1AC

1AC - Whistle blowers

Advantage 1 is Whistleblowers
Whistleblowers check abuse - lack of protections ensures a
chilling effect that kills effectiveness
Anderson and Kleinman 14 (Christine Anderson, Public Policy Fellow, POGO,
and Avery Kleinman was the Beth Daley Impact Fellow for the Project On
Government Oversight, FDA Surveillance Threatened Whistleblowers, pg online @
http://www.pogo.org/blog/2014/02/fda-surveillance-threatenedwhistleblowers.html //um-ef)

Congress and the President must mandate a government-wide policy to prevent

future surveillance abuses, Angela Canterbury, Director of Public Policy at the Project On Government Oversight, told the House Oversight
and Government Reform Committee Wednesday during a hearing entitled Limitless Surveillance at the FDA: Protecting the Rights of Federal Whistleblowers. The
hearing revisited the media-dubbed case of the FDA 9, a group of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) physicians
and scientists who wrote to Congress and the President in 2008 and
2009 warning that ineffective and unsafe devices were being
approved by the FDA. The FDA whistleblowers described serious
wrongdoing by mid-level and senior FDA officials who cut corners
and overruled scientists. The FDA then began to spy on the
whistleblowerssweeping up whistleblowing disclosures to Congress, the Office of Special Counsel, and POGO. The hearing was
timed with the release of a joint staff report by House Oversight and
Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Senate Judiciary Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), titled Limitless Surveillance at the
FDA: Protecting the Rights of Federal Whistleblowers. The report concluded that the FDA lacked
sufficient authorization to monitor the whistleblowers, unlawfully
captured protected communications of the whistleblowers, failed to
explain how ongoing monitoring was necessary to the investigation
of a past leak, and did not adequately bolster whistleblower
protections in new policies. Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) introductory remarks voiced his discontent at being shut out of the
drafting of the report. We must protect our whistleblowers. I am committed to that, and we are all committed to that. Unfortunately, the majority has taken a traditionally bipartisan
issue, something that all committee members should be investigating together, and turned it into another partisan spectacle for which our committee has become well-known.
Chairman Issa responded, Whistleblowers made Senator Grassley and his staff aware of a problem, but independent investigation by the IG and by this committeebipartisan
investigationhave led us to the conclusions we will hear today. The minority may produce its own report on the findings in the coming weeks. Senator Grassley testified first, stating,

whistleblowers are
about as welcome in a bureaucracy as skunks at a picnic. On the FDA
specifically, he said, We have found problems with the respect of scientists and
the respect of the scientific process within that agency regardless of
who was president. You can watch the Senators full testimony here. Discussing the alleged confidentiality of the information shared by the
whistleblowers, Chairman Issa emphasized that the trade secrets being protected by
confidentiality claims protect the companies, not the public. Most people probably
In 33 years, under both Republicans and Democrats, Ive found the problem the same. Whatever bureaucracy youre talking about,

listening and watching and today believe the public has a right to know that information and may not agree with the FDAs view that that is private or confidential or somehow a secret
from the American people as to whether a product that may or may not yet be on the market is safe and effective. Canterbury agreed with the Chairmans concerns, and later noted

neither the Issa-Grassley nor the Health and Human Services

Inspector General (HHS IG) investigation confirmed that the FDA
surveillance found evidence of the disclosure of confidential
information. Moreover, whether the information was confidential should have been investigatedinstead of the whistleblowers. Canterbury also said that
protecting whistleblowers at the FDA may be a matter of life and
that

death for many Americans: Whistleblowers are the guardians of the public trust and safety. Without proper
controls at FDA and throughout the government, employee surveillance is a serious
threat to whistleblower protections. The resulting chilling effect will
significantly reduce accountability thus keeping waste, fraud, abuse,
and threats to public health and safety in the shadows. The FDAs
problems can be deadly . There have been far too many ineffective
and unsafe medical devices approved by the broken agency, Canterbury said.
Unfortunately, there have been multiple instances of misconduct in the medical device approval process at the FDA in the past few years. In February 2009, POGO issued a report

senior FDA officials decided

not to enforce a regulation that helps protect patients from unsafe
devices. The officials did this over the protests of scientists. Canterbury told the
committee that unwarranted surveillance is a serious threat and government
agencies should not be allowed to police themselves. She noted that only law enforcement,
authored by Dr. Ned Feder, The FDAs Deadly Gamble with the Safety of Medical Devices, which showed that

such as the FBI, Office of Special Council, and Inspector General, should investigate suspected leaks of legally protected information or other crimes. The HHS IG, the watchdog tasked

The report pointed to

FDAs failure to consider whether potentially intrusive monitoring
would be the most appropriate investigative tools with which to
investigate a suspected leak.
with oversight of the FDA, released its report on the surveillance of the whistleblowers the night before the hearing.

The plans key ITP is abused by agencies to undercut

whistleblowers its reach creates a chilling effect
Washington Post 14 (Scott, Higham writerIntelligence security initiatives
have chilling effect on federal whistleblowers, critics say,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/intelligence-securityinitiatives-have-chilling-effect-on-federal-whistleblowers-criticssay/2014/07/23/c9dfd794-0ea0-11e4-8341-b8072b1e7348_story.html)
The Insider Threat Program and a continuous monitoring initiative under consideration in the intelligence community were begun by the Obama administration after the leaks of
classified information by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning, and the Navy Yard shootings by Aaron Alexis, who used his security clearance to gain
access to the base. The programs are designed to prevent leaks of classified information by monitoring government computers and employees behavior. Grassley said the episode with

federal agencies are setting up internal security programs

without giving careful consideration to whether they could
dissuade whistleblowers from coming forward. The I nsider T hreat P rogram has
the FBI illustrates how

the potential for taking the legs out from underneath all of the
whistleblower protections we have, Grassley said in a recent interview. Greg Klein, the head of the FBIs Insider Threat
Program, and McDonough, the congressional affairs agent, did not return calls seeking comment. An FBI spokesman said the bureau does not plan to register whistleblowers. He said
there was a misunderstanding about the nature of the briefing with staff members for Grassley, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and a law enforcement official who
is assigned to the Senate panel. The spokesman noted that the FBI has a whistleblower training program for employees and a whistleblower protection office. We recognize the
importance of protecting the rights of whistleblowers, FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said. Grassley is part of a growing chorus of lawmakers on Capitol Hill and attorneys for

the I nsider T hreat P rogram and the potential intelligence community initiative threaten
to undermine federal workers ability to report wrongdoing without
retaliation. Together, the programs cover millions of federal workers and
contractors at every government agency . In February, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. testified
whistleblowers who warn that

before the Senate Armed Services Committee that a system was being considered to continuously monitor the behavior of employees with security clearances on the job as well as off
the job. A senior intelligence official said a continuous monitoring program, mandated under the Intelligence Authorization Act and signed into law by President Obama on July 7, is
being set up and initially will include federal employees who hold top-secret security clearances. The official said there are no plans to monitor employees after hours while they are
using non-government computer systems. I think

its time to put up the caution light here,

said Sen. Ron

Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. While Wyden included a provision in the most recent Intelligence Authorization Act that would prohibit retaliation

This really has the potential for

could have a chilling effect on the publics right to

against whistleblowers, he said he remains concerned about the impact of the threat programs.

abuse, and I think it

know and effective oversight of our government , Wyden said. Dan Meyer, the head of the
Intelligence Community Whistleblowing & Source Protection program, created last year as part of the Office of Intelligence Community Inspector General, said he is working to ensure
that employees who want to report wrongdoing can do so anonymously and without reprisal. The critical thing is to maintain confidentiality, Meyer said. He said he is preparing training
materials for intelligence officers and spreading the word that employees can come to him anonymously through third parties. If an employee has verifiable information about
wrongdoing, a presidential directive takes effect, providing employees with protection against retaliation. We are in the process of making a systematic, cultural change and getting
everyone on board, Meyer said. After Mannings disclosures to WikiLeaks four years ago, Obama signedExecutive Order 13587, directing government agencies to assess how they
handle classified information. On Nov. 28, 2010, the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive issued a memo to senior government agency officials, advising them to identify
insider threats. The memo suggested using psychiatrists and sociologists to assess changes in employees behavior. What metrics do you use to measure trustworthiness without
alienating employees? the counterintelligence office asked the agency chiefs. Do you use a psychiatrist or sociologist to measure: relative happiness as a means to gauge
trustworthiness? Despondence and grumpiness as a means to gauge waning trustworthiness? It will only increase hostility between the government and really serious federal
employees who are trying to improve the system, said Lynne Bernabei, a partner at Bernabei & Wachtel in Washington who has been representing whistleblowers for nearly 30 years.
Turning the security apparatus against its own people is not going to work. Whistleblower lawyers said they understand the need to protect classified information but think some of the

There are legitimate reasons for employers to be on the

lookout for people who might be leaking classified information, but
this will obviously have a chilling effect on employees who might
new programs go too far.

want to blow the whistle , said Jason Zuckerman, who served as the senior legal adviser to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, the federal
agency charged with protecting whistleblowers, and now represents whistleblowers nationwide. Michael German, a former undercover FBI agent and whistleblower, called the Insider
Threat Program a dangerous initiative.

The effect spills-over to EVERY agency

Gap 12 (Government Accountability Project, FDA Surveillance of Whistleblowers
Unacceptable, http://whistleblower.org/press/fda-surveillance-whistleblowers%E2%80%98unacceptable%E2%80%99) JB

Chilling Effect Far-Reaching if Congress Fails to Act (Washington, D.C.)

Today, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) is publicly
denouncing the Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) implementation
of an invasive and potentially illegal surveillance system instituted
against employees trying to blow the whistle on critical safety
issues surrounding medical devices. The New York Times revealed the in-depth surveillance
program in an explosive piece this past weekend. That article detailed how the agency monitored and secretly
captured thousands of email communications between the whistleblowers and members of the media, Congress,
attorneys, other regulatory officials, and the White House. Many of these communications are protected by various
whistleblower laws. Subsequent reports show that agency lawyers approved these measures. Amanda Hitt, GAP
Public Health Director, and Director of GAPs Food Integrity Campaign (which aims to protect whistleblowers at the

While the outcry by Congress and regulators thus far

against the FDA is encouraging, the damage may have already been
done. Its hard to imagine how this fiasco wont have a chilling
FDA), stated:

effect on future FDA whistleblowers, and employees from all sorts

of government agencies. This foray into espionage is nothing more than a service the agency
provides to its 'clients.' Simply put, the FDA is spying on its own to protect the
financial interests of the very corporations it is bound to regulate.
GAP National Security & Human Rights Director Jesselyn Radack, who monitors the federal governments use of
surveillance, stated: "Like a virus, the systematic mass surveillance of federal employees has spread beyond
national security agencies to domestic ones to programs that in no way involve classified information.

This

FDA program was not the random monitoring of government

computers it is a premeditated, targeted strike against
whistleblower-scientists who attempted to safeguard the public.
This surveillance is unacceptable .

Whistleblowers are necessary to ensure compliance with

federal environmental laws
Becker 14 (Emily, J.D. cum laude, Harvard Law School, Calling Foul: Deficiencies
in Approaches to Environmental Whistleblowers and Suggested Reforms, 6 Wash. &
Lee J. Energy, Climate & Envt. 65pg online @
http://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1085&context=jece //um-ef)

regulating the environmental industry poses unique

challenges.55 Whistleblowers are important in all sectors, but whistleblowers
play a crucial role in the environmental sector .56 Though all whistleblowers face obstacles, there is a
Though regulating any industry is difficult,

particular subset of challenges that many whistleblowers in the environmental sector must face.57 This subsection explains: (1) the challenges of regulating the environmental sector,58
(2) the potential for whistleblowers to increase compliance with environmental regulations,59 and (3) the unique difficulties environmental whistleblowers face.60 1. Challenges of

The environmental sector is difficult to regulate

because: (1) environmental dangers can be hard to monitor; 61 (2)
enforcement of environmental regulations tends to be costly and is
often dependent upon industry self-reporting; 62 (3) regulated entities
often have a financial incentive not to comply with environmental
laws; 63 and (4) environmental harm is timesensitive and difficult to reverse.64 Part of this difficulty enforcing environmental regulations comes from the very nature of
environmental harms, which tend to be hard to detect and trace back to
their source.65 Another challenge comes from the fact that emission levels may vary over space
and time.66 A further challenge comes from the fact that many small polluters that are individually
difficult to monitor can collectively pose a very real threat.67 These
difficulties make environmental controls highly technical, posing another challenge:
Regulators must have expertise and access to hightech tools to
Regulating the Environmental Sector

establish effective pollution regulation controls based on the type

of pollutant . 68 Because of the challenges of enforcing environmental regulations, government-regulated monitoring efforts are expensive.69 In an
effort to reduce the cost of enforcement, some regulatory
approaches, such as subsidies, deposit-refunded systems, and information disclosure, shift the burden of proof
onto the regulated industry.70 Though less costly, these approaches make
regulators dependent on industry self-reporting and create the
potential for an industry to misreport its pollutant levels.71 The
potential that self-reported data will be misreported or that
industries will subvert official monitoring by engaging in illegal
practices, such as tampering with monitoring equipment or dumping
illegally, poses a serious threat because industries often profit from noncompliance.72 Under the theory of efficient breach,
companies may be willing to break environmental laws where
noncompliance is less costly than compliance because regulations
go under-enforced.73 Not only are environmental harms hard to monitor, costly to regulate, and susceptible to efficient breach, environmental harms
are also time-sensitive.74 Indeed, environmental harms jeopardize public health, and the longer harms continue, the greater health risk these harms pose. 75 Moreover, it is usually far
easier to prevent an environmental harm than to clean up after one; some

environmental harms are effectively

irreversible .76 Thus, regulators often need to act quickly to be

effective. 2. Whistleblowers Can Facilitate Regulation of the Environmental Sector Whistleblowers can help

regulators overcome the aforementioned challenges. First, whistleblowers that work as

employees of regulated industries have the technical skills and knowledge that make them effective internal monitors.77 Moreover, whistleblowers increase compliance with little or no

By increasing the likelihood

that polluters will be penalized, 79 whistleblowers can quell the
danger of efficient breach by helping to ensure that noncompliance
is more costly than compliance.80 Finally, internal whistleblowers often
learn of violations as they are happening and can act quickly to
contain or even prevent a time-sensitive environmental harm.81 Likewise,
additional cost to the taxpayer because they are private citizens rather than official monitors.78

whistleblowers in the media can write a quick article that alerts community members of potential threats before regulators have time to act.82 In these ways,

environmental whistleblowers have the potential to increase

compliance with environmental laws. 3.

Domestic Climate momentum now spills over internationally

but effective implementation is key to legitimacy
Doniger 14 (David, is director and senior attorney for NRDC's climate and clean
air program in Washington, D.C. law degree and a masters degree in city and
regional planning from the University of California at Berkeley and a B.A. in history
from Yale University, David rejoined NRDC in 2001 and represented NRDC in a string
of climate change cases, including Massachusetts v. EPA, The Clean Air Act and
Climate Change: Where We've Been and Where We're Going, pg online @
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ddoniger/the_clean_air_act_and_climate.html
//um-ef)

two momentous events

in the long struggle over using the Clean Air Act to curb the carbon
pollution thats driving dangerous climate change. On the one hand, the leaders of the new
I thought we should start by reflecting on where we are right now. This month is only half over, but it has already seen

Republican majority in the next Congress are trumpeting their climate denial and their determination to block President Obamas Climate Action Plan at every turn in particular his

Obama has signaled

his determination to move ahead with more climate actions within
his authority under the C lean A ir A ct and other current laws. And, in a major
boost for prospects of reaching an international climate agreement in Paris a year from now, the President reached an historic
pact with China that commits both countries to significant action
and sets a new target for deeper U.S. carbon reductions by 2025.
Where will this lead? Who will win the coming confrontation between the President and Congress? Ill offer some thoughts on the future, but first lets
proposed standards to put the first limits on carbon pollution from the nations power plants. On the other hand, President

spend a few minutes on the nearly 50-year journey with the Clean Air Act that got us here. Our story begins way back in 1965. I was just entering high school and had no clue about any
of this. But as far back as 1965, when Congress first enacted pollution standards for motor vehicles, some Congressmen were thinking about climate change. Congressman Henry
Helstoski of New Jersey stated: It has been predicted that by the year 2000, the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide may have increased by about fifty percent, and many believe
that this will have a considerable effect on the world's climate. Roll forward to 1970, when the modern Clean Air Act was born. President Richard Nixon formed the Council on
Environmental Quality and charged it to report to Congress on the nations environment. Chapter 5 of CEQs first annual report was devoted to CO2-driven warming of the planet. And
Congress took notice. Senator Caleb Boggs of Delaware placed the global warming chapter into the Congressional Record. More importantly, the authors of the Clean Air Act, led by
Senators Edmund Muskie of Maine and Howard Baker of Tennessee, expressly included pollutions effects on climate or weather in the definition of what constituted an adverse effect
on public welfare. In this way, climate was built into the fundamental architecture of the 1970 Clean Air Act. You see, the far-sighted architects of the Clean Air Act built it to last. It was
built not just to address the pollution problems that were front and center in 1970, but also to equip the EPA to respond when science identifies new problems rising over the horizon. So
whenever the EPA administrator finds that a pollutant poses a danger to public health or welfare, various standard-setting provisions of the Act place the administrator under a
mandatory duty to regulate the emissions of that pollutant, whether from power plants, vehicles, or factories. The agency has used that endangerment authority to confront new threats,
like lead, fine particles, and ozone-destroying chemicals, as science has revealed their dangers. And that authority was there to be used a few decades later when the dangers of climate
change really came to the fore. Now a word about my entry into the picture. I was first turned on to the Clean Air Act in the mid-1970s, at law school at the University of California,
Berkeley. At first, I was mostly interested in the problems of urban smog, vehicle emissions, and toxic pollutants from factories. I was lucky enough to join the staff of NRDC, and before I
knew it, at the ripe old age of 33 in 1984, I found myself arguing Chevron v. NRDC a case you may have heard of before the Supreme Court. I thought Id won, but I lost, 6-0. More
about Chevron in a moment. After picking myself up off the floor, I caught the bug for tackling global pollution first in the form of the chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, that deplete the
stratospheric ozone layer. To make that story short, NRDC used the endangerment provisions of the Clean Air Act to force EPA to take action on CFCs, and I worked with many others to
forge the Montreal Protocol, the highly successful treaty that protects the ozone layer. This took place, amazingly enough, during the Reagan and first Bush administrations. I also helped
shape and start implementing the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments. I left NRDC to serve in government in the Clinton years, mostly at EPA. I was privileged to be part of the
administrations climate strategy team and a negotiator of the Kyoto Protocol. Well, Kyoto itself didnt go forward in the U.S., thanks to the denialists in another Republican Congress, but
seeds of progress were sown. At EPA in the late 1990s, I wrote an interagency memo, blessed by my higher-ups, explaining that the Clean Air Act already authorized indeed required
EPA to curb carbon pollution if the administrator determined that it endangers public health or welfare that climate-referencing term I spoke of a few minutes ago. That memo was
promptly leaked to the trade press by another agency, and my boss, Administrator Carol Browner, found herself answering questions about it before a House appropriations committee.
I demand a legal opinion, thundered Tom DeLay, later the House majority leader known as The Hammer. Browner complied, of course, and EPAs general counsel, John Cannon,
produced a legal opinion that the Clean Air Act does indeed cover the pollution that drives climate change. After Bush v. Gore, however, I needed to find other employment, and I
returned to NRDC to continue working on climate. The early 00s were definitely a low point. Under the second President Bush, EPA rescinded the Cannon legal opinion and pronounced
its view that carbon and climate lay totally outside the Clean Air Act. So NRDC joined with 15 states and more than a dozen other environmental groups to challenge this decision in
Massachusetts v. EPA. In a landmark 2007 ruling, the Supreme Court overruled the Bush administration, 5-4. Echoing the Cannon legal opinion, the High Court held that Clean Air Act
covers the carbon pollution coming from cars, and that EPA is obligated to set emission standards act if the administrator finds that pollution to endanger health or welfare. The Court

ordered EPA to make a new decision, following the science and the law. The Supreme Court has twice since reaffirmed Massachusetts first in 2011 in American Electric Power v.
Connecticut, a case about power plants, and again in 2014 in denying review of dozens of rear-guard petitions to reconsider those holdings, flying under the banner of Utility Air

When the Obama administration came to office, the stage

was set for action. In the Presidents first term, his EPA and Department of Transportation set landmark clean car and fuel economy standards, under the
Regulatory Group v. EPA. But back to our chronology.

Clean Air Act and the CAFE law, that will double the miles-per-gallon of new vehicles and cut their carbon pollution in half by 2025. The President also sought, but did not get, new
climate legislation. The Waxman-Markey bill would have added to the Clean Air Act a cap and trade program for industrial sources of carbon pollution, including power plants. The bill

in the second term,

with a different Congress and no prospect of helpful legislation , President
Obama stepped up to the challenge of tackling climate change
under the clean air and energy laws already on the books. He issued his Climate Action
Plan in June 2013. The plan includes many actions, but the heart of the plan is using the Clean Air Act to put the firstever national limits on carbon pollution from the fleet of existing
power plants. They are the nations largest carbon polluters,
together accounting for more than 2 billion tons of CO2 per year,
40% of the nations total. The Clean Power Plan, proposed last in June, will cut
power plant carbon pollution an estimated 26% from 2005 levels by 2020,
and 30% by 2030. It shares two key features with an innovative plan that NRDC launched in 2012: First, it sets different standards for each state, reflecting
passed the House and had majority support in the Senate but not the necessary 60 votes. That left the Clean Air Act as it was. So

their different mix of coal-fired, gas-fired, and other generating resources. Second, it establishes a flexible system-based approach that incorporates the clean-up potential from across
the electric grid: improvements at individual plants, using cleaner resources more and dirty ones less, ramping up zero-carbon power sources like wind and solar (and nuclear), and
energy efficiency measures that reduce how much electricity we need to generate in the first place. Already EPA has reached out to thousands of stakeholders, from state environmental
and energy officials and power companies to environmentalists, clean energy businesses, labor, and many others. There are many supporters and many detractors. And there will be a
big legal fight after the rules are issued next summer over whether EPA has authority for its plan under a particular part of the Clean Air Act, section 111(d). Heres where Chevron comes
back to the fore. Chevron stands for the proposition that when laws like the Clean Air Act are crystal clear unambiguous the agency charged with implementing them must, of course,
follow that clear meaning. But Chevron, and an important case the Court decided last April, EME Homer City v. EPA, stand for another proposition. Laws like the Clean Air Act are not
always crystal clear. They often use broad or ambiguous terms that, the Court says, delegate to the agency the job of filling in the details or making necessary policy decisions. Where
there is room for interpretation in the laws terms, the courts will defer to the implementing agencys reading if it gives a reasonable interpretation. The Homer City case emphasizes the
importance of Chevron deference when dealing with Clean Air Act provisions that charge EPA with addressing and solving new problems as they arise. For these reasons,

I am

bullish that the courts the D.C. Circuit and, if it goes there, the Supreme Court will uphold EPAs
interpretation of Section 111(d) and its application to the problem of power plant carbon pollution. Thus the Clean Power
Plans main challenges, in my opinion, are in the political arena, and that
brings us back to the momentous events of the first half of this month. In past Congresses, those who claim climate change is a hoax and those who decry a war on coal have lacked
the votes to pass legislation to block action. Bills have passed the House, but died in the Senate. To be sure, with a Republican Senate majority, there will be determined efforts to pass

I am confident that these bills to block the

power plant standards or other parts of the Climate Action Plan will
lack the necessary 60 votes even in the new Senate. And I am also confident that if something
free-standing bills, budget riders, and other legislation. But

does pass because there are a few types of legislation that need only a simple majority neither the House nor the Senate will have the 2/3rds majority required to override a
presidential veto. Its possible that Congressional leaders will resort to extreme tactics, like attaching EPA-blocking legislation to appropriations bills or continuing resolutions needed to
keep the government running, and daring the President to veto them. Senator McConnell, however, has already said there will be no government shutdowns or debt defaults on his
watch. Rep. Rogers, head of the House appropriations committee, warned recently against taking hostages you cant shoot. Senator McConnell is no doubt aware of two things: (1) that

the EPA, the Clean Air Act, and

curbing carbon pollution are to his consternation highly popular with the same
American public. This bears underlining. A wide range of polling, in blue, purple, and even red states, consistently shows strong support usually 60-70
the American public has consistently blamed Republicans for past shutdowns, and (2) that

percent for EPA standards to limit dangerous carbon pollution from power plants and other industries. Support levels are strong often majorities even among Republicans even when

The U.S.-China agreement adds another

factor. A year from now countries will gather in Paris in another attempt to forge an international climate agreement. This agreement will succeed where others have failed if
the worlds largest economies and carbon polluters can agree to meaningful, mutually acceptable national commitments. Most of the major
emitting countries have strong reasons to take action. But each needs to know that the other
major players are in the game. The United States has not always been in the game. But
President Obamas Climate Action Plan, and the power plant
respondents are prompted with dire messages of economic impact.

standards in particular, have been instrumental in convincing other

countries that after all this time, the U nited S tates is finally playing,
doing its part . These actions under the C lean A ir A ct and other
existing laws have restored our credibility and our leverage. The

Chinese have taken notice. Without the Climate Action Plan, it

would have been impossible for the two giants the worlds #1 and
#2 emitters to work out the agreement announced earlier this
month. To be sure, the emission reduction commitments from these two countries, even if matched by all others, are not sufficient to protect the planet from unacceptable
climate change. We will need faster reductions, and we will work hard for them. But the journey has begun. The gridlock
has been broken. The chances for a Paris agreement went way up this week. Senator McConnell and other Republicans have lashed out at the U.S.-China
agreement so harshly, I think, out of frustration. They know that it moves the climate issue from the realm of mere domestic policy into the realm of foreign affairs. If your bill will

with the
Presidents continuing leadership we will be able to keep making
progress on climate change even during the next Congress. And as everyone here
undermine not only the EPA, but also the U.S.-China relationship and more, you are at a double disadvantage. So call me an optimist, but I think that

knows, Republicans face a daunting Senate electoral map in 2016, when they will also face a presidential-year electorate, not the smaller off-year electorate that came out this year.
Climate will be a bigger factor in the next election than ever before.

Warming is real and is anthropogenic---reject negative evidence

Prothero 12 [Donald R. Prothero, Professor of Geology at Occidental College and Lecturer in
Geobiology at the California Institute of Technology, 3-1-2012, "How We Know Global Warming is Real
and Human Caused," Skeptic, 17.2, EBSCO]
*Data is on our side- hottest 16 years
*Satellites prove the earth is getting warmer
*Their evidence is about energy companies- they get paid by Exxon
How do we know that global warming is real and primarily human caused? There are numerous lines of
evidence that converge toward this conclusion. 1. Carbon Dioxide Increase Carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has increased at an unprecedented rate in the
past 200 years. Not one data set collected over a long enough span of time shows otherwise. Mann et al. (1999) compiled the past 900 years' worth of
temperature data from tree rings, ice cores, corals , and direct measurements in the past few centuries, and the sudden increase
of temperature of the past century stands out like a sore thumb. This famous graph is now known as the "hockey stick" because it is long and straight through
most of its length, then bends sharply upward at the end like the blade of a hockey stick. Other graphs show that climate was very stable within a narrow range of variation
through the past 1000, 2000, or even 10,000 years since the end of the last Ice Age. There were minor warming events during the Climatic Optimum about 7000 years ago, the Medieval Warm Period,
and the slight cooling of the Litde Ice Age in the 1700s and 1800s. But the magnitude and rapidity of the warming represented by the last 200
years is simply unmatched in all of human history. More revealing, the timing of this warming coincides with the Industrial Revolution, when humans
first began massive deforestation and released carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by burning an unprecedented amount of coal, gas, and oil. 2. Melting Polar Ice Caps The polar icecaps are thinning and
breaking up at an alarming rate. In 2000, my former graduate advisor Malcolm McKenna was one of the first humans to fly over the North Pole in summer time and see no ice, just open water. The Arctic ice cap has been frozen solid

the entire ice sheet is breaking up

for at least the past 3 million years (and maybe longer),[ 4] but now
so fast that by 2030 (and possibly sooner) less than half of the Arctic will be ice covered in
the summer.[ 5] As one can see from watching the news, this is an ecological disaster for everything that lives up there, from the polar bears to the seals and walruses to the animals they feed upon, to the 4 million people whose world

The Antarctic is thawing even faster. In February-March 2002, the Larsen B ice shelf -- over 3000 square km (the size of Rhode Island) and 220 m (700 feet)
The Larsen B shelf had survived all the previous ice ages and interglacial
warming episodes over the past 3 million years, and even the warmest periods of the last 10,000 years -- yet it and nearly all the other thick ice sheets on the Arctic,
Greenland, and Antarctic are vanishing at a rate never before seen in geologic history. 3. Melting Glaciers Glaciers are all retreating at the highest rates ever
documented. Many of those glaciers, along with snow melt, especially in the Himalayas, Andes, Alps, and Sierras, provide most of the freshwater that the populations below the mountains depend upon -- yet this fresh
is melting beneath their feet.

thick -- broke up in just a few months, a story -typical of nearly all the ice shelves in Antarctica.

water supply is vanishing. Just think about the percentage of world's population in southern Asia (especially India) that depend on Himalayan snowmelt for their fresh water. The implications are staggering. The permafrost that once
remained solidly frozen even in the summer has now thawed, damaging the Inuit villages on the Arctic coast and threatening all our pipelines to the North Slope of Alaska. This is catastrophic not only for life on the permafrost, but

as it thaws, the permafrost releases huge amounts of greenhouse gases which are one of the major contributors to global warming. Not only is the ice
vanishing, but we have seen record heat waves over and over again, killing thousands of people, as each year joins the list of the
hottest years on record. (2010 just topped that list as the hottest year, surpassing the previous record in 2009, and we shall know about 2011 soon enough). Natural animal and plant populations are being
devastated all over the globe as their environments change.[ 6] Many animals respond by moving their ranges to formerly cold climates, so now places that once did not have to worry about disease-bearing mosquitoes are infested as

the sea
level is rising about 3-4 mm per year, more than ten times the rate of 0.1-0.2 mm/year that has occurred over the past 3000 years. Geological
the climate warms and allows them to breed further north. 4. Sea Level Rise All that melted ice eventually ends up in the ocean, causing sea levels to rise, as it has many times in the geologic past. At present,

data show that the sea level was virtually unchanged over the past 10,000 years since the present interglacial began. A few mm here or there doesn't impress people, until you consider that the rate is accelerating and that most scientists
predict sea levels will rise 80-130 cm in just the next century. A sea level rise of 1.3 m (almost 4 feet) would drown many of the world's low-elevation cities, such as Venice and New Orleans, and low-lying countries such as the
Netherlands or Bangladesh. A number of tiny island nations such as Vanuatu and the Maldives, which barely poke out above the ocean now, are already vanishing beneath the waves. Eventually their entire population will have to
move someplace else.[ 7] Even a small sea level rise might not drown all these areas, but they are much more vulnerable to the large waves of a storm surge (as happened with Hurricane Katrina), which could do much more damage
than sea level rise alone. If sea level rose by 6 m (20 feet), most of the world's coastal plains and low-lying areas (such as the Louisiana bayous, Florida, and most of the world's river deltas) would be drowned. Most of the world's
population lives in low-elevation coastal cities such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Miami, and Shanghai. All of those cities would be partially or completely under water with such a sea level rise.

If all the glacial ice caps melted completely (as they have several times before during past greenhouse episodes in the geologic past), sea level would rise by 65 m (215 feet)! The entire Mississippi

a sea level rise would drown nearly every coastal region under hundreds of feet of water,
New York City, London and Paris. All that would remain would be the tall landmarks such as the Empire State Building, Big Ben, and the Eiffel Tower. You could tie your boats to these
pinnacles, but the rest of these drowned cities would lie deep underwater. Climate Change Critic's Arguments and Scientists' Rebuttals Despite the overwhelming evidence there are many
people who remain skeptical. One reason is that they have been fed distortions and misstatements by the global warming denialists who cloud or
confuse the issue. Let's examine some of these claims in detail: * " It's just natural climatic variability." No, it is not . As I detailed in my 2009 book, Greenhouse of the
Dinosaurs, geologists and paleoclimatologists know a lot about past greenhouse worlds , and the icehouse planet that has existed for the past
Valley would flood, so you could dock an ocean liner in Cairo, Illinois. Such
and inundate

33 million years. We have a good understanding of how and why the Antarctic ice sheet first appeared at that time, and how the Arctic froze over about 3.5 million years ago, beginning the 24 glacial and interglacial episodes of the

We know how variations in the earth's orbit (the Milankovitch cycles) controls the amount of solar
radiation the earth receives, triggering the shifts between glacial and interglacial periods. Our current warm interglacial has already lasted 10,000 years, the duration of most previous interglacials, so if it were not for global
warming, we would be headed into the next glacial in the next 1000 years or so. Instead, our pumping greenhouse gases into our atmosphere after they were long trapped in the earth's crust has
pushed the planet into a "super-interglacial," already warmer than any previous warming period. We can
see the "big picture" of climate variability most clearly in ice cores from the EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica), which show the
details of the last 650,000 years of glacial-inters glacial cycles (Fig. 2). At no time during any previous interglacial did the carbon dioxide levels
exceed 300 ppm, even at their very warmest. Our atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are already close to 400 ppm today. The atmosphere is headed to 600 ppm within a few decades, even if we stopped releasing
greenhouse gases immediately. This is decidedly not within the normal range of "climatic variability," but clearly unprecedented in human history. Anyone who says
this is "normal variability" has never seen the huge amount of paleoclimatic data that show otherwise. * "It's just another warming episode , like the Medieval Warm Period, or the Holocene
Climatic Optimum or the end of the Little Ice Age." Untrue. There were numerous small fluctuations of warming and cooling over the last 10,000
years of the Holocene. But in the case of the Medieval Warm Period (about 950-1250 A.D.), the temperatures increased only 1C, much less than we have seen in the current episode of global
warming (Fig. 1). This episode was also only a local warming in the North Atlantic and northern Europe. Global temperatures over this interval did not warm at all, and actually cooled by more than 1C. Likewise, the
"Ice Ages" that have occurred since then.

warmest period of the last 10,000 years was the Holocene Climatic Optimum ( 5,000-9,000 B.C.E.) when warmer and wetter conditions in Eurasia contributed to the rise of the first great civilizations in Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus
Valley, and China. This was largely a Northern Hemisphere-Eurasian phenomenon, with 2-3C warming in the Arctic and northern Europe. But there was almost no warming in the tropics, and cooling or no change in the Southern
Hemisphere.[ 8] From a Eurocentric viewpoint, these warming events seemed important, but on a global scale the effect was negligible. In addition, neither of these warming episodes is related to increasing greenhouse gases. The
Holocene Climatic Optimum, in fact, is predicted by the Milankovitch cycles, since at that time the axial tilt of the earth was 24, its steepest value, meaning the Northern Hemisphere got more solar radiation than normal -- but the
Southern Hemisphere less, so the two balanced. By contrast, not only is the warming observed in the last 200 years much greater than during these previous episodes, but it is also global and bipolar, so it is not a purely local effect.
The warming that ended the Little Ice Age (from the mid-1700s to the late 1800s) was due to increased solar radiation prior to 1940. Since 1940, however, the amount of solar radiation has been dropping, so the only candidate

It's just the sun, or cosmic rays, or volcanic activity or methane." Nope, sorry. The
amount of heat that the sun provides has been decreasing since 1940,[ 10] just the opposite of the critics' claims (Fig. 3). There is no
evidence of an increase in cosmic ray particles during the past century.[ 11] Nor is there any clear evidence that largescale volcanic events (such as the 1815 eruption of Tambora in Indonesia, which changed global climate for about a year) have any long-term effects that would explain 200 years of
remaining for the post-1940 warming is carbon dioxide.[ 9] "

warming and carbon dioxide increase. Volcanoes erupt only 0.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, but humans emit over 29 billion tonnes a year,[ 12] roughly 100 times as much. Clearly, we have a bigger effect.

Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas, but there is 200 times more carbon dioxide than methane, so carbon dioxide is still the most important agent.[ 13]
Every other alternative has been looked at and can be ruled out. The only clear-cut relationship is between human-caused carbon dioxide increase and global warming.
* "The climate records since 1995 (or 1998) show cooling." That's simply untrue. The only way to support this argument is to
cherry-pick the data.[ 14] Over the short term, there was a slight cooling trend from 1998-2000, but only because 1998 was a record-breaking El Nino year, so the next few years look cooler by comparison
(Fig. 4). But since 2002, the overall long-term trend of warming is unequivocal. All of the 16 hottest years ever recorded on a global scale have
occurred in the last 20 years. They are (in order of hottest first): 2010, 2009, 1998, 2005, 2003, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2001, 1997, 2008, 1995, 1999, 1990, and 2000.[ 15] In other words, every year
since 2000 has been on the Top Ten hottest years list. The rest of the top 16 include 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000. Only 1996 failed to make the list (because of the short-term cooling mentioned already). * "We had record snows
in the winter of 2009-2010, and also in 2010-2011." So what? This is nothing more than the difference between weather (short-term seasonal changes) and climate (the long-term average of weather over decades and centuries and
longer). Our local weather tells us nothing about another continent, or the global average; it is only a local effect, determined by short-term atmospheric and oceano-graphic conditions.[ 16] In fact, warmer global temperatures mean
more moisture in the atmosphere, which increases the intensity of normal winter snowstorms. In this particular case, the climate change critics forget that the early winter of November-December 2009 was actually very mild and
warm, and then only later in January and February did it get cold and snow heavily. That warm spell in early winter helped bring more moisture into the system, so that when cold weather occurred, the snows were worse. In addition,
the snows were unusually heavy only in North America; the rest of the world had different weather, and the global climate was warmer than average. Also, the summer of 2010 was the hottest on record, breaking the previous record
set in 2009. * "Carbon dioxide is good for plants, so the world will be better off." Who do they think they're kidding? The Competitive Enterprise Institute (funded by oil and coal companies and conservative foundations[ 17]) has run
a series of shockingly stupid ads concluding with the tag line "Carbon dioxide: they call it pollution, we call it life." Anyone who knows the basic science of earth's atmosphere can spot the gross inaccuracies in this ad.[ 18] True,
plants take in carbon dioxide that animals exhale, as they have for millions of years. But the whole point of the global warming evidence (as shown from ice cores) is that the delicate natural balance of carbon dioxide has been thrown
off balance by our production of too much of it, way in excess of what plants or the oceans can handle. As a consequence, the oceans are warming[ 19, 20] and absorbing excess carbon dioxide making them more acidic. Already we
are seeing a shocking decline in coral reefs ("bleaching") and extinctions in many marine ecosystems that can't handle too much of a good thing. Meanwhile, humans are busy cutting down huge areas of temperate and tropical forests,
which not only means there are fewer plants to absorb the gas, but the slash and burn practices are releasing more carbon dioxide than plants can keep up with. There is much debate as to whether increased carbon dioxide might help
agriculture in some parts of the world, but that has to be measured against the fact that other traditional "breadbasket" regions (such as the American Great Plains) are expected to get too hot to be as productive as they are today. The
latest research[ 21] actually shows that increased carbon dioxide inhibits the absorption of nitrogen into plants, so plants (at least those that we depend upon today) are not going to flourish in a greenhouse world. It is difficult to know
if those who tell the public otherwise are ignorant of basic atmospheric science and global geochemistry, or if they are being cynically disingenuous. * "I agree that climate is changing, but I'm skeptical that humans are the main cause,
so we shouldn't do anything." This is just fence sitting. A lot of reasonable skeptics deplore the right wing's rejection of the reality of climate change, but still want to be skeptical about the cause. If they want proof, they can examine
the huge array of data that points directly to human caused global warming.[ 22] We can directly measure the amount of carbon dioxide humans are producing, and it tracks exactly with the amount of increase in atmospheric carbon

Through carbon isotope analysis, we can show that this carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is coming directly
from our burning of fossil fuels, not from natural sources. We can also measure the drop in oxygen as it combines with the increased carbon levels to produce carbon dioxide. We have
satellites in space that are measuring the heat released from the planet and can actually see the atmosphere getting warmer. The
most crucial evidence emerged only within the past few years: climate models of the greenhouse effect predict that there should be cooling in the
stratosphere (the upper layer of the atmosphere above 10 km or 6 miles in elevation), but warming in the troposphere (the bottom layer below 10 km or 6 miles), and that's
exactly what our space probes have measured. Finally, we can rule out any other suspects (see above): solar heat is decreasing since 1940, not increasing, and there are no measurable
dioxide.

increases in cosmic rays, methane, volcanic gases, or any other potential cause. Face it -- it's our problem. Why Do People Continue to Question the Reality of Climate Change? Thanks to all the noise and confusion over climate

the
scientific community is virtually unanimous on what the data demonstrate about anthropogenic global warming. This has been true for over a
change, the general public has only a vague idea of what the debate is really about, and only about half of Americans think global warming is real or that we are to blame.[ 23] As in the evolution/creationism debate,

Oreskes[ 24] surveyed all peer-reviewed papers on climate change published between 1993 and 2003 in the
world's leading scientific journal, Science, she found that there were 980 supporting the idea of human-induced global warming and none opposing it. In 2009, Doran and Kendall Zimmerman[ 25]
surveyed all the climate scientists who were familiar with the data. They found that 95-99% agreed that global warming is real and
human caused. In 2010, the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a study that showed that 98% of the scientists who actually do
research in climate change are in agreement over anthropogenic global warming.[ 26] Every major scientific organization in the world
has endorsed the conclusion of anthropogenic climate change as well. This is a rare degree of agreement within such an independent and cantankerous group
as the world's top scientists. This is the same degree of scientific consensus that scientists have achieved over most major ideas, including gravity,
evolution, and relativity. These and only a few other topics in science can claim this degree of agreement among nearly all the world's leading scientists, especially among everyone who is close to the scientific
decade. When science historian Naomi

data and knows the problem intimately. If it were not such a controversial topic politically, there would be almost no interest in debating it since the evidence is so clear-cut. If the climate science community speaks with one voice (as

why is there still any debate at all? The answer has been revealed by a number of investigations by
the money trail. Originally, there were no real "dissenters" to the idea of global warming by scientists who are actually
involved with climate research. Instead, the forces with vested interests in denying global climate change (the energy companies, and the "free-market"
advocates) followed the strategy of tobacco companies: create a smokescreen of confusion and prevent the American public
from recognizing scientific consensus. As the famous memo[ 27] from the tobacco lobbyists said "Doubt is our product." The denialists generated an anti-science movement
entirely out of thin air and PR. The evidence for this PR conspiracy has been well documented in numerous sources. For example, Oreskes and Conway revealed from memos leaked to the press that in April
1998 the right-wing Marshall Institute, SEPP (Fred Seitz's lobby that aids tobacco companies and polluters), and ExxonMobil, met in secret at the American Petroleum Institute's headquarters
in Washington, D.C. There they planned a $20 million campaign to get "respected scientists" to cast doubt on climate change, get major PR efforts going, and lobby Congress that global warming
isn't real and is not a threat. The right-wing institutes and the energy lobby beat the bushes to find scientists -- any scientists -- who might
disagree with the scientific consensus. As investigative journalists and scientists have documented over and over again,[ 28] the denialist conspiracy
essentially paid for the testimony of anyone who could be useful to them. The day that the 2007 IPCC report was released (Feb. 2, 2007), the
British newspaper The Guardian reported that the conservative American Enterprise Institute (funded largely by oil companies and conservative think tanks) had offered $10,000
plus travel expenses to scientists who would write negatively about the IPCC report.[ 29] In February 2012, leaks of documents
from the denialist Heartland Institute revealed that they were trying to influence science education, suppress the work of scientists, and had
paid off many prominent climate deniers, such as Anthony Watts, all in an effort to circumvent the scientific consensus by doing an "end run" of PR and political pressure. Other
leaks have shown 9 out of 10 major climate deniers are paid by ExxonMobil.[ 30] We are accustomed to hired-gun "experts" paid by lawyers to muddy up the evidence in the
case they are fighting, but this is extraordinary -- buying scientists outright to act as shills for organizations trying to deny scientific reality. With this kind of money, however, you
can always find a fringe scientist or crank or someone with no relevant credentials who will do what they're paid to do. Fishing around to find anyone
in the 2007 IPCC report, and every report since then),

diligent reporters who got past the PR machinery denying global warming, and uncovered

with some science background who will agree with you and dispute a scientific consensus is a tactic employed by the creationists to sound "scientific". The NCSE created a satirical "Project Steve,"[ 31] which demonstrated that there
were more scientists who accept evolution named "Steve" than the total number of "scientists who dispute evolution". It may generate lots of PR and a smokescreen to confuse the public, but it doesn't change the fact that

scientists who actually do research in climate change are unanimous in their insistence that anthropogenic global warming is a real threat. Most scientists I know
and respect work very hard for little pay, yet they still cannot be paid to endorse some scientific idea they know to be false. The climate deniers have a lot of other things in common with creationists and other antiscience movements. They too like to quote someone out of context ("quote mining"), finding a short phrase in the work of legitimate scientists that seems to support their position. But when you read the full quote in context, it is
obvious that they have used the quote inappropriately. The original author meant something that does not support their goals. The "Climategate scandal" is a classic case of this. It started with a few stolen emails from the Climate
Research Unit of the University of East Anglia. If you read the complete text of the actual emails[ 32] and comprehend the scientific shorthand of climate scientists who are talking casually to each other, it is clear that there was no
great "conspiracy" or that they were faking data. All six subsequent investigations have cleared Philip Jones and the other scientists of the University of East Anglia of any wrongdoing or conspiracy.[ 33] Even if there had been some

there is no reason to believe that the entire climate science community is secretly
working together to generate false information and mislead the public. If there's one thing that is clear about science,
it's about competition and criticism, not conspiracy and collusion. Most labs are competing with each other, not conspiring together. If one
lab publishes a result that is not clearly defensible, other labs will quickly correct it. As James Lawrence Powell wrote:
Scientistsshow no evidence of being more interested in politics or ideology than the average American. Does it make sense to believe that tens of
conspiracy on the part of these few scientists,

thousands of scientists would be so deeply and secretly committed to bringing down capitalism and the American way of life that they would spend years beyond their undergraduate degrees working to receive master's and Ph.D.
degrees, then go to work in a government laboratory or university, plying the deep oceans, forbidding deserts, icy poles, and torrid jungles, all for far less money than they could have made in industry, all the while biding their time
like a Russian sleeper agent in an old spy novel? Scientists tend to be independent and resist authority. That is why you are apt to find them in the laboratory or in the field, as far as possible from the prying eyes of a supervisor.
Anyone who believes he could organize thousands of scientists into a conspiracy has never attended a single faculty meeting.[ 34] There are many more traits that the climate deniers share with the creationists and Holocaust deniers
and others who distort the truth. They pick on small disagreements between different labs as if scientists can't get their story straight, when in reality there is always a fair amount of give and take between competing labs as they try to
get the answer right before the other lab can do so. The key point here is that when all these competing labs around the world have reached a consensus and get the same answer, there is no longer any reason to doubt their common
conclusion. The anti-scientists of climate denialism will also point to small errors by individuals in an effort to argue that the entire enterprise cannot be trusted. It is true that scientists are human, and do make mistakes, but the great
power of the scientific method is that peer review weeds these out, so that when scientists speak with consensus, there is no doubt that their data are checked carefully Finally, a powerful line of evidence that this is a purely political
controversy, rather than a scientific debate, is that the membership lists of the creationists and the climate deniers are highly overlapping. Both anti-scientific dogmas are fed to their overlapping audiences through right-wing media
such as Fox News, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh. Just take a look at the "intelligent-design" cre-ationism website for the Discovery Institute. Most of the daily news items lately have nothing to do with creationism at all, but are
focused on climate denial and other right-wing causes.[ 35] If the data about global climate change are indeed valid and robust, any qualified scientist should be able to look at them and see if the prevailing scientific interpretation

Muller re-examined all the temperature data from the NOAA, East Anglia
Hadley Climate Research Unit, and the Goddard Institute of Space Science sources. Even though Muller started out as a skeptic of the temperature data, and was funded by the
Koch brothers and other oil company sources, he carefully checked and re-checked the research himself. When the GOP leaders called him to testify before the House Science
and Technology Committee in spring 2011, they were expecting him to discredit the temperature data. Instead, Muller shocked his GOP sponsors by demonstrating his scientific
integrity and telling the truth: the temperature increase is real , and the scientists who have demonstrated that the climate is changing are right (Fig. 5). In the fall of 2011, his study was published,
holds up. Indeed, such a test took place. Starting in 2010, a group led by U.C. Berkeley physicist Richard

and the conclusions were clear: global warming is real, even to a right-wing skeptical scientist. Unlike the hired-gun scientists who play political games, Muller did what a true scientist should do: if the data go against your biases and
preconceptions, then do the right thing and admit it -- even if you've been paid by sponsors who want to discredit global warming. Muller is a shining example of a scientist whose integrity and honesty came first, and did not sell out
to the highest bidder.[ 36] * Science and Anti-Science The conclusion is clear: there's science, and then there's the anti-science of global warming denial. As we have seen, there is a nearly unanimous consensus among climate

scientists that anthropogenic global warming is real and that we must do something about it. Yet the smokescreen, bluster and lies of the deniers has created enough doubt so that only half of the American public is convinced the
problem requires action. Ironically, the U.S. is almost alone in questioning its scientific reality. International polls taken of 33,000 people in 33 nations in 2006 and 2007 show that 90% of their citizens regard climate change as a
serious problem[ 37] and 80% realize that humans are the cause of it.[ 38] Just as in the case of creationism, the U.S. is out of step with much of the rest of the world in accepting scientific reality. It is not just the liberals and
environmentalists who are taking climate change seriously. Historically conservative institutions (big corporations such as General Electric and many others such as insurance companies and the military) are already planning on how
to deal with global warming. Many of my friends high in the oil companies tell me of the efforts by those companies to get into other forms of energy, because they know that cheap oil will be running out soon and that the effects of
burning oil will make their business less popular. BP officially stands for "British Petroleum," but in one of their ad campaigns about 5 years ago, it stood for "Beyond Petroleum."[ 39] Although they still spend relatively little of their
total budgets on alternative forms of energy, the oil companies still see the handwriting on the wall about the eventual exhaustion of oil -- and they are acting like any company that wants to survive by getting into a new business when
the old one is dying. The Pentagon (normally not a left-wing institution) is also making contingency plans for how to fight wars in an era of global climate change, and analyzing what kinds of strategic threats might occur when
climate change alters the kinds of enemies we might be fighting, and water becomes a scarce commodity. The New York Times reported[ 40] that in December 2008, the National Defense University outlined plans for military strategy
in a greenhouse world. To the Pentagon, the big issue is global chaos and the potential of even nuclear conflict. The world must "prepare for the inevitable effects of abrupt climate change -- which will likely come [the only question is
when] regardless of human activity." Insurance companies have no political axe to grind. If anything, they tend to be on the conservative side. They are simply in the business of assessing risk in a realistic fashion so they can
accurately gauge their future insurance policies and what to charge for them. Yet they are all investing heavily in research on the disasters and risks posed by climatic change. In 2005, a study commissioned by the re-insurer Swiss Re
said, "Climate change will significantly affect the health of humans and ecosystems and these impacts will have economic consequences."[ 41] Some people may still try to deny scientific reality, but big businesses like oil and
insurance and conservative institutions like the military cannot afford to be blinded or deluded by ideology. They must plan for the real world that we will be seeing in the next few decades. They do not want to be caught unprepared
and harmed by global climatic change when it threatens their survival. Neither can we as a society.

No adaptation 4 degree temperature increase will breakdown

civilization and cause every impact
Roberts 13 (David, citing the World Bank Reviews compilation of climate studies, If you arent alarmed
about climate, you arent paying attention http://grist.org/climate-energy/climate-alarmism-the-idea-is-surreal/)
*Forest Fire, Food, Acidity, Biod, Resource War, No Trade

2 degrees C
is where most scientists predict catastrophic and irreversible
impacts. And we know that we are currently on a trajectory that will
push temperatures up 4 degrees or more by the end of the century.
We know weve raised global average temperatures around 0.8 degrees C so far. We know that

What would 4 degrees look like? A recent World Bank review of the science reminds us. First, itll get hot:

Projections for a 4C world show a dramatic increase in the intensity and

frequency of high-temperature extremes. Recent extreme heat waves such as in Russia
in 2010 are likely to become the new normal summer in a 4C world. Tropical South America,
central Africa, and all tropical islands in the Pacific are likely to
regularly experience heat waves of unprecedented magnitude and
duration. In this new high-temperature climate regime, the coolest months are likely to be substantially
warmer than the warmest months at the end of the 20th century. In regions such as the Mediterranean, North Africa,
the Middle East, and the Tibetan plateau, almost all summer months are likely to be warmer than the most extreme
heat waves presently experienced. For example, the warmest July in the Mediterranean region could be 9C warmer

Extreme heat waves in recent years have had severe

impacts, causing heat-related deaths, forest fires, and harvest
losses. The impacts of the extreme heat waves projected for a 4C world have not been evaluated, but they
could be expected to vastly exceed the consequences experienced
to date and potentially exceed the adaptive capacities of many societies
and natural systems. [my emphasis] Warming to 4 degrees would also lead
to an increase of about 150 percent in acidity of the ocean, leading
to levels of acidity unparalleled in Earths history. Thats bad news for, say,
than todays warmest July.

coral reefs: The combination of thermally induced bleaching events, ocean acidification, and sea-level rise threatens
large fractions of coral reefs even at 1.5C global warming. The regional extinction of entire coral reef ecosystems,
which could occur well before 4C is reached, would have profound consequences for their dependent species and for
the people who depend on them for food, income, tourism, and shoreline protection.

It will also likely

lead to a sea-level rise of 0.5 to 1 meter, and possibly more, by 2100, with several meters more to be
realized in the coming centuries. That rise wont be spread evenly, even within regions and countries regions

it would significantly
exacerbate existing water scarcity in many regions, particularly northern
and eastern Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia , while additional countries in Africa
would be newly confronted with water scarcity on a national scale due to population growth. Also, more
extreme weather events: Ecosystems will be affected by more
frequent extreme weather events, such as forest loss due to
droughts and wildfire exacerbated by land use and agricultural expansion. In Amazonia, forest fires
close to the equator will see even higher seas. There are also indications that

could as much as double by 2050 with warming of approximately 1.5C to 2C above preindustrial levels. Changes

Also loss of biodiversity and

ecosystem services: In a 4C world, climate change seems likely to become the
dominant driver of ecosystem shifts, surpassing habitat destruction
as the greatest threat to biodiversity. Recent research suggests that
large-scale loss of biodiversity is likely to occur in a 4C world, with
climate change and high CO2 concentration driving a transition of
the Earths ecosystems into a state unknown in human experience.
would be expected to be even more severe in a 4C world.

Ecosystem damage would be expected to dramatically reduce the provision of ecosystem services on which society
depends (for example, fisheries and protection of coastline afforded by coral reefs and mangroves.) New

research also indicates a rapidly rising risk of crop yield reductions

as the world warms. So food will be tough. All this will add up to large-scale

displacement of populations and have adverse consequences for

human security and economic and trade systems. Given the uncertainties and
long-tail risks involved, there is no certainty that adaptation to a 4C world
is possible . Theres a

small but

non-trivial chance of advanced

civilization breaking down entirely.

Now ponder the fact that some scenarios show us going

up to 6 degrees by the end of the century, a level of devastation we have not studied and barely know how to

somewhere along the line, though we dont know exactly where,

enough self-reinforcing feedback loops will be running to make
climate change unstoppable and irreversible for centuries to come.
That would mean handing our grandchildren and their grandchildren not only a
burned, chaotic, denuded world, but a world that is inexorably more inhospitable
with every passing decade.
conceive. Ponder the fact that

Allowing warming to continue perpetuates racist inequalities

Hoerner 8Former director of Research at the Center for a Sustainable Economy, Director of Tax Policy at the
Center for Global Change at the University of Maryland College Park, and editor of Natural Resources Tax Review. He has
done research on environmental economics and policy on behalf of the governments of Canada, France, Germany, the
Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States. Andrew received his B.A. in Economics from Cornell University and a J.D.
from Case Western Reserve School of LawANDNia Robinsformer inaugural Climate Justice Corps Fellow in 2003,
director of Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative (J. Andrew, A Climate of Change African Americans, Global
Warming, and a Just Climate Policy for the U.S. July 2008, http://www.ejcc.org/climateofchange.pdf)
Everywhere we turn, the issues and impacts of climate change confront us. One of the most serious environmental threats facing the world today, climate change has moved from the minds of scientists and offices of

Climate
is an issue of justice and human rights, one that

environmentalists to the mainstream. Though the media is dominated by images of polar bears, melting glaciers, flooded lands, and arid desserts, there is a human face to this story as well.

change

is not only an issue of the environment; it

also

dangerously intersects race and class

. All over the world

people of color, Indigenous Peoples

and low-income communities bear disproportionate burdens from climate

change

itself, from ill-designed policies to prevent it, and from side effects of the energy systems that cause it. A Climate of Change explores the impacts of climate change on African Americans, from health to

economics to community, and considers what policies would most harm or benefit African Americansand the nation as a whole. African Americans are thirteen percent of the U.S. population and on average emit nearly twenty

Though less responsible for climate change, African

Americans are significantly more vulnerable to its effects
Health, housing,
economic well-being, culture, and social stability are harmed from
storms, floods, and climate variability. African Americans are also more
vulnerable to higher energy bills, unemployment, recessions caused by energy
shocks
percent less greenhouse gases than non-Hispanic whites per capita.

far

than non- Hispanic whites.

such manifestations of climate change as

global

price

, and a greater economic burden from military operations designed to protect the flow of oil to the U.S. Climate Justice: The Time Is Now Ultimately, accomplishing climate justice will require that new alliances are

forged and traditional movements are transformed. An effective policy to address the challenges of global warming cannot be crafted until race and equity are part of the discussion from the outset and an integral part of the

solution. This report finds that: Global

warming amplifies nearly all existing inequalities

. Under global warming,

injustices that are already unsustainable become catastrophic. Thus it is essential to recognize that all justice is climate justice and that the struggle for racial and economic justice is an unavoidable part of the fight to halt global

Sound global warming policy is also

racial justice policy
global warming policy will
strengthen the economies of low-income
warming.

economic and

. Successfully adopting a

sound

do as much to

communities and communities of color

as any other currently plausible stride toward economic justice. Climate policies that best serve

Climate
policies that best serve
disproportionately affected
communities also best serve global economic and environmental
justice. Domestic reductions
provide
African Americans also best serve a just and strong United States. This paper shows that policies well-designed to benefit African Americans also provide the most benefit to all people in the U.S.

African Americans and other

in global warming pollution and support for such reductions in developing nations financed by polluter-pays principles

the greatest benefit to African Americans the peoples of Africa, and people across
the Global South
,

. A distinctive African American voice is critical for climate justice. Currently, legislation is being drafted, proposed, and considered without any significant input from the communities

most affected. Special interests are represented by powerful lobbies, while traditional environmentalists often fail to engage people of color, Indigenous Peoples, and low-income communities until after the political playing field has
been defined and limited to conventional environmental goals. A strong focus on equity is essential to the success of the environmental cause, but equity issues cannot be adequately addressed by isolating the voices of
communities that are disproportionately impacted. Engagement in climate change policy must be moved from the White House and the halls of Congress to social circles, classrooms, kitchens, and congregations. The time is now for
those disproportionately affected to assume leadership in the climate change debate, to speak truth to power, and to assert rights to social, environmental and economic justice. Taken together, these actions affirm a vital truth that
will bring communities together: Climate Justice is Common Justice. African Americans and Vulnerability In this report, it is shown that African Americans are disproportionately affected by climate change. African Americans Are at

 The six states with the highest African American

population are
expected to experience more intense storms
resembling Katrina
Global warming is expected to increase
heat
waves
African Americans suffer heat death at
two hundred percent
of the rate for
whites. Seventy-one percent of African Americans
Greater Risk from Climate Change and Global Warming Co-Pollutants

all in the Atlantic hurricane zone, and are

and Rita in the future.

the frequency and intensity of

or extreme heat events.

one hundred fifty to

non-Hispanic

live in counties in violation of federal air pollution standards

within thirty miles of a coal-fired power
plant
Asthma has strong associations with air
pollution, and African Americans have a thirty-six percent higher
rate of incidents of asthma

, as compared to fifty-eight

percent of the white population. Seventy-eight percent of African Americans live

, as compared to fifty-six percent of non-Hispanic whites.

than whites. Asthma is three times as likely to lead to emergency room visits or deaths for African Americans.

This study finds that a

twenty-five percent reduction in greenhouse gasessimilar to what passed in California and is proposed in major federal legislationwould reduce infant mortality by at least two percent, asthma by at least sixteen percent, and

mortality from particulates by at least 6,000 to 12,000 deaths per year. Other estimates have run as high as 33,000 fewer deaths per year.

A disproportionate

number of the lives saved by these proposed reductions would be

African American

. African Americans Are Economically More Vulnerable to Disasters and Illnesses

In 2006, twenty percent of African Americans had no health insurance, including

In the absence of insurance, disasters and illness (which will increase with global warming) could be cushioned by income and
accumulated wealth. However, the average income of African American households is fifty-seven percent that of non-Hispanic whites, and median wealth is only one-tenth that of non-Hispanic whites. Racist stereotypes have
fourteen percent of African American childrennearly twice the rate of non-Hispanic whites.

been shown to reduce aid donations and impede service delivery to African Americans in the wake of hurricanes, floods, fires and other climate-related disasters as compared to non-Hispanic whites in similar circumstances.

African Americans Are at Greater Risk from Energy Price Shocks

African Americans spend thirty percent more of

their income on energy than non-Hispanic whites. Energy price increases have contributed to seventy to eighty percent of recent recessions. The increase in unemployment of African Americans during energy caused recessions is
twice that of non-Hispanic whites, costing the community an average of one percent of income every year. Reducing economic dependence on energy will alleviate the frequency and severity of recessions and the economic
disparities they generate. African Americans Pay a Heavy Price and a Disproportionate Share of the Cost of Wars for Oil Oil company profits in excess of the normal rate of profit for U.S. industries cost the average household $611 in
2006 alone and are still rising. The total cost of the war in Iraq borne by African Americans will be $29,000 per household if the resulting deficit is financed by tax increases, and $32,000 if the debt is repaid by spending cuts. This is
more than three times the median assets of African American households. A Clean Energy Future Creates Far More Jobs for African Americans Fossil fuel extraction industries employ a far lower proportion of African Americans on

Conversely, renewable electricity

employs
five times as many
people as
from fossil fuels, a higher proportion of whom are African
American. Switching just one percent of electricity
to
renewable sources would result in
84,000 jobs for African Americans

comprehensive climate plan

comparable to Kyoto
would create
over 430,000 jobs for African Americans
average compared to other industries.

generation

three to

comparable electricity generation

total

generating capacity per year from conventional

an additional 61,000 to

designed

achieving emission reductions

by 2030.

the

A well-

Protocol

by 2030, reducing the African American unemployment rate by 1.8 percentage points and raising the average African

American income by 3 to 4 percent.

Plan
Plan: The united states federal government should
substantially curtail its insider threat program

Solvency
WPA protects whistleblowers from federal retaliation but ITP
undermines it and creates a chilling effect
Canterbury 14 (Angela, Director of Public Policy, POGO's Angela Canterbury testifies on
Limitless Surveillance at the FDA: Protecting the Rights of Federal Whistleblowers February 26,
2014, pg online @ http://www.pogo.org/our-work/testimony/2014/pogos-angela-canterburytestifies.html //um-ef)

Whistleblowers are the guardians of the public trust and safety. Without
proper controls at FDA and throughout the government, employee surveillance is a serious threat to
whistleblower protections. The resulting chilling effect will
significantly reduce accountabilitythus keeping waste, fraud, abuse,
and threats to public health and safety in the shadows . Whistleblowers also are among the
best partners in crime-fighting. It is a well-known fact that whistleblowers have saved countless lives
and billions of taxpayer dollars . A survey conducted in 2012 by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners found that nearly half
of occupational fraud cases were uncovered by a tip or complaint from an employee, customer, vendor, or other source.[46] In the case of fraud perpetrated by owners and executives,

whistleblowers play a bigger

role than external auditors, government regulators, self-regulatory organizations, or the media
in detecting fraud.[47] But perhaps the best illustration of how whistleblowers can save taxpayer dollars is the more than $38 billion recovered since 1987
more than half were uncovered by tips from whistleblowers. A 2011 academic study confirmed that

through the hugely successful False Claims Act (FCA), championed by Senator Grassley.[48] The FCA prohibits a person or entity from fraudulently or dishonestly obtaining or using
government funds. The law not only acts as a deterrent, but also incentivizes whistleblowing through the financial awards and strong protections against retaliation.[49] Federal Circuit
Court Judge Kenneth Keller Hall said that the FCA provisions supplement the governments regular troops since it let loose a posse of ad hoc deputies to uncover and prosecute frauds
against the government."[50] But unfortunately, the cost-benefit analysis for most whistleblowing is so often all cost to the whistleblower and all benefit to society. Professor Richard E.
Moberly in his testimony before Congress aptly stated: Furthermore, almost all the benefits of a whistleblowers disclosure go to people other than the whistleblower: society as a whole
benefits from increased safety, better health, and more efficient law enforcement. However, most of the costs fall on the whistleblower. There is an enormous public gain if
whistleblowers can be encouraged to come forward by reducing the costs they must endure.

An obvious, but important, part

of reducing whistleblowers costs involves protecting them from

retaliation after they disclose misconduct .[51] Whistleblowing works
for the public, but not without strong protections for the
whistleblower. Recognizing this, Congress has repeatedly strengthened the
rights and procedures available to whistleblowers. In 2012, Chairman Issa and Ranking Member
Cummingsalong with Representative Van Hollen, then-Representative Platts, and their Senate colleagueschampioned the latest
enhancements to federal employee protections with the enactment
of the W histleblower P rotection E nhancement A ct.[52] While these
reforms go a long way to improve the prospects for whistleblowing on government wrongdoing, employee
surveillance, left unaddressed, seriously undermines these and
other statutory protections for whistleblowers that Congress
intended . An Opportunity for Reform This committees attention to the unacceptable actions of the
managers at FDA will hopefully serve as a catalyst for governmentwide reforms . Certainly security concerns and available technology will outstrip the protection of civil liberties, whistleblower protections, and other constitutional
rights unless there is a concerted effort to consider all of these goals together. We can and should move towards a better policy and to ensure more accountability now. But if left
to their own devices, the agencies cannot be expected to get this
right. The FDA and other agencies should not be in the surveillance
or law enforcement business. Federal agencies cannot be allowed to

police themselvesthat is why we have IGs, the OSC, DoJ, and Congress. Investigations of unauthorized, illegal disclosures of information and other
criminal misconduct must be conducted by law enforcement investigatorssuch as the FBI or the Inspectors Generalnot bureaucrats. While we acknowledge there may be a very

electronic
surveillance is ripe for abuseas demonstrated by the FDA. Even
limited need for agencies to gather evidence of wrongdoing by employees when there is reasonable suspicion of non-criminal misconduct, the

with just cause and proper controls, it will be difficult, if not

impossible to ensure constitutional rights are not violated . To what end? As with the
NSA domestic surveillance, the risks to our rights may be greater than the ability of the surveillance to protect against risks to security. On September 12, 2012, FDA
Commissioner Hamburg issued a memorandum directing the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief
Counsel to promptly develop a written procedure for employee
surveillance that includes some safeguards (Hamburg Memo).[53] Presumably, that written procedure is
embodied in the interim policies and procedures established last September by the FDA in its Staff Manual Guide (Interim Policy).[54] No doubt the FDA is in a tough spot, attempting to
put into place a process that is more proscribed for surveillance critics, but also placating the lawyers for drug and device companies that demand that information be kept confidential.
Needless to say,

the FDA doesnt have it right yet. Nothing in this policy

would prevent the FDA

Commissioner or Chief Operating Officer

from using information

collected by the surveillance as retaliation for whistleblowing or

providing it to others who might . The policy does little to lift the
chilling effect at FDA that fosters waste, fraud, abuse, and threats
to public health and safety. How can the FDA ensure the publics
health and safety if scientists and physicians are too afraid to come
forward when deadly mistakes are made? Instead, the interim
policy would allow the FDA managers to control a vast and farreaching surveillance program without any oversight from an
independent outside entity . Rather than protect whistleblowers
from unwarranted FDA surveillance, this policy protects the FDA
from whistleblowers and shields it from accountability. Simply stating that the FDA will
follow existing laws to protect whistleblowers is not enough the procedures do not build in strong,
substantive safeguards . The Interim Policy does attempt to protect some sensitive communications by prohibiting the targeting of
communications with law enforcement, the OSC, members of Congress or their staff, employee union officials, or private attorneys. However, it does not include a similar prohibition on

Congress
protected public whistleblowing because we live in a democracy
that relies on an informed public and freedom of the press. In numerous instances,
other protected disclosuresmost notably, public whistleblowing, which is protected as long as the disclosure of the information is not prohibited under law.

threats to public health and safety, waste, fraud, and abuse and other wrongdoing would never have come to light or been addressed without public whistleblowing.[55] The FDA has not
ensured employees, contractors, and grantees can exercise all of their legal rights without fear of retaliation. Thus,

any final policy must

prohibit specifically monitoring communications with anyone that

may include a protected disclosure . According to the Whistleblower Protection Act, these communications would include a
reasonable belief that the disclosure evidences any violation of any law, rule, or regulation; or gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and
specific danger to public health or safety.'[56] In practice, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to prevent the inadvertent capture of protected disclosures while monitoring employee

any final policy must mandate a legal review and express

authorization before any potentially protected communication that
is collected is shared. Notification of potential legal pitfalls to recipients of collected information, as called for in the Hamburg Memo, is woefully
insufficient.[57] The FDA must do more to ensure all agency personnel and
federal fund recipients are better trained in whistleblower
communications. Therefore,

protections. Under the WPA, it is the responsibility of the head of each agency, in consultation with the Office of Special Counsel, to ensure that agency employees are
informed of the rights and remedies available to them under the Whistleblower Protection Act.[58] The OSC, has a certification
program which allows agencies to demonstrate that they have
fulfilled this legal obligation. Last year, only three agencies sought
and received certificationand, remarkably, the FDA was not one of
them.[59] Clearly, certification should not be voluntary . Last December, in its second National
Action Plan for the Open Government Partnership, the Obama Administration committed to taking steps over the next two years with the stated goal of strengthening and expanding
protections for federal whistleblowers.[60] These commitments include mandating participation in the Office of Special Counsels Whistleblower Certification Program.

However, Congress should ensure that agency compliance with the

WPA notification requirement and certification will continue into the
future by putting the requirement into statute. Federal contractors and grantees also are required to
notify their employees of the whistleblower protections available to them.[61] There should be a mechanism to certify this compliance as well. Perhaps this could be part of the
contracting or grant-making process, or the Whistleblower Ombudsmen in the Offices of Inspectors General could play a role. The Inspectors General have responsibilities to conduct

Agencies are
currently certifying compliance with Presidential Policy Directive 19,
which protects national security and intelligence community
whistleblowers. These certifications should be made public, but so far only the
investigations of claims of retaliation by contractor and grantee employees, as well as by national security and intelligence community workers.[62]

Department of Defense has done so. Additionally, a memo and staff manual guide will not alone ensure that privacy, whistleblower, and civil service rights are protected in employee

policies and procedures for safeguarding employee rights whenever

investigations or surveillance is conducted should include penalties
for violations and should have the force of law. Therefore, a permanent regulation for all of HSSnot just
surveillance. The

the FDAwould be most appropriate. However, there ought to be a government-wide approach. The Department of Justice has the appropriate legal expertise for developing such policy,

the FDA is only attempting to write a policy ad

hoc because of all the unwanted attention its receiving. But what is
to prevent other agencies from spying on employees without regard
to the legal rights of these employees? Congress and/or the
in consultation with the OSC and MSPB. Moreover,

President must mandate a government-wide policy to protect

whistleblower and other constitutional rights and prevent future
abuses . Of course, interfering with communications to Congress[63] and retaliating for whistleblowing[64] is against the law. Although the law does protect the identity of
whistleblowers in other waysthe OSC and IG are prohibited from disclosing the identity of whistleblowers except in certain circumstances[65]there is little to prevent other agencies

Congress should consider amending the WPA

and contractor protections to specifically prohibit an agency from
using collected communications to identify a whistleblower. Today, we dont know
from identifying whistleblowers by collecting communications.

nearly enough about the scope of employee surveillance across the government. We hope that this committee will order a comprehensive study of how agencies are currently
conducting surveillance of employees while protecting their rights. Far more needs to be known about current practices, legal protections, effectiveness, and cost. A government-wide
study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and/or the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) would provide the executive branch and Congress with a more complete picture
and recommendations for best-practice policies.[66] Naturally, there also must be a different approach with the ever-growing intelligence and national security workforce. More and more
of the federal workforce is labeled as national security sensitiveand

there is a jaw-dropping lack of oversight .

The number of people cleared for access to classified information reached a record high in 2012, soaring to more than 4.9 million.[67] Add to that untold numbers of civil servants and

In order to prevent leaks of

classified information, it is critical that there are truly safe channels
for legal disclosures. We have long been concerned about the
potential for abuse of whistleblowers as a result of Insider Threat
programs mandated by the President and Congress.[69] The program
contractors without access to classified information, but in positions labeled as national security sensitive.[68]

pits employees against one another,[70] creating an atmosphere of

suspicion and intimidation likely to silence would-be
whistleblowers . Intended to protect national security, implementation of the Insider Threat Program at agencies that have little to do with national security

An investigation by
McClatchy last year discovered that agencies were using the Insider
Threat Program as grounds to pursue unauthorized disclosures of
unclassified informationinformation that whistleblowers can
legally disclose to anyone under current law.[71] We hope this committee will also conduct rigorous oversight
issues suggests a serious overreach. Blurring the line between spies and whistleblowers can only harm national security.

of whistleblower protections for the national security and intelligence community workforce. Importantly, we must not lose sight of what brought us here today. Scientists at the FDA
were concerned about a device approval process that they believed might put lives at risk. We urge you to ensure that the critical work being done by the CDRH puts the publics health
and safety first. Bureaucrats at FDA should not be allowed to overrule the findings of expert scientists and physicians, except under extraordinary circumstances. There are no criminal
penalties for FDA officials who allow unsafe devices to be approved. FDA officials should be held accountable for approving ineffective or unsafe products, and flawed devices must be
taken off the market. There must be far more transparency and less deference to the demands for confidentiality by the drug and device companies. Finally, please do all you can to
ensure the FDA whistleblowers get the justice that they deserve and that FDA managers are held accountable for any violations of the rights of the scientists and physicians who sought
to make medical devices safer and more effective. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. POGO and the Make It Safe Coalition pledge to continue to work with you to
fulfill the promise of a government that is truly open and accountable to the American people. I look forward to your questions.

Prioritize environmental existence over framing and ontology.

Paul WAPNER Prf. And Director of the Global Environmental Policy Program @
American 3 Leftist Criticism of Nature Dissent Winter p. 74-75
response to eco-criticism would require critics to acknowledge
the ways in which they themselves silence nature and then to respect the sheer
otherness of the nonhuman world. Postmodernism prides itself on criticizing the
urge toward mastery that characterizes modernity. But isnt mastery
exactly what postmodernism is exerting as it captures the
nonhuman world within its own conceptual domain? Doesnt postmodern
cultural criticism deepen the modernist urge toward mastery by
eliminating the ontological weight of the nonhuman world? What
else could it mean to assert that there is no such thing as nature? I
The third

have already suggested the postmodernist response: yes, recognizing the social construction of nature does deny
the self-expression of the nonhuman world, but how would we know what such self-expression means? Indeed,
nature doesnt speak; rather, some person always speaks on natures behalf, and whatever that person says is, as

All attempts to listen to nature are social

constructionsexcept one. Even the most radical postmodernist must acknowledge the
distinction between physical existence and nonexistence. As I have said,
we all know, a social construction.

postmodernists accept that there is a physical substratum to the phenomenal world even if they argue about the
different meanings we ascribe to it. This acknowledgment of physical existence is crucial. We cant ascribe meaning
to that which doesnt appear. What doesnt exist can manifest no character. Put differently, yes, the postmodernist

all of us should be wary of

those who claim to speak on natures behalf (including environmentalists who do
that). But we need not doubt the simple idea that a prerequisite of expression is
existence. This in turn suggests that preserving the nonhuman worldin all
its diverse embodimentsmust be seen by eco-critics as a
fundamental good. Eco-critics must be supporters, in some fashion, of environmental preservation.
should rightly worry about interpreting natures expressions. And

Postmodernists reject the idea of a universal good. They rightly acknowledge the difficulty of identifying a common
value given the multiple contexts of our value-producing activity. In fact, if there is one thing they vehemently
scorn, it is the idea that there can be a value that stands above the individual contexts of human experience. Such
a value would present itself as a metanarrative and, as Jean- Franois Lyotard has explained, postmodernism is
characterized fundamentally by its incredulity toward meta-narratives. Nonetheless, I cant see how postmodern
critics can do otherwise than accept the value of preserving the nonhuman world. The nonhuman is the extreme
other; it stands in contradistinction to humans as a species. In understanding the constructed quality of human
experience and the dangers of reification, postmodernism inherently advances an ethic of respecting the other. At

respect must involve ensuring that the other actually

continues to exist. In our day and age, this requires us to take
responsibility for protecting the actuality of the nonhuman. Instead,
the very least,

however, we are running roughshod over the earths diversity of

plants, animals, and ecosystems. Postmodern critics should find this particularly disturbing. If
they dont, they deny their own intellectual insights and compromise their fundamental moral commitment. Now,
what does this mean for politics and policy, and the future of the environmental movement? Society is constantly

As we
wrestle with challenges of global climate change, ozone depletion,
loss of biological diversity, and so forth, we need to consider the economic, political, cultural, and
being asked to address questions of environmental quality for which there are no easy answers.

aesthetic values at stake. These considerations have traditionally marked the politics of environmental protection. A
sensitivity to eco-criticism requires that we go further and include an ethic of otherness in our deliberations. That is,
we need to be moved by our concern to make room for the other and hence fold a commitment to the nonhuman
world into our policy discussions. I dont mean that this argument should drive all our actions or that respect for the
other should always carry the day. But it must be a central part of our reflections and calculations. For example,
as we estimate the number of people that a certain area can sustain, consider what to do about climate change,

we must
think about the lives of other creatures on the earthand also the
continued existence of the nonliving physical world. We must do so not because
debate restrictions on ocean fishing, or otherwise assess the effects of a particular course of action,

we wish to maintain what is natural but because we wish to act in a morally respectable manner. I have been
using postmodern cultural criticism against itself. Yes, the postmodernists are right: we can do what we want with
the nonhuman world. There is nothing essential about the realm of rocks, trees, fish, and climate that calls for a
certain type of action. But postmodernists are also right that the only ethical way to act in a world that is socially
constructed is to respect the voices of the others of those with whom we share the planet but with whom we may
not share a common language or outlook. There is, in other words, a limit or guiding principle to our actions. As
political theorist Leslie Thiele puts it,

One cant argue for the diversity of views of

nature without taking a stand for the diversity of nature.

The state is inevitable and an indispensable part of the

solution to warming
Eckersley 4 Robyn, Reader/Associate Professor in the Department of Political
Science at the University of Melbourne, The Green State: Rethinking Democracy
and Sovereignty, MIT Press, 2004, Google Books, pp. 3-8

I seek to draw
attention to the positive role that states have played, and might
increasingly play, in global and domestic politics
Bull
outlined the state's positive role in world affairs,
and his arguments continue to provide a powerful challenge to
those who somehow seek to "get beyond the state," as if such a
move would provide a more lasting solution to the threat of armed
conflict or nuclear war, social and economic injustice, or
environmental degradation
given that the state is here to stay
whether we like it or not, then the call to get "beyond the state is a
counsel of despair, at all events if it means that we have to begin by
abolishing or subverting the state, rather than that there is a need
to build upon it
rejecting the "statist frame" of world politics
ought not prohibit an inquiry into the emancipatory potential of the
state as a crucial "node" in any future network of global ecological
governance
one can expect states to persist as major sites
of social and political power for at least the foreseeable future and
While acknowledging the basis for this antipathy toward the nation- state, and the limitations of state-centric analyses of global ecological degradation,

. Writing more than twenty years ago, Hedley

constructivist and leading writer in the English school)

.10 As Bull argued,

.""

In any event,

. This is especially so, given that

(a proto-

that any green transformations of the present political order will,

short of revolution, necessarily be state-dependent. Thus, like it or
not, those concerned about ecological destruction must contend
with existing institutions and
seek to "rebuild the ship while
still at sea."

it would be unhelpful to become singularly

fixated on the redesign of the state at the expense of other
institutions of governance
it is necessary
to keep in view the broader spectrum of formal and informal
institutions of governance (e.g., local, national, regional, and
international) that are implicated in global environmental change
, where possible,

And if states are so implicated in ecological destruction, then an inquiry into the potential for their transformation even their modest reform into something that is at least more conducive to

ecological sustainability would seem to be compelling.

Of course,

. States are not the only institutions that limit, condition, shape, and direct political power, and

Nonetheless, while the state constitutes only one modality of political power, it is an especially significant one because of its historical claims to exclusive rule over territory and peoplesas expressed in the principle of state

the political power concentrated in the state "is a

momentous, pervasive, critical phenomenon. Together with other
forms of social power, it constitutes an indispensable medium for
constructing and shaping larger social realities, for establishing,
shaping and maintaining all broader and more durable
collectivities States play
significant roles in structuring life
chances, in distributing wealth, privilege, information, and risks, in
upholding civil and political rights, and in securing private property
rights and providing the legal/regulatory framework for capitalism.
Every one of these dimensions of state activity has, for good or ill, a
significant bearing on the global environmental crisis. Given that
the green political project is one that demands far-reaching changes
to both economies and societies, it is difficult to imagine how such
changes might occur on the kind of scale that is needed without the
active support of states
the
state
holds
a unique position in the constitutive
hierarchy from individuals through villages, regions and nations all
the way to global organizations. The state is inclusive of lower
political and administrative levels, and exclusive in speaking for its
whole territory and population in relation to the outside world
it
seems inconceivable to advance ecological emancipation without
also engaging with
state power
sovereignty. As Gianfranco Poggi explains,

."12

, in varying degrees,

. While it is often observed that states are too big to deal with local ecological problems and too small to deal with global ones,

nonetheless

, as Lennart Lundqvist puts it, "

."13 In short,

to me

and seeking to transform

Of course, not all states are democratic states, and the green movement has long been wary of

the coercive powers that all states reputedly enjoy. Coercion (and not democracy) is also central to Max Weber's classic sociological understanding of the state as "a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the
legitimate use of physical force within a given territory."14 Weber believed that the state could not be defined sociologically in terms of its ends* only formally as an organization in terms of the particular means that are peculiar to
it.15 Moreover his concept of legitimacy was merely concerned with whether rules were accepted by subjects as valid (for whatever reason); he did not offer a normative theory as to the circumstances when particular rules ought to
be accepted or whether beliefs about the validity of rules were justified. Legitimacy was a contingent fact, and in view of his understanding of politics as a struggle for power in the context of an increasingly disenchanted world, likely
to become an increasingly unstable achievement.16 In contrast to Weber, my approach to the state is explicitly normative and explicitly concerned with the purpose of states, and the democratic basis of their legitimacy. It focuses
on the limitations of liberal normative theories of the state (and associated ideals of a just constitutional arrangement), and it proposes instead an alternative green theory that seeks to redress the deficiencies in liberal theory. Nor is
my account as bleak as Weber's. The fact that states possess a monopoly of control over the means of coercion is a most serious matter, but it does not necessarily imply that they must have frequent recourse to that power. In any
event, whether the use of the state's coercive powers is to be deplored or welcomed turns on the purposes for which that power is exercised, the manner in which it is exercised, and whether it is managed in public, transparent, and

The coercive arm of the state

can be used to "bust" political demonstrations and invade privacy. It
can also be used to prevent human rights abuses, curb the excesses
of corporate power, and protect the environment.
although the
political autonomy of states is widely believed to be in decline,
there are still few social institution that can match the same degree
of capacity and potential legitimacy that states have to redirect
accountable waysa judgment that must be made against a background of changing problems, practices, and under- standings.

In short,

societies and economies along more ecologically sustainable lines to

address ecological problems such as warming pollution, the
buildup of toxic and nuclear wastes and the rapid erosion of
biodiversity States
have the capacity to curb the socially
and ecologically harmful consequences of capitalism.
There are therefore many good
reasons why green political theorists need to think not only
critically but also constructively about the state and the state
system
offer
two cheers
as a potentially more significant ally in the green cause
global

and

the earth's

particularly when they act collectively

They are also more amenable to democratization

than cor- porations, notwithstanding the ascendancy of the neoliberal state in the increasingly competitive global economy.

. While the state is certainly not "healthy" at the present historical juncture, in this book I nonetheless join Poggi by

ing "a timid

for the old beast," at least

.17

Short-term market mechanisms are the only solution to

environmental destruction
Bryant 12professor of philosophy at Collin College (Levi, Well Never Do Better
Than a Politician: Climate Change and Purity, 5/11/12,
http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/well-never-do-better-than-apolitician-climate-change-and-purity/)
Somewhere or other Latour makes the remark that well never do better than a politician. Here its important to remember that for Latour as for myself

every

entity is a politician. Latour isnt referring solely to those persons that we call politicians, but to all entities that exist. And if Latour claims that
well never do better than a politician, then this is because every entity must navigate a field of
relations to other entities that play a role in what is and is not
possible in that field. In the language of my ontology, this would be articulated as the thesis that the local manifestations of which an entity is capable
are, in part, a function of the relations the entity entertains to other entities in a regime of attraction. The world about entities perpetually
introduces resistances and frictions that play a key role in what
comes to be actualized . It is this aphorism that occurred to me today after a disturbing discussion with a rather militant Marxist on Facebook.
I had posted a very disturbing editorial on climate change by the world renowned climate scientist James Hansen. Not only did this person completely misread the editorial, denouncing
Hansen for claiming that Canada is entirely responsible for climate change (clearly he had no familiarity with Hansen or his important work), but he derided Hansen for proposing market-

It is
quite true that it is the system of global capitalism or the market that has
created our climate problems (though, as Jared Diamond shows in Collapse, other systems of
production have also produced devastating climate problems). In its
insistence on profit and expansion in each economic quarter, markets as currently structured
provide no brakes for environmental destructive actions. The system is itself
pathological. However, pointing this out and deriding market based solutions doesnt get
us very far. In fact, such a response to proposed market-based solutions
based solutions to climate change on the grounds that the market is the whole source of the problem! Its difficult to know how to respond in this situations. read on!

is downright dangerous and irresponsible . The fact of the matter is that 1) we

currently live in a market based world, 2) there is not, in the foreseeable future an
alternative system on the horizon, and 3), above all, we need to do
something now . We cant afford to reject interventions simply
because they dont meet our ideal conceptions of how things
should be. We have to work with the world that is here, not the one
that we would like to be here. And here its crucial to note that pointing this out does not

entail that we shouldnt work for producing that other world. It just
means that we have to grapple with the world that is actually there
before us. It pains me to write this post because I remember, with great bitterness, the diatribes hardcore Obama supporters leveled against legitimate leftist
criticisms on the grounds that these critics were completely unrealistic idealists who, in their demand for purity, were asking for ponies and unicorns. This rejoinder always seemed to

Obama, through his profound power of rhetoric, had, at

least the power to shift public debates and frames, opening a path to
making new forms of policy and new priorities possible. The tragedy
was that he didnt use that power, though he has gotten better. I do not wish to denounce others and dismiss their claims on
these sorts of grounds. As a Marxist anarchists, I do believe that we should fight for the creation of an
alternative hominid ecology or social world. I think that the call to commit and fight, to put alternatives on the table, has been
ignore that words have power and that

one of the most powerful contributions of thinkers like Zizek and Badiou. If we dont commit and fight for alternatives those alternatives will never appear in the world.

Nonetheless, we still have to grapple with the world we find

ourselves in. And it is here, in my encounters with some Militant
Marxists, that I sometimes find it difficult to avoid the conclusion
that they are unintentionally aiding and abetting the very things they claim to
be fighting. In their refusal to become impure, to work with
situations or assemblages as we find them, to sully their hands,
they end up reproducing the very system they wish to topple and
change . Narcissistically they get to sit there, smug in their
superiority and purity, while everything continues as it did before
because theyve refused to become politicians or engage in the
difficult concrete work of assembling human and nonhuman actors to render
another world possible. As a consequence, they occupy the position of Hegels beautiful soul that denounces
the horrors of the world, celebrate the beauty of their soul, while
depending on those horrors of the world to sustain their own
position. To engage in politics is to engage in networks or ecologies of relations between humans and nonhumans. To engage in ecologies is to descend into networks
of causal relations and feedback loops that you cannot completely master and that will modify your own commitments and actions. But theres no other way, theres no way around this,
and we do need to act now.

Scientific knowledge is best because it subjects itself to

constant refinement based on empirical evidence
Hutcheon 93former prof of sociology of education at U Regina and U British
Columbia. Former research advisor to the Health Promotion Branch of the Canadian
Department of Health and Welfare and as a director of the Vanier Institute of the
Family. Phd in sociology, began at Yale and finished at U Queensland. (Pat, A Critique
of "Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA",
http://www.humanists.net/pdhutcheon/humanist%20articles/lewontn.htm)
The introductory lecture in this series articulated

the increasingly popular "postmodernist" claim that

all science is ideology. Lewontin then proceeded to justify this by stating the obvious: that scientists are human like the rest of
us and subject to the same biases and socio-cultural imperatives. Although he did not actually say it, his comments seemed to imply
that the enterprise of scientific research and knowledge building could therefore be no different and no
more reliable as a guide to action than any other set of opinions. The trouble is that, in
order to reach such an conclusion, one would have to ignore all
those aspects of the scientific endeavor that do

in fact

distinguish it

from other types and sources of belief formation . Indeed, if the integrity of the
scientific endeavor depended only on the wisdom and objectivity of the
individuals engaged in it we would be in trouble. North American agriculture would today be in
the state of that in Russia today. In fact it would be much worse, for the Soviets threw out Lysenko's ideology-masquerading-as-science decades ago.
Precisely because an alternative scientific model was available (thanks to the disparaged Darwinian theory) the former Eastern bloc countries have been
partially successful in overcoming the destructive chain of consequences which blind faith in ideology had set in motion. This is what Lewontin's old
Russian dissident professor meant when he said that the truth must be spoken, even at great personal cost. How sad that Lewontin has apparently failed
to understand the fact that while scientific knowledge -- with the power it gives us -- can and does allow humanity to change the world, ideological beliefs
have consequences too. By rendering their proponents politically powerful but rationally and instrumentally impotent, they throw up insurmountable
barriers to reasoned and value-guided social change. What are the crucial differences between ideology and science that Lewonton has ignored? Both
Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn have spelled these out with great care -- the former throughout a long lifetime of scholarship devoted to that precise
objective. Stephen Jay Gould has also done a sound job in this area. How strange that someone with the status of Lewontin, in a series of lectures

Science has to do with the

search for regularities in what humans experience of their physical
and social environments, beginning with the most simple units discernible, and gradually moving towards the more
complex. It has to do with expressing these regularities in the clearest and
most precise language possible, so that cause- and-effect relations among the parts of
the system under study can be publicly and rigorously tested . And it has to do with
devising explanations of those empirical regularities which have
survived all attempts to falsify them. These explanations, once phrased in the form of
testable hypotheses, become predictors of future events . In other words, they lead to
supposedly covering the same subject, would not at least have dealt with their arguments!

further conjectures of additional relationships which, in their turn, must survive repeated
public attempts to prove them wanting
operate as a fruitful guide for subsequent research. This means that

-- if the set of related explanations (or theory) is to continue to

science, unlike

mythology and

ideology, has

a self-correcting mechanism at its very heart. A conjecture, to be

classed as scientific, must be amenable to empirical test. It must,
above all, be open to refutation by experience . There is a rigorous set of rules according to
It is this process -- not
the lack of prejudice of the particular scientist, or his negotiating ability, or even his political
power within the relevant university department -- that ensures the reliability of scientific
knowledge. The conditions established by the community of science is one of
precisely defined and regulated "intersubjectivity". Under these conditions the
theory that wins out, and subsequently prevails, does so not because of its
agreement with conventional wisdom or because of the political
power of its proponents, as is often the case with ideology . The
which hypotheses are formulated and research findings are arrived at, reported and replicated.

survival of a scientific theory

such as Darwin's

is due , instead, to its power to

explain and predict observable regularities in human experience ,

while withstanding worldwide attempts to refute it -- and proving itself
open to elaboration and expansion in the process . In this sense only
is scientific knowledge objective and universal. All this has little
relationship to the claim of an absolute universality of objective
"truth" apart from human strivings that Lewontin has attributed to

scientists . Because ideologies, on the other hand, do claim to represent truth ,

they are incapable of generating a means by which they can be
corrected as circumstances change.

Legitimate

science makes no such

claims. Scientific tests are not tests of verisimilitude. Science does

not aim for "true" theories purporting to reflect an accurate picture
of the "essence" of reality. It leaves such claims of infallibility to
ideology . The tests of science, therefore, are in terms of workability and
falsifiability, and its propositions are accordingly tentative in nature.
A successful scientific theory is one which, while guiding the research in a particular problem area, is
continuously

revised and refined , until it is eventually superseded by that very hypothesis-making

and testing process that it helped to define and sharpen. An ideology, on the other hand, would be considered to have failed
under those conditions, for the "truth" must be for all time . More than anything,
it is this difference that confuses those ideological thinkers who are
compelled to attack Darwin's theory of evolution precisely because of its success as a scientific
theory. For them, and the world of desired and imagined certainty in which
they live, that very success in contributing to a continuously
evolving body of increasingly reliable -- albeit inevitably tentative -knowledge can only mean failure, in that the theory itself has
altered in the process.
elaborated,

Discussing the risk of catastrophic warming is crucialits the

only way to motivate response
Romm 12 (Joe Romm is a Fellow at American Progress and is the editor of
Climate Progress, which New York Times columnist Tom Friedman called "the
indispensable blog" and Time magazine named one of the 25 Best Blogs of 2010.
In 2009, Rolling Stone put Romm #88 on its list of 100 people who are reinventing
America. Time named him a Hero of the Environment and The Webs most
influential climate-change blogger. Romm was acting assistant secretary of energy
for energy efficiency and renewable energy in 1997, where he oversaw $1 billion in
R&D, demonstration, and deployment of low-carbon technology. He is a Senior
Fellow at American Progress and holds a Ph.D. in physics from MIT., 2/26/2012,
Apocalypse Not: The Oscars, The Media And The Myth of Constant Repetition of
Doomsday Messages on Climate,
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/02/26/432546/apocalypse-not-oscars-mediamyth-of-repetition-of-doomsday-messages-on-climate/#more-432546)
The two greatest myths about global warming communications are 1) constant
repetition of doomsday messages has been a major, ongoing strategy and 2) that
strategy doesnt work and indeed is actually counterproductive ! These myths are so deeply
ingrained in the environmental and progressive political community that when we finally had a serious shot at a
climate bill, the powers that be decided not to focus on the threat posed by climate change in any serious fashion in
their $200 million communications effort (see my 6/10 post Can you solve global warming without talking about

These myths are so deeply ingrained in the mainstream media that

such messaging, when it is tried, is routinely attacked and denounced and the
flimsiest studies are interpreted exactly backwards to drive the erroneous message
home (see Dire straits: Media blows the story of UC Berkeley study on climate messaging) The only time
global warming?).

anything approximating this kind of messaging not doomsday but what Id call blunt, science-based messaging
that also makes clear the problem is solvable was in 2006 and 2007 with the release of An Inconvenient Truth
(and the 4 assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and media coverage like the April
2006 cover of Time). The data suggest that strategy measurably moved the public to become more concerned

the
public is not going to be concerned about an issue unless one explains why they
should be concerned about an issue. And the social science literature, including the vast
literature on advertising and marketing, could not be clearer that only repeated
messages have any chance of sinking in and moving the needle. Because I
doubt any serious movement of public opinion or mobilization of political action
could possibly occur until these myths are shattered , Ill do a multipart series on this subject,
about the threat posed by global warming (see recent study here). Youd think it would be pretty obvious that

featuring public opinion analysis, quotes by leading experts, and the latest social science research. Since this is
Oscar night, though, it seems appropriate to start by looking at what messages the public are exposed to in popular

climate change has been mostly an

invisible issue for several years and the message of conspicuous consumption and
business-as-usual reigns supreme. The motivation for this post actually came up because I received an
culture and the media. It aint doomsday. Quite the reverse,

e-mail from a journalist commenting that the constant repetition of doomsday messages doesnt work as a
messaging strategy. I had to demur, for the reasons noted above. But it did get me thinking about what messages
the public are exposed to, especially as Ive been rushing to see the movies nominated for Best Picture this year. I
am a huge movie buff, but as parents of 5-year-olds know, it isnt easy to stay up with the latest movies. That said,
good luck finding a popular movie in recent years that even touches on climate change, let alone one a popular one
that would pass for doomsday messaging. Best Picture nominee The Tree of Life has been billed as an
environmental movie and even shown at environmental film festivals but while it is certainly depressing,
climate-related it aint. In fact, if that is truly someones idea of environmental movie, count me out. The closest to
a genuine popular climate movie was the dreadfully unscientific The Day After Tomorrow, which is from 2004 (and
arguably set back the messaging effort by putting the absurd global cooling notion in peoples heads! Even
Avatar, the most successful movie of all time and the most epic piece of environmental advocacy ever captured on
celluloid, as one producer put it, omits the climate doomsday message. One of my favorite eco-movies, Wall-E, is
an eco-dystopian gem and an anti-consumption movie, but it isnt a climate movie. I will be interested to see The
Hunger Games, but Ive read all 3 of the bestselling post-apocalyptic young adult novels hey, thats my job!
and they dont qualify as climate change doomsday messaging (more on that later). So, no, the movies certainly
dont expose the public to constant doomsday messages on climate. Here are the key points about what repeated

The broad American public is exposed to

virtually no doomsday messages, let alone constant ones, on climate change in popular
messages the American public is exposed to:

culture (TV and the movies and even online). There is not one single TV show on any network devoted to this

The same goes

for the news media, whose coverage of climate change has collapsed (see Network
News Coverage of Climate Change Collapsed in 2011). When the media do cover climate change
in recent years, the overwhelming majority of coverage is devoid of any doomsday
messages and many outlets still feature hard-core deniers. Just imagine what the
publics view of climate would be if it got the same coverage as, say,
unemployment, the housing crisis or even the deficit? When was the last time you saw an
employment denier quoted on TV or in a newspaper?
The public is exposed to constant
messages promoting business as usual and indeed idolizing conspicuous
consumption. See, for instance, Breaking: The earth is breaking but how about that Royal Wedding? Our
political elite and intelligentsia, including MSM pundits and the supposedly liberal media like, say,
MSNBC, hardly even talk about climate change and when they do, it isnt doomsday .
Indeed, there isnt even a single national columnist for a major media outlet who
writes primarily on climate. Most liberal columnists rarely mention it . At least a
subject, which is, arguably, more consequential than any other preventable issue we face.

quarter of the public chooses media that devote a vast amount of time to the notion that global warming is a hoax
and that environmentalists are extremists and that clean energy is a joke. In the MSM, conservative pundits
routinely trash climate science and mock clean energy. Just listen to, say, Joe Scarborough on MSNBCs Morning Joe

The major energy companies bombard the airwaves with

millions and millions of dollars of repetitious pro-fossil-fuel ads . The environmentalists
spend far, far less money. As noted above, the one time they did run a major campaign
to push a climate bill, they and their political allies including the president explicitly
did NOT talk much about climate change, particularly doomsday messaging
Environmentalists when they do appear in popular culture, especially TV, are routinely mocked.
There is very little mass communication of doomsday messages online . Check out the
mock clean energy sometime.

most popular websites. General silence on the subject, and again, what coverage there is aint doomsday

If
you want to find anything approximating even modest, blunt, science-based messaging
built around the scientific literature, interviews with actual climate scientists and a
clear statement that we can solve this problem well, youve all found it, of course, but the
only people who see it are those who go looking for it . Of course, this blog is not even aimed at
messaging. Go to the front page of the (moderately trafficked) environmental websites. Where is the doomsday?

the general public. Probably 99% of Americans havent even seen one of my headlines and 99.7% havent read one
of my climate science posts. And Climate Progress is probably the most widely read, quoted, and reposted climate

Anyone dropping into America from another country or another

planet who started following popular culture and the news the way the
overwhelming majority of Americans do would get the distinct impression that
nobody who matters is terribly worried about climate change . And, of course,
theyd be right see The failed presidency of Barack Obama, Part 2. It is total BS that somehow the
American public has been scared and overwhelmed by repeated doomsday
messaging into some sort of climate fatigue. If the publics concern has
dropped and public opinion analysis suggests it has dropped several percent (though is bouncing back a tad)
that is primarily due to the conservative medias disinformation campaign
impact on Tea Party conservatives and to the treatment of this as a nonissue by
most of the rest of the media, intelligentsia and popular culture .
science blog in the world.

Reforms are possible and desirable---tangible change

outweighs the risk of cooption and is still a better strategy
than the alt
Michael Omi 13, and Howard Winant, Resistance is futile?: a response to Feagin
and Elias, Ethnic and Racial Studies Volume 36, Issue 6, p. 961-973, 2013 Special
Issue: Symposium - Rethinking Racial Formation Theory

Feagin and Elias's account, white racist rule in the USA appears unalterable and permanent.
There is little sense that the white racial frame evoked by systemic
racism theory changes in significant ways over historical time. They
dismiss important rearrangements and reforms as merely a
distraction from more ingrained structural oppressions and deep
lying inequalities that continue to define US society (Feagin and Elias 2012, p. 21). Feagin and
Elias use a concept they call surface flexibility to argue that white elites frame racial realities in
ways that suggest change, but are merely engineered to reinforce
the underlying structure of racial oppression. Feagin and Elias say the phrase racial democracy is an
oxymoron a word defined in the dictionary as a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms. If they mean the USA is a contradictory
In

incomplete democracy in respect to race and racism issues, we

agree. If they mean that people of colour have no democratic rights
or political power in the USA, we disagree. The USA is a racially despotic country in many ways, but in
our view it is also in many respects a racial democracy, capable of being influenced
towards more or less inclusive and redistributive economic policies, social policies, or for that matter, imperial
policies. What is distinctive about our own epoch in the USA (post-Second World War to the present) with respect to race and racism? Over the past decades there has been
and

a steady drumbeat of efforts to contain and neutralize civil rights, to restrict racial democracy, and to maintain or even increase racial inequality. Racial disparities in different
institutional sites employment, health, education persist and in many cases have increased. Indeed, the post-2008 period has seen a dramatic increase in racial inequality. The
subprime home mortgage crisis, for example, was a major racial event. Black and brown people were disproportionately affected by predatory lending practices; many lost their homes
as a result; race-based wealth disparities widened tremendously. It would be easy to conclude, as Feagin and Elias do, that white racial dominance has been continuous and unchanging
throughout US history. But such a perspective misses the dramatic twists and turns in racial politics that have occurred since the Second World War and the civil rights era.

Feagin and Elias claim that we overly inflate the significance of the changes wrought by the civil rights movement, and that we
overlook the serious reversals of racial justice and persistence of
huge racial inequalities (Feagin and Elias 2012, p. 21) that followed in its wake. We do not. In Racial Formation we wrote
about racial reaction in a chapter of that name, and elsewhere in the book as well. Feagin and Elias devote little attention to our arguments there; perhaps because they
are in substantial agreement with us . While we argue that the right wing was able to rearticulate race and racism
issues to roll back some of the gains of the civil rights movement, we also believe that there are limits to what the right could achieve in the post-civil rights political landscape. So we

US racial conditions
have changed over the post-Second World War period, in ways that Feagin and Elias tend to
downplay or neglect. Some of the major reforms of the 1960s have proved
irreversible; they have set powerful democratic forces in motion.
These racial (trans)formations were the results of unprecedented
political mobilizations, led by the black movement, but not confined
to blacks alone. Consider the desegregation of the armed forces, as well as key civil rights
movement victories of the 1960s: the Voting Rights Act, the Immigration and Naturalization Act
(Hart- Celler), as well as important court decisions like Loving v. Virginia that declared antimiscegenation laws unconstitutional. While we have the greatest respect for the late Derrick Bell, we do
not believe that his interest convergence hypothesis effectively
explains all these developments. How does Lyndon Johnson's famous (and possibly apocryphal) lament upon signing the Civil
agree that the present prospects for racial justice are demoralizing at best. But we do not think that is the whole story.

Rights Act on 2 July 1964 We have lost the South for a generation count as convergence? The US racial regime has been transformed in significant ways. As Antonio Gramsci

hegemony proceeds through the incorporation of opposition (Gramsci

1971, p. 182). The civil rights reforms can be seen as a classic example of
this process; here the US racial regime under movement pressure was exercising its hegemony. But Gramsci insists that such reforms
which he calls passive revolutions cannot be merely symbolic if
they are to be effective: oppositions must win real gains in the
process . Once again, we are in the realm of politics, not absolute rule. So yes, we
think there were important if partial victories that shifted the racial state
and transformed the significance of race in everyday life. And yes, we think that
further victories can take place both on the broad terrain of the
argues,

state and on the more immediate level of social interaction: in daily

interaction, in the human psyche and across civil society. Indeed we have argued that in many ways the most important accomplishment of the anti-racist movement
of the 1960s in the USA was the politicization of the social . In the USA and indeed around the globe, race-based
movements demanded not only the inclusion of racially defined
others and the democratization of structurally racist societies, but
also the recognition and validation by both the state and civil

society of racially-defined experience and identity. These demands

broadened and deepened democracy itself. They facilitated not only the democratic gains made in the USA by
the black movement and its allies, but also the political advances towards equality, social justice and inclusion accomplished by other new social movements: second-wave feminism,

By no means do we think that the

post-war movement upsurge was an unmitigated success. Far from it: all the new social
gay liberation, and the environmentalist and anti-war movements among others.

movements were subject to the same rearticulation (Laclau and Mouffe 2001, p. xii) that produced the racial ideology of colourblindness and its variants; indeed all these movements

Yet even their incorporation and

containment, even their confrontations with the various backlash phenomena of the past few decades,
even the need to develop the highly contradictory ideology of
colourblindness, reveal the transformative character of the
politicization of the social. While it is not possible here to explore so extensive a subject, it is worth noting that it was the long-delayed
eruption of racial subjectivity and self-awareness into the
mainstream political arena that set off this transformation, shaping
both the democratic and anti-democratic social movements that are
evident in US politics today.
confronted their mirror images in the mobilizations that arose from the political right to counter them.

Liberal reformism is the only way to avoid reductive theories

that collapse into totalitarianism---making the system live up
to its empty promises of equality is better than discarding
equality
Jefferey Pyle 99, Boston College Law School, J.D., magna cum laude, Race,
Equality and the Rule of Law: Critical Race Theory's Attack on the Promises of
Liberalism, 40 B.C.L. Rev. 787

Liberal principles are therefore "indeterminate" to the extent that they are
not mechanically determinative of every controversy.224 Indeed, as Samuel Huntington
has pointed out, Americans hold potentially conflicting ideals (such as individualism and democracy, liberty and equality) simultaneously, without trying to
resolve the conflicts between them once and for 1111.2" Rather,

they have set up processes and

institutions to resolve conflicts pragmatically, case-by-case , issue-byissue,

problem-by-problem

. 226

Liberals, unlike radical legal theorists,

assume that there are no universal solvents , that values are not easily ranked"' and
that reasoning by analogy is usually more helpful (and more persuasive) than
deductions from the abstract theories of philosopher-kings. 228 Liberal
politics, like the common-law courts on which it relies, requires perpetual re-examination of both
the major and minor premises of most legal syllogisms. It allows for both continuity and
change, stability and flexibility, tradition and innovation. 52 The
liberal system's celebrated capacity for social change rests in the ability of
aggrieved citizens to confront power-holders, such as legislators, judges or voters, with their
failures to live up to the promises of the "American Creed."23" In doing so, the
aggrieved can argue with sonic force that they are seeking justice, not revolution, when in fact they may be seeking both."' The Voting
Rights Act of 1965, for example, was not a radical measure, yet it started a
revolution in Southern politics.232 It purported to secure a right already enshrined in the Fifteenth Amendment,233
and thus fulfill fundamental notions of equality that most Americans could not easily deny.231 The Act would probably not have passed, however, if it had
been presented as a benefit to one group to the detriment of another in a zero-sum power game. Second, liberal politics is about morality as well as
interests. It is about holding public officials morally and politically responsible for meeting unfulfilled promises.235 By casting victims of discrimination as

legitimate claimants to the promise of equality in the American Creed, liberal politics gives victims the higher moral ground, without fully separating them
from the people whose oppressive behavior they seek to change.2"" The Reverend Martin Luther King exemplified this promissory politics best on the
steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, when he said: In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check: When the architects of our republic
wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was
to fall heir. This note was the promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note. ... America has given Negro people a had check; a check
which has come back marked "insufficient funds." We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of this nation. And so we have

King

come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom, and the security of justice. 2"7 Through this metaphor,
brilliantly articulated the promises and realities that animated the civil rights revolution in America. 238 He reminded Americans of their founding

did not paint

whites as irredeemably racist; he simply insisted that they live up to
their obligations.") To Derrick Bell, in contrast, the coffers of justice in America
have always been empty. To him, the promises of liberalism are just "bogus freedom checks" which "the Man" will never
principles, assumed the fundamental equality of the bargainers, and placed the power structure on the delensive.239 King

honor.24 ' Bell, like other race-crits, attacks American liberalism from a European political orientation, which conceives of politics as a zero-sum struggle
between entrenched classes or groups.242 In this view,

all politics is power politics, and law serves merely as an

oppression by the group that happens to be in power.2'3 No common principles exist which might persuade whites to he more
race-crits, like other class theorists, do not attempt to prove that African
Americans are permanently disadvantaged; they simply assert it. Nor
do they acknowledge that black Americans have made considerable
(although Far from satisfactory ) progress since de jure segregation
was ended."' Critical race theory, like Marxism before it, clings to group "domination" as the single cause of
disadvantage.2' 7 It takes one unifying idearacial dominationand tries to fit
instrument or

inclusive. 241 The

all facts and law into it. 248 Liberalism, on the other hand, distrusts grand
unifying theories , preferring to emphasize process over ends . 24' As a
result, liberalism frustrates anyone, Left or Right, who would have governments
embrace their ideologies.25 Because of the value liberals place on liberty, they tend to he wary of the sort of power
concentrations that could mandate changes quickly."' They prefer a more incremental approach to
political change that depends on the consent of the governed, even when the governed are often ignorant, misguided and even
bigoted. 252 Liberalism is never utopian, by anyone's definition, but always procedural, because it presupposes a
society of people who profoundly disagree with each other and whose interests, goals,
stakes and stands, cannot easily, if ever, be fully reconciled.'" Because of these
differences, liberals know there is no such thing as a "benevolent despot," and that utopias almost
invariably turn out to be dystopias. 254 Race-crits, on the other hand,
are profoundly utopian and sometimes totalitarian .25' In their view, the law should ferret out and eliminate white racism at any costa'''
Richard Delgado, for example, complains that "[n]othing in the law requires any [white] to lend a helping hand, to try to help blacks find jobs, befriend
them, speak to them, make eye contact with them, help them fix a flat when they arc stranded on the highway, help them feel like 11111 persons. ... How

The race-crits, in their preoccupation with

power, forget that the power to persuade remains the principal way
can a system like that change anything?"257

of achieving lasting change in a democratic political culture .258 A

beneficial but controversial measure is much more likely to survive
changes of the party in power if it can be said to carry out the will of
"the people," from whom all power in the United States is said to derive. 25" For example, the Civil Rights Act of
1964, controversial as it was,'" has remained a bulwark of civil rights protection for thirty-six years
because of its democratic and constitutional legitimacy. 2"1 On the other hand, if
Malcolm X or the Black Panthers had attempted to set up a separate black state on American soil in
the tradition of John Brown, their efforts would have been crushed immediately .

2AC ITP

1AC

Ecocrises
Deploying apocalypticism effectively spurs action to save the
environment even if our rhetoric gets coopted it still solves
Schatz 12 director of debate at Binghamton University, not a flesh eater
(Joe Leeson, The Importance of Apocalypse: The Value of End-Of-The-World Politics While Advancing Ecocriticism, Journal of
Ecocriticism 4(2) July 2012, dml)
Any hesitancy

to deploy images of apocalypse out of the risk of acting in a biopolitical

manner ignores how any particular metaphorapocalyptic or notalways risks getting co-opted. It does
not excuse inaction. Clearly hegemonic forces have already assumed control of determining
environmental practices when one looks at the debates surrounding off-shore drilling, climate change, and biodiversity
within the halls of Congress. As this ideological quagmire worsens, urgent problems will go unsolved only to fester more
ominously into the future. [E]cological crisis cannot be understood outside the larger social and global context of
internationalized markets, finance, and communications (Boggs 774). If
things like whaling to the

it werent for people such as Watson connecting

end of the world it wouldnt get the needed coverage to enter into public

discourse. It takes big news to make headlines and hold attention spans in the electronic age. Sometimes it even takes a reality
TV show on Animal Planet. As Luke reminds us, Those who dominate the world exploit their positions to their
advantage by defining how the world is known. Unless they also face resistance , questioning, and challenge
from those who are dominated, they certainly will remain the dominant forces (2003: 413). Merely sitting back
and theorizing over metaphorical deployments does a grave injustice to the gains activists are making
on the ground. It also allows hegemonic institutions to continuallydefine the debate over the
environment by framing out any attempt for significant change, whether it be radical or reformist.
Only by jumping on every opportunity for resistance can ecocriticism have the hopes
of combatting the current ecological reality. This means we must recognize that we cannot fully escape the
masters house since the surrounding environment always shapes any form of resistance .
Therefore, we ought to act even if we may get co-opted. As Foucault himself reminds us, instead
of radial ruptures more often one is dealing with mobile and transitory points of resistance , producing
cleavages in a society that shift about[.] And it is doubtless the strategic codification of these points of
resistance that makes a revolution possible, somewhat similar to the way in which the state relies on the institutional
integration of power relationships. It is in this sphere of force relations that we must try to analyze the mechanisms of power (9697).
Here Foucault asks us to think about resistance differently, as not anterior to power, but a component of it. If we take seriously
these notions on the exercise and circulation of power, then we open up the field of possibility to talk about particular kinds of
environmentalism (Rutherford 296). This is not to say that all actions are resistant . Rather, the revolutionary
actions that are truly resistant oftentimes appear mundane since it is more about altering the intelligibility that frames discussions
around the environment than any specific policy change. Again, this is why people like Watson use one issue as a jumping off point
to talk about wider politics of ecological awareness. Campaigns

that look to the government or a single policy but for a

us to codify
strategic points of resistance in numerous places at once. Again, this does not mean we must agree
with every tactic. It does mean that even failed attempts are meaningful. For example, while PETAs ad campaigns have drawn
moment, and then go on to challenge hegemonic interactions with the environment through other tactics, allows

criticism for comparing factory farms to the Holocaust, and featuring naked women whod rather go naked than wear fur, their
importance extends beyond the ads alone6. By bringing the issues to the forefront they draw upon known metaphors and reframe
the way people talk about animals despite their potentially anti-Semitic and misogynist underpinnings.
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negris theorization of the

multitude serves as an excellent illustration of how

utilizing the power of the masters biopolitical tools can become powerful enough to deconstruct
its house despite the risk of co-optation or backlash. For them, the multitude is defined by the growing global
force of people around the world who are linked together by their common struggles without being formally organized in a
hierarchal way. While Hardt and Negri mostly talk about the multitude in relation to global capitalism, their understanding of the
commons and analysis of resistance is useful for any ecocritic. They explain,

[T]he multitude has matured to such an extent that it is becoming able, through its networks of communication and cooperation
[and] its production of the common, to sustain an alternative democratic society on its own. Revolutionary

politics
must grasp, in the movement of the multitudes and through the accumulation of common and cooperative
decisions, the moment of rupture that can create a new world. In the face of the destructive state of exception of
biopower, then, there is also a constituent state of exception of democratic biopolitics[,] creating a
new constitutive temporality. (357)

Once one understands the world as interconnectedinstead of constructed by different nation-states and single
environmentsconditions in one area of the globe couldnt be conceptually severed from any
other. In short, wed all have a stake in the global commons. Ecocritics can then utilize biopolitics to
shape discourse and fight against governmental biopower by waking people up to the pressing
need to inaugurate a new future for there to be any future. Influencing other people
through argument and end-of-the-world tactics is not the same biopower of the state so
long as it doesnt singularize itself but for temporary moments. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to hope
that in a biopolitical future (after the defeat of biopower) war will no longer be possible, and the intensity of the cooperation and
communication among singularities will destroy its [very] possibility (Hardt & Negri 347). In the context of capitalism, when
wealth fails to trickle down it would be seen as a problem for the top since it would stand testament to their failure to equitably
distribute wealth. In the context of environmentalism, not-in-my-backyard

reasoning that displaces ecological

destruction elsewhere would be exposed for the failure that it is. There is no backyard that is not
ones own. Ultimately, images of planetary doom demonstrate how we are all interconnected and in
doing so inaugurate a new world where multitudes, and not governments, guide the fate of the
planet.

Apocalyptic representations of global warming are necessary

to motivate changeserves as a key cite for coalition-building
Buell 10
(Frederick, professor of English at Queens College and also a member of the World Studies,
American Studies and Environmental Studies programmes, Future Ethics, pg. 30-32)

To fully understand these changes, I argue, we need not to discard but reinvent apocalypse. To
this end, I have proposed seeing apocalypse as turning paradoxically into way of life (Buell, 2003). Its magnitudes are all about us as
we experience and in fact dwell in present risk. This

metaphor is in fact a multifaceted one. It does not just underwrite a

a tough description of the challenges we
face. More complexly still, it indicates a crucial direction that contemporary anti-environmental discourse
is already taking. Both description and source of prescriptions, the metaphor is crucial to
understanding and also shaping our environmental circumstances today. It
indicates vividly just how the discourse of environmental apocalypse is
being, once again, successfully reinvented, and how influential it still is to our
environmental-social analysis and activism today. To say that apocalypse has become today a
program for progressive action today; it also provides

way of life is. of course, to suggest an attitude that undergirds much environmental passivity and quiet desperation today. The
metaphor is. in short, a central expression of our current environmental dilemmas. It also is something that, strange as it may seem,
can and already is being used to help escort us further and further into catastrophe. The most recent

addition to
anti-environmental discourse on global warming, for example, is a claim that
global warming has already happened; that we cannot slop it; and that we must face
facts and adapt to it. Already this wisdom has resulted in (shockingly ironic) attempts by nations to claim likely places for future oil
development, in preparation for the time they will emerge from under melting ice-sheets, Geo-engineering - a source of hitherto
scary fringe-solutions to climate change is gaining respectability (Tierney. 2009). A pathway for developments like these has already
been cleared by this popular culture's fascination with environmental apocalypse, something that began as early as the 1980s. Today,
speculative visions of the future in film almost obligatorily present a dystopian vision of environmental-social apocalypse, one as

extreme and multifactoral as that of the early environmental prophets. But this

vision is not meant to shock

us into our senses and make us seek alternatives. Instead it is something
audiences are meant to and indeed do consume: sci-fis obsession with wrecked, militarized,
post-natural environments of social meltdown and perpetual high-tech combat (and its invention of special effects to present these
scenes and wow audiences) is directed at transforming apocalypse into exciting entertainment for the multitudes. The original
Terminator (1984) movie excited many viewers to fantasize their bodies as roboti-cally invulnerable and to go around repeating the
famous phrase 'Hasta la vista, Baby' on all sorts of inappropriate occasions. The original Matrix (1999) movie, while making recovery
of the human also its official theme, stylized cyberworld violence so vividly as to make that what moviegoers dreamed most of taking
part in. not seeking alternatives to. Homologous with this phenomenon in popular culture is thus, I believe, an expansion of what
Naomi Klein (2007) has described as 'disaster capitalism' -capitalism that welcomes environmental and social disaster as a source of
profit. But

the metaphor of apocalypse as way of life can also authorize action more
informed, open-eyed and responsive to recent change than before. The creeping
spread of crisis into more physical, social and psychological places, and the intimacy with which we feel it, opens
up new sites for action and coalitions for change. Risk represents a much more
sustainable sense of urgency, and uncertainty fosters experiment, small and large. Perception that the global
environment is as sensitively dependent on us as we are on it extends sensitivities and interests in ways difficult to anticipate in
advance. Nowhere

is the dissemination of such sentiment so important today as

in the emergence of concern about global warming, something that has
become todays foremost environmental concern and thus site for
reinventing apocalypse.

Green sovereignty
Pragmatic warming policy is effective and key to prevent
extinction
Simpson 10 (Francis, College of Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Environmental
Pragmatism and its Application to Climate Change The Moral Obligations of Developed and
Developing Nations to Avert Climate Change as viewed through Technological Pragmatism,
Spring 2010 | Volume 6 | Number 1)

Environmental pragmatism is a relatively new field of environmental ethics that seeks to

move beyond the strictly theoretical exercises normal in philosophy and allows
the environmental movement to formulate substantial new policies (Light, 1). Environmental Pragmatism
Pragmatism and Footprinting

was initially posited by Bryan Norton and evolved to not take a stance over the dispute between non-anthropocentric and anthropocentric ethics. Distancing himself from this
dispute, he preferred to distinguish between strong and weak anthropocentricism (Light, 290-291, 298). The main philosophers involved in advancing the debate in

This particular discipline advocates

moral pluralism, implying that the environmental problems being faced
have multiple correct solutions. Light argues that the urgency of ecological
crises requires that action is necessary through negotiation and compromise. While theorists
serve to further the field of environmental ethics and to debate the
metaethical basis of various environmental philosophies, some answers to questions
are best left to private discussion rather than taking time to argue about
them publically (introduction of pragmatism). Pragmatism believes that if two theories are equally able to provide solutions to a given problem, then debate
on which is more is argued that: the commitment to solving environmental problems is the
only precondition for any workable and democratic political theory (Light, 11). While
environmental pragmatism include Eric Katz, Andrew Light, and Bryan Norton.

the science behind a footprint is well understood, what can the synthesis of environmental pragmatism and footprinting tell us about the moral obligation to avert climate
change? How does grounding the practice of sustainability footprinting in environmental pragmatism generate moral prescriptions for averting climate change? Environmental

pragmatism inherently
calls for bridging the gap between theory and policy/ practices . With the theory of pragmatism
Pragmatism necessitates the need for tools in engineering to be developed and applied to avert the climate change problem, since

in mind, further research and development of tools such as life-cycle analysis and footprinting are potential policy tools that are necessary under a pragmatist viewpoint so that
informed decisions can be made by policy makers. Since the role of life-cycle analysis and footprinting attempt to improve the efficiency and decrease the overall environmental
impact of a given process, good, or service, environmental pragmatism would call for the further development and usage of these tools so that we can continue to develop

By utilizing footprinting and life-cycle analysis,

it becomes possible to make environmentally conscious decisions not only
based upon a gut instinct but additionally based on sound science. Finally, in regards to averting climate
sustainably and fulfill our moral obligation to future generations.

change, footprinting and life-cycle analysis offer another dimension to traditional cost-benefit analysis and can allow for our moral obligation to future generations to weigh into
final decisions which will eventually result in policies and/ or a production of a good or service. Since traditional cost benefit analysis does not account for the environment
explicitly, pragmatism would call for the application of these tools to ensure that the environment is adequately protected for future generations.

Climate

change modeling inherently contains many unknowns in terms of future outcomes and applied
simplifications, but these factors should not be enough to hold us back from an
environmental pragmatism stand point. Rather than hiding behind a veil
of uncertainty with the science, the uncertainty of the possible
catastrophic outcomes demands action

on the part of every human individual. Environmental pragmatism could also adopt

Since we are
attempting to protect human lives and prevent unnecessary suffering,
environmental pragmatism would dictate that we should take action now
and stop debating the theoretical aspects of this problem. A moral
obligation exists to protect human life, and it becomes our obligation to
avert climate change. Despite the relatively high economic costs of averting climate change, it is worth noting that the creation of green jobs and new
a view point like the precautionary principle where a given action has great uncertainty, but also great consequence (Haller).

People inherently fear change, and it is

my opinion that averting climate change requires a drastic change in our consumption
patterns, an important reason why people are resisting averting climate change. From an environmental pragmatism viewpoint, it is humanities
responsibility to avert climate change before it is too late since we have a
moral obligation to protect the future of humanity and the biosphere .
sectors will help to stimulate the economy rather than completely hindering it.

Simulacra DA
Fiats good
1. imagining impossible changes motivates action
Shove and Walker 07 Elizabeth Shove teaches Sociology at Lancaster and Gordon Walker teaches Geography at
Lancaster. (CAUTION! Transitions ahead: politics, practice, and sustainable transition management, Environment and Planning,
Volume 39, Issue 4)
For academic readers, our commentary argues for loosening the intellectual grip of innovation studies, for backing off from the
nested, hierarchical multi-level model as the only model in town, and for exploring other social scientific, but also systemic theories

The more we think about the politics and practicalities of reflexive

transition management, the more complex the process appears: for a policy audience, our words of caution
of change.

could be read as an invitation to abandon the whole endeavour. If agency, predictability and legitimacy are as limited as weve

we are with Rip (2006) in recognising

the value, productivity and everyday necessity of an illusion of
suggested, this might be the only sensible conclusion.However,

agency , and of the working expectation that a difference can be

made even in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. The
outcomes of actions are unknowable, the system unsteerable and
the effects of deliberate intervention inherently unpredictable and,
ironically, it is this that sustains concepts of agency and
management. As Rip argues illusions are productive because they
motivate action and repair work, and thus something (whatever) is
achieved (Rip 2006: 94). Situated inside the systems they seek to
influence, governance actors and actors of other kinds as well - are part of the
dynamics of change : even if they cannot steer from the outside
they are necessary to processes within. This is, of course, also true of
academic life. Here we are, busy critiquing and analysing transition
management in the expectation that somebody somewhere is
listening and maybe even taking notice. If we removed that illusion
would we bother writing anything at all? Maybe we need such
fictions to keep us going, and maybe fiction or no - somewhere
along the line something really does happen, but not in ways that we can anticipate or
know.

2. Law- students are powerful agents in the context of

surveillance policythe aff is important for agency
Glaser 14 April Glaser, Staff Activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, 2014 (17 Student Groups Pen Open Letters
on the Toxicity of Mass Surveillance to Academic Freedom, Electronic Frontier Foundation, June 9 th, Available Online at
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/06/students-against-surveillance-17-university-groups-pen-open-letters-toxicity-mass, Accessed
07-23-2015)

Students are rising up and fighting to protect our Internet. In response to

our call to action, seventeen university groups from across the United States
have published open letters about the real chilling effects mass
surveillance is having right now on academic freedom and life on
campus. Universities are places where the free flow of new ideas and

should be fostered, encouraged, and amplified.

But when students and researchers know that the government is
recording our communications, our data, and our online behavior,
students cant speak freely. Speech is chilled. In response, we launched our call for
the discussion of controversial topics

students across the country to write letters about the effects of illegal, unconstitutional government spying in their campus

Students and researchers get it. Mass warrantless

surveillance by the NSA has restricted our ability to freely think,
act, research , innovate, and share ideas in a multitude of ways, reads
the letter from Stanford University students penned by student Devon Kristine Zuegel. Students have been
central to the movement to put an end to illegal mass spying
since Snowdens leaks hit the press. As the letter from Temple University students notes, it was
communities last month.

Temple student Ali Watkins, who broke the story last March about CIA surveillance of members of the Senate Intelligence
Committee. The campus letters also call attention to the effects of mass government surveillance on international students and
global collaboration in research. These international connections are a bragging point of many academic institutions. But as the
letters from Purdue University students and Queens College students note, NSA surveillance specifically targets foreign nationals,
regardless of whether they have actually done anything wrong. Both of these institutions are highly ranked, in part for their diverse,
international student communities. And student activists on both campuses point out that mass government spying that targets
non-US persons is not only discriminatory, but stifles student cross-cultural collaboration, especially on politically sensitive topics.
Certain demographics of students, such as the LGBTQ community that remain closeted, could be made public, wrote Liz Hawkins
in the letter she composed from the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. This also includes students in [search] of mental health

Students often come to universities

excited to explore their identity and find community that might not
have been available back home. But when we know that the
government is collecting information and storing it in a way that
could be potentially used against us, we dont say what we would
say otherwise. Students are less likely to associate with campus
groups and less likely to engage fully in campus life. Our call to write letters was
care, the UNLV student letter continues. And shes right.

assisted by the organizing prowess of the Student Net Alliance (SNA), a group dedicated to bringing the fight for digital rights into
campus communities all over the world. The SNA amplified the call to action into a campaign called Students Against Surveillance.

Students are powerful forces for change, and

intuitively understand the potential of an open, free Internet, not
hampered by intrusive government spying that undermines our
basic rights, like our freedom of speech and freedom from
unwarranted search and seizure. If youre a student or a researcher and want to write an open letter
And were glad they did.

to take a stand against NSA surveillance on your campus, see our letter-writing guide and get in touch with either the Student Net

The
fight against NSA spying is going to be a long one. And students
Alliance or with us. Writing a letter is a great way to spark debate on campus and build the foundation for future organizing.

will be a critical force in building a movement to raise awareness,

push for change, and put an end to mass government surveillance.

Rollplaying
DEBATE doesnt jeopardize agency
Hanghoj 8
http://static.sdu.dk/mediafiles/Files/Information_til/Studerende_ved_SDU/Din_uddannelse/
phd_hum/afhandlinger/2009/ThorkilHanghoej.pdf
Thorkild Hanghj, Copenhagen, 2008
Since this PhD project began in 2004, the present author has been affiliated with DREAM
(Danish
Research Centre on Education and Advanced Media Materials), which is located at the Institute
of
Literature, Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. Research visits
have
taken place at the Centre for Learning, Knowledge, and Interactive Technologies (L-KIT), the
Institute of Education at the University of Bristol and the institute formerly known as Learning
Lab
Denmark at the School of Education, University of Aarhus, where I currently work as an
assistant
professor.

Thus, debate games require teachers to balance the centripetal/centrifugal

forces of gaming and teaching, to be able to reconfigure their discursive authority, and
to orchestrate the multiple voices of a dialogical game space in relation to particular goals. These
Bakhtinian perspectives provide a valuable analytical framework for describing the discursive
interplay between different practices and knowledge aspects when enacting (debate) game
scenarios. In addition to this, Bakhtins dialogical philosophy also offers an
explanation of why debate games (and other game types) may be valuable within an
educational context. One of the central features of multi-player games is that players are
expected to experience a simultaneously real and imagined scenario both in relation
to an insiders (participant) perspective and to an outsiders (co-participant)
perspective. According to Bakhtin, the outsiders perspective reflects a fundamental
aspect of human understanding: In order to understand, it is immensely important for
the person who understands to be located outside the object of his or her creative understanding
in time, in space, in culture. For one cannot even really see one's own exterior and
comprehend it as a whole, and no mirrors or photographs can help; our real exterior can be seen
and understood only by other people, because they are located outside us in space, and because
they are others (Bakhtin, 1986: 7). As the quote suggests, every person is influenced by others in
an inescapably intertwined way, and consequently no voice can be said to be isolated. Thus, it is

in the interaction with other voices that individuals are able to reach
understanding and find their own voice. Bakhtin also refers to the ontological

process of finding a voice as ideological becoming, which represents the process of

selectively assimilating the words of others (Bakhtin, 1981: 341). Thus, by teaching and
playing debate scenarios, it is possible to support students in their process of
becoming not only themselves, but also in becoming articulate and
responsive citizens in a democratic society.

This bullshit

AT: Lawfare
Law is necessary for any change
Brenkman 2 [John, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative
Literature at the CUNY and Baruch College, Narrative, Vol. 10, No. 2, p. 188-189]

Innovation is a crucial concept for understanding the gay and

lesbian movement, which emerged from within civil society as citizens who were stigmatized and
often criminalized for their sexual lives created new forms of association,
transformed their own lifeworld, and organized a political offensive
on behalf of political and social reforms. There was an innovation of
rights and freedoms, and what I have called innovations in sociality .
Contrary to the liberal interpretation of liberal rights and freedoms, I do not think that gays and
lesbians have merely sought their place at the table. Their struggle
has radically altered the scope and meaning of the liberal rights
and freedoms they sought, first and foremost by making them include sexuality, sexual practices,
and the shape of household and family. Where the movement has succeeded in
changing the laws of the state, it has also opened up new
possibilities within civil society . To take an obvious example, wherever it
becomes unlawful to deny housing to individuals because they are
gay, there is set in motion a transformation of the everyday life of
neighborhoods, including the lives of heterosexuals and their
children. [End Page 188] Within civil society, this is a work of
enlightenment, however uneven and fraught and frequently
dangerous. It is not a reaffirmation of the symbolic and structural
underpinnings of homophobia; on the contrary, it is a challenge to
homophobia and a volatilizing of social relations within the
nonpolitical realm.

AT: death
(A) when the complex arrangement of our neurological
processes breaks down, its all over.
MYERS 9 (PZ, biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota Morris, The
dead are dead, Pharyngula, Dec 10,
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/12/the_dead_are_dead.php)
This is the kind of idiocy we've all come to expect from D'Souza. Another

tactic that believers resort to, other than

pseudoscience. This is remarkably popular, especially among the New Agey set,
and the usual science that gets mangled is physics. The quantum is usually involved, too. I'm sure he
wouldn't want to be an exception, so when Robert Lanza asks in the Huffington Post (you already know what kind of fluff
you're going to get from the information given just this far), "Does Death Exist? New Theory Says 'No'", you can count
on yet more nonsense. Lanza has respectable credentials as a stem cell biologist, but he's also the author of one of those allpseudohistory, is

encompassing, total-explanation-of-the-universe, crackpot theories, which is his, and which belongs entirely to him, called
"biocentrism." We know this because his tag line in the article is "Robert Lanza, MD is considered one of the leading scientists in the
world. He is the author of "Biocentrism," a book that lays out his theory of everything." I've noticed that leading scientists tend not to
have to introduce themselves by declaring that they are a leading scientist, but that's another issue. Lanza

recently lost a
sister in an accident, and most of his article seems to be a kind of emotional denial, that this
tragedy cannot have happened and his sister really is alive and well somewhere . I feel for him I've
also lost a sister, and wish I could see her again but this is not a reason to believe death doesn't happen. I've
stubbed my toe and wished with some urgency that it hadn't happened, but the universe is never obliging about erasing my mistakes.
But then Lanza goes on to babble about quantum physics and many-worlds theory. Although individual bodies are destined to selfdestruct, the alive feeling - the 'Who am I?'- is just a 20-watt fountain of energy operating in the brain. But this energy doesn't go
away at death. One of the surest axioms of science is that energy never dies; it can neither be created nor destroyed. But does this
energy transcend from one world to the other? Consider an experiment that was recently published in the journal Science showing
that scientists could retroactively change something that had happened in the past. Particles had to decide how to behave when they
hit a beam splitter. Later on, the experimenter could turn a second switch on or off. It turns out that what the observer decided at
that point, determined what the particle did in the past. Regardless of the choice you, the observer, make, it is you who will
experience the outcomes that will result. The linkages between these various histories and universes transcend our ordinary classical
ideas of space and time. Think of the 20-watts of energy as simply holo-projecting either this or that result onto a screen. Whether
you turn the second beam splitter on or off, it's still the same battery or agent responsible for the projection. I have heard that first
argument so many times, and it is facile and dishonest. We

are not just "energy". We are a pattern of energy

and matter, a very specific and precise arrangement of molecules in movement. That can
be destroyed . When you've built a pretty sand castle and the tide comes in and washes it
away, the grains of sand are still all there, but what you've lost is the arrangement that
you worked to generate, and which you appreciated. Reducing a complex functional order to nothing but the
constituent parts is an insult to the work. If

I were to walk into the Louvre and set fire to the Mona Lisa, and
afterwards take a drive down to Chartres and blow up the cathedral, would anyone defend my
actions by saying, "well, science says matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed,
therefore, Rabid Myers did no harm, and we'll all just enjoy viewing the ashes and rubble from
now on"? No. That's crazy talk. We also wouldn't be arguing that the painting and the architecture have transcended this
universe to enter another, nor would such a pointless claim ameliorate our loss in this universe. The rest of his argument is quantum
gobbledy-gook. The

behavior of subatomic particles is not a good guide to what to expect of the

behavior of large bodies. A photon may have no rest mass, but I can't use this fact to justify my
grand new weight loss plan; quantum tunnelling does not imply that I can ignore doors
when I amble about my house. People are not particles! We are the product of the
aggregate behavior of the many particles that constitute our bodies, and you cannot ignore
the importance of these higher-order relationships when talking about our fate . The rational atheist
view is simpler, clearer, and I think, more true. Lanza's sister is dead, and so is mine; that means the features of
their independent existence that were so precious to us, that made them interesting,

thinking, behaving human beings, have ceased to exist. The 20-watts of energy are
dissipating as heat, and can't be brought back. They are lost to us, and someday we will
end, too. We should feel grief. Pretending that they have 'transcended' into some novel quantum
mechanical state in which their consciousness persists, or that they are shaking hands with some
anthropomorphic spiritual myth in never-never land, does a disservice to ourselves. The pain
is real. Don't deny it. Use it to look at the ones you love who still live and see what you can do to make our existence now a
little better, and perhaps a little more conducive to keeping our energies patterned usefully a little longer.

Life has intrinsic and objective value achieved through

subjective pleasures---its preservation should be an a priori
goal
Amien Kacou 8 WHY EVEN MIND? On The A Priori Value Of Life, Cosmos and History:
The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, Vol 4, No 1-2 (2008)
cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/92/184

that manner of finding things good that is in pleasure can

certainly not exist in any world without consciousness (i.e., without
life, as we now understand the word)slight analogies put aside. In fact, we can begin
to develop a more sophisticated definition of the concept of pleasure, in the broadest possible sense of the
word, as follows: it is the common psychological element in all psychological
experience of goodness (be it in joy, admiration, or whatever else). In this sense, pleasure can
always be pictured to mediate all awareness or perception or judgment of goodness: there is pleasure
in all consciousness of things good; pleasure is the common element
of all conscious satisfaction. In short, it is simply the very experience of
liking things, or the liking of experience, in general. In this sense, pleasure is, not only uniquely
characteristic of life but also, the core expression of goodness in life the most
general sign or phenomenon for favorable conscious valuation, in
other words. This does not mean that good is absolutely
synonymous with pleasantwhat we value may well go beyond
pleasure. (The fact that we value things needs not be reduced to the experience of liking things.)
However, what we value beyond pleasure remains a matter of
speculation or theory. Moreover, we note that a variety of things that may seem otherwise unrelated
are correlated with pleasuresome more strongly than others. In other words, there are many
things the experience of which we like. For example: the admiration of
others; sex; or rock-paper-scissors. But, again, what they are is irrelevant in
an inquiry on a priori value what gives us pleasure is a matter for empirical investigation.
Furthermore,

Reject them
Suicide rhetoric is a reason to reject the team
1. We have Uniqueness- suicide is nothing to joke about the AFF saying you should
endorse it is the antithesis of what high school students need in an era of enhanced
depression.

Mills, 14 (Kira, enior at Conrad High and a member of the Tribunes Teen Panel, Suicide is nothing to
joke about, 3/9/14, http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/2014/03/10/suicide-is-nothing-to-jokeabout/6246041/)
How many times have you heard it? That side comment where someones done something stupid
and said, Gosh, maybe I should just kill myself! Or how about when theyre weighing two situations and
deciding which ones more preferable and quipped, Id rather kill myself than be anywhere near those
two! Every time I hear someone talk like that, my blood starts to boil. I often wonder if people know what
theyre saying when theyre saying it. They say it like its a joke, like suicide is something that can just be
laughed off. Thats not how it works. As I have said before, I have clinical depression. Before I was on my
meds, I found it very hard to find the motivation to do anything. Getting out of bed was a real challenge,
and I felt like everyone was suffering because I existed. The worst part was that I didnt know why I felt
this way. And nothing would make me feel better, not even my best friend who always made me laugh.
And then those certain thoughts started circling through my head. I didnt want to kill myself because I
felt so miserable, but because I didnt want the people around me to feel miserable. I wanted to do it for
them, not myself. My friends and family have always mattered more to me than my welfare. It was only
after someone I knew committed suicide that I realized how hurt everyone would be without me. When I
went to her funeral, I saw the pain and suffering that was clearly evident in her familys eyes. The one
thing I find worse than joking about wanting to commit suicide is berating those who have. To me its
unforgivable for those who knew these people to have the audacity to hate them for doing it. To explain
what I mean, I wish to tell you a story. A summer ago I was in Great Falls and went to a salon to get my
hair cut and highlighted. The person who worked on me and another stylist were talking about a brother
or cousin who committed suicide. He was nothing more than a selfish jerk, one of the stylists said. To
be honest, Im glad hes gone. He was always whining and complaining about everything! And the fact
that he was selfish enough to go and kill himself like that was stupid. If he was going to always act like
that, Im glad hes gone! I dug my fingernails into my arm to keep from blowing up at the stylist. They had
no idea what he might have been going through. They had no idea if he was doing it for another reason,
maybe even for the same reason I had when I was considering it. They had no idea if he did it for them,
the very same people who were now bashing him in the grave. And my temper really became hard to
handle when they said that it was a good thing he was dead! I wanted to stand up and leave right then
and there, tell the stylists to get that stupid dye out of my hair and tell them exactly what I thought about
what she said. But I decided to remain civil and keep my mouth shut. I forgot I had the right to leave
because of what she said. I forgot that I had my own voice I could have wielded in defense of this
gentleman. But I didnt, and to this day, I hate the highlights in my hair because whenever I look at them,
they remind me of my pacifism and what I didnt do that I should have done. You can imagine that in a
small town like the one Im in, jokes about suicide are common. If people had even the slightest idea of
what they were saying, I feel like they wouldnt joke like that, so Im trying to get people to understand
what theyre really saying before they say it. I know ideas like mine arent popular, but I dont care. So
whats the point of saying all of this? Its simply this, if you see someone joking about suicide, please let
them know what theyre really saying. If someone says theyd rather kill themselves than spend time with
someone, just ask them, so youre saying that youd rather end your life forever and miss all of the great
opportunities that are ahead of you, than spend a few minutes with someone who isnt even going to
matter 10 years down the road? To those who joke about suicide, please stop and think for a minute.
Think about what youre implying. Ask yourself do I really mean that? and if you do, then for heavens
sake, tell someone that youre having those thoughts! But if you dont, then stop before you continue your
sentence. Suicide is not a laughing matter. Its a serious tragedy that affects people all over the world,

both those who have committed suicide, and those who knew these people. Ive seen loved ones hurt by
these tragedies, and its heartbreaking.
2. You have a role as an educator to work against suicide not for it.

SPRC, 12 (Suicide Prevention Resource Center, The Role of High school teachers in preventing
suicide, September, http://www.sprc.org/sites/sprc.org/files/Teachers.pdf)
As a teacher, you have an important role to play. You have day-to-day contact with many young
people, some of whom have problems that could result in serious injury or even death by their own hand.
You are therefore able to observe students behavior and act when you suspect a student may be at risk
of self-harm. Teachers can also play an active role in suicide prevention by fostering the emotional wellbeing of all students, not just those already at high risk. Teachers are well positioned to promote a feeling
of connectedness and belonging in the school community. According to the CDC (2009), school
connectedness is the belief by students that adults and peers in the school care about them as individuals
as well as about their learning. Connectedness is an important factor in improving academic achievement
and healthy behaviors, and it is also specifically related to reductions in suicidal thoughts and attempts
(Resnick et al., 1997; Blum et al., 2002)

3. Discourse DA- Using the language alone can cause the

problems that the aff tries to fix- they should get rejected
for discourse like this
Wexler 15 [Education: B.A., University of West Florida, 1991; M.S.W., Florida State University, 1996; Ph.D.,
University of Minnesota, 2005 Area(s) of Specialization: American Indian/Alaska Native Suicide Prevention;
Indigenous Youth Resilience; Culturally-Specific Behavioral Health Services; Digitally-Enhanced Participatory
Research Research Description: My research focuses on three overlapping and complimentary areas that address
both scientific and community priorities: suicide prevention, wellness/resilience and learning. My research engages
participants in all levels of the processs, responds to cultural and community priorities, and builds on and promotes
personal and collective assets. Currently, I am working with community partners and academics to pilot Promoting
Community Conversations About Research to End Suicide (PC CARES) (NIMH R34096884), which uses critical
pedagogy to mobilize community members for strategic and collaborative suicide prevention and wellness
initiatives. Additionally, my present work utilizes Intergenerational Dialogue Exchange and Action (IDEA)a
participatory research methodto engage young people in efforts to find local strengths, skills and wisdom through
cross-generational and community-based investigations thatthrough the effort--enhance youth possibilities for
action and strengthen their social connections within and outside of their home communities. Advancing Suicide
Prevention Research with Rural American Indian and Alaska Native Populations] (Vaibhav)
There are also epistemological differences between Indigenous and Western perspectives on the process of inquiry
regarding what is knowable and, more specifically, how suicide should be studied. In some AI/AN knowledge

words are seen as powerful interventions that express and

enact reality-altering intentions of persons53,54 As a result,
processes like talking about suicide, even in the context of
research, may be viewed as problematic because they may cause
systems,

the problems that they aim only to describe. This way of thinking
about the power of language is not often considered in scientific
inquiry or the design of studies. Similarly, what can (and should) be
known about another persons internal world reflects culturallybased values of identity and social personhood52 . A dominant focus of suicide
research involves identifying individual-level risks and psychological processes that contribute to suicidal behavior,
yet this kind of inquiry can seem disrespectful from the perspective just described. Some Indigenous communities
value autonomy to such a degree that actively not knowing is considered the right way to respond in cases of

suicide54 . This sensibility runs counter to Western scholarly assumptions about the nature of inquiry and notions of
social personhood.

4. Ontology DA Becoming a suicide bomber destroys

ontological value the aff especially links to this because
they advocate the death of others for a ballot
Puar 07. Jasbir Puar, professor of women's and gender studies at Rutgers
University, Duke University Press: Durham, NC and London, UK.
The anally penetrated Mr. Slave tempts the viewer into another association: that of the suicide bomber. In his
seminal article Is the Rectum a Grave?, Leo Bersani complicates the feminized posture of those receiving anal
sex. In its close association with aids, Bersani argues, anal sex has come to figure, for heterosexuals, as a
destructive self-annihilation, a dark side ascribed to the jouissance of ecstatically forsaken bodily boundaries during

homosexual is always
already dying, as one whose desire is a kind of incipient and protracted dying. This
sexual exchange. Judith Butler, summarizing Je Nunokawa, writes that the male

kind of sex not only kills oneself, but also, through the demolition of the self, kills others. Butler further elaborates

The male homosexual is figured time and time again as one

whose desire is somehow structured by death, either as the desire to die , or as one
whose desire is inherently punishable by death. Likewise, the suicide bomber, always already
dying, is not only consumed with perverted desires of the deaths of self and others ,
but also focused on the exact target of technologies of death. This incorporation of death, as Fanon
argues, saturates every stratum of being: The terrorist, from the moment he/she
undertakes an assignment, allows death to enter his/her soul. The ghost of
the multiplicity of death:

the suicide bomber haunts Mr. Slave, interpellated here as the sexually deviant Pakistani.

1AR

Util
Only consequentialism can resolve conflicting moral values
Bailey, 97 (James Wood 1997; Oxford University Press; Utilitarianism,
institutions, and Justice pg 9)

A consequentialist moral theory can take account of this variance

and direct us in our decision about whether a plausible right to
equality ought to outweigh a plausible right to freedom of
expression. 16 In some circumstances the effects of pornography would surely be malign enough to justify
our banning it, but in others they may be not malign enough to justify any interference in freedom. I? A
deontological theory, in contrast, would be required either to rank
the side constraints, which forbid agents from interfering in the free
expression of others and from impairing the moral equality of
others, or to admit defeat and claim that no adjudication between
the two rights is possible. The latter admission is a grave failure
since it would leave us no principled resolution of a serious policy
question. But the former conclusion is hardly attractive either. Would we really wish to establish as true for all
times and circumstances a lexical ordering between two side constraints on our actions without careful attention to
consequences? Would we, for instance, really wish to establish that the slightest malign inegalitarian effect
traceable to a form of expression is adequate grounds for an intrusive and costly censorship? Or would we,
alternatively, really wish to establish that we should be prepared to tolerate a society horrible for women and
children to live in, for the sake of not allowing any infringement on the sacred right of free expression?18

Consequentialist accounts can avoid such a deontological dilemma.

In so doing, they show a certain healthy sense of realism about
what life in society is like. In the world outside the theorist's study,
we meet trade-offs at every tum. Every policy we make with some
worthy end in Sight imposes costs in terms of diminished
achievement of some other plausibly worthy end. Consequentialism
demands that we grapple with these costs as directly as we can and
justify their incurrence. It forbids us to dismiss them with moral
sophistries or to ignore them as if we lived in an ideal world.

Alt
1) Homonationalism provides a simplistic account of
relationship between tolerance and violence---specific
analysis of material structures and institutions is
necessary to solve
Ritchie 14 [Jason, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Florida International
University, Pinkwashing, Homonationalism, and IsraelPalestine: The Conceits of
Queer Theory and the Politics of the Ordinary, Antipode, 3 Jun 2014] //khirn

My argument is not , of course, that racism does not exist in many

contemporary contextsincluding IsraelPalestinenor I am arguing that tolerance
of homosexuals has not, in many of those contexts, been marshaled
to provide cover for the imposition of violence against racialized
others (eg the Israeli occupation). My argument, instead , is that the popularity of the
concept of homonationalism owes much to its oversimplifications.
Power, in this framework, is reducible to racism, and racism is understood
in a universalizing manner that allows the critic to avoid the messy
work of [locating] the meanings of race and racism within
particular fields of discourse [and articulating their meanings] to
the social relations in concrete socio-historical contexts (Solomos and
Back 1995:415). I have utilized the metaphor of the checkpoint to
demonstrate what I believe to be a more empirically convincing and
politically engaged account of the everyday violence queer Palestinians
face. Focusing on the checkpoint requires one to locate the racist
violence of the Israeli state in a specific time and place, structured
by identifiable social and political processes and inhabited by
actual human beings who embody multiple subject positions that
differently inflect the ways in which they encounter those processes and one another. Such a strategy will do little
to challenge the monopolization of queer spaces in North American and European cities by racist neocons like
Michael Lucas, nor will it provide a convenient mechanism for radical activistsor theoretically sophisticated
academicsto validate their queer credentials. But if queers who live in other places have some value beyond
serving as grist for North American and European queers to consolidate a properly radical subjectivity and mitigate

homonationalism's activist criticsand its theoristsmight consider

resisting the impulse to homogenize this or that queer as the victim
or the victor and work instead to develop a nuanced framework for
building coalitions to fight rather than platforms on which to fight
aboutthe complex and unpredictable ways space is organized, difference is
enforced, and some bodies in some places are allowed to move more freely than others.
their privilege,