Cap K

1. Sustainable energy is only an extension of green

capitalism. Even if it solves the environment in the short
term, it still fails to address the historic contradiction
between labor and capital.
Jerry Harris 10, Professor of History at DeVry University, Author of The Dialectics
of Globalization: economic and political conflict in a transnational world, national
secretary of the Global Studies Association of North America, Going Green to Stay
in the Black: Transnational Capitalism and Renewable Energy, Network for the
Critical Studies of Global Capitalism,
http://netglobalcapitalism.wordpress.com/articles/going-green-to-stay-in-the-blacktransnational-capitalism-and-renewable-energy/.
Abstract: Sustainable energy use is rapidly developing, often with state support and
patriotic political rhetoric. But the solar and wind energy industries are highly
transnationalized and already inserted into global patterns of accumulation. While
possibly solving some of the most pressing problems between capitalism and
environmental sustainability, green capitalism still fails to address the
contradiction between labor and capital. Therefore, any progressive strategy for
social transformation must link the fair treatment of nature and labor together. Is
the future of capitalism green? And will the country that leads in green technology
dominate the global economy? That is certainly the outlook of important sectors of
the capitalist class, both among long established corporations as well as new
entrepreneurs. But the green economy, particularly the energy sector, is already
taking a globalized path of development under the control of the transnational
capitalist class (TCC). While innovative corporations may emerge as dominant
players, it will be as transnational corporations (TNS), not as national champions of
nation-states. In the U.S. the green revolution is promoted as the way to maintain
world economic supremacy. In President Obamas state of the union speech he
said, the nation that leads the clean-energy economy will be the nation that leads
the global economy, and America must be that nation. (1) Environmentalist Hunter
Lovins calls on the U.S. to lead the world in green innovation because theyll rule
the world, economically, politically, and probably militarily. (2) Thomas Friedman
wraps green technology in red, white and blue calling it the new currency of power.
Its all about national powerwhat could be more patriotic, capitalistic and
geostrategic than that? (3). But these dreams of national greatest are already
outdated. Green energy can indeed extend the life of capitalism, but not within the
confines of nation-centric logic and power. Major wind and solar corporations
already operate on a global scale, with innovations and research ongoing in Europe,
India, Japan, China and the U.S. Furthermore, the scale of the environmental crisis is
beyond any one country to solve. It calls for a global response and advanced
sectors of the TCC understand these world dimensions. The environmental crisis
actually offers an opportunity for capitalism to begin a new cycle of

accumulation. A way to end the repeating failures of financial speculation with a

renewal of productive capital. As Muller and Passadakis explain, the point about
the ecological crisisis that it is neither solved nor ignored in a green capitalist
regime, but rather placed at the heart of its growth strategy.(4) By creating new
systems of energy, transportation, architectural design and reengineering
productive processes, capitalism can greatly reduce its abuse of the environment.
This would free capital from environmentally harmful industries for new areas of
investment and create profitable opportunities in dynamic new markets. Such a
strategic shift will not only solve the current crisis but legitimize a new political
regime and lay the foundation for a hegemonic bloc with a global social base.
Nonetheless, this transformation will not solve the contradiction between capital
and labor, and the TCC may lack the political resolve to move fast and far enough to
avoid major environmental disasters. But if the transformation does occur over the
coming decades, it may solve the most pressing problems between finite
environmental resources and the need of capitalism to grow and profit. With global
warming widely accepted as an existential crisis capitalists have seized upon
alternative and sustainable energy as a major transformative technology . United
Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has called for a worldwide Green New
Deal that would be a wholesale reconfiguration of global industry. (5) A study
published by Scientific American argues for a $100 trillion dollar program, projecting
that 100 percent of the worlds energy, for all purposes, could be supplied by wind,
water and solar resources by 2030. (6) That is a fair amount of money, but Fatih
Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency points out that, Each year
without an international agreement adds $500 billion to the costs estimated at
$10 trillion annually of cleaning up the power sector to help keep temperatures
within a range that would avoid unstoppable climate changes. (7) Given the scale
of the problem $100 trillion over 20 years sounds feasible. But dedicating $5 trillion
a year from a world GDP of $54 trillion (2007) seems impossible without a political
revolution. Although still a very small part of energy consumption, wind and solar
power are rapidly expanding and total clean energy investments in 2008 were $155
billion and $145 billion in 2009. (8) Eventually renewable energy may play an
economic role similar to the digital, computer and telecommunications revolution of
the past 30 years. These technologies laid the basis for globalization and vastly
expanded access to knowledge and information. (9) Economically there was
innovation, dynamic emerging corporations and new cycles of accumulation. The
technologies were also used by progressive activists across the world for organizing
and education. Just as the digital revolution spearheaded a new era of capitalist
globalization, so too can green technology open the door to the next era of growth
while promoting important progressive changes. While these possibilities exist, they
will develop within historic capitalist patterns that continually reassert themselves .
Digital technologies became centralized into a handful of transnational corporations,
both old and new, that today dominate the market and consume innovations
through constant buy-outs. That pattern is already appearing in the green energy
field, except there will be no singular leading location such as Silicon Valley. Solar
and wind technologies are global and being consolidated by a small number of
competitive TNCs. This does not necessarily undercut their environmental benefits.
But it does undercut the democratic possibilities for a decentralized system of

energy, and fails to solve the problems between capital and labor. By examining the
major wind and solar TNCs below, we can begin to uncover the character of the new
green economy.

2. Capitalism constantly exploits the environment inevitably

leads to biodiversity collapse, warming, and the
commodification of life
Darder, Distinguished Professor of Education, University of Illinois, 2010
(Professor Antonia Darder, Distinguished Professor of Education, University of
Illinois, Urbana Champaign, Preface in Critical Pedagogy, Ecoliteracy, & Planetary
Crisis: The Ecopedagogy Movement by Richard V. Kahn, 2010, pp. x-xiii) GENDER

MODIFIED
It is fitting to begin my words about Richard Kahns Critical Pedagogy, Ecoliteracy, and Planetary Crisis: The
Ecopedagogy Movement with a poem. The direct and succinct message of The Great Mother Wails cuts through our
theorizing and opens us up to the very heart of the books messageto ignite a fire that speaks to

ecological crisis

the

orchestrated by the inhumane greed and economic

brutality of the wealthy. Nevertheless, as is clearly apparent, none of us is absolved from
complicity with the devastating destruction of the earth . As members of the global community,
at hand; a crisis

we are all implicated in this destruction by the very manner in which we define ourselves, each other, and all living

Everywhere we look there are glaring signs of political

systems and social structures that propel us toward unsustainability and
beings with whom we reside on the earth.

extinction. In this historical moment, the planet faces some of the most horrendous forms of [hu]manCataclysmic natural disasters in the last decade have
sung the environmental hymns of planetary imbalance and reckless environmental disregard. A striking
feature of this ecological crisis, both locally and globally, is the overwhelming
concentration of wealth held by the ruling elite and their agents of capital. This
made devastation ever known to humankind.

environmental malaise is characterized by the staggering loss of livelihood among working people everywhere;
gross inequalities in educational opportunities; an absence of health care for millions; an unprecedented number of

trillions spent on fabricated wars fundamentally tied to the

control and domination of the planets resources. The Western ethos of mastery and
supremacy over nature has accompanied, to our detriment, the unrelenting
expansion of capitalism and its unparalleled domination over all aspects of human
life. This hegemonic worldview has been unmercifully imparted through a host of
public policies and practices that conveniently gloss over gross inequalities as
commonsensical necessities for democracy to bloom. As a consequence, the liberal democratic
rhetoric of we are all created equal hardly begins to touch the international pervasiveness of racism,
patriarchy, technocracy, and economic piracy by the West , all which have fostered the
erosion of civil rights and the unprecedented ecological exploitation of societies, creating conditions
that now threaten our peril, if we do not reverse directions. Cataclysmic disasters, such as Hurricane
people living behind bars; and

Katrina, are unfortunate testimonies to the danger of ignoring the warnings of the natural world, especially when

the manner in which

ecological crisis is vulgarly exploited by unscrupulous and ruthless capitalists who see no
problem with turning a profit off the backs of ailing and mourning oppressed populations
of every specieswhether they be victims of weather disasters, catastrophic illnesses, industrial pollution, or
coupled with egregious governmental neglect of impoverished people. Equally disturbing, is

these constitute ecological calamities that speak to

the inhumanity and tyranny of material profiteering, at the expense of precious life. The
arrogance and exploitation of neoliberal values of consumption dishonor the contemporary
suffering of poor and marginalized populations around the globe . Neoliberalism denies or
simply mocks (Drill baby drill!) the interrelationship and delicate balance that exists between all
living beings, including the body earth. In its stead, values of individualism, competition, privatization, and the
inhumane practices of incarceration. Ultimately,

free market systematically debase the ancient ecological knowledge of indigenous populations, who have,
implicitly or explicitly, rejected the fabricated ethos of progress and democracy propagated by the West.

In its

consuming frenzy to gobble up the natural resources of the planet for its own
hyperbolic quest for material domination, the exploitative nature of capitalism and
its burgeoning technocracy has dangerously deepened the structures of social
exclusion, through the destruction of the very biodiversity that has been key to our
global survival for millennia. Kahn insists that this devastation of all species and the planet must be fully
recognized and soberly critiqued. But he does not stop there. Alongside, he rightly argues for political principles of
engagement for the construction of a critical ecopedagogy and ecoliteracy that is founded on economic
redistribution, cultural and linguistic democracy, indigenous sovereignty, universal human rights, and a
fundamental respect for all life. As such, Kahn seeks to bring us all back to a formidable relationship with the earth,
one that is unquestionably rooted in an integral order of knowledge, imbued with physical, emotional, intellectual,
and spiritual wisdom. Within the context of such an ecologically grounded epistemology, Kahn uncompromisingly
argues that our organic relationship with the earth is also intimately tied to our struggles for cultural selfdetermination, environmental sustainability, social and material justice, and global peace. Through a carefully
framed analysis of past disasters and current ecological crisis, Kahn issues an urgent call for a critical ecopedagogy

ideological, political, and

systems, based on social structures and practices that can serve to promote ecological
sustainability and biodiversity or, conversely, lead us down a disastrous path of unsustainability and
that makes central explicit articulations of the ways in which societies construct
cultural

extinction. In making his case, Kahn provides a grounded examination of the manner in which consuming
capitalism manifests its repressive force throughout the globe, disrupting the very ecological order of knowledge
essential to the planets sustainability. He offers an understanding of critical ecopedagogy and ecoliteracy that
inherently critiques the history of Western civilization and the anthropomorphic assumptions that sustain patriarchy
and the subjugation of all subordinated living beingsassumptions that continue to inform traditional education
discourses around the world. Kahn incisively demonstrates how a theory of multiple technoliteracies can be used to
effectively critique the ecological corruption and destruction behind mainstream uses of technology and the media

sustainability
rhetoric of mainstream environmentalism actually camouflages wretched neoliberal policies and
practices that left unchecked hasten the annihilation of the globes ecosystem .
in the interest of the neoliberal marketplace. As such, his work points to the manner in which the

True to its promise, the book cautions that any anti-hegemonic resistance movement that claims social justice,
universal human rights, or global peace must contend forthrightly with the deteriorating ecological crisis at hand, as
well as consider possible strategies and relationships that rupture the status quo and transform environmental
conditions that threaten disaster. A failure to integrate ecological sustainability at the core of our political and
pedagogical struggles for liberation, Kahn argues, is to blindly and misguidedly adhere to an anthropocentric
worldview in which emancipatory dreams are deemed solely about human interests, without attention either to the
health of the planet or to the well-being of all species with whom we walk the earth.

3. Our alternative is to the economic decision-making power

in the hands of the working class and rid the government
of capitalist control
Socialist Labor Party of America, 1998, The Socialist Labor Party of
America tries to point out the horrors of capitalism, Who Are the Polluters?
Capitalism Is Destroying the Earth!
http://www.slp.org/res_state_htm/whopollute.html
Among the most serious problems facing society today is that of pollution and its
environmentally destructive effects. Air pollution, acid rain, toxic landfills, tainted

and toxic drinking water, industrial pollutants in our rivers and oceans, toxic or
cancer-producing pesticides on the produce we eat, poisons in the fish we eat,
unhealthy hormones and antibiotics in meat and dairy products, nuclear waste and
accidents, radiation testing by the government on unsuspecting thousands, ozone
depletion and global warmingthe list of bad news on the environment is seemingly
unending. Each of these environmental problems represents a serious menace in its
own right. Take, for example, the problem of global warming. Global Warming Carbon dioxide,
water vapor and other atmospheric gases trap the suns heat and warm the Earth.
Without this greenhouse effect, life on Earth would be impossible. But the
greenhouse effect is being intensified by modern capitalist society. The buildup of
carbon dioxide is primarily the result of burning oil, gas, coal, wood and other fuels
to provide energy for capitalist industry . The profit-motivated destruction of forests the world over
has also played a role because trees, like other green plants, consume carbon dioxide. Studies have confirmed the
trend toward global warming time and time again over the past two decades and shown that the trend is

Capitalists and capitalist government, however, have spent more time

attacking the studies than attempting to control pollution not surprisingly, since
controlling pollution and switching to cleaner, alternative energy sources would
reduce capitalist profits. Studies Ignored In 1989, NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies prepared
accelerating.

written testimony for Congress, which cited computer projections showing that the greenhouse effect would cause
substantial temperature increases, widespread droughts, flooding of coastal plains and other calamities; that global
warming from the greenhouse effect was already under way and that enough was already known about the human
intensification of the greenhouse effect to begin taking strong international action against air pollution. But

powerful elements of the ruling capitalist class didn't want to be pushed into taking
action against air pollutionthe owners of major polluting firms and others worried
about the drain on profits generally if government pollution-control regulations were
to be seriously stiffened and enforced, or if spending on pollution controls were to
be greatly increased. Bureaucrats sympathetic to those concerns in the Office of
Management and Budget decided that, since the facts of NASAs report didn't suit
them, they would have to change the facts before publishing the report. At issue in
the dispute were the computer models used to predict climatic change . The OMB
discounted the models, completely undercutting the reports conclusion that the environmental dangers were so
certain that they warranted immediate action against air pollution. Despite a 1992 international agreement among

major capitalist nations that recognized the problem and promised to negotiate
reductions in greenhouse gases, history seems to be repeating itself . In September 1994,
The New York Times reported a new assessment of the problem by a United Nations panel that corroborated the
conclusions of the 1989 NASA report and earlier reports. The Earth, the Times said, has entered a period of
climatic change that is likely to cause widespread economic, social and environmental dislocation over the next
century if emissions of heat-trapping gases are not reduced, according to experts advising the worlds
governments. The new feature of the assessment, the Times continued, is that the experts are now more
confident than before that global climate change is indeed in progress and that at least some of the warming is due
to human action.... Despite the more widespread agreement among scientists, the Times noted, skeptics continue
to assert that the models [used in the predictions] fail to simulate the present climate realistically and hence are an
unsure guide to future climates. The report will no doubt have little effect on the present efforts of the U.S.
Congress to undercut even the inadequate and infrequently enforced provisions of the Clean Air Act. Heads in the

the worlds polluters and their allies remain so stubbornly defensive of

capitalist profits that they would rather bury their heads in the sand than face up to
the fact that theyand all societywill bear far greater costs in the future, as global
warming continues. Their attitude is sheer madness, especially in view of the
combined effects of the plethora of environmental disasters facing the world today.
Taken together, they add up to one frightful, catastrophic process. This ongoing and
worsening process of environmental degradation will be difficult to reverse. The
Sand In short,

longer it continues, the greater the disastrous consequences for present and future
generations, and the greater the likelihood that the damage will be irreparable . Firm
and decisive action against all forms of pollution is long overdue. Over the last 25 years or so, millions of people
have protested against one form of pollution or another. They have demanded firm action to protect the
environment and have repeatedly elected politicians who have promised firm action. But the crisis continues. Laws

The laws that have been enacted and regulatory agencies that have been
established have at every turn been subverted by the very corporations and firms
responsible for the pollution, and by the class of capitalists that owns them. The
regulations themselves have been watered down; agencies aren't funded
adequately to act on them and are frequently corrupted by corporate interests;
enforcement of even inadequate regulations has been poor, raising the question of
whether the laws and regulations were ever in-tended to be anything more than
window dressing. To understand why regulation hasn't worked and what kind of
action will work to end this worsening environ-mental nightmare, it must be
understood that the environmental crisis is fundamentally an economic and class
issue. Its cause lies in the nature of the capitalist economic system . Cause of Pollution
Pollution is not an inevitable byproduct of modern industry . Methods exist or can
readily be developed to safely neutralize, recycle or contain most industrial wastes.
Less polluting forms of transportation and energy can be built. Adequate supplies of
food can be grown without deadly pesticides. The problem is that, under capitalism,
the majority of people have no power to make these kinds of decisions about
production. Under the capitalist system, production decisions are made by the
small, wealthy minority that owns and controls the industries and services the
capitalist class. And the capitalists who make up that class make their decisions to
serve, first and foremost, one goalthat of maximizing profit for themselves. That is
where the environmental crisis begins. From the capitalist point of view, it is
generally less costly to dump pollutants into the environment than to invest in
pollution-control equipment or pollution-free processes. It is more profitable to
continue energy production as it is rather than invest more heavily in solar, wind or
other alternative energy sources. Likewise with every other aspect of the
environmental crisis: Socially harmful decisions are made because, in one way or
another, they serve the profit interests of the capitalist class. Capitalist-class rule
over the economy also explains why government regulation is so ineffective: under
capitalism, government itself is essentially a tool of the capitalist class. Politicians
may be elected democratically, but because they are financed, supported and
decisively influenced by the economic power of the capitalist class, democratic
forms are reduced to a farce. The capitalist class and its government will never be
able to solve the environmental crisis. They and their system are the problem. It is
up to the working class, the majority of people who actually produce societys goods
and services and daily operate its industries, to end this crisis . The Socialist Solution The
Subverted

action workers must take is to realize their latent economic and political power as operators of the industries and
services by building industrywide unions integrated into one movement with the goal of building a new society with
completely different motives for productionhuman needs and wants instead of profitand to organize their own
political party to challenge the political power of the capitalists, express their mandate for change at the ballot box
and dismantle the state altogether. The new society they must aim for must be one in which society itself, not a
wealthy few, would own the industries and services, and the workers themselves would control them democratically
through their own organizations based in the workplaces. In such a society, the workers themselves would make
decisions governing the economy, electing representatives to industrial councils and to a workers congress
representing all the industries that would administer the economy. Such a societya socialist industrial democracy
is what is needed to solve the environmental crisis.

By placing the economic decision-making

power of the nation in the hands of the workers, by eliminating capitalist control and
the profit motive in favor of a system in which workers produce to meet their own
needs and wants, the necessary resources and labor could be devoted to stop
pollution at its source and clean up the damage already done .

4. Framework:
a. Deontological principles of rights should be considered
first other interpretations are assigned no moral value if
conflicting with the principles of rights because viewing
the debate from a deontological perspective is the only
way to guarantee freedom
Freeman 94 Avalon Professor in the Humanities at the University of
Pennsylvania, Ph.D. Harvard University, J.D. University of North Carolina (Samuel,
Utilitarianism, Deontology, and the Priority of Right, Philosophy and Public Affairs,
Vol. 23, No. 4, Autumn, pp. 313-349, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2265463)
The priority of right asserts then that the reasons supplied by moral motivesprinciples of right and their institutional requirements-have absolute precedence
over all other considerations. As such, moral motives must occupy a separate dimension in practical
reasoning. Suppose then a supplementary stage of practical reasoning, where the interests and
pursuits that figure into ordinary deliberation and which define our conception of the
good are checked against principles of right and justice. At this stage of reasoning,
any ends that directly conflict with these moral principles (e.g., racist ends or the
wish to dominate others), or whose pursuit would undermine the efficacy of principles of right (e.g., desires
for unlimited accumulation of wealth whatever the consequences for others), are assigned no moral
value, no matter how intensely felt or important they may otherwise be. Being without
moral value, they count for nothing in deliberation. Consequently, their pursuit is prohibited or
curtailed by the priority given to principles of right . The priority of right then describes the
hierarchical subordination in practical deliberation of the desires, interests, and plans that define a person's rational
good, to the substantive demands of principles of right.32 Purposes and pursuits that are incompatible with these
principles must be abandoned or revised. The same idea carries through to social and political deliberations on the
general good. In political deliberative procedures, the priority of right means that desires and interests of individuals
or groups that conflict with the institutional requirements of principles of right and justice have no legitimate claim
to satisfaction, no matter how intense peoples' feelings or how large the majority sharing these aims. Constitutional
restrictions on majority rule exhibit the priority of right. In democratic procedures, majorities cannot violate
constitutional rights and procedures to promote, say, the Christian religion, or any other aspect of their good that
undermines others' basic rights and opportunities. Similarly, the institutional requirements of Rawls's difference
principle limit, for example, property owners' desires for tax exemptions for capital gains, and the just savings
principle limits current majorities' wishes to deplete natural resources. These desires are curtailed in political
contexts, no matter how intense or widely held, because of the priority of principles of right over individual and
general good.33 The priority of right enables Rawls to define a notion of admissible conceptions of the good: of

Only
admissible conceptions of the good establish a basis for legitimate claims in political
procedures (cf. TJ, p. 449). That certain desires and pursuits are permissible , and
political claims based on them are legitimate, while others are not, presupposes
antecedently established principles of right and justice . Racist conceptions of the good are not
those desires, interests and plans of life that may legitimately be pursued for political purposes.

politically admissible; actions done in their pursuit are either prohibited or discouraged by a just social scheme, and
they provide no basis for legitimate claims in political procedures. Excellences such as knowledge, creativity, and
aesthetic contemplation are permissible ends for individuals so long as they are pursued in accordance with the
constraints of principles of right. Suppose these perfectionist principles state intrinsic values that it is the duty of
everyone to pursue. (Rawls leaves this question open. cf. TJ, p. 328.)

Still, they cannot supply a basis

for legitimate political claims and expectations; they cannot be appealed to in

political contexts to justify limiting others' freedom, or even the coercive
redistribution of income and wealth (cf. TJ, pp. 331-32). This is because of the priority of right over the
good. Now return to Kymlicka's argument. Kymlicka says both Rawls and utilitarians agree on the premise of giving
equal consideration to everyone's interests, and that because utilitarians afford equal consideration, "they must
recognize, rather than deny, that individuals are distinct persons with their own rightful claims. That is, in Rawls's
classification, a position that affirms the priority of the right over the good" (LCC, p. 26). Since "Rawls treats the
right as a spelling-out of the requirement that each person's good be given equal consideration," there is no debate
between Rawls and utilitarians over the priority of the right or the good (LCC, p. 40).

b. Utilitarianism disregards respect for the individual and

perpetuates societal inequality by evaluating utility as a
whole
Freeman 94 Avalon Professor in the Humanities at the University of
Pennsylvania, Ph.D. Harvard University, J.D. University of North Carolina (Samuel,
Utilitarianism, Deontology, and the Priority of Right, Philosophy and Public Affairs,
Vol. 23, No. 4, Autumn, pp. 313-349, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2265463)
The inclusion of all sentient beings in the calculation of interests severely
undermines the force of any claim that utilitarianism is an "egalitarian" doctrine,
based in some notion of equal concern and respect for persons . But let us assume Kymlicka
can restore his thesis by insisting that it concerns, not utilitarianism as a general moral doctrine, but as a more
limited thesis about political morality. (Here I pass over the fact that none of the utilitarians he relies on to support
his egalitarian interpretation construe the doctrine as purely political. The drift of modern utilitarian theory is just

utilitarianism is not seen as a political doctrine, to be appealed to by

legislators and citizens, but a nonpublic criterion of right that is indirectly applied [by
whom is a separate issue] to assess the nonutilitarian public political conception of justice .)
the other way:

Still, let us assume it is as a doctrine of political morality that utilitarianism treats persons, and only persons, as

Even in this form it cannot be that maximizing utility is "not a goal" but a "byproduct," "entirely derived from the prior requirement to treat people with equal
consideration" (CPP, p. 31) Kymlicka says, "If utilitarianism is best seen as an egalitarian doctrine, then there
equals.

is no independent commitment to the idea of maximizing welfare" (CPP, p. 35, emphases added). But how can this
be? (i) What is there about the formal principle of equal consideration (or for that matter occupying a universal
point of view) which would imply that we maximize the aggregate of individuals' welfare? Why not assume, for
example, that equal consideration requires maximizing the division of welfare (strict equality, or however equal
division is to be construed); or, at least maximize the multiple (which would result in more equitable distributions
than the aggregate)? Or, why not suppose equal consideration requires equal proportionate satisfaction of each
person's interests (by for example, determining our resources and then satisfying some set percentage of each
person's desires) . Or finally we might rely on some Paretian principle: equal consideration means adopting
measures making no one worse off. For reasons I shall soon discuss, each of these rules is a better explication of

the utilitarian aggregative method, which in

effect collapses distinctions among persons. (2) Moreover, rather than construing individuals'
equal consideration of each person's interests than is

"interests" as their actual (or rational) desires, and then putting them all on a par and measuring according to
intensity, why not construe their interests lexically, in terms of a hierarchy of wants, where certain interests are, to
use Scanlon's terms, more "urgent" than others, insofar as they are more basic needs? Equal consideration would
then rule out satisfying less urgent interests of the majority of people until all means have been taken to satisfy
everyone's more basic needs. (3) Finally, what is there about equal consideration, by itself, that requires
maximizing anything? Why does it not require, as in David Gauthier's view, optimizing constraints on individual

to say we ought
to give equal consideration to everyone's interests does not, by itself, imply much of
anything about how we ought to proceed or what we ought to do . It is a purely
formal principle, which requires certain added, independent assumptions, to yield any substantive
utility maximization? Or why does it not require sharing a distribution? The point is just that,

conclusions. That (i)

utilitarian procedures maximize is not a "by-product" of equal

consideration. It stems from a particular conception of rationality that is explicitly incorporated into the
procedure. That (2) individuals' interests are construed in terms of their (rational) desires
or preferences, all of which are put on a par, stems from a conception of individual
welfare or the human good: a person's good is defined subjectively , as what he wants or
would want after due reflection. Finally (3), aggregation stems from the fact that, on the classical view, a
single individual takes up everyone's desires as if they were his own,
sympathetically identifies with them, and chooses to maximize his "individual"
utility. Hare, for one, explicitly makes this move. Just as Rawls says of the classical view, Hare "extend[s] to
society the principle of choice for one man, and then, to make this extension work, conflat[es] all persons into one
through the imaginative acts of the impartial sympathetic spectator" (TJ, p. 27). If these are independent premises

maximizing aggregate
utility cannot be a "by-product" of a procedure that gives equal consideration to
everyone's interests. Instead, it defines what that procedure is. If anything is a byproduct here, it is the appeal to equal consideration . Utilitarians appeal to impartiality in order to
incorporated into the justification of utilitarianism and its decision procedure, then

extend a method of individual practical rationality so that it may be applied to society as a whole (cf. TJ, pp. 26-27).
Impartiality, combined with sympathetic identification, allows a hypothetical observer to experience the desires of
others as if they were his own, and compare alternative courses of action according to their conduciveness to a

The significant fact is that, in this

procedure, appeals to equal consideration have nothing to do with impartiality between
persons. What is really being given equal consideration are desires or experiences
of the same magnitude. That these are the desires or experiences of separate
persons (or, for that matter, of some other sentient being) is simply an incidental fact that has no
substantive effect on utilitarian calculations. This becomes apparent from the fact that we can
single maximand, made possible by equal consideration and sympathy.

more accurately describe the utilitarian principle in terms of giving, not equal consideration to each person's
interests, but instead equal consideration to equally intense interests, no matter where they occur. Nothing is lost in

persons enter into utilitarian

calculations only incidentally. Any mention of them can be dropped without loss of
the crucial information one needs to learn how to apply utilitarian procedures. This
indicates what is wrong with the common claim that utilitarians emphasize
procedural equality and fairness among persons, not substantive equality and
fairness in results. On the contrary, utilitarianism, rightly construed, emphasizes neither procedural nor
this redescription, and a great deal of clarity is gained. It is in this sense that

substantive equality among persons. Desires and experiences, not persons, are the proper objects of equal concern
in utilitarian procedures. Having in effect read persons out of the picture at the procedural end, before decisions on

it is little wonder that utilitarianism can result in such

substantive inequalities. What follows is that utilitarian appeals to democracy and the
democratic value of equality are misleading. In no sense do utilitarians seek to give persons equal
distributions even get underway,

concern and respect.

Case

Energy
US economy high now consumer confidence
Glinski 7/10 Columbia University grad and reporter at Bloomberg (Nina,
Consumer View of U.S. Economy Highest Since Early 2008, 10 July 2014,
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-10/consumer-view-of-u-s-economyhighest-since-early-2008.html//AL)
Consumer sentiment improved last week as Americans were more upbeat about the
U.S. economy than at any time in the past six years. The Bloomberg Consumer
Comfort Index rose to 37.6 in the week ended July 6, the third-strongest reading
since the start of 2008, from 36.4 in the prior period. The gauge measuring views of
the economy, which has surged 7.1 points since a mid-May low, reached the highest
point since January 2008. More hiring and fewer firings this year have helped firm
sentiment, setting the stage for a pickup in consumer spending that will probably
bolster the economy. Middle-income and wealthier households were among those
turning more optimistic last week as stocks rose to a record and gasoline prices
stabilized. Improving labor and stock markets have bolstered middle-income
opinion about the state of the economy and their own personal financial situations ,
said Joseph Brusuelas a senior economist at Bloomberg LP in New York. Job creation
exceeded economists expectations in June, climbing 288,000 after a 224,000 gain,
while the unemployment rate fell to a near six-year low, Labor Department figures
showed last week. Companies are also limiting dismissals. A report today showed
fewer Americans than forecast filed applications for unemployment benefits last
week. Jobless claims declined by 11,000 to 304,000 in the week ended July 5, the
fewest in more than a month, according to the Labor Department. The median
forecast of 45 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for 315,000 claims.

Cant solve oil dependence requires unsustainable amounts

of energy, water, and fertilizer
Rampton and Zabarenko 12 environmental correspondents for Reuters
(Roberta and Deborah, Algae biofuel not sustainable now-U.S. research council,
Reuters, 10-24-12, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/24/us-usa-biofuels-algaeidUSBRE89N1Q820121024)//KG
Biofuels made from algae, promoted by President Barack Obama as a possible way
to help wean Americans off foreign oil, cannot be made now on a large scale without
using unsustainable amounts of energy, water and fertilizer, the U.S. National
Research Council reported on Wednesday. "Faced with today's technology, to scale
up any more is going to put really big demands on ... not only energy input, but
water, land and the nutrients you need, like carbon dioxide, nitrate and phosphate,"
said Jennie Hunter-Cevera, a microbial physiologist who headed the committee that
wrote the report. Hunter-Cevera stressed that this is not a definitive rejection of

algal biofuels, but a recognition that they may not be ready to supply even 5
percent, or approximately 10.3 billion gallons (39 billion liters), of U.S.
transportation fuel needs. "Algal biofuels is still a teenager that needs to be
developed and nurtured," she said by telephone. The National Research Council is
part of the National Academies, a group of private nonprofit institutions that advise
government on science, technology and health policy. Its sustainability assessment
was requested by the Department of Energy, which has invested heavily in projects
to develop the alternative fuel.

Oil price shocks wont devastate the economy anymore

Ro 6/30 - Sam is editor of Money Game. He has been published on Forbes,
DealBreaker, and The Fiscal Times. He was the senior equity analyst for the Forbes
Special Situation Survey and Forbes Growth Investor equity newsletters. Sam has
also held positions at James F. Reda & Associates, Brown Brothers Harriman, and
Paul Weiss. He holds a BA in Religion from Boston University, and he is a CFA
Charterholder (Sam, Oil Price Shocks Aren't As Harmful As They Used To Be, 30
June 2014, http://www.businessinsider.com/impact-of-oil-price-shock-2014-6//AL)
Recent turmoil in Iraq has sent oil prices much higher. But economists aren't ready
to freak out just yet. "Over time, however, those shocks to the relative price of oil
have spurred innovations that have led to a more efficient use of energy inputs,"
continued Zentner. "Alongside growing use of other energy inputs, those
innovations have reduced the world economys dependence on oil ." Zentner
presented this chart showing how a decreasing amount of energy has been needed
to generated a dollar's worth of GDP in the world. It may not be immediately
intuitive how this could be. Zentner offers a more micro level example that anyone
who's been in a car can appreciate. US households have also adjusted consumption
patterns over time. When gasoline prices rise, drivers tend to reduce mileage in
response and/or seek out more fuel efficient vehicles. This altered behavior, co upled
with shifting demographic factors and a slow labor market recovery since the
financial crisis, has weighed on vehicle miles driven and lessens the aggregate
impact of price increases at the pump. In the 12 months ended May 2014, average
vehicle miles driven remained below the previous peak (reached in November 2007)
for a 76th straight month. In 1990, consumers devoted 3.8% of total consumption to
motor fuels. By 2013, that share had fallen to 2.3% (Exhibit 3). Here's her chart. It
shares a similar downward slope as the chart above. It's certainly worth noting that
innovation isn't just about fuel efficiency. Technological developments have enabled
U.S. oil drillers to extract fossil fuels from shale in North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas
and elsewhere using unconventional methods. Indeed, thanks to the shale boom,
we might not even see Middle East-triggered oil price spikes we've seen in past.

No impact to econ decline

Bazzi and Blattman 11 -- Bazzi is a grad student at the Department of
Economics at University of California San Diego and Christopher Blattman is an

assistant professor of political science and economics at Yale (Samuel and

Christopher, November 2011 Economic Shocks and Conflict: The (Absence of?)
Evidence from Commodity Prices
http://www.chrisblattman.com/documents/research/2011.EconomicShocksAndConfli
ct.pdf?9d7bd4)//AA
VI. Discussion and conclusions A. Implications for our theories of political instability
and conflict The state is not a prize?Warlord politics and the state prize logic lie at
the center of the most influential models of conflict, state development, and
political transitions in economics and political science. Yet we see no evidence for
this idea in economic shocks, even when looking at the friendliest cases: fragile and
unconstrained states dominated by extractive commodity revenues. Indeed, we see
the opposite correlation: if anything, higher rents from commodity prices weakly 22
lower the risk and length of conflict . Perhaps shocks are the wrong test. Stocks of
resources could matter more than price shocks (especially if shocks are transitory).
But combined with emerging evidence that war onset is no more likely even with
rapid increases in known oil reserves (Humphreys 2005; Cotet and Tsui 2010) we
regard the state prize logic of war with skepticism.17 Our main political economy
models may need a new engine. Naturally, an absence of evidence cannot be taken
for evidence of absence. Many of our conflict onset and ending results include
sizeable positive and negative effects.18 Even so, commodity price shocks are
highly influential in income and should provide a rich source of identifiable variation
in instability. It is difficult to find a better-measured, more abundant, and plausibly
exogenous independent variable than price volatility. Moreover, other time-varying
variables, like rainfall and foreign aid, exhibit robust correlations with conflict in
spite of suffering similar empirical drawbacks and generally smaller sample sizes
(Miguel et al. 2004; Nielsen et al. 2011). Thus we take the absence of evidence
seriously. Do resource revenues drive state capacity?State prize models assume
that rising revenues raise the value of the capturing the state, but have ignored or
downplayed the effect of revenues on self-defense. We saw that a growing empirical
political science literature takes just such a revenue-centered approach, illustrating
that resource boom times permit both payoffs and repression, and that stocks of
lootable or extractive resources can bring political order and stability. This
countervailing effect is most likely with transitory shocks, as current revenues are
affected while long term value is not. Our findings are partly consistent with this
state capacity effect. For example, conflict intensity is most sensitive to changes in
the extractive commodities rather than the annual agricultural crops that affect
household incomes more directly. The relationship only holds for conflict intensity,
however, and is somewhat fragile. We do not see a large, consistent or robust
decline in conflict or coup risk when prices fall. A reasonable interpretation is that
the state prize and state capacity effects are either small or tend to cancel one
another out. Opportunity cost: Victory by default?Finally, the inverse relationship
between prices and war intensity is consistent with opportunity cost accounts, but
not exclusively so. As we noted above, the relationship between intensity and
extractive commodity prices is more consistent with the state capacity view.
Moreover, we shouldnt mistake an inverse relation between individual aggression
and incomes as evidence for the opportunity cost mechanism. The same correlation

is consistent with psychological theories of stress and aggression (Berkowitz 1993)

and sociological and political theories of relative deprivation and anomie (Merton
1938; Gurr 1971). Microempirical work will be needed to distinguish between these
mechanisms. Other reasons for a null result.Ultimately, however, the fact that
commodity price shocks have no discernible effect on new conflict onsets, but some
effect on ongoing conflict, suggests that political stability might be less sensitive to
income or temporary shocks than generally believed. One possibility is that
successfully mounting an insurgency is no easy task. It comes with considerable
risk, costs, and coordination challenges. Another possibility is that the
counterfactual is still conflict onset. In poor and fragile nations, income shocks of
one type or another are ubiquitous. If a nation is so fragile that a change in prices
could lead to war, then other shocks may trigger war even in the absence of a price
shock. The same argument has been made in debunking the myth that price shocks
led to fiscal collapse and low growth in developing nations in the 1980s.19 B. A
general problem of publication bias? More generally, these findings should heighten
our concern with publication bias in the conflict literature. Our results run against a
number of published results on commodity shocks and conflict, mainly because of
select samples, misspecification, and sensitivity to model assumptions, and, most
importantly, alternative measures of instability. Across the social and hard sciences,
there is a concern that the majority of published research findings are false (e.g.
Gerber et al. 2001). Ioannidis (2005) demonstrates that a published finding is less
likely to be true when there is a greater number and lesser pre-selection of tested
relationships; there is greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and
models; and when more teams are involved in the chase of statistical significance.
The cross-national study of conflict is an extreme case of all these. Most worryingly,
almost no paper looks at alternative dependent variables or publishes systematic
robustness checks. Hegre and Sambanis (2006) have shown that the majority of
published conflict results are fragile, though they focus on timeinvariant regressors
and not the time-varying shocks that have grown in popularity. We are also
concerned there is a file drawer problem (Rosenthal 1979). Consider this decision
rule: scholars that discover robust results that fit a theoretical intuition pursue the
results; but if results are not robust the scholar (or referees) worry about problems
with the data or empirical strategy, and identify additional work to be done. If
further analysis produces a robust result, it is published. If not, back to the file
drawer. In the aggregate, the consequences are dire: a lower threshold of evidence
for initially significant results than ambiguous ones.20

Environment
Apocalyptic Ecological collapse scenarios create apathy and
tank solvency. Reject the aff, the only real solutions to resolve
these impacts are through appealing to the community
through discussions
Brian Tokar - M.A., biophysics, Harvard University, and is the current director for
the Institute for Social Ecology; April 11, 2013; Apocalypse, Not? by Brian Tokar;
Institute for Social Ecology; http://www.social-ecology.org/2013/04/apocalypse-notby-brian-tokar/
Eddie Yuen, editor of two essential volumes that analyzed the emergence of
anticapitalist movements in conjunction with the Seattle WTO protests, focuses his
chapter on the prevalence of apocalyptic thinking in the environmental movement.
While there is no question that we are in a genuinely catastrophic moment in
human history, the litanies of calamity often emphasized by environmentalists have
led to a catastrophe fatigue that ultimately pacifies rather than energizes most
people. Yuen invokes the familiar figures of Thomas Malthus and Al Gore to bookend
his analysis of how catastrophic predictions often fail to usher in positive social
outcomes. (Gore, it is rarely acknowledged, was among the first to predict that an
inadequate response to climate change would likely lead to increased political
repression.) Further, false predictions of catastrophe, from the population bomb to
the Y2K frenzy fueled in part by Helen Caldicott and many environmentalists
often serve to discredit environmental predictions in the eyes of much of the public.
Apocalyptic scenarios, in Yuens words, serve as a kind of substitutionism, in
which a miraculous event transforms consciousness, wipes the slate clean and
abruptly changes the world [without] the need for difficult organizing and conflictive
politics. For Yuen, todays popular forecasters of ecological collapse are more likely
to fuel right wing fanaticism, e.g. calls to seal the borders to immigrants, than to
facilitate a progressive awakening. Real solutions must be prefigurative and
practical as well as visionary and participatory, appealing to community and
solidarity rather than austerity and discipline, but unfortunately the book offers
few suggestions for how to actualize this. Radical disaster relief efforts, from
Common Ground in New Orleans to Occupy Sandy, offer one inspiring model of how
to help further utopian expectations in apocalyptic times, and the analysis here
could have been strengthened by a discussion of such examples, among others.

Cant solve warming may even cause more greenhouse gas

emissions than fossil fuels
Rampton and Zabarenko 12 environmental correspondents for Reuters
(Roberta and Deborah, Algae biofuel not sustainable now-U.S. research council,
Reuters, 10-24-12, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/24/us-usa-biofuels-algaeidUSBRE89N1Q820121024)//KG

GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS It said a main reason to use alternative fuels for
transportation is to cut climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions created by
burning fossil fuel. But estimates of greenhouse emissions from algal biofuels cover
a wide range, with some suggesting that over their life cycle, the fuels release
more climate-warming gas than petroleum, it said. The product now made in
small quantities by Sapphire uses algae, sunlight and carbon dioxide as feedstocks
to make fuel that is not dependent on food crops or farmland. The company calls it
"green crude." Tim Zenk, a Sapphire vice president, said the company has worked
for five years on the sustainability issues examined in the report. "The NRC has
acknowledged something that the industry has known about in its infancy and
began to address immediately," he said. He said Sapphire recycles water and uses
land that is not suitable for agriculture at its New Mexico site, where it hopes to
make 100 barrels of algal biofuel a day by 2014. The U.S. Navy used algal biofuel
along with fuel made from cooking oil waste as part of its "Green Fleet" military
exercises demonstration this summer, drawing fire from Republican lawmakers for
its nearly $27 per gallon cost. The council study also said it was unclear whether
producing that much biofuel from algae would actually lead to reduced greenhouse
gas emissions. The report shows the strategy is too risky, said Friends of
the Earth, an environmental group. "Algae production poses a double-edged
threat to our water resources, already strained by the drought," Michal Rosenoer, a
biofuels campaigner with the group, said in a statement.

The plan hurts the environment limits access to foraging

areas, creates entanglement and drowning hazards, and
contributes to plastic pollution in the ocean
Hughes 5/20 Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (Stephanie N, Interactions of
marine mammals and birds with offshore membrane enclosures for growing algae
(OMEGA), 20 May 2014,
http://www.aquaticbiosystems.org/content/10/1/3#B20//AL)
In general, animal interactions with the experimental PBRs floating in Moss Landing
harbor in fall and winter were brief (usually <5 minutes) and all interactions
represented <6% of the total video recording time. This means these interactions
accounted for a minor portion of the daily activity of the animals in this habitat
during this time of the year. Longer studies that include spring and summer are
required to determine if there are seasonal behavioral differences that may have
more significant impact on the animals or the OMEGA systems. Even these small
OMEGA PBRs however, indicated that sea otters and birds will use floating PBRs to
forage and rest, suggesting that large-scale OMEGA systems will provide significant
foraging areas for marine mammals and many species of birds, depending on the
location. There was no indication that the animals observed in this study, even
those that were proactive in their interactions or the captive animals commanded to
bite, drag, and jump onto PBRs, damaged the PBRs. While the behavior of trained
captive pinnipeds does not reflect what their wild counterparts may do, it does
indicate that some behaviors are not problematic for a future OMEGA system of
similar design. Instron results indicated that it is possible for otter teeth and bird
beaks to puncture PBR plastic, particularly if the plastic was weathered in the harbor

for 3 months before testing. The reported biting force of sea otters is proportional to
their body size, but even small animals can generate sufficient biting force
(>200 N) to puncture the PBR plastic [49]. Although the actual pecking force of gulls
was undetermined, for falcons with sharp beaks, it was shown to scale isometrically
with body size and for the largest birds it did not exceed 14 N [50]. For granivorous
birds, it did not exceed 39 N [51]. These reported pecking forces are less than the
70-90 N measured for the gull beak to puncture the LLDPE plastics even after
weathering. Additional experiments are needed to determine if gulls or other birds
will be able to peck through PBR plastics or damage them in other ways. In a fullscale OMEGA deployment, the PBRs and associated support infrastructure will cover
hundreds or thousands of hectares of coastal waters in protected bays and is
expected to remain in place for years [4]. Depending on the location, such an
offshore installation, along with operations for tending, cleaning, and harvesting, is
expected to change the local ecology in ways that will impact the marine mammals
and birds as well as other coastal community members. In addition to the OMEGA
anchoring or mooring systems, which may limit access to foraging areas and
create potential entanglement and drowning hazards, there will be changes
in the local community due to an increase in sessile and associated organisms on
the vast exposed surfaces of OMEGA, and this surface installation will change the
water column and benthos due to shading. It is possible that OMEGA could
contribute to plastic pollution in the ocean [52-54] if OMEGA structures and
plastics are released into the environment by accidents, harsh weather, or
tsunamis. Emergency plans must be developed for OMEGA systems to anticipate
and ameliorate such potential environmental problems. On the other hand, it may
be anticipated that the large OMEGA infrastructure will act as a fish-aggregating
device and become an artificial reef, both of which increase local species
diversity and expand the local food web [55]. It has been shown that the submerged
surfaces of OMEGA PBRs provide substrate, refugia, and habitat for sessile and
associated organisms [46], thereby increasing local productivity and diversity and
potentially improving coastal water quality [20,21,56]. Observations of coastal
marine mammals and birds reported here provide insights into how resident animals
react to PBRs deployed within their habitats. Future larger and longer studies should
be undertaken in diverse coastal habitats to assess the ecological impacts of fullscale OMEGA systems.

Tons of alt causes to warming

Bryce, 2011
(Robert Bryce, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, author of Power Hungry:
The Myths of Green Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future, Dont Count Oil Out
Alternative energies wont replace oil, gas, and coal anytime soon, 2011,
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2011/10/oil_and_gas_won_t_b
e_replaced_by_alternative_energies_anytime_so.html, Accessed: 7/18/14, RH)
Its easy to pick the dominant environmental issue of the last decade. It has been
the issue of climate change and whatif anythingthe countries of the world can
do to limit, or reduce, carbon dioxide emissions. But during that same decade,

global carbon dioxide emissions rose by 28.5 percent to some 33 billion

tons. And by 2030, the International Energy Agency expects global carbon
dioxide emissions to rise by another 21 percent to about 40 billion tons.
Carbon dioxide emissions will continue rising because hundreds of millions of people
in places like Vietnam, Malaysia, and South Korea and, of course, China and India
are transitioning to a modern lifestyle, complete with cars, TVs, and other
manufactured goods. As they do so, they are using more energy. Specifically, they
are using more hydrocarbonscoal, oil, and natural gas. And while lots of idealistic
environmentalists and some policymakers argue that we should quit using carbonbased fuels and move to a global economy powered by nothing but renewables, the
hard reality is that hydrocarbons are here to stay.

No Impact to biodiversity adaptation and evolution solves

Carter et al. 14

, Dr. Craig D. Idso is founder and chairman of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. Since 1998, he has been the editor and chief contributor to the

online magazine CO2 Science. He is the author of several books, including The Many Benefits of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment (2011) and CO2 , Global Warming and Coral Reefs (2009). He earned a Ph.D. in geography from Arizona
State University (ASU), where he lectured in meteorology and was a faculty researcher in the Office of Climatology. Dr. Sherwood B. Idso is president of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. Previously he
was a Research Physicist with the U.S. Department of Agricultures Agricultural Research Service at the U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory in Phoenix, Arizona. He is the author or co-author of over 500 scientific publications
including the books Carbon Dioxide: Friend or Foe? (1982) and Carbon Dioxide and Global Change: Earth in Transition (1989). He served as an Adjunct Professor in the Departments of Geology, Geography, and Botany and
Microbiology at Arizona State University. He earned a Ph.D. in soil science from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Robert M. Carter is a stratigrapher and marine geologist with degrees from the University of Otago (New Zealand) and
University of Cambridge (England). He is the author of Climate: The Counter Consensus (2010) and Taxing Air: Facts and Fallacies About Climate Change (2013). Carter's professional service includes terms as head of the Geology
Department, James Cook University, chairman of the Earth Sciences Panel of the Australian Research Council, chairman of the national Marine Science and Technologies Committee, and director of the Australian Office of the Ocean
Drilling Program. He is currently an Emeritus Fellow of the Institute of Public Affairs (Melbourne). Dr. S. Fred Singer is one of the most distinguished atmospheric physicists in the U.S. He established and served as the first director of
the U.S. Weather Satellite Service, now part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and earned a U.S. Department of Commerce Gold Medal Award for his technical leadership. He is coauthor, with Dennis T.
Avery, of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years (2007, second ed. 2008) and many other books. Dr. Singer served as professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA (1971-94), and is
founder and chairman of the nonprofit Science and Environmental Policy Project. He earned a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University. Barnes, David J. Australian Institute of Marine Science (retired) Australia Botkin, Daniel B.
University of Miami University of California Santa Barbara USA Cloyd, Raymond A. Kansas State University USA Crockford, Susan University of Victoria, B.C. Canada Cui, Weihong Chinese Academy of Sciences China DeGroot, Kees
Shell International (retired) The Netherlands Dillon, Robert G. Physician USA Dunn, John Dale Physician USA Ellestad, Ole Henrik Research Council of Norway (retired) Norway Goldberg, Fred Swedish Polar Institute Sweden Goldman,
Barry Australian Museum Lizard Island Research Station (retired) Australia Hoese, H. Dickson Consulting Marine Biologist USA Jdal, Morten Independent Scientist Norway Khandekar, Madhav Environment Canada (retired) Canada
Kutilek, Miroslav Czech Technical University (emeritus) Czech Republic Leavitt, Steven W. University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research USA Maccabee, Howard Doctors for Disaster Preparedness USA Marohasy, Jennifer
Central Queensland University Australia Ollier, Cliff University of Western Australia Australia Petch, Jim University of Manchester Trican Manchester Metropolitan University (retired) United Kingdom Reginato, Robert J. Agricultural
Research Service U.S. Department of Agriculture USA Reiter, Paul Laboratoire Insectes et Maladies Infectieuses Institut Pasteur France Segalstad, Tom Resource and Environmental Geology University of Oslo Norway Sharp, Gary
Independent Consultant Center for Climate/ Ocean Resources Study USA Starck, Walter Independent Marine Biologist Australia Stockwell, David Central Queensland University Australia Taylor, Mitchell Lakehead University Canada
Weber, Gerd Independent Meteorologist Germany Wilson, Bastow University of Otago New Zealand Wust, Raphael James Cook University Australia, (Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/ccr2b/pdf/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf, 3/31/2014) Kerwin

IPCCs forecast of future species extinction relies on a narrow view of the literature
that is highly selective and based almost entirely on model projections as opposed
to real-world observations; the latter often contradict the former. Numerous
shortcomings are inherent in the models utilized in predicting the impact of climate
on the health and distributions of animal species. Assumptions and limitations make
them unreliable. Research suggests amphibian populations will suffer little, if any,
harm from projected CO2- induced global warming, and they may even benefit from
it. Although some changes in bird populations and their habitat areas have been
documented in the literature, linking such changes to CO2-induced global warming
remains elusive. Also, when there have been changes, they often are positive, as
many species have adapted and are thriving in response to rising temperatures of
the modern era. Polar bears have survived historic changes in climate that have
exceeded those of the twentieth century or are forecast by computer models to
occur in the future. In addition, some populations of polar bears appear to be stable
despite rising temperatures and summer sea ice declines. The biggest threat they
face is not from global warming but hunting by humans, which historically has taken
a huge toll on polar bear populations. The net effect of climate change on the
spread of parasitic and vector-borne diseases is complex and at this time appears
difficult to predict. Rising temperatures increase the mortality rates as well as the
development rates of many parasites of veterinary importance, and temperature is
only one of many variables that influence the range of viruses and other sources of
diseases. Existing published research indicates rising temperatures likely will not
increase, and may decrease, plant damage from leaf-eating herbivores, as rising
atmospheric CO2 boosts the production of certain defensive compounds in plants
that are detrimental to animal pests. Empirical data on many other animal

species, including butterflies, other insects, reptiles, and other mammals, indicate
global warming and its myriad ecological effects tend to foster the expansion and
proliferation of animal habitats, ranges, and populations, or otherwise have no
observable impacts one way or the other. Multiple lines of evidence indicate
animal species are adapting, and in some cases evolving, to cope with climate
change of the modern era, as expected by Darwinian evolution and wellestablished
ecological concepts.

Marine ecosystems are resilient

Kennedy 2
Victor Kennedy, PhD Environmental Science and Dir. Cooperative Oxford Lab., 2002,
Coastal and Marine Ecosystems and Global Climate Change, Pew,
http://www.pewclimate.org/projects/marine.cfm
There is evidence that marine organisms and ecosystems are resilient to
environmental change. Steele (1991) hypothesized that the biological components
of marine systems are tightly coupled to physical factors, allowing them to respond
quickly to rapid environmental change and thus rendering them ecologically
adaptable. Some species also have wide genetic variability throughout their range,
which may allow for adaptation to climate change.

Their consensus claims are lies all of their data is wrong

Tol 6/6, Richard Tol is a professor of economics at the University of Sussex, and a
professor of the economics of climate change at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
He is a member of the Academia Europaea. He was a contributer for the IPCC before
he withdrew due to their exaggeration. He has a PhD from VU University
Amsterdam. (The claim of a 97% consensus on global warming does not stand up
Consensus is irrelevant in science. There are plenty of examples in history where
everyone agreed and everyone was wrong,
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2014/jun/06/97-consensus-globalwarming, 6/6/2014) Kerwin
Dana Nuccitelli writes that I accidentally confirm the results of last years 97%
global warming consensus study. Nothing could be further from the truth. I show
that the 97% consensus claim does not stand up. At best, Nuccitelli, John Cook and
colleagues may have accidentally stumbled on the right number. Cook and co
selected some 12,000 papers from the scientific literature to test whether these
papers support the hypothesis that humans played a substantial role in the
observed warming of the Earth. 12,000 is a strange number. The climate literature
is much larger. The number of papers on the detection and attribution of climate
change is much, much smaller. Cooks sample is not representative. Any conclusion
they draw is not about the literature but rather about the papers they happened
to find. Most of the papers they studied are not about climate change and its
causes, but many were taken as evidence nonetheless. Papers on carbon taxes
naturally assume that carbon dioxide emissions cause global warming but
assumptions are not conclusions. Cooks claim of an increasing consensus over time
is entirely due to an increase of the number of irrelevant papers that Cook and co

mistook for evidence. The abstracts of the 12,000 papers were rated, twice, by 24
volunteers. Twelve rapidly dropped out, leaving an enormous task for the rest. This
shows. There are patterns in the data that suggest that raters may have fallen
asleep with their nose on the keyboard. In July 2013, Mr Cook claimed to have data
that showed this is not the case. In May 2014, he claimed that data never existed.
The data is also ridden with error. By Cooks own calculations, 7% of the ratings are
wrong. Spot checks suggest a much larger number of errors, up to one-third. Cook
tried to validate the results by having authors rate their own papers. In almost two
out of three cases, the author disagreed with Cooks team about the message of the
paper in question. Attempts to obtain Cooks data for independent verification have
been in vain. Cook sometimes claims that the raters are interviewees who are
entitled to privacy but the raters were never asked any personal detail. At other
times, Cook claims that the raters are not interviewees but interviewers. The 97%
consensus paper rests on yet another claim: the raters are incidental, it is the rated
papers that matter. If you measure temperature, you make sure that your
thermometers are all properly and consistently calibrated. Unfortunately, although
he does have the data, Cook does not test whether the raters judge the same paper
in the same way. Consensus is irrelevant in science. There are plenty of examples in
history where everyone agreed and everyone was wrong. Cooks consensus is also
irrelevant in policy. They try to show that climate change is real and human-made. It
is does not follow whether and by how much greenhouse gas emissions should be
reduced. The debate on climate policy is polarised, often using discussions about
climate science as a proxy. People who want to argue that climate researchers are
secretive and incompetent only have to point to the 97% consensus paper. On 29
May, the Committee on Science, Space and Technology of the US House of
Representatives examined the procedures of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change. Having been active in the IPCC since 1994, serving in various roles
in all its three working groups, most recently as a convening lead author for the fifth
assessment report of working group II, my testimony to the committee briefly
reiterated some of the mistakes made in the fifth assessment report but focused on
the structural faults in the IPCC, notably the selection of authors and staff, the
weaknesses in the review process, and the competition for attention between
chapters. I highlighted that the IPCC is a natural monopoly that is largely
unregulated. I recommended that its assessment reports be replaced by an
assessment journal. In an article on 2 June, Nuccitelli ignores the subject matter of
the hearing, focusing instead on a brief interaction about the 97% consensus paper
co-authored by Nuccitelli. He unfortunately missed the gist of my criticism of his
work. Successive literature reviews, including the ones by the IPCC, have time and
again established that there has been substantial climate change over the last one
and a half centuries and that humans caused a large share of that climate change.
There is disagreement, of course, particularly on the extent to which humans
contributed to the observed warming. This is part and parcel of a healthy scientific
debate. There is widespread agreement, though, that climate change is real and
human-made. I believe Nuccitelli and colleagues are wrong about a number of
issues. Mistakenly thinking that agreement on the basic facts of climate change
would induce agreement on climate policy, Nuccitelli and colleagues tried to
quantify the consensus, and failed. In his defence, Nuccitelli argues that I do not

dispute their main result. Nuccitelli fundamentally misunderstands research.

Science is not a set of results. Science is a method. If the method is wrong, the
results are worthless. Nuccitellis pieces are two of a series of articles published in
the Guardian impugning my character and my work. Nuccitelli falsely accuses me of
journal shopping, a despicable practice. The theologist Michael Rosenberger has
described climate protection as a new religion, based on a fear for the apocalypse,
with dogmas, heretics and inquisitors like Nuccitelli. I prefer my politics secular and
my science sound.

Solvency
Algae is not economically viable according to experts
Gabel 12 - Writer/Editor at Environmental News Network (David, Why are we not
Drowning in Algae Biofuel?, OilPrice.com, 10-16-12, http://oilprice.com/AlternativeEnergy/Biofuels/Why-are-we-not-Drowning-in-Algae-Biofuel.html)//KG
Producing biofuels from algae is a concept dating back to the oil shocks of the
1970s. At the time, the US Government created an algae research program which analyzed the thousands of strains of algae in
hope of offsetting the shortage of fossil fuels. In 1996, the Department of Energy shut down the
program, concluding that algal biofuels could not compete with fossil fuels in cost .
One decade later, President Bush declared that the US was addicted to oil. After that, the algae research program was started again,

So where is all the algae biofuel? Where is the

"green crude" that was hyped up with so much potential? The answer is the same
now as it was in 1996. Algae biofuel is expensive to produce and fossil fuel
prices are still sufficiently low-cost. According to a 2010 research study by the Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory, producing fuel from algae grown in ponds at scale would cost between
$240 and $332 per barrel. The current price of a barrel of crude oil is only about
$92, no comparison. Right now, the only hope for algae taking off is for crude price to go up. The algae
industry has suffered from "fantastic promotions, bizarre cultivation systems, and
absurd productivity projections," according to John Benemann, industry consultant
and Ph.D. biochemist with over 30 years' experience working with algae . "Algae
biofuels cannot compete with fossil energy based on simple economics ... The
and capital began flowing into dozens of algae startups.

real issue is that an oil field will deplete eventually, while an algae pond would be sustainable indefinitely."

Cant solve algae biofuels for at least a decade

CATF 13 Clean Air Task Force, nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing
atmospheric pollution through research, advocacy, and private sector collaboration
(THE STATUS OF ALGAL BIOFUEL DEVELOPMENT, July 2013,
http://www.catf.us/resources/whitepapers/files/201307-CATF%20Status%20of
%20Algal%20Biofuels.pdf)//KG
American and Canadian advanced biofuel generation capacity experienced a 57%
increase from 2011 to 2012 (Solecki, Dougherty & Epstein, 2012, p. 3). Yet, large-
scale commercial algal biofuel production is still several years away, or
even decades away, according to Exxon Mobil Corporation (Alic, 2013a). The
considerable time scale for potential commercial viability has even led Exxon to
restructure its partnership with Synthetic Genomics (SGI). Exxon invested hundreds
of millions of dollars in 2009 in SGI to develop biofuels from naturally occurring or
conventionally modified algae, as opposed to synthetic strains, seeking near-term
profitability. The apparent lack of success to date has compelled the companies
to sign a new agreement in the spring of 2013 that focuses more on long- term
basic research and less on commercial development (Elgin & Waldman, 2013;
Alic, 2013b; Synthetic Genomics, 2013). Handler et al. (2012) suggest that, even
once the right strains of algae are identified, consistent operation of algal
biofuel production will need to occur for five to fifteen years before true
commercialization can be realized (p. 84).