small farms negative

7/29/2019 Small Farms Negative

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Small Farms Negative


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***Impact Statement CP***


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1NC HR-E-IS Counter-Plan

The President of the United States federal government should issue an executive order requiring

a global assessment of the human rights and environmental impact of free trade agreements,including a periodic assessment of trade agreements already in place. The United States federal

government should require a release of this information to the public during and before the

finalization of the negotiation process.

The Counter-Plan solves the AFF

+Increases accountability in FTAs

+Assesses INTERNATIONAL environmental and human rights impacts

+Guarantees public participation in free trade negotiations

Gonzalez 11 Carmen G. Gonzalez. Associate Professor, Seattle University School of Law. AN

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE CRITIQUE OF COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE: INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, TRADE

POLICY, AND THE MEXICAN NEOLIBERAL ECONOMIC REFORMS. University of Pennsylvania Journal of

International Law. 32 U. Pa. J. Int'l L. 723. Spring, 2011. Accessed Via L.N.

As the NAFTA case study illustrates, trade liberalization based on comparative advantage often results in serious hu-man rights violations and

environmental harm because market prices fail to [*790] reflect environmental and social externalities and because the

communities most affected by trade reforms are not consulted. One legal reform that would facilitate the early identification

and mitigation of such externalities is legislation requiring ex ante environmen-tal and human rights impact assessment of

all trade agreements. This assessment should take place as early as possible in the negotiation process, and should be conducted

in a transparent manner that involves extensive public participation and consultation. Environmental impact assessment emerged as aregulatory tool in the United States with the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, n319 and has since been adopted by most countries and by

international organizations. n320 The objectives of the assessment process are two-fold: to ensure that the possible impacts of a

proposed project are assessed before a final decision is made; and to inform the public and solicit meaningful public

input on the costs and benefits of proceeding with the project . n321


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2NCSolvency ExtNAFTA Specific

The Counter-Plan leads to the reforms necessary to solve EVERY impact NAFTA has on rural

populations INCLUDING the environmental damage of industrial corn productionGonzalez 11 Carmen G. Gonzalez. Associate Professor, Seattle University School of Law. AN




In the case of NAFTA, for example, analysis and public disclosure of the negative externalities associated with in-dustrial [*793]

corn production in the United States and of the positive externalities associated with traditional corn cultivation in Mexico

might generate public pressure for regulatory reform or some form of financial compensation . Industrial corn production in the

United States contributes to a wide range of environmental and human health prob-lems, including water pollution, water scarcity, biodiversity loss,

climate change, pesticide poisoning, and a growing epidemic o f obesity and Type II diabetes due to the presence of high fructose corn syrup in numerous food products. n336 In Mexico,

by contrast, the biodiverse cultivation techniques of indigenous and rural communities provide positive environmental and

social externalities. If these issues are discussed in public hearings in Mexico and the United States, it may be possible to create the

interest convergence necessary to overcome the economic power of agribusiness and to achieve genuine

reform.Regulatory reform in the United States could involve amending the statutes that currently exempt all but the largest farms

from the nation's environmental laws or redirecting subsidies away from industrial agriculture and toward healthier and more sustainab le farming practices. n337

Regulatory reform in Mexico might involve rewarding small farmers for the positive social and environmental

contributions of traditional corn production by providing payments for ecosystem services. These payments could be funded by tariffs onU.S. corn or by direct payments from the United States for the protection of rural livelihoods and for the conservation of a public good of global significance - Mexico's genetic diversity. n338


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2NCSolvency ExtLaundry List

Status quo EIS is insufficientReforming the past executive order on this issue is key to assess

international impacts on human rights, poverty, the environment, and minority populationsGonzalez 11 Carmen G. Gonzalez. Associate Professor, Seattle University School of Law. AN




In the United States, Executive Order 13,141 (1999) already requires the environmental review of trade agreements. n322 However, the executive order falls

short of achieving environmental justice in numerous respects. First, while review of environmental impacts in the United States is mandatory,

review of global and transboundary impacts is discretionary. n323 Second, the executive order does not require the review of

the human rights impact of trade agreements. n324 Third, the executive order does not provide for the periodic assessment

of trade agreements already in place. n325 Fourth, the executive order fails to prescribe the timing of the environmental review and does not

require the [*791] release of information to the public beyond the draft environmental review and the scope of the

negotiation. n326 Without access to draft negotiating texts, meaningful public participation is difficult to achieve. Moreover, in the absence of specific

guidance on the timing of the review, there is a danger that the review will be performed too late in the process to permit

significant public input and consideration of alternatives, including the no-action alternative. n327 Fifth, while the executive orderdoes require that environmental reviews be "made available in draft form for public comment," n328 there is no mechanism to ensure that public comments are taken

into account - such as requiring agency response to public comments. n329 Sixth, the executive order does not require the disaggregation of

impacts according to race, gender, ethnic origin, geographic region, or other variables. In order to determine whether trade

agreements will impose a disproportionate burden on specific segments of the population, disaggregation of data is

essential. Seventh, the executive order does not create a private right of action in case its terms are violated. n330 Finally, the executive order does not make

reference to Executive Order 12,898, issued five years earlier, which requires all federal agencies to make environmental justice part of their missions. n331 Executive

Order 12,898 inexplicably excludes the United States Trade Representative and the State Department from the interagency working group charged with its

implementation. n332 In order to foster environmental justice at the international level, it [*792] is essential to include

environmental justice in the mission of these government agencies and to involve them in the interagency dialogue over

the implementation of this mission.


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2NCSolvency ExtPublic Participations Key

Public participation is key to ensure the most affected populations have a voice in the negotiation

processGonzalez 11 Carmen G. Gonzalez. Associate Professor, Seattle University School of Law. AN




Despite the limitations of Executive Order 13,141, ex ante environmental and human rights impact assessments, if

properly designed, have the potential to provide decision-makers and the public with valuable information about the

environmental and human rights impacts of trade agreements, to prevent the "capture" of the negotiation process by

commercial interests, to enhance government accountability, to create a forum for public input, and to democratize trade

policy by fostering informed and reasoned debate. n333 The participation of rural and indigenous communities in the

impact assessment process is vitally important so that the assessment will be informed by the knowledge and

experience of those most affected by agricultural trade policy . Such participation also yields trade agreements that are

perceived as more legitimate because they are the product of an inclusive political process.


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2NCSolvency ExtPeriodic Assessment Key

Requiring a periodic assessment of FTAs ensures long-term impact of agreements arent

ignoredGonzalez 11 Carmen G. Gonzalez. Associate Professor, Seattle University School of Law. AN


POLICY, AND THE MEXICAN NEOLIBERAL ECONOMIC REFORMS. University ofPennsylvania Journal of


In addition, it would be advisable to require periodic ex post environmental and human rights impact assessments of trade

agreements several years after their entry into force and to include "sunset clauses" in trade agreements akin to Article 20 of the

WTO Agreement on Agriculture n334 so as to require renegotiation of trade agreements in light of these ex post impact assessments. n335 The periodic

assessment and revision of trade agreements will enable decision-makers and the public to identify the long-term and

indirect impacts of trade agreements and to make sure that these agreements are continuously revised and improved in

order to promote human rights and environmental protection.


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2NCXO Doesnt Link to Politics

Executive orders solve for the case and avoid Congressional backlash to the policy

Fleishman , Prof of Law and Policy Sciences and Director of the Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs @Duke ,1976, (Joel L., and Arthur H. Aufses, Research Associate @ Institute of Public Sciences @ Duke, Law and

Orders: The problem of presidential legislation, Law and Contemporary Problems, Vo. 40, No. 3, pg. 38)

Several related factors, in particular, make executive orders especially attractive policymaking tools for a President. First isspeed. Even if a President is reasonably confident of securing desired legislation from Congress, he must wait forcongressional deliberations to run their course. Invariably, he can achieve far faster, if not immediate, results by issuing anexecutive order. Moreover, when a President acts through an order, he avoids having to subject his policy to publicscrutiny and debate. Second is flexibility. Executive orders have the force of law. Yet they differ from congressionallegislation in that a President can alter any executive order simply with the stroke of his penmerely by issuing anotherexecutive order. As noted earlier, Presidents have developed the system of classifying national security documents in precisely this manner.209 Finallyexecutive orders allow the President, not only to evade hardened congressional opposition, but also to preempt potential or

growing oppositionto throw Congress off balance, to reduce its ability to formulate a powerful opposing position.


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***Movements Turns***


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1NC Movements Disad

Allowing current bottom up movements to take shape is key to eliminating neoliberalisms hold

on the regionThe plan is counter-productive and pacifying.Roberts 9. Kenneth Roberts. Professor of Government @ Cornell. Beyond Neoliberalism in Latin America? 2009 pg

1-7

In recent years voters in Latin America have elected a series of left-of-center presidents, starting with Venezuela in 1998 and continuing (to date) with Chile,Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Paraguay. Although this political "left turn" has bypassed a number of countries, and the new

governments that are part of it comprise a remarkably heterogeneous lot, there seems little doubt that the political winds have shifted in the region. Theturn to the left has followed a decade-and-a-half of free market or "neoliberal" reform, when technocrats throughout the region-with staunch support from the U.S.

government and international financial institutions-forged a powerful policymaking consensus around the virtues of free trade, deregulated markets, and private

entrepreneurship. Since it is not clear whether the region's new leftist governments have identified, much less consolidated, viable alternatives to market liberalism, it is

far too early to claim that Latin America has entered a post-neoliberal era of development. What is clear, however, is that the shift to the left signals a

"repoliticization" of development issues in Latin America-that is, a demise of the "Washington Consensus" (Williamson 1990)

for free market capitalism and the onset of a highly contested search for alternatives that lie " beyond neoliberalism ." Inshort, Latin America is no longer (if it ever was) suspended at "the end of politics" (Colburn 2002), where technocratic consensus is complemented (or secured) by a

combination of social demobilization, political resignation, and mass consumerism. The repoliticization of development has both policy and process dimensions

On the policy front, it signifies that neoliberalism is no longer the only game in town; although predefined socialist alternatives to capitalism

have long since evaporated, vigorous debates have emerged around non-neoliberal "varieties of capitalism" that envision a more

active role for state power in asserting national autonomy, shaping investment priorities, ameliorating inequalities, and

providing social services and other public goods. In terms of process, repoliticization entails the emergence or revival of popular subjectivities that arecontesting the technocratic monopolization of policymaking space-in some cases at the ballot box, in others on the streets. Repoliticization, therefore, involves a

reciprocal interaction between the rise of new actors and an expansion of the issue agenda to include a broader range of alternatives. This book tries to make sense of

these new subjectivities-that is, to identify some of Latin America's new social and political actors and to explain the origins, inspirations, and interests that lie behind

their activation. In contrast to much of the emerging work on Latin America's left turn, we look beyond the rise of left-leaning governments and their policy choices to

focus attention on the socioeconomic and cultural terrain in which new political options are being forged. Individual chapters thus explore how neoliberalism has

shaped and constrained popular subjects by breaking down some traditional actors, transforming others, and providing a stimulus for the emergence of new ones-at leastsome of which bear the seeds of potential social orders beyond neoliberalism. Our approach starts with the recognition that neoliberal "structural adjustment" programs

represented much more than a simple change in development policies. By slashing tariffs and other trade barriers, privatizing state-owned

enterprises and social services, and deregulating markets to encourage the free flow of capital, neoliberal reforms

realigned existing relationships among states, markets, and societies in fundamental ways (Garret6n 2003a). As such, they transformedthe social, political, and cultural landscapes that had developed during the mid-twentieth-century era of state-led import-substitution industrialization (ISI). Initially, this

meant breaking down the popular collective subjects of the lSI era-in particular, organized labor and labor-based parties-and imposing market discipline over everlarger

swaths of social life. As labor unions weakened, however,new popular subjects, such as community-based organizations and

indigenous movements, that rejected the insecurities of market individualism and its commodification of social relationshipsbegan to emerge. Theirdiverse attempts to reweave the social fabric are the primary focus of this volume. The essays included here trace many of the contours of this rapidly evolving,

neoliberal social and political landscape. Collectively, the essays explore three basic sets of questions. First, what are the new patterns of social interaction generated by

the process of market restructuring, and how do these reshape the ways in which societal interests and identities are articulated, organized, and represented in the

political arena? Interests and identities are often redefined as market reforms create new economic niches (or destroy old ones), commodify social relationships, alter

traditional uses of land, water, or natural resources, and shift the scale or locus of public policymaking. Second, what new social and political actors have emerged, and

how do they respond to the multifaceted changes associated with market restructuring? Traditional actors may enter into decline, but new ones invariably arise; we must

ask, then, how these new actors are constituted, how they adapt to market opportunities and insecurities, and what strategies they follow when they try to enter the

political arena, redefine the policy agenda, and contest public authority. Third, and finally, to what extent do these actors and their responses provide the building block

for new paths of social, economic, and political development that might be more equitable and inclusive than those that have characterized the neoliberal era? What

lies "beyond neoliberalism" is unlikely to be determined by grand ideological visions or political blueprints ; instead, it

will be constructed piece by piece, from below, through the grassroots participation and decentralized experimentation of

new popular subjects. This volume offers no simple answers to these complex questions, much less a new theory of neoliberal politics. Instead, it offers a series


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of portraits written from a variety of disciplinary perspectives about how people adapt and respond-both individually and collectively-when their economic moorings

shift and the social fabric is torn asunder. These portraits are hardly comprehensive; they do not cover every country in Latin America, much less all the stations in the

region's heterogeneous and fragmented sociocultural landscape. The editors do not claim that the particular set of actors and issues included in this volume is the best or

the only one that could have been chosen. Nevertheless, we have selected topics based on their importance and the quality of research they have generated, and we

believe our portraits jointly illuminate the diverse experiences of social actors during the neoliberal era. These portraits provide compelling evidence that capitalism is,

as Schumpeter (1950) aptly characterized it, a force of "creative destruction" that simultaneously breaks down and reconfigures various fields of social interaction. Our

chapters are replete with examples of the dialectical interplay between capitalism's advance and the social, cultural, and political responses it elicits-though not, as will

become evident, in the manner classically envisioned by Marx. These responses, whether deliberate or reactive,bear the seeds of what may in fact

lie beyond neoliberalism, a horizon that remains opaque but is increasingly being sketched by a diverse array of popular

movements in the region. As explained later, the various dimensions of this dialectical interplay lie beyond the scope of any single academic discipline,making an interdisciplinary approach vital to a more comprehensive understanding. An Integral Approach to Economic Reform, Social Change, and Political Response

Social and political changes in Latin America have long been conditioned by patterns of economic development. This can be seen, for example, in the nineteenth-

century association between oligarchic politics and agro-export development models, or in the rise of populist social and

political mobilization during the early stages of industrialization in the middle of the twentieth lower class groups. Thesedemands were typically funneled through the corporatist intermediary channels of mass party and union organizations, which brokered exchanges between states and

organized societal interests. In short, lSI encouraged groups-defined primarily in terms of class categories-to self-organize in order to advance their interests in a

policymaking environment where states increasingly penetrated and regulated social and economic relationships, including labor markets and land tenure arrangements

Together, these two processes encouraged strong labor and, in some cases, peasant movements to develop, which in turn provided a social foundation for Latin

America's first mass party organizations. The social, cultural, and political construction of popular subjects during the lSI era was

thus anchored in the favorable combination of rapid industrialization , state interventionism, and social reform.

These linkages between state-led industrialization and grassroots organization were frayed, however, by economic

pressures and political polarization in the 1960s and 1970s (O'Donnell 1973), and they were largely severed by the debt crisis

of the 1980s. While neoliberal structural adjustment policies helped restore economic stability in the aftermath of the debt

crisis, they exacerbated-indeed, they often institutionalized-the social dislocations wrought by the crisis itself. Changes in labormarkets-in particular growing informalization, a greater reliance on subcontracting and temporary labor, and flexible rules for hiring and firing-made collective action

in the workplace increasingly difficult to sustain, leading to a sharp decline in trade union density in most of the region. Likewise, the parcelization of landholdings and

the penetration of market relations in the countryside undermined historic patterns of peasant mobilization for land reform in much of the region (Kurtz 2004). The

retreat of the state subjected new sectors of the economy and society to market discipline, undermining the rationale and effectiveness of collective action aimed at

eliciting state redress . Historic labor-based parties entered into decline or adapted in part by distancing themselves from labor and other organized mass constituencies.

This trend that was propelled both by the structural conditions of neoliberal capitalism and by technological advances inpolitical communication (most prominently, television) that rendered mass party organizations increasingly dispensable

for electoral mobilization. Following the restoration of democratic rule in most of Latin America in the 1980s, U.S.-style media-based advertising andcampaign tactics diffused rapidly across the region, allowing candidates to appeal directly to voters without the mediation of mass membership party organizations.

Latin America entered the new millennium, then, largely devoid of the mass social and party organizations that dominated the landscape during the populist/lSI era.

Labor movements had been downsized and politically marginalized, and they were less capable of representing the diverse interests and identities of a precarious and in

formalized workforce. Likewise, where they survived at all, mass parties were transformed into professionalized or patronage-based electoral machines (see, e.g.,

Levitsky 2003); elsewhere, they were displaced by independent personalities and populist outsiders. The dominant trends pointed toward a fragmentation and

pluralization of civil society-with a multitude of interests, identities, and decentralized groups struggling to make their voices heard (Ox horn 1998a)-and a

deinstitutionalization of political representation, as evidenced by extreme levels of electoral volatility and the rise of personality-based, antiparty candidates. A

bottom-up perspective is thus essential to understand how the demise of lSI and the transition to neoliberalism realigned the

social landscape in ways that disarticulated the class-based popular subjects of the lSI era. Such a perspective is also essential, however, for

explaining popular responses to market liberalization and the openings that eventually emerged for the construction of new types of collective subjects that bear theseeds of what may lie beyond neoliberalism.Neoliberal reforms are directed-indeed, often imposed-by state officials in collaboration

with (or under the pressure of) transnational power centers, but civil society and grassroots actors are hardly passive bystanders(Arce 2005). These actors invariably seek to exploit, resist, evade, or cope with state initiatives, and their responses often produce outcomes that are quite different from

those envisioned by policymakers and economic elites. In particular, grassroots actors employ a variety of measures to alleviate material hardships and reduce exposure

to market insecurities; as Karl Polanyi (1944) argues, there are social and political limits to the commodification of social relationships, and these limits may be quickly

breached in contexts of egregious inequalities such as those prevailing in contemporary Latin America. Popular responses thus attempt to reweave a social fabric torn

by economic crisis and market dislocation. These responses are often local, decentralized, and territorially based, building on

traditions of communitybased organizing, or focused on ethnic and cultural claims rather than the class/corporatist


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patterns of interest representation that were hallmarks of the lSI era. Although new popular subjects may not initially target public

authorities or policymaking arenas, grassroots activism often becomes politicized over time, posing the formidable

challenge analyzed by Benjamin Goldfrank in chapter three-that of translating local initiatives into nationallevel political

alternatives. This challenge highlights the importance of a bottom-up perspective in the construction of new popular subjects in the neoliberal era. The primary

objectives of this volume, then, are to develop an interdisciplinary perspective on the multiple forms of societal responses to market liberalization and to assess theireffects. We do this in four principal fields where neoliberalism has altered the social landscape: electoral politics, ethnic mobilization, environmental governance,

transnational migration. In each area we explore new patterns of social interaction, identify various responses, and analyze the potential impact of emerging popular

subjects.


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2NC Link ExtensionsMexico

Government intervention pacifies movements

Fox & Hernndez 92 Jonathan Fox and Luis Hernndez. Mexico's Difficult Democracy: Grassroots Movements,NGOs, and Local Government. Global, Local, Political , Vol. 17, No. 2 (Spring 1992), pp. 165-208 Published by: Sage

Publications, Inc. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40644738.[KY]Most social organizations, such as trade unions, peasant organizations, or business associations, have long been controlled by the government. Membership is often

obligatory, and the leadership is chosen from above. Many different social groups have challenged this official monopoly on

representation over the last few decades with mixed results. The central state's capacity to control local political and social life has

always been uneven, but the Mexican state has retained near-total control over the channels that linked it to civil society at the national level- even in the late 1980s. Among the many diverse groups that make up Mexican society, only the Catholic church succeeded in sustaining a powerful, autonomous

national organization.4 The secret ofthe Mexican state's "success" is its skillful combination of "carrots and sticks." Government

responses to popular movements for social reform and democracy have typically combinedpartial concessions with

repression, conditioning access to material gains on political subordination. The state does not always wait to be pressured; its remarkable

capacity for preemptive measures continues to surprise seasoned observers. One cannot understand Mexico's long-standing relativepolitical stability without looking at both sides of the coin. The state occasionally does give in to some people, some of the time, and usually

with strings attached. Some of Mexico's rulers specialize in such bargaining, but they operate in the shadow of their colleagues' capacity for fiercerepression in case the negotiations break down. This camouflage is a key component of what noted writer Mario Vargas Llosa called "the perfect dictatorship."5
http://www.jstor.org/stable/40644738http://www.jstor.org/stable/40644738


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2NC Link ExtensionsLatin America

US Aid stops reform movementsEmpirics prove

Dillon 89 Sam Dillon. (Mr. Dillon attended the University of Chicago and received a B.A. degree in history from theUniversity of Minnesota in 1979. He received an M.S. degree in journalism from the Columbia University Graduate

School of Journalism in 1981.) Dateline El Salvador: Crisis Renewed. Foreign Policy , No. 73 (Winter, 1988-1989), pp.

153-170. Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1148882[KY]

The Reagan administrationused the commission's report to fashion an emergency aid package; and when Jos6 Napole6n Duarte was elected

El Salvador's president in 1984, a previously reluctant Congress approved it.The report recommended more than doubling military

aid from the 1983 level; Congress complied with $343 million for 1984 and 1985. The report suggested that economic aid be doubled as well. Congress didnot double economic aid, but it did al locate $1.8 billion for the years 1984 through 1988, for a 35 per cent average annual increase over 1983. It has added up to a torrent of dollars averaging

some $1.1 million per day since 1984. Wash- ington now finances more than one-half of the Salvadoran national budget. Because El

Salvador was a society in general crisis, the Kissinger commission policy aimed not only at counterinsurgency victory but

also at social reform, economic revival, and democ- ratization. Although several initiatives appeared in conflict--reforming society, liberal-

izing the economy, and empowering civilians while strengthening the military, and building democracy while waging

war-the commission sought to reconcile these contradictions with a call to maintain equilibrium among them. For example, the commission wrote:"Vigorous, concurrent policies on both the milita ry and human rights fronts are needed.... Policies of increased aid and increased pressure to safeguard human rights would improve both

security and justice. A slackening on one front would undermine our objec- t ive on the other." 154. In El Salvador, however, the Reagan administration made

the war its unhesitating priori- ty. The administration's slackening on other fronts has undermined the overall policy, just as

the commission predicted. The guerrillas have been contained militarily, but the insur- gency's causes have gone largely unaddressed. Despite the impressive amount

of aid, human misery has increased. American diplomats in El Salvador have urged an end to human rights abuses, but Washington has

backed their message only feebly. Political killings, which have declined from the early 1980s, are again on the rise. In addition, American officials s ince 1985 haveroutinely criticized the 1980 land and banking reforms as economically unsound, even though the commission's report supported such reforms as necessary moves toward social justice. This

is not to say that U.S. policy has borne no fruit. Since 1982 El Salvador has conducted five relatively honest national elections after more

than a decade of frauds. The military has resisted numerous right-wing calls for coups, and the power of the civilian

presidency, though still circumscribed by the military, has grown. Duarte has opened space for leftist political opposition.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1148882http://www.jstor.org/stable/1148882


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***NEG Environmental Justice Answers**


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Risk Assessment Sound

Commodification arguments are wrong---Economic analysis is the only way to prevent extinction

Wagner 11Gernot, economist at EDF, where he works in the office of economic policy and analysis, But Will thePlanet Notice? How Smart Economics Can Save the World. Hill and Wang Press, p. 11-12

The fundamental forces guiding thebehavior of billions are much larger than any one ofus. It's about changing our system,

creating a new business as usual. And to do that we need to think about what makes our system run. In the end, it comes down to

markets, and the rules of the game that govern what we chase and how we chase it. Scientists can tell us how bad it will get. Activi sts can make us pay attention to the ensuing instabilities

and make politicians take note. When the task comes to formulating policy, only economists can help guide us out of this morass and

save the planet . In an earlier time with simpler problems, environmentalists took direct action against the market's brutal forces by

erecting roadblocks or chaining themselves to trees. That works if the opposing force is a lumberjack with a chain saw. It might even work for an entire industry

when the task is to ban a particular chemical or scrub a pollutant out of smokestacks. But that model breaks down when

the opposing force is ourselves: each and every one of us demanding that the globalized market provide us with cheaper and better food, clothes, and vacations. There is

no blocking the full, collective desires of the billions who are now part of the market economy and the billions more who want toand

ought tobe part of it. The only solution is to guide all-powerful market forces in the right direction and create incentives for

each of us to make choices that workfor all of us. The guideposts we have today for market forces evolved helter- skelterfrom a

historical process that gave almost no weight to the survival of the planet, largelybecause the survival of the planet was not at stake .

Now it is . Since we can't live without market forces, we need to guide them to help us keep the human adventure going

in workable ways , rather than continue on the present path right off the edge of a cliff.


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Forecasting Good

The inherent unpredictability of social events is all the more reason for creating optimal

resiliency through scenario planningCochrane 11 John H. Cochrane is a Professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a

contributor to Business Class "IN DEFENSE OF THE HEDGEHOGS" July 15 www.cato-unbound.org/2011/07/15/john-

h-cochrane/in-defense-of-the-hedgehogs/

Risk Management Rather than Forecast-and-Plan The answer is to change the question, to focus on risk management , as Gardner and

Tetlock suggest. There is a set of events that could happen tomorrowChicago could have an earthquake, there could be a run on Greek

debt, the Administration could decide Heavens, DoddFrank and Obamacare were huge mistakes, lets fix them (Okay, not the last one.) Attached to each

event, there is some probability that it could happen.Now forecasting as Gardner and Tetlock characterize it, is an attempt to

figure out which event really will happen, whether the coin will land on heads or tails, and then make a plan based on that knowledge.

Its a fools game. Once we recognize that uncertainty will always remain, risk management rather than forecasting is

much wiser. Just the step of naming the events that could happen is useful. Then, ask yourself, if this eventhappens, lets make sure we have a contingency plan so were not really screwed . Suppose youre counting on diesel generators to

keep cooling water flowing through a reactor. What if someone forgets to fill the tank? The good use offorecasting is to get a better handle

on probabilities, so we focus our risk management resources on the most important events. But we must still pay attention to events, and

buy insurance against them, based as much on the painfulness of the event as on its probability. (Note to economics techies:

what matters is the risk-neutral probability, probability weighted by marginal utility.) So its not really the forecast thats wrong, its what

people do with it. If we all understood the essential unpredictability of the world, especially of rare and very costly events, if we got rid

of the habit of mind that asks for a forecast and then makes plans as if that were the only state of the world that could o ccur; if we instead focused on

laying out all the bad things that could happen and made sure we had insurance or contingency plans, both personal and

public policies might be a lot better.


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Pesticide Defense

Pesticide Studies are Unscientific, Overblown, and UnprovenPrefer the ev because its from a

toxicologistSolomon 01 (Dr. Keith, Professor of Environmental Biology at the University of Guelph and a Director for the Centre of

Toxicology, writing in the Parry Sound Beacon Star, Pesticides are Safe: Proving the Improbable

http://www.24d.org/newsarticles/Solomon-Parry-Sound-2001.pdf)As a scientist who practices the scientific method, I am, in part, to blame. As a scientist, I cannot offer absolute and irrefutable proof that pesticides are safe. All that

science can do is say that one thing is more likely to happen and another, much more or much less likely, but never 100 percent for certain. No matter how

well designed an experiment, no matter how many mice or fish are used, the scientist will always report the result with

some uncertainty. This means that, even if there is no real effect of the substance on the liver, in some experiments a very small adverse effect will be seen,

while in others, a non-adverse effect will occur. This is because of natural variability and random events. The average of all

these is close to zero but for those who believe that an adverse effect should exist, the positive studies will

be absolute proof. The scientific method, the test of the null hypothesis, is designed to keep scientists honest and detached from whatever their beliefs may be.No scientist is pleased to find that nothing is happening; it is much more exciting and satisfying to find interesting responses and effects. As was pointed out nearly four

centuries ago by Francis Bacon, the father of the scientific method , it is human nature to diminish negative evidence and

exaggerate the significance of positive evidence. Because of this, we tend to ignore the negative evidence and focus on the positive, evidencethat is, in the analogy described above, essentially anecdotal. Some people believe in ghosts, the paranormal and in visitations of aliens, despite the countless years of

study that have failed to show any evidence in support of these phenomena. They do so because they choose to believe in anecdotal evidence. The media are

of little help because the possibility that some facet of our daily life may cause injury or worse is the

substance of headlines and increased circulation. This is a likely reason for the common misperception

that pesticides cause all types of diseases in humans. As discussed above, a study may report an association (link) between pesticide use

and a disease such as cancer in humans. However, one positive study does not prove a cause-and-effect between the pesticide

use and disease. Only if most studies consistently show this linkage and other lines of evidence alsosupport the conclusion would this association be accepted as showing causality. Pesticides are one of many tools in pestmanagement toolbox. They may be more efficient than other methods, but they are not absolutely necessary. As someone who does not live in Halifax, or in other

towns where bans have been proposed, I do not care one way or the other if they choose not to use pesticides. However, I do care when this is done in the name of

science and concern for health effects when, realistically, these do not exist. If the town councils and the citizens do not want pesticides used in their homes and

gardens, then all I ask is that they have the courage to admit that they do this for reasons of belief or politics, not on the basis of science.


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Endocrine Distruption Defense

Endocrine disruption is a mythit came from one study that had no evidence and was only

believed because of media hypeGordon 97 (Peter, contributor to the Cato Institute, Endocrine Disruptors, Politics, Pesticides,

http://www.ohiopma.org/pdfs/insight/ed/pub_id=6844.pdf )

And find it, she did. She collected every paper that described any abnormality in wildlife that live on or around the Great Lakes

and concluded that synthetic chemicals were mimicking the effects of hormones. They were causing every

problem in the literature, whether it was homosexual behavior among gulls, crossed bills in other birds, cancer in fish, or increases or decreases in any

wildlife population. The chemicals that have those activities were called "environmental estrogens" or "endocrine disrupters.

There was no more evidence to link them to every abnormality in wildlife than there had been in the

1960s to link every human cancer to chemicals. The absence of evidence wasn't much ofa problem. Colborn and

her colleagues believed that chemicals were the culprit, and the press and much of the public, nutured on the idea that

chemicals were bad, didn't require evidence. Even so, Colborn had a problem that EPA faced in its early days. Soon after EPA wasestablished, the agency leaders realized that protecting wildlife and the environment might be a good thing, but that Congress might not decide to lavish funds on such

activities. They were sure, however, that Congress would throw money at programs that were going to protect

human health from environmental risks.(3) Whether Colborn knew that history or not, she apparently realized that any real splash for endocrinedisrupters depended on tying them to human health effects. Using the same techniques she'd used to catalogue the adverse effects of endocrine disrupters on wildlife,

she reviewed the literature about human health effects that someway or another might be related to disruption of hormone activity. The list was long, including cancers,

birth defects, and learning disabilities, but the big hitter on the list was decreased sperm counts. According to Colborn and other's analyses of sperm counts made in

different parts of the world under different conditions of nutrition and stress and at different time periods, sperm counts had decreased by 50 percent in the post-World

War II period. If there's anything that catches the attention of Congress, it's risks to males. Congress banned leaded

gasoline after EPA released a report that said atmospheric lead was a cause of heart attacks in middle-aged men . The reported decrease in sperm

counts leaped up for attention, and attention it got. Congressional hearings were held, magazine articles were written, experts opined

about endocrine disrupters and sexual dysfunctions. And then it fell apart. Scientists found large geographical variations in spermcounts that have not changed over time. Those geographical variations and poor study designs accounted

for the reported decrease. That scare went away, but endocrine disrupters were here to stay.


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Monoculture Defense

Monoculture isnt more susceptible to disease wheat proves

4ICSC, 2004(Fourth International Crop Science Congress, Wheat monoculture is sustainable, September 27,

http://www.cropscience.org.au/icsc2004/a/media/cs040927_mono.htm)

Cultivation of the same crop in the same field year after yeara practice called monoculturehas long been regarded as

unsustainable because of declines in yields after about three years. The yield loss is generally attributed to soil-borne

pathogens that infect the roots of that crop, but that die out while the field is planted to a different crop. However, recent

researchat Washington State University (WSU) has documenteda remarkable and apparently widespread

microbiological control of a root disease in wheat and barley when these crops are grown continuously in the same

location.The root-associated microbes are responsible for the well-documented decline of the diseasetake-all and a correspondingincrease in yields following one or more outbreaks of the disease, said R. James Cook, interim dean of WSUs College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences. Dr Cook is a st rong advocate for crop rotation

for many reasons, but points out that crop monoculture also has advantages and can be achieved sustainably with the help of soil microbes. Cook and his colleague David M. Weller studied the pathogens responsible for four

major root diseases of wheat and barley grown in the inland Pacific Northwest. Breeding for host plant resistance has provided only useful tolerance for management of one of these, Fusarium crown rot, and no useful

resistance or tolerance to take-all, Rhizoctinia root rot and Pythium root rot, Cook said. Considering the fact that the forebears ofmodern wheat evolved as a

virtual monoculture, the lack of genes for resistanceto root diseases implies that some other defence mechanism

exists. Such protection develops against take-all with wheat monoculture. He said that wheat and barley selectively

stimulate and support populations of antagonistic microorganisms in the root zone. Often four to six consecutive

crops are required before the onset of take-all decline, but the exact number of consecutive crops may vary.

Even if diversity loss occurs, seed banks solve the impact

Rissing, 2008

(Steve, Biology professor at Ohio State University, Seed banks protect crops from growing list of threats, March 11,

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/science/stories/2008/03/11/sci_rissing11_ART_03-11-

08_B5_A99I7L6.html?type=rss&cat=&sid=101)The first several million seeds for the long-planned Global Seed Vaultarrived last month. Their new home, in the frozen

side of a mountain 700 miles from the North Pole, cost $8 million to build. The vaultjoins 1,400 other banks of various

kinds that preserve seeds and other tissues of crop plants. Indeed, the vault exists partly to restockany of those

banks after disastersthat might befall them. Civil unrest in Afghanistan and Iraq, for example, resulted in destruction of

seed banks there, according to a recent report in The New York Times. The world depends on a shrinking group of crop

plants attacked by a growing number of parasites, predators and pathogens.In the 1970s, a previously unknown variety of

grassy stunt virus appeared in rice crops around the world. A variety of insect, also previously unknown, spread the virus.

A search for plants resistant to the virus found a single, wild rice relative in a seed bank operated by the International Rice

Research Institute. Botanists bredthat resistance intoa line ofrice just in time to avert a global collapse in rice

production. A similar situation occurred in the summerof 1970 whena previously unknown variety of Southern cornleaf blight destroyed 15 percent of the U.S. corn crop. Genetic uniformity of the corn permitted the fungus to spread

through the Corn Belt like wildfire, according to later studies.

Monoculture is both natural and sustainable

Avery, 2003

(Dennis T., MimickingNature to Eat Well, April 30,

http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=2841)


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Dr. Michael Altieri of the University of California at Berkeley claims that monocultures are ecologically unstable. He says they provide optimalconditions for unhampered growth of weeds, insects, and diseases because many ecological niches are not filled by other organisms.But why use tropical biodiversity

as a model? Evolutionist Charles Darwin praised the huge kelp beds of the southern Atlantic, a natural monoculture. Darwin said, The

number of living creatures of all Orders whose existence intimately depends on the kelp is wonderful. Another virtual species monopoly, blue grama

grass, used to cover thousands of square miles of the central United States, supporting a rich web of wildlife ranging from hugebison and mammoths to prairie dogs, birds, and grasshoppers.Dr. Donald Wood, a plant resource expert who has worked in India, Kenya, and the West Indies, saysMother Nature offers other plant growth models that had more to do with the evolution of todays farming than tropical forests, including natural grasslands and the

flood plains of river valleys.He says the common belief that cereals arose as weeds on the fringes of human campsites is not

valid. As recently as a century ago, wild rice dominated the riverbanks in what is now Bangladesh. African wild rice was

historically harvested on a massive scale across Africa from southern Sudan to the Atlantic Ocean. Dr. Wood says these mono-

dominant stands of plant species led to wet rice cultivation, the single most important cropping system in the developing world.Perhaps thestrongest evidence of the natural mono-dominant pattern is wheat. Dr. Wood says that plant explorers have found wheat throughout the Near East in massive stands

covering many square kilometers, with up to three hundred plants per square meter. Sorghum can be found in mono-dominant stands on the

extensive tall-grass savannas of Sudanand Chad.Dr. Woods says that environmentally buffeted areas such as flood-prone river valleys, salt marshes,fire-prone prairies, and regions with highly seasonal rainfall usually have few species. Cereal grasses have grown wild there for millennia, defying Altieris claim that

monocultures are unstable.Man simply extended the area of natural mono-dominant ecosystems to support more people on

less land. Instead of waiting for floods to fertilize crops, modern farmers mimic nature by adding industrial fertilizer to the soil; instead of waiting for huge prairiefires to renew cereal stands, they plow.


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Genetic Diversity Defense

Big ag increases plant variety

Holmen, 2006(Hans, Associate professor in Social and Economic Geography, working as Senior Lecturer in Geography at the Tema

Institute, Linkoping University, Sweden, Mytsh about Agriculture, Obstacles to Solving the African Food Crisis,

European Journal of Development Researche, Sept., Vol. 18, Issue 3)

Also the claim that modern or scientific agriculture offers only a handful of uniform varieties (de Grassi and Rosset,

2003: 33), or even a few varieties of afew crops (Shiva, quoted in Pringle, 2003: 37), does not stand the test of closer

scrutiny. Transnational agri-business corporations may have an interest in limiting the number of varieties released,

since this could enhance profit.However, such restrictions do not apply topublicly owned crop research.Maredia et al.

(1998) report that, in Africa alone, public maize researchprogrammes released nearly 300 new varieties between 1966 and

1990. This equals more than a handful of new varieties per year. Evenson and Gollin (2003:3) found that from public

crop research programmesin Latin America, Asia andAfrica, by 2000, . . . more than 8000 modern varieties had beenreleased in 11 crops studied. They also showed that both the diversity and the rate of releases increase over time.

With more funding for public agricultural research, thesefigures could be substantially higher. Hence, neither externally

nor withinagriculture is it inevitable that modernisation or scientisation of agriculturewill lead to genetic erosion. 12


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Biodiversity Defense

Increased knowledge of big farms has decreased biodiversity loss

Avery, 2003(Dennis T., director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issues, Species Extinction rate lowest in 500

Years, August 28, http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=3021)

The world is losing wild species only half as rapidly as a hundred years ago, and the rate of extinctions is now the lowest

in five hundred years. Moreover, mankind[humanity] now has enough knowledge of high-yield farming, and forest and

wildlife management that we shouldn't have to suffer massive wild species losses in the future. This is the good news

according to Dr. Mark Collins, a top expert at the UN Environmental Program. The number of extinctions (twenty) among

birds, mammals and fish in the last third of the twentieth century was only half as great as in the extinctions (forty) in the last

third of the nineteenth and no greater than the rate of extinctions in the sixteenth century, according to the UNEP's recentlypublished World Atlas of Biodiversity. The Atlas totals 675 known wild species lost in the last 400 years, though the count of 83 mammals and 128 fish and birds gone

forever is more accurate than the estimate of extinct plants and insects.


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***NEG Movements Answers***


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No Movements

No political crises

Stelzer 9 Irwin Stelzeris a business adviser and director of economic policy studies at the Hudson Institute, Death ofcapitalism exaggerated, http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26174260-5013479,00.html

A FUNNY thing happened on the way to the collapse of market capitalismin the face of the worst economic crisis since the

Great Depression. It didn't. Indeed, in Germany voters relieved Chancellor Angela Merkel of the necessity of cohabiting with a left-wing party, allowing her to form

a coalition with a party favouring lower taxes and free markets. And in Pittsburgh leaders representing more than 90 per cent of the world's GDP

convened to figure out how to make markets work better, rather than to hoist the red flag . The workers are to be

relieved, not of their chains but of credit-card terms that are excessively onerous, and helped to retain their private property - their homes. All of this is contrary to

expectations. The communist spectre that Karl Marx confidently predicted would be haunting Europe is instead haunting

Europe's left-wing parties, with even VladimirPutin seeking to attract investment by re-privatising the firms he snatched. Which

raises an interesting question: why haven't the economic turmoil and rising unemployment led workers to the barricades,

instead of to their bankers to renegotiate their mortgages? It might be because Spain's leftish government has proved less

able to cope with economic collapse than countries with more centrist governments. Or because Britain, with a leftish government, is

now the sick man of Europe, its financial sector in intensive care, its recovery likely to be the slowest in Europe, its prime credit rating threatened. Or it

might be because left-wing trade unions, greedily demanding their public-sector members be exempted from the pain they want others to share, have

lost their credibility and ability to lead a leftward lurch. All of those factors contribute to the unexpected strength of

the Right in a world in which a record number of families are being tossed out of their homes, and jobs have been disappearing by the million. But even

more important in promoting reform over revolution are three factors: the existence of democratic institutions; the

condition of the unemployed; and the set of policies developed to cope with the recession. Democratic institutions give the aggrievedan outlet for their discontent, and hope they can change conditions they deem unsatisfactory. Don't like the way George W. Bush has skewed income distribution? Toss

the Republicans out and elect a man who promises to tax the rich more heavily. Don't like Gordon Brown's tax increases? Toss him out and hope the Tories mean it

when they promise at least to try to lower taxes. Result: angry voters but no rioters, unless one counts the nutters who break windows at McDonald's or storm banks in

the City. Contrast that with China, where the disaffected have no choice but to take to the streets. Result: an estimated 10,000 riots this year protesting against joblosses, arbitrary taxes and corruption. A second factor explaining the Left's inability to profit from economic suffering is

capitalism's ability to adapt , demonstrated in the Great Depression of the 1930s . While a gaggle of bankers and fiscal

conservatives held out for the status quo, Franklin D. Roosevelt and his experimenters began to weave a social safety net. In Britain, William Beveridge produced a

report setting the stage for a similar, indeed stronger, net. Continental countries recovering from World War II did the same. So unemployment no longer dooms a

worker to close-to-starvation. Yes, civic institutions were able to soften the blow for the unemployed before the safety net was put in place, but they could not cope with

pervasive protracted lay-offs. Also, during this and other recessions, when prices for many items are coming down, the real living

standard of those in work actually improves. In the US, somewhere between 85 per cent and 90 per cent of workers have kept their jobs, and now see

their living costs declining as rents and other prices come down. So the impetus to take to the streets is limited. Then there are the steps taken by

capitalist governments to limit the depth and duration of the downturn. As the economies of most of the big industrial countries imploded,policy went through two phases. The first was triage - do what is necessary to prevent the financial system from collapse. Spend. Guarantee deposits to prevent runs on

banks and money funds, bail out big banks, force relatively healthier institutions to take over sicker ones, mix all of this with rhetorical attacks on greedy bankers - the

populist spoonful of sugar that made the bailouts go down with the voters - and stop the rot. Meanwhile, have the central banks dust off their dog-eared copies of

Bagehot and inject lots of liquidity by whatever means comes to mind. John Maynard Keynes, meet Milton Friedman for a cordial handshake. Then came more

permanent reform, another round of adapting capitalism to new realities, in this case the malfunctioning of the financial

markets. Even Barack Obama's left-wing administration decided not to scupper the markets but instead to develop rules to

relate bankers' pay more closely to long-term performance; to reduce the chance of implosions by increasing the capital

banks must hold, cutting their profits and dividends, but leaving them in private hands; and to channel most stimulus spending through private-sector companies.

This leaves the anti-market crowd little room for manoeuvre as voters seem satisfied with the changes to make


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capitalism and markets workbetter and more equitably. At least so far. There are exceptions. Australia moved a bit to the left in the last

election, but more out of unhappiness with a tired incumbent's environmental and foreign policy. Americans chose Obama, but he had promised to

govern from the centre before swinging left. And for all his rhetorical attacks on greedy bankers and other malefactors of

great wealth, he sticks to reform of markets rather than their replacement, with healthcare a possible exception. Even in these

countries, so far, so good for reformed capitalism. No substitutes accepted.

Movements are getting smothered out of existenceno alternative economic system

Jones 11Owen, Masters at Oxford, named one of the Daily Telegraph's 'Top 100 Most Influential People on the Left'

for 2011, author of "Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class", The Independent, UK, "Owen Jones: Protest

without politics will change nothing", 2011, www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/owen-jones-protest-without-

politics-will-change-nothing-2373612.html

My first experience of police kettling was aged 16. It was May Day 2001, and the anti-globalisation movement was at its

peak. The turn-of-the-century anti-capitalist movement feels largely forgotten today, but it was a big deal at the time. To a

left-wing teenager growing up in an age of unchallenged neo-liberal triumphalism, just to have "anti-capitalism" flash up

in the headlines was thrilling. Thousands of apparently unstoppable protesters chased the world's rulers from IMF to

World Bank summitsfrom Seattle to Prague to Genoaand the authorities were rattled.

Today, as protesters in nearly a thousand cities across the world follow the example set by the Occupy Wall Street

protests, it's worth pondering what happened to the anti-globalisation movement. Its activists did not lack passion or

determination. But they did lack a coherent alternative to the neo-liberal project. With no clear political direction, the

movement was easily swept away by the jingoism and turmoil that followed 9/11, just two months after Genoa.

Don't get me wrong: the Occupy movement is a glimmer of sanity amid today's economic madness. By descending on the

West's financial epicentres, it reminds us of how a crisis caused by the banks (a sentence that needs to be repeated until it

becomes a clich) has been cynically transformed into a crisis of public spending. The founding statement of Occupy

London puts it succinctly: "We refuse to pay for the banks' crisis." The Occupiers direct their fire at the top 1 per cent, and

rightly soas US billionaire Warren Buffett confessed: "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class,that's making war, and we're winning."The Occupy movement has provoked fury from senior US Republicans such as Presidential contender Herman Cain whopredictablylabelled it "anti-American".

They're right to be worried: those camping outside banks threaten to refocus attention on the real villains, and to act as a catalyst for wider dissent. But a coherent

alternative to the tottering global economic order remains, it seems, as distant as ever. Neo-liberalism crashes around,

half-dead, with no-one to administer the killer blow.There's always a presumption that a crisis of capitalism is good news for the left. Yet in the Great Depression, fascism consumed much of Europe. The economic crisis

of the 1970s did lead to a resurgence of radicalism on both left and right. But, spearheaded by Thatcherism and Reaganism, the New Right definitively crushed its

opposition in the 1980s.This time round, there doesn't even seem to be an alternative for the right to defeat. That's not the fault of the

protesters. In truth, the left has never recovered from being virtually smothered out of existence . It was the victim of a perfect

storm: the rise of the New Right; neo-liberal globalisation; and the repeated defeats suffered by the trade union movement.

But, above all, it was the aftermath of the collapse of Communism that did for the left . As US neo-conservative Midge Decter triumphantly put it:"It's time to say: We've won. Goodbye." From the British Labour Party to the African National Congress, left-wing movements across the world hurtled

to the right in an almost synchronised fashion. It was as though the left wing of the global political spectrum had been sliced off. That's

why, although we live in an age of revolt, there remains no left to give it direction and purpose.


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Market Key

Market incentives are keyThe affs movements alone wont solve

Barnhizer 6 -- Professor of Law, Cleveland State University. (David, Waking from Sustainability's "ImpossibleDream": The Decisionmaking Realities of Business and Government, 18 Geo. Int'l Envtl. L. Rev. 595, Lexis)Medieval alchemists sought unsuccessfully to discover the process that would enable them to turn base metal into gold--assigning the name "Philosopher's Stone" to what they sought. The quest was doomed to failure. Just as a "sow's ear" cannot become a "silk purse,"

base metal cannot become gold.Sustainability is impossible for the same reasons. It asks us tobe something we are not, both individually and as a political and

economic community. It is impossible to convert humans into the wise, selfless, and nearlyomniscient creaturesrequired to build and

operate a system that incorporatessustainability. Even if it were ultimatelypossible (and it is not), it would take manygenerations to achieve and we are running

out of time. There is an enormous gap among what we claim we want to do, what we actually want to do, and our ability to achieve our

professed goals. I admit to an absolute distrust ofcheap and easy proclamations of lofty ideals and commitments to voluntary

or unenforceable codes of practice. The only thing that counts is the actor's actual behavior. For most people, that behavior is shaped by self-interest

determined by the opportunity to benefit or to avoid harm. In the economic arena this means that if a substantial return can be had without a high risk of

significantnegative consequences, the decision will be made to seek the benefit. It i s the reinvention of Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons. n1 This essay explores the nature of humandecisionmaking and motivation within critical systems. These systems in clude business and governmental decisionmaking with a focus on environmental and social areas of emerging crisis where the consequence of acting unwisely or failing to act wisely produces

large-scale harms for both human and natural systems. The analysis begins by suggesting that nothing humans create is "sustainable." Change is inevitable and [*597] irresistible whether

styled as systemic entropy, Joseph Schumpeter's idea of a regenerative "creative destruction," orNikolai Kondratieff's "waves" of economic and social

transformation. n2Business entities and governmental decisionmakers play critical roles in both causing environmental and

social harms and avoiding those consequences. Some have thought that the path to avoiding harm and achieving positive benefits is to develop codes of practice that by th eir language promise that decisionmakers

will behave in ways consistent with the principles that have come to be referred to as "sustainability." That beliefis a delusion--an "impossible dream." Daniel Boorstin once asked: "Have we been doomed to

make our dreams into illusions?" n3 He adds: "An illusion . . . is an image we have mistaken for reality. . . . [W]e cannot see it i s not fact." n4 Albert Camus warns ofthe inevitability offailing toachieve unrealistic

goalsand the need to become more aware of the limited extent of our power to effect fundamental change. He urges that we

concentrate on devisingrealistic strategies and behaviors that allow us to be effective in our actions. n5As companies are expected to implement global codes of conduct

such as the U.N. Global Compact and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, n6 and governments [*598] and multilateral inst itutions supposedlybecome more

concerned about limiting the environmental and social impacts of business decisionmaking, it may be useful to consider actual behavior related to

corporate and governmental responses to codes of practice , treaties, and even national laws. Unfortunately,business, government, and multilateralinstitutions have poor track records vis-a-vis conformity to such codes of practice and treaties .Despite good intentions, empty dreams and

platitudes may be counterproductive. This essay argues that the ideal of sustainability as introduced in the 1987 report of th e Brundtland Commission and institutionalized in the form of Agenda 21 at the 1992 Rio Earth

Summit is false and counterproductive. The ideal ofsustainability assumes that we are almost god-like , capable of perceiving, integrating, monitoring,

organizing, and controlling our world. These assumptions create an "impossible" character to the "dream" of sustainability in business and governmental decisionmaking.Sustainabilityof the Agenda 21

kind is a utopian vision that is the enemy of the possible and the good. The problem is that while on paper we can always sketch elegant

solutions that appear to have the ability to achieve a desired utopia, such solutions work "if only" everyone will come together and behave in the way laid

out in the "blueprint." n7 Humans should have learned from such grand misperceptions as the French Enlightenment's failure to accurately

comprehend the quality and limits of human nature or Marxism'sflawed view of altruistic human motivation that the "if only" is an

impossibly utopian reordering of human nature we will never achieve . n8 [*599] A critical defect in the idea of sustainable development is that it continues the flawed assumptionsabout human nature and motivation that provided the foundational premises of Marxist collectivism and centralized planning authorities. n9 Such perspectives inject rigidity and bureaucracy into a system that requires monitoring, flexibility, adaptation, and

accountability. But, in criticizing the failed Marxist-Leninist form of organization, my argument should not be seen as a defense of supposed free market capitalism. Like Marxism, a true free market capitalism does not really exist. The factors ofgreed and self

interest, limited human capacity, inordinate systemiccomplexity, and the power of large-scale driving forces beyond ourabilityto control

lead to the unsustainability of human systems.Human self-interest is an insurmountable barrier that can be affected to a

degreeonly by effective laws, the promise of significant financial or careerreturns, or fear of consequences. The only way to

change the behavior of business and governmental decisionmakers is through the use of the "carrot" and the "stick." n10 Yeteven this approach can only be achieved incrementally with limited positive effects.


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You should prefer pragmatic solutionsThe affs movements are impossible and ensure mass

suffering

Barnhizer 6David R. Emeritus Professor at Cleveland State Universitys Cleveland-Marshall College of Law;

Waking from Sustainability's "Impossible Dream": The Decisionmaking Realities of Business and Government. 2006

Georgetown International Environmental Law Review. 18 Geo. Int'l Envtl. L. Rev. 595 L/NWe face a combination of ecological, social, and economic crises. These crises involve the ability to fund potentially conflicting obligations for the provision of social

benefits, health care, education, pensions, and poverty alleviation. They also include the need for massive expenditures to "fix" what we have already broken. n59 Part

of the challenge is that in the United States and Europe we have made fiscal promises that we cannot keep. We also have vast economic needs for [*620]

continuing wealth generation as a precondition for achieving social equity on national and global levels. Figuring out how toreduce some of those obligations, eliminate others, and rebuild the core and vitality of our system must become a part of any honest social discourse. Even Pollyanna

would be overwhelmed by the choices we face. There will be significant pain and sacrifice in any action we take. But failing to take prompt and effective action will

produce even more catastrophic consequences.

The scale of social needs, including the need for expanded productive activity, has grown so large that it cannot be shut off

at all, and certainly not abruptly. It cannot even be ratcheted down in any significant fashion without producing serious

harms to human societies and hundreds of millions of people. Even if it were possible to shift back to systems of local

self-sufficiency, the consequences of the transition process would be catastrophic for many people and even deadly to thepoint of continual conflict, resource wars, increased poverty , and strife. What are needed are concrete, workable,

and pragmatic strategies that produce effective and intelligently designed economic activity in specific contexts and,

while seeking efficiency and conservation, place economic and social justice high on a list of priorities. n60The imperative of economic growth applies not only to the needs and expectations of people in economically developed societies but also to people living in nations

that are currently economically underdeveloped. Opportunities must be created, jobs must be generated in huge numbers, and economic resources expanded to address

the tragedies of poverty and inequality. Unfortunately, natural systems must be exploited to achieve this; we cannot return to Eden. The question is not how toachieve a static state but how to achieve what is needed to advance social justice while avoiding and mitigating the most destructive consequences of our behavior.

Many developing country groups involved in efforts to protect the environment and resist the impacts of free trade on their communities have been concerned with the

harmful effects of economic change. Part of the concern is the increased scale of economic activity. Some concerns relate to who benefits and who loses in the changing

context imposed by globalization. These concerns are legitimate and understandable. So are the other deep currents running beneath their political positions, including

those of resistance to change of any kind and a [*621] rejection of the market approach to economic activities. In the system described inaccurately as free market

capitalism, economic activity not only breaks down existing systems, it creates new systems and--as Joseph Schumpeter observed--

continually repeats the process through cycles of "creative destruction." n61 This pattern of creative destruction unfolds as necessarily and relentlessly as

does the birth-maturation-death-rebirth cycle of the natural environment. This occurs even in a self-sufficient or autarkic market system

capable of managing all variables within its closed dominion. But when the system breaks out of its closed environment,

the ability of a single national actor to control the system's dynamics erodes and ultimately disappears in the face of

differential conditions, needs, priorities, and agendas.Globalization's ability to produce wealth for a particular group simultaneously produces harms to different people and interests and generates unfair resource

redistribution within existing cultures. This is an unavoidable consequence of globalization. n62 The problem is that globalization has altered the rules of

operation of political, economic, and social activities, and in doing so multiplied greatly our ability to create benefit and

harm. n63 While some understandably want the unsettling and often chaotic effects of globalization to go away, it can only be dealt with, not reversed.

The system in which we live and work is no longer closed. There are few contexts not connected to the dynamics of some aspect of the extendedeconomic and social systems resulting from globalization. This means the wide ranging and incompatible variables of a global economic,

human rights, and social fairness system are resulting in conflicts and unanticipated interpenetrations that no one fully

understands, anticipates, or controls. n64 Local [*622] self-sufficiency is the loser in this process. It can remain a

nostalgic dream but rarely a reality . Except for isolated cultures and niche activities, there is very little chance that anyone will be unaffected by this

transformational process. Change is the constant, and it will take several generations before we return to a period of relative stasis. Even then it will only be a respite

before the pattern once again intensifies.


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Squo Structurally Improving

The squo is structurally improving

Goklany 9Worked with federal and state governments, think tanks, and the private sector for over 35 years. Workedwith IPCC before its inception as an author, delegate and reviewer. Negotiated UN Framework Convention on Climate

Change. Managed the emissions trading program for the EPA. Julian Simon Fellow at the Property and Environment

Research Center, visiting fellow at AEI, winner of the Julian Simon Prize and Award. PhD, MS, electrical engineering,

MSU. B.Tech in electrical engineering, Indian Institute of Tech. (Indur, Have increases in population, affluence and

technology worsened human and environmental well-being? 2009,

http://www.ejsd.org/docs/HAVE_INCREASES_IN_POPULATION_AFFLUENCE_AND_TECHNOLOGY_WORSENE

D_HUMAN_AND_ENVIRONMENTAL_WELL-BEING.pdf)

Although globalpopulation is no longer growing exponentially, it has quadrupled since 1900. Concurrently, affluence (or GDP per capita) has sextupled,global economic product (a measure of aggregate consumption) has increased 23-fold and carbon dioxide has increased over 15-fold (Maddison 2003; GGDC 2008;

World Bank 2008a; Marland et al. 2007).4 But contrary to Neo- Malthusian fears, average human well-being, measured by any objective indicator,

has never been higher. Food supplies,Malthus original concern, are up worldwide. Global food supplies per capita increased from 2,254 Cals/day in

1961 to 2,810 in 2003 (FAOSTAT 2008). This helped reduce hunger and malnutrition worldwide. The proportion of the population

in the developing world, suffering from chronic hunger declined from 37 percent to 17 percent between 196971 and 20012003

despite an 87 percent population increase (Goklany 2007a; FAO 2006). The reduction in hungerand malnutrition, along with

improvements in basic hygiene, improved access tosafer water and sanitation, broad adoption of vaccinations, antibiotics,

pasteurization and other public health measures, helped reduce mortality and increase life expectancies. These improvements

first became evident in todays developed countries in the mid- to late-1800s and started to spread in earnest to developing countries from the 1950s. The infant

mortality rate in developing countries was 180 per 1,000 live births in the early 1950s; today it is 57. Consequently, global life expectancy,

perhaps the single most important measure of human well-being, increased from 31 years in 1900 to 47 years in the early 1950s to 67 years today (Goklany

2007a). Globally, average annual per capita incomes tripled since 1950. The proportion of the worlds population outside of

high-income OECD countries living in absolute poverty (average consumption of less than $1 per day in 1985 International dollars adjusted forpurchasing power parity), fell from 84 percent in 1820 to 40 percent in 1981 to 20 percent in 2007 (Goklany 2007a; WRI 2008; World Bank 2007). Equally

important, the world is more literate and better educated. Child labor in low income countries declined from 30 to 18 percent

between 1960 and 2003. In most countries,people are freer politically, economically and socially to pursue their goals as they see fit.

Morepeople choose their own rulers, and have freedom of expression. They are more likely to live under rule of law, and

less likely to be arbitrarily deprived of life, limb and property.Social and professional mobility has never been greater. It

is easier to transcend the bonds of caste, place, gender, and other accidents of birth in the lottery of life. People work fewer hours, and

have more money and better health to enjoy their leisure time (Goklany 2007a). Figure 3 summarizes the U.S. experience over the 20th centurywith respect to growth of population, affluence, material, fossil fuel energy and chemical consumption, and life expectancy. It indicates that population has multiplied

3.7-fold; income, 6.9-fold; carbon dioxide emissions, 8.5-fold; material use, 26.5-fold; and organic chemical use, 101-fold. Yet its life expectancy increased

from 47 years to 77 years and infant mortality (not shown) declined from over 100 per 1,000 live births to 7 per 1,000. It is also important

to note that not only are people living longer, they are healthier. The disability rate for seniors declined 28 percent between

1982 and 2004/2005 and, despite better diagnostic tools, major diseases (e.g., cancer, and heart and respiratory diseases) occur811 years laternow than acentury ago (Fogel 2003; Manton et al. 2006). If similar figures could be constructed for other countries, most would indicate qualitatively similar trends, especially

after 1950, except Sub-Saharan Africa and the erstwhile members of the Soviet Union. In the latter two cases, life expectancy, which had increased following World

War II, declined after the late 1980s to the early 2000s, possibly due poor economic performance compounded, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, by AIDS, resurgence

of malaria, and tuberculosis due mainly to poor governance (breakdown of public health services) and other manmade causes (Goklany 2007a, pp.6669, pp.178181,

and references therein). However, there are signs of a turnaround, perhaps related to increased economic growth since the early 2000s,although this could, of course, be a temporary blip (Goklany 2007a; World Bank 2008a). Notably, in most areas of the world, the healthadjusted life expectancy

(HALE), that is, life expectancy adjusted downward for the severity and length of time spent by the average individual in a less-than-healthy condition, is greater now


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than the unadjusted life expectancy was 30 years ago. HALE for the China and India in 2002, for instance, were 64.1 and 53.5 years, which exceeded their unadjusted

life expectancy of 63.2 and 50.7 years in 19701975 (WRI 2008). Figure 4, based on cross country data, indicates that contrary to Neo-Malthusian fears,both life

expectancy and infant mortality improve with the level of affluence (economic development) and time, a surrogate fortechnological

change (Goklany 2007a). Other indicators ofhuman well-being that improve over time and as affluence rises are: access to safe water and sanitation(see below), literacy, level of education, food supplies per capita, and the prevalence of malnutrition (Goklany 2007a, 2007b).


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***NEG Solvency Answers***


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US AID Fails

No solvencywont listen to experts only people of similar social location

Wainer, immigration policy analyst for Bread for the World Institute, in 11[Andrew, Development and Migration In Rural Mexico, Bread for the World Institute, Brief

No. 11, January]

The apple growers were inclined to grow as many apples as they could with little regard for quality. This would give

them enough money to survive, but little more . The 2008 World Development Report describes the challenges in providing pathways out of rural poverty for ri sk-averse smallfarmers, The

inability [of small producers] to cope with shocks induces households to adopt low-risk, low-return activities. 47 Thus, the first stage

of the For a Just Market project trained the smallholder apple farmers how to access the apple market on better terms while also transmitting new techniques for producing higher-quality apples.In order to train the apple

farmers how to most profitably work with the apple market, CRS hired a Washington state agronomist who visited the

farmers in Chihuahua and trained them how to monitor the Mexican apple markets on the Internet. With better knowledge of the market, the smallfarmers could increase the income generated by their orchards by selling the apples when their price was peaking. In addition to the market analysis training, CRS facilitated the transmission of state-of-the-art apple orchardist techniques. Beginning in 2005, an

exchange program was created between the Chihuahua apple farmers and BroetjeOrchards Mexican immigrant agricultural laborers. After decades of working on the cutting edge of apple farming in the United States, the immigrants

knew how to produce the most valuable apples for market . The techniques they introduced to the Chihuahua farmers included tree pruning and trimming, drip-irrigation, tree spacing strategies, andhow to use anti-hail netting. In January 2006 a group of Chihuahua apple farmers visited Broetje Orchards to learn from the Me

small farms negative

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