer to apes than to humans (Diamond, 2006). Such violence justified
by an erroneous view of race is in many ways merely an extension of an underlying attitude
of speciesism involving a long history of killing and enslavement of non-human species by
humans. Such a connection between the two histories of inter-human violence (via the mythical notion of differing human
races) and inter- species violence, is well expressed in Isaac Bashevis Singers comment that whereas humans consider themselves
the crown of creation, for animals all people are Nazis and animal life is an eternal Treblinka (Singer, 1968, p.750). Certainly
many organisms use force to survive and thrive at the expense of their others. Humans are
not special in this regard. However humans, due a particular form of self-awareness and
ability to plan for the future, have the capacity to carry out highly organised forms of violence
and destruction (i.e. the Holocaust; the massacre and enslavement of indigenous peoples by Europeans) and the
capacity to develop forms of social organisation and communal life in which harm and
violence are organised and regulated. It is perhaps this capacity for reflection upon the merits of harm and violence
(the moral reflection upon the good and bad of violence) which gives humans a special place within the food chain. Nonetheless,
with these capacities come responsibility and our proposal of global suicide is directed at bringing into full view the issue of human
moral responsibility.

Human superiority is socially constructed and not factually accurate viewing
every being as significant allows for a radical change in the way we give
meaning to the world
scee.ca/CJE/Articles/FullText/CJE25-3/CJE25-3-bell.pdf, p. 195-97)
The human/nature dichotomy is not a frame of reference common to all cultures, and
although it prevails today in Western societies, even here there are and always have been
alternative ways of understanding and giving expression to a more-than-human world. These can
be found, for example, in myth (Kane, 1994, p. 14), poetic expression, certain branches of philosophy and environmental thought,
natural history, and childrens literature and films (Wilson, 1991, pp. 128139, 154). Even within the natural sciences,
voices attest to the meaningful existence of nonhuman beings as subjects (McVay, 1993). In animal
behaviour research, for instance, numerous studies have challenged the assertion of human
superiority based on a narrow definition of language that excludes nonhuman communication.
Chimpanzee Washoe and orangutan Chantek use American Sign Language, and other primates, like bonobo Kanzi, are fluent in
symbolic language, thereby altering the boundaries commonly drawn between language and mere communication (Gardner,
Gardner, & Canfort, 1989; Miles, 1994; Savage-Rumbaugh, Shanker, & Taylor, 1998). And though the bilingual great
apes may exhibit language patterns the most similar to those of humans, there are many
examples of sophisticated communication in other animals, including mammals, birds, and
insects (Griffin, 1992). Meeting the criteria of language implies, of course, that these studies compare
and judge other animals against a human yardstick. In other words, a hierarchical divide is still
assumed, although its position may shift somewhat to include, on humanitys side, some of
the higher animals. For a more radical reframing, one that seeks to acknowledge all life forms as subjects of significance,
let us turn to the work of philosopher David Abram. Drawing from phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Abram (1996)
argues that all sensing bodies are active, open forms con- stantly adjusting to a world that is
itself continually shifting (p. 49). To demonstrate how all beings incessantly improvise their
relations to other things he describes the spontaneous creativity of a spider: Consider a spider
weaving its web, for instance, and the assumption still held by many scientists that the behavior of such a diminutive creature is
thoroughly programmed in its genes. Certainly, the spider has received a rich genetic inheritance from its parents and
predecessors. Whatever instructions, however, are enfolded within the living genome, they can hardly predict the specifics of the
microterrain within which the spider may find itself at any particular moment. They could hardly have determined in advance the
exact distances between the cave wall and the branch that the spider is now employing as an anchorage point for her current web,
or the exact strength of the monsoon rains that make web-spinning a bit more difficult on this evening. And so the genome could
not explicitly have commanded the order of every flexion and extension of her various limbs as she weaves this web into its place.
However complex are the inherited programs, patterns, or predispositions, they must still be adapted to the immediate situation
in which the spider finds itself. However determinate ones genetic inheritance, it must still, as it were,
be woven into the present, an activity that necessarily involves both a receptivity to the
specific shapes and textures of that present and a spontaneous creativity in adjusting oneself
(and ones inheritance) to those contours. (Abram, 1996, p. 50) An equally illuminating insect story, intended to
evoke, once again, the subjective world of a nonhuman being, is found in Everndens The Natural Alien (1985, pp. 7980). Borrowing
from the work of biologist Jakob von Uexkull, Evernden invites readers to imagine that we are walking through a meadow and
that we discern a soap bubble around each creature to represent its own world, filled with the perceptions which it alone knows
(p. 79). He then attempts to describe what might be the world of a wood tick. The wood tick, he
explains, is literally and figuratively blind to the world as we know it. What we readily
perceive about our environment would be unknown, unknowable, and irrelevant to her. Her
world is composed of three elements: light, sweat, and heat. These are all that she needs to
complete her life cycle. Light will lead her to the top of a bush, where she will cling (for as long as 18 years!) until the smell
of sweat alerts her to a passing animal. She will then drop, and if she lands on a warm animal, she will indulge in a blood meal, fall to
the ground, lay her eggs, and die. Like Abram, Evernden (1985) challenges commonplace, mechanistic
assumptions that reduce other life forms to programmed automatons and intimates instead a
meaningful life-world completely unlike and outside our own: To speak of reflexes and instincts is to obscure
the essential point that the ticks world is a world, every bit as valid and adequate as our own.
There is a subject, and like all subjects it has its world . . . The tick is able to occupy a world that is per- ceptually meaningful to it. Out
of the thousands or millions of kinds of information that might be had, the tick sees only what is of significance to it. The world is
tailored to the animal; they are entirely complementary . . . This is quite a different view of existence from our usual one in which
the animal is simply an exploiter of certain natural resources. We are not talking just about observable interactions between
subjects and objects but rather about a very complete interrelation of self and world, so complete that the world could serve as a
definition of the self. Without the tick there is no tick-world, no tick-space, no tick-time, no tick-reality. (pp. 8081)
Everndens remarks are significant for the possibilities they open up in our understanding both of the nonhuman and of
ourselves. On one hand, they contest the limited notion that awareness is a specifically human
attribute. On the other, they remind us that we humans too have bodies that respond to light, sweat, and heat; we too know the
world through our bodies in a way that is not entirely dependent upon language; and this bodily knowledge plays an important role
in defining our world and giving meaning to it.

2NC Framework
The role of the ballot is to endorse the team that best challenges the
anthropocentric notions implicit in human experience
The K is a prior question policymaking fails to call into question the inherent
humanist filter through which all action of the 1AC happens means the 1AC
only produces bad policy disad to fiat
Their education will always be co-opted our Bell evidence indicates that
anthropocentric notions prop a flawed pedagogical system in which the focus is
shifted away from individual agency that ensures that the domination of non-
human life is perpetuated
Their calls for an active discussion simply link harder to the kritik their
movement creates a space for discussion that continues to exclude non-human
life which means their movements ultimately get co-opted anyways
Analyzing the linguistic construct of the 1AC is key to social change
So far, however, such queries in critical pedagogy have been limited by their neglect of the
ecological contexts of which students are a part and of relationships extending beyond the
human sphere. The gravity of this oversight is brought sharply into focus by writers interested in environmental thought,
particularly in the cultural and historical dimensions of the environmental crisis. For example, Nelson (1993) contends that our
inability to acknowledge our human embeddedness in nature results in our failure to
understand what sustains us. We become inattentive to our very real dependence on others
and to the ways our actions affect them. Educators, therefore, would do well to draw on the
literature of environmental thought in order to come to grips with the misguided sense of
independence, premised on freedom from nature, that informs such notions as
empowerment. Further, calls for educational practices situated in the life-worlds of students go hand in hand with critiques
of disembodied approaches to education. In both cases, critical pedagogy challenges the liberal notion of education whose sole aim
is the development of the individual, rational mind (Giroux, 1991, p. 24; McKenna, 1991, p. 121; Shapiro, 1994). Theorists draw
attention to the importance of nonverbal discourse (e.g., Lewis & Simon, 1986, p. 465) and to the somatic character of learning (e.g.,
Shapiro, 1994, p. 67), both overshadowed by the intellectual authority long granted to rationality and science (Giroux, 1995; Peters,
1995; S. Taylor, 1991). Describing an emerging discourse of the body that looks at how bodies are represented and inserted into
the social order, S. Taylor (1991) cites as examples the work of Peter McLaren, Michelle Fine, and Philip Corrigan. A
complementary vein of enquiry is being pursued by environmental researchers and educators
critical of the privileging of science and abstract thinking in education. They understand
learning to be mediated not only through our minds but also through our bodies. Seeking to
acknowledge and create space for sensual, emotional, tacit, and communal knowledge, they
advocate approaches to education grounded in, for example, nature experience and
environmental practice (Bell, 1997; Brody, 1997; Weston, 1996). Thus, whereas both critical pedagogy and
environmental education offer a critique of disembodied thought, one draws attention to the
ways in which the body is situated in culture (Shapiro, 1994) and to the social construction of
bodies as they are constituted within discourses of race, class, gender, age and other forms of
oppression (S. Taylor, 1991, p. 61). The other emphasizes and celebrates our embodied relatedness to the more-than-human
world and to the myriad life forms of which it is comprised (Payne, 1997; Russell & Bell, 1996). Given their different foci, each stream
of enquiry stands to be enriched by a sharing of insights. Finally, with regard to the poststructuralist turn in educational theory,
ongoing investigations stand to greatly enhance a revisioning of environmental education. A growing number of environmental
educators question the empirical-analytical tradition and its focus on technical and behavioural aspects of curriculum (A. Gough,
1997; Robottom, 1991). Advocating more interpretive, critical approaches, these educators contest
the discursive frameworks (e.g., positivism, empiricism, rationalism) that mask the values,
beliefs, and assumptions underlying information, and thus the cultural and political
dimensions of the problems being considered (A. Gough, 1997; Huckle, 1999; Lousley, 1999). Teaching
about ecological processes and environmental hazards in a supposedly objective and rational
manner is understood to belie the fact that knowledge is socially constructed and therefore
partial (A. Gough, 1997; Robertson, 1994; Robottom, 1991; Stevenson, 1993).

2NC AT: Perm
If the perm still links its severance thats a voter for fairness and ground wed
lose all advocacies
If we win framework or root cause the perm does nothing
Framework debate proves that their starting point is flawed operating under
humanist notions reinforce the status quo and ensure worse forms of violence
any perm shifts the framing question their method is _____ - you cant shift
out of that
Doesnt matter if you leave the distinction unquestioned only the alt solves
Humanity," p. 5-6)
There continues to be a debate over the extent to which humans have caused environmental problems such as global warming (as
opposed to natural, cyclical theories of the earths temperature change) and over whether phenomena such as global warming can
be halted or reversed. Our position is that regardless of where one stands within these debates it is clear that humans have
inflicted degrees of harm upon non-human animals and the natural environment. And from
this point we suggest that it is the operation of speciesism as colonialism which must be
addressed. One approach is of course to adopt the approach taken by Singer and many within the animal rights movement and
remove our species, homo sapiens, from the centre of all moral discourse. Such an approach would thereby take into account not
only human life, but also the lives of other species, to the extent that the living environment as a whole can come to be considered
the proper subject of morality. We would suggest, however, that this philosophical approach can be taken a number of steps
further. If the standpoint that we have a moral responsibility towards the environment in which
all sentient creatures live is to be taken seriously, then we perhaps have reason to question
whether there remains any strong ethical grounds to justify the further existence of humanity.
For example, if one considers the modern scientific practice of experimenting on animals, both the notions of progress and
speciesism are implicitly drawn upon within the moral reasoning of scientists in their justification of committing violence against
nonhuman animals. The typical line of thinking here is that because animals are valued less than
humans they can be sacrificed for the purpose of expanding scientific knowledge focussed
upon improving human life. Certainly some within the scientific community, such as
physiologist Colin Blakemore, contest aspects of this claim and argue that experimentation on
animals is beneficial to both human and nonhuman animals (e.g. Grasson, 2000, p.30). Such
claims are disingenuous, however, in that they hide the relative distinctions of value that
underlie a moral justification for sacrifice within the practice of experimentation (cf. LaFollette &
Shanks, 1997, p.255). If there is a benefit to non-human animals this is only incidental, what remains
central is a practice of sacrificing the lives of other species for the benefit of humans. Rather than
reject this common reasoning of modern science we argue that it should be reconsidered upon the basis of species equality. That is,
modern science needs to ask the question of: Who is the best candidate for sacrifice for the
good of the environment and all species concerned? The moral response to the violence,
suffering and damage humans have inflicted upon this earth and its inhabitants might then be
to argue for the sacrifice of the human species. The moral act would be the global suicide of
humanity. This notion of global human suicide clearly goes against commonly celebrated and deeply held views of the inherent
value of humanity and perhaps contradicts an instinctive or biological desire for survival. Indeed the picture painted by
Hawking presents a modern humanity which, through its own intellectual, technical and moral
action, colonises another planet or finds some other way to survive. His idea is driven by the desire for
the modern human, as we know it, to survive. Yet, what exact aspect of our species would survive, let
alone progress, in such a future? In the example of the colonisation of another planet, would
human survival be merely genetic or would it also be cultural? Further, even if we can pinpoint what would
survive is there a strong moral argument that the human species should survive?

Every individual is complicit in speciesist violence only a complete rejection
solves
Humanity," p. 13-14)
What helps to render a certain type of action problematic is each individuals complicity in
the practice of speciesist violence. That is, even if one is aware of the ways in which modern life
destroys or adversely affects the environment and inflicts suffering upon nonhuman animals,
one cannot completely subtract ones self from a certain responsibility for and complicity in
this. Even if you are conscious of the problem you cannot but take part in doing evil by the
mere fact of participating within modern life. Take for example the problematic position of environmental activists
who courageously sacrifice personal wealth and leisure time in their fight against environmental destruction. While activists
assume a sense of historical responsibly for the violence of the human species and act so as to
stop the continuation of this violence, these actors are still somewhat complicit in a modern
system of violence due to fact that they live in modern, industrial societies. The activist consumes,
acquires and spends capital, uses electricity, pays taxes, and accepts the legitimacy of particular governments within the state even
if they campaign against government policies. The bottom line is that all of these actions contribute in some way
to the perpetuation of a larger process that moves humanity in a particular direction even if
the individual personally, or collectively with others, tries to act to counter this direction.
Despite peoples good intentions, damage is encapsulated in nearly every human action in
industrial societies, whether we are aware of it or not. In one sense, the human individuals modern complicity
in environmental violence represents something of a bizarre symmetry to Hannah Arendts notion of the banality of evil (Arendt,
1994). For Arendt, the Nazi regime was an emblem of modernity, being a collection of official institutions (scientific, educational,
military etc.) in which citizens and soldiers alike served as clerks in a bureaucratic mechanism run by the state. These individuals
committed evil, but they did so in a very banal manner: fitting into the state mechanism, following orders, filling in paperwork,
working in factories, driving trucks and generally respecting the rule of law. In this way perhaps all individuals within the
modern industrial world carry out a banal evil against the environment simply by going to
work, sitting in their offices and living in homes attached to a power grid. Conversely, those
individuals who are driven by a moral intention to not do evil and act so as to save the
environment, are drawn back into a banality of the good. By their ability to effect change in
only very small aspects of their daily life, or in political-social life more generally, modern
individuals are forced to participate in the active destruction of the environment even if they
are the voices of contrary intention. What is banal in this sense is not the lack of a definite moral intention but,
rather, the way in which the individuals or institutions participation in everyday modern life, and the unintentional contribution to
environmental destruction therein, contradicts and counteracts the smaller acts of good intention.

2NC Root Cause Generic
We control root cause their impacts are just the extension of anthropocentric
logic
Humanity,")
When taking a wider view of history, one which focuses on the relationship of humans
towards other species, it becomes clear that the human heritage and the propagation of
itself as a thing of value has occurred on the back of seemingly endless acts of violence,
destruction, killing and genocide. While this cannot be verified, perhaps human history and progress
begins with the genocide of the Neanderthals and never loses a step thereafter. It only takes a short
glimpse at the list of all the sufferings caused by humanity for one to begin to question whether this species deserves to continue
into the future. The list of human-made disasters is ever-growing after all: suffering caused to
animals in the name of science or human health, not to mention the cosmetic, food and textile
industries; damage to the environment by polluting the earth and its stratosphere;
deforesting and overuse of natural resources; and of course, inflicting suffering on fellow
human beings all over the globe, from killing to economic exploitation to abusing minorities,
individually and collectively.
2NC Root Cause Greek Ethics
Speciesism provides a superior explanation for the root cause of their harms
the acts of exclusion and violence outlined in the 1AC are only made possible
because of the human/non-human divide rooted in Aristotelian ethics. The
affirmative is an attempt to posit themselves as Gods acting as the savior of
___________.
Gordilho 9, Assistant Professor at Universidade Federal da Bahia in Brazil (Heron Jos
de Santana, he teaches environmental law & constitutional law, he is also a public prosecutor, Wildlife and the Brazilian
Abolitionist Movement, 2009,
http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=&handle=hein.journals/janimlaw5&div=9&id=&page=, fulltext available
here: http://www.abolicionismoanimal.org.br/artigos/wldilefe_and_the_brazilian_abolitionist_movement.pdf, njw)
Speciesism is a term coined in 1970 by the psychologist Richard Ryder to make a parallel between our attitudes towards other
species and racist attitudes. Both represent biased behavior or prejudice in favor of interests of the members of our own group
against the interests of the members of others. Although man and animals share birth, death, pain,
pleasure, among other things, western tradition identifies huge differences between them, mainly
concerning body and soul, instinct and reasoning. The idea of soul, according to Durkheim, came to
primitive people through their dream experience which led to the idea of separating the
body from the soul, the latter capable of leaving the body. For primitive people, representations of the world
while awake or sleeping had the same value. This duplicity was only possible if they accepted that the body has a soul, made out
of subtle and ethereal material able to pass through pores of the body and go anywhere. Later, primitive man perceived that the
dead often participated in their dreams thus giving rise to a third element: the spirit. Disconnected from any embodied form and
free in the space, a spirit unlike the soul which spends most of the time inside the body is immortal, and even after death
continues, in particular the spirits of men who have special virtues (mana)5. The idea of linking each soul to its
corresponding body (soul as an incarnated spirit) passed into the Greek tradition, and according to
Aristotle the soul is conceived as the substance of the body, a vital principle of all living
beings. Like sight is to the eyes, the soul is to the body6. Analyzing the faculties of the soul,
Aristotle says that feeding is common to all living beings and sensitivity is common to
animals, however, only the human soul has intellectual ability (nos), and is able to think and
communicate ideas through language. For Aristotle the intellectual soul is the spirit itself,
another kind of soul separate from the body which can be divided in two parts: the sensitive spirit
(receptive) and effective spirit (active), the former functions as matter (potential) and the latter as form (act)7. Thus, animals
are considered beings with their own life/soul (anima), but with no spirit. It is only through
involuntary natural impulses that birds build nests and spiders webs. Only the human spirit
is able to deliberate . The sensitive spirit is connected to the sensitive soul which transforms matter into thoughts,
while the active spirit, unlike other faculties of the soul, is not linked to the body and is therefore immortal. However, thoughts
are only born from feeling, and after death the spirit is no longer individual but collective. This refutes the theory of individual
soul advocated by Plato. In short, as well as the physical body (soma) and life (anima), rational man has
a third element which supposedly sets him apart from other living beings: a spirit
independent of body and able to learn, understand and make judgments or have opinions
based on reasoning, consciousness, thoughts, will, and so on. Consequently, as Aristotelian
ethics are teleological, beings which occupy the lower rungs of the Great Chain of Beings
are there to be used by animals which occupy the upper rungs. Therefore animals like
women, slaves and foreigners are there to be used by rational man 8. From this point of view
rationality is considered to mark the difference between men and other living beings, nearest genus;
animal, and by specific difference, reasoning. It is by the souls intellectual function that men
locate themselves in the Great Chain of Beings, putting animals below them and God
above them. This distinction does not function only to differentiate men from animals like a
beak, wings and the ability to fly would distinguish birds from other living beings but it also proves their
proximity to God 9. Stoics put moral problems before theoretical problems and with
Aristotelian ethics both have had a great influence on western thought . For them, the ideal
state is calm suppressing emotions and desires. Unlike animals who act out of instinct, man is
guided by reason which enables him to be aware of the immutable rules of natural law. From
this Stoic understanding of logos (speaking, ability to reason) comes the definition of man as a
rational animal (zoon logikon) and animals as beings that can not speak (aloga zoa). The Stoic and
Aristotelian tradition gave Roman Law and Christianity the notion that non-human animals
are not worthy of any moral consideration. These ideas passed into Common Law and Civil
Law traditions and remain today .
2NC Root Cause Race/Slavery
Anti-blackness is rooted in speciesism historically the black body has been
depicted as something less than human and a pollutant upon the environment
in order to justify racism and social exclusion.
Mysak 10, Ph.D. candidate in Philosophy (Mark, The Environmental is Political: Exploring the Geography
of Environmental Justice, Dissertation prepared for Ph.D. from the University of North Texas, August 2010, p. 168-171,
http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc30497/m2/1/high_res_d/dissertation.pdf, njw)
In the United States, African Americans (but also Latinos and Hispanics) exceedingly live in heavily
industrialized and polluted urban environments. These places are often called ghettoes, slums, or the inner-
city. They are usually situated on the outskirts of a citys business and shopping districts, physically bounded and concealed by
freeways, factories and warehouses. In the past, African Americans were forcefully constrained to these places by segregation laws.
What is puzzling is that racialized demographic patterns have persisted to this day. A frequently cited explanation is class-based:
minority groups are poor and tend to inhabit polluted urban environments due to low property and
rental costs, while the more affluent, predominantly white, relocate to clean suburban areas. Yet, a
race-based explanation also suggests itself. Because poverty is associated with crime (burglary, drug trafficking, prostitution),
minority groups live in areas portrayed as cesspools of pollution, disease, corruption, violence, and social
decay. These communities are relatively powerless to influence the ways they are represented
on television and in newspapers which solely report incidents of crime and violence in their neighborhoods. Thus,
communities of color are not only economically disadvantaged, but they are also culturally
devalued because they live in places of misrecognition. Poverty and negative cultural images
intersect to discursively produce stereotyped representations of minority groups inhabiting
stigmatized environments. Accordingly, they are construed as human trash living in places
filled with waste. Historically, blatant racism depicted African Americans as descended from
a continent plunged in darkness, primitivism, and violence a place without history according to
Hegels philosophy of historywith blackness representing the space of nothingness according to Mills (2001, 83).5 As
increasing numbers of slaves were shipped to southern plantations, elite whites feared an
uprising that would spread Africas wild savageness and infect civilization. Once slavery was
abolished following the Civil War, many freed slaves, including poor immigrants and the working class, relocated to
northern cities in search of work; as a result, cities were frequently perceived as urban
jungles and urban wilderness , breeding crime and corruption due to mass unemployment and poverty. To this
day, metaphors of the city as the frontier, jungle, and wilderness reveal a lot about the social
status of their inhabitants . Lawson (2001, 42) argues that negative attitudes about inner-city neighborhoods intersect
with racial categories to foster negative racial sentiments about black Americans, and this has adverse impacts on the lives of
the poor black people who live in cities. Residential location is therefore supposedly indicative of the types of people who live
there. More affluent groups do not enter inner-city environments because they are dirty and
dangerous. Fear of the other is intimately associated with specific places ; the desolate streets of
rough black neighborhoods are avoided or passed through as quickly as possible. In accord with the concept of place-based
identity developed in chapter III, I am arguing that representations of urban places and the group identities therein reinforce each
other through their co-constitutive social constructions. In what follows I focus on African Americans to show how they
are symbolically represented as embodying the negative qualities characterizing their
polluted urban environments. One reason is because black is symbolically associated with trash. Mills (2001, 83)
declares: Their blackness signifies dirt, death, evil; (illicit) sex, shit, excretion; diabolism, savagery, lack of civilization; and the most
manual of manual labor, shit work. These images and associations enter into a dark synergy with one another, generating an all-
purpose negative signifier, conceptualized in the vocabulary of pollution and disease and threat to civilization. To put it bluntly,
African Americans are portrayed as violent, dirty and savage, hence black trash littering an
already dirty environment. Conversely, urban polluted environments are anthropomorphized
as having the devalued traits characterizing the black bodies that contaminate them; polluted
places are uncivilized, wild and dangerous, hence black. Skin color is a negative signifier for polluted regionsblackness signifies
dirt and excrementand dirty neighborhoods reflect the presumed status of their inhabitants, associations which are mirrored in
the names of such places: Niggertown, Darktown, Bronzeville, the black belt, the ghetto, the inner city (Mills 2001, 87). Haraway
(1991, 223) says that colored neighborhoods symbolize the dark source of infection, pollution, disorder, and so on, that threaten
to overwhelm white manhood (cities, civilization, the family, the white personal body) with its decadent emanations.
Consequently, black bodies themselves are perceived as garbage that must be contained in
specific areas. This shows how perceptions of devalued groups and their environments reinforce
each other to produce places of misrecognition: while polluted spaces are raced, peoples of color are
naturalized as waste.

The K is a prior question to the affirmative otherwise challenging anti-
blackness gets corrupted by anthropocentric discourse only the alternatives
discourse solves.
Jackson, no date, studies the intersection of Animal Studies, Queer Theory, and
African Diasporic Feminism (Zakiyyah, UC Berkeley & Indiana University, quotation from Zakiyyah Jackson posted
in the comments section on April 10, 2011 (link to website broken), http://www.theoria.ca/theoria/?p=1179, njw)
My dissertation Becoming Human: Gender, Sexuality, and Species in Afro-Modernity demonstrates that there is a strand of black
(anti)humanist thought that provides crucial interventions into the racialization of the human/animal border. Through historical
analysis, I reveal that the animal and the black are generic categories that mutually reinforce
each other, as one term lends credibility to the other, in the history of western modernity. As
we now know, what we deem animal includes forms of life that have widely divergent
physiognomic, cognitive, and phenomenal experiences casting doubt over any notion of an animal essence.
So, why do we need a discourse on the animal ? What work is this generic construction doing culturally? What
forms of knowledge and power is it stabilizing? I contend that the bifurcation of forms of life as primarily or exclusively human or
else animal is a flashpoint in European anxieties about African slavery and colonial expansionism. In this context, the animal and
the black became conjoined and mutually reinforcing tropes in liberal humanist discourse and practice. Thus, if we want to
seriously interrogate our cultures continual investment in (anti)blackness, we must go
beyond perceiving bestialization as an unfortunate legacy of racism that can be resolved conclusively
through the expansion of universal humanity. When we present universal humanity as a solution, we fail to appreciate that
in a post-Darwinian context, inclusion rather than exclusion, is the primary modality of reproducing
blackness as the animal within the human , black people as the lived border dividing human
and animal forms of life. Instead, we must include an interrogation of the discourse of the
animal as such, as the discourse of species is central to the logic and practice of animalizing
black gender and sexuality in law, philosophy, science, neoliberalism, and popular culture. I
argue that our failure to interrogate the discourse of species has allowed blackness to remain
vulnerable to its appropriation by species discourse . As I show in my dissertation, African diasporic culture
provide models for disconnecting black personhood from the trope of the animal, while also questioning the epistemic and
material terms under which the specter of animal life acquires its authority. In the final analysis, I suggest that the cultural
production in my study exceed critique, by redefining what it means to be human from the perspective of those animalized by the
gendered and sexual discourses and practices of biopolitics.

2NC Root Cause Eurocentrism
Speciesism is the root cause of Eurocentrism seeing other cultures as the
primitive and exotic other closer to animals on the hierarchy of species was
used to justify imperial conquest and exporting European culture to the
colonies. Failure to begin with this starting point means their understanding of
Eurocentrism is epistemologically flawed and reproduces the same mindset of
racist and colonialist conquest that they criticize only the alternatives
interrogation of what it means to be human can solve.
Huggan & Tiffin 10 (Graham & Helen, Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Literature, Animals, Environment, published by
Routledge, Google Books, p. 5-8, njw)
For Plumwood, these claims extend both to environmental and animal actors, since what she calls our [collective] failure
to situate dominant forms of human society ecologically [has been] matched by our failure to
situate non-humans ethically, as the plight of non-human species continues to worsen (2001: 2).
Hegemonic centrism thus accounts not only for environmental racism, but also for those forms of
institutionalised speciesism that continue to be used to rationalise the exploitation of animal
(and animalized human) others in the name of a human- and reason-centred culture that is at
least a couple of millennia old (2001: 8). As Plumwood argues, the western definition of humanity depended
and still depends on the presence of the not-human: the uncivilized, the animal and
animalistic, European justification for invasion and colonisation proceeded from this basis,
understanding non-European lands and the people and animals that inhabited them as
spaces, unused, underused or empty (2003: 53). The very ideology of colonisation is thus one
where anthropocentrism and Eurocentrism are inseparable, with the anthropocentrism
underlying Eurocentrism being used to justify those forms of European colonialism that see
indigenous cultures as primitive, less rational, and closer to children, animals and nature
(2003: 53). Within many culture and not just western ones anthropocentrism has long been naturlised. The
absolute prioritisation of ones own species interests over those of the silenced majority is
still regarded as being only natural. Ironically, it is precisely through such appeals to nature that
other animals and the environment are often excluded from the privileged ranks of the
human, rendering them available for exploitation. As Cary Wolfe, citing Jacques Derrida, puts it: [T]he
humanist concept of subjectivity is inseparable from the discourse and institution of a
speciesism which relies on the tacit acceptance that the full transcendence to the human
requires the sacrifice of the animal and the animalistic, which in turn makes possible a
symbolic economy in which we can engage in a non-criminal putting to death, as Derrida phrases it,
not only of animals but of humans as well by marking them as animal. (1998:39) The
effectiveness of this discourse of species is that when applied to social others of whatever sort, it relies upon
the taking for granted of the institution of speciesism; that is, upon the ethical acceptability of the
systematic, institutionalised killing of non-human others (39). In other words, in assuming a
natural prioritization of humans and human interests over those of other species on earth, we are both
generating and repeating the racist ideologies of imperialism on a planetary scale . In working
towards a genuinely post-imperial, environmentally based conception of community, then, a re-imagining and
reconfiguration of the human place in nature necessitates an interrogation of the category of
the human itself and of the ways in which the construction of ourselves against nature with
the hierarchisation of life forms that construction implies has been and remains complicit in colonialist and
racist exploitation from the time of imperial conquest to the present day. Postcolonial studies
has come to understand environmental issues not only as central to the projects of European
conquest and global domination, but also as inherent in the ideologies of imperialism and
racism on which those projects historically and persistently depend. Not only were other
people often regarded as part of nature and thus treated as instrumentally as animals but
also they were forced or co-opted over time into western views of the environment, thereby
rendering cultural and environmental restitution difficult if not impossible to achieve. Once
invasion and settlement had been accomplished, or at least once administrative structures had been set up, the
environmental impacts of western attitudes to human being-in-the-world were facilitated or
reinforced by the deliberate (or accidental) transport of animals, plants and peoples throughout the
European empires, instigating wide-spread ecosystem change under conspicuously unequal
power regimes.3 Despite the recent advances of eco/environmental criticism, English studies in general, and postcolonial
studies more particularly, have yet to resituate the species boundary and environmental concerns
at the centre of their enquiries; yet the need to examine these interfaces between nature and
culture, animal and human, is urgent and never more pertinent than it is today . After all,
postcolonialisms concerns with conquest, colonisation, racism and sexism, along with its investments in
theories of indigeneity and diaspora and the relations between native and invader societies and cultures, are
also the central concerns of animal and environmental studies . Moreover, as the American environmental
historian Donald Worster acknowledges, it is in the myriad relationships between material practices and
ideas especially in cross-cultural contexts that day-to-day planetary life is lived and futures are governed:
practices and ideas that are inseparable from issues of representation as will be made clear
throughout this book. In his historical studies The Columbian Exchange (1973) and Ecological Imperialism (1986), Alfred Crosby
considers the ways in which both materials and ideas were exchanged between Old World and New in a number of anything but
even contexts. In the colonies of occupation, these radical inequalities or exchanges seemed most evident or at least initially in
the military and political arenas, while in the settler colonies it was the results of environmental
imperialism that were often most immediately clear. Different conceptions of being-in-the-world had indeed
long been exchanged by individuals or groups under colonialist circumstances: eastern religions had intrigued Europeans for several
centuries, while the oral cultures of the Pacific Islands and Africa had provoked interest and admiration in many westerners as well.
But in Australia, North America, New Zealand and South Africa, genuine curiosity about and respect for
indigenous cultures, philosophies and religions was rare, and even the most well-intentioned
of missionaries, settlers and administrators tended to conceive of themselves as conferring ( or
imposing ) the gifts of civilisation upon the benighted heathen with little or no interest in
receiving his or her philosophical gifts in return. Settlers arrived with crops, flocks and herds,
and cleared land, exterminating local ecosystems, while human, animal and plant specimens
taken to Europe from these new worlds were, by contrast, few and often inert in form.
(Interestingly enough, no human, animal or plant, whether wild or domesticated, transported from the colonies to Europe was in a
position to wreak comparable havoc on European ecosystems.) Moreover, they did not arrive as part of
traditional agricultural or pastoral practices or with the authority of the normative; instead,
they were isolated exotics: Indians paraded before royal courts; like turkeys and parrots in
cages were the innocent signifiers of an otherness that was *+ exotic , that is, non-systematic,
carrying no meaning other than that imposed by the culture to which they were exhibited
(Wasserman 1984; 132). European imports to the newly settled colonies humans, animals, plants
were regarded on the other hand as necessary and natural impositions on, or substitutes
for, the local bush or wilderness; and even if these invading species were initially difficult to
establish or acclimatize, they soon prospered in lands where their control predators were absent. The genuinely
natural ways of indigenous ecosystems were irretrievably undone as wild lands were
cleared for farming or opened up to pastoralism.
2NC Turns Case
History flows neg everything that has been said to have good intentions
results in destruction they are too narrow minded
Humanity," p. 8)

When thinking about whether the human species is worth saving the nave view sees these
good and bad aspects as distinct. However, when thinking about human nature as a whole,
or even the operation of human reason as a characteristic of the Enlightenment and
modernity, it is not so easy to draw clear lines of separation. As suggested by Theodor Adorno and Max
Horkheimer (1997), within what they call the dialectic of enlightenment, it is sometimes the very things which we
draw upon to escape from evil, poverty and harm (reason, science, technology) which bring
about a situation which is infinitely more destructive (for example the atom bomb). Indeed, it
has often been precisely those actions motivated by a desire to do good that have created
profound degrees of destruction and harm. One just has to think of all the genocides,
massacres and wars within history justified by moral notions such as civilisation, progress
and freedom, and carried out by numerous peoples acting with misguided, but genuine
intentions. When considering whether humanity is worth saving, one cannot turn a blind eye to the violence of human history.
This is not to discount the many positive aspects of the human heritage such as art, medicine, the recognition of individual
autonomy and the development of forms of social organisation that promote social welfare. Rather, what we are
questioning is whether a holistic view of the human heritage considered in its relation to the
natural environment merits the continuation of the human species or not. Far too often the
positive aspects of the human heritage are viewed in an abstract way, cut off from
humanitys destructive relation with the natural environment. Such an abstract or one-sided
picture glorifies and reifies human life and is used as a tool that perpetually redeems the
otherwise evil acts of humanity.

Your change from the status quo only results in more forms of ____________
and destruction of the environment by humanity
Humanity," p. 3-4)
One dominant presumption that underlies many modern scientific and political attitudes towards technology and creative human
action is that of speciesism, which can itself be called a human-centric view or attitude. The term speciesism, coined by
psychologist Richard D. Ryder and later elaborated into a comprehensive ethics by Peter Singer (1975), refers to the attitude
by which humans value their species above both non-human animals and plant life. Quite
typically humans conceive non-human animals and plant life as something which might simply
be used for their benefit. Indeed, this conception can be traced back to, among others, Augustine (1998, p.33). While
many modern, enlightened humans generally abhor racism, believe in the equality of all
humans, condemn slavery and find cannibalism and human sacrifice repugnant, many still
think and act in ways that are profoundly speciesist. Most individuals may not even be conscious that they
hold such an attitude, or many would simply assume that their attitude falls within the natural order of things. Such an
attitude thus resides deeply within modern human ethical customs and rationales and plays a profound role in the
way in which humans interact with their environment. The possibility of the destruction of our habitable
environment on earth through global warming and Hawkings suggestion that we respond by colonising other planets forces us to
ask a serious question about how we value human life in relation to our environment. The use of the term colonisation is
significant here as it draws to mind the recent history of the colonisation of much of the globe by white, European peoples. Such
actions were often justified by valuing European civilisation higher than civilisations of non-white
peoples, especially that of indigenous peoples. For scholars such as Edward Said (1978), however, the practice of
colonialism is intimately bound up with racism. That is, colonisation is often justified,
legitimated and driven by a view in which the right to possess territory and govern human life
is grounded upon an assumption of racial superiority. If we were to colonise other planets, what form of
racism would underlie our actions? What higher value would we place upon human life, upon the human race, at the expense of
other forms of life which would justify our taking over a new habitat and altering it to suit our prosperity and desired living
conditions?

2NC Alt Solvency
Only a complete rejection of all that is human can solve the impacts and is
morally justified

How might such a standpoint of dialectical, utopian anti-humanism reconfigure a notion of action which does not simply repeat in
another way the modern humanist infliction of violence, as exemplified by the plan of Hawking, or fall prey to institutional and
systemic complicity in speciesist violence? While this question goes beyond what it is possible to outline in this paper, we contend
that the thought experiment of global suicide helps to locate this question the question of modern action itself as residing at the
heart of the modern environmental problem. In a sense perhaps the only way to understand what is at
stake in ethical action which responds to the natural environment is to come to terms with
the logical consequences of ethical action itself. The point operates then not as the end, but as
the starting point of a standpoint which attempts to reconfigure our notions of action, life-
value, and harm. 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 not
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 non-
participation 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 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.

The alt solves your out of round/mindset shift impacts
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 re- introduces 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. Finally, it is important to note that
such a standpoint need not fall into a version of green or eco-fascism that considers other forms of life more important than the
lives of humans. Such a position merely replicates in reverse the speciesism of modern humanist thought. Any choice between the
eco-fascist and the humanist, colonial-speciesist is thus a forced choice and is, in reality, a non-choice that should be rejected. The
point of proposing the idea of the global suicide of humanity is rather to help identify the way
in which we differentially value different forms of life and guide our moral actions by rigidly
adhered to standards of life-value. Hence the idea of global suicide, through its radicalism,
challenges an ideological or culturally dominant idea of life-value. Further, through confronting
humanist ethics with its own violence against the non-human, the idea of global suicide opens
up a space for dialectical reflection in which the utopian ideals of both modern humanist and
anti-humanist ethics may be comprehended in relation to each other. One possibility of this conflict is
the production of a differing standpoint from which to understand the subject and the scope of moral action.

These forms of ethics determine the way we treat the environment
Sivil, lecturer in Environmental Philosophy, University of Durban Westville, 01
(Richard R, "Why we Need a New Ethic for the Environment", Protest And Engagement:
Philosophy after Apartheid, Ed. Patrick Giddy, http://www.crvp.org/book/Series02/II-
7/chapter_vii.htm)

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 & 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.

2NC Link Ext.
Their accusations of the terror list as being unethical and exclusionary beg the
question of ethics for and exclusionary against whom
They view terror as constructing violence they ignore the ongoing violence
against the non-human
Additionally, their starting point is fundamentally flawed their action through
the state only perpetuates flawed knowledge production the plan is a
criticism of exclusionary politics through the State Sponsor List of Terror but the
plan expands and simply includes more humans into the sphere maintaining an
anthropocentric worldview
Humans are viewed as the end all be all and their conception as the end of
humanity as the end of the world only serves to strengthen the discursive
construct of the human-non-human dichotomies
The aff is an attempt to define terror in the human discursive sphere while
complacently ignoring the ongoing violence against the non-human
Their action only serves to perpetuate the man/nature dichotomy the
exclusionary frame through which they justify what life forms are worthy of
being saved
2NC Bare Life DA
Their reasons for why we should prioritize survival proves that they only want a
specific aspect of humanity to survive this creates a distinction between good
life and bare life
Humanity," p. 7-8)
When many, like Hawing, typically think of the notion of the survival of the human race, it is perhaps
this cultural-cognitive aspect of homo sapiens, made possible and produced by human self-
consciousness, which they are thinking of. If one is to make the normative argument that the
human race should survive, then one needs to argue it is these cultural-cognitive aspects of
humanity, and not merely a portion of our genes, that is worth saving. However, it remains an
open question as to what cultural-cognitive aspect of humanity would survive in the future
when placed under radical environmental and evolutionary pressures. We can consider that perhaps
the fish people, having the capacity for self-awareness, would consider themselves as the continuation or
next step of humanity. Yet, who is to say that a leap in the process of evolution would not
prompt a change in self awareness, a different form of abstract reasoning about the species, a
different self-narrative, in which case the descendents of humans would look upon their
biological and genetic ancestors in a similar manner to the way humans look upon the apes
today. Conceivably the fish people might even forget or suppress their evolutionary human heritage. While such a future cannot
be predicted, it also cannot be controlled from our graves. In something of a sense similar to the point made by Giorgio Agamben
(1998), revising ideas found within the writings of Michel Foucault and Aristotle, the question of survival can be
thought to involve a distinction between the good life and bare life. In this instance,
arguments in favour of human survival rest upon a certain belief in a distinctly human good
life, as opposed to bare biological life, the life of the gene pool. It is thus such a good life, or at
least a form of life considered to be of value, that is held up by a particular species to be
worth saving. When considering the hypothetical example of the fish people, what cultural-cognitive aspect of humanitys good
life would survive?

That turns case
Foucault 72 (Michael, Professor of the History of Systems of Thought College De France, The
Foucault Reader, pg. 258) LD
Since the classical age, the West has undergone a very profound transformation of these
mechanisms of power. "Deduction" has tended to be no longer the major form of power but merely one element among
others, working to incite, reinforce, control, monitor, optimize, and organize the forces under it:
a power bent on generating forces, making them grow, and ordering them, rather than one
dedicated to impeding them, making them submit, or destroying them. There has been a parallel shift
in the right of death, or at least a tendency to align itself with the exigencies of a life-administering power and to define itself
accordingly. This death that was based on the right of the sovereign is now manifested as simply the reverse of the right , of the
social body to ensure, maintain, or develop its life . Yet wars were never as bloody as they have been since
the nineteenth century, and all things being equal, never before did regimes visit such
holocausts on their own populations . But this formidable power of death-and this is perhaps
what accounts for part of its force and the cynicism with which it has greatly expanded its
limits-now presents itself a s the counterpart of a power that exerts a positive influence on
life, that endeavors to administer, optimize, and multiply it, subjecting to precise controls and
comprehensive regulations . Wars are no longer waged in the name of a sovereign who must
be de fended; they are waged on behalf of the existence of everyone; entire populations are
mobilized for the purpose of wholesale slaughter in the name of life necessity: massacres have
become vital . It is as managers of life and survival, of bodies and the race, that so many
regimes have been able to wage so many wars, causing so many men to be killed. And through a
turn that closes the circle, as the technology of wars has caused them to tend increasingly toward all-out destruction, the decision
that initiates them and the one that terminates the are in fact increasingly informed by the naked question of survival. The
atomic situation is now at the end point of this process: the power to expose a whole
population to death is the underside of the power to guarantee an individual's continued
existence. The principle underlying the tactics of battle-that one has to be capable of killing in order to go on living-has become
the principle that defines the strategy of states. But the existence in question is no longer the juridical existence of sovereignty; at
stake is the biological existence of a population. If genocide is indeed the dream of modern powers, this is
not because of a recent return of the ancient right to kill; it is because power is situated and
exercised at the level of life, the species, the race, and the large-scale phenomena of
population.

They allow the worst parts of humanity to continue turns case
Humanity," p. 8)
While the example of the fish people might seem extreme, it presents a similar set of acute circumstances which would be faced
within any adaptation to a new habitat whether on the earth or in outer space. Unless humans are saved by radical
developments in technology that allow a comfortable colonisation of other worlds, then
genetic adaptation in the future retains a reasonable degree of probability. However, even if the
promise of technology allows humans to carry on their cultural-cognitive heritage within
another habitat, such survival is still perhaps problematic given the dark, violent, cruel and
brutal aspects of human life which we would presumably carry with us into our colonisation of
new worlds.
AT: Case Outweighs/Prioritization
The prioritization of human survival is a cultural construction and irrelevant
consider the fish people
Humanity," p. 6-7)

One method of approaching these questions is by considering the hypothetical example of the
fish people. Imagine that as a result of global warming sea levels rise to such an extent that
the majority of our current terrestrial habitat begins to be covered by water. One consequence is that
only species who already live in a watery environment or can adapt to live in water will survive. Scientists respond to this
change in habitat by genetically engineering some humans so that they have the capacity to
live in water, or, by selecting human candidates who might already have the genetic
constitution to survive in water and enhancing their capacity by selective breeding. Within a
few generations these new fish people are the only survivors of the species homo sapiens. They
survive as a new sub-species or even as a new species. In a general sense one might argue that humanity has successfully adapted to
a new environment and has survived. But, how much of what we consider to be human would in such a
case survive? In what way are the fish people representatives of humanity? The example is
important because it helps to draw the distinction between the differing notions of the
survival of a preferred species and the survival of life in general. If the fish people were to
mutate via natural selection enhanced by genetic technology into a new species, then while
they would share many of their genes with our own species they would also in many ways be
radically and fundamentally different. What would over time survive would genetically not be us but something like
a genetic cousin, akin perhaps in many ways to our present close genetic cousins, the higher apes a species with high levels of
cognition, degrees of self-awareness and intricate communal forms of behaviour. What investment would we as
humans have in the survival of another species which was not our own? If the question of
survival is genetic it should not really matter whether the fish people of the future or the apes
of the present inherit this earth. If only some of our genes but not our species has survived,
maybe the emphasis we place upon the notion of survival is more cultural than simply
genetic. Such an emphasis stems not only from our higher cognitive powers of self-consciousness
or self-awareness, but also from our conscious celebration of this fact: the image we create for
ourselves of humanity, which is produced by via language, collective memory and historical
narrative. The notion of the human involves an identification of our species with particular
characteristics with and upon which we ascribe certain notions of value. Amongst others such
characteristics and values might be seen to include: the notion of an inherent human dignity, the virtue of ethical behaviour, the
capacities of creative and aesthetic thought, and for some, the notion of an eternal soul. Humans are conscious of themselves as
humans and value the characteristics that make us distinctly human.
AT: Link of Omission
Your silence is an independent link our Bell evidence indicates that
anthropocentric notions manifest themselves in the way people neglect
justifying their inherent anthropocentric bias that allows for atrocities to
continue
AT: Humans Are Superior
This isnt offense for them our impact is predicated off of what their logic
justifies. Our impact is based on the idea of prioritization, not whether or not
humans actually are more important means no risk of an internal link turn to
our impacts
Cross apply answers from case outweighs
This is an independent link human superiority is socially constructed and not
factually accurate viewing every being as significant allows for a radical
change in the way we give meaning to the world

The human/nature dichotomy is not a frame of reference common to all cultures, and
although it prevails today in Western societies, even here there are and always have been
alternative ways of understanding and giving expression to a more-than-human world. These can
be found, for example, in myth (Kane, 1994, p. 14), poetic expression, certain branches of philosophy and environmental thought,
natural history, and childrens literature and films (Wilson, 1991, pp. 128139, 154). Even within the natural sciences,
voices attest to the meaningful existence of nonhuman beings as subjects (McVay, 1993). In animal
behaviour research, for instance, numerous studies have challenged the assertion of human
superiority based on a narrow definition of language that excludes nonhuman communication.
Chimpanzee Washoe and orangutan Chantek use American Sign Language, and other primates, like bonobo Kanzi, are fluent in
symbolic language, thereby altering the boundaries commonly drawn between language and mere communication (Gardner,
Gardner, & Canfort, 1989; Miles, 1994; Savage-Rumbaugh, Shanker, & Taylor, 1998). And though the bilingual great
apes may exhibit language patterns the most similar to those of humans, there are many
examples of sophisticated communication in other animals, including mammals, birds, and
insects (Griffin, 1992). Meeting the criteria of language implies, of course, that these studies compare
and judge other animals against a human yardstick. In other words, a hierarchical divide is still
assumed, although its position may shift somewhat to include, on humanitys side, some of
the higher animals. For a more radical reframing, one that seeks to acknowledge all life forms as subjects of significance,
let us turn to the work of philosopher David Abram. Drawing from phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Abram (1996)
argues that all sensing bodies are active, open forms con- stantly adjusting to a world that is
itself continually shifting (p. 49). To demonstrate how all beings incessantly improvise their
relations to other things he describes the spontaneous creativity of a spider: Consider a spider
weaving its web, for instance, and the assumption still held by many scientists that the behavior of such a diminutive creature is
thoroughly programmed in its genes. Certainly, the spider has received a rich genetic inheritance from its parents and
predecessors. Whatever instructions, however, are enfolded within the living genome, they can hardly predict the specifics of the
microterrain within which the spider may find itself at any particular moment. They could hardly have determined in advance the
exact distances between the cave wall and the branch that the spider is now employing as an anchorage point for her current web,
or the exact strength of the monsoon rains that make web-spinning a bit more difficult on this evening. And so the genome could
not explicitly have commanded the order of every flexion and extension of her various limbs as she weaves this web into its place.
However complex are the inherited programs, patterns, or predispositions, they must still be adapted to the immediate situation
in which the spider finds itself. However determinate ones genetic inheritance, it must still, as it were,
be woven into the present, an activity that necessarily involves both a receptivity to the
specific shapes and textures of that present and a spontaneous creativity in adjusting oneself
(and ones inheritance) to those contours. (Abram, 1996, p. 50) An equally illuminating insect story, intended to
evoke, once again, the subjective world of a nonhuman being, is found in Everndens The Natural Alien (1985, pp. 7980). Borrowing
from the work of biologist Jakob von Uexkull, Evernden invites readers to imagine that we are walking through a meadow and
that we discern a soap bubble around each creature to represent its own world, filled with the perceptions which it alone knows
(p. 79). He then attempts to describe what might be the world of a wood tick. The wood tick, he
explains, is literally and figuratively blind to the world as we know it. What we readily
perceive about our environment would be unknown, unknowable, and irrelevant to her. Her
world is composed of three elements: light, sweat, and heat. These are all that she needs to
complete her life cycle. Light will lead her to the top of a bush, where she will cling (for as long as 18 years!) until the smell
of sweat alerts her to a passing animal. She will then drop, and if she lands on a warm animal, she will indulge in a blood meal, fall to
the ground, lay her eggs, and die. Like Abram, Evernden (1985) challenges commonplace, mechanistic
assumptions that reduce other life forms to programmed automatons and intimates instead a
meaningful life-world completely unlike and outside our own: To speak of reflexes and instincts is to obscure
the essential point that the ticks world is a world, every bit as valid and adequate as our own.
There is a subject, and like all subjects it has its world . . . The tick is able to occupy a world that is per- ceptually meaningful to it. Out
of the thousands or millions of kinds of information that might be had, the tick sees only what is of significance to it. The world is
tailored to the animal; they are entirely complementary . . . This is quite a different view of existence from our usual one in which
the animal is simply an exploiter of certain natural resources. We are not talking just about observable interactions between
subjects and objects but rather about a very complete interrelation of self and world, so complete that the world could serve as a
definition of the self. Without the tick there is no tick-world, no tick-space, no tick-time, no tick-reality. (pp. 8081)
Everndens remarks are significant for the possibilities they open up in our understanding both of the nonhuman and of
ourselves. On one hand, they contest the limited notion that awareness is a specifically human
attribute. On the other, they remind us that we humans too have bodies that respond to light, sweat, and heat; we too know the
world through our bodies in a way that is not entirely dependent upon language; and this bodily knowledge plays an important role
in defining our world and giving meaning to it.

We are just the result of a combination of genes consider the Fish People
Humanity," p. 6-7)
One method of approaching these questions is by considering the hypothetical example of the
fish people. Imagine that as a result of global warming sea levels rise to such an extent that
the majority of our current terrestrial habitat begins to be covered by water. One consequence is that
only species who already live in a watery environment or can adapt to live in water will survive. Scientists respond to this
change in habitat by genetically engineering some humans so that they have the capacity to
live in water, or, by selecting human candidates who might already have the genetic
constitution to survive in water and enhancing their capacity by selective breeding. Within a
few generations these new fish people are the only survivors of the species homo sapiens. They
survive as a new sub-species or even as a new species. In a general sense one might argue that humanity has successfully adapted to
a new environment and has survived. But, how much of what we consider to be human would in such a
case survive? In what way are the fish people representatives of humanity? The example is
important because it helps to draw the distinction between the differing notions of the
survival of a preferred species and the survival of life in general. If the fish people were to
mutate via natural selection enhanced by genetic technology into a new species, then while
they would share many of their genes with our own species they would also in many ways be
radically and fundamentally different. What would over time survive would genetically not be us but something like
a genetic cousin, akin perhaps in many ways to our present close genetic cousins, the higher apes a species with high levels of
cognition, degrees of self-awareness and intricate communal forms of behaviour. What investment would we as
humans have in the survival of another species which was not our own? If the question of
survival is genetic it should not really matter whether the fish people of the future or the apes
of the present inherit this earth. If only some of our genes but not our species has survived,
maybe the emphasis we place upon the notion of survival is more cultural than simply
genetic. Such an emphasis stems not only from our higher cognitive powers of self-consciousness
or self-awareness, but also from our conscious celebration of this fact: the image we create for
ourselves of humanity, which is produced by via language, collective memory and historical
narrative. The notion of the human involves an identification of our species with particular
characteristics with and upon which we ascribe certain notions of value. Amongst others such
characteristics and values might be seen to include: the notion of an inherent human dignity, the virtue of ethical behaviour, the
capacities of creative and aesthetic thought, and for some, the notion of an eternal soul. Humans are conscious of themselves as
humans and value the characteristics that make us distinctly human.

Even if in a vacuum humans are good, the current state of humanity is
destructive
Humanity," p. 11)
In light of such a list it becomes difficult to hold onto any assumption that the human species
possesses any special or higher value over other species. Indeed, if humans at any point did
possess such a value, because of higher cognitive powers, or even because of a special status
granted by God, then humanity has surely devalued itself through its actions and has forfeited
its claim to any special place within the cosmos. In our development from higher predator to
semi-conscious destroyer we have perhaps undermined all that is good in ourselves and have
left behind a heritage best exemplified by the images of the gas chamber and the incinerator.

AT: Link Turn - We Help Animals
Doesnt matter if you leave the distinction unquestioned only the alt solves
Humanity," p. 5-6)
There continues to be a debate over the extent to which humans have caused environmental problems such as global warming (as
opposed to natural, cyclical theories of the earths temperature change) and over whether phenomena such as global warming can
be halted or reversed. Our position is that regardless of where one stands within these debates it is clear that humans have
inflicted degrees of harm upon non-human animals and the natural environment. And from
this point we suggest that it is the operation of speciesism as colonialism which must be
addressed. One approach is of course to adopt the approach taken by Singer and many within the animal rights movement and
remove our species, homo sapiens, from the centre of all moral discourse. Such an approach would thereby take into account not
only human life, but also the lives of other species, to the extent that the living environment as a whole can come to be considered
the proper subject of morality. We would suggest, however, that this philosophical approach can be taken a number of steps
further. If the standpoint that we have a moral responsibility towards the environment in which
all sentient creatures live is to be taken seriously, then we perhaps have reason to question
whether there remains any strong ethical grounds to justify the further existence of humanity.
For example, if one considers the modern scientific practice of experimenting on animals, both the notions of progress and
speciesism are implicitly drawn upon within the moral reasoning of scientists in their justification of committing violence against
nonhuman animals. The typical line of thinking here is that because animals are valued less than
humans they can be sacrificed for the purpose of expanding scientific knowledge focussed
upon improving human life. Certainly some within the scientific community, such as
physiologist Colin Blakemore, contest aspects of this claim and argue that experimentation on
animals is beneficial to both human and nonhuman animals (e.g. Grasson, 2000, p.30). Such
claims are disingenuous, however, in that they hide the relative distinctions of value that
underlie a moral justification for sacrifice within the practice of experimentation (cf. LaFollette &
Shanks, 1997, p.255). If there is a benefit to non-human animals this is only incidental, what remains
central is a practice of sacrificing the lives of other species for the benefit of humans. Rather than
reject this common reasoning of modern science we argue that it should be reconsidered upon the basis of species equality. That is,
modern science needs to ask the question of: Who is the best candidate for sacrifice for the
good of the environment and all species concerned? The moral response to the violence,
suffering and damage humans have inflicted upon this earth and its inhabitants might then be
to argue for the sacrifice of the human species. The moral act would be the global suicide of
humanity. This notion of global human suicide clearly goes against commonly celebrated and deeply held views of the inherent
value of humanity and perhaps contradicts an instinctive or biological desire for survival. Indeed the picture painted by
Hawking presents a modern humanity which, through its own intellectual, technical and moral
action, colonises another planet or finds some other way to survive. His idea is driven by the desire for
the modern human, as we know it, to survive. Yet, what exact aspect of our species would survive, let
alone progress, in such a future? In the example of the colonisation of another planet, would
human survival be merely genetic or would it also be cultural? Further, even if we can pinpoint what would
survive is there a strong moral argument that the human species should survive?

Link Generic
Their calls for widespread change fall into the same logic of progress that has
resulted in speciesist violence and the destruction of the environment
Humanity,")
In another sense the ethical demand to respond to historical and present environmental
destruction runs onto and in many ways intensifies the question of radical or revolutionary
change which confronted the socialist tradition within the 19th and 20th centuries. As environmental concerns have increasingly
since the 1970s come into greater prominence, the pressing issue for many within the 21st century is that of social-environmental
revolution. [9] Social- environmental revolution involves the creation of new social, political and
economic forms of human and environmental organisation which can overcome the
deficiencies and latent oppression of global capitalism and safeguard both human and non-
human dignity. Putting aside the old, false assumptions of a teleological account of history,
social-environmental revolution is dependent upon widespread political action which short-
circuits and tears apart current legal, political and economic regimes. This action is itself
dependent upon a widespread change in awareness, a revolutionary change in consciousness,
across enough of the populace to spark radical social and political transformation. Thought of
in this sense, however, such a response to environmental destruction is caught by many of the
old problems which have troubled the tradition of revolutionary socialism. Namely, how might a significant number of human
individuals come to obtain such a radically enlightened perspective or awareness of human social reality (i.e. a dialectical, utopian
anti-humanist revolutionary consciousnesse) so that they might bring about with minimal violence the overthrow of the practices
and institutions of late capitalism and colonial-speciesism? Further, how might an individual attain such a radical perspective when
their life, behaviours and attitudes (or their subjectivity itself) are so moulded and shaped by the individuals immersion within and
active self-realisation through, the networks, systems and habits constitutive of global capitalism? (Hardt & Negri, 2001). While
the demand for social-environmental revolution grows stronger, both theoretical and practical
answers to these pressing questions remain unanswered. Both liberal and social
revolutionary models thus seem to run into the same problems that surround the notion of
progress; each play out a modern discourse of sacrifice in which some forms of life and modes
of living are set aside in favour of the promise of a future good. Caught between social hopes
and political myths, the challenge of responding to environmental destruction confronts,
starkly, the core of a discourse of modernity characterised by reflection, responsibility and
action. Given the increasing pressures upon the human habitat, this modern discourse will either deliver or it will fail. There is
little room for an existence in between: either the Enlightenment fulfils its potentiality or it shows its hand as the bearer of
impossibility. If the possibilities of the Enlightenment are to be fulfilled then this can only happen if the old idea of the progress of
the human species, exemplified by Hawkings cosmic colonisation, is fundamentally rethought and replaced by a new form of self-
comprehension. This self-comprehension would need to negate and limit the old modern
humanism by a radical anti-humanism. The aim, however, would be to not just accept one
side or the other, but to re-think the basis of moral action along the lines of a dialectical,
utopian anti-humanism. Importantly, though, getting past inadequate conceptions of action,
historical time and the futural promise of progress may be dependent upon radically re-
comprehending the relationship between humanity and nature in such a way that the human
is no longer viewed as the sole core of the subject, or the being of highest value. The human
would thus need to no longer be thought of as a master that stands over the non-human.
Rather, the human and the non-human need to be grasped together, with the former bearing dignity only so long as it understands
itself as a part of the latter.
Link Action (Trying to Solve Things)
Its too late any attempt to reform results in merely an extension of
destruction by humanity
Humanity," p. 12)
Faced with what seems to be a looming environmental crisis spiralling out of control and an
awareness of a history of human action which has caused this crisis, the reaction of many
environmentalists is, contra Hawking, not to run away to another habitat but to call for new
forms of action. The call for urgent political and social action to change human behaviour in relation to the environment is
echoed globally not only by environmentalists and activists but also by celebrities and politicians. [6] The response is highly
modern in the sense that a problem such as global warming is not considered to be something
ordained by fate or the outcome of divine providence. Instead it is understood as something
caused by human action for which humans bear the responsibility and, further, that disaster
may still be averted if we act in such a way to change the course of history. [7] The move towards
critical historical reflection, the assuming of responsibility, and action guided by such an attitude, is certainly a better approach than
shutting ones eyes to the violence and errors of human history or placing blind faith in technology. Indeed, criticism of these latter
views is heard from within eco-ethics circles themselves, either by labelling such endeavours as technofix or technocentric (Smith,
1998), or by criticizing the modes of action of green-politics as eco-bureaucracy and men-politics (Seager, 1993). However, even
if we try to avoid falling into the above patterns, maybe it is actually too late to change the
course of the events and forces that are of our own making. Perhaps a modern discourse or
belief in the possibilities of human action has run aground, hamstrung by its own success.
Perhaps the only forms of action available are attempts to revert to a pre-industrial lifestyle,
or a new radical form of action, an action that lets go of action itself and the human claim to
continued habitation within the world. In this case, the action of cosmic colonisation
envisaged by Hawking would not be enough. It would merely perpetuate a cycle of destructive
speciesist violence. Further, general humanist action, guided by some obligation of care for
the environment, would also not be enough as it could not overcome an individuals
complicity in systematic and institutional speciesist violence.
Link Science/Scientific Consensus
Says science creates level of certainty and realism that results in people
thinking they know the environment rather than thinking that they interpret
the environment
scee.ca/CJE/Articles/FullText/CJE25-3/CJE25-3-bell.pdf)
The language best suited to this cleansing of nature is that of the natural sciences. Scientific accounts, written in
languageexclusively descriptive and avowedly neutral (Evernden, 1992, p. 85), are widely regarded as factual and
unbiased and thus are granted a privileged role in naming nature. As Haraway (1986) explains: A scientist
names nature in written, public documents, which are endowed with the special, institutionally enforced
quality of being perceived as objective and applicable beyond the cultures of the people who
wrote those documents. (p. 79) According to Haraway (1986), the aesthetic of realism that underlies the
truth claims of the natural sciences means many practitioners tend to see themselves not as
interpreters but as discoverers moving from description to causal explanation (p. 89). Haraways
analysis reminds us that poststructuralism can and should be used to call into question the universal legitimacy of
science insofar as it is used to explicate not only the human domain but also the natural
sciences. This questioning almost never takes place. Whereas accusations of reductionism have been levelled at
the biobehavioural sciences when focused on humans (e.g., explaining behaviour solely in genetic terms), rarely are these
accusations made against similar studies on nonhumans (Noske, 1997, p. 83). The reason, presumably, is that
the sorts of questions that could be raised about how culture, class, race, and gender shape
knowledge about human experience do not pertain to truth claims about the nonhuman.
Humans alone are understood to have histories open to interpretation . Everything else is
matter for measurement and prediction, physical stuff that can be described and classified
once and for all. To move beyond such taken-for-granted notions of human and nature, Evernden and Haraway suggest, we
must admit into the conversation some non-common-sensical insights and some unsettling possibilities (Evernden, 1992, p. 102
and Haraway, 1988, p. 593, respectively). Haraway (1992) writes of otherworldly conversations, a metaphor helpful in pointing to
the possibility of conversants in a discourse in which all of the actors are not us (p. 84). To this end, we consider a few
promising reconceptualizations of what might constitute language, agency, and meaningful
existence beyond the human realm. p. 194-195

Link Socialism/Not Freedom
Becoming dependent on certain social structures extends speciesist violence
Humanity,")
The banality of action hits against a central problem of social-political action within late
modernity. In one sense, the ethical demand to respond to historical and present environmental
destruction opens onto a difficulty within the relationship between moral intention and
autonomy. While an individual might be autonomous in respect of moral conscience, their
fundamental interconnection with and interdependence upon social, political and economic
orders strips them of the power to make and act upon truly autonomous decisions. From this
perspective it is not only the modern humanist figures such as Hawking who perpetuate present
violence and present dreams of colonial speciesist violence in the future. It is also those who
might reject this violence but whose lives and actions are caught up in a certain complicity for
this violence. From a variety of political standpoints, it would seem that the issue of modern,
autonomous action runs into difficulties of systematic and institutional complicity. Certainly
both individuals and groups are expected to give up a degree of autonomy in a modern liberal-
democratic context. In this instance, giving up autonomy (in the sense of autonomy as
sovereignty) is typically done in exchange for the hope or promise of at some point having some
degree of control or influence (i.e. via the electoral system) over government policy. The price of
this hope or promise, however, is continued complicity in government-sanctioned social,
political and economic actions that temporarily (or in the worst case, eternally) lie beyond the
individuals choice and control. The answer to the questions of whether such complicity might
ever be institutionally overcome, and the problems of human violence against non-human
species and ongoing environmental destruction effectively dealt with, often depends upon
whether one believes that the liberal hope or promise is, either valid and worthwhile, or false
and a sham. [8] p. 14
Link Technology/Progress
Their view of technology and human progress as a way to solve problems
serves as an extension of humanitys destruction of the environment
Humanity,")
In 2006 on an Internet forum called Yahoo! Answers a question was posted which read: In a world that is in chaos
politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?
The question was asked by prominent physicist Stephen Hawking (Hawking, 2007a). While Hawking claimed not to know the
solution he did suggest something of an answer (Hawking, 2007b). For Hawking the only way for the human race
to survive in the future is to develop the technologies that would allow humans to colonise
other planets in space beyond our own solar system. While Hawkings claim walks a path often trodden by science fiction,
his suggestion is not untypical of the way humans have historically responded to social,
material and environmental pressures and crises. By coupling an imagination of a new world or
a better place with the production and harnessing of new technologies, humans have for a long
time left old habitats and have created a home in others. The history of our species, homo sapiens, is marked
by population movement aided by technological innovation: when life becomes too precarious in one habitat, members of the
species take a risk and move to a new one. Along with his call for us to go forward and colonise other planets, Hawking does list a
number of the human actions which have made this seem necessary. [1] What is at issue, however, is his failure to
reflect upon the relationship between environmental destruction, scientific faith in the
powers of technology and the attitude of speciesism. That is, it must be asked whether
population movement really is the answer. After all, Hawkings suggestion to colonise other
planets does little to address the central problem of human action which has destroyed, and
continues to destroy, our habitat on the earth. While the notion of cosmic colonisation places faith in
the saviour of humanity by technology as a solution, it lacks a crucial moment of reflection
upon the manner in which human action and human technology has been and continues to be
profoundly destructive. Indeed, the colonisation of other planets would in no way solve the problem of environmental
destruction; rather, it would merely introduce this problem into a new habitat . The destruction of one
planetary habitat is enough we should not naively endorse the future destruction of others. Hawkings approach to
environmental catastrophe is an example of a certain modern faith in technological and
social progress . One version of such an approach goes as follows: As our knowledge of the world and ourselves increases
humans are able to create forms of technology and social organisation that act upon the world
and change it for our benefit. However, just as there are many theories of progress *2+ there are also many
modes of reflection upon the role of human action and its relationship to negative or
destructive consequences. The version of progress enunciated in Hawkings story of cosmic colonisation presents a
view whereby the solution to the negative consequences of technological action is to create
new forms of technology, new forms of action. New action and innovation solve the dilemmas and consequences of
previous action.
Affirmative Replies

Alt Solvency/Perm Card

Fuck the Animals Perm

Perm: do the plan and accept that humanity is superior this solves the
alternative better
No alt solvency they criticize the external impracticalities of treating animals
equally this criticism misses the boat and empirically fails to generate equality
Varsava 12 (Nina, Stanford University Graduate Student on Modern Thought and Literature,
citing Siobhan OSullivan, author of "Animals, Equality and Democracy," Journal for Critical
Animal Studies, 2012, Volume 10 Number 3, "Animals, Equality and Democracy,"
http://journal.hamline.edu/index.php/jcas/issue/view/8/showToc, CM)

Nonhuman animals are treated unfairlyin so far, argues Siobhan OSullivan in Animals,
Equality and Democracy, as they are treated inconsistently. OSullivan dismisses the argument,
common in animal rights literature, for the equal moral consideration of human and nonhuman
animalsnot because it is unsound, logically or morally, but rather because it is impractical.
Better we accept the inconsistency between the treatment of human and nonhuman animals, a
problem OSullivan terms the external inconsistency, and focus instead on the internal
inconsistencythe way in which nonhuman animals are treated unequally in relation to each
other. OSullivan sets aside the human/animal problem and instead takes up the animal/animal
problem. Animals, Equality and Democracy begins with an overview of contemporary Western
literature on animal ethics, focusing on three of the most influential liberal-based animal
protection philosophies: Peter Singers utilitarianism, Tom Regans deontological approach, and
Mark Rowlands contractarian argument (12). Each of these theorists targets the external
inconsistency problem, and each has failed to convince a mainstream audience that nonhuman
animals are worthy of moral consideration alongside human beings. Pro-animal political and
legal theorists, OSullivan adds, notably Gary Francione, have similarly attacked the inconsistent
treatment of nonhuman animals in relation to humans, and have, similarly, been unsuccessful.
While other kinds of discrimination have been challenged successfully by liberal theorists, she
points out, the human/animal problem has not. OSullivan takes this as evidence of the futility of
arguments against the external inconsistency. These arguments lack popular support because
they go against what OSullivan construes as an immovable dominant viewthe belief that
human beings belong to a special category of life, one deserving of privileged ethical status
above and beyond all other animals. Rather than resisting the dominant view, she argues, we
should accept it as an unshakeable, if ultimately unjustified, belief system. OSullivan attempts
to shift the attention of animal ethics away from the external inconsistency problem, and
towards the problem of inequality amongst nonhuman animalsa problem which, she stresses,
we are much more likely to see resolved within the context of Western liberal democracy.
p. 1-2

Viewing all animals as equally shitty solves for animal rights best

With Animals, Equality and Democracy, OSullivan seeks to expose the visibility problem and in
so doing to ameliorate the inconsistent treatment of nonhuman animals in relation to one
another. She maintains that humans in Western liberal democracies do attribute moral worth to
nonhuman animals, which is why, when it comes to nonhuman animals in plain view, humans
insist on good legal protection. If only the equity principle were applied to the case of
nonhuman animals, then this protection would extend to them all, regardless of degree of
economic productivityand this is the outcome OSullivan is after. She maintains, however,
that even if correcting the internal inconsistency were to result in a race to the bottom
where all nonhuman animals ended up with equally poor, rather than equally good, legal
protectionthe shift would still be a desirable one, as long as the outcome was consistent with
liberal democratic values: Even if the community were to reach a decision that had a negative
impact on the lives of some animals, it would nonetheless be a decision consistent with liberal
democratic values. A decision making process underpinned by such principles would seem
appropriate in the context of an overarching liberal democratic political system. (171)
p. 3-4

No Solvency No One Cares

No alt solvency no one cares

According to OSullivan, the problem with the treatment of nonhuman animals in the West is
not only that they are treated impartially, but that they are treated impartially because the
community does not have access to or knowledge about the majority of nonhuman animals
who, ironically, play a central role in Western liberal democracies. The community cannot
possibly make educated decisions concerning the legal protection of nonhuman animals
because they do not have the information necessary to making these decisions. Equity is
fundamental to the achievement of democratic forms of government, OSullivan writes. But
there is another element to the democratic model that is also very important: the communitys
right and ability to be engaged in the process of making political decisions (61).
p. 3

No Solvency Oppression Inevitable

No solvency the fact that we are living makes us oppressors of animals
Nocella II 12 (Anthony J. Nocella II prominent author, community organizer, and educator,
teaches Urban Education in the Hamline University's School of Education. Journal for Critical
Animal Studies, Volume 10, Issue 1, 2012, "Challenging Whiteness in the Animal Advocacy
Movement," http://journal.hamline.edu/index.php/jcas/issue/view/5/showToc, CM)

Instead of calling animal rights a total liberation movement, it might be better to call it a
total justice movement or an animal justice movement, an idea that Amy Fitzgerald and
David Pellow introduce in the Critical Animal Studies Reader forthcoming by John Sorenson and
myself. Justice, not liberation, is what the oppressed are demanding from people who are in
solidarity. To believe that the oppressor can liberate the oppressed is ignorant and arrogant, and
it promotes a savior mentality. Every human is a dominator to nonhuman animals, even if they
are anti-speciesist comparable to every white person is a racist, even if the white person is an
anti-racist. Humans benefit from access, products, and freedoms that nonhuman animals do not
have. Whites, event anti-racists benefit from being white, such as being pulled over less and
having better possibilities of being hired for a job. One possible reason that the animal
advocacy movement is plagued with conflict may be that there is not a shared experience of
oppression. For this reason, people often come and go from the movement to start families, go
to college, get jobs, and live their lives with no long-term commitment to the cause. Few in
the movement share anything universal that forces them together, except their complicity in the
exploitation and suffering of nonhuman animals. The bear, the dog in the lab, the gorilla in the
zoo, the elephant in the circus, and the mink in the cage all have a common experience of
speciesist oppression. Being a human animal and living in a colonialized industrialized country
allows human animals to dominate nonhuman animals, even those who are vegan, those who
recycle, and those who are part of anarchist collectives.
p. 149-150

AT: Root Cause

Your root cause arguments turn alternative solvency
Nocella II 12 (Anthony J. Nocella II prominent author, community organizer, and educator,
teaches Urban Education in the Hamline University's School of Education. Journal for Critical
Animal Studies, Volume 10, Issue 1, 2012, "Challenging Whiteness in the Animal Advocacy
Movement," http://journal.hamline.edu/index.php/jcas/issue/view/5/showToc, CM)

The animal advocacy movement is dominated by white people who hold the classic view that
the animal liberation movement is the ultimate progressive movement or that animal liberation
is the most important and the last true emancipatory movement. Arguing a movement is the
ultimate or the last true movement ignores the interlocked connection of the nature of
oppression, and it is highly problematic when voiced by activists seeking ways to get more
People of Color, people with disabilities, non-U.S., and people that are LGBTQ into the
movement.
p. 145

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