Download Warming Impact 2NC

AT: Illegal
USCIS has authority
Endelman and Mehta ‘10 (Gary Endelman, practices immigration law at BP America Inc, serves on the
Editorial Advisory Board of Immigration Daily, and Cyrus D. Mehta, nationally
recognized in the field of immigration law. He represents corporations and
individuals from around the world in business and employment immigration, family
immigration, consular matters, naturalization, federal court litigation and asylum. He
also advises lawyers on ethical issues. Based on 18 years of experience in
immigration law, He is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School
where he teaches a course, Immigration and Work, Chair of the American
Immigration Lawyers Association’s (AILA) National Pro Bono Committee and CoChair of the AILA-NY Chapter Pro Bono Committee, PROPOSALS FOR AGENCY
ACTION TO AMELIORATE THE PRIORITY DATES CRISIS, March 09, 2010,
http://www.cyrusmehta.com/news.aspx?SubIdx=ocyrus20103925436)
First, even if INA § 245(a)(3) states that an adjustment of status application can only be filed if a visa number is
immediately available, the USCIS has the flexibility to interpret this provision broadly since Congress did not
define when a case is “filed,” leaving it to the informed exercise of agency discretion. The term “immediately
available” need not be limited by a current priority date according to the visa bulletin. Instead, just like the State
Department for the past 25 years has started processing an application for an immigrant visa prior to the priority date
becoming current, the USCIS too could create a “provisional filing date” many years in advance of the priority
date becoming current that would allow the adjustment application to be submitted but not approved . This
would result in the applicant obtaining all of the benefits of such a filing, such as interim work and travel benefits along
with the ability to exercise occupational mobility under INA § 204(j).
PICs Good 2NC
4. Best internal link to education
Branson 2007 (Josh, edebate, http://www.ndtceda.com/pipermail/edebate/2007-May/071122.html, 5/31)
B) How to make debate more like the technical policy world? Narrower debates. PICs are vital to this (sorry,
Duck). Thinking back on my 8 years in debate, the topic about which I can best converse with experts about is
the design of emissions trading schemes. That was because the literature was deep and the prevalence of
upstream/downstream/auctioned/timetable PICs narrowed the debates and forced a real in-depth discussion.
I just don’t think we get that in a ton of debates, because most PICs are either wanky rhetoric PICs (and yes I
was an extreme culprit) or something even worse like Consultation. Thinking back on it, I don’t think that the
legal topic was worded particularly poorly, I just think that our strategic norms of judging/debating create a
lot of problems in generating the type of education a lot of us want. But one of the most striking thing for me
about last year’s topic was that I learned more from Repko’s post about his day at the Supreme Court than I
did from all the debates I judged combined. In any event, how to create the types of narrow debates that will
general real sustainable expertise on topics is tough.
Don’t Need Solvency Advocate 2NC
5. Demands for a ‘solvency advocate’ stifle innovation and new solutions, fostering cronyism
and a bankrupt research system
MacNab and Thomas 07 (Natasha and Gary, “Quality in Educational Research” Building Research Capacity Issue 12, June,
http://www.facebook.com/l/29549;www.tlrp.org/capacity/issue12.pdf)
But there are problems in using such criteria as general markers for quality. One needs first to ask ‘Quality for
whom?’ - for the funder and the university researcher will surely rank any such criteria differently. The
academic may question the value of research that is specifically directed toward questions that are considered
to be significant, and may point to the plethora of scientific discoveries deriving from serendiptous events,
often accidental artifacts of the ostensible purpose of any inquiry (see Roberts, 1989; Thagard, 1998). Indeed, it
sometimes seems that the great majority of significant advance in scientific research derives from these quasirandom assays into inquiry. The academic may also point to the compromises enjoined on research that is not
entirely curiosity- driven. Further, there will even be major areas of disagreement among individual
researchers. Education sits in an unusual position in a disciplinary sense, drawing as it does from a variety of
methodological traditions and with particular expectations of an articulation between research, theory and
practice. This makes the general definition of quality peculiarly difficult as each tradition stresses different
parameters and conditions for quality, with very little shared in world-view. There are also more general
concerns about attempts to define quality that are articulated across all academic disciplines. The concern here
is that any stress on quality is accompanied by conservatism and defensiveness in any community of assessors
with the possibilities that innovation in the use of method is inhibited and that unoriginal work is encouraged.
This concern about conservatism is at the root of much criticism of peer review itself, which is said to foster
cronyism, block innovation and creativity, and favour ‘projects with predictable outcomes and usually rejects
novel higher risk proposals’ (Berezin, 2001). It is a system that Berezin (2001) says encourages researchers to
produce work that is safe and has been done before, promoting ‘mediocrity and triviality rather than true
innovation’ (p.97).
AT: Congress Rollback
Congress won’t mess with executive action
Endelman and Mehta ‘9 (Gary Endelman, practices immigration law at BP America Inc, serves on the
Editorial Advisory Board of Immigration Daily, and Cyrus D. Mehta, nationally
recognized in the field of immigration law. He represents corporations and
individuals from around the world in business and employment immigration, family
immigration, consular matters, naturalization, federal court litigation and asylum. He
also advises lawyers on ethical issues. Based on 18 years of experience in
immigration law, He is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School
where he teaches a course, Immigration and Work, Chair of the American
Immigration Lawyers Association’s (AILA) National Pro Bono Committee and CoChair of the AILA-NY Chapter Pro Bono Committee, The Path Less Taken: Is There
An Alternative To Waiting For Comprehensive Immigration Reform?, February 25
2009, http://www.ilw.com/articles/2009,0225-endelman.shtm)
Those who do not think so ignore at their own peril and ours the fundamental distinction between making policy, which
only Congress can do, and implementing tactical adjustments, which the Executive is uniquely suited to do. This is why
only Congress can create a legal status while the Attorney General can authorize a period of stay. This is why only
Congress can enlarge the EB quota but the Executive can allow adjustment applications without a quota expansion
so long as final approval is not forthcoming. This is why only Congress sets visa limits while the Executive can
grant parole. This is why only Congress sets work visa law but the Executive can issue EADs. To suggest that
Congress must act in both a long and short term context is to ignore the historic and legitimate differences between the
two branches of government. If Congress wants to overturn such executive action, it can do so. Likewise, if it supports the
President, it can stay its hand. Either way, Congress is expressing its will, whether through positive action in the form of
legislation or negative action in the form of silent acquiescence. Both action and its absence are authentic manifestations
of congressional intent and expressions of congressional authority. In reality, we all know that there are 40 votes in the
Senate to uphold such regulatory initiative. Congress will be more than content to allow the President to take
the lead and solve what it has manifestly been powerless to solve- how to regulate both past and future
migration flows; how to solve the growing unskilled worker backlog; how to ameliorate the gratuitous cruelty of the 3/10
year bars; how to reduce the size of the undocumented population who may already working here and contributing to the
exchequer and how to satisfy the hungry manpower needs of employers once the dark cloud of recession lifts without
creating a single new immigrant visa.
USCIS CP – Midterms NB
CP doesn’t garner public attention.
Cox and Rodríguez ‘9 (Adam B. Professor of Law @ University of Chicago Law School, and Christina M. Professor of Law @ New York
University School of Law, “The President and Immigration Law, Yale Law Journal, December, lexis)
Large-scale de facto delegation, as an actual strategy for admitting immigrants, revolves around the creation and maintenance of a huge population of
unauthorized people. This system has potentially worrisome expressive effects. It heightens the association of illegality with immigration and
contributes to the public perception of the erosion of the rule of law. In this way, the legal structure of immigration
delegation exacerbates the deep public disagreement about the significance of what it means for a person to be
undocumented or illegally present. n252 This problem relates to the absence of transparency - a function of prosecutorial
discretion. The public cannot clearly grasp what the Executive is doing when it appears to be tolerating
unauthorized immigration and engaging in seemingly haphazard enforcement of the immigration laws.
Even if it garners some, it’s comparatively less than the plan.
Schoenbrod ‘93 David, Professor of Law, New York Law School, Adjunct Scholar, Cato Institute, Former Staff Attorney and Co-director, Project on
Urban Transportation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Former Director of Program Development, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation,
Former Staff Attorney, Association of the Bar, City of New York Committee on Electric Power and the Environment, Former Professor, Yale Law School,
and Member, American Tree Farmers’ Association, (Power Without Responsibility) p. 55-56
In the orange situation, elected officials and their staffs support Sunkist by appealing to agency officials in private. The legislation they enacted left them
immune from political harm. The delegation itself is framed in terms of attractive abstractions such as "orderly" markets. The appropriations
riders used to shield marketing orders from the scrutiny of the Frc or the OMB were framed in terms of other attractive abstractions, such as
privacy or leaving agricultural policy to the experts in the Department of Agriculture 22 rather than in terms that might reveal legislative
sup-port of high prices to consumers. These appropriations riders do not attract the same level of public attention as legislation to raise the
price or cut the supply of a widely used commodity. They rarely come up for discussion or vote on the floor. Only a specialist in agricultural
marketing orders would even know that many riders concerning the orders appear in each year's appropriations bill. As an aide to a legislator who
worked closely with Sunkist said with some glee, there is "nothing in the legislative history," and even finding the riders "drives an ordinary tracer crazy."
Won’t be perceived until after the election.
Schoenbrod ‘93 David, Professor of Law, New York Law School, Adjunct Scholar, Cato Institute, Former Staff Attorney and Co-director, Project on
Urban Transportation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Former Director of Program Development, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation,
Former Staff Attorney, Association of the Bar, City of New York Committee on Electric Power and the Environment, Former Professor, Yale Law School,
and Member, American Tree Farmers’ Association, (Power Without Responsibility) p. 95-96
What the President Gets from Delegation The president, who of course influences the design of legislation through recomme ndations and vetoes, has
different incentives from legislators. When legislators shift blame or credit to an agency, they shift it to presidential appointees. The incentives for
legislators to delegate might appear to be disincentives for the
president. However, three factors work to attract the president to delegation.
statutes often are structured so that the disappointed expectations of would -be beneficiaries and the costs to others are
perceived after the next presidential election. For instance, the 1970 Clean Air Act was structured so that the EPA administrator would
deal with states' failures to adopt plans only after the 1972 election. Second, presidents must take personal responsibility for laws embodied in
First,
statutes that they sign, but they can shift some of the blame for agency laws to the agency. Shifting blame is easy when an independent agency has made
the law, because the leaders of such agencies do not serve at the president's pleasure. Presidents also often avoid substantial political losses they might
sustain for the unpopular actions of appointees who do serve at the president's pleasure by taking no position on what the agency has done or even by
expressing some disagreement. Indeed, even incumbent presidents try to "run against the government." President George Bush tried to distance himself
from agency laws promulgated during his administration by declaring a ninety-day moratorium on new agency laws before the 1992 elections. Third,
delegation enhances the president's ability to use his staff to do casework. It thereby allows the president as well as legislators to particularize
constituents' perceptions of costs and benefits.
Even if the counterplan is perceived, Obama’s popularity won’t translate into Congressional
midterm victories; voters decouple Obama from candidates.
Charles Babington, Huffington Post, “Obama's Endorsements Fail Democrats,” 5/19/2010,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/19/obamas-endorsements-fail_n_581497.html
President Barack Obama may end up playing a rather hands-off role in this fall's elections, a surprising turn for a
political phenomenon who excited millions of voters just two years ago.
Recent elections have tarnished Obama's luster a bit, and Democratic candidates are likely to be
selective in seeking his help.
Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania became the fourth Democrat in seven months to lose a high-profile race despite the president's active involvement.
Specter's career-ending loss raises questions of whether Obama can transfer even small portions of the
political charm that catapulted him to the White House.
Campaign strategists said Wednesday that many congressional Democrats seeking re-election this year will probably tap Obama to
raise money, record ads for black radio stations and perhaps highlight a key issue or two. But some, and perhaps many, will not seek
presidential visits, and they will emphasize their own roles on issues such as job-creation.
Obama remains generally popular, especially when compared to Congress or Republican leaders, said Jim Margolis, a
Democratic consultant who worked on the president's 2008 campaign. However, he said, "what we've seen in many states is that his
popularity doesn't necessarily translate into specific support for a particular candidate."
That's the case for all presidents, Margolis said, especially in midterm elections . "Where you get the pop
is when you have someone at the top of the ticket" who can generate excitement and voter turnout for downballot candidates, he said.
Democrats will distance themselves from Obama even if it ends up hurting them.
Chris Cillizza, Washington Post, “Some Democratic candidates distance themselves from Obama,” 8/16/2010,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/15/AR2010081502551.html
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine made clear in an interview with "Fox & Friends" last week that he thinks candidates
distancing themselves from the president -- and from high-profile congressional leaders such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- are
making the wrong move. "I can tell you Democrats who kind of are afraid to be who they are, or pushing back on their leaders, I think they're
crazy," Kaine said.
And yet, in campaigns across the country, many Democrats are doing just that.
In Indiana, Rep. Joe Donnelly is running a television ad in which he details his generally conservative stance on
immigration while images of Obama and Pelosi are shown on screen. "That may not be what the Washington crowd wants, but
I don't work for them," Donnelly says in the ad. "I work for you."
Rep. Travis Childers, who represents a district in northern Mississippi where Obama won just 38 percent of the vote in 2008, takes a similar approach in
his TV advertising -- promoting the fact that he has "voted against every big budget" since winning a special election two years ago.
Even some Democratic candidates who are being heavily touted by the White House appear determined to keep
the president at arm's length. Shortly after Obama played a lead role in helping Sen. Michael Bennet defeat former state House speaker
Andrew Romanoff in a Democratic primary fight last Tuesday, Bennet was asked whether he would want the president to campaign with him this fall.
"We'll have to see," Bennet told ABC's George Stephanopoulos -- a response well short of a ringing endorsement of Obama's political standing.
One senior Democratic consultant suggested that the distance candidates are seeking to put between themselves and Obama is reflective of the
ascendance of economic issues in voters' minds. "Barack Obama's economic policy of spending our way out of recession is
seen as a failure at best and harmful at worst," the source said. "That should tell candidates in competitive
jurisdictions all they need to know about running with the president."
Transition 2NC/AT: No Mindset Shift
Economic downturn causes sustainable future – lower-consumption and stagnant growth
possible
Berg, assistant professor of physics at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, 10/16/2008
(Peter, “First global crisis of century harrowing,” http://newsdurhamregion.com/opinion/article/110488)
Whether we will go through a major recession, long and deep, or even a depression, what might emerge is the
realization that our society is much poorer than we had realized. The housing bubble, credit crunch and stock market
crash have wiped out trillions of dollars and this will not go unnoticed. This is truly the first global crisis of the 21st century. It is not
climate change. It is not pollution. It is not a fresh water crisis. It is not a food crisis, notwithstanding current food security issues in several countries. It
is not an energy crisis, although energy prices might have played a major role in bursting the U.S. housing bubble. It is an economic crisis of
epic proportions that questions the very economic system we chose to build. The house of cards called
Wall Street and banking sector has tumbled. The Ponzi scheme has been revealed. The response of our political
leaders so far has been the nationalization of banks, insurance and mortgage companies, lowering of interest rates (i.e. more easy money) and seizure of
bad credit portfolios, to name a few. The scale is truly mind boggling, reaching into trillions of dollars in liabilities. For example, the liabilities that the
U.S. taxpayer was forced to assume easily equals the market capitalization of the 10 largest U.S. corporations. All nationalized. It seems that capitalism
works great until the day it collapses and socialism does not look so bad after all. These are strange and dangerous times. The world
economy and financial sector are changing for good. Our young generation will grow up and deal with
a new order. And future crises are already looming. If we manage to recover from the current disorder, will we be able to navigate through the global
oil production peak?
Economic Decline Solves War 2NC
Econ collapse saps resources from military aggression
Bennett 2k – PolSci Prof, Penn State (Scott and Timothy Nordstrom, Foreign Policy Substitutability and Internal Economic Problems in Enduring
Rivalries, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Ebsco)
Conflict settlement is also a distinct route to dealing with internal problems that leaders in rivalries may pursue when faced with internal problems.
Military competition between states requires large amounts of resources, and rivals require even more attention. Leaders may choose to negotiate
a settlement that ends a rivalry to free up important resources that may be reallocated to the domestic economy. In a “guns versus
butter” world of economic trade-offs, when a state can no longer afford to pay the expenses associated with competition in a rivalry, it is quite rational for
leaders to reduce costs by ending a rivalry. This gain (a peace dividend) could be achieved at any time by ending a rivalry. However, such a gain is likely
to be most important and attractive to leaders when internal conditions are bad and the leader is seeking ways to alleviate active problems. Support
for policy change away from continued rivalry is more likely to develop when the economic situation sours and
elites and masses are looking for ways to improve a worsening situation. It is at these times that the pressure to cut
military investment will be greatest and that state leaders will be forced to recognize the difficulty of continuing to pay for a rivalry. Among
other things, this argument also encompasses the view that the cold war ended because the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics could no
longer compete economically with the United States.
Studies go neg
Miller 2k – Professor of Management, Ottawa (Morris, Poverty As A Cause Of Wars?,
http://www.pugwash.org/reports/pac/pac256/WG4draft1.htm, AG)
Thus, these armed conflicts can hardly be said to be caused by poverty as a principal factor when the greed and envy of leaders and their hegemonic
ambitions provide sufficient cause. The poor would appear to be more the victims than the perpetrators of armed conflict. It might be alleged that some
dramatic event or rapid sequence of those types of events that lead to the exacerbation of poverty might be the catalyst for a violent reaction on the part
of the people or on the part of the political leadership who might be tempted to seek a diversion by finding/fabricating an enemy and going to war.
According to a study undertaken by Minxin Pei and Ariel Adesnik of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, there would not appear
to be any merit in this hypothesis. After
studying 93 episodes of economic crisis in 22 countries in Latin America and Asia in the
that Much of the conventional wisdom about the political impact of economic crises
may be wrong... The severity of economic crisis - as measured in terms of inflation and negative growth - bore no relationship to
the collapse of regimes. A more direct role was played by political variables such as ideological polarization, labor radicalism, guerilla insurgencies
and an anti-Communist military... (In democratic states) such changes seldom lead to an outbreak of violence (while) in the
cases of dictatorships and semi-democracies, the ruling elites responded to crises by increasing repression (thereby using one form of
violence to abort another.
years since World War II they concluded
Prefer our study – others are not empirical, lack coherent definitions, and don’t specify
duration of growth
Boehmer 10 (Charles, professor of political science at the University of Texas – El Paso and Ph.D. in Political
Science from Pennsylvania State University, “Economic Growth and Violent International Conflict: 1875-1999,”
Defence and Peace Economics, June, Vol. 21, Issue 3, pg. 249-268)
The literature cited above is quite diverse concerning units of analysis, theories, research methods, and data. One
study such as this cannot re-examine all the potential hypotheses therein. However, this paper offers some general critiques across the
literature. First, most of the studies at the systemic level of analysis are either difficult to substantiate empirically,
such as providing evidence that long cycles are actually 'cycles' endogenous to the global economy and not simply statistical random walks (Beck, 1991),
or are theoretically imprecise concerning mechanisms and processes. Some work in this area lacks agency, linking periodicities
of economic cycles to individual states. Second, most
of the studies that focus on foreign policy moods lack a well-developed
conception of 'mood'. How could we best identify such a variable and does it extend equally to leaders and those in society? Third, most of
these studies from both perspectives are unspecific about the duration of growth and its effects on conflict. Shorterterm growth rates are often undifferentiated from longer-term economic development. Some studies simply use one-year lags of economic growth while
others measure growth over several years using moving averages, whereas others focus on long waves or cycles of more than a decade. There are
important theoretical distinctions in such choices.
Warming Impact 2NC
Key to value to life
Pollard 97 (Justin, “Environment: an ethical responsibility,”
http://www.stanford.edu/group/Thinker/v1/v1n3/Pollard.html
All living things on Earth have just as much right to be here as we do. It is by assuming that humans are superior to, and removed from,
the rest of the natural world that we have gotten ourselves into a predicament such that the survival not only of the human race but of
the entire planet has been called into question. Clearly plants and animals would be better off if we protected them for
their own sake, but to do so would also be the most beneficial course of action for humanity as well. This truth
is evident from the fact that our future existence depends on the continued prosperity of the biosphere. On a deeper level, our
existence can only be fulfilling if we lead ethical lives, which includes caring for all living things.
Global warming destroys the planet
Dr. Brandenberg, Physicist (Ph.D.) and Paxson a science writer ’99 – John and Monica, Dead Mars Dying
Earth p. 232-3
The ozone hole expands, driven by a monstrous synergy with global warming that puts more catalytic ice crystals into
the stratosphere, but this affects the far north and south and not the major nations’ heartlands. The seas rise, the tropics roast
but the media networks no longer cover it. The Amazon rainforest becomes the Amazon desert. Oxygen levels fall, but
profits rise for those who can provide it in bottles. An equatorial high pressure zone forms, forcing drought in central Africa and Brazil,
the Nile dries up and the monsoons fail. Then inevitably, at some unlucky point in time, a major unexpected event occurs—a major
volcanic eruption, a sudden and dramatic shift in ocean circulation or a large asteroid impact (those who think freakish accidents do not
occur have paid little attention to life or Mars), or a nuclear war that starts between Pakistan and India and escalates to involve China
and Russia . . . Suddenly the gradual climb in global temperatures goes on a mad excursion as the oceans warm and
release large amounts of dissolved carbon dioxide from their lower depths into the atmosphere. Oxygen levels go down
precipitously as oxygen replaces lost oceanic carbon dioxide. Asthma cases double and then double again. Now a third of the world fears
breathing. As the oceans dump carbon dioxide, the greenhouse effect increases, which further warms the oceans, causing them to dump
even more carbon. Because of the heat, plants die and burn in enormous fires which release more carbon dioxide, and
the oceans evaporate, adding more water vapor to the greenhouse. Soon, we are in what is termed a runaway
greenhouse effect, as happened to Venus eons ago. The last two surviving scientists inevitably argue, one telling the other, “See! I
told you the missing sink was in the ocean!”Earth, as we know it, dies. After this Venusian excursion in temperatures, the oxygen
disappears into the soil, the oceans evaporate and are lost and the dead Earth loses its ozone layer completely. Earth is too far from the
Sun for it to be the second Venus for long. Its atmosphere is slowly lost—as is its water—because of ultraviolet bombardment breaking
up all the molecules apart from carbon dioxide. As the atmosphere becomes thin, the Earth becomes colder. For a short while
temperatures are nearly normal, but the ultraviolet sears any life that tries to make a comeback. The carbon dioxide thins out to
form a thin veneer with a few wispy clouds and dust devils. Earth becomes the second Mars—red, desolate,
with perhaps a few hardy microbes surviving.
It’s the highest probability impact
Hanson, Goddard institute for space studies, et al, 2007
(J. Hansen1,2, M. Sato2, R. Ruedy3, P. Kharecha2, A. Lacis1,4, R. Miller1,5, L. Nazarenko2, K. Lo3, G. A. Schmidt1,4, G. Russell1, I. Aleinov2, S. Bauer2,
E. Baum6, B. Cairns5, V. Canuto1, M. Chandler2, Y. Cheng3, A. Cohen6, A. Del Genio1,4, G. Faluvegi2, E. Fleming7, A. Friend8, T. Hall1,5, C. Jackman7,
J. Jonas2, M. Kelley8, N. Y. Kiang1, D. Koch2,9, G. Labow7, J. Lerner2, S. Menon10, T. Novakov10, V. Oinas3, Ja. Perlwitz5, Ju. Perlwitz2, D. Rind1,4, A.
Romanou1,4, R. Schmunk3, D. Shindell1,4, P. Stone11, S. Sun1,11, D. Streets12, N. Tausnev3, D. Thresher4, N. Unger2, M. Yao3, and S. Zhang2 1NASA
Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, NY, USA 2Columbia University Earth Institute, New York, NY, USA 3Sigma Space Partners LLC, New
York, NY, USA 4Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA 5Department of Applied Physics and
Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA 6Clean Air Task Force, Boston, MA, USA 7NASA Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, MD, USA 8Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, Orme des Merisiers, Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France 9Department of
Geology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA 10Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA 11Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, “Dangerous human-made interference with climate: a GISS modelE study,” http://www.atmos-chem-
phys.net/7/2287/2007/acp-7-2287-2007.html)
These stark conclusions about the threat posed by global climate change and implications for fossil fuel use are
not yet appreciated by essential governing bodies, as evidenced by ongoing plans to build coal-fired power
plants without CO2 capture and sequestration. In our view, there is an acute need for science to inform society
about the costs of failure to address global warming, because of a fundamental difference between the threat
posed by climate change and most prior global threats. In the nuclear standoff between the Soviet Union and
United States, a crisis could be precipitated only by action of one of the parties. In contrast, the present threat
to the planet and civilization, with the United States and China now the principal players (though, as Fig. 10
shows, Europe also has a large responsibility), requires only inaction in the face of clear scientific evidence of
the danger.
Nuclear war does not cause extinction from climate change
Seitz, former Presidential science advisor and keynote speaker at international science conferences, December
20 2006
(Russell, holds multiple patents and degrees from Harvard and MIT, “The ‘Nuclear Winter’ Meltdown,”
http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2006/12/preherein_honor.html, accessed October 18, 2007)
"Apocalyptic predictions require, to be taken seriously,higher standards of evidence than do assertions on other
matters where the stakes are not as great." wrote Sagan in Foreign Affairs , Winter 1983 -84. But that
"evidence" was never forthcoming. 'Nuclear Winter' never existed outside of a computer except as airbrushed animation commissioned by the a PR firm - Porter Novelli Inc. Yet Sagan predicted "the extinction of
the human species " as temperatures plummeted 35 degrees C and the world froze in the aftermath of a
nuclear holocaust. Last year, Sagan's cohort tried to reanimate the ghost in a machine anti-nuclear activists
invoked in the depths of the Cold War, by re-running equally arbitrary scenarios on a modern interactive
Global Circulation Model. But the Cold War is history in more ways than one. It is a credit to post-modern
computer climate simulations that they do not reproduce the apocalyptic results of what Sagan
oxymoronically termed "a sophisticated one dimensional model." The subzero 'baseline case' has melted down
into a tepid 1.3 degrees of average cooling- grey skies do not a Ragnarok make. What remains is just not the
stuff that End of the World myths are made of.
Nuclear War Defense 2NC
Defer negative unless its 100 percent extinction – we could recover
Sanders, Matheny, and Cirkovic, 8 [Anders Sandberg, is a James Martin Research Fellow at the Future
of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. PhD in computational neuroscience @ Stockholm University
Jason G. Matheny is a PhD candidate in Health Policy and Management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School
of Public Health. and Milan M. Ćirković senior research associate at the Astronomical Observatory of
Belgrade. He is also an assistant professor of physics at the University of Novi Sad in Serbia and Montenegro.
“How can we reduce the risk of human extinction?” 9-9-2008 http://www.thebulletin.org/webedition/features/how-can-we-reduce-the-risk-of-human-extinction]
There is a discontinuity between risks that threaten 10 percent or even 99 percent of humanity and those that
threaten 100 percent. For disasters killing less than all humanity, there is a good chance that the species could
recover. If we value future human generations, then reducing extinction risks should dominate our
considerations. Fortunately, most measures to reduce these risks also improve global security against a range
of lesser catastrophes, and thus deserve support regardless of how much one worries about extinction.
And, nuclear war wouldn’t cause extinction
Martin, Research Associate @ Australian National University, 84 (Brian, Research Associate – Australian
National University, SANA Update, “Extinction Politics”, No. 16, May,
http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/84sana1.html)
Yet in spite of the widespread belief in nuclear extinction, there was almost no scientific support for such a
possibility. The scenario of the book and movie On the Beach,[2] with fallout clouds gradually enveloping the
earth and wiping out all life, was and is fiction. The scientific evidence is that fallout would only kill people who
are immediately downwind of surface nuclear explosions and who are heavily exposed during the first few days.
Global fallout has no potential for causing massive immediate death (though it could cause up to millions of
cancers worldwide over many decades).[3] In spite of the lack of evidence, large sections of the peace
movement have left unaddressed the question of whether nuclear war inevitably means global extinction. The
next effect to which beliefs in nuclear extinction were attached was ozone depletion. Beginning in the mid1970s, scares about stratospheric ozone developed, culminating in 1982 in the release of Jonathan Schell's book The Fate of
the Earth.[4] Schell painted a picture of human annihilation from nuclear war based almost entirely on effects from increased ultraviolet light at the
earth's surface due to ozone reductions caused by nuclear explosions. Schell's book was greeted with adulation rarely observed in any field. Yet by the
time the book was published, the scientific basis for ozone-based nuclear extinction had almost entirely evaporated.
The ongoing switch by the military forces of the United States and the Soviet Union from multi-megatonne
nuclear weapons to larger numbers of smaller weapons means that the effect on ozone from even the largest
nuclear war is unlikely to lead to any major effect on human population levels, and extinction from ozone
reductions is virtually out of the question.[3] The latest stimulus for doomsday beliefs is 'nuclear winter': the
blocking of sunlight from dust raised by nuclear explosions and smoke from fires ignited by nuclear attacks.
This would result in a few months of darkness and lowered temperatures, mainly in the northern midlatitudes.[5] The effects could be quite significant, perhaps causing the deaths of up to several hundred million
more people than would die from the immediate effects of blast, heat and radiation. But the evidence, so far,
seems to provide little basis for beliefs in nuclear extinction. The impact of nuclear winter on populations
nearer the equator, such as in India, does not seem likely to be significant. The most serious possibilities would
result from major ecological destruction, but this remains speculative at present.
Nuclear conflicts wouldn’t escalate
Robinson, President and Director of Sandia National Laboratories, 1 [C. Paul Robinson, 3/22/2001.
President and Director, Sandia National Laboratories, PhD Physics @ FSU, Chair of the Policy Committee of
the Strategic Advisory Group for the Commander, US Strategic Command. “Pursuing a New Nuclear Weapons
Policy for the 21st Century,” http://www.sandia.gov/media/whitepaper/2001-04-Robinson.htm.]
Let me then state my most important conclusion directly: I believe nuclear weapons must have an abiding
place in the international scene for the foreseeable future. I believe that the world, in fact, would become more
dangerous, not less dangerous, were U.S. nuclear weapons to be absent. The most important role for our
nuclear weapons is to serve as a “sobering force,” one that can cap the level of destruction of military conflicts
and thus force all sides to come to their senses. This is the enduring purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons in the
post-Cold War world. I regret that we have not yet captured such thinking in our public statements as to why
the U.S. will retain nuclear deterrence as a cornerstone of our defense policy, and urge that we do so in the
upcoming Nuclear Posture Review. Nuclear deterrence becomes in my view a “countervailing” force and, in
fact, a potent antidote to military aggression on the part of nations. But to succeed in harnessing this power,
effective nuclear weapons strategies and policies are necessary ingredients to help shape and maintain a stable
and peaceful world.
Nuclear war won’t escalate.
Quinlan, Under-Secretary of State for Defense, 97 [Michael Quinlan, 1997. Under-Secretary of State for
Defense. Thinking about Nuclear Weapons; p. 31.]
There are good reasons for fearing escalation: the confusion of war, its stresses, anger, hatred, and the desire
for revenge , reluctance to accept the humiliation of backing down; perhaps the temptation to get further blows
in first. Given all this, the risk of escalation— which Western leaders were rightly want to emphasise in the
interests of deterrence—are grave. But this is not to say that they are virtually certain, or even necessarily
odds-on; still less that they are so for all the assorted circumstances in which the situation might arise, in a
nuclear world to which past experience is only a limited guide. It is entirely possible, for example, that the
initial use of nuclear weapons, breaching a barrier that has been held since 1945, might so appall both sides in
a conflict that they recognised an overwhelming common interest in composing their differences. The human
pressures in that direction would be very great. Even if initial nuclear use did not quickly end the fighting, the
supposition of inexorable momentum in a developing exchange, with each side rushing to overreaction amid
confusion and uncertainty, is implausible; it fails to consider what the decision-makers’ situation would really
be. Neither side could want escalation; both would be appalled at what was going on; both would be
desperately looking for signs that the other was ready to call a halt; both, given the capacity for evasion or
concealment which modern delivery systems can possess, could have in reserve ample forces invulnerable
enough not to impose ‘use or lose’ pressures. As a result, neither could have any predisposition to suppose, in
an ambiguous situation of enormous risk, that the right course when in doubt was to go on copiously launching
weapons. And none of this analysis rests on any presumtion of highly subtle, pre-concerterd or culturalspecific rationality; the rationality required is plain and basic.
Rapid Growth Causes Warming 2NC
Recession slows consumption and production, stopping emissions
Farnish, environmental writer and activist and founder of Green Seniors, 3/17/2008
(Keith, “Global Recession: Global Breathing Space,” http://www.blog.thesietch.org/2008/03/17/globalrecession-global-breathing-space/)
Was it just my imagination, or did I hear a small ripple of applause from the forests, the wetlands and the
glaciers, as the news of the collapse of Bear Stearns leaked into the public realm? There are many precursors of
economic collapse; one is the sudden upturn in the price of gold, another is a rise in the little known
“skyscraper index” — both of which signal the move by the wealthy to invest their money into things that may
hold their value longer than pieces of electronic data whizzing around the networks of the world’s investment
banks and clearing houses. No one will be surprised that Bear Stearns’ collapse means recession is imminent,
and the investors are popping Prozac like cups of coffee. And that ripple of applause? It’s because with
recession comes a drop in consumer spending, a reduction in the number of goods being made and moved
around the world, a slump in the sale of houses, vacations, big cars, air conditioning, patio heaters: a
downturn in the carbon engine that has, for the last three decades been driving the global
temperature inexorably upwards as the amount of money swilling around in the consumer economy
keeps growing. Recession stops greenhouse gases being emitted. This is no piece of
environmental wishful thinking. While researching A Matter Of Scale, I discovered that the link between
global trade and carbon emissions was closer than I had ever suspected.
AT: Tech/Innovation/Plan Solves
Even multiple tech solutions can’t solve – don’t address the root problem, can’t solve fast
enough, rising demand will offset efficiency gains
Fauset 8 (Claire, “Techno-fixes: a critical guide to climate change technologies,” Corporate Watch Report)
As the the climate crisis looms, choices
about solutions become ever more important. However, the debate on the future is
large-scale technologies that corporations and government are putting
forward as solutions to climate change. It explains why they are unlikely to prevent climate catastrophe, looks at where the decisions
surrounded by hype and vested interests. This briefing seeks to assess the
about our strategies for survival are being made, and goes in search of more realistic and socially just solutions. This report includes an overview of the
issues surrounding each of the key technologies that are being held up as solutions to climate change, and provides a joined-up analysis and a framework
for comparisons. Making the right decisions about technology is vital to avoid ing devastating climate change. But many of
the technologies being put forward as solutions to this crisis simply won’t work, will worsen the situation, cause significant environmental destruction or
are not going to be available with a short enough timeframe to help us. Even combined, they would fail to address the whole
problem - for example, there can be no big technofix for deforestation, which currently causes around a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions.
Technofixes are very appealing. They appeal to leaders who want huge projects to put their name to. They appeal to
governments in short electoral cycles who don’t want to have to face hard choices of changing the direction of
development from economic growth to social change. Technofixes appeal to corporations which expect to capture new markets with
intellectual property rights and emissions trading. They appeal to advertising-led media obsessed with the next big thing, but too shallow to follow the
science. They appeal to a rich-world population trained as consumers of hi-tech gadgets. They appeal to (carbon)
accountants: technological emissions reductions are neatly quantifiable, if you write the sum properly. Technofixes appeal, in short, to the powerful,
because they offer an opportunity to maintain power and privilege. But why are they the wrong answers? Surely technology is important? The
discourse of ‘magic bullets’ completely ignores the complexities of different situations and needs, and the widely
distributed and poorly measured sources of climate change. In short, it isn’t addressing the problem. If we are to have socially just and sustainable
solutions to climate change, then we have to all look very critically at how our social and economic systems are failing. If the approach to this problem is
primarily technological it has the potential to deepen inequalities between rich and poor as the rich are able to afford access to proprietary technology
which enables them to maintain high standards of living while the poor suffer the worst effects of climate change on top of continuing social injustice.
This is a recipe for conflict. The international emergency Climate change is already happening. Already the air and oceans are
warming, growing seasons are shifting, and ice and snow cover have decreased across the world. Extreme weather events
such as floods, cyclones and droughts are increasing across the world.1 The World Health Organization estimates that 150,000
people died in 2000 due to the impacts of climate change.2 It’s going to get worse. Business as usual means that a temperature rise of around
four degrees centigrade above 1990-2000 levels can be expected this century - possibly as much as six degrees..3 Many scientists consider that limiting
temperature increases to a maximum of two degrees above pre-industrial levels is necessary if we are to avoid devastating climate change.4 The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which represents the international scientific consensus on the issue, suggests that to have a
reasonable chance of limiting warming to two degrees would require a peak in global greenhouse gas emissions
by 2015 at the latest, with emissions falling by 50-80% below 2000 levels by 2050 and in particular will need industrialized
countries to reduce their emissions by 25% to 40% before 2020, and by 80% to 95% before 2050.5 This represents a reduction in carbon dioxide
emissions of about 5% per year, every year. It could be worse than this: rising global temperatures will also tip the planet’s
ecological balance, disrupting ecosystems in ways that provoke production of more greenhouse gas emissions in a feedback effect leading to a
catastrophic acceleration of climate change. Two examples of positive feedback illustrate the risk: as soil temperatures rise, soil bacteria respire more,
generating more carbon dioxide. As air temperatures rise, tropical forests die back, releasing the carbon they contain to
the atmosphere, thereby accelerating the temperature rise. A recent paper estimates that such feedbacks already account for about 18% of global
warming.6 More than two degrees warming would result in: • Globally decreasing agricultural productivity, exposing millions more to hunger and
leading to increasing social unrest and conflict. Up to 3 billion more people at risk of water shortages by 2050, rising sea levels would be destroying
coastal cities and farmland, making millions more homeless. Overall, one billion people could be climate refugees by 2050. • • More than four degrees
warming would lead to major changes exceeding the adaptive capacity of many geophysical, biological and socio-economic systems.7 If we’re not on
track to sorting out our emissions by 2015, we could be committed to this. So if a technology cannot be developed and deployed in the next decade or so,
it is of little use as a response to climate change. Waiting decades for technologies to come on stream before making cuts in emissions could prove
disastrous.8 CHAPTER II: THE TECHNO-FIX APPROACH TO CLIMATE CHANGE : ISSUES & ALTERNATIVES Asking the right questions Proposed
technological solutions often fail to address the complexities of the problems the world faces because they fail to ask the right questions. Agrofuels are
indeed the solution to the transport problem if one asks the very limited question ‘how can people run their cars without oil?’ rather than the more
complex question ‘how can people get where they need to go without contributing to climate change?’ Answers to the latter question might include
limiting the need for travel by relocalising jobs and services, or investment in low-carbon public transport. Asking the right questions in a time of
necessary change can lead to solutions which, far from being merely poor substitutes for old ways of doing things, are in fact better alternatives with real
social benefits. Positive change can happen in a crisis. But positive change is about much more than technology – a framework is needed to assess the
proposed technologies in a systemic context. This section tries to ask some useful questions. The politics of technology The debate around technological
solutions ranges wider than questioning the risks and benefits of a particular device or technological system. Some of the issues are general, others are
specific to technologies proposed as solutions to climate change. In part, the issue of technology is a question of values, in which the dominant position is
currently held by those who might broadly be described as technological optimists. The ‘optimist’ position maintains that: • The general direction of
technological development is right and positive (hence ‘technological progress’). • The drawbacks and risks of technologies are outweighed by the
benefits further technological progress will compensate those seen to have lost out in earlier stages of the process and will rectify the problems caused by
existing technologies. • Technology can solve social problems. The alternative to the optimist position could be called ‘technological scepticism’. This
approach argues that: • The or negative. • The supposed inevitability and rightness of technological progress is a myth. • Social problems require social
solutions. The belief that technological solutions can be found to social problems, and to problems caused by earlier technological development, is a
dangerous illusion which fails to address the political and social causes of those problems. ‘We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking
we used when we created them.’ Albert Einstein • Technologies are inherently political and a given technology presupposes and/or encourages a certain
structure of control and organisation. For example, nuclear power has major political implications since it requires very large-scale developments; a high
level of scientific and safety expertise; hierarchical, strictly-controlled organisation and armed security. In turn, a society using nuclear power must
continue to have these political or social elements to maintain the technology. Whatever one’s opinions of nuclear power as a practical means of
electricity generation or a solution to greenhouse gas emissions, it is inherently incompatible with a locally-organised, small-scale, demilitarised
economic and social model. This is an extreme example, but one could also look at how mechanised, chemically-aided agriculture presupposes a
structure in which farmers have cash for capital inputs, have large enough holdings to make fixed investments worthwhile, and produce primarily for
sale rather than home consumption. The introduction of such a technological system into a society based on high levels of self-sufficiency and a non-cash
economy where small holdings are cultivated part-time will therefore lead to social change, in which, as with any change, there will be both winners and
losers. It is a mistake to presume that technology is in itself neutral and becomes political only as a result of how it is used and implemented. For one
thing, there is no such thing as an abstract, neutral ‘technology’, only existing, actual ‘technologies’. These technologies always interact with power and
social structures, usually (though not always) supporting the status quo - corporate power in the global system. Chapter 3 discusses corporations’
interests in technology in more detail – this chapter looks at what considerations might influence assessment of proposed technological developments.
Questions for assessing just and effective climate change mitigation technologies Who owns the technology? Not just the hardware (power stations,
pipelines) but the patents and other intellectual property. Some technologies in particular – second-generation agrofuels, hydrogen, nano-solar – are
likely to be dominated by a few companies owning fundamental patents and charging royalties for their use. How will this affect deployment if these
technologies can be made to work? With over four thousand patents on ‘clean technologies’ granted in 2006 in the USA alone,9 is it legitimate that
possible solutions to climate change be held to ransom? Who controls the technology? This is a question of control, and of democracy. If supplies are
short, who gets them – those in need, or those who can pay? Beyond this, who should decide what the solutions to climate change are and which
technologies represent the best way forward? How can these decisions be made democratically with participation from the people who will be most
affected? Governments make decisions on which technologies to support through public funding. But much more money comes from the private sector,
which invests based on potential for profit, not social benefit. And even then, government money often follows the corporate lead – corporations are
widely represented on the Research Councils and other bodies which make public funding decisions. Who gains from the technology? Who loses? Is the
balance of winners and losers just or equitable? For example, agrofuels benefit the companies that grow and trade them. They may keep fuel prices down
for vehicle owners, but push up food prices for everyone, and cause land conflicts between plantations and small farmers. New technologies can also
improve social justice: for example deployment of small-scale hydroelectric systems can make reliable, cheap, controllable electricity supplies available to
people in areas without a centralised grid. In most discourse on climate mitigation, economic efficiency is prized above social justice. But promoting new
technologies which do not help social justice will entrench and exacerbate existing problems, making them all the harder to deal with in the future.
Preferring those new technologies which intrinsically promote equality, democratic control and accessibility has wider benefits than the simple reduction
of greenhouse gas emissions. In relation to climate change, emissions have largely been the fault of the over-consuming rich, while the impacts are being
felt most strongly by people in poorer countries. Climate change itself is thus a social justice issue and it is doubly unjust to promote solutions which
would worsen the position of those who are already suffering. chapter II - techno-fix approach / issues and alternatives - 10 Inter-generational justice
must also be considered - does a technology impose costs on future generations without conferring any benefits? For example, nuclear waste must be
stored indefinitely, long after power stations are closed down; captured and stored carbon dioxide would have to be monitored for centuries after cheap
fossil-fuel reserves have been exhausted. How sustainable is the technology? Greenhouse gas emissions reductions alone are not sufficient evidence of a
technology’s benefits. Does the technology deplete other resources, for example by consumption of rare minerals or through its impact on natural
ecosystems and biodiversity? Does it have other pollution impacts, such as hazardous waste? Does it encourage or rely on other damaging activities? For
example, carbon capture and storage relies on coal mining and encourages greater oil extraction when used for ‘enhanced oil recovery’. Can the
technology continue to be used in the long term without increasing negative impacts? What scale of operations can the technology reach? If a technology
is being presented as the answer to a problem, eg a new source of vehicle fuel, it needs to be available at a sufficient scale. So, for example, waste cooking
oil is a sustainable source of vehicle fuel, but only available in very small quantities. First-generation agrofuels, even if social justice and sustainability
issues could be overcome, could never supply current world vehicle fuel use. Scalability does not rule out a technology as such, but it is a crucial means of
detecting hype around wrong answers which are promoted to allow continuation of business as usual. When will it be available? Climate science shows
that emissions need to start falling within the next few years, and fall massively in 20 to 30 years. Technologies that are unlikely to be
available at an effective scale within that timeframe are not helpful – resources should be diverted from these to more
immediately available systems – and to ones which can be proven to work. The focus of governments and corporations on emissions
targets for 2050 can also be viewed as part of a distraction strategy. 2050 is conveniently distant – a target for
2050 allows time to continue business-as-usual in the short term in the expectation of future technological breakthroughs. Tough
targets for 2050 are not tough at all. Where are the techno-fix plans for a peak in global emissions by 2015? Problems with techno-fixation Ignoring the
scale and source of the problem Focusing on technological solutions ignores how the problem of climate change is caused,
why it continues to worsen and how much needs to be done to stop it. Climate change is the result of over-consumption of fossil fuels
and of forest and land resources; about one third of emissions currently come from deforestation and agriculture.10 This consumption continues to grow
in line with economic growth. Technological improvements will not tackle overconsumption or growth in demand; this
requires radical changes to economic systems. Without such changes, any technology-based emissions reductions will
eventually be eaten up by continued rising demand for energy and consumer goods – efficiency gains will be
converted into greater consumption not long-term reduced emissions. Technologies which encourage consumers to maintain
high energy use and fossil fuel dependency, such as carbon capture and storage, fail to address unsustainable consumption levels which are the basis of
rich country economies and the cause of both climate change and other critical sustainability crises such as declining soil fertility and fresh water
supplies. Even the IPCC now suggests that 85% cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are needed by 2050,11 other sources suggest as much as 90%
reductions for the UK by 2030.12 Technology simply cannot deliver these levels of reduction without
accompanying changes to demand, which requires economic and social transformation. Techno-fixation has masked the
incompatibility of solving climate change with unlimited economic growth. A rational approach to a certain problem
and a set of uncertain solutions might be to say that consumption should be limited to sustainable levels from
now, with the possibility of increasing in future when new technologies come on stream. Instead the approach
taken has been to continue consuming to the same destructive levels in the expectation that new chapter II - techno-fix
approach / issues and alternatives -11 technologies will come on stream. The persistent claim that a solution is just around the corner has allowed
politicians and corporations to cling to the mantra that tackling climate change will not impact on economic growth. In 2005, in his address to the World
Economic Forum, Tony Blair said: ‘If we put forward, as a solution to climate change, something that would impact on economic growth, it matters not
how justified it is, it will simply not be agreed to [emphasis added]’.13 While this view may be slowly changing, it has delayed real action for years.
Climate change cannot be viewed in isolation Climate change is not the only crisis currently facing the planet. Peak oil (the
point at which demand for oil outstrips available supply) is likely to become a major issue within the coming decade; while
competition for land and water, deforestation and destruction of ecosystems, soil fertility depletion and collapse of fisheries are already posing increasing
problems for food supply and survival in many parts of the world. That’s on top of the perpetual issues of equity and social justice. Technological
solutions to climate change generally fail to address most of these issues, except where they may reduce oil use. Yet even without climate change, this
systemic environmental and social crisis threatens society, and demands deeper solutions than new technology alone can provide. Scarcity of investment
Governments spend a limited amount of money on mitigating climate change. Investment in energy R&D (research and development) increased
massively in the 1970s as a result of the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, but in the last 30 years R&D investment as a proportion of GDP has continually declined
to the point where it is roughly comparable to pre-1973 levels.14 Where this investment goes is a major issue. While it makes sense to research many
options for mitigating climate change, time and resources are limited. In this context, it is worth looking at the distinction between inventions, or
technological breakthroughs, and engineering improvements. Some proposed technologies rely on things which simply don’t exist yet; synthetic
microbes which ‘eat’ carbon dioxide and excrete hydrocarbons; a safe and efficient system for distributing and using hydrogen vehicle fuel; nuclear
fusion power. This is not in itself an argument against any investment in these technological possibilities, but it is an argument against reliance on such
future technological breakthroughs. Claims that something which doesn’t exist yet will solve a known problem, and that it should take most of the
available resources, should be viewed simply as a stalling tactic on the part of vested interests. Other technologies exist, but are benefiting from ongoing
improvement; the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of photovoltaic solar panels; devices for exploiting wave and tidal power; energy-efficient electrical
appliances. These areas can be relied on to improve, though the timescale may be unpredictable. This is where technology investment needs to focus. At
present, it is the technologies that allow business-as-usual to continue that are receiving the lion’s share of investment, regardless of either potential
benefit or feasibility. Investment in agrofuels or CCS means less investment in wave power, in decentralised energy or in economic and social changes to
limit the need for high energy consumption. The US government is investing $179m (£89m) in agrofuels in 2008.15 €10bn (£7.9bn) is being spent on an
international experimental nuclear fusion reactor in France.16 Diverting this money away from more immediately practical solutions makes the target of
peaking greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 less achievable. It both delays the transition to a low-carbon economy and endangers the future by making
devastating climate change more likely. Transition Transition – the period of change between the high-emitting societies of today and a distant
sustainable future, is a hot topic. But while this change must come, the ‘transition’ discourse coming from governments and corporations is frequently a
cover for arguments that would permit use of technologies in the short term which are known to be unjustifiable in the long term – geoengineering, first
generation agrofuels, ‘carbon-capture ready’ coal fired power stations are argued to be necessary now. But why? Largely to prevent serious change to the
rich world’s over-consuming lifestyles. The discourse of transition delays the inevitable. When is the real transition to a low-emission, more equitable
society even going to start? How long is it going to last? chapter II - techno-fix approach / issues and alternatives -12 The other parts of the solution alternatives to techno-fixation Technological change is part of the solution. But only part. It is useful only as long as it is compatible
with, and preferably supports, other changes to the way society works. Even though these changes are not the focus of this
report, a brief summary follows. Economic change Current government approaches to climate change consist largely of tinkering with policy and
expecting the market to deliver emissions reductions. But the market doesn’t want to deliver emissions reductions, it wants
to
deliver profits. Carbon prices are an arbitrary figure unrelated to the real social and environmental cost of emissions. Meanwhile, policies
which may ‘harm’ the economy have been shied away from. This green capitalist approach is asking the wrong question. Instead of
asking how to continue to grow the economy while living on the limited resources left on this planet, it should be asking – why is economic growth seen
as more important than survival? What is growth and do we need it? The current global economic system is based on the assumption of indefinite
growth. While ongoing growth in some areas is possible without more consumption of natural resources and emissions of greenhouse gases, this covers
only relatively small sectors of the economy – some services and purely information-based products. Growth of the whole global economy means
consumption of an ever-increasing amount of goods, using an ever-increasing quantity of energy, mineral, agricultural and forest resources. Even if
energy intensity per unit of economic activity can be reduced, ongoing growth eats up the improvement and overall energy
consumption still rises. Renewable energy alone cannot decouple consumption from climate change – just because energy sources
are called ‘renewable’ does not mean there is an infinite amount available that can be accessed sustainably.
Tech can’t change resource limitations
Greer 6/16/10 (John Michael Greer is a certified Master Conserver, an organic gardener, a scholar of ecological
history, an internationally renowned blogger, and an award-winning Peak Oil author. He lives in Ashland, Oregon,
“Waiting for the Millennium, Part Two: The Limits of Magic,” http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2010/06/waitingfor-millennium_16.html)
That’s of crucial importance just now, because the thing that most people in the industrial world are going to want most in
the very near future is something that neither a revitalization movement nor anything else can do. We are passing from
an age of unparalleled abundance to an age of scarcity, economic contraction, and environmental payback. As
the reality of peak oil goes mainstream and the end of abundance becomes impossible to ignore, most people in
the industrial world will begin to flail about with rising desperation for anything that will bring the age of abundance
back. Even those who insist they despise that age and everything it stands for have in many cases already shown an
eagerness to cling to as many of its benefits as they themselves find appealing. The difficulty, of course, is that the end of
the age of abundance isn’t happening because of changes in consciousness; it’s happening because of the laws of physics.
The abundance we’ve all grown up thinking as normal was there only because a handful of nations burned their
way through the Earth’s store of fossil carbon at breakneck speed. Most of the fossil fuel reserves that can be
gotten cheaply and quickly have already been extracted and burnt; the dregs that remain – high-sulfur oil, tar sands,
brown coal, and the like – yield less energy after what’s needed to extract them is taken into account, and impose
steep ecological costs as well; renewables and other alternative energy resources have problems of their own,
and have proved unable to take up more than a small fraction of the slack. These limitations are not subject to
change, or even to negotiation; they define a predicament that we will all have to live with, one way or another, for a
very long time to come.
Innovation already peaked – it’s rate will decline even as population increases
Adler ‘5 (Robert, science writer and author @ New Scientist, “Entering a dark age of innovation,
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7616)
But according to a new analysis, this view couldn't be more wrong: far from being in technological nirvana, we are
fast approaching a new dark age. That, at least, is the conclusion of Jonathan Huebner, a physicist working at the
Pentagon's Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California. He says the rate of technological innovation reached
a peak a century ago and has been declining ever since. And like the lookout on the Titanic who spotted the fateful
iceberg, Huebner sees the end of innovation looming dead ahead. His study will be published in Technological Forecasting
and Social Change. It's an unfashionable view. Most futurologists say technology is developing at exponential rates.
Moore's law, for example, foresaw chip densities (for which read speed and memory capacity) doubling every 18 months.
And the chip makers have lived up to its predictions. Building on this, the less well-known Kurzweil's law says that these
faster, smarter chips are leading to even faster growth in the power of computers. Developments in genome sequencing
and nanoscale machinery are racing ahead too, and internet connectivity and telecommunications bandwith are growing
even faster than computer power, catalysing still further waves of innovation. But Huebner is confident of his facts. He has
long been struck by the fact that promised advances were not appearing as quickly as predicted. "I wondered if there was a
reason for this," he says. "Perhaps there is a limit to what technology can achieve." In an effort to find out, he plotted
major innovations and scientific advances over time compared to world population, using the 7200 key
innovations listed in a recently published book, The History of Science and Technology (Houghton Mifflin, 2004). The
results surprised him. Rather than growing exponentially, or even keeping pace with population growth, they
peaked in 1873 and have been declining ever since (see Graphs). Next, he examined the number of patents granted
in the US from 1790 to the present. When he plotted the number of US patents granted per decade divided by the
country's population, he found the graph peaked in 1915. The period between 1873 and 1915 was certainly an innovative
one. For instance, it included the major patent-producing years of America's greatest inventor, Thomas Edison (18471931). Edison patented more than 1000 inventions, including the incandescent bulb, electricity generation and
distribution grids, movie cameras and the phonograph. Medieval future Huebner draws some stark lessons from his
analysis. The global rate of innovation today, which is running at seven "important technological developments" per
billion people per year, matches the rate in 1600. Despite far higher standards of education and massive R&D
funding "it is more difficult now for people to develop new technology", Huebner says. Extrapolating Huebner's
global innovation curve just two decades into the future, the innovation rate plummets to medieval levels. "We are
approaching the 'dark ages point', when the rate of innovation is the same as it was during the Dark Ages," Huebner
says. "We'll reach that in 2024."