*****Cuba Ethanol K AFF

***1 AC
Utilizing inequality and poverty, rich land owners are able to use slaves for sugarcane production.
Campbell 11 Justin Campbell, University of Denver, Human Rights and Human Resources 1/13/2011 [A Growing Concern: Modern
Slavery and Agricultural Production in Brazil and South Asia Online@http://www.du.edu/korbel/hrhw/researchdigest/slavery/ar iculture.pdf SM] The modern use of slave labor in the production of agriculture takes many forms . In Brazil, the ability of powerful landowners

to repress poor workers is an important element of large-scale agricultural production. In South Asia, cultural norms and traditions are used to exploit the most vulnerable communities. In both examples, inequity and poverty are implicit, and debt is a tool used to legitimize bondage. Estimates of the number of slaves in Brazil today, virtually all of whom are involved in agricultural work, range from 25,000 to 100,000. This broad range of figures underscores the difficulty of accurately assessing, much less eradicating, the practice of slavery. Several factors contribute to this difficulty, making slavery a deeply entrenched facet of agricultural production in the country. In Brazil, slave labor is typically utilized to harvest sugarcane and to clear vast amounts of land for raising cattle and for providing access to valuable timber. The importance of these products to the Brazilian economy is a factor that makes the agricultural sector prone to using slavery. Brazil is the worlds largest exporter of sugar; an agricultural model of monoculture for export has influenced
the expansion of large sugarcane plantations in frontier areas, simultaneously creating work and limiting other options available to the local population. Similarly, vast cattle ranches and logging operations are continually expanding in rural parts of the country, creating the need for a large workforce to clear land while displacing rural communities. Corruption is a related fact of agricultural production in

Brazil that frustrates efforts to eradicate slavery. This is perhaps inevitable in a country where the richest 10 percent of the population controls more than half of the wealth and almost all of the land. Generally, the
Brazilian judicial system is more sympathetic to wealthy landowners who have political clout than to impoverished workers; several sources provide evidence that slaves have been discovered on the estates of prominent national figures, including a secretary of agriculture. Furthermore, these landowners are able to escape responsibility by using contractors to operate their estates

and by feigning ignorance of how workers are treated on their land. As one Brazilian explains, In the hinterland,

the landowner is king . Perhaps the most elemental factor perpetuating the use of slave labor in Brazil is the geography of the
country itself. Most

slaves work on estates in the extremely remote eastern Amazon region; in the fifth largest country in the world, the atrocities associated with slavery occur well out of view of most of the population. Landowners thus feel little restraint in how they treat their workers. In addition, the remoteness
of these areas provides a convenient deterrent to escape.

Cuban farmers want to produce sugar the equipment is fully operable

Rainsford 5/22
Sarah Rainsford (writer for BBC), 5/22/2013, BBC News, Cuba's sugar mills get new lease of life, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latinamerica-22606943, accessed 7/9/2013, #BD It is a sight the people of Mejico thought they would never see again - sugar cane pouring onto a conveyer belt, beneath chimneys pouring smoke into a bright blue sky. Silent

for seven years, the town's sugar mill has been given a new lease of life. Sugar was Cuba's biggest export until the 1990s, providing half a million jobs. But when the Soviet market disappeared and the world sugar price sank, almost two-thirds of the island's mills had to close. At those that remained, production plummeted. Weeds overran the cane fields, and abandoned sugar plants - once the heart of many communities - fell into ruin. 'Tough blow' But Mejico is one of more than a dozen mills gradually being salvaged as Cuba looks to capitalise on a recent rise in sugar prices and improved yields in its canefields. The mill in Mejico dates back to 1832, when the canefields were worked by slaves housed in nearby barracks "When
they said the mill would stop working, it was a tough blow," says Ariel Diaz, who used to work as an engineer at the old mill before it shut down in 2006. "It really traumatised us," he says of its closure, which happened almost overnight. There had been a mill in Mejico since 1832. The

original stone slave barracks are still standing - converted into workers' housing. "We

were nothing without the mill. It was our life," Mr Diaz says, now happy to be back in the noisy, steamy sheds shouting orders to his team as huge metal cogs turn down below. Centuries-old tradition The re-opening has created some 400 new jobs in the mill itself. Sixteen farmers' co-operatives are supplying it with cane. Continue reading the main story Start Quote The country needs to produce sugar, and we can help Jesus Perez Collazo Director, Mejico mill Across Cuba, as mills closed,
many people were redeployed to collective farms; others were paid to study and re-qualify. "Clearly people were affected, especially psychologically," a spokesman for state sugar company Azcuba, Liobel Perez, accepts. "The

mills represent years, centuries, of

tradition so it was very hard. But steps were taken to help." Just a short drive from Mejico, the chimneys of the Sergio
Gonzalez mill are still cold some 15 years after the last sugar rolled off the conveyer belts. Weeds poke out of holes in the concrete. The old sheds have been partially dismantled and are rusting. A sorry-looking stage has a faded pro-revolution slogan painted across it: "Revolucion, Si!" "All the families here lived off the mill, and life was much easier," recalls Argelio Espinosa, a mill mechanic for many years. He now sells slush-ice drinks from a street cart, one of the small, private businesses that communist Cuba now allows. But sales in such a poor town are slow and Mr Espinosa echoes many who say the mill closure brought other difficulties. "When

the mill was open there was always transport for the workers and everyone used it. Now there's just two buses a day," he points out. "It's
the same with the water. When the mill was grinding, it needed water and we were never short. Now we have problems," he adds. The locals talk of how new businesses, like a spaghetti factory, were brought to other former sugar towns. In Sergio Gonzalez, the luckiest now hitch a ride 80km north for jobs in the tourist resort of Varadero. Challenges ahead By contrast, there is a fresh buzz of activity in Mejico. In the nearby fields, workers have been rushing to cut the cane before the weather turns. A shiny new Brazilian harvester charges forward, swallowing up the cane as it goes. Cuba has invested in some new equipment to kickstart its revamped sugar business It is one of four machines Cuba invested in for the mill re-opening, far more efficient than the ageing, Soviet alternative. There have been teething troubles with the reopening. New machine parts arrived late, the workforce is young and inexperienced, and production is below target. Senior staff have slept little, under pressure to perform. But the

whole community is willing this to succeed. Some pensioners are helping out at the mill for free, passing their expertise to a new, young generation. And many sugar workers who took up farming when the mill closed have hung up their spades and returned. "They like the mill. It's a tradition here, more than anything. And it's more secure work, right next to their homes,"
explains mill director Jesus Perez Collazo. "There are a lot of challenges. The harvest is not as good as we wanted but the country needs to produce sugar, and we can help," he says. China buys 400,000 tonnes of sugar from Cuba a year; now production is increasing, Azcuba says international brokers are also knocking at the door. New life With the revamped mills back online, the eventual target is three million tonnes per year, though persistent inefficiencies mean this year's harvest will fall well below that. Some old-time sugar workers are passing on their knowledge to a new generation of workers "Sugar is once more becoming one of our principal export goods and that will be reinforced in the years to come," argues spokesman Liobel Perez. Despite the difficulties, those are welcome words in Mejico. As the day cools, men gather in the main square watching the mill smoke rise and discussing the harvest. For some, like 68-year old Joel, the re-opening has meant coming out of retirement. "I need the money," he says bluntly. At $35 a month, his mill salary is more than three times his pension. Others take a broader

was no life, no movement here without the mill," one man comments. "This place was like a cemetery." Now Mejico is shuddering back to life.
view. "There

Corn Ethanol Starves People

Bailey 7
Ronald Bailey (the award-winning science correspondent for Reason magazine and Reason.com, where he writes a weekly science and technology column), 6/22/2007, Reason Magazine, Feed SUVs and Starve People?, http://reason.com/archives/2007/06/22/feed-suvs-andstarve-people, accessed 7/7/2013, #BD
"Rapid

development of the corn-based ethanol industry is already having adverse impacts on food supplies and prices." That's the claim in a letter from leading food companies to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Headlines earlier this year blamed a tortilla shortage in Mexico on high U.S. corn prices and margarita drinkers must now worry about a future tequila shortfall because Mexican farmers are ripping up their agave fields to plant corn. RELATED ARTICLES The Top 5 Lies About Fracking Ronald Bailey| 7.05.13 Obama's Climate Five-Year Plan Ronald Bailey| 6.28.13 Democrats Are
Holding Energyand ProsperityCaptive Steve Chapman| 5.09.13 MORE ARTICLES BY Ronald Bailey The Top 5 Lies About Fracking 7.05.13 1:30 pm Obama's Climate Five-Year Plan 6.28.13 1:30 pm The Power of People 6.25.13 8:00 am ENERGY The ethanol rush is definitely on. There are now 110 ethanol plants operating in the United States and 74 more are on the way. The

competition between food producers and fuel refiners has doubled corn prices in the past year from $2 to over $4 per bushel. At the same time, the price of groceries has gone up 3.9 percent in the last year, faster than the general inflation rate of 2.6 percent. Coincidence? Corn is primarily fed to cows, hogs, and chickens, so higher corn prices should lead to higher prices for milk, beef, pork, poultry and eggs. And sure enough, on June 15, the Bureau of Labor
Statistics (BLS) reported that through the first five months of 2007, beef prices had risen 5.1 percent, poultry prices, 4.3 percent, and pork prices, 3.4 percent. Higher corn prices have had broader effects too. The

prices for other food crops jump when corn goes up because farmers

choose to plant less of them. For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that farmers will boost corn acreage from 80 million in 2006
to 94 million acres this year. Most of the increased acreage devoted to corn will come from reduced soybean acreage. Fewer soybeans means translates into higher prices. But hold on before placing all the blame for food price increases on the ethanol boom. What else are people complaining about? Higher gasoline prices. Energy prices increased 36 percent in the first five months of 2007. Higher fuel prices boost the distribution costs of food as well as the costs of agricultural inputs like diesel for tractors and fertilizer. Consumers are experiencing a food double whammy, corn prices and gas prices conspiring to make their grocery bills soar. As a consequence, the BLS projects that food prices could increase by 7.5 percent by the end of the year. Congress evidently believes that American energy independence depends, in part, on turning massive quantities of food into fuel. The energy bill being debated in the Senate would mandate that 36 billion gallons of ethanol be produced for transport fuel by 2020. President Bush is more or less on board since he proposed a 35 billion gallon mandate in his last State of the Union speech. This is on top of the 2005 requirement that 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol be produced by 2012. Almost

one-third of the U.S. corn crop

will be used to produce ethanol in 2012. Some energy hawks might argue that breaking our dependence on foreign oil is worth higher food
prices. After all, on average Americans spend about 10 percent of their incomes on groceries. Doubling that would bring us back to the good old days of the 1950s when families spent about 20 percent of their incomes on food. Doubled food prices would not mean mass starvation for Americans. However,

our biofuels frenzy will not only starve oil despots of cash, but it could end up literally starving millions in poor countries. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) looked at how ethanol production would affect the prices of various staples around
the world up through 2020. In the Institute's most aggressive biofuels scenario, the United States replaces only 4 percent of its gasoline demand in 2020 with bioethanol. Congress and President Bush want to triple this to around 12 percent. So IFPRI numbers likely underestimates the effect that turning food into fuel will have on world food prices. In any case, the IFPRI scenarios are sobering enough. In the best case scenario, the technology for breaking down the tough cellulose fibers in non-crop sources such as crop wastes, trees, and switch grass makes a major contribution to ethanol supplies by 2020. In addition, agricultural research dramatically boosts crop productivity, making more crops available for producing both food and fuel. In the best case, IFPRI projects that corn prices will go up 23 percent, wheat, 16 percent, cassava, 54 percent, and sugar cane, 43 percent. If there is no cellulosic ethanol breakthrough and crop productivity increases at the current rate, the

price of corn would increase 41 percent, wheat, 30 percent, cassava, 135 percent, and sugar cane, 66 percent. What would this mean for the world's poor? In an article entitled, "How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor," in the current issue of Foreign
Affairs, two University of Minnesota professors of agricultural policy, C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer, argue that "the number of food-insecure people in the world would rise by over 16 million for every percentage increase in the real prices of staple foods." They calculate that would mean that would be 600

million additional hungry people by 2025, rising to a total of 1.2 billion. Another way to look at it is that it takes 450 pounds of corn to make enough ethanol to fill a 25-gallon gas tank. Four hundred and fifty pounds of corn supplies enough calories to feed a person for one year. The USDA projects that in 2010 the ethanol industry
will consume 2.6 billion bushels of corn. A bushel weighs 56 pounds, so a quick calculation yields the result that 2.6 billion bushels of corn could supply enough calories to feed nearly 325 million people for a year. But why focus blame on gas-guzzling SUVs? After all, one-third of the world's grain is now fed to animals to produce meat. If we're really worried about the world's poor, shouldn't we give up not only SUVs, but brisket, bacon and breasts too? The amount of grain that actually goes into producing a pound of meat is controversial. However, the non-profit consortium of 37 scientific societies, the Council on Agricultural Science and Technology estimates that it takes around 3 kilograms of grains to produce 1 kilogram of meat. In 1999, CAST calculated that "an annual rate of growth in cereal production between 1.1 and 1.4 percent, i.e., a lower rate than in recent decades, should meet needs for both food grains and the feed grains required to meet the [world's] projected per capita demand for meat, milk, and eggs." When all is said and done meat is still food. Biofuels will now compete with meat production for grain supplies. "Famine," observes Dennis Avery, the director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issues, "is a human society's ultimate failure.

Tightening the world's food supply by diverting major quantities of its grain stocks into fuels will drive up the prices of all food. This will inevitably hit hardest at the poorest people in the world's food-shortage regions. This would not be ethical even if there were no other sources of energy." But then, the world's poor do
not participate in Iowa's presidential caucuses.

Consumption is undermining environment and exacerbating inequalitiesmust take action now

UNDP 98 (United Nations Development Programme) *Human Development Report Overview United Nations Development Programme
Online at http://www.globalissues.org/issue/235/consumption-and-consumerism accessed July 7, 2013, AV]

Todays consumption is undermining the environmental resource base. It is exacerbating inequalities. And the dynamics of the consumption-poverty-inequality-environment nexus are accelerating. If the trends continue without change not redistributing from high-income to low-income consumers, not shifting from polluting to cleaner goods and production technologies, not promoting goods that empower poor producers, not shifting priority from consumption for conspicuous display to meeting basic needs todays problems of consumption and human development will worsen.

Abandon mindless consumerism consumers have responsibility to support environment and workers
BKB 10 (Blue King Brown) July 21, 2010 *The Ever Increasing Trend of Ethical Consumerism Blue King Brown News

Online at http://bluekingbrown.com/2010/07/the-ever-increasing-trend-of-ethical-consumerism-brisbane-australia/, Accessed July 8, 2013]//RR

Ethical shopping is an empowering and exciting concept. It operates on the principle that spending money is like voting. So, if you buy cage eggs, youre voting for animal cruelty. If you buy certain brands of clothing, youre voting for sweatshop labour. And if you buy a gas-guzzling car, youre a fan of global warming. The idea of ethical consumerism or conscious consuming is a social movement based around the idea that people should be mindful of the impact their purchases have on the environment and the health and well being of the people involved in making those products. Consumers are now looking at ethics when they buy. It goes with the territory of being
more careful where they spend their money in a tight economy. Following a period when conspicuous consumption was both socially acceptable and economically feasible, consumer behaviour is likely to become more conscious, spurring a trend toward ethi cal consumption, Citigroup analyst Edward Kerschner says*. The

movement advocates abandoning the relentless and fruitless drive to find satisfaction in endless consumption. Shoppers are starting to care about where their products come from, how they were made and how they impact the planet, says Peita Gardiman, who has
launched Ethikl.com.au, the first Australian trading website for eco-friendly and people-friendly products made using natural, organic, or recycled materials. The online marketplace also allows consumers to communicate directly with sellers, many of whom hand-make the products themselves. We live in a time of human rights abuse, animal cruelty, genetically modified foods and the massive impact of industry on the environment. These can often seem beyond our control and quite removed from our everyday life. However, the fact is that every

time we buy something, our spending dollar endorses a company and its activities, whether we are aware of it or not whether we like it or not. It is the responsibility of consumers to support the environment and rights of workers who produce goods for them. More than the government and green companies, it is the responsibility of consumers to realise their role in creating real change. Money makes the world go round, and deciding how we spend our money might just help save it.

AFF XTNS

Economy
Collapse of the Cuban Sugar Industry would lead to an Economic Autopsy Carrio 13
Jorge Salazar, The Collapse of the Cuban Sugar Industry: An Economic Autopsy. http://economics.fiu.edu/research/occasional-papers1/2013/13-01/13-01.pdf. Found online July 8th S.S. Sugar cane cultivation, harvesting, cleaning, milling, derivatives production, warehouses, and transportation to ports were totally controlled by the Sugar Ministry (MINAZ) in the 1990s and the early years of the millennium. It had provincial offices, but the power resided with the Ministrys central location at Havana. The prices for inputs and outputs involved in sugar production, and the relationship between prices and subsidies were set by the Ministry of Finance and Prices. MINAZ had total control over the process of production of sugar and its by-products (including transportation, distribution, and domestic wholesaling and retailing, including packaging). The Union de Empresas Operadoras de Azucar y sus Derivados was the body which co-ordinated the sugar producing industry, and was a subsidiary of MINAZ. MINAZ was responsible for sugar production and moving it to warehouses at ports for shipping. Cubazucar, a subsidiary of the Ministry for Foreign Commerce (MINCEX), then took over the sugar at the ports, where it was loaded onto vessels for shipping. In addition, Cubacontrol a subsidiary of MINCEX, was in charge of inspecting warehouses and providing inspection certificates. Historically, pre-dating the Castro regime, the economy of Cuba had been substantially dependent on its sugar industry. The first economic treatise on Cuba in the English language, written by Henry C. Wallich, stated that Cuba had an almost exclusive reliance upon sugar exports. This extreme dependence on one commodity can be used to a countrys advantage. A substantial expansion of the leading sector (i.e. sugar) can lead to the generation of sizeable income which can benefit the rest of the economy through its contributions to growth and development. Cuba was able to piggyback on the expansion of sugar production and its higher prices during the late 1940s and early 1950s, to the extent that it seems safe to say that among all tropical countries Cuba has the highest per capita income. This income is produced by a highly capitalized economy concentrating upon a single export productsugar. By pushing specialization to an unusual extent, the Cuban economy has been able to turn in an exceptional performance. The same conclusion was arrived at by the Cuban Economic Research Group gathered by the University of Miami late in 1961. With the expansion in sugar productiongrowth took place in the other productive sectors. Of course since sugar had been the overwhelmingly domina nt factor in Cuban exports, the argument was made that as sugar went (up or down), so did the economy of the island. Yet at the turn of the twentyfirst century, the Cuban sugar agroindustry was but a shadow of its former self. It was no longer the engine of economic activity. As shall be seen further on, the intention under the Soviet dominated Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) was that Cuba would provide the majority of the sugar required by its member states, with a plan to increase production up to 14 million tons by the beginning of the 1980s. While this goal was never reached, production in 1989 reached 7.58 million tons. However this level of production was predicated on large subsidies of oil and equipment from the Soviet Union. This, coupled with the Soviet style gigantism (i.e. huge areas of land under one administration) and large quantities of fertilizer, pesticides, etc. in use, resulted in the Cuban sugar industry becoming highly inefficient. The goal prior to 1989 was simply increased production via any means, rather than seeking to increase it by greater efficiency. Such a productive approach in effect takes no account of the input costs of production. Notwithstanding the fact that accurate information regarding two key costs of sugar, namely agricultural and transport costs, are difficult to estimate in Cuba, statistics indicate that the cost of producing Cuban sugar became substantially higher than in other major sugar-producing nations during the communist period. The information available on production costs place them in the range of 7 to 8 cents a pound in the mid-1970s, rising to slightly more than 9 cents in an efficient mill toward the end of the decade. The result of the loss of CMEA subsidies was that sugarcane production decreased from a mean during the 1980s of 69.8 million tons per annum to 32 million tons in 2001. Cuba could not finance its sugar industry in the early 1990s when it was forced to purchase oil and spare parts on the international market at prevailing prices.22 The primary cause of collapsing production was not any absolute lack of marketsbut shortages of key productive inputs that had hitherto been imported; fertilizers and other agricultural chemicals, fuels and assorted machinery and parts for both field and factory. The magnitude of such shortages did not simply match the fall in sugar earnings but actually exceeded it. This was because the national economic crisis was so acute that a major part of shrinking sugar export earnings was perforce diverted to finance other imports considered to be yet more vital, most notably oil and food. Moreover, since a number of international financiers or suppliers would accept only the proceeds of sugar exports as collateral for loans or commodities, the pressure on the state to maximize such earnings was extreme. Indeed, during the most difficult yearsthe search to maximize sugar production (and thereby exports) was so great that it forced the adoption of harvesting practices that might have increased sugar production in one season, but only at the cost of lower production, and higher unit costs, in the next. The inefficiency of the Cuban sugar industry, allied to the decreasing market price of sugar on the international markets in the late 1990s and early 2000s, meant that Cuba was receiving less and less money from purchasers of its sugar. The graphs below show the decrease in Cuban sugar production in the 1990s, and the fall in the market price of sugar in cents per pound. Finally, Table 3 shows Cuban sugar production for the years 1989 to 2002, with the average market price per pound and value to Cuba of its sugar exports: (CRB) Commodities Year Book, several years; Central Intelligence Agency, Cuba: Handbook of Trade Statistics, various years, Virginia, U.S.A.; and authors calculations. As can be seen from Table 3, the decrease in Cubas sugar production took place almost concurrently with a decrease in the market price of sugar, so Cubas actual income from sugar decreased substantially over the period. In fact, sugar was overtaken by tourism as the main source of external income during those years. However, while sugar was not providing as much export earnings as had historically been the case, it was an important provider, to an island desperately in need of foreign exchange, and which was not in a position (due to lack of finance for its imports) to easily diversify into other areas, to make up for lower revenues from sugar production. In addition to exporting the bulk of its sugar, Cuba also retains a percentage of its production for internal consumption. This sugar is held at certain warehouses for gradual release to the population, tourists and for industrial uses. Thus the amount of sugar held in storage fluctuates throughout the year. The quantity of sugar held at the end of the sugar production season is known as the ending stocks, and the most accurate source of information as to Cubas ending stocks is the International Sugar In both, 2001 and 2002, sugar production in January, February and March averaged around 850,000 tons per month (2,577,433 tons and 2,536,929 tons respectively for the three month period) with exports peaking in March in both years at 932,539 tons in 2001 and 795,794 tons in 2002. For the period April to

June in both years, production was around 330,000 tons per month (975,203 tons and 973,534 tons respectively for the three month period). In these circumstances, it is highly unlikely that the Cubans would have kept significant amounts of sugar available, or unallocated in the Cuban sugar industry.

I/L
Brazil exports 1 billion gallons of ethanol yearly
AgDM 2009
Ag Decision Maker Newsletter, May 2009, Brazil's ethanol exports, https://www.extension.iastate.edu/AGDM/articles/hof/HofMay09.html, accessed 7/7/2013, BD Brazil is the worlds largest exporter of ethanol. In

2006, Brazil accounted for 52 percent of the worlds ethanol exports. It exports about one billion gallons of ethanol annually as shown in Table 1. This is about 20 percent of Brazils ethanol production. The U.S. is the largest importer of Brazilian ethanol. European, Caribbean and Central
American countries account for most of the remaining imports.

Cuba could produce up to 2 billion gallons of ethanol, doubling Brazil

Specht 13
Jonathan Specht (Legal Advisor, Pearlmaker Holsteins, Inc. B.A., Louisiana State University, 2009; J.D., Washington University in St. Louis 2012. I would like to thank Professor Frances H. Foster of Washington University in St. Louis School of Law for her invaluable suggestions in revising this Article), 4/24/2013 11:45 AM, University of California, Davis, Raising Cane: Cuban Sugarcane Ethanols Economic and Environmental Effects on the United States, http://environs.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/36/2/specht.pdf, accessed 7/7/2013, #BD To speak of a Cuban sugarcane-based ethanol industry is, at this point, largely a matter of speculation.46 Because of the anti-ethanol views of Fidel Castro (who has said that ethanol should be discouraged because it diverts crops from food to fuel),47 Cuba

currently has

almost no ethanol industry. In the words of Ronald Soligo and Amy Myers Jaffe of the Brookings Institution, Despite the fact that Cuba is dependent on oil imports and is aware of the demonstrated success of Brazil in using ethanol to achieve energy self-sufficiency, it has not embarked on a policy to develop a larger ethanol industry from sugarcane.48 There is, however, no reason why such an industry cannot be developed. As Soligo and
Jaffe wrote, In addition,

Cuba has large land areas that once produced sugar but now lie idle . These

could be revived to provide a basis for a world-class ethanol industry. We estimate that if

Cuba achieves the yield levels attained in Nicaragua and Brazil and the area planted with sugarcane approaches levels seen in the 1970s and 1980s, Cuba could produce up to 2 billion gallons of sugar-based ethanol per year.49

Brazil destroys Amazon for ethanol mills

Ewing 13
Reese Ewing (writer for Reuters), 6/4/2013, Reuters, Brazil bill seeks to open Amazon to new ethanol mills, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/04/brazil-ethanol-amazon-idUSL2N0DX1Y020130604, accessed 7/7/2013, #BD
SAO PAULO, June 4 (Reuters) - Brazil

plans to vote on a bill in the coming weeks to reopen large areas of the Amazon to sugar cane mills, rekindling fears that ethanol production could accelerate deforestation and create a major marketing challenge for the country's biofuels industry. Environmentalists are concerned Congress' vote
could overturn a ban on cane expansion in the region that went into place in 2009 and increase pressure on land use in areas that amount to nearly a third of the broader Amazon region in Brazil. Meanwhile,

the expansion into the environmentally sensitive areas could hurt ethanol producers' plans to open new export markets, economists say. Investors say the high cost of transporting fuels into Brazil's isolated north makes local production of ethanol a compelling economic investment, while senators
from the region supporting the bill believe more cane mills would actually help curb illegal deforestation and create jobs. "It's not like there will be a flood of new mills suddenly," said Roraima state Senator Acir Gurgacz, who is sponsor of the bill. "Mills still have to follow environmental laws ... and soy and cattle are allowed, so why not cane?" If the bill, which cleared the Senate Environmental Committee in May, passes the full Senate and lower house in the coming weeks, it will overturn the ban at a delicate moment. Brazil's main cane ethanol lobby is trying to convince the European Commission to recognize its ethanol as sustainable, which would earn it special access to an important new market. Renewed cane planting in the Amazon, which spans 58 percent of Brazil's territory, may make it harder to win that recognition in the coveted European market. The

bill proposes to limit cane to areas that could add up to roughly the size of South Africa - 1.25 million square kilometers (775,000 square miles) - in the broader Amazon. The areas were cleared of trees and brush decades ago and are more savannah-like and thus more suitable for cane than rainforest. Although six sugar cane mills currently operate in Brazil's Amazon region, new projects have been unable to get licensing from environmental agency Ibama or access to farm credit at subsidized rates from the country's main state banks since 2009, when the ban went into effect. The broader Amazon is not just rainforest. It

includes areas of savannah and pasture deforested in past decades, scattered across the states of Amazonia, Par, Roraima, Rondonia, Acre, Amap, Rondonia, Maranho, Tocantins and Mato Grosso.

Cuba would need foreign capital to revitalize their sugar industry

Echevarra 95 (Oscar A. Echevarra is a Consultant for ASCE former Professor of Economics at the Graduate School of Georgetown
University) *ASCE CUBA AND THE INTERNATIONAL SUGAR MARKET Online@http://www.ascecuba.org /publications/proceedings/volume /pdfs/file30.pdf SM]

Cubas sugar industry has received two major jolts: 1. The loss of the privileged markets of the former Soviet Union and the
countries of COMECON, which paid very high prices for Cuban sugar up to four times the world market priceas the United States had done in the past. 2. A decrease in export volume both due to production difficulties and to the reduction in the size of the markets of its customers. Because of this, the

Cuban government has been hoping to receive foreign capital in order to help reactivate the economy. The Cuban government is willing to accept loans that have seniority in collection, secured by sugar produced until repayment is completed. The Cuban sugar industry not only needs new capital influx but also management and technical expertise to meet competitive challenges in the markets of potential customers. The interest of the international community in investing in Cuba is demonstrated by an offer
of financing from the Netherlands International Group (ING), which provided a credit of $30 million, to be paid back with sugar, a method usually called a red-clause loan. According to ING, Cuban production could go back in five years to the 8.5 million ton per annum level. This is considered too optimistic not only because, from the production side, it would require the industry to produce 35% over the average of the last years in a very short period, but also because it would be difficult to place the increased production of sugar in the world market without bringing about a substantial reduction in price levels. Many of Cubas former communist marketssuch as East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and the former Soviet Union, with exception of Russiado not need to acquire raw sugar in the international market, as they now have sufficient production themselves. Additionally, Cubas traditional non-Communist markets since 1959Japan and Canadahave ceased to grow (Cuba Struggles 1995). If Cuba is not able to rely on preferential treatment by its trading partners, in

order increase production and sell its output it will have to compete efficiently for market share. While there are no available or
accurate data on Cubas cost of production to enable one to compare them with those of the major present exporters, we can extrapolate the results by looking at the past as a proxy. It

is obvious that there are no new major exporters that were able to achieve that position in a free market and therefore have demonstrated their ability to compete on prices, reliability, timely delivery,

Cuba ethanol capacity will grow with investment Elledge 9 October 29, 2009 By: COHA Research Fellow Nicholas Cubas sugarcane ethanol potential: cuba, raul castro, and the return of
king sugar to the island http://www.coha.org/cubas-sugarcane-ethanol-potential/

It must be noted that Cubas ethanol and sugar production capacity will increase exponentially if direct foreign investment, which has been seen only sparingly up to now, is encouraged to enter by direct government policy. Starved by a recurrent shortage of hard currency, new capital inputs needed to modernize Cuban sugar mills would have to come from abroad. To rectify this current shortage, Walfrido Alonso-Pippo, who has been a member of the University of Havana, suggests an investment strategy similar to that used to fuel a Cuban natural gas power plant. He maintains that this joint venture agreement for a recently constructed natural gas power plant could serve as a model for modernization of *Cubas+ sugar bioenergy infrastructure. Under this existing
arrangement, the foreign partner owns a third of the plants output, participates in its management, and receives a proportion of the plants profits. Dr. Alonso-Pippo goes on to note that legal, institutional and political barriers to investment in Cuba have tended to remain a major obstacle, though recent heavy foreign investments in Brazils sugar ethanol production facilities suggest the feasibility of similar investments in Cuba.

Cuban sugarcane ethanol has better environmental benefits than US corn ethanol
Specht 13 (Jonathan Specht, Legal Advisor, Pearlmaker Holsteins, Inc. B.A., Louisiana State University, 2009; J.D., Washington University
in St. Louis 2012. April 24, 2013. Found at http://environs.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/36/2/specht.pdf SM)

Assuming that Cuba is able to meet all the challenges standing in the way of creating a sugarcane-based ethanol industry, 120/////.l.including the removal of U.S. legal barriers, and it begins importing ethanol to the United States, the United States would benefit environmentally in two ways. First, Cuban sugarcane-based ethanol would directly benefit the United States by reducing the negative environmental effects of corn-based ethanol production, to the extent to which it replaced domestically produced corn-based ethanol. Second, by

reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Cuban sugarcane-based ethanol would indirectly benefit the United States as well as the rest of the world by reducing the speed of global climate change.

Brazilian ethanol is bad for the environment and the Amazon

Azadi 12
Hossein Azadi (Department of Geography, Ghent University, Belgium), August 2012, ScienceDirect, Bitter sweet: How sustainable is bioethanol production in Brazil?, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032112001980#, accessed 7/9/2013, #BD
Beside such an advantage, there are also negative effects. First of all, the

way in which the land is being cultivated for sugarcane has massive effects on the environment. Soil degradation is one of the problems caused by erosion and compaction. Soil erosion is high for sugarcane production due to the time period that land remains bare between the harvest and new cultivation season. The compaction will result from heavy machinery which exacerbates soil erosion. The sugarcane production also leads
to water and soil pollution caused by the use of fertilizers and the generated by-products [24]. Apart from soil and water pollutions, the use of nitrogen fertilizers causes air pollution since NO2 emissions have stronger effects on nature than CO2[1]. The

expansion of sugarcane farms results in the increased use of fertilizers and therefore causes more pollution [24]. However, according to the International Energy Agency [3], the use of fertilizers in Brazil is still relatively low due to the intensity of the sun and the high productivity of the soils. Another problem with the cultivation is burning the agricultural land. Before harvesting, the straw and leaves of sugarcane is being burnt in order to simplify the
manual harvesting. Such burning causes air, water and soil pollution per se [24]. Concerns about deforestation, in particular in the Amazon region, raise the question whether or not the sugarcane production is partly responsible for this. The

land that is being used to produce sugarcane for bio-ethanol cannot be used for other agricultural products. However, from the total of 264 million hectares land used for
agriculture in Brazil, no more than 2.5% is covered by sugarcane. Only in the southeast region of the country, in the state of So Paulo, the land covered by sugarcane is more than 50%. In the North, near the Amazon region, the land used for sugarcane is only 0.4% out of the total. This is because the sugarcane needs a period of drought which does not occur in the Amazon region [24]. Different studies conclude that the sugarcane production cannot directly be linked to deforestation. A study by Sparovek et al. [25] concludes that the expansion of sugarcane production cannot directly be considered as the main reason for deforestation. According to the OECD's study [2], most sugarcane plantations are not located near the Amazon region. Infrastructures that are required for ethanol production are very scarce in the region. The study concludes that timber exploitation and high stocking rate are the main causes for deforestation. In addition, other forms of agriculture, besides sugarcane, are also expanding [26].

Slaves in Brazil have horrible working conditions

Azadi 12
Hossein Azadi (Department of Geography, Ghent University, Belgium), August 2012, ScienceDirect, Bitter sweet: How sustainable is bioethanol production in Brazil?, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032112001980#, accessed 7/9/2013, #BD
The production of sugarcane has not only environmental impacts, but there

are also social impacts. Unfortunately, the impacts are not very positive. Although Brazil has ratified the main treaties and international instruments on human rights, these rights are not being respected in the sugarcane business. First of all, the cultivation of sugarcane has a great impact on the labour conditions [2]. According to the Special Action Programme to combat Forced Labour of the International Labour Organization (ILO), forced labour is still a problem in Brazil *27+. Forced labour occurs mostly in the cattle ranching industry followed by the sugarcane industry. The conditions in which the labours have to work are comparable to slavery.4 They have to work long days while are low-paid. The overall working conditions have a negative effect on their health. The burnt farms cause them inhaled dust and smog that usually ends to
inhalation diseases. A few reports [24] and [28] show that there are many cases of deaths due to such harmful working conditions. Furthermore, most of the harvest is still being done manually which has to be conducted only in dry seasons (May to October) that make it highly intensive [29]. Another problem for the Brazilian population is food insecurity. According to ActionAid5 a global anti-poverty agency, the link between biofuels and hunger is strong. First of all, some strategic products like wheat, corn and sugar, are used also to produce biofuels in Brazil. Second, the land that is allocated for biofuels cannot be used for producing food or as grassland for cattle. Considering the food crisis in 2008, several studies have shown that biofuels were one of the main causes of increasing food prices as well [28].

US key to Cuban sugar industry-over half of exports went to the US

Echevarria 1995
Oscar A. Echevarra (writer for the The Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy), 1995, The Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, CUBA AND THE INTERNATIONAL SUGAR MARKET, http://www.ascecuba.org/publications/proceedings/volume5/pdfs/file30.pdf, accessed 7/9/2013, #BD HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Since

colonial times, sugarcane production has played a leading role in the Cuban economy. While a colony, sugarcane and tobacco were preferred over other crops for different reasons. Fruits and vegetables as well as
fish and meat were not suitable to the long trip back to Europe and local tubers, such as yucca (yucca), did not have a market. Spain had

forbidden the planting of cotton, wheat and rice. On the other hand the flatness of the land and the possibility of farming most of the year made sugar cane one of the most beneficial crops, on an island where 52% of the land was arable. Sugarcane has also some advantages over tobacco. While sugarcane is homogeneous crop whose quality is not greatly affected by the micro-climate, this is not the case of tobacco culture where a special knowledge and expertise is also required. Increasing tobacco production requires very intensive manual care, fertilizers, herbicides and fungicides, inputs that tend to increase production costs. In the case of sugarcane, no such intensive cultivations is needed. At

the beginning of this century, the United States was the largest consumer of Cuban sugar. The topography of the island and its proximity to the U.S. market resulted in low transportation cost both by rail and roads and short shipping time to U.S. ports. Inasmuch as local consumption was relatively small, because the population of the island was not large, almost all the production was exportable. In turn the United States exported to Cuba all the products that it needed. For this reason, the prosperity or recession of the economy in Cuba depended on the fluctuation of the prices of sugar in U.S. and international markets, which was a factor outside of the control of the country. For most of this century, Cuba has been either the largest or among the largest sugar producers in the world. In the 1920s, it was the world leading
producer. In the years just preceding the 1959 Revolution, Cubas exports of around 5 million tons annually provided almost one-third of global sugar exports. This important participation in the world market, as well as its capacity to increase supply by 212uba in Transition ASCE 1995 364 to 3 million MT in a given year, made Cuba also the dominant factor in policing the International Sugar Agreement and gave the island a major role in the International Sugar Council in London whose purpose was to maintain an orderly market. After the Second World War and until 1958, Cuba consolidated its commanding role in the international sugar market. During

those years, Cuba was not only among the three largest producers, but was by far the largest exporter. Cuba succeeded in maintaining its dominant role due to two majors factors: 1. Cuba has a very well organized sugar industry and was able to produce sugar at competitive prices, due to: outstanding natural conditions of soil and climate; a well organized agricultural sector; and excellent industrial capacity. 2. Cuba also enjoyed a privileged situation due to its share of the U.S. sugar market. The U.S. quota system allowed Cuba to export over 50% of its production to the United States at the highly protected prices of the U.S. market. The implicit subsidy to the Cuban economy that resulted from the U.S. quota allowed Cuba to have available a
substantial stand-by reserve of almost a million tons of raw sugar and a capacity to extend the crop season and harvest for almost an additional million tons, when needed. This reserve amounting to almost 20% of what at the time was the volume of the international sugar market allowed Cuba to be a market leader that was very efficient and effective in controlling price and thus the cornerstone of the International Sugar Agreement.

Brazilian Indians are fighting back after some Indians were shot and killed by Brazils riot police during a massive eviction of 200 natives from their homelands
Reuters 13 6/1/13 Indians invade Brazilian farm again, set fire to fields Online@http://www.indianexpress.com/news/indians-invadebrazilian-farm-again-set-fire-to-fields/1123650/

Brazilian Indians reoccupied a disputed rural property and set fire to fields on Friday, a day after they were violently evicted in a growing conflict over land ownership in southern Brazil's farm belt. The land dispute turned bloody on Thursday when a Terena Indian was shot dead during the eviction by riot police, who used tear gas to dislodge some 200 natives from the cattle ranch owned by a former congressman, Ricardo Bacha. "The Indians are on the war path," Bacha said in a phone interview from his townhouse in Campo Grande, 70 kms (43 miles) away
from the farm in Mato Grosso do Sul state, a big producer of soy and corn for export. "They are wild about the death and occupied the farm again because the police left and I could not go back. They burnt down my house yesterday and my life would be in danger there." Bacha said 18 farms out of 30 in the 17,000-hectare (42,000- acre) area claimed by the Terena as ancestral lands have

now been occupied by the Indians. Brazil's Indian affairs office, Funai, designated the area as Indian land in 2010, though law
courts have since ruled in favor of the farmers' ownership and issued eviction orders. President Dilma Rousseff called an emergency meeting late on Friday to discuss the mounting dispute over Indian land and the occupation of a construction site at a major hydroelectric plant by tribes opposed to building new dams in the Amazon. Brazil's indigenous policy, considered one of the world's most progressive, returns lands to natives when anthropological studies find they had traditionally occupied the area. However, it has

sparked violence since the country became an agricultural powerhouse and Indian policy has clashed with farming interests. Rousseff
sides with farmers in Indian fight Reuters reported earlier this month that Rousseff ceded to pressure from the farm lobby and ordered the Funai to stop turning over farmland to Indians. The powerful farm lobby contends that the policy is a misguided effort to right historical injustices.

Brazil sugarcane industry severely mistreats native tribes tribe members without resources, exposed to diseases, beaten, and killed
Tarrag 12 His Excellency Piragibe Dos Santos Tarrag (Ambassador, Embassy of the Federative Republic of Brazil) 2012
[Of land and sugar, murder and ethanol: The continuing plight of Brazils Guarani people) Upstream Journal Online at http://www.upstreamjournal.org/PDF/Fall%202012%20low-res.pdf, Accessed July 9, 2013]//RR There are 650,000 Indians in Brazil, in over 200 tribes. They range in size from the Guarani, the

largest at 46,000, are impoverished. Malnutrition and poor health have led infant mortality rates to double that of the national average, while Guarani life expectancy is more than twenty years below the national average. In the 1960s, much of their ancestral land began to be taken by locals for cattle ranches and sugarcane plantations. Without their own land, some Guarani live by the sides of highways, with little access to clean water, food and medical care. The government has promised to clearly identify land that is owned by indigenous peoples, but the process has been very slow, and some communities have attempted to occupy land they consider their own, leading to conflicts with plantation owners and ranchers. Tribal leaders have been shot dead, or kidnapped and tortured, for their role in land reoccupation. Death threats are frequent. Only recently have there been efforts to bring those responsible to justice. Guarani tribe leader Marcos Veron, beaten to death in 2003 by gunmen working for a local rancher, was a leader in his communitys reoccupation of their stolen ancestral land. His was the first such case brought to trial. In 2011 the three men accused, employees on a local ranch, were acquitted of homicide but convicted of kidnapping, torture, criminal conspiracy and the attempted homicide of the six other Indians present with Veron when he was murdered. Having served more than four years in prison during the trial, they were granted the right to go free pending an appeal. Jacinto Honorio da Silva Filho, whose ranch occupies the ancestral Guarani territory that Verons community had attempted to retake, has never been charged in relation to the murder. Nisio Gomes, 59, was a leader of a Guarani-Kaiow group that had returned to its land after being evicted by ranchers. According to Amnesty International, about 40 gunmen arrived at the Guarani encampment in November 2011 and shot Gomes several times before abducting three children and dragging his body away. They have not been seen since. His story was featured in a film by UBC students
to the Akuntsu and Kano who number only a few dozen. The Guarani are in three groups, the Kaiowa, Nandeva and Mbya. They that brought attention to the case when it was featured on the New York Times website. In June and July 2012 police arrested eighteen people, including six landowners and ten members of a security firm, in connection with the murder. Brazil has one of the worlds most highly

developed biofuels industries, with eighty new sugarcane plantations and alcohol distilleries planned for Mato Grosso du Sol alone, many of which will occupy ancestral land claimed by the Guarani. It is estimated that by next year the demand for ethanol bring a 50% production increase from 2005. Many Indians cut sugarcane for the ethanol factories occupying their land hard, low-wage work. Police raids have revealed terrible working conditions. One such raid in 2007 on a sugarcane alcohol distillery found 800 Indians working and living in subhuman conditions. The workers may be apart from their families for extensive periods, leading to the sexually transmitted diseases and alcoholism by returning labourers. More than 625 Guarani have committed suicide in the past 30 years. There are some efforts to improve the situation. In 2012 the government announced an
agreement with the sugar industry to improve working conditions, in response to criticism by European countries about the source of ethanol. Although the agreement sets new health and safety standards, and 300 of 400 producers have signed on, it is not binding and does not set minimum wages.

Impacts
Sugar cane cutters suffer hazardous conditions resulting in lowest life expectancy and highest mortality rate
Fairtrade Foundation 13
[Fairtrade And Sugar Fairtrade Foundation Online at http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/includes/documents/cm_docs/2013/F/Fairtrade%20and%20Sugar%20Briefing%20Final%20Jan13.pdf accessed July 9, 2013, AV] Sugar cane cutters undertake hazardous, backbreaking work for low wages. Often, safety equipment is not

provided, and machete-related injuries are common, ranging from minor cuts to severed limbs. Repetitive use of heavy machetes can cause musculoskeletal injuries, while unprotected eyes are vulnerable to cuts and injuries from cane stalks. There is also a risk of health defects and respiratory problems resulting from sugar cane burning (described in the following section). Amnesty International has reported that in several countries, sugar plantation workers endure low wages, poor working conditions and overcrowded and insanitary housing.36 In north-east Brazil, sugar cane cutters have the lowest life expectancy, and their children the highest mortality rate, of any group.37 Sugar cane workers are often seasonal migrants, paid per tonne of cane cut.
Many, such as Haitians working in the Dominican Republic, are illegal migrants with few rights and live in fear of deportation.

Cane burning causes pollution, respiratory conditions, and premature death

Fairtrade Foundation 13
[Fairtrade And Sugar Fairtrade Foundation Online at http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/includes/documents/cm_docs/2013/F/Fairtrade%20and%20Sugar%20Briefing%20Final%20Jan13.pdf accessed July 9, 2013, AV] Sugar cane fields are burned before harvesting to remove dead leaf material and weeds. This makes processing easier and reduces the need for manual labour, as well as destroying scorpions, snakes and other dangerous insects and pests that live in the dense undergrowth and can pose a danger to workers. However, burning destroys about 25 per cent of the stalk,

including dry and green leaves that could otherwise be left to rot down and enrich the soil. Alternatively, they could be removed and burned to create steam for
electricity generation or used as a source of fuel themselves.

Cane burning releases large amounts of organic and particulate matter into the air. This particle pollution has been associated with a range of respiratory conditions, including irritation of the airways (causing coughing or difficulty breathing), decreased lung function, aggravated asthma, chronic bronchitis, and premature death in people with heart or lung disease. It has been linked to an increase in hospital visits for respiratory issues, specifically among children and older people. During the burning season, from May to November, smoke from large-scale sugar cane fields in Brazil covers huge areas of the Amazon. This reduces the natural cloud blanket that envelops the area for most of the year and affects the climate by allowing more solar energy to enter the Earths atmosphere.38

Framework
The roll of the judge is to be a productive citizen engaged in methodological discourse that reorients the very nature of the status quo policy discussions Within this framework the roll of the ballot is to vote for whoever provides the best unique and pragmatic education Viewing the problem from the view of a citizen is key it has fallen to the citizens to change our consumption habits
Bacevich 8 *Andrew J., The Limits of Power: The end of American Exceptionalism
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ZnGZlzrA_gC&oi=fnd&pg=PP7&dq=american+exceptionalism&ots=EPlU23PpnV&sig=_l391Bk3pbRv9GJTDfheEkkKeA#v=onepage&q=american%20exceptionalism&f=false] Niebuhr once wrote, "One

of the most pathetic aspects of human history is that every civilization expresses itself most pretentiously, compounds its partial and universal values most convincingly, and claims immortality for its finite existence at the very moment when the decay which leads to death has already begun." Future generations of historians may well cite Niebuhr's dictum as a concise explanation of the folly that
propelled the United States into its Long War. In an immediate sense, it is the soldier who bears the burden of such folly. U.S. troops in battle dress and body armor, whom Americans profess to admire and support, pay the price for the nation's collective refusal to confront our domestic dysfunction. In many ways, the condition of the military today offers the most urgent expression of that dysfunction.

Seven years into its confrontation with radical Islam, the United States finds itself with too much war for too few warriors and with no prospect of producing the additional soldiers needed to close the gap. In effect, Americans now confront a looming military crisis to go along with the economic and political crises that they have labored so earnestly to ignore. The Iraq War deserves our attention as the clearest manifestation of these three crises, demonstrating the extent to which they are inextricably linked and mutually reinforcing. That war was always unnecessary. Except in the eyes of the
deluded and the disingenuous, it has long since become a fool's errand. Of perhaps even greater significance, it is both counterproductive and unsustainable. Yet ironically Iraq may yet prove to be the source of our salvation.

For the United States, the ongoing war makes plain the imperative of putting America's house in order. Iraq has revealed the futility of counting on military power to sustain our habits of profligacy. The day of reckoning approaches. Expending the lives of more American soldiers in hopes of deferring that day is profoundly wrong.
History will not judge kindly a people who find nothing amiss in the prospect of endless armed conflict so long as they themselves are spared the effects. Nor

will it view with favor an electorate that delivers political power into the hands of leaders unable to envision any alternative to perpetual war. Rather than insisting that the world accommodate the United States, Americans need to reassert control over their own destiny, ending their condition of dependency and abandoning their imperial delusions. Of perhaps even greater difficulty, the combination of economic, political, and military crisis summons Americans to reexamine exactly what freedom entails. Soldiers cannot accomplish these tasks, nor should we expect politicians to do
so.

The onus of responsibility falls squarely on citizens .

Narrative gives a voice to the oppressed in politics Iris, Marion, Young 2000 Inclusion and Democracy page 71-72 Professor of Political Science
In recent years a number of legal theorists have turned to narrative as a means of giving voice to kinds of experience which often go unheard in legal discussions and courtroom settings, and as a means of challenging the idea that law expresses an impartial and neutral standpoint above all particular perspectives. Some legal theorists discuss the way that storytelling in the legal context functions to challenge a hegemonic view and express the

particularity of experience to which the law ought to respond but often does not. 20 Several scholars of Latin American literature offer another variant of a theory of the political function of storytelling, in their reflections on testimonio. Some resistance movement leaders in Central and South America narrate their life stories as a means of exposing to the wider literate world the oppression of their people and the repression they suffer from their governments. Often such testimonios involve one person's story standing or speaking for that of a whole group to a wider, sometimes global, public, and making claims upon that public for the group. This raises important questions about how a particular person's story can speak for others, 21 and whether speaking to the literate First
World public changes the construction of the story. 22 While these are important questions, here I wish only to indicate a debt to both of these literatures, and analyse these insights with an account of some of the political functions of storytelling. Suppose

we in a public want to make arguments to justify proposals for how to solve our collective problems or resolve our conflicts justly. In order to proceed, those of us engaged in meaningful political discussion and debate must share many things. We must share a description of the problem, share an idiom in which to express alternative proposals, share rules of evidence and prediction, and share some normative principles which can serve as premisses in our arguments about what ought to be done. When all these conditions exist, then we can engage in reasonable disagreement. Fortunately, in most political disputes these conditions are met in some respect and to some degree, but for many political disputes they are not met in other respects and degrees. When these conditions for meaningful argument do not obtain, does this mean that we must or should resort to a mere
power contest or to some other arbitrary decision procedure? I say not. Where we lack shared understandings in crucial respects, sometimes forms of communication other than argument can speak across our differences to promote understanding. I take the

use of narrative in political communication to be one important such mode. Political narrative differs from other forms of narrative by its intent and its audience context. I tell the story not primarily to entertain or reveal myself, but to make a pointto demonstrate, describe, explain, or justify something to others in an ongoing political discussion. Political narrative furthers discussion across difference in several ways. Response to the 'differend'. Chapter 1 discussed how a radical injustice can occur when those who suffer a wrongful harm or oppression lack the terms to express a claim of injustice within the prevailing normative discourse. Those who suffer this wrong are excluded from the polity, at least with respect to that wrong. Lyotard calls this situation the differend. How can a group that suffers a particular harm or oppression move from a situation of total silencing and exclusion with respect to this suffering to its public expression? Storytelling is often an important bridge in such cases between the mute experience of being wronged and political arguments about justice. Those who experience the wrong, and perhaps some others who sense it, may have no language for expressing the suffering as an injustice, but nevertheless they can tell stories that relate a sense of wrong. As people tell such stories publicly within and between groups, discursive reflection on them then develops a normative language that names their injustice and can give a general account of why this kind of suffering constitutes an injustice.

Narrative in debate is key to the Education of real world experiences Gregory ND (Josh Department of Speech Communication California State University, Fullerton Narrative Voice and the Urban
Debater: An investigation into empowerment) The first step in orienting to the narratives of everyday life in this way is to listen to what people say. Not necessarily to retell it in exactly those terms, but to enquire into how it would be possible for them to say that. What

kinds of assumptions in what types of possible world could produce those accounts? (Clegg, 1993, p.31). This inquiry offers the ability to gain an insight into others existence and epistemological understandings. The ability to conceptualize or empathize with ones stories creates a convergence between two different perspectives. This convergence is directly related to the unifying power of the narrative as well as providing a legitimate means for the disenfranchised voice to be heard. Mumby (1993) illustrates how the duality of narrative structures create a social understanding as well as set up an epistemological device of meaning in which social awareness is created: Narrative is a socially symbolic act in the double sense that (a) it takes on meaning only in social context and (b) it plays a role in the construction of that social context as a cite of meaning in which social actors are implicated. However, there is no simple isomorphism between narrative

(or any other symbolic form) and the social realm. In different ways, each of the chapters belies the notion that the narrative functions monolithically to crate a stable, structured, social order. Indeed, one of the prevailing themes across the chapters is the extent to which social order is tenuous, precarious, and open to negotiation in various ways. In this sense, society

is characterized by an ongoing struggle over meaning (p. 5). The implication of these two factors on intercollegiate debate point to how the narrative not only relies on the social context for meaning, but aids in the construction of that context. Debate is a unique forum to meet Mumbys socially symbolic act. Debate offers a unique social context in that the majority of audience members are intellectually versed on the social context of a particular narrative (due to debate research). The public advocacy emphasis of academic debate also allows for a cite of meaning and the adversarial positions in a debate round allow a team to implicate a judge or another team by virtue of their position. It is in these mock situations that debaters are implicated as social actors, and thus are moved to action by virtue of close engagement with anothers story. In factors of debate the concepts of theory and practice are inexorably intertwined. When these two competing ideologies can be combined creates a holistic insight into the human psyche. Insight gained from this holistic understanding is created by stories (or narratives) that define human experience. The ability to construct a compelling story can have a dramatic impact on the social epistemology, which creates a co-constructed knowledge framework. Scholars have posited that: Stories are among the most universal means of representing human events. In addition to suggesting an interpretation for a social happening, a well-crafted narrative can motivate the belief and action of outsiders toward the actors and events caught up in its plot. A key question about stories, as with other situations- defining
symbolic forms like metaphors, theories, and ideologies is whether they introduce new and constructive insights into social life (Bennett & Edelman, 1985, p. 156). This form of meaning production and the persuasive potential of identification established by the narrative can be a powerful force upon the debate community or even society. The process of which an individuals interacts with a narrative and then how a community reacts to the narrative is better explained by White (1987) who states: Narrative

is revealed to be particularly effective system of discursive meaning production by which individuals can be taught to live a distinctively imaginary relation to the real conditions of existence, that is to say, an unreal but meaningful relation to the social formations in which they are indentured to live out their lives and realize their destinies and social subjects. To conceive of a narrative discourse in this way permits us to account for its universality as a cultural fact and for the interest that dominant social groups have not only in controlling what will pass for the authoritative myth of a given cultural formation but also in assuring the belief that social reality itself can be both lived and realistically comprehended as a story
(p. 187) The entrance of this new form of information processing seems uncertain. Thus, the final analysis looks to the debate community in particular and provides some investigation as to how the persuasiveness of the narrative could interact with the conventions and norms of the debate community.

Answer to Cede the Political

Working in the institutional framework only creates the same problems Y. Slagter Dr. E.H.P. Frankema July 2011 The Sugar-Coated Path to Economic Inequality A Comparative Study of
Guyana and Suriname, ca. 1600-present Research MA Thesis History: Cities, States and Citizenship Utrecht University The last twenty years, work on the issue of economic growth has increasingly focused on two historical

features of economies: institutions, and inequality. One of the institutional approachs earliest proponents, Douglass North, defined
institutions as sets of rules, moral and ethical behavioral norms and compliance procedures, or in short, the humanly devised constraints that structure human interaction. 16 According to the institutional perspective, grander, more complex economic structures wil l not emerge unless institutions reduce the uncertainties associated with the new structures. In his seminal Institutions, Institutional Change, and

Economic Performance, North theorized institutional change as incremental rather than discontinuous, with organizations and increasing returns as essential ingredients. Organizations are groups of individuals, bound by common objectives, which come into existence and evolve under the influence of the institutional framework, and in their turn influence how the institutional framework evolves.17 At the occurrence of several alternatives for maximizing profit, choices are made. Once a development path is set on a particular course, the learning process of organizations that participate within the specific institutional framework and the subjective modeling of issues among other factors reinforce the course. The choice set, in other words, is narrowed down by the interplay between the institutional framework and the consequent stakeholding organizations. Because of the complexity of the institutional framework, made up of numerous constraints both formal and informal, it is virtually impossible to modify it in its entirety. Changes to increase returns happen at the margins, where immediate issues require solution and the solution will be determined by the relative bargaining power of the organizations that have evolved in the overall institutional context. Adjustments will be marginal and once a certain path is chosen, North argues, the overall direction becomes difficult to reverse. Choices are not per definition the more efficient choices for the whole of the community, and even when they are, because of at best partial information about the consequences of particular courses of action, the outcomes are often uncertain. Short-run efforts at profit maximizing may thus result in the pursuit of persistently inefficient activities because of this path dependence. 18

Government Bad
The U.S. should not consume goods obtained through practices that abuse human rights. ILRF 08
{International Labor Rights Forum, an advocacy organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide, Changing Global Trade Rules, online at http://www.laborrights.org/creating-a-sweatfree-world/changing-global-trade-rules, accessed 07/08/13}
As long as poor labor standards exist in one country, workers everywhere will be hurt. Governments that neglect or oppress their laborers make the choice to strip their own citizens of their rights as human beings. Not only this, but they create unfair pressure in the global economy. If one country offers oppressively cheap labor, other countries become compelled to do the same to merely remain competitive. This global race to the bottom creates poor conditions and loss of freedom in the global South, and causes workers in the global North to lose their jobs to cheap outsourced labor. Our Trade Program exists with the mission to effect real change in this system for oppressed workers everywhere. The ILRF works to encourage the USalong with other countriesto trade responsibly by preventing the exploitation of workers. Since the early years of our work, we have argued that laissez-faire economics must be tempered with social clauses for the protection of labor rights. These rightswhich are human rightsmust not be compromised in global trade.

Traditional international Investment often adversely affects individuals. Crum, Rafter, and Razook 06
,Nicole Crum, Grant Rafter and Erica Razook, Human Rights, Trade and Investment Matters, May 2006 , Amnesty International, online@http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/hrtradeinvestmentmatters.pdf, accessed 07/08/13}
Amnesty Internationals foray into the field of investment and human rights reflects a wider critical focus on the human rights implications of foreign direct investment from a broad spectrum of bodies ranging from the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights to research institutes, think tanks and pressure groups. Of particular concern is the ad hoc nature in which international investment rules are framed, often without reference to international human rights law, as well as the lack of transparency of application of these rules and of mechanisms for resolving disputes. At the heart of Amnesty Internationals concerns is the individual whose rights are adversely affected by the investment, who does not receive adequate protection from the state to prevent violations from occurring in the first place, and who lacks access to justice and effective remedies for damage caused.

The government has failed to address market problems. Stiglitz 03

,J E. STIGLITZ, ETHICS, MARKET AND GOVERNMENT FAILURE, AND GLOBALIZATION, 3-11-03, online at http://jnode.homeip.net/wfb/research%20archive/favorite/2003_Ethics_Market_and_Government_Failure_and_Globalization-Stiglitz.pdf, accessed 07/08/13} When there are market failures, however, individuals in the pursuit of their own interests may not pursue general interests. There can be real conflicts of interest. These have been brought out forcefully in the literature on asymmetric information, where agents may not take actions which are in the best interests of those for whom they are suppose to be acting. They can violate their fiduciary trust. There is a fine line between ordinary incentive problems and broader ethical issues. We typically do not say a worker who does not give his all for his employer is unethical; we are as likely to blame the employer, for failing to provide adequate incentive structures. But we are likely to say that a worker who steals from his employer in unethical. We do not say that the problem is only that the employer has failed to give the right incentive structure including providing adequate monitoring. But between these two extremes there are many subtle shades of gray. In the United States, the corporate, accounting, and banking scandals in each of which individuals were simply acting in ways which reflected their own interests, and most of which were, at the time totally legal raised (for most people) serious ethical issues. CEOs and other executives deliberately took advantage of their positions of trust to enrich themselves at the expense of those they were supposed to serve. They did not disclose information that they should have. These are market failures, failures which led to what I (and most others) view as unethical behavior. There were also public failures. The government not only failed to address the problems posed by the conflicts of interest and the misleading accounting even after public attention to these problems had been drawn but with the repeal of he Glass Steagall Act they even expanded the scope for these conflicts of interest. Rather than correcting the market failures they exacerbated them.

Solvency
Consumers assessing consequences of agricultural production, expecting products have been ethically producedFairtrade proves
Fairtrade Foundation 13
[Fairtrade And Sugar Fairtrade Foundation Online at http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/includes/documents/cm_docs/2013/F/Fairtrade%20and%20Sugar%20Briefing%20Final%20Jan13.pdf accessed July 9, 2013, AV]

In recent years, effective campaign strategies have exposed problems in the commodity supply chains in developing countries, highlighting issues ranging from workers rights, child labour and climate change to the impact of production on local communities and the environment. As a result, consumers in Europe and the US are increasingly aware of the impact of agricultural production on producers and the environment, and have a growing expectation of companies to demonstrate that their products have been ethically and responsibly produced. An internationally accredited (ISO 65) 47 independent inspection body upholds Fairtrade Standards and underpins the integrity of the certification system as endorsed by a survey 48 that found that nine out of ten consumers
trust Fairtrade: a significantly higher rate than for Rainforest Alliance and Soil Association, the other labels tested in the survey. So, Fairtrade clearly gives consumers the opportunity to make ethical purchasing decisions and contribute to reducing

poverty through their everyday shopping. Fairtrade is also unique as a certification scheme in being supported by a widespread
grassroots movement, with more than 500 local community campaigns in the UK alone,49 as well as thousands of schools, universities and faith groups at the forefront of building awareness and consumer demand for Fairtrade. Thousands of events are organised every year particularly during Fairtrade Fortnight to

inform and inspire the public to choose Fairtrade as a way of expressing their commitment to fairer trade and their solidarity with workers across the world. By developing locally
embedded partnerships with businesses, local authorities, decision makers, schools and community organisations, the many hundreds of Fairtrade Towns act as multipliers throughout their communities, securing institutional commitments to sourcing Fairtrade, and helping grow awareness of the FAIRTRADE Mark to nearly 80 per cent of the UK population.

Companies now see improving environmental and social impact as clear business benefit
Fairtrade Foundation 13
[Fairtrade And Sugar Fairtrade Foundation Online at http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/includes/documents/cm_docs/2013/F/Fairtrade%20and%20Sugar%20Briefing%20Final%20Jan13.pdf accessed July 9, 2013, AV] Rightly, these companies

see Fairtrade as a clear business benefit: they know that if they treat their producers fairly, they can improve their security of supply and deepen investment in quality and productivity, while improving their environmental and social impact. And consumers clearly want this. Recent research shows that just under 40 per cent of British consumers not only believe in Fairtrade but act on their belief through purchasing Fairtrade products and telling others about its benefits

Sugar produced using forced child labor leads to heat exhaustion, skin damage, increased risk of skin cancer, and other health concerns
Fairtrade Foundation 13
[Fairtrade And Sugar Fairtrade Foundation Online at http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/includes/documents/cm_docs/2013/F/Fairtrade%20and%20Sugar%20Briefing%20Final%20Jan13.pdf accessed July 9, 2013, AV] A US Department of Labor report 39 states that sugar is produced using child labour in Belize, Bolivia, Burma, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Kenya, Mexico, Panama, Philippines, Thailand and Uganda, and using forced labour in Bolivia, Burma, Brazil, Dominican Republic and Pakistan. The report says

children in sugar cane fields do strenuous work, often over long hours. They are exposed to excessive sun and heat, may suffer heat exhaustion and skin damage, and are at increased risk of skin cancer. Accidents from heavy tools and sharp machetes, used to weed and harvest cane, can cause serious wounds.

Children are also at risk of respiratory disorders from inhaling smoke from cane burning to clear fields, and contact with pesticides can cause damage to childrens skin and eyes and be detrimental to respiratory function and reproductive health over time. For many parents, there is little incentive to discourage child labour because their incomes are low and schooling is expensive.

Sugarcane production contributes to food shortages and various environmental issues

Fairtrade Foundation 13
[Fairtrade And Sugar Fairtrade Foundation Online at http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/includes/documents/cm_docs/2013/F/Fairtrade%20and%20Sugar%20Briefing%20Final%20Jan13.pdf accessed July 9, 2013, AV]

The intensification of sugar cane production means that land originally used to grow food is being switched to sugar cane production, with a negative impact on food security in rural areas. Sugar cane production can contribute to a host of environmental problems, including deforestation, habitat destruction, water scarcity and water pollution. The overuse of chemical fertilisers and pesticides and irrigation deteriorates soil fertility, pollutes soil and water, depletes water, and impacts on the livelihoods of farmers and workers.

Corn Bad
Corn Production creates dead zones killing all marine life and poisons surrounding water as well as the Gulf of Mexico
UCS 11 Union of Concerned Scientists, 9/13/2012 *Corn Ethanols Threat to Water Resources Online@http://www.ucsusa.org/assets
/documentts/clean_energy/ew3/corn-ethanol-and-water-quality.pdf SM] This increase in corn

productionand the fertilizer use associated with ithas implications for water quality from the wash nitrogen and phosphorus pollution from farm fields into creeks, then small rivers, large rivers, and ultimately the ocean. Along the way this pollution contributes to algae blooms in lakes and streams as well as in the Gulf of Mexico, where the algae causes a seasonal dead zone that threatens important fisheries (Rabalais et al. 2010). In the Corn Belt, cornfields are typically bare
Corn Belt to the Gulf of Mexico. Rains (other than leftover husks and stalks) between the October harvest and early summer of the following year, when new plants begin to grow (NASS 2010). For more than half the year there are no growing plants to hold on to nutrients or shield the soil from erosion, so by the time snowmelt and harsh spring rains arrive, they do significant damage by washing both fertilizer and sediment into waterways. Rainfall that is not absorbed by the soil becomes runoff, carrying with it dissolved nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizer and manure, along with topsoil. Additionally, many Corn Belt farms use artificial drainage that facilitates the movement of nitrogen pollution, especially in the form of nitrate, from fields to waterways (see the text box Drainage Problems and Solutions). While many fertilized crops contribute to the problem, corna particularly resource-intensive crop is the leading culprit. Corn is planted on less than 23 percent of U.S. cropland (USDA 2009), but receives 40 percent of the fertilizer (ERS 2011b). Best practices for the timing and application of fertilizer can reduce water pollution, but these practices are not consistently followed. For example, according to a recent U.S. Department of Agriculture assessment of conservation practices in the Upper Mississippi River Basin, 62

percent of the farmland

there requires improved management of fertilizers to address excessive losses of nitrogen and phosphorus. Planting a winter cover crop could help reduce erosion and provide fertilizer uptake year-round, but cover crops are currently used on less than 1 percent of the basins acres (NRCS 2010).

Corn is directly linked to Polluting 31 percent of Americas streams UCS 11 Union of Concerned Scientists, 9/13/2012 *Corn Ethanols Threat to Water Resources Online@http://www.ucsusa.org/assets
/documentts/clean_energy/ew3/corn-ethanol-and-water-quality.pdf SM]

The EPA found high levels of phosphorus contamination in 31 percent of the nations streams and high levels of nitrogen contamination in 32 percent of streams; agriculture is the largest source of this pollution by far (EPA 2008). Thirteen percent of these streams were unsafe for drinking due to nitrate. Reducing nitrate concentrations to safe levels requires treatments that are expensive and consume a great deal of energy (Twomey, Stillwell, and Webber 2010). Furthermore, the USGS found that all streams in agricultural watersheds contain some pesticides, and 57 percent had at least one pesticide present at a level the EPA deems unhealthy for aquatic life (EPA 2008). Nitrogen and phosphorus escaping from farms are also a threat to lakes because elevated levels stimulate the growth of algae (through a process called eutrophication) and, on occasion, toxin-producing microorganisms. The result is slimy green water, altered aquatic vegetation, loss of fish habitat, and fish kills (Hudnell 2008). Corn farming is responsible for much of this pollution in the Mississippi River Basin: it is the dominant source of nitrogen pollution and the second-largest source of phosphorus pollution after animal manure on pasture and rangelands (Figure 7) (Alexander et al. 2008).

Corn Production destroys the Gulf of Mexico by pumping Nitrogen and Phosphorus that create algae growth leading to dead zones that kill fish and marine life
UCS 11 Union of Concerned Scientists, 9/13/2012 *Corn Ethanols Threat to Water Resources Online@http://www.ucsusa.org/assets
/documentts/clean_energy/ew3/corn-ethanol-and-water-quality.pdf SM] Just as in lakes upriver, nitrogen and

phosphorus flowing into the Gulf of Mexico stimulate algae growth. When the algae die and decompose, oxygen in the water is consumed, leading to severe oxygen depletion or hypoxia, which either kills fish and other marine life or forces them to seek more suitable habitats. The
resulting dead zone peaks in size each summer; over the last five years it has averaged more than 6,000 square mileslarger than

Connecticut. The

lack of oxygen threatens not only aquatic species but also the gulfs $2.8 billion-a-year commercial and recreational fishing industry (Committee on Environment and Natural Resources 2010). Corn and soybean crops contribute half the nitrogen and a quarter of the phosphorus that cause the dead zone (Figure 7) (Alexander et al. 2008). These crops are counted together because corn and soybeans are typically grown in rotation, but corn is the more heavily fertilized of the two, accounting for essentially all the nitrogen (97 percent) and most of the phosphorus (80 percent) applied (ERS 2011b). A coordinated effort by state and federal agencies to restore the health of affected
marine fisheries and ecosystems in the gulf has set a target to reduce the average size of the dead zone by more than two-thirds (Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force 2009).

Increased Consumption of corn ethanol leads to planting on unauthorized land, vastly increasing nitrogen and phosphorus runoff into ground and surface waters
UCS 11 Union of Concerned Scientists, 9/13/2012 *Corn Ethanols Threat to Water Resources Online@http://www.ucsusa.org/assets
/documentts/clean_energy/ew3/corn-ethanol-and-water-quality.pdf SM]

Corn production has been increasing rapidly in recent years due primarily to the demand for ethanol (Figure 3). More demand for corn ethanol means higher prices for corn, which translates into changes in agricultural practices. For example, the cornsoybean rotations that were typical in the Corn Belt have given way to more intensive corn production, with either two years of corn between soybean plantings, or continuous corn (Secchi et al. 2009). More intensive corn production means higher rates of fertilizer application and, with it, the potential for higher losses of nitrogen and phosphorus into ground and surface waters and, ultimately, the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico (Helmers et al. 2011; Secchi et al. 2011; Donner and Kucharik 2008). Higher corn prices also lead to corn being planted on highly erodible and marginally productive land that had been set aside for natural vegetation under the federal Conservation Reserve Program for the past 10 years or more. Bringing this land back into production has a significantly negative impact on erosion, soil carbon, and wildlife habitat (Secchi et al. 2009). Even after the corn has been processed into ethanol, the problems associated with excess nitrogen and phosphorus remain. Only the starch in the corn kernel is converted into fuel, leaving behind the fiber, protein, and nutrientsa product called distillers grains that is fed to livestock, poultry, and fish. Because the act of removing the starch concentrates the nutrients in this animal feed compared with whole corn, the animals manure will be phosphorus-rich and, if used as fertilizer, will further increase phosphorus pollution in surface waters (Simpson et al. 2008).

Imported Cuban biofuel would tradeoff with corn ethanol production in the US
Specht 13 (Jonathan Specht, Legal Advisor, Pearlmaker Holsteins, Inc. B.A., Louisiana State University, 2009; J.D., Washington University
in St. Louis 2012. April 24, 2013. Found at http://environs.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/36/2/specht.pdf) GH Unless Congress raises the RFS by a sufficient degree to absorb all domestic ethanol production on top of these new imports, the increase in such imports would likely damage the domestic ethanol industry. Whatever

the level or type of biofuel, increased

imports

(holding other factors constant)

would reduce the quantity of domestically produced biofuels,

which would reduce the demand for biofuel feedstocks .138 Because very little ethanol is currently imported
into the United States, law and policy changes that successfully fostered the

development of a Cuban sugarcane-based ethanol industry would have a significant economic impact on the United States. Such a change would have the
largest economic effect on two regions: the Midwest, which is currently the primary source of ethanol production in the United States, and the Southeast, especially Florida. This Part of the Article will discuss the likely economic effects of such policy changes first on the Midwest, then on Florida, then on the United States generally.

Increases in the corn ethanol industry accelerates climate change and causes the Gulf Dead Zone
Specht 13 (Jonathan Specht, Legal Advisor, Pearlmaker Holsteins, Inc. B.A., Louisiana State University, 2009; J.D., Washington University
in St. Louis 2012. April 24, 2013. Found at http://environs.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/36/2/specht.pdf) GH
The debit side of the domestic ethanol industrys climate-change ledger begins to subtract from the credit side before the corn it uses is even planted. Americas corn crop might look like a sustainable, solar-powered system for producing food, but it is actually a huge, inefficient, polluting machine that guzzles fossil fuel.61 Whi le advocates for corn production would dispute this characterization of the industry as inefficient and polluting, it is undeniable that conventional corn production techniq ues use large amounts of climate change-exacerbating fossil fuels.

corn production techniques involve annual applications of fertilizers and pesticides, both largely derived from fossil fuels.62 The process by which incentives for ethanol production change land use patterns and thereby impact climate change, known as indirect land use change (ILUC), happens roughly as follows.63 By increasing demand for corn, corn- based ethanol production drives up the price of corn. As the price of corn increases, farmers want to grow more of it. By making corn more appealing to farmers to grow than other crops, and thereby increasing national levels of cornproduction, the corn-based ethanol industry makes the negative environmental effects of corn production more widespread. Conventional corn-growing techniques involve applying more pesticides and fertilizers to corn than is usually applied to other row crops such as soybeans.64 This effect is exacerbated when high corn prices disincentivize crop rotation.65 A common technique in American agriculture today is rotating corn and soybeans.66 Because soybeans are a nitrogen-fixing crop (that is, they take nitrogen out of the atmosphere and release it into the soil), corn grown on land that was used to grow soybeans the year before requires a lesser input of nitrogen fertilizer. By boosting the price of corn relative to other crops like soybeans, however, the domestic ethanol industry encourages farmers to use the same piece of land to grow corn year after year. Growing corn on the same land in successive years rather than rotating it with soybeans significantly increases the climate change effects of corn production because nitrogen fertilizer applications are typically fifty pounds per acre higher for corn planted after corn and nitrous oxide has a global warming potential more than 300 times that of [carbon dioxide+.67 Additionally, the application of fossil fuel-derived nitrogen fertilizer has other environmental impacts beyond exacerbating climate change. The collective nitrogen runoff of the Mississippi River basin has caused a process called hypoxia, which kills off most marine life, in a region of the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists have linked the so-called Dead Zone to corn production and, thus, to the domestic ethanol industry.68
Conventional (non-organic)

Consequentialism Key
Consequentialism keymust look at outcomes to maximize good
Harrison, Newholm, Shaw 5 (Ethical Consumer Research Association, University of Manchester, Glasgow Caledonian University)
*Philosophy and ethical consumption Open Research Online at http://www.sagepub.com/booksProdTOC.nav?prodId=Book227081 accessed July 9, 2013, AV]

Theories which privilege questions of the good are often referred to as consequentialist - they are concerned with defining ethical conduct by reference to the consequences or outcomes of actions. These approaches are also sometimes called teleological, because they start by specifying an end (or telos) independently of moral obligations. They then define the right thing to do as acting to maximize the good. For example,
utilitarianism advocates practices that maximize the overall sum happiness.

Ethical Consumption Good

Ethical consumerism promising buy ethically-produced products
The Guardian 2/21/01 *Ethical consumerism The Guardian Co. Online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2001/feb/22/ethicalmoney1, accessed July 8, 2013]//RR

Being an ethical consumer means buying products which were ethically produced and/or which are not harmful to the environment and society. This can be as simple as buying free-range eggs or as complex as boycotting goods
produced by child labour. Products which fall into the ethical category include organic produce, fair trade goods, energy-efficient light bulbs, electricity from renewable energy, recycled paper and wood products with Forest Stewardship Council approval. Pressure groups regularly flag up companies of concern and the Ethical Consumer Research Association publishes details in its magazine, but deciding what to buy and what not to buy can be as tricky as deciding which ethical fund to invest in. Being an ethical consumer can also involve watching your food miles: how much energy was used getting the product to you. For this reason, ethical consumers are encouraged to buy products which were produced locally. Find out if there is a farmers' market, or an allotment society near you where you can purchase products. Ethical

consumption can be a powerful tool for change, with the recent success of the anti-GM lobby being a case in point. However, there is still a long way to go. A recent report from the Co-operative Bank showed a third of UK consumers claiming to
be concerned about ethical consumption, while only 3% of the UK market is devoted to the production of ethical goods.

The Public is ready to consume ethically and Companies are ready to produce responsibly
ITC 9 (International Trade Center, 2009 CONSUMER CONSCIENCE HOW ENVIRONMENT AND ETHICS ARE
INFLUENCING EXPORTS) Harriet Lamb, Executive Director of the UK Fairtrade Foundation, argued that any

successful business model in the world today has to be based on the consumer demand for sustainability. No business would argue that you do not have to give the customer what he wants, she said. The exponential growth of the fair-trade movement has encouraged companies that in the past paid little attention to the methods used to produce many of the goods from developing countries that they sell to switch their sourcing to certified suppliers. In at least one well-publicized
case, a major supermarket chain took a temporary loss in profits during the adjustment period. She did not address the question whether this would be possible for small businesses in developing countries, but advised: When the (developed country) public hears that

companies are doing the right thing, they are ready to pay more for the product. This had clear implications for developing country producers. The public has shown that it is ready to make trade and business socially responsible, she declared. However, for a business model based on sustainable development to be assured of success, a concerted effort of
marketing and communication is required to ensure that consumers at large are aware of the choices they make and the effect these can have. Lamb suggested that customers already convinced of the moral superiority of their sustainable purchase choices are the best bearers of the message to the public at large. Summing up the discussion, moderator Osman Atac of ITC said there appeared to be consensus that noncompliance with standards, or with consumer demands based on sustainability, are no longer an option for any company. However, there are good business reasons to opt for a sustainable model. Doing good makes good business sense. At the same time, companies have to communicate what they are doing if they are to gain any competitive advantage from their chosen model.

Ethical principles offer a framework around which new structures can be built companies need to adapt
ITC 9 (International Trade Center, 2009 CONSUMER CONSCIENCE HOW ENVIRONMENT AND ETHICS ARE INFLUENCING
EXPORTS) The rise of the conscientious consumer, coupled with the common North- South interest in economic and environmental sustainability, makes old strategies for pursuing international trade relations not only redundant but even counter-productive. Trade can provide a stimulus

to development and ethical principles offer a framework around which new structures can be built,
participants in Forums 2008s final plenary agreed. A national vision Presenting the vision of a small but geographically diverse country of nearly 14 million people whose economy has been long dominated by banana production and the oil industry, Ricardo Estrada of Ecuadors export promotion organization CORPEI sees pursuing niche markets for ethical goods as an integral element of a new National Export Strategy, work on which was to begin shortly with ITC. The government, trade support institutions such as CORPEI and producers and exporters would be involved in the design of the strategy. It will

include careful analysis of value chains to establish where Ecuadorean

companies needed to adapt to comply with consumer market demands that workers be better paid, that women have great access to employment, that carbon emissions be reduced and that consumption of water be minimized. Companies had to be encouraged to work together towards achieving these aims. Government policies should be shaped to create an environment helping producers and exporters alike to comply with sustainability requirements by allocating resources to programmes promoting certification; creating longand medium-term finance
arrangements for the adjustments that would be required; and by investing in research and development into technologies that could ease the transition to sustainable production. Chapter 6 Sustaining and distributing value should also ensure creation of a

national investment climate encouraging both national and foreign ethical capital to move in and act as drivers of faster growth, said Estrada. The role of trade support institutions should be to identify niche markets, analyse their potential and keep track of their growth. They should also promote and co-finance where possible the certification that meeting the requirements of these new ethical markets, and carry out
certification programmes for

Consumers want to be ethical reaffirm moral consumer choice and stop exploiting resources and workers
Martinez and Poole 9 (Dr Marian Garcia Martinez is a senior lecturer in agri-environmental economics at Kent Business School University of Kent. Dr Nigel Poole is the Academic Programme Director at the School of Oriental and African Studies Centre for Development, Environment and Policy and the London International Development Centre - University of London.) 2009 *Fresh Perspectives Ethical consumerism: development of a global trend and its impact on development SOAS, University of London Online at http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/7489/1/FP1_4__3_.pdf, Accessed July 8, 2013]//RR

Consumers are showing an increasing interest in ethical aspects of agrifood production and trade, including fair trade, safe working conditions for producers and employees, and sustainable and environmentally-friendly natural resources management. Ethical consumerism seeks to reaffirm the moral dimension of consumer choice by emphasising the links between production and consumption, locally and globally (Gabriel and Lang 1995). Ethical consumers have at the core of their agenda the desire to enhance their well-being through purchasing behaviour that avoids harming or exploiting humans, animals or the environment (Ethical Consumer 2003). Consumption has become a means by which people's non-material views about the nature of society and the future of the environment can be manifested in a tangible and measurable way (Howard 2005).

Ethical consumers reflect their moral, ethical and social concerns

Isabelle Szmigin and Marylyn Carrigan 06 (University of Birmingham, United Kingdom) *Exploring the Dimensions of Ethical Consumption European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 7 at http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/eacr/vol7/europeanvolume7_25.pdf accessed July 9, 2013, AV] For the purpose of this discussion we suggest that a key identifier of ethical consumption is that while socially and environmentally aware, it is firmly placed within an existing framework of the consumer society. Ethical

consumers do not deny consumption but rather choose goods that reflect their moral, ethical and social concerns. Ethical consumption is as much part of the active social process of consumption with its material and symbolic dimensions as any other form of consumption; we should not view it in isolation but accept that ethical attributes will be measured by consumers along with others relevant to their choice decisions (Shaw and Clarke 1998). Ethical consumption can be integrated into our general understanding of how consumers consume and as such, requires further exploration and investigation in terms of what it means to consumers beyond external and instrumental reasons such as welfare, pollution and appropriate disposal. What other factors drive the choice of an ethical product or brand and what satisfactions are derived from its purchase and use? In particular we wish to explore how ethical consumption can be integrated into our picture of consumer behavior. While we recognize that this opens up a
realm of possibilities in terms of existing theories of consumption and in particular decision making processes and attitude and behavioral models, we have chosen in this paper to use Holts (1995) typology of consumption practices to inform our discussion. Holts typology was developed from a research tradition describing important aspects of how consumption objects are used, and situated within this tradition, it provides a comprehensive framework of how consumers consume. Using this all

encompassing approach was considered a useful starting point for further exploration of the nature of ethical consumption and, as detailed below, the

integration dimension was particularly appropriate for developing the discussion of the dimensions of ethical consumption.

Ethically minded consumers feel responsibility toward environment and society

Reynaldo A. Bautista, Jr. 12 *THE VIEW FROM TAFT; Ethical consumerism BusinessWorld Publishing Corporation at LexisNexis Academic, July 9, 2013, AV+ According to De Pelsmacker, a new type of consumer - the "ethical consumer" - has arisen. Ethically

minded consumers feel a responsibility toward the environment and/or society and seek to express their values through ethical consumption and purchasing (or boycotting) behavior. Furthermore, Freestone and McGoldrick explain that "ethical" encapsulates different expressions, concerns, and issues for each individual. Among the ethical concerns are environmental or green issues, sustainability concerns, worker rights, arms trade, fair trade, and animal welfare. Globally, "green" beer (a carbon-neutral
beer), hybrid cars, "fair trade"- endorsed tea and chocolate and other products that promote ethically responsible and sustainable practices are carving out potentially profitable ethical market segments. Ethical

consumerism emerged from the environmental movement and green consumerism. Green consumerism, in general, refers to consumer choices based on ecological concerns such as environmental protection or organic food production. Ethical consumerism includes a wider range of issues that can add to the complexity of consumer decisions. In the Philippines, ECHOstore (Environment & Community Hope
Organization), a marketing integrator of sustainable lifestyle that sells products of small marginalized, cultural communities, creative industry practitioners, women's groups and foundations, is an exemplar. Each product that ECHOstore carries represents health, fair trade, and care for the environment. In addition, ECHOstore gives market access to small or marginalized groups by bringing products to people who need and appreciate them. ECHOstore Sustainable Lifestyle is the first concept store of its kind in the Philippines.

Unethical consumption leads to the devaluing of lifewe must assess consequences

Harrison, Newholm, Shaw 5 (Ethical Consumer Research Association, University of Manchester, Glasgow Caledonian University)
*Philosophy and ethical consumption Open Research Online at http://www.sagepub.com/booksProdTOC.nav?prodId=Book227081 accessed July 9, 2013, AV]

Virtue theory pays attention to the habits and practices through which virtues are learned. It is thus well placed to discuss which habits and practices might lead us to act in ways that are, for example, more environmentally sustainable. Virtue ethics is appropriate to the analysis of ethical consumption because there is empirical evidence to suggest that ethical consumers are motivated primarily by a sense of personal integrity. Kozinets and Handelman (1998) speak of *boycott+ actions that remind and connect the individual to their deeper moral self. Similarly, respondents to recent research often expressed concern for the consequences of their consumption practices but more fundamentally a desire to respond to their
choices with personal integrity (Newholm 2000; Shaw and Shiu 2003). Even if consumers rarely feel able to foresee the consequences of their choices, what they seemed sure of was that, as one 8 respondent put it, I couldn't bare to do nothing (Shaw and Newholm 2003). In this concern we see a merging of the self-interested and altruistic aspects of morality. From one perspective, virtue

ethics allows us to clarify what the problem with consumption is, by asking the question whether consumption as an activity is virtuous or not. There is a long tradition of philosophers arguing that a life devoted to consumption is ignoble and
limiting. Thus, Aristotle wrote in his Nicomachean Ethics: The many, the most vulgar, would seem to conceive of the good and happiness as pleasure, and hence they also like the life of gratification. Here they appear completely slavish, since the life they decide on is a life for grazing animals (Aristotle 1999, 8). This argument sees consumption

as the satisfaction of pleasure, that is, as an essentially hedonistic practice. It is also assumed that consumption is essentially a passive process, and therefore it contravenes the imperative to actively develop ones capacities upon which virtue theories put considerable emphasis. On these grounds, too much emphasis on consumption could be seen to lead to a passive life that is ultimately unsatisfying.

Success of ethical consumption originates from routine daily values

Harrison, Newholm, Shaw 5 (Ethical Consumer Research Association, University of Manchester, Glasgow Caledonian University)
*Philosophy and ethical consumption Open Research Online at

http://www.sagepub.com/booksProdTOC.nav?prodId=Book227081 accessed

July 9, 2013, AV]

We have suggested that much of the focus of ethical consumption is on the individual. How and what individuals consume is critical to the project of ethical consumption and critical to their understanding of themselves. Both consequentialist and deontological forms of moral

it is important to re-acknowledge that individuals consume within broader networks of social relations and cultural codes. This allows us to recognise that all consumer behaviour, however ordinary and routine, is likely to be shaped by diverse values of caring for other people and concern for fairness. The success of ethical consumption campaigns is likely to be enhanced if they connect up with these ordinary and routine values of care and concern that already subsist in everyday consumption, rather than setting off ethical consumption as a completely different set of activities that requires a wholesale abandonment of self-concern. In the next section, with these thoughts in mind, we turn to
reasoning tend to focus on individual conduct. However, consider the relevance of virtue ethics, which has the potential of re-focussing our attention on the whole context of social life in which questions of individual responsibility arise and are worked out.

Ethical Consumption is Necessary

Allison 09 Worker @ Higher Colleges of Technology
Gareth Allison, PhD in Consumer Behavior, Pursuing Status through Ethical Consumption? http://www.duplication.net.au/ANZMAC09/papers/ANZMAC2009-278.pdf. Found online July 10th S.S. On one

level ethical consumerism is concerned with a collective effort to make the world a better place for all its inhabitants. Status consumption, on the other hand, is a mechanism for elevating some individuals above the common herd.
That these two forms of consumption can coexist is something of an oxymoron. This paper argues that, for some consumers, so called ethical products serve as a means of positioning themselves as part of an elite. If true this raises issues for advocates of ethical consumerism as a means of achieving real change. There are a core group of consumers who are absolutely committed to the ethical consumer ethos (Bird and Hughes, 1997). This suggests that products will continue to be developed in order to appeal to this segment of consumers. The outcomes desired by the core activist group of consumers are unlikely to eventuate until sufficient market, or political, pressure is exerted, that instigates a change towards more ethical models of production. If

ethical products are positioned as status products, this potentially increases the number of consumers who may be inclined to purchase such products. Further, status helps to increase the attractiveness of the segment to producers, as it implies that a higher price can be obtained. The consistent finding that some consumers are willing to pay a premium for environmental or ethical attributes highlights the desirability of this market (Blamey and Bennett, 2001; Nimon and
Beghin, 1999). The positioning of ethical products as status products is not without consequence; barriers may be erected that decreases the likelihood of achieving desired outcomes. If a premium is attached to ethical products this can potentially exclude vast numbers of consumers, on the basis of affordability and class associations. Presumably less affluent consumers will need to continue to consume the less ethical product. A market signal will be sent to producers that non-ethical products should continue to be produced. The potential ability of ethical attributes of products to be used as a means of differentiation has been previously noted (Peattie and Peattie, 2009). Yet, the extent to which status concerns drive the consumption of so-called ethical products is not known. The remainder of this paper reviews the literature on ethical consumption and status consumption, and develops a series of research propositions. The implications of this are discussed, and a research agenda is outlined. The economic, social, and environmental sustainability of capitalism has often been questioned (Durning, 1992; Marx and Engels, 1996/1848; Schumpeter, 1950). Derived from this tradition, two basic criticisms of contemporary consumer culture have been advanced. First, consumption through its sheer volume has directly led to wide scale degradation of the planets environmental wellbeing (Gould, 2003; Strasser, 2003). For example, many scientists argue that humanity has contributed to global warming through increased burning of fossil fuels and deforestation (Schlesinger, 2008). Much of this activity has occurred to satisfy the whims of consumers (Featherstone, 2007). A second criticism, of rampant consumerism, is that consumer culture emphasises materialism to the detriment of the spiritual well-being of society, and that excessive individualism is promoted, thus destroying collectivist values (Droege et al., 1993; Strasser, 2003). Klein (2000) argues that corporate malfeasance, in catering to the desire of consumers, has led to the establishment of sweatshops in the developing world, at the expense of productive jobs in the west. This is seen as damaging the fabric of both societies. The potential power of consumers to influence environmental and social outcomes through their market choices has been championed by some as a vital process in securing a sustainable future for both the Earth, and for humankind (Mayo, 2005; Nicholls and Opal, 2006). The argument is that by choosing products that they perceive as ethical, and avoiding products seen as unethical, consumers will

send a signal to the market as to

what should or should not be produced. This philosophy is seen as addressing both the harm that is done to the planet through the greed of consumers, and promoting a more caring and philanthropically oriented society (Kozinets and
Handelman, 2004). Generically this approach has been labelled ethical consumerism. There is some debate as to what should or should not constitute an ethical product (Caruana, 2007). Given that ethical perceptions are to some extent subjective, this is not surprising. Nevertheless, ethical products can be categorised into three broad overlapping categories that address the concerns of consumers. These are human ethical concerns (HEC), animal ethical concerns (AEC), and environmental ethical concerns (EEC) (Tallontire, 2001; Wheale and Hinton, 2007). HEC is often characterised by issues such as fair-trade, child labour, employee welfare, and supporting local communities. Whilst very different, HEC issues share common ground in that they concern the welfare of human beings and human communities. AEC is often characterised by issues such as the testing of products on animals, anti-hunting campaigns, and concerns about the welfare of animals grown for food. EEC is personified by a wide range of concerns including deforestation, food miles, carbon emissions and GM organisms. Oft cited examples of ethical

consumerism include the boycotts of products and organisations that have been perceived to be unethical, such as the extensive consumer boycott encountered by Nike after the New York Times exposed questionable labour practices at some of their Asian suppliers in the 1990s, and the boycott of Shell after the sinking of the Brent Spar oil rig in 1995 (Porter and Kramer, 2006). In a positive vein, consumers preference for dolphin-safe tuna has been seen by some as promoting ethical fishing practices (Teisl, Roe and Hicks, 2002). The ethical consumer is a pivotal character in the development of the corporate social responsibility ethos that pervades much of the business literature. In addition to doing the right thing, students and businesses are often informed that direct financial benefits flow from adopting ethical practices. In part, these financial benefits are seen as flowing from consumer preference for ethical products. There is a developing stream of research into ethical consumerism (Carey, Shaw and Shiu, 2008; Carrigan and Attalla, 2001; Chatzidakis, Hibbert and Smith, 2007; Ozcaglar-Toulouse, Shiu and Shaw, 2006). In spite of this interest only minimal research has been conducted into the motivations of those who consume ethical products. There is some evidence to suggest that ethical consumers are motivated not by the consequences of their actions, but primarily by a sense of personal integrity (Shaw and Shiu, 2003). In other words, they consume products that they perceive to be ethical, in order to feel good about themselves It is important to note that there is a degree of skepticism that exists in respect of the effectiveness of ethical consumerism as a mechanism of change. A criticism of particular interest is that green (and by implication, ethical) marketing acts simply as a source of differentiation between products and brands, and neglects to encourage a reduction in consumption (Peattie and Peattie, 2009). Status Consumption Differentiation between individuals and groups has been acknowledged by many social scientists as a near universal phenomenon. It applies across a variety of social situations wherein people are sorted into different social roles, to which different responsibilities, rights and rewards are attached (Gould, 2002). The pursuit of status is a phenomenon that has been observed in virtually all human societies (Sahlins, 1963). Status can be acquired through assignment (nobility), achievement (outstanding sporting performance), or via consumption (Eastman, Goldsmith and Flynn, 1999). A strong argument has been advanced that specific products and brands, and the manner in which they are consumed, assist in conferring status on their owner (McCracken 1988; Packard 1959). Veblens (1899) theory of conspicuous consumption is premised on the notion that when individuals consume luxury goods and services conspicuously they are sending a signal to others about their relative status in society. Mason (1981) views satisfaction resulting from conspicuous consumption as being a consequence of audience reaction to the wealth displayed by the purchaser, and not from the actual qualities of the good or service. In order to satisfy this desire society produces so called positional goods that are more expensive than other goods, and as such designate their ow ner as being successful and in possession of high status (Frank 1985; 1999; Hirsch 1976). Adopting a Warnerian view of social class (Warner, Meeker and Eells, 1949), the consumption of positional goods by the upper echelons, made possible by high levels of economic and social capital, serves to distinguish them from the lower classes. Status consumption has a strong, but not absolute, relationship with conspicuous consumption (O'Cass and McEwan, 2004). Status is also derived from characteristics other than wealth. Status might also be attributed to individuals who possess traits such as kindness, bravery, compassion, honesty, and humour (Jaeger, 2004). One way that status might accrue to an individual is that they are perceived as being a better person than their contemporaries. The products that an individual consumes send a message about the type of person that they are. A person who consumes ethical products, such as free-range eggs, fair-trade coffee and chocolate, or an electric car, might be considered to be a good person, and as such a person of high status. The desire for status may, in some individuals, be the primary determinant of whether or not they consume ethical products. The Pursuit of Status via Ethical Consumption It can be considered something of an oxymoron that status consumption and ethical consumerism can coexist. Nonetheless, there are conceptual reasons why ethical products could be considered as status products. Ethical products possess many characteristics in common with status products. Status, in broad terms, can be defined as high rank on some dimension that is held by society to be important (Ball and Eckel, 1996, p. 381). Ethical products can be perceived as having a high rank on a dimension that some elements of society value intensely. As such, it can be considered that ethical products might be perceived to possess high status: P1: Ethical products are perceived as having high status value Conspicuous consumption is premised on the notion that wealth, and consequently status, can be displayed through publicly visible consumption. Regardless of actual pricing, many products, perceived as ethical, are perceived as possessing a high price, relative to similar products, that are perceived as having been produced in a less ethical manner (Shaw and Clarke, 1999; Uusitalo and Oksanen, 2004). The reality of a perception of higher price is that not all consumers may feel they are able to afford ethical products on a regular basis. For the statusdriven consumer this is an important consideration. It can be argued that perception of a high price has the effect of increasing the perceived conspicuous value of a product; hence its value as a status product: P2: The higher the perception of the price of an ethical product the higher it s perceived conspicuous value ANZMAC 2009 Page 4 of 10It is not a prerequisite that an ethical product carries a price premium. The status-seeking consumer of ethical products may still find value in ethical products through product attributes, other than price (e.g., packaging, labelling, brand and ingredients), that serve as a point of differentiation from the consumption habits of the masses. The social theorist Bourdieu (1984) argues that social life is a multi-dimensional status game in which individuals compete for economic, social, and cultural capital. For those who do well in this game, the reward is status. Of primary interest here is the concept of cultural capital. An individual might possess cultural capital if they have distinctive and socially rare skills, knowledge, tastes and habits. Different fields (e.g., the arts, politics and education) serve as arenas in which individuals compete for position in social hierarchies. The form that cultural capital takes is malleable to the pertinent field. Bourdieu (1984) describes how in consumption spheres, such as food, clothing and popular culture, cultural capital can be acquired. Consumption provides evidence of tastes and preferences redolent with cultural capital. It is has been argued that ethical consumption is indicative of cultural capital (Cherrier, 2005). The consumption of organic (Buck, Getz and Guthman, 1997; DuPuis, 2000), and whole foods (Johnston, 2008), have been seen as an activity that signifies the consumer is part of an elite class of people. They are elite based on their superior tastes and preferences. This is revealed by the comments of a respondent in Shaw et al. (2005) research: Its very much the in thing to be ethical and aware and it comes across as being intellectual as well . . . that you have an awareness and that you have the education to know about these multinationals or about these issues. Therefore, if youre putting Cafedirect in your trolley and driving around with it then youre saying to other people Im clever enough to know the difference between this and Nescafe. P3: Ethical products are perceived as being symbolic of high levels of cultural capital If a consumer is motivated to consume ethical goods and services due to a perceived increase in status, this implies that it is necessary for others to be aware of this occurrence. Bearden and Etzel (1982) illustrated that publicly consumed luxuries are subjected to strong reference group influence, and that privately consumed necessities are less likely to be influenced by reference group influence. Attempts to communicate non-visible consumption in order to boost status might be considered to lack credibility. Boasting (showing self-concern with status) might actually serve to reduce status (Chao and Schror, 1998); rendering the consumption of nonvisible products ineffective as a means of communicating status. It is proposed that it is more likely that a status conscious individual will consume a

publicly consumed luxury ethical product than a privately consumed necessity ethical product. It also follows that a status driven consumer will attach little status value to privately consumed ethical products. P4: Relative to privately consumed ethical products, there will be higher levels of status motivation for publically consumed ethical products As new and more ethical products emerge the status driven consumer may feel pressure to obtain and display these items in preference to the products that they already own. Duesenberrys (1949) demonstration effect (keeping up with the Joneses) suggests that if a consumers acquaintances possess items of a higher standing than their own the consumer will be motivated to increase their level of consumption in order to maintain the status quo. By choosing to consume an additional product such a consumer will place an additional imposition on resources due to a desire to communicate their ethical status to others. Such an occurrence is directly at odds with the ecologists mantra of reduce, reuse, and recycle. From an ecological standpoint additional goods and services should only be consumed if these directly lead to a Page 5 of 10 ANZMAC 2009reduction in harm over time. Hence, it is plausible that a difference will exist between the consumers of ethical products in their frequency of purchase of ethical products, dependent on whether their primary motivation for consumption is ethicality or status. P5: Relative to ethically motivated consumers, status motivated consumers of ethical products will be more likely to consume the latest model of a product. Implications and Research Agenda Some of the marketing implications of the nature of consumer motivation for the consumption of ethical products are summarised in Figure 1. It can be argued that consumption of ethical products driven by a desire for status will not necessarily result in greater ethicality. The upper social classes do not appear to be inclined to question why those with lower economic and cultural capital have barriers to the consumption of ethical products (Johnston, 2008). Such an attitude implies that ethical products will continue in the foreseeable future to remain a source of differentiation between groups and individuals. Lower social groups will continue to consume non-ethical products thus encouraging unethical practices. Figure 1: Proposed Implications of Motivation for Consuming Ethical Products Important to the self Widely acknowledged as ethical The Ethical attributes of products should be The ethical benefits, the way it was produced or will be used/disposed The conspicuous value and / or that the product possess high levels of cultural capital The most important attributes of a product are Consumption will occur Either in private or in public In Public Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Constantly upgrade to most recent ethical product The consumer will Ethically Driven Consum er Marketing Implications Status Driven Consumer Primary motive for consumption is to feel good and do good Primary motive for consumption is to increase status In this research the perspectives of individuals from different socio-economic backgrounds are theoretically interesting. It is possible that lower-socio economic individuals will be less familiar with high status ethical products and may view the association of status with ethical products differently than individuals from higher socio-economic backgrounds. Hence, a stratified purposive sampling approach will be used to ensure that the sample is representative of a range of social groups. Parent teacher associations at schools with different decile ratings (The New Zealand Ministry of Education classifies schools by decile ratings, a proxy for socio-economic status) will be approached to recruit participants from amongst their ranks in return for a small donation. It is proposed that the research propositions put forward in this paper are investigated by way of depth interviews in order to obtain rich qualitative data (Seidman, 1991). It is acknowledged that social desirability bias is likely to be an issue in this research as consumers are unlikely to admit to consuming ethical products for status reasons. A projective interviewing approach will be employed to minimise socially desirable responses

Consumption Bad
Consumption and Consumerism Bad
Shah 11
Anup, Consumption and Consumerism. http://www.globalissues.org/issue/235/consumption-and-consumerism. July 7th

found online S.S.

Global inequality in consumption, while reducing, is still high. Using latest figures available, in 2005, the wealthiest 20% of the world accounted for 76.6% of total private consumption. The poorest fifth just 1.5%. Breaking that down slightly further, the poorest 10% accounted for just 0.5% and the wealthiest 10% accounted for 59% of all the consumption. In 1995, the inequality in consumption was wider, but the United Nations also provided some eye-opening statistics (which do not appear available, yet, for the later years) worth noting here: Todays consumption is undermining the environmental resource base. It is exacerbating inequalities. And the dynamics of the consumption-poverty-inequality-environment nexus are accelerating. If the trends continue without change not redistributing
from high-income to low-income consumers, not shifting from polluting to cleaner goods and production technologies, not promoting goods that empower poor producers, not shifting priority from consumption for conspicuous display to meeting basic needs todays

problems of consumption and human development will worsen. The real issue is not consumption itself but its patterns and effects. Inequalities in consumption are stark. Globally, the 20% of the worlds people in the highest-income countries account for 86% of total private consumption expenditures the poorest 20% a minuscule 1.3%. More specifically, the richest fifth: Runaway growth in consumption in the past 50 years is putting strains on the
environment never before seen. If they were available, it would likely be that the breakdowns shown for the 1995 figures will not be as wide in 2005. However, they are likely to still show wide inequalities in consumption. Furthermore, as

a few developing countries continue to develop and help make the numbers show a narrowing gap, there are at least two further issues: Generalized figures hide extreme poverty and inequality of consumption on the whole (for example, between 1995 and 2005, the inequality in consumption for the poorest fifth of humanity has hardly changed) If emerging nations follow the same path as todays rich countries, their consumption patterns will also be damaging to the environment. We consume a variety of resources and products today having moved beyond basic needs to include luxury items and technological innovations to try to improve efficiency. Such consumption beyond minimal and basic needs is not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, as throughout history we have always sought to find ways to make our lives a bit easier to live. However, increasingly, there are important issues around consumerism that need to be understood. Just from these questions, we can likely think of numerous others as well. We can additionally, see that consumerism and consumption are at the core of many, if not most societies. The impacts of consumerism, positive and negative are very significant to all aspects of our lives, as well as our planet. But equally important to bear in mind in discussing consumption patterns is the underlying system that promotes certain types of consumption and not other types. Inherent in todays global economic system is the wasteful use of resources, labor and capital. These need to be addressed. Waste is not only things like via not recycling etc; it is deep within the system. The U.N. statistics above are hard hitting,
highlight one of the major impacts of todays form of corporate-led globalization. Over population is usually blamed as the major cause of environmental degradation, but the above statistics strongly suggests otherwise. As we will see, consumption patterns today are not to meet everyones needs. The

system that drives these consumption patterns also contribute to inequality of consumption patterns too. This section of the globalissues.org web site will attempt to provide an introductory look at various
aspects of what we consume and how. This section looks at the rise of the consumer and the development of the mass consumer society.

While consumption has of course been a part of our history, in the last 100 years or so, the level of mass consumption beyond basics has been exponential and is now a fundamental part of many economies. Luxuries that had to be turned into necessities and how entire cultural habits had to be transformed for this consumption is introduced here. The market for childrens products and food is enormous. Parents on the one hand have a
hard time raising children the way they want to, while on the other hand, kids are being increasingly influenced by commercialism that often

goes against what parents are trying to do. Because

consumption is so central to many economies, and even to the current forms of globalization, its effects therefore are also seen around the world. How we consume, and for what purposes drives how we extract resources, create products and produce pollution and waste. Issues relating to consumption hence also affect environmental degradation, poverty, hunger, and even the rise in obesity that is nearing levels similar to the official global poverty levels. Political and economic systems that are currently promoted and pushed around the world in part to increase consumption also lead to immense poverty and exploitation. Much of the world cannot and do not consume at the levels
that the wealthier in the world do. Indeed, the above U.N. statistics highlight that very sharply. In fact, the inequality structured within the system is such that as Richard Robbins says, some one has to pay for the way the wealthier in the world consume.

Bad consumption cannot be extricated functions as a lesson for the future

Harrison, Newholm, Shaw 05 (Ethical Consumer Research Association, University of Manchester, Glasgow Caledonian University)
*Philosophy and ethical consumption Open Research Online at http://www.sagepub.com/booksProdTOC.nav?prodId=Book227081 accessed July 9, 2013, AV] This same point also implies that certain commodities,

sorts of consumption, and certain sorts of might lend themselves better to ethical consumption initiatives than

others. This might depend on the degree to which particular commodities are
embedded in everyday practices of care that enable the mobilisation of partial modes of concern to be re-articulated with more extended and expansive forms of concern. This section has argued that

virtue ethics moves us beyond stringent models of universal rules or the sense that universal benevolence requires the abandonment of self-interest. This approach points towards the importance of finding ways of connecting up self-regarding concerns and other-regarding concerns, and with combining partiality and universality in creative ways. As Colin Campbell argues, both self-interested and idealistic concerns are involved in consumerism (1998, 151-2). Consumption, therefore, cannot be simply divided into good and bad or condemned and extricated from our cultures to leave some untainted good.

Consumerism destroying environment

Richard Sandler 5-28-2013 *Richard Sadler: Consumerism driving us to disaster, The Scotsman Online at http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/opinion/comment/richard-sadler-consumerism-driving-us-to-disaster-1-2945784, Accessed on July 7, 2013]//RR

OUR love affair with cars, consumerism and consumption is damaging the planet at an increasing rate we must change our ways, writes Richard Sadler IMAGINE youre at the wheel of a car and you are careering towards a cliff edge,
foot hard down on the accelerator. You dont know where the cliff is because you are blindfolded. The stuff of nightmares? Its an analogy for our collective plight here on planet Earth in the early 21st century. The car driver is humanity speeding recklessly into the unknown; the cliff represents the descent into chaos and turmoil when climate change spins out of control. The fact that concentrations of carbon

dioxide in our atmosphere have now passed 400 parts per million (ppm) will not make any noticeable difference. The
Sun will still rise tomorrow and people will go about their daily business but like Neil Armstrongs one small step for a man, it has huge symbolic significance. The

400ppm mark has been widely recognised in United Nations climate change negotiations as a dangerous threshold we should not pass. The last time concentrations were this high, around three to five million years ago, humans had not even evolved. Horses and camels grazed the high arctic and sea levels were at least 10m higher than they are today a level that would inundate many of our major cities. However, not only has that threshold been passed, as confirmed by measurements at the Mauna Loa monitoring station in Hawaii, but the rate of increase in emissions is accelerating. As every schoolboy should know, when
concentrations of heat-trapping gas rise, the planet heats up, polar ice caps melt and sea levels rise. Over millions of years of prehistory there have been natural fluctuations in carbon dioxide levels. Natural climatic variations triggered by oscillations in the Earths orbit, or solar activity occurred over tens of thousands of years, generally giving enough time for species to adapt. Now the situation is very different. As

humans have burnt more fossil fuels, CO2 emissions have risen exponentially. In the 1960s, the average annual
rate of increase was 0.9ppm; now the rate is more than 2ppm about 100 times that seen when the last Ice Age ended. As if that was not worrying enough there

is no sign of a slow-down. In fast-growing economies such as China and India, citizens are copying unsustainable western lifestyles characterised by high consumption of energy and consumer products, more car and air travel and carbon-intensive, meat-rich diets. In the United States, the worlds second
biggest polluter after China, 43 per cent of the population still do not believe there is such a thing as human-induced global warming and

there are no binding targets for cutting CO2 and other heat-trapping gases. The European Union has managed a
small reduction, but much of this is due to the economic slowdown and stricter long-term targets are being opposed by the UK coalition government.

Consumerism destroys environmental capability

Richard Sandler 5-28-2013 *Richard Sadler: Consumerism driving us to disaster, The Scotsman Online at http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/opinion/comment/richard-sadler-consumerism-driving-us-to-disaster-1-2945784, Accessed on July 7, 2013]//RR

As sea levels rise, major cities including London, New York, and Mumbai may become uninhabitable, while in the developing world, crop failures will force hundreds of millions of people to migrate. This in turn is likely to start new wars over increasingly scarce food and water resources. The nightmare scenario is that after so many years of unchecked warming, the planet will reach a tipping point, where climate change takes on a momentum of its own. This is the point of no return, where so-called positive feedbacks start to kick in, accelerating the rate of warming still further. For example as
the Greenland ice sheets melt, less solar heat is reflected back into space which in turn leads to more warming, more melting, less heat reflection and so on. If that happens, there will

be nothing we can do to stop it and for us humans much of the

planet will become uninhabitable. Why would an apparently intelligent species put civilisation at risk in this way? Perhaps it is because western civilisation itself has conditioned us to expect ever cheaper material goods and the freedom to travel where we want and eat what we want regardless of the consequences. Though we may have nagging worries about climate change, most of us are too wrapped up in our day-to-day concerns to think about changing our ways. Alternatively, we can convince ourselves that climate change is not really happening or, if it is, that it is
not of our making. Politicians should know better but they have failed to provide the necessary leadership. When the occasion demands, they make fine speeches about how dire the situation is, but they are too easily swayed by powerful vested interests who want to maintain the status quo. The irony is that phasing

out oil and gas and investing in green technology could provide a huge boost to the economy, while numerous studies have shown that living simpler, less materialistic lives make us happier.

Ceding the Political is key to Consumption, Politics destroys the persona in Consumption
Nick Clarke (2008) From ethical consumerism to political consumption, Geography Compass 2(6): 1870-84, final author version post
peer reviewing http://core.kmi.open.ac.uk/display/27200 The first thing to say here is that recognising political consumption as political consumption sheds a different light on certain contemporary preoccupations of professionals, activists and academics working the field. One of

these preoccupations has acquired for itself the label of mainstreaming and reflects a concern about how to expand the market for ethical products while at the same time preserving their ethical character. Usually the argument made for expanding the market is that more fair trade purchases will equate to more production and development (in places where people would welcome such things), or more clean clothes purchases will equate to more production in no sweat factories (and less child labour, intimidation of union officials etc.). This argument assumes that political consumption or, rather, ethical consumerism works directly through the market, and leads to the question of how many ethical products must be sold before development is achieved, or sweatshops are no more. The magnitude of this question, and the challenge any realistic answer represents, can be paralysing. But a focus on political consumption changes the question. It recognises that political consumption works not only directly through the market but also indirectly through local, national and international regulatory bodies. It changes the question from how many

ethical products must be sold before, say, development is achieved, to how many ethical products must be sold before legislators are persuaded to act in such areas as trade or labour conditions. This question could be less paralysing. Yet to argue that political consumption, by virtue of its political character, is not an entirely appropriate target for economic critique, is to open political consumption to critique on political grounds, for which political success and failure, legitimacy, transparency and accountability are relevant criteria. Reviewing decades of research findings, Charles Tilly (2004) concludes that successful political claims tend to be made by groups able to display worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment (WUNC displays). If we approach political consumption as a movement, and evaluate it against Tillys criteria, we find that political consumption scores well on worthiness, less well on unity (given disagreements between fair trade and organic campaigners, for example), better each year on numbers (given sales figures for ethical products), but less well on commitment (given the oft-discussed attitudebehaviour 8 gap see Chatzidakis et al 2007). So challenges remain if the target is political success leading to indirect regulation of the market., whether these challenges reflect the (lack of) commitment of those voicing support for political consumption, or what Freidberg (2004) calls the internal politics of the ethical sourcing movement. Challenges also exist from the perspective of democracy. It is often said that shopping is not like voting.
In most democracies, one person gets one vote. This is not the case with political consumption, through which it is possible for people rich in financial and other resources to register their commitments more forcefully than others. Of course, this is a wider problem for governance, which may have emerged when government became problematic towards the end of the twentieth century, and may involve new forms of participation and inclusion, but also lacks such socially agreed rules of government as one person one vote (Swyngedouw 2005).

Current Consumption Rates lead to Loss of Biodiversity, disease, deforestation, desertification, and acidification
Kibert et al. 12 Charles J. Kibert (Charles J. Kibert is a Professor and Director of the Powell Center for Construction and Environment at
the University of Florida. He is co-founder and President of the Cross Creek Initiative, a non-profit industry/university joint venture seeking to implement sustainability principles into construction. He has been vice-chair of the Curriculum and Accreditation Committee of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and helped create the first ever student chapter of the USGBC for which he serves as faculty advisor.), Leslie Thiele (teaches political theory and serves as Director of Sustainability Studies at the University of Florida. His interdisciplinary research focuses on sustainability issues and the intersection of political philosophy and the natural sciences. His central concerns are the responsibilities of citizenship and the opportunities for leadership in a world of rapid technological, social, and ecological change. ), Anna Peterson, (Department of Religion at the University of Florida. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School. Her main research and teaching areas are environmental and social ethics, religion and politics, and religion in Latin America.), and Martha Monroe (Professor of Environmental Education and Extension, at the School of Forest Resources and Conservation of the University of Florida),

The Ethics of

Sustainability, http://www.cce.ufl.edu/current/ethics/Ethics%20of%20Sustainability%20Textbook.pdf)//EA Biodiversity refers to the number and variety of living organisms and the ecosystems in which they occur. The concept of biodiversity encompasses the number of different organisms, their relative frequencies, and their organization at many levels, ranging from complete ecosystems to the biochemical structures that form the molecular basis of heredity. Thus, biodiversity expresses the range of life on the planet, considering the relative abundances of ecosystems, species, and genes. Species biodiversity is the level of biodiversity most commonly discussed. An estimated 1.7 million species have been scientifically documented out of a total estimated number of between 5 million and 100 million species. However, deforestation and climate change are causing such a rapid extinction of many species that some biologists are predicting the loss of 20 percent of existing species over the next 20 years. Deforestation is particularly devastating, especially in rainforests, which comprise just 6 percent of the worlds land but contain more than 500,000 of the planets species. Biodiversity preservation and protection is important to humanity since diverse ecosystems provide numerous services and resources, such as protection and formation of water and soil resources; nutrient storage and cycling; pollution breakdown and absorption; food; medicinal resources; wood products; aquatic habitat; and undoubtedly many undiscovered applications.15 Once lost, species cannot be replaced by human technology, and potential sources of new foods, medicines, and other technologies may be forever forfeited. Furthermore, degradation of ecosystems contributes to the emergence and spread of infectious diseases by interfering with natural control of disease vectors. For example, the fragmentation of North American

forests has resulted in the elimination of the predators of the white-footed mouse, which is a major carrier of Lyme disease, now the leading, vector-borne infectious illness in the United States. Finally, species

extinction prevents discovery of potentially useful medicines such as aspirin, morphine, vincristine, taxol, digitalis, and most antibiotics, all of which have been derived from natural sources.16 Overfishing The Earths ocean ecosystems contain a majority of all life found on earth and other bodies of water contain over 22,000 species of fish and ocean mammals, ranging in size from the 150 ton, 40 meter long blue whale to very small fish that feed on microscopic phytoplankton.
Unfortunately the worlds fishing fleets are two to three times larger than the level that would produce a sustainable yield of fish, that is, a yield that does not deplete the stocks of fish or destroy the biodiversity of the oceans. The

methods used by large commercial fishing are destructive in two ways: they result in overfishing and they decimate the ocean bottom due to the use of bottom trawling. Overfishing can be defined in terms of biological impacts or economic impacts. In an economic sense overfishing occurs when the stocks of desirable fish have been depleted to a level that makes it unprofitable for fishing companies to operate. Biologically, overfishing has occurred when
the stocks of fish have become so depleted that the survival of the species is in question or the recovery of the fishery will take an extraordinarily long time.

Much of the worlds human population relies on fish, both from marine capture and from aquaculture for their nutrition. In a report published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the scientists reported
that 52% of fish stocks are fully exploited, 17% are over-exploited, 7% are depleted, and 1% are recovering from depletion.17 Desertification, Eutrophication, and Acidification In arid and semiarid regions

land degradation results in desertification, or the destruction of natural vegetative cover, which promotes desert formation. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, formed in 1996 and ratified by 179 countries, reports that over 250 million people are directly affected by desertification.18 Furthermore, drylands susceptible to desertification cover 40 percent of the Earths surface, putting at risk a further 1.1 billion people in more than 100 countries dependent on these lands for survival. China, with a rapidly growing population and economy, loses about 300,000 acres of land each year to drifting sand dunes. Two environmental conditions that frequently threaten water supplies are eutrophication and acidification. Eutrophication refers to the over-enrichment of water bodies with nutrients from agricultural and landscape fertilizer, urban runoff, sewage discharge, and eroded stream banks. Nutrient oversupply fosters algae growth, or algae blooms, which block sunlight and cause underwater grasses to die. Decomposing algae further utilize dissolved oxygen necessary for the survival of aquatic species such as fish and crabs. Eventually, decomposition in a completely oxygenless, or anoxic, water body can release toxic hydrogen sulphide, poisoning organisms and making the lake or seabed lifeless. Eutrophication has led to the degradation of numerous waterways around the world. For example, in the Baltic
Sea, huge algae blooms, now common after unusually warm summers, have decreased water visibility by 10 to 15 feet in depth.

Acidification is the process whereby air pollution in the form of ammonia, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, mainly released into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, is converted into acids. The resulting acid rain is well known for its damage to forests and lakes. Less obvious, however, is the damage caused by acid rain to freshwater and coastal ecosystems, soils, and even ancient historical monuments. The acidity of polluted rain leaches minerals from soil, causing the release of heavy metals that harm microorganisms and affect the food chain. Many species of animals, fish, and other aquatic animal and plant life are sensitive to water acidity. As a result of European directives that forced the installation of
desulphurization systems and discouraged the use of coal as a fossil fuel, Europe experienced a significant decrease in acid rain in the 1990s. Nonetheless, a 1999 survey of forests in Europe found that about

25 percent of all trees had been damaged, largely due

to the effects of acidification.19

Consumption causes environmental degradation

Jorgenson 03 Institute for Research on World-Systems, Department of Sociology at the University of California (Andrew K, 2003, Consumption and Environmental Degradation: A Cross-National Analysis, http://www.irows.ucr.edu/andrew/papers/jorgensonSP.pdf)//DR. H The Ecological Footprint: A Missing Piece of the Puzzle Having the ability to identify national-level differences in the amount of land and water required to produce commodities consumed would allow researchers to more adequately address questions regarding macrostructural

causes of environmental and ecological degradation. Consumption is a critical factor affecting degradation, and unequal relationships between countries in the world-system enable more powerful countries to externalize the environmental and ecological costs associated with their domestic

consumption of raw materials and produced commodities. While it is very difficult to track, consumption in the core is likely a significant cause of environmental degradation in other zones of the world-system. This becomes even more pronounced over time as non-core countries produce manufactured goods and agricultural products, and extract natural resources for consumption in other parts of the world, particularly the core. (Burns et al. 2001:12)

2AC Consumption
Pushing for a better economy doesnt solve our problems of consumption
markets operate) of Princen 10 - Ph.D., Political Economy and Government, (Thomas, Treading Softly: Paths to Ecological Order, pg. 67-69) The political economy (I use this term, recall, to denote the entire institutional and cultural environment in which

today is supremely well organized, and thus embodies organizing principles, to do the following: 1. Extract raw materials rapidly and thoroughly (the efficiency principle); 2. Convert those materials into products that people will buy (the consumers-rule principle, chapter 3); 3. Create markets everywhere (the growth principle); 4. Dispose of the wastes in the least costly, least visible manner possible (again, the efficiency principle, along with the out-of-sight-out-of-mind principle); 5. Do more and more of all this and do it faster and faster, cheaper and cheaper (the growth, efficiency, and cheaper-is-better principles). These are the very principles that got us into the current predicament. It defies all logic to think that the same principles will get us outthat they will do the very opposite of what they were chosen for. Instead, these principles lead would-be environmental saviors to say, in effect, Lets grow our economy with green products and pollute more efficiently; after all, consumers are buying it all. They are buying, in truth, a bill of goods, an economic system that says, Trust us; have confidence that more consumption will be better consumption, that more efficiencies, despite their track record, will reduce the strain on ecosystems; that its okay if a few get fabulously wealthy, because you will too, someday, somewhere, somehow. They are buying a political economy that knows no bounds, that celebrates excess, that acts as if we have a few more planets to burn. They are buying a juggernaut that rolls over the landscape screaming growth and progress and jobs as it leaves destroyed communitiesecological and social communitiesin its wake. The creation of sustainable economy requires that the juggernaut be stopped before its too late, and overhauled if not junked altogether. Then we need to build a new vehicle. For that we need new, principles, just as trading nations needed new principles after the grand failure of the old mercantilist trading order. And just as old principles wouldnt do them, the principles of efficiency, growth, consumers-rule, out-of-sight-out-of-mind, and bigger-faster-cheaper wont do now. We need principles that fit the needs of the timesnamely, living on the regenerative capacities of current resources and waste sinks. In short, we need principles that are ecologically consonant, attuned to how ecosystems actually function.

The current economic system makes us over look consumption issues

Perhaps it sounds like a clich, but that

Princen 10 - Ph.D., Political Economy and Government, (Thomas, Treading Softly: Paths to Ecological Order, pg. 82-84) If there were a single philosophical position in environmental thought, adhered to by all who are concerned about environmental destruction, it is that at the root of that destruction is humans separation from nature.

separation, that condition of man apart from nature, of alienation from the natural world, of distancing, is what drives overharvesting, overconsuming, overpumping, overdumping, and all other excesses of modern industrial life, amply documented in a multitude of state-of-the-environment reports. All this disconnection is spurred by mechanization, commodification, commercialization, urbanization, long-distance transport, packaging, central heating and cooling, electronic communication, formal education, reading, touring, zoos, and, well, just about every

product and process that constitutes modern life. What all of them do is promote consumption, mobility, speed , entertainment, health (or, maybe better, longevity), information. And, of course, they promote growth, endlessly increasing throughput of material and energy in humans subsystem, what one might call its economy, of that larger system, what one might call the biosphere. At the same time, they skew perceptions away from the biophysical basis of economic activity, indeed, from the material basis of human life. The obvious mechanisms of separation are physicalthe lack of direct contact with natural processes. Milk comes

from cartons, paper from a box, gasoline from a pump. Drinking water flows form the tap, food from the grocery store. Less obvious but perhaps equally important are the concepts and technologies that drive a modern society. We dont see the cow that produces the milk, let alone the farm, but we dont need to: markets for feed and feedlots, for dairy products and packaging, for trucking and shelving all ensure supply. Milk is always available; just plunk down the cash. Concepts like supply and

demand and efficient production and food safety join with actual distribution and financing systems to make it all happen. Consumers neednt worry their pretty heads over where it comes from or what it looks like along the way or what goes in and what comes out in the process. Be a good consumer, were enjoinedjust buy, and then buy some more. If separation from nature drives excess natural resource use, then connection would do the reverse. For many observers, this means people should better appreciate nature, and for that they need environmental education. But studying and environmental text (present author exclude, of course) or watching a nature program or spending time in nature, let alone spending money on natural products, tends, in a commercial society, to just reinforce a consumerist approachbuy it, use it up, go on to the next thing. Should it somehow result from educational measures, a heightened consciousness of nature is primarily about individual uplift and redemption, not about changing a societys relationship with natural processes. Because the environment responds to total extraction and total waste fillingnot to activities at the margin, not to individual actionthese measures do little, if anything, to arrest trends. They do little to find a new path; instead, they ease the burden as we tread heavily up that ever more precarious ridge.

Nothing is inevitable when it comes to grown with non-renewable resources

Princen 10 - Ph.D., Political Economy and Government, (Thomas, Treading Softly: Paths to Ecological Order, pg. 52-53)

Today there is nothing normal or inevitable about unending growth on a finite planet. There is nothing normal or inevitable about 10 percent of the worlds population holding 85 percent of global household wealth while a billion or two struggle day to day just to survive. There is nothing normal or inevitable about knowingly degrading ecosystems, permanently extinguishing entire species, causing irreversible changes in climate, or dislocating millions of people by failing to stop the resultant rise in the sea levels. And there is nothing normal or inevitable about justifying all this in the name of economic growth or progress or consumer demand or efficiency or jobs or return on investment or global competitiveness . So yes, many people in advances industrial countries are comfortable. They appear unlikely to change until a crisis affects them personally. They have done well by the current structures, economic and political. But just a bit of reflection, a glimmer of foresight, a glance at the biophysical trends, not to mention at financial trends where mounting debt threatens the entire confidence game, and the paths end point is clear: collapse. All the market forces and technological wizardry will not change some basic facts: we have one planet, one set of ecosystems, and hone hydrologic cycle; and each of us has just one brain, one body, and one lifetime. Limits are real. If the current system cannot continue on one planet, just as slavery could

not continue with trends in democracy and free markets and religious rights and human rights, then the

action is with those with a bit of foresight, those with a vision of a different way of living on the planet, of living with nature, not against nature. The action is with those who can accept limitsindeed, embrace them. So readers of this book, I assume, may be comfortable, but they are not content. They are looking ahead, they are concerned, they are looking for change. And they know that a fundamental shift is inevitable. They know that all systems, from organisms to ecosystems, from household economies to global economies, have limits. They are the ones preparing the way, laying the groundwork, devising the principles and, yes, the technologies and markets that will allow everyone to live within immutable ecological constraints. They are the ones making sure the sand and the sandbags are on hand so that others can pitch in when the time comes. They are the ones building the compost piles, collecting the information, experimenting with new forms of community, speaking truth to power. The others, the people who need a crisis to act, are not the leaders. They will eventually act, to be sure they will act when personally threatened. But they will need guidance. They will need role models, concrete examples, opportunities to
engage and do good as they protect themselves. And they will need enabling language., thats where the real leaders come in. And now is the time to preparenot when the crisis hits home and hits hard. So make no mistake, some people will act when theres a crisis. But many others will be getting ready now,. These are the concerned and

committed, the moral entrepreneurs who are already discovering that acting now is very satisfying, very engaging. Its hard, yet at times quite simple.

Efficiency through technological advances results in endless consumption

Princen 10 - Ph.D., Political Economy and Government, (Thomas, Treading Softly: Paths to Ecological Order, pg. 45-47)

If there was ever a single statement that crystallizes the modern approach to modern problems, environmental and otherwise, it is this: new technologies will save the day. Sung from the heights of corporate boardrooms and government mansions to the depths of labor unions halls and grassroots activists basements, this mantra holds a mesmerizing spell over the body politic, especially in an advanced industrial country like the United States. At its core is a very simple concept: efficiency. I cannot do justice to the concept in this short space, let alone offer a thorough critique of Americans fixation on technological saviors. But bear with me as I play out some key underlying assumptions to show that the allure of efficiency is understandable, yet dangerous. Efficiency is, at root, an age-old commonsense idea. A person who extracts a resource or produces a crop with less effort does better. Applied to machines, it is a no-brainer: more horsepower, more illumination, more speed for a unite of energy expended is obviously a good thing; so is less energy expended for the same horsepower, the same illumination, the same speed. But at the turn of the last century a gentleman by the name of Frederick Winslow Taylor had an even better idea: apply the concept of efficiency not just to machines but to people, in particular to people (i.e., workers) who run machines. Soon labor became fabulously productive. And in the process, decision authority, judgment, and creativity shifted away from the craftsperson (now a mere wage earner) to managers and technologists (efficiency exports), those who could make technologies and workers serve their interests. Efficiency, so successful in the workplace, soon seeped out of the factory to infuse government, land management, schooling, even worship. An efficiency craze took over early twentieth-century America. A simple idea, a handy means of improving production, became a goal in its own right. As such, people lost sight of why efficiencies were useful. And into that political space stepped those who would use the concept for all sundry goals: increasing wages and controlling unionists; replanting forests and clear-cutting forests; urging people to shop judiciously and to buy impulsively; creating a productive economy with an optimal distribution of resources and stimulating that very economy to grow, and then grow some more,

and more. It turned out that for all egalitarian and democratic promises of efficiency gains, it was those people who controlled the technologies that reaped most of the gains, material and political. Whats more, efficiency, as practiced, helped lay the groundwork for a consumerist society. In the process, efficiency became a means of not just determining who gets what and how (the standard economic justification), but a means of disguising and displacing full costs. It became a way of leading everyone to believe that society is marching forward, that we are all together on that endlessly productive, ever-ascending path. In fact, though, that path is eroding, its own material ground being eaten away by false beliefs in the beneficent rule of consumers and the come-to-the-rescue promise of new technologies. In the end, efficiency is a crutch, an excuse, a diversion. It is a handy guise for those who believe that perpetual industrial expansion on a finite planet is possible, indeed that this economy is scientific, modern, consumerdriven, and just. Disguising and displacing the true costs of mindless consumerism and endless material growth was made possible by the technologies themselves indeed, by the very cost-benefit ratios that efficiency gains produced. Today, corporate CEOs bent on pleasing stockholders, politicians bent on pleasing key constituencies, government officials bent on raising revenues, and environmentalists bent on raising funds can all claim technology and efficiency as the elixir for all that ails the planet. Unfortunately for the true believers, the evidence is overwhelming that nothing of the kind is happening. As efficiencies increase, so does consumption.

The aff solves

Princen 10 - Ph.D., Political Economy and Government, (Thomas, Treading Softly: Paths to Ecological Order, pg. 9-12) Yes, indeed, the foundations of a normal world, what we and our ancestors for

generations have taken for granted, are being rocked. But the passive construction are being rocked is misleading. That rocking is done by agentsby us humans. Yet not by all of us, really. The real agents are those who have written the rules and set the expectations that constitute the old normal. They are the ones who created a normal that included the following claims, however implicitclaims that are now only being tested over an ecologically relevant time period and only now being questioned for their moral grounding. 1. Endless material expansion on a finite planet is possible, indeed desirable, dependent only on human ingenuity and the willingness to print money, incur debt, and take financial risks. 2. Cheap energy will, if access is ensured, flow continuously from any and every pool, no matter the geology or culture or politics, to its highest returns, which is to say to wherever in the world buyers are willing and able to pay the price. 3. Consumer demand determines what producers make, so what is made, goods and bads, is what consumers (read, all people or society) want. 4. Risks can be managed, traded, against each other and against economic production, including risks that cannot be foreseen, whose consequences cannot be contained, and whose time frame exceeds all human experience. 5. Economic, technological, and demographic growth will solve all problems, including the problems of economic, technological, and demographic growth. These claims, built into a belief system and welded into place by theories of economic growth and technological innovation, lead people to believe, to have faith, to participate as consumers and investors, but not to question. Above all, once absorbed as normal, these claims allow no one to let on that the old confidence is erodingthat the game, by all physical, biological, ecological, social, and economic measures, is really a confidence game, and the con men always get out early, leaving the mess for everyone else. This is all taken as normal, because to do otherwise is to expose the con. To question the assumptions, to challenge the prerogatives, is to crack the belief system. And then it all falls down. But when we view contemporary patterns as symptoms of

fundamental shift, however uncertain their final outcome, we see that the old normal hardly needs the questioning and challenging because it is falling of its own weight. Each irreversible shift, each wobble in the legs, each failure to shore up a chinked foundation assures it. Instead, what is most needed, and what this book hopes to illuminate and lay the groundwork for, is a new normal. The time for a new normal is, indeed, now. On the environmental front, it begins with the observation, indeed the acceptance, that contemporary trendsenvironmental, economic, politicallead inescapably to one profound and disturbing conclusion: the era of protecting the environment is over, and the era of ensuring life support has begun. For several decades now environmental action has been a good idea to some, an annoyance to others. It has been a personal virtue, a cause, a rallying cry, a self-righteous plea, a haven for do-gooders and misfits. It has been a value of preference, a lifestyle choice, a contest of lobbyists and litigators. More recently, it has been a product of placement, a consumer choice, a marketing brand, a bandwagon to jump on and ride to ever greater commercial glory. No longer. Protecting the environment that
is, saving the odd species, setting aside the random tract, tagging the occasional pollutant for phaseout, greening an automobile fleetis now, in light of fundamental shifts, quite beside the point . The point is (and here I reach for phrasing that itself has not been trivialized by the pervasive gloom and doom of modern environmentalism) that

what humanity has always been able to take for grantedample soil and water, a stable climateare declining and disappearing and the risks cannot be manage in the conventional sense. The point is that present patterns of consumption are consuming life-support systems, locally and globally. The point is that we take for normal is actually excess. Yet what gets noticed as this age of excess falters is an increase in energy prices and threats to investments and jobs. Underlying it all, though, are vanishing natural resources and waste sinks (places where wastes can be deposited and eventually reassimilated), happening as if by magic. But the disappearing act is all of a piece with the energy and economic disruptions: it was by magic that we could displace costs so cleverly through the first couple of centuries of fossil-fuel-based economic expansion. It is no longer accurate to say that the environment is threatened. Presumably designed to convey seriousness, this military/security

metaphor suggests that the battle has yet to commence, that the threateners are gathering far off in a foreign place, that if we act now we can deter or repel the attack, that life can continue if we all come together to vanquish the foe. The foe is that of the environment out there (or, even more preposterously but equally logically, the enemy that is the environment itself). Of course, there is no

other that brings ruin to our resources; we are doing it ourselves. But now, with the aid of the physical and biological sciences, we see the enemy and it is us, especially the us who write the rules and capture the bulk of the benefits while the others absorb the costs.

Politics only hides the reality of consumption

Princen 10 - Ph.D., Political Economy and Government, (Thomas, Treading Softly: Paths to Ecological Order, pg. 54-55) International development specialist Robert Chambers once said that lack of political will just means that

the rich and powerful have failed to act against their interests. In other words, if there is a lack of political will when, for example, the nations of the world fail to act decisively to reduce greenhouse gases, it really means that those who are actually making the decisions are acting according to their own interests, that is, according to their own narrow self-interest. World leaders, is, according to their own narrow self-interest. World leaders, governmental and corporate, do very well by the status quo. They actually have abundant political will; it is just the will to keep the current system going. And they have the wealth and power to make it happen. They write the rules of the game. They mine on fossil fuel after another. They do not question the prerogatives of wealth and power, including their own wealth and power. They simply concentrate and perpetuate that power and that path of endless economic growth and impulsive consumption and needless depletion and gargantuan waste

and horrendous imbalance of wealth between the haves and have-nots. Chambers goes on to say that this lack of political will lament is a way of averting eyes from the ugly acts ugly facts like extreme wealth among thousands, abject poverty among billions. Ugly facts like extreme floods and fires, like disappearing rivers and groundwater, like grain and medicine shortages. Lack of political will puts the burden of finding a new path on the very people who have benefited so handsomely from the current path. As long as those of who are committed to finding a new path fall for it, we will be frustrated. We will cheer each new market developmentanother generation of fuel-efficient automobile engines, a new sustainable fuel, an ecofriendly cleanserand then wonder why the path looks the same, why the tends persist, why it seems like were about to head over a cliff. It is a convenient black box, Chambers concludes. Convenient for those who wish to deflect attention. Convenient for those who divide the world between good guys and bad guys. Convenient for those who see in the failure to act only ignorance and stupidity (if only those leaders knew what I know, theyd do what Id do), not the exercise of power. As I see it, the last few generations have seen enough convenience; its time for hard work, even sacrifice. Calling out the lack-ofpolitical-will lament is another hard step onto that other path, a step to reversing the trend, living with our means. At the same time, I fully expect, it is a potentially rewarding step. Even more
rewarding, we will see shortly, is positive sacrifice and good work (chapters 7,8, and 9).

Endless Consumption will destroy the environment and economy

Princen 10 - Ph.D., Political Economy and Government, 1988, Harvard University, M.P.A., 1983, Harvard University, B.A. cum laude, Biology, 1975, Pomona College (Thomas, Treading Softly: Paths to Ecological Order, pg. 32-33)//EA It is true that consumption drives the current economy. Some 70 percent of this economy, economists say, is consumption. Take that away, and the economy we have collapses. Whats more, because an economy must grow, say

economists, policy makers, businesspeople, labor leaders, educators, and nearly everyone else in a leadership position in an advanced industrial society, consumption too must grow. So, yes, any change in the accustomed patterns of consumption will result in serious dislocations. This is real and worrisome. But notice a couple of things. One, this position presumes that nothing we are doing now might hurt the economy. And two, the questionhow do we consume less without hurting the economy?presumes that the economy itself is doing just fine, that when there are problems, such as a recession, whats needed is a bit of stimulus here, some productivity gains there, and itll keep on doing what it is so good at doing growing, providing jobs, generating a return on investments. Here is the paradox: the economy depends on increasing consumption, but ever-increasing consumption strains ecosystems, both resources (soil and water, for instance) and waste sinks (the oceans and atmosphere). Before tackling this paradox head-on, lets turn the above question of consuming less on its head. A system that grows endlessly crashes. Think of cancer cells, debt-ridden mortgages, fisheries. It defies logic, not to mention a few well-known laws of physics (like thermodynamics), to presume that with continuing growth in consumptionthat is, continuing growth in the total throughput of material and energy through our economythe current economy will not crash. So this is the first: unendingly increasing consumption cannot continue on a finite planet with finite ecosystem capacity, with a fixed amount of water, with slowly regenerating soil, and so forth. No one has proven otherwise. In fact, when the question is turned upside downfrom less consumption hurting the economy to more consumption hurting ecosystems and the economythe burden of proof shifts. Now defenders of endless growth must somehow show that endless material growth is possible, that certain laws of physics can be disregarded. How do they do that? Faith. Their faith is just thatfaith. Based on little more than extrapolations from the pasthistorically speaking, a very recent past, just a hundred years or so, a past

with abundant, cheap, and readily controlled fossil fuels, especially oil. Or it is based on a belief that the economy will dematerialize, which is just a fancy way of saying that GDP
will continue to increase, along with jobs and income and spending, but we will not use more resources. Its a wonderful idea . And its a wonder it hasnt happened. Maybe somedaywhen the prices are rightand when new technologies come along to make i t all so easy. Meanwhile, back in the real world, back where clean water and fertile soil

and a stable climate can no longer be assumed, throughput increaseshugely, beyond anything remotely sustainable.

The CP only causes the impacts of consumption

Princen 10 - Ph.D., Political Economy and Government, (Thomas, Treading Softly: Paths to Ecological Order, pg. 39-41) To begin, in the climate debate, after the skeptics became marginalized in the face of overwhelming evidence, the signal would go something like this: Okay, climate change is real and its largely caused by humans. As

leaders in politics and business, we get that. And we know there are other problems like tainted food and polluted water. We get that, too. But listen, theres no point dwelling on the past. Whats done is done. Weve gotta move forward. How often does such a statement sound right (no use crying over spilled milk; the past is past), and yet somehow suspicious? What this rhetoric does is divert peoples attention. It deflects real action. It lets off the hook those who have written the rules of the gamethe game of endless extraction and consumptionand who themselves have profited so handsomely from that game. And it perpetuates that very same game, only with a green gloss. Heres how. First, the very phrase move forward sounds reasonable. In fact, in one sense, it is the only option: one cannot go back to the past . Whats more, it is

very agreeable: Yes, we burned fossil fuels and warmed the planet. Yes, we consumed voraciously. But we cant go back and undo our wrongs. No point in trying. All we can do is, well, move forward. If the phrase move

forward has a modern ring to it, thats because it is the quintessential rhetorical expression of progress. Progressives never look back. Theirs is a steady march forward, right up that ridge, never looking back or down or sideways. Second, the phrase is suspicious because those who use it do not spell it out. Move forward is a journey metaphor. Were all on a path to our destinationa distant mountain peak, sayand weve been stopped by a fallen log or weve slipped on loose grave. Gotta pick ourselves up, dust of, and get going againforward, of course; on the same path, of course. No mention of other paths. No questioning whether this path or this mountain is the right one. Third, to proclaim the need to move forward is to claim that what we have always done is what we will always do, what we must do. And what we must do is stay the course. Progressives (and they span the political spectrum, from left to right) use the phrase to justify the status quo. It justifies the current path and absolves of responsibility those who tread this path. It lets off the hook those who have promoted endless growth and mindless consumption, who havent a qualm about displacing the costs onto the poor and weak and onto future generations, who have manipulated and deceived others for self-gain. And, fourth, the move forward order is convenient, especially in a society dedicated to progress, to seeing bounteous plenty in the future and backward misery in the past. It is a convenient rhetorical tool for painting opponents (including those of us who question the path of continuous industrial expansion and the mountain of consumer goods) as antiprogress, as neer-do-wells acting against all that makes modern life good. But all kinds of progress are hidden in the moving forward rhetoric. Failures are excused, misdeeds forgiven. Everything continues, unchallenged, unchallengeable. And for defenders of endless industrial growth, commercialization, commodification, and consumerism, it means business as usual, just greener and more efficient. What to do? First, whenever the term is used, assume, until proven otherwise, that it is self-serving, self-justifying, and manipulative. It cannot, needless to say, be a basis for getting on a sustainable path. Second, do not let apologists for the status quo get away with painting the alternative to their path as going backward, turning off the

lights, crawling inot the cave and shivering in the dark. There are other paths and other mountains and new valleys. They exist. And so they are possible. One might call these alternative paths restrained consumption, healthy community, sustainable living.

Our rate of consumption is not in human nature

Princen 10 - Ph.D., Political Economy and Government, (Thomas, Treading Softly: Paths to Ecological Order, pg. 33-34) So now lets tackle the question head-on: how can we consume less and not hurt the economy? This is probably the most common question I get in discussions of overconsumption, suggesting that people accept the notion of overconsumption. They just cannot envision and alternative. Nobody is saying that we

should stop consuming. All organisms consume. Consumption is essential to life. But there are different kinds and levels of consumption, some that sustain lives without risking life-support systemsfor example, only harvesting the surplus growth in a forestand some that degrade such systemsfor example, overpumping groundwater to the point that rivers run dry. So the real question is not How can
we continue to increase consumption and not hurt the economy? This is like an overweight adult asking how to continue to eat more every day and be healthy. Its like an addict asking how to continue to shoot up and not lose her job. Its like a homeowner taking out yet another mortgage with even higher interest rates and expecting not to lose the house. Rather, the real

question is this: how can we consume in a way that does not undermine our economy, that does not consume the very basis of that economy, that does not consume the very basis of that economy, namely its waters and soils and the atmosphere and the oceans? To ask this question is necessarily to ask how much is enough, and how much is too much. It is to ask what kinds of consumption can be sustained, and what kinds cannot. These are hard questions. Policy makers dont like them. Most citizens in a consumerist society dont either: Dont tell me what I can and cant buy! And to ask these hard questions is to entertain the idea that the economy is more than what is captured in measures like GDP and trade flows, let alone capital flows. It is to consider that the real economy is grounded in real estate, in natural systems. So the everyday observation that were consuming too much and it cant continue combines with the scientific truth that no organism or species can increase its material and energy consumption without eventually crashing. All this then leads to one simple conclusion, one absolutely contrary to what one would take from the original question: the consumption of vital life support systems cannot continue indefinitely. The consumption of products of that system can continue indefinitely, provided the system is maintained, but no advance industrial society is currently maintain the system. Nor are the great bulk of less industrialized societies, all trying to get on the growth bandwagon by exporting their natural wealth. Each is consuming the system. It cant go on.

A2 Cap
1. Framework we think that the neg should defend either the status quo or a competitive policy option. The k moots the entire 1AC killing clash and education; we should still be allowed to weigh our Plan for fairness 2. Perm do the plan and reject in all other instances; either the alt becomes coopted because its not strong enough to overcome the squo or it does solve, meaning the plan isnt a crucial link 3. Capitalism isnt the root cause of anything Dandeker 02 (CHRISTOPHER, Department
of War Studies, King's College, http://books.google.com/books?id=TNhFH5g3sCsC&dq=Effects+of+War+on+Society+Christopher+Dandeker&sou rce=gbs_navlinks_s, DA 7/11/11) Despite the fact that industrial capitalism has produced two world wars, as Aron (1954) and more recently Michael Mann (1984) have argued, there is no 'special relationship between capitalism and militarismor the tendency to waronly one of historical indifference. All the pre-dispositions of 'capitalist states' to use warfare calculatively as a means of resolving their disputes with other states predate the formation of capitalism as an economic system. Of course, it could be argued that capitalism merely changes the form of militarism. That is to say, pre-capitalist patterns of militarism were still expressions of class relations and modern capitalism has just increased the destructive power of the industrialised means of war available to the state. But this argument will not do. Socialist societies in their use of industrialised power show that the technological potential for

war is transferable and can be reproduced under non-capitalist conditions . Furthermore, the military activities of socialist states cannot be explained in terms of a defensive war against capitalism or even an aggressive one. as national and geopolitical power motives are arguably just as significant in the determination of state behaviour. Furthermore, imperial expansion not only predates capitalism but it is also difficult to reduce the causes of wars then and now to the interests of dominant economic classes (Mann 1984:25-46). 4. Perm do both: we can work within the system to break down capitalism
Monthly Review,

March 90, Vol. 41, No. 10, p. 38 No institution is or ever has been a seamless monolith. Although the inherent mechanism of American capitalism is as you describe it, oriented solely to profit without regard to social consequences, this does not preclude significant portions of that very system from joining forces with the worldwide effort for the salvation of civilization, perhaps even to the extent of furnishing the margin of success for that very effort.

5. Cap inevitable and sustainable, solutions can be offered pollution, financial instability, health problems and inequality Rogoff 11
Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics at Harvard, 12/2/2011, Is Modern Capitalism Sustainable?, http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/is-modern-capitalism-sustainable-, KB In principle, none of capitalisms problems is insurmountable, and economists have offered a variety of marketbased solutions. A high global price for carbon would induce firms and individuals to internalize the cost of their polluting activities. Tax systems can be designed to provide a greater measure of redistribution of income without necessarily involving crippling distortions, by minimizing non-transparent tax expenditures and keeping marginal rates low. Effective pricing of health care, including the pricing of waiting times, could encourage a better balance between equality and efficiency. Financial systems could be better regulated, with stricter attention to excessive

accumulations of debt. CommentsWill capitalism be a victim of its own success in producing massive wealth? For now, as fashionable as the topic of capitalisms demise might be, the possibility seems remote . Nevertheless, as pollution, financial instability, health problems, and inequality continue to grow, and as political systems remain paralyzed, capitalisms future might not seem so secure in a few decades as it seems now.

6. Alt fails capitalism is too ingrained in society for the alt to cause everyone to reject it
Carroll 10 founding director of the Social Justice Studies Program at the University of Victoria (William, Crisis, movements, counter-hegemony: in search of the new, Interface 2:2, SW) Just as hegemony has been increasingly organized on a transnational basis through the globalization of Americanism, the construction of global governance institutions, the emergence of a transnational capitalist class and so on (Soederberg 2006;

Carroll 2010) counter-hegemony has also taken on transnational features that go beyond the classic organization of left parties into internationals. What Sousa Santos (2006) terms the rise of a global left is evident in specific movementbased campaigns, such as the successful international effort in 1998 to defeat the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI); in initiatives such as the World Social Forum, to contest the terrain of global civil society; and in the growth of transnational movement organizations and of a democratic globalization network, counterpoised to neoliberalisms transnational historical bloc, that address issues of North-South solidarity and coordination (Smith 2008:24).As I have suggested elsewhere (Carroll 2007), an incipient war of position is at work here a bloc of oppositional forces to neoliberal globalization encompassing a wide range of movements and identities and that is global in nature, transcending traditional national boundaries (Butko 2006: 101). These moments of resistance and transborder activism do not yet combine to form a coherent historical bloc around a counter-hegemonic project. Rather, as Marie-Jose Massicotte suggests, we are witnessing the emergence and re-making of political imaginaries, which often lead to valuable localized actions as well as greater transborder solidarity (2009: 424). Indeed, Gramscis adage that while the line of development is international, the origin point is national, still has currency. Much of the energy of anti-capitalist politics is centred within what Raymond Williams (1989) called militant particularisms localized struggles that, left to themselves are easily dominated by the power of capital to coordinate accumulation across universal but fragmented space (Harvey 1996: 32). Catharsis, in this context, takes on a spatial character. The scaling up of militant particularisms requires alliances across interrelated scales to unite a diverse range of social groupings and thereby spatialize a Gramscian war of position to the global scale (Karriem 2009: 324).

7. Transition wars resulting from the collapse of capitalism cause extinction . Harris 2 (Lee, Atlanta writer, policy review, the intellectual origins of America-bashing,
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3458371.html)

This is the immiserization thesis of Marx. And it is central to revolutionary Marxism, since if capitalism produces no widespread misery, then it also produces no fatal internal contradiction: If everyone is getting better off through capitalism, who will dream of struggling to overthrow it? Only genuine misery on the part of the workers would be sufficient to overturn the whole apparatus of the capitalist state, simply because, as Marx insisted, the capitalist class could not be realistically expected to relinquish control of the state apparatus and, with it, the monopoly of force. In this, Marx was absolutely correct. No capitalist society has ever willingly liquidated itself, and it is utopian to think that any ever will. Therefore, in order to achieve the goal of socialism, nothing short of a complete revolution would do; and this means, in point of fact, a full-fledged civil war not just within one society, but across the globe. Without this catastrophic upheaval, capitalism would remain completely in control of the social order and all socialist schemes would be reduced to pipe dreams.

8. The alternative to capitalism leads to extinction Ebeling 93

Richard M. Ebeling, March 93, vice president of academic affairs for The Future of Freedom Foundation, THE FAILURE OF SOCIALISM, www.fff.org/freedom/0393b.asp Socialism's failure in the former Soviet Union and in the other socialist countries stands as a clear and unquestionable warning as to which path any rational and sane people should never follow again. Government planning brought poverty and ruin. The idea of collectivist class and ethnic group-rights produced tens of millions of deaths and a legacy of civil war and conflict. And nationalized social services generated social decay and political privilege and corruption.

9. The K cedes the political Wilson 2k-(coordinator of the Independent Press Associations Campus Journalism Project, author of
lots of books [John K, How the left can win arguments and influence people: a tactical manual for pragmatic progressives, 2000, pg. 13-14, DKP)

Unfortunately, progressives spend most of their time attacking capitalism rather than taking credit for all the reforms that led to Americas economic growth. If Americans were convinced that social programs and investment in people (rather than corporate welfare and investment in weaponry) helped create the current economic growth, they would be far more willing to pursue additional progressive policies. Instead, the left allows conservatives to dismiss these social investments as too costly or big government. It is crucial not to allow the right to define these progressive programs as anticapitalist and then attempt to destroy them . The Reagan/Gingrich/Clinton eras attempt to get the government off our back was an effort (fortunately, largely a failure) to corrupt the highly successful progressive capitalism in America. While the Reagan/Gingrich/Clinton reforms subsidized the dramatic growth in the wealth of the richest Americans and had a devastating impac t on the very poor, they didnt change the basic institutions of progressive capitalism. It may take several generations to recover from the damage done to the poor, but even the far right has been unable (so far) to destroy progressive middle-class institutions such as Social Security or public schools.

10. Capitalism solves war interdependency, democracy and constructive competition Griswold, 05 (Daniel, director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at Cato, Peace on earth? Try free trade among men,
http://www.freetrade.org/node/282) As one little-noticed headline on an Associated Press story recently reported, "War declining worldwide, studies say." According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the number of armed conflicts around the world has been in decline for the past half century. In just the past 15 years, ongoing conflicts have dropped from 33 to 18, with all of them now civil conflicts within countries. As 2005 draws to an end, no two nations in the world are at war with each other. The death toll from war has also been falling. According to the AP story, "The number killed in battle has fallen to its lowest point in the post-World War II period, dipping below 20,000 a year by one measure. Peacemaking missions, meanwhile, are growing in number." Those estimates are down sharply from annual tolls ranging from 40,000 to 100,000 in the 1990s, and from a peak of 700,000 in 1951 during the Korean War. Many causes lie behind the good news -- the end of the Cold War and the spread of democracy, among them -- but expanding trade and globalization appear to be playing a major role. Far from stoking a "World on Fire," as one misguided American author has argued, growing commercial ties between nations have had a dampening effect on armed conflict and war, for three main reasons. First, trade and globalization have reinforced the trend toward democracy, and democracies don't pick fights with each other. Freedom to trade nurtures democracy by expanding the middle class in globalizing countries and equipping people with tools of communication such as cell phones, satellite TV, and the Internet. With trade comes more travel, more contact with people in other countries, and more exposure to new ideas. Thanks in part to globalization, almost two thirds of the world's countries today are democracies -- a record high. Second, as national economies become more integrated with each other, those nations have more to lose should war break out. War in a globalized world not only means human casualties and bigger government, but also ruptured trade and investment ties that impose lasting damage on the economy. In short, globalization has dramatically raised the economic cost of war. Third, globalization allows nations to acquire wealth through production and trade rather than conquest of territory and resources. Increasingly, wealth is measured in terms of intellectual property, financial assets, and human capital.
11. A Kritik of Capitalism, is in its self-capitalistic, once you put Capitalism on a hierarchy, as a problem that has to be fixed, you buy into the mindset of efficiency and overall production; that is inherently Capitalistic, youre rejection alternative is only a search for the next most efficient form of Capitalism

12. Exclusive focus on class kills resistance to other forms of oppression, like racism
Cornel West, PhD Princeton, Teach @ Yale Divinity, 1988, Marxism and the Interp. Of Culture, ed. Nelson and Grossberg, p. 18-19 I shall argue that there are four basic conceptions of Afro-American oppression in the Marxist tradition. The first conception subsumes Afro-American oppression under the general rubric of working-class exploitation. This viewpoint is logocentric in that it elides and eludes the specificity of Afro-American

oppression outside the workplace; it is reductionistic in that it explains away rather than explains this specificity. This logocentric and reductionistic approach results from vulgar and sophisticated versions of economism. I understand economism to be those forms of Marxist theory that defend either simple monodeterminist or subtle multideterminist causal relations between an evolving economic base upon a reflecting and refracting ideological superstructure, thereby giving a priori status to class subjects and modes of production as privileged explanatory variables. In regard to Afro-American oppression, economism and its concomitant logocentric and reductionistic approach holds that African people in the United States of America are not subjected to forms of oppression distinct from general working-class exploitation. Historically, this position was put forward by the major figures of the U.S. Socialist party (notwithstanding its more adequate yet forgotten 1903 resolution on the Negro question), especially Eugene Debs. In an influential series of articles, Debs argued that Afro-American oppression was solely a class problem and that any attention to its alleged specificity apart from the general labor problem would constitute racism in reverse.4 He wrote, we [the socialists] have nothing to do with it [the race question], for it is their [the capitalists] fight. We have simply to open the eyes of as many Negroes as we can and do battle for emancipation from wage slavery, and when the working class have triumphed in the class struggle and stand forth economic as well as political free men, the race problem will disappear. In the meantime, Debs added, we have nothing special to offer the Negro, and we cannot make separate appeals to all races. The Socialist Party is the party of the whole working class regardless of color.5 My aim is not simply to castigate the U.S. Socialist party or insinuate accusative charges of racism against Debs. Needless to say, the Socialist party had many distinguished black members and Debs had a long history of fighting racism. Rather, I am concerned with the fact that the Second International economism in the U.S. Socialist party lead to a logocentric and reductionistic approach to Afro-American oppression, downplaying strategies (as opposed to personal moral duties) to

thereby ignoring , or at best

the struggle against racism .

13. Turn - Capitalism is intrinsically bad and conscious capitalism that the aff advocates is impossible.
Jadinge 12
{Peter Jadinge, Unbridled capitalism is bad for society, published 11 December 2012, Renegade Economist, online at http://www.renegadeeconomist.com/blog/from-a-renegade-correspondent/unbridled-capitalism-is-bad-for-society.html, accessed 07/10/13}A.S.

If there was a form of "conscious capitalism" in which care was extended to fellow humans, animals and the natural environment whether animate or inanimate, the question is if could be called capitalism at all? The name of a social ideology provides the tenor for the whole show, and capitalism does nothing but putting privately controlled capital onto the platform of supreme social importance. It doesn't say if capital is to be utilized for the benefit of the members of society or any aspect of the natural world. It rather naively trusts the forces of greed and fear within people to control capital and be stimulated by capital to bring an end result of social good. Under this banner of capitalism people consider it a self evident virtue to utilize ones physical and mental assets to enrich oneself even if it robs untold others of the opportunity to a healthy life in a healthy body. "Conscious Capitalism" Is a contradiction in terms. It is thus because human consciousness obeys the rule of "as you think so you become". As a money minded capitalist spends the majority of waking hours in the contemplation of gold, property and currencies, naturally his mind will in the long run crudify to an unconscious entrapment in crude matter, however financially
valuable. "Capitalists argue, "We amass wealth by dint of our intellect and labour. Let others also procure wealth in the same way if they have the intellect or labour. What stops them?" These

people do not want to realize that the amount of consumable commodities in the world is limited, but the basic necessities are common to all. If one person rolls in affluence, in most cases others will be deprived of even their minimum requirements. The failure to recognize the needs of others is itself a disease." P.R.Sarkar, The responsibility of society, 1960

14. Capitalism bad for health

Aguilar 13

Ernesto Aguilar (writer for Liberation), 1/16/2013, Liberation, Capitalism is bad for your health, http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/capitalism-is-bad-for-your.html, accessed 7/10/2013, #B******D******

Health care profiteering and class divides were identified as key reasons for a poor health outlook in the United States, according to a recent report. The U.S. National Institutes of Health commissioned an investigation by the National Research
Council and Institute of Medicine into health care looking at where people in the U.S. fare in relation to the rest of the globe. In the 400-plus-page study, U.S. health care was compared to Canada, Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and nearly a dozen

other countries. Researchers revealed the U.S. was at the bottom of the list of the countries surveyed in nine areas, including longevity, infant mortality, AIDS, drug abuse, obesity, heart disease and lung disease. The report notes the weak U.S. showing was due to a lack of health care coverage and relative poverty in the country. Unlike many Western countries, the U.S. has no national health care system. The dominance of private health insurance companies, lack of public options when people become sick and the many unhealthy lifestyle choices marketed by big business are all factors. Prominent in the report is the fact that
the group showing the greatest divide between the peer countries and the United States is young people. Deaths that occur b efore age 50 are responsible for about two-thirds of the difference in life expectancy between males in the United States and the other countries. Among young women, the divide is even greater and increasing at the fastest rate over the past three decades. Also, newborn babies in the United States are much more likely to die before reaching twelve months than in any other of the countries in the study. Greed has motivated so much

of the health care debate today. Although the report notes the U.S. spends more money per person than any country on health care, those funds often end up in the pockets of insurance companies, big pharmaceutical businesses and a layer of profiteers who provide little to no actual health service. What's worse, such agencies have for years denied coverage for so-called pre-existing conditions and other reasons. As a result, the money spent by the average person paying their health care premiums is often not going to preventative care or
enhancing the health needs of families, but to increase wealthy companies' bottom lines or, worse, lobbying to protect corporate agendas. Add to this a growing gap between rich and poor, the study says, and the reasons for shorter lives and worsening health should be quite clear. Investigators say the U.S. should study the systems in other countries to find solutions for the crisis facing the

country. Given how hostile corporations have been to reforms, and politicians' willingness to do their bidding, such changes are unlikely under the current system. A socialist response treats health care for all as a right.

15. Capitalism bad for tech

Bolerjack 13
Daniel Bolerjack (writer for Fringe Tech News), 3/1/2013, Fringe Tech News, WHY CAPITALISM IS BAD FOR TECH, http://www.fringetechnews.com/2013/03/01/why-capitalism-is-bad-for-tech/, accessed 7/10/2013, #BD
Capitalism has its place, but not in the tech world. Just

imagine how stifled art would have been during the renaissance if capitalism ruled at the time. We may have never had some of the great paintings from da Vinci, Monet or Michelangelo if they were working for the money instead of the art. Thats whats happened in the tech world. So many people have so many good ideas and these ideas will never see the light of day because of the corporations they work for. Just imagine a world where tech geeks were offered everything they needed to make great products without any questions . Without corporations trying to kill creativity for fear they may not make money off of the product. Instead
were stuck here in this bland Tech Revolution where everything looks and does basically the same thing. Everything has bec ome conformed and tucked neatly into a little box. Anytime

someone produces a new and interesting product these larger corporation swoop and and offer the creator an incredible amount of money and that creator then embraces capitalism and becomes the very thing he despised earlier. Oh, and that great product he created gets transformed into a bland and conformed product just like the others. All the while the consumer is left in the wind, fighting over the same garbage they were given last year. Change is needed and we need it now more than ever. This kind of change wont come from corporations, they wont come from the
government, and they wont come from consumers (I know this because I admit Im one of those lame consumers that cant wait for n ext big thing and when it comes no matter how uninspiring this new device might be, Im still an excited little zombie!). The change is going to have to come from the geeks. The people that have these great ideas. The people who are like artist writing code and design products that embody innovation. They need to ignore the corporate greed machine and do what they do best, create! Offering up products on their terms without the greed but, instead with the desire to make exciting new products and push boundaries.

16. Turn + NB to the permutation: Attempts to totally reject the current system of capital are doomed to fail, and strengthen those in power already. Only by making specific attainable demands on the system can we hope to change it.
Zizek 07 [Slavoj Zizek. Resistance is Surrender November 15 , 2007 http://www.lacan.com/zizsurcrit.htm]
th

The response of some critics

on the postmodern Left to this predicament is to call for a new politics of resistance. Those who still insist on fighting state power, let alone seizing it, are accused of remaining stuck within the old paradigm: the task today, their critics say, is to resist state power by withdrawing from its terrain and creating new spaces outside its control. This is, of course, the obverse of accepting the triumph of capitalism. The politics of resistance is
nothing but the moralising supplement to a Third Way Left. Simon Critchleys recent book, Infinitely Demanding, is an almost perfect embodiment of this position. For Critchley, the liberaldemocratic state is here to stay. Attempts to abolish the state failed miserably; consequently, the new politics has to be located at a distance from it: anti-war movements, ecological organisations,

groups protesting against racist or sexist abuses, and other forms of local self-organisation. It must be a politics of resistance to the state, of bombarding the state with impossible demands, of denouncing the limitations of state mechanisms. The main argument for conducting the politics of resistance at a distance from the state hinges on the ethical

dimension of the infinitely demanding call for justice: no state can heed this call, since its ultimate goal is the real-political one of ensuring its own reproduction (its economic growth, public safety, etc). Of course, Critchley writes, history is habitually w ritten by the people with the guns and sticks and one cannot expect to
defeat them with mocking satire and feather dusters. Yet, as the history of ultra-leftist active nihilism eloquently shows, one is lost the moment one picks up the guns and sticks. Anarchic political resistance should not seek to mimic and mirror the archic violent sovereignty it opposes. So what should, say, the US Democrats do? Stop competing for state

power and withdraw to the interstices of the state, leaving state power to the Republicans and start a campaign of anarchic resistance to it? And what would Critchley do if he were facing an adversary like Hitler? Surely in such a case one should mimic and mirror the archic violent sovereignty one opposes? Shouldnt the Left draw a distinction between the circumstances in which one would resort to violence in confronting the state, and those in which all one can and should do is use mocking satire and feather dusters? The ambiguity of Critchleys position resides in a strange non sequ itur: if the state is here to stay, if it is impossible to abolish it (or capitalism), why retreat from it? Why not act with(in) the state? Why not accept the basic premise of the Third Way? Why limit oneself to a politics
which, as Critchley puts it, calls the state into question and calls the established order to account, not in order to do away with the state, desirable though that might well be in some utopian sense, but in order to better it or attenuate its malicious effect? These words simply demonstrate that todays liberal-democratic state and the dream of an infinitely demanding anarchic politics exist in a relationship of mutual parasitism: anarchic agents do the ethical thinking, and the state does the work of running and regulating society. Critchleys anarchic ethico -political agent acts like a superego, comfortably bombarding the state with demands; and the more the state tries to satisfy these demands, the more guilty it is seen to be. In compliance with this logic, the anarchic agents focus their protest not on open dictatorships, but on the hypocrisy of liberal democracies, who are accused of betraying their own professed principles. The big demonstrations in

London and Washington against the US attack on Iraq a few years ago offer an exemplary case of this strange symbiotic relationship between power and resistance. Their paradoxical outcome was that both sides were satisfied. The protesters saved their beautiful souls: they made it clear that they dont agree with the governments policy on Iraq. Those in power calmly accepted it, even profited from it : not only did the protests in no way prevent the already-made
decision to attack Iraq; they also served to legitimise it. Thus George Bushs reaction to mass demonstrations protesting his visit to London, in effect: You see, this is what we are fighting for, so that what people are doing here - protesting against their government policy - will be possible also in Iraq! It is striking that the course on which Hugo Chvez has

embarked since 2006 is the exact opposite of the one chosen by the postmodern Left: far from resisting state power, he grabbed it (first by an attempted coup, then democratically), ruthlessly using the Venezuelan state apparatuses to promote his goals . Furthermore, he is militarising the barrios, and organising the training
of armed units there. And, the ultimate scare: now that he is feeling the economic effects of capitals resistance to his r ule (temporary shortages of some goods in the state-subsidised supermarkets), he has announced plans to consolidate the 24 parties that support him into a single party. Even some of his allies are sceptical about this move: will it come at the expense of the popular movements that have given the Venezuelan revolution its lan? However, this choice, though risky, should be fully endorsed: the task is to make the new party function not as a typical state socialist (or Peronist) party, but as a vehicle for the mobilisation of new forms of politics (like the grass roots slum committees). What should we say to someone like

Chvez? No, do not grab state power, just withdraw, leave the state and the current situation in place ? Chvez is often dismissed as a clown - but wouldnt
such a withdrawal just reduce him to a version of Subcoma ndante Marcos, whom many Mexican leftists now refer to as Subcomediante Marcos? Today, it is the great capitalists - Bill Gates, corporate polluters, fox hunters - who resist the state. The lesson here is that the truly subversive thing is not to insis t on infinite demands we know those in

power cannot fulfil. Since they know that we know it, such an infinitely demanding attitude presents no problem for those i n power: So wonderful that, with your critical demands, you remind us what kind of world we would all like to live in. Unfortunately, we live in the real world, where we have to make do with what is possible. The thing to do is, on the contrary, to bombard those in power with strategically well -selected, precise, finite demands, which cant be met with the same excuse.

Narratives Bad
Narratives can not predict the outcome of the situation which kills all solvency Thomas J Kaplan 1993 The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning Duke University Press Page 181
The second objection to the use of narrativity suggests that narrative statements can never apply to the future. Analytical philosophers such as Arthur Danto have shown convincingly that the narrative structure can explain why events occurred at the same time that they describe what has occurred. In the process, however, narratives apply logically only to the past. 35 This is because in order for a sentence to be truly part of a narrative, the narrator must know something that the character he describes did not knownamely, how the story comes out in the end. A sentence like The author of the Emancipation Proclamation was
born in 1809 is thus quintessentially narrative. Nancy Hanks Lincoln could not have known at the time she gave birth to Abraham what the author of this sentence knew.

Narrative fails to subvert the dominant paradigm They recreate absolutisms Clawson 98 (Mark, J.D. Stanford, 22 Legal Stud. Forum 353)
These subjective identities give certain individuals solid ground upon which they can build a progressive framework of thought. But the narrowly defined identities of contemporary progressivism limit the possibility that those outside the narrow group of interest will share the agenda. One might hope that progressives could be somewhat open-minded. But as Stanley Fish has observed, "to say that one's mind should be open sounds fine until you realize that it is equivalent to saying that one's mind should be empty of commitments, should be a purely formal device." n165 Assuming that a broad base of progressive factions can mold diverse individuals-with distinct notions of identity-into a cohesive whole is simply asking the framework of progressive thought to do something that, in the end, it cannot. Contemporary narratives of identity seek to resolve the questions of authority that plague progressivism, but they lack the power that religion once held. In an earlier era, progressives could unite behind an over-arching paradigm that commanded them to "do as they would be done by." n166 Since widely shared cultural assumptions fueled the progressive agenda of early decades, slavery was vanquished and monopolies were crushed. But increasingly subjective narratives of identity command obeisance only within narrow spheres, not translating easily into the realities of other social worlds. The interpretation of the world facilitated by these narrow identities-including a well-defined course of future action-is accessible only to those who share their cultural assumptions. This interpretation may, in fact, challenge the social worlds established by other progressives. In the end, it seems that progressive narratives, like Frye's romances, end where they began, but with a difference. n167 Questions of authority and feelings of dissonance remain in the larger progressivism, but those who gain new identities now live in temporary worlds of absolutes.

Narratives support hegemonic structures- they link personal experience to universal unquestionable truth Ewick and Silbey 95 (Patricia Susan S. Law & Society Review, 00239216, 19, Vol. 29, Issue 2)
In the previous section, we discussed how narratives, like the lives and experiences they recount, are cultural productions. Narratives are

generated interactively through normatively structured performances and interactions. Even the most personal of narratives rely on and invoke collective narratives symbols, linguistic formulations, structures, and vocabularies of motive without which the personal would remain unintelligible and uninterpretable. Because of the conventionalized character of narrative, then, our stories are likely to express ideological effects and hegemonic assumptions. [ 10] We are as likely to be shackled by the stories we tell (or that are culturally available for our telling) as we are by the form of oppression they might seek to reveal. In short, the structure, the content, and the performance of stories as they are defined and regulated within social settings often articulate and reproduce existing ideologies and hegemonic relations of power and inequality. It is important to emphasize that narratives do more than simply reflect or express existing ideologies. Through their telling, our stories come to constitute the hegemony that in turn shapes social lives and conduct "The hegemonic is not simply a static body of ideas to which members of a culture are obliged to conform" (Silberstein 1988:127). Rather, Silberstein writes, hegemony has "a protean nature in which dominant relations are preserved while their manifestations remain highly flexible. The hegemonic must continually evolve so as to recuperate alternative hegemonies." In other words, the hegemonic gets produced and evolves within individual, seemingly unique, discrete personal narratives. Indeed, the resilience of ideologies and hegemony may derive from their articulation within personal stories. Finding expression and being refashioned within the stories of countless individuals may lead to a

polyvocality that inoculates and protects the master narrative from critique. The hegemonic strength of a master narrative derives, Brinkley Messick (1988:657) writes, from "its textual, and lived heteroglossia *, s]ubverting and dissimulating itself at every turn"; thus ideologies that are encoded in particular stories are "effectively protected from sustained critique" by the fact that they are constituted through variety and contradiction.
Research in a variety of social settings has demonstrated the hegemonic potential of narrative by illustrating how narratives can contribute to the reproduction of existing structures of meaning and power. First, narratives can function specifically as mechanisms of social

control (Mumby 1993). At various levels of social organization ranging from families to nation-states storytelling instructs us about what is expected and warns us of the consequences of nonconformity . Oft-told family tales about lost fortunes or spoiled reputations enforce traditional definitions and values of family life (Langellier & Peterson 1993). Similarly, bureaucratic organizations exact compliance from members through the articulation of managerial prerogatives and expectations and the consequences of violation or challenge (Witten 1993). Through our narratives of courtship, lost accounts,
and failed careers, cultures are constructed; we "do" family, we "do" organization, through the stories we tell (Langellier & Peterson 1993). Second, the hegemonic potential of narrative is further enhanced by narratives' ability to colonize consciousness. Well-plotted stories cohere by relating various (selectively appropriated) events and details into a temporally

organized whole (see part I above). The coherent whole, that is, the configuration of events and characters arranged in believable plots, preempts alternative stories. The events seem to speak for themselves; the tale appears to tell itself. Ehrenhaus (1993) provides
a poignant example of a cultural meta-narrative that operates to stifle alternatives. He describes the currently dominant cultural narrative regarding the United States's involvement in the Vietnam War as one that relies on themes of dysfunction and rehabilitation. The story, as Ehrenhaus summarizes it, is structured as a social drama which characterizes both the nation and individual Vietnam veterans as having experienced a breakdown in normal functioning only recently resolved through a process of healing. This narrative is persuasive because

it reiterates and elaborates already existing and dominant metaphors and interpretive frameworks in American
culture concerning what Philip Rieff (1968) called the "triumph of the therapeutic" (see also Crews 1994). Significantly, the therapeutic motif underwriting this narrative depicts veterans as emotionally and psychologically fragile and, thus, disqualifies them as creditable witnesses. The connection between what they saw and experienced while in Vietnam and what the nation did in Vietnam is severed. In other words, what

could have developed as a powerful critique of warfare as national policy is contained through the image of illness and rehabilitation, an image in which "'healing' is privileged over 'purpose' [and] the rhetoric of recovery and reintegration subverts the emergence of rhetoric that seeks to examine the reasons that recovery is even necessary" (Ehrenhaus 1993:83). Constituent and distinctive features of narratives make them particularly potent forms of social control and ideological penetration and homogenization . In part, their potency derives from the fact that narratives put "forth powerful and persuasive truth claims claims about appropriate behavior and values that are shielded from testing or debate" (Witten 1993:105). Performative features of narrative such as repetition, vivid concrete details, particularity of characters, and coherence of plot silence epistemological challenges and often generate emotional identification and commitment. Because narratives make implicit rather than explicit claims regarding causality and truth as they are dramatized in particular events regarding specific characters, stories elude challenges, testing, or debate. Van Dijk (1993) has reported, for instance, that stories containing negative images and stereotypes of nonwhite persons are less subject to the charge of racism when they recount personal experiences and particular events. Whereas a general claim that a certain group is inferior or dangerous might be contested on empirical grounds, an
individual story about being mugged, a story which includes an incidental reference to the nonwhite race of the assailant, communicates a similar message but under the protected guise of simply stating the "facts." The causal significance or relevance of the assailant's race is, in such a tale, strongly implied but not subject to challenge or falsifiability. Thus representations, true and/or false, made implicitly without

either validation or contest, are routinely exchanged in social interactions and thereby occupy social space. Third, narratives contribute to hegemony to the extent that they conceal the social organization of their production and plausibility. Narratives embody general understandings of the world that by their deployment and repetition come to constitute and sustain the life-world. Yet because narratives depict specific persons existing in particular social, physical, and historical locations, those general understandings often remain unacknowledged. By failing to make these manifest, narratives draw on unexamined assumptions and causal claims without displaying these assumptions and claims or laying them open to challenge or testing. Thus, as narratives depict understandings of particular persons and events, they reproduce, without exposing, the connections of the specific story and persons to the structure of relations and institutions that made the story plausible. To the extent that the hegemonic is "that order of signs and practices, relations and distinctions, images and epistemologies that come to be taken-for-granted as the natural and received shape of the world and everything that inhabits it" (Comaroff & Comaroff 1991), the unarticulated and unexamined plausibility is the story's contribution to hegemony. The following two examples drawn from recent sociolegal research illustrate the ways in which legally organized narrativity helps produce the taken-for-granted and naturalized world by effacing the connections

between the particular and the general. Sara Cobb (1992) examines the processes through which women's stories of violence are "domesticated" (tamed and normalized) within mediation sessions. Cobb reports that the domestication of women's stories of violence are a consequence of the organization of the setting in which they are told: within mediation, the storyteller and her audience are situated within a normative organization that recognizes the values of narrative participation over any substantive moral or epistemological code or standard. Being denied access to any external standards, the stories the women tell cannot therefore be adjudged true or compelling. The stories are interpreted as one version of a situation in which "multiple perspectives are possible." Cobb demonstrates how this particular context of elicitation specifically buries and silences stories of violence, effectively reproducing women's relative powerlessness within their families. With women deprived of the possibility of corroboration by the norms of the mediation session, their stories of violence are minimized and "disappeared ." As a consequence, the individual woman can
get little relief from the situation that brought her to mediation: she is denied an individual legal remedy (by being sent from court to mediation) and at the same time denied access to and connections with any collective understanding of or response to the sorts of violence acknowledged by the law (through the organization of the mediation process). Through this process, "violence, as a disruption of

the moral order in a community, is made familiar (of the family) and natural the extraordinary is tamed, drawn into the place where we eat, sleep and [is] made ordinary" (ibid., p. 19). Whereas mediation protects narratives from an
interrogation of their truth claims, other, formal legal processes are deliberately organized to adjudicate truth claims. Yet even in these settings, certain types of truth claims are disqualified and thus shielded from examination and scrutiny. The strong preference of courts for individual narratives operates to impede the expression (and validation) of truth claims that are not easily represented through a particular story. Consider, for example, the Supreme Court's decision in the McClesky case (1986). The defendant, a black man who had been convicted of the murder of a police officer, was sentenced to death. His Supreme Court appeal of the death sentence was based on his claim that the law had been applied in a racially discriminatory way, thus denying him equal protection under the law. As part of McClesky's appeal, David Baldus, a social scientist, submitted an amicus brief in which he reported the results of his analysis of 2,000 homicide cases in that state (Baldus 1990). The statistical data revealed that black defendants convicted of killing white citizens were significantly more likely to receive the death sentence than white defendants convicted of killing a black victim. Despite this evidence of racial discrimination, the Court did not overturn McClesky's death sentence. The majority decision, in an opinion written by Justice Powell, stated that the kind of statistical evidence submitted by Baldus was simply not sufficient to establish that any racial discrimination occurred in this particular case. The court declared, instead, that to demonstrate racial discrimination, it would be necessary to establish that the jury, or the prosecutor, acted with discriminatory purpose in sentencing McClesky.[ 11] Here, then, an unambiguous pattern of racial inequity was sustained through the very invocation of and demand for subjectivity (the jury's or prosecutor's state of mind) and particularity (the refusal to interpret this case as part of a larger category of cases) that are often embodied in narratives. In this instance, relative powerlessness and injustice (if one is to believe Baldus's data) were preserved, rather than challenged, by the demand for a particular narrative about specific concrete individuals whose interactions were bounded in time and space. In other words, the Court held that the legally cognizable explanation of the defendant's conviction could not be a product of inferential or deductive comprehension (Mink 1970; Bruner 1986). Despite its best efforts, the defense was denied discursive access to the generalizing, and authoritative, language of social logico-deductive science and with it the type of "truths" it is capable of representing. The court insists on a narrative that effaces the relationship between the particular and the general, between this case and other capital trials in Georgia. Further, the McClesky decision illustrates not only how the demand for narrative particularity may reinscribe relative powerlessness by obscuring the connection between the individual case and larger patterns of institutional behavior; it also reveals how conventionalized legal procedures impede the demonstration of that connection.[ 12] The court simultaneously demanded evidence of the jurors' states of mind and excluded such evidence. Because jury deliberations are protected from routine scrutiny and evaluation, the majority demanded a kind of proof that is institutionally unavailable. Thus, in the McClesky decision, by insisting on a narrative of explicit articulated discrimination, the court calls for a kind of narrative truth that court procedures institutionally impede. As these examples suggest, a reliance on or demand for

narrativity is neither unusual nor subversive within legal settings. In fact, given the ideological commitment to individualized justice and case-by-case processing that characterizes our legal system, narrative, relying as it often does on the language of the particular and subjective, may more often operate to sustain, rather than subvert, inequality and injustice. The law's insistent demand for personal narratives achieves a kind of radical individuation that disempowers the teller by effacing the connections among persons and the social organization of their experiences. This argument is borne out if we consider that being relieved of the necessity, and costs, of telling a
story can be seen as liberatory and collectively empowering. Insofar as particular and subjective narratives reinforce a view of the world made up of autonomous individuals interacting only in immediate and local ways, they may hobble collective claims and solutions to social inequities (Silbey 1984). In fact, the progressive achievements of workers' compensation, no-fault divorce, no-fault auto insurance, strict liability, and some consumer protection regimes derive directly from the provision of legal remedies without the requirement to produce an individually crafted narrative of right and liability.

Narratives are too simplistic to be useful for understanding foreign policy.

Dowdall 12
,Jonathan Dowdall, works for the UK Joint Delegation at NATO, Do Stories Help or Hinder Our Understanding of Foreign Affairs?, Policymic, online at http://www.policymic.com/articles/3290/do-stories-help-or-hinder-our-understanding-of-foreign-affairs, accessed 07/09/13} A.S.

Understandings of narrative vary, but the basic concept is that peoples understanding of the world can be broken down into the stories they tell. Stories and narrative are the cognitive means by which people understand events

 the mental progressions along which we define ourselves, our beliefs, and our policies. This is a necessary short-hand technique for understanding the world. It helps a wider audience appreciate global issues and understand how to handle them. However, relying on narratives does have some drawbacks. An excellent speech by Tyler Cowen from 2009 explores this issue, and raises three reasons why relying too heavily on narrative can be dangerous. Firstly, evil, or a battle. The

narratives tend to be too simple. They fall into archetypes such as good vs. problem is, the world is rarely that simple, and this can have dangerous

consequences. For example, after 9/11 the Bush administration created a very simple story: the War on Terror. It spoke of bad guys in
the Middle East and good guys in the U.S. military who would stop them. Yet, the complexities of regional power dynamics, or modern perceptions of the U.S. in the Islamic world, or the basic discussion of whether intervention was even a good idea were lost in this narrative. It was a

good, understandable story, but arguably bad policy. Another problem with relying on stories is that you can tell only so many. People will often use one particular narrative to justify a position and will then be unable to deviate from that view. For instance, you may argue that U.S. cooperation with Saudi Arabia must change
because of that countrys harsh interpretation of Shariah law. Issues of oil reliance, or regional balance of power, or the like, cannot break this narrative in the viewers mind. Yet, the

reality of the modern world is that it is multi-polar, interconnected,

often morally ambiguous. States which execute bad laws are often simultaneously global trade partners, or fellow voters on a mutually beneficial UN resolution. There are usually a series of contradictory stories in any foreign policy issue, and this should urge caution about falling onto any single explanation. Finally, narrative can be too convincing. In short, good stories can manipulate us. Anyone who has listened to an impassioned speech even if it is completely incorrect will attest to the power of a good story to convince. Such manipulation has led to some of the worst crimes in human history - such as anti-Semitic narratives about global wealth during the Holocaust. Clearly, if a narrative justifies an extreme position, we have to think very carefully about the stories we are using. GOP candidates calling for an invasion of Iran which most other pundits declare a terrible foreign policy idea certainly spring to mind. The conclusion? Narratives are a natural and necessary human mechanism for understanding the world, but they cannot be relied upon too heavily. Foreign policy is complex, and may require the practitioner to engage in deeper analysis, or to weigh up contradictory viewpoints simultaneously. Often, it will require a compromise that ruins any simple story. When news broke Monday of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, the question many horrified Americans most wanted to answer was, Who was the shooter?

Individualistic approaches hinder effective public policy.

Goss 07
{Kristin A. Goss, assistant professor of public-policy studies and political science at the Sanford Institute of Public Policy, Bad Public Policy Contributes To The Death Count, published April 18 2007, Duke Sanford; school of public policy, online at http://news.sanford.duke.edu/newstype/commentary/2007/bad-public-policy-contributes-death-count, accessed 07/09/13} A.S.

The assumption that we can make policy based on individual stories is dangerous because, for a variety
of reasons, individual stories call our attention to factors that make those cases unique, not factors that tie them together. What ties these massacres together is guns. In the immediate aftermath of the Virginia Tech killings, before the gunman was publicly named, speculation swirled about his identity and motives. He was rumored to be, alternately, a lone gunman with no known ties to the university; a jealous boyfriend seeking revenge on his girlfriend; a disgruntled former student seeking revenge against the university; or a Chinese national possibly bent on harming America. Yesterday we learned that the gunman was a troubled 23-year-old South Korean national who was also a resident student at Virginia Tech. Important as that information may be to law-enforcement officers piecing together the crime, its hard to see how those details help us frame meaningful policy to prevent further shootings. Understanding an assailants motives or his place in the social order tells us very little about what to do next. And yet we persist in analyzing these massacres in terms of the unique stories of the individual perpetrators: the South Korean immigrant loner at Virginia Tech; the psychologically haunted milk-truck driver at the Amish school last year; the white supremacist at the California day-care center in 1999; the alienated Trenchcoat Mafia at Columbine High School eight years ago. Why do we understand these events as dark tales of deranged individuals? Part of the answer is that human beings need to make sense of senseless events, and narratives help us do so. The stories we construct tend to reassure us that such traumatic events won't happen to us -that the event was an isolated incident, perpetrated by a one nut in circumstances that dont apply to our lives. But

there may be particular reasons why Americans, more than people from other nations, are especially likely to construct narratives that revolve around individuals as both villains and heroes. For one, individualism is deeply ingrained in our political culture -- the set of assumptions drummed into us by the nation-building stories we learned as schoolchildren and by the Constitution, which enshrines

individual rights and liberties as the foundation of our democracy. Our individualistic political culture is
nowhere more apparent than in debates over firearms. After all, our founding myths -- musket-bearing citizen militias overthrowing a distant tyrant, rugged frontiersmen who made the nation great -- revolve around guns. So does the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Our cultural predilection to understand public events in terms of individuals is reinforced by the news media, which are in the business of constructing and selling narratives. By focusing on an individual, whether as hero or villain, journalists can condense complex information into a format, the dramatic story, that busy readers or viewers can quickly grasp. Good stories are good business. Yet recognizing

the power of stories about heroes and villains does not mean that these stories are a solid foundation for public policy. The problem is nowhere more apparent than in the case of school shootings. In 2002 the U.S. Secret Service conducted a
comprehensive analysis of all such shootings from 1974 through 2000 -- a total of 37 incidents, with 41 assailants. Among the reports most striking findings: There is no profile of a school shooter; instead, the students who carried out the attacks differed from one another in numerous ways. In other words, focusing on individual traits would have told us nothing about how to construct policies to prevent such shootings from happening in the future. Indeed, portraying

public problems in terms of individual stories may

actually hinder effective policy responses. In a 1990 study, the political scientist Shanto Iyengar, of Stanford University, found that, when news-media stories about poverty spotlight poor individuals, viewers are far likelier to hold the poor person responsible for his plight than when the media spotlight structural forces, such as unemployment in the manufacturing sector. A logical implication of this study is that focusing

on individual woes may curtail important debates about collective solutions to

poverty.

Rhetoric of personal stories is used to distract from actual evidence.

McDonough 2000
{John E. McDonough, associate professor at the Heller School at Brandeis University and former health committee chairman in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, Using And Misusing Anecdote In Policy Making, published 2000, Health Affairs, online at http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/20/1/207.full, accessed 07/09/13} A.S. These two encounters illustrate both the value and harm

of relying on storytelling in making public policy. Stories can enable lawmakers to understand a legitimate need for policy change but just as readily can lead them to make bad policy decisions. Stories can bring to life drab data analyses, helping us to visualize problems and opportunities for change. But stories also can lead us down wasteful and dangerous paths and blind us to uncomfortable uncomfortable truths we would prefer to ignore, like the fact that there yet is no easy cure for breast cancer. It comes as no surprise, then, that almost as common as using narrative and anecdote in policy making is criticizing them. Former Minnesota state legislator Lee Greenfield often remarks that one compelling anecdote (true or false) at a crucial moment in a floor debate can vaporize a mountain of data and careful policy analysis.

Narrative Stories
Narrative
Spiegel 9
Der Spiegel, 1/24/2009, Truthout, A "Green Tsunami" in Brazil: The High Price of Clean, Cheap Ethanol, http://www.truthout.org/archive/item/82175:a-green-tsunami-in-brazil-the-high-price-of-clean-cheap-ethanol, ACCESSED 7/9/2013, BD In the middle of the night, the plantations around Araoiaba in Brazil's ethanol zone are on fire. The area looks like a war zone during the sugarcane harvest, as the burning fields light up the sky and the wind carries clouds of smoke across the countryside. The fires chase away snakes, kill tarantulas and burn away the sharp leaves of the cane plants. (In the morning, when only embers remain, tens of thousands of workers with machetes head into the fields throughout this region in northeastern Brazil. They harvest the cane, which survives the fire and which is used to distill ethanol, the gasoline of the future.) Hours earlier, Antonio da Silva attempts to get up from his plank bed. He doesn't need an alarm clock, even at two in the morning. The pain wakes him up. He looks at the other two beds in the room, where his children sleep -- four young girls and two boys. Once outside, in front of the hut, he says he may not be able to feed them for much longer. He knows a hernia finished him, and it was the hernia that forces him to push his intestines into place when he straightens up after bending over. He feels two types of pain: a dull throbbing pain in his groin that has been there for a long time, and the sharp pain he experiences whenever he cuts sugarcane with his machete. When foremen realized he was holding his intestines in place with his hand, they chased him off the plantation. They are uninterested in sick old men when plenty of young, strong workers can take their place. Cane cutters last an average of 12 years on the job before they are so worn out that they have to be replaced. Da Silva is 43, an old man on the plantations. the doctor told him he should no longer cut cane, Otherwise the wound might reopen and possibly kill him. 11 days later, da Silva was back to cutting cane, this time on a different plantation, far in the south of Araoiaba. He looks strong, with his muscular upper body and short haircut. No one at the new plantation is aware of his pain. "What can I do?" da Silva asks. "There is nothing else here. Those who do not cut sugarcane go hungry. And then there are the children." He packs his faco and a canister containing five liters of water, just enough to last him through the heat of the day. He walks to one of several waiting buses that arrive, late at night, to take the men from Araoiaba to the plantations. Da Silva must harvest three-and-a-half tons of sugarcane by sunset. This is his daily quota, enough to make about 300 liters of biofuel. To do this, da Silva will have to strike the cane with his faco about 3,000 times, working among the ashes and embers and under the scorching sun. If the doctor is right, one of those blows will eventually tear open his groin again. Da Silva is one of about a million people toiling away on the plantations and in Brazil's ethanol factories. Many live and suffer much as their ancestors did -- as slaves on sugar plantations. Government investigators occasionally liberate a handful of cane workers, but in such a big country the officials are few and far between. The real power lies in the hands of militias, working for the sugar barons. They intimidate workers and drive away small farmers with bulldozers, all in support of a global vision. "

Is this needed? By 2030 we will be the world's largest fuel supplier," says Brazilian President Luiz
Incio Lula da Silva. If all goes according to plan, ethanol will provide his country -- and the rest of the world -- with a bright future.

Case Neg

Neg Framework
Consequentialism leads to an indifference to the righteousness of actionsdoes not change sense of self
Harrison, Newholm, Shaw 5 (Ethical Consumer Research Association, University of Manchester, Glasgow Caledonian
University) [Philosophy and ethical consumption Open Research Online at http://www.sagepub.com/booksProdTOC.nav?prodId=Book227081 accessed July 9, 2013, AV] One problem, then, with a narrowly consequentialist understanding of moral reasoning is that by implying

that we should act in a manner wholly oriented to collective outcomes, it ignores what acting morally actually means to people. As Derek Parfit points out (1984, 27), if we all acted as pure do-gooders, it might actually make things
worse rather than not better. This is because being a pure do-gooder would involve so much self-sacrifice that it would decrease the overall sum of happiness. Parfits point is that being wholly self-less would involve acting against many of the motives that we act upon when we love others, care, show concern, and so on. The implication of this argument is that changing peoples consumption

practices is probably not best pursued by simply appealing to peoples sense of selfsacrifice or altruism, nor by supposing that it requires a wholesale abandonment of self-interested concerns. We saw above that one advantage
of consequentialism is that it is contextually sensitive, so that it does not hold that the value of a particular course of action is determined in advance by a set of rules. However, if this is one charge made against deontological approaches, the counter-argument is that consequentialism can, in principle, lead to an indifference to the righteousness of actions to a privileging

of ends over means Parfit (1984) . We might ask whether it matters if ethical consumption campaigns realise their aims and objectives by: a) actively altering peoples sense of what is the best thing to do, or; b) simply by more anonymous changes to consumption patterns. Is ethical consumption simply about aggregate outcomes reduced pollution, less exploitative work conditions, etc or is it also about actually changing the sense of self held by ordinary people? Many advocates
of ethical consumption see the adoption of a more conscious approach to consumption as an important objective of their overall strategy. If neither pure consequentialist nor pure deontological approaches capture the complexity of moral action, perhaps it might be better not to abandon these approaches, but recast them in less all-or-nothing ways. Amartya Sen distinguishes between consequentialism and consequentialist reasoning. He suggests that consequentialism demands that the rightness of actions be judged

entirely by the goodness of consequences, and this is a demand not merely of taking consequences into account, but of ignoring everything else (Sen 1987, 75). However, Sen suggests that it is possible to develop what he calls
consequence-sensitive deontological arguments (1987, 76). This requires acknowledging that rights the primary concern of deontologists have both an instrumental and an intrinsic value. This means that deontology is itself not immune to consequentialist considerations: rights are not only valuable intrinsically, but also because of the goals they enable people to pursue. What all of this suggests is that it is more appropriate to think of any ethical theory as combining an understanding of the good with an understanding of the right in a distinctive way (Pettit 1991, 230).

Utilitarianism is flawedfollows shallow moral psychology and results in damaging effects Sophie Rietti 09 (University of Ottawa)
*Utilitarianism and Psychological Realism Utilitas Vol. 21, No. 3 at EBSCOhost accessed July 9, 2013, AV+ A common line of objection to utilitarianism in the recent philosophical literature holds that

utilitarianism is problematic as a

moral theory because of its perceived lack of psychological realism the latter notion being often significantly vague. This criticism is primarily directed at the normative demands made (or assumed to be made) by utilitarians, but by extension also at their metaethical assumptions, and, most particularly, at their moral psychology, the supposed thinness of which is often implied to be the true culprit. As a result of its flawed and shallow moral psychology, the critics claim, utilitarianism makes demands on agents that are too high, and of the wrong kinds, with a range of damaging effects, not just to the well-being of agents, but also to their moral capacities and performance. This line of objection holds that people cannot, need not, or even ought not to try to do what utilitarians say people should do, for reasons that ultimately appeal to some notion of actual or potential human nature.

Consequentialism limits all actions

Gaita 7 (Raimond Gaita, Former Foundation Professor of Philosophy at the Australian Catholic University and Professor of Moral
Philosophy at King's College London) [Tackling the tough questions Nationwide News at LexisNexis Academic accessed July 9, 2013, AV]

Consequentialism teaches (basically) that only the consequences of our actions matter morally. In Morality and Con-flict, Hampshire wrote of how consequentialism distorts, trivialises and often ridicules ''epithets usually associated with morally impossible action, with a sense of disgrace, of outrage, of horror, of baseness, of brutality''. Most important to Hampshire was consequentialism's ridiculing of our dismay that ''a barrier, assumed to be firm and almost insurmountable, has been knocked over'' and of our ''feeling that if this horrible, oroutrageous, or squalid or bru-tal, action is possible then anything is possible and nothing is forbidden and all restraints are threatened''.

Consequentialism fails because it can not deliver verdicts

Benjamin Sachs Program in Environmental Studies and Center for Bioethics, New York University Consequentialisms Double-Edged
Sword page 258-259

Consequentialism has long been subject to criticism for failing to do as good a job as nonconsequentialism of accommodating widespread intuitions about cases. Recent moral philosophers such as Hare,
Sen, Schefer, Railton, Brink and Broome have aimed to show that consequentialism has greater exibility, or ability to accommodate these intuitions, than it has been credited for. But if

we accept these widespread intuitions, why not just adopt nonconsequentialism? The thought must be that we give up something important if we abandon consequentialism in favor of non-consequentialism. What I aim to show here is that consequentialists have not yet shown us how it can be true both (1) that consequentialism can deliver the intuitively plausible case specic verdicts that non-consequentialism can deliver and (2) that we give up something important when we move from consequentialism to non-consequentialism. In fact, the very
premises likely to be used in arguments for the rst claim can be used to cast doubt on the second. Before explaining why this is the case, I rst need to make claims (1) and (2) more precise. In claim (1), the

term the intuitively plausible case-specic verdicts that non-consequentialism can deliver should be understood as designating all such verdicts. Or, more precisely it should be understood as designating the most intuitively plausible consistent set of casespecic verdicts (since there might be contradictory verdicts each of which we nd intuitively plausible) that non-consequentialism can deliver, where case-specic verdicts are Cambridge University Press 2010
Utilitas Vol. 22, No. 3, September 2010 doi:10.1017/S095382081000018XConsequentialisms Double-Edged Sword 259 claims about the moral permissibility of specic actions. Thus, claim (1) is the claim that consequentialism can deliver the most intuitively plausible set of claims about the moral permissibility of specic actions that non-consequentialism can deliver. This claim, which I will label Consequentializability, has been argued for by several authors.1 Claim

(2) holds that we give up something important when we move from consequentialism to non-consequentialism. We need to be specic, however, about which versions of consequentialism and non-consequentialism we are concerned about. It seems that in considering whether to abandon consequentialism in favor of non-consequentialism, consequentialists should care specically about whether the best version of consequentialism is better than the best version of non-consequentialism. Therefore, claim (2) should be construed as asserting that we give up something important in moving from the best version of consequentialism to the best version of non-consequentialism.

Rejecting moral agent evaluations solves consequentialist issues

Mathew Coakley Fellow in Political Theory, Government Department PhD in Political Science How, Exactly, Should Consequentialism
Evaluate Agents? Page 8 http://www.mathewcoakley.net/MC/Papers_files/HowShouldConsequentialsmAgents.pdf

One way to overcome consequentialism's moral agent problem is to deny one of its enabling premises, namely that moral agent evaluations can be correctly or meaningfully made: perhaps we can morally evaluate actions but not agents. Consequentialism would thus tell us what a right or wrong action is, but simply supply no agent evaluations. To talk of morally good and bad agents would be meaningless. This would remove the moral agent problem by denying the very correctness of key concepts upon which it depends. To claim the moral evaluation of agents is not meaningful - or cannot in principle be made - is, however, to leave oneself vulner-able to a variety of amoralism. If by J is a morally bad

person" we mean nothing, then the amoralist can accept consequentialism or any other actionmorality entirely and agree that, yes, doing X rather than Y does produce more suffering / less utility
etc. But if she were to do X that would not represent any negative moral judgment of her. It would have been better, on this view, had Timothy McVeigh not killed so many people, but this isn't a criticism of him, it is merely a fact about the world. Many

find amoralism an unattractive position, but it is not clear if one holds that moral agent-evaluations are meaningless or cannot be correctly made that the amoralist is open to valid criticism: her actions are, but she is not. If incompatibility with amoralism is a basic requirement of any compelling moral theory then this option should be rejected.

Consequentialism destroys any chance of happiness in a pure do-good society

Harrison, Newholm, Shaw 05 (Ethical Consumer Research Association, University of Manchester, Glasgow Caledonian University)
*Philosophy and ethical consumption Page 8 Open Research Online at http://www.sagepub.com/booksProdTOC.nav?prodId=Book227081 accessed July 9, 2013, AV]

One problem, then, with a narrowly consequentialist understanding of moral reasoning is that by implying that we should act in a manner wholly oriented to collective outcomes, it ignores what acting morally actually means to people. As Derek Parfit points out (1984, 27), if we all acted as pure do-gooders, it might actually make things worse rather than not better. This is because being a pure do-gooder would involve so much self-sacrifice that it would decrease the overall sum of happiness. Parfits point is that being wholly self-less would involve acting against many of the motives that we act upon when we love others, care, show concern, and so on. The implication of this argument is that changing peoples consumption practices is probably not best pursued by simply appealing to peoples sense of selfsacrifice or altruism, nor by supposing that it requires a wholesale abandonment of self-interested concerns.

Consequentialism fails because it can not deliver verdicts

Benjamin Sachs Program in Environmental Studies and Center for Bioethics, New York University Consequentialisms Double-Edged
Sword page 258-259

Consequentialism has long been subject to criticism for failing to do as good a job as nonconsequentialism of accommodating widespread intuitions about cases. Recent moral philosophers such as Hare, Sen,
Schefer, Railton, Brink and Broome have aimed to show that consequentialism has greater exibility, or ability to accommodat e these intuitions, than it has been credited for. But if we accept these widespread intuitions, why not just adopt non-

consequentialism? The thought must be that we give up something important if we abandon consequentialism in favor of non-consequentialism. What I aim to show here is that consequentialists have not yet shown us how it can be true both (1) that consequentialism can deliver the intuitively plausible case specic verdicts that non-consequentialism can deliver and (2) that we give up something important when we move from consequentialism to non-consequentialism. In fact, the very premises likely to be used
in arguments for the rst claim can be used to cast doubt on the second. Before explaining why this is the case, I rst need to make clai ms (1) and (2) more precise. In claim (1), the term the intuitively plausible case-specic verdicts that non-

consequentialism can deliver should be understood as designating all such verdicts. Or, more precisely it should be understood as designating the most intuitively plausible consistent set of case-specic verdicts (since there might be contradictory verdicts each of which we nd intuitively plausible) that nonconsequentialism can deliver, where case-specic verdicts are Cambridge University Press 2010 Utilitas Vol. 22,
No. 3, September 2010 doi:10.1017/S095382081000018XConsequentialisms Double-Edged Sword 259 claims about the moral permissibility of specic actions. Thus, claim (1) is the claim that consequentialism can deliver the most intuitively plausible set of cl aims about the moral permissibility of specic actions that non-consequentialism can deliver. This claim, which I will label Consequentializability, has been argued for by several authors.1 Claim (2) holds that we give up something important when we move from

consequentialism to non-consequentialism. We need to be specic, however, about which versions of consequentialism and non-consequentialism we are concerned about. It seems that in considering whether

to abandon consequentialism in favor of non-consequentialism, consequentialists should care specically about whether the best version of consequentialism is better than the best version of nonconsequentialism. Therefore, claim (2) should be construed as asserting that we give up something important in moving from the best version of consequentialism to the best version of nonconsequentialism.

Rejecting moral agent evaluations solves consequentialist issues

Mathew Coakley Fellow in Political Theory, Government Department PhD in Political Science How, Exactly, Should
Consequentialism Evaluate Agents? Page 8 http://www.mathewcoakley.net/MC/Papers_files/HowShouldConsequentialsmAgents.pdf

One way to overcome consequentialism's moral agent problem is to deny one of its enabling premises, namely that moral agent evaluations can be correctly or meaningfully made: perhaps we can morally evaluate actions but not agents. Consequentialism would thus tell us what a right or wrong action is, but simply supply no agent evaluations. To talk of morally good and bad agents would be meaningless. This would remove the moral agent problem by denying the very correctness of key concepts upon which it depends. To claim the moral evaluation of agents is not meaningful - or cannot in principle be made - is, however, to leave oneself vulner-able to a variety of amoralism. If by J is a morally bad person" we mean nothing, then the amoralist can accept consequentialism or any other action-morality entirely and agree that, yes, doing X rather than Y does produce more suffering / less utility etc. But if she were to do X that would not
represent any negative moral judgment of her. It would have been better, on this view, had Timothy McVeigh not killed so many people, but this isn't a criticism of him, it is merely a fact about the world. Many find amoralism an unattractive position, but it is not

clear if one holds that moral agent-evaluations are meaningless or cannot be correctly made that the amoralist is open to valid criticism: her actions are, but she is not. If incompatibility with amoralism is a basic requirement of any compelling moral theory then this option should be rejected.

Consequentialism destroys any chance of happiness in a pure do-good society

Harrison, Newholm, Shaw 05 (Ethical Consumer Research Association, University of Manchester, Glasgow Caledonian University)
[Philosophy and ethical consumption Page 8 Open Research Online at http://www.sagepub.com/booksProdTOC.nav?prodId=Book227081 accessed July 9, 2013, AV]

One problem, then, with a narrowly consequentialist understanding of moral reasoning is that by implying that we should act in a manner wholly oriented to collective outcomes, it ignores what acting morally actually means to people. As Derek Parfit points out (1984, 27), if we all acted as pure do-gooders, it might actually make things worse rather than not better. This is because being a pure do-gooder would involve so much self-sacrifice that it would decrease the overall sum of happiness. Parfits point is that being wholly selfless would involve acting against many of the motives that we act upon when we love others, care, show concern, and so on. The implication of this argument is that changing peoples consumption practices is probably not best pursued by simply appealing to peoples sense of self-sacrifice or altruism, nor by supposing that it requires a wholesale abandonment of self-interested concerns.

Utilitariansim is flawedfollows shallow moral psychology and results in damaging effects Rietti 9 (Sophie Rietti, University of Ottawa) [Utilitarianism and Psychological Realism Utilitas Vol. 21, No. 3 at EBSCOhost accessed
July 9, 2013, AV] A common line of objection to utilitarianism in the recent philosophical literature holds that

utilitarianism is problematic as a moral theory because of its perceived lack of psychological realism the latter notion being often significantly vague. This criticism is primarily directed at the normative demands made (or assumed to be made) by utilitarians, but by extension also at their metaethical assumptions, and, most particularly, at their moral psychology, the supposed thinness of which is often implied to be the true culprit. As a result of its flawed and shallow moral psychology, the critics claim, utilitarianism makes demands on agents that are too high, and of the

wrong kinds, with a range of damaging effects, not just to the well-being of agents, but also to their moral capacities and performance. This line of objection holds that people cannot, need not, or even ought not to try to do what utilitarians say people should do, for reasons that ultimately appeal to some notion of actual or potential human nature.

Consumerism Answers

Consumerism Good
Investment in consumption key to sustainability
PAUL R. EHRLICH AND LAWRENCE H. GOULDER(Ehrlich is an American biologist and educator who is the Bing Professor of Population Studies in the department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University and president of Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology and Goulder is Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics) - April 17, 2007 [Is Current Consumption Excessive? A General Framework and Some Indications for the United States Stanford Online at http://www.stanford.edu/~goulder/Ehrlich-Goulder%20Consumption%20Paper%20-%20Cons%20Biol%2021(5).pdf, Accessed July 9, 2013]//RR

Investment plays a central role in achieving sustainability. It is needed to maintain capital assets and thus a societys ability to provide goods and services. Investment helps maintain capital three ways. First, it yields new capital that replaces worn out or retired old capital. Reproducible capital physically depreciates with time and use, and investment in its repair or replacement can help maintain or augment its current effective quantity. Similarly, a societys stock of employed human capital would also decline in the absence of investments in education
because workers age and retire. Educating new and younger workers offsets what otherwise would be a reduction in human capital.

Consumerism sustainable offsets decline and maintains productivity

PAUL R. EHRLICH AND LAWRENCE H. GOULDER(Ehrlich is an American biologist and educator who is the Bing Professor of Population Studies in the department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University and president of Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology and Goulder is Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics) - April 17, 2007 [Is Current Consumption Excessive? A General Framework and Some Indications for the United States Stanford Online at http://www.stanford.edu/~goulder/Ehrlich-Goulder%20Consumption%20Paper%20-%20Cons%20Biol%2021(5).pdf, Accessed July 9, 2013]//RR For nonrenewable natural capital, investment can contribute to sustainability a third way. For these resources, there can be no production of new stocks within the relevant time frameonly on a geological time scale are new stocks produced. Although

society cannot produce new stocks of, say, petroleum, it has the potential to maintain its overall productive capacity and offset the decline in this asset by expanding the stocks of other capital assets (e.g., solar-hydrogen energy systems, or wind farms). Thus, investment in a different type of capital can potentially offset the loss of natural capital stocks.

Ethical Consumption Doesnt Work

Majority of consumers will not sacrifice product function for ethicsstudies prove
Timothy Devinney, Pat Auger, Giana M. Eckhardt 11 (Professor and author, associate professor and the academic director, associate professor) [Value vs. Values: The Myth of the Ethical Consumer Policy Innovations online at http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/briefings/data/000199 accessed July 10, 2013, AV] Another key finding that refutes conventional wisdom on this topic is that most

people will not sacrifice product function for ethics. When faced with a choice of good ethical positioning and bad product functionality or good product functionality and bad ethical positioning, individuals overwhelmingly chose the latter. They revealed an astounding reluctance to consider ethical product features as anything but secondary to their primary reasons for purchasing the products in question. "It would take some kind of catastrophe to make me care," said one respondent. Contrary to other research that has typecast ethical consumers demographically or by their responses to surveys of values, we find little difference between people who take into consideration social aspects of products and those who do not. For example, it has been commonly assumed in the popular media that Europeans, with their strong
tradition of social democracy, are more socially aware than Americans bred on notions of self-sufficiency and individualism. However, we found only weak support for this idea. Simplistic notions about differences influenced by gender, education, income, culture, domicile, basic values, and so on proved

similarly unfounded. It is often assumed that individuals from emergingmarket countries are significantly less sensitive to social issues, being more concerned about economic development. Again, the reality is more complex; individuals' responses were more nuanced. We found that although those from Germany, the United States, or China might rationalize their ethical consumption (or lack of it) differently, the behaviors being justified are remarkably similar. Proponents of ethical consumerism want to believe that people's socially oriented choices are somehow differentperhaps made at a higher level of consciousnessfrom their general product choices. This is a delusion. Product ethics are more important only when individuals, comparing such ethics to all the other things that have value to them, determine that they are more important. And our research shows that for many people, this is seldom the case.

Ethical consumption is ineffective and extremely limited

Cheeseman 10 Nov. 26th 2010(Gina-Marie, Journalist & Editor)
[The Limits of Ethical Consumption Triple Pundit Online at http://www.triplepundit.com/2010/11/limits-ethical-consumption/ accessed July 10, 2013, AV]
Anne McCaig, CEO of Cafedirect, said in an interview by the Guardian that

ethical consumption has its limits. At the end of the day, ethical consumption can only drive so much, McCaig said. Businesses are good at picking the lowhanging fruit, like energy efficiency: anything that cuts costs. But the Government has to put the resources and infrastructure in place to make it easy for people to do the right thing setting carbon prices, for example. George Monbiot stated something similar last year in his column for the Guardian. There are several problems, Monbiot wrote, with the idea that we can change the world by changing our buying habits. One of the problems he mentioned is how seldom effective changing consumption habits are unless it is backed up by government action. He added that our power comes from acting as citizens, demand political change, not acting as consumers.

Corn Ethanol Good

Corn ethanol saves energy
BIN 13
Before Its News, 6/11/2013, Good News for Corn Ethanol and Feeding the World , http://beforeitsnews.com/energy/2013/06/good-news-forcorn-ethanol-and-feeding-the-world-2450036.html, accessed 7/9/2013, #BD

A new enzyme technology allowing the corn ethanol biofuels industry to produce more ethanol with less corn while saving energy and improving profits was announced yesterday. The technology is a new pair of enzymes combined with a third one that Novozymes shows saves up to 5% of the corn used in U.S. ethanol production. Even more useful in the food vs. fuel debate is the technology also increases corn oil extraction by 13%. As a practical matter the technology also saves 8% of the energy needed during production. The efficiency improvements can be achieved when two new enzymes, Spirizyme Achieve and Olexa, are used together with another Novozymes enzyme, Avantec. Andrew Fordyce, Executive Vice President for Business Operations at Novozymes explains the effect with, These new enzyme innovations offer strong benefits to ethanol producers. It allows our customers to make more from less and substantially improve their profit margins. For example take a typical U.S. ethanol plant. These use around 36 million
bushels (900,000 tons) of feed-grade corn per year to produce 100 million gallons of fuel ethanol, 300,000 tons of animal feed called Dried Distillers Grain with the Solubles (DDGS) [the Wikipedia link while informative is quite out of date.] and 8,500 tons of corn oil. By using Avantec, Olexa and Spirizyme Achieve, such

a plant can save up to 1.8 million bushels (45,000 tons) of corn while maintaining the same ethanol output, increasing the corn oil extraction, and generating up to $5 million in additional profit. The Avantec product was introduced in October 2012 and Novozymes says it has been well received in the U.S. ethanol industry. Our customers demand risk-free options that do not require major investments. That is exactly what our enzymes offer. We are the first to market this full package and are looking forward to implementing it together with our customers, trialing the technology at their plants, and getting the solutions out there. Its a competitive industry and only via innovation like this can
Novozymes continue to be the leading supplier of enzymes to the ethanol industry. Fordyce added. Starch Degrading Enzyme Action Effects. Click image for the largest view. Image Credit: Novozymes. In the U.S. corn is the key raw material in biofuel production and by far the biggest cost component for an ethanol plant. After the corn is harvested, the kernels are ground into corn meal and water is added to make a mash. The enzymes convert the starch in the mash to sugar, which can then be fermented with brewers yeast to make ethanol. Avantec and Spirizyme Achieve convert starch to sugar more efficiently than any other enzyme product on the market, while Olexa works by freeing up oil bound in the corn germ. Corn oil is used in a huge array of products. Its used in food preparation, the production of animal feed, biodiesel and soaps and other products. Corn

oil has become an increasingly important revenue stream for ethanol producers. Extensive implementation of extraction technology from 2008 to 2012 has seen the industry record a nearly five-fold increase in corn oil production, according to a study by the University of Illinois at Chicago. Novozymes estimates that approximately 80% of the operating ethanol capacity in the U.S. will have incorporated oil extraction
into their plants by end 2013. There is too much opportunity for products and revenue streams to be ignored. A bit of background about corn. There are four primary corn crops. The most familiar is Sweet Corn that is what people eat. This corn variety doesnt make starch it makes sugar at least until it over matures or sits too long after harvest when the sugar will degrade to starch. The second is Waxy Corn that is used to make the corn oil found on the grocers shelves in the cooking and baking section and myriad other uses. Both of these crops are small markets and require a great deal more hands on attention. They are strong attractants for vermin, wild animals and insects. The third is popcorn we are all familiar with. The fourth and huge market is field or flint corn. Field corn is starch rich and thus isnt such a strong attractant for pests and can be grown in huge amounts all around the world without such intense labor inputs and property capital invested to keep the crop up to food quality. The future will see corn grown for primary proteins and pharmaceutical production. Meanwhile, the field corn used for ethanol is only stripped of its carbohydrate or starch leaving a very desirable set of components, the protein, fiber and oil. The DDGS noted above, dried and with most of the oil removed is still a third of the mass of the original corn feedstock. Taking out the oil offers savings as the oil out makes drying easier and more efficient. Novozymes technology is not just welcome for lower cost ethanol or less pressure on corn prices, its welcome as the DDGS is a necessary animal feed product and offers researchers a great potential for protein products. Those making the food vs. fuel argument rely on the ignorance of the audience. The ethanol industry is continually making improvements and seeking higher value from the process. Its only a matter of time before the corn that hasnt ever been dire ctly used as human food will indirectly become a protein based human food product. As

the worlds population increases there will be a great incentive to use that huge reservoir of protein directly to feed people instead of feeding it to animals and then eating them. The future, and its coming fast, wont be food vs. fuel it will be fuel and food.

Corn ethanol good for the environment

Anthony 9
Neal St. Anthony (a business columnist and reporter for the Star Tribune for more than 25 years. He also has worked in financial communications for two publicly held companies), 2/9/2009, Star Tribune, New study praises corn as source for ethanol, http://www.startribune.com/business/39345102.html, accessed 7/10/2013, #BD

A University of Minnesota study released last week played nicely into the hands of the anti-ethanol crowd and upset the state's powerful corn lobby, which extols the corn-based gasoline supplement as a cleaner-burning domestic fuel that is blended with gasoline sold in Minnesota. The university study found that corn-based ethanol, including the environmental effects of growing and
harvesting, is no better an energy alternative than gasoline and it may be worse for air quality. The corn crowd should get over any umbrage. The U's Institute on the

Environment study won't put ethanol out of business. At the same time, another

ag-research institution released an encouraging study about the environmental and fuel-replacement strides made by corn ethanol. The University of Nebraska research reveals that the latest crop of efficient corn-ethanol refineries has helped cut greenhouse gas emissions to half that of gasoline and the industry now is producing up to 1.8 units of energy through ethanol for every unit of energy used to produce it. That's quite a leap in efficiency for an industry that early on had efficiency ratios that barely exceeded 1 to 1. "Critics claim that corn ethanol has only a small net energy yield and little potential for direct reductions in greenhouse gas emissions compared to the use of gasoline," said Ken Cassman, a University of Nebraska scientist. "This is the first peer-reviewed study to document that these claims are not correct." In short, the Nebraska researchers found that claims of ethanol inferiority were rooted in corn-production statistics, ethanol plant performance and byproduct use that dates back years. By the end of 2009, Cassman said, newer and renovated plants will account for 75 percent of ethanol production. They increasingly use alternative fuels, are more productive and efficient and are located close to livestock for efficient use of the residual distillers grains as feed. Finally, the Nebraska study estimates that up to 19 gallons of ethanol are produced for every gallon of petroleum used in the entire corn-ethanol production cycle. The Minnesota study concluded that ethanol made from switchgrass and other plant material that requires less energy and that doesn't compete with food is far better for the planet than corn ethanol or gasoline. Still, government-subsidized corn ethanol was the politically doable way to start producing alternative fuels. It's just the beginning. "We could, as a society, chase our tail for a good long time about the merits and
demerits of corn ethanol," said Rolf Nordstrom, executive director of the Minneapolis-based Great Plains Institute, which had a role in the Nebraska study and is leader in bringing divergent players together with the goal of a cleaner, domestic-fueled economy over the next generation. "My personal frustration is that the 'whatdo-we-do-to-replace-gasoline [goal]' has been wrapped around the axle while this corn-ethanol debate goes on. Even the boosters of corn ethanol who are making a handsome profit will tell you that it's not the only answer. "Folks need to stop arguing over whether corn ethanol is good or bad and get along to what's next -- a suite of fuels that can add up to a 100 percent solution." To wit: The dirtiest and most expensive fuel, particularly when you add in related defense spending, is oil, twothirds of which we import at a cost of something like $400 billion annually. The money goes to mostly government-owned monopolies, and some of those countries are hostile to the United States. Only in the last few years, when the cost surged to $3 or more per gallon, did Americans feel the pain in the wallet sufficiently to change their driving habits. Although fuel prices have dropped in recent months, even Detroit has given up the notion that gas-guzzlers will be the industry's future. Moreover, consumers, government and carmakers seem to have learned that we can transport ourselves just as well with hybrid-battery vehicles that get 50 miles per gallon and the plug-in electric cars that soon will debut on showroom floors. Meanwhile, next-generation ethanol and diesel will be made not just from soybeans, but canola, jatropha and other non-edible grains that grow like wildfire and yield a lot more juice per acre than corn or soybeans. Advances

in corn-ethanol productivity are to be hailed. But it's no panacea. It's been estimated that if the nation's entire corn crop were turned to ethanol production, we would
only displace up to 12 percent of motor-fuel consumption. That leaves lots of room for other clean-burning fuels and transport technology. And that also will turbocharge the U.S. economy.

Corn ethanol reduces greenhouse emissions

Captain 9
Sean Captain (writer for POPSCI), 1/29/2009, POPSCI, EthanolBetter Than We Thought?, http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2009-01/ethanol%E2%80%94better-we-thought, accessed 7/10/2013, #BD

Common sense says that burning a plant you regrow every year is better for the atmosphere than spewing out carbon dioxide thats been buried underground for eons. But the truth behind biofuels and petroleum often seems to
defy common sense. Neither ethanol nor gasoline bubbles out of the ground ready to put in your tank. So to figure out which one does less environmental harm, you have to calculate all the energy that goes into making it. For years, studies have shown that ethanol is no betteror even worsefor the environment than gasoline. Some studies even claimed that it takes more energy to make a gallon of ethanol than you get from burning it. But a new federal government-sponsored study released this week says the opposite. The report, entitled Improvements in Life Cycle Energy Efficiency and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Corn-Ethanol, claims that a gallon of ethanol produces nearly twice

as much energy as it consumes, and that switching from gasoline to ethanol cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 54 percent. Why such different results? Better data, say the studys authorsresearchers from midwestern universities including the University of Nebraska, Iowa State, Michigan State, and the University of Wisconsin. The pessimistic studies were based on old data about crop production and inefficient early ethanol plant designs, they claim. RELATED
ARTICLES The Future of Cellulosic Ethanol is Green GRAY MATTER Make Your Own Ethanol Beyond Ethanol TAGS The Environment, Sean Captain, biofuel, corn, ethanol, gasoline, global warming, greenhouse gasesThe making of corn is at least as important as turning it into ethanol. Up to 65 percent of all emissions come from growing and transporting the crop, for items such as tractor fuel, fertilizer and electricity.

New hybrids plants produce more corn with less fertilizer. And new refineries run on efficient natural gas, recycle heat to use in other parts of the plant, and put the waste to crop good use. The scrap from the refineries actually makes nutritious cattle feed. So putting a feedlot right next to a refinery saves the emissions that would go into growing food separately and trucking it in. The best facilities save even more energy by collecting the manure and urine from cows and turning it into methane gas for use in the plant. Unlike clean coal plants that exist only in the minds of their proponents, ultra-efficient ethanol operations are the norm. According to the study, the new facilities account for 60 percent of all U.S. ethanol production today and will produce 75 percent of national supply by the end of the year.

Corn ethanol good for economy

Shows 10
Ronnie Shows (writer for The Hill), 9/17/2010, The Hill, Ethanol: A good deal for Americas economy, http://thehill.com/blogs/congressblog/energy-a-environment/119395-ethanol-a-good-deal-for-americas-economy, accessed 7/10/2013, #BD!@$%^&*() Congress and the news media are focused on infrastructure stimulus packages but theyre overlooking one legislative issue tha t is guaranteed to have a significant impact on jobs, especially in rural economies: biofuels. While there are only a few weeks left of this session, I believe

Congress must make it a top priority to fund programs to support Americas biofuels industry. Last year, ethanol producers supported some 400,000 jobs involving production, innovations to develop advanced biofuels and the research and development that makes the industry more efficient. The one aspect of our economy that is going strong is the agricultural sector and we shouldnt abandon that now. Not only does a thriving biofuels industry help a growing and vital energy sector, its supported by government programs that pay for themselves. Americas biofuels industry last year, with the help of the blenders tax credit and the Renewable
Fuels Standard, generated an estimated $8.4 billion in federal tax revenues, based on higher taxable incomes for ethanol workers and the industrys contribution to a higher gross domestic product. American farmers and other jobs here at home are supported

by the biofuels industry but it also helps those who arent at home; our troops who must be stationed overseas to protect our energy interests, particularly in the Middle East. People are increasingly aware of the billions of
dollars sent overseas to buy the oil necessary to meet our growing energy needs. But that amount pales in comparison to the human and financial cost required to ensure our energy security. The biofuels industry has come a long way since I introduced my first

gasohol bill during my freshman term as a Mississippi state senator in 1981. Its an industry that has come of age and in the process, its become an indispensable part of our national energy portfolio. Biofuels play a critical role in supporting an economic recovery searching for traction and is part of the solution to improving our energy security. Along with solar, wind, nuclear, domestic oil and other energy sources, ethanol is vital in reducing our need for foreign oil and the need for American troops to keep that oil flowing. Our nation and Congress must stand by American workers and support an industry that keeps us safe at home and our troops
safe around the world.

Ethanol helps econ and environment

Lemos 11
William Lemos (writer for ICIS), 6/28/2011, Chemical Industry News an d Chemical Market Intelligence, Ethanol makes US secure, good for economy - corn trade group, http://www.icis.com/Articles/2011/06/28/9473386/ethanol+makes+us+secure+good+for+economy++corn+trade.html, accessed 7/10/2013, #BD
INDIANAPOLIS (ICIS)--The

use of ethanol is good for the US economy because it reduces the amount of money the US sends overseas to pay for imports of crude oil, a trade group said on Tuesday. Ethanol is also important because it helps to plug a hole in national security by reducing US dependence on foreign energy sources, said Rick Tolman, chief executive of the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA). Tolman spoke at the International Fuel Ethanol Workshop (FEW), which is being held this week in Indianapolis. The challenge for this industry is to tell its story, Tolman said, adding that ethanol also helps the environment by cutting emissions, even though biofuel critics claim the product does exactly the opposite. Despite the struggle to communicate its message, he said the US ethanol industry has expanded in ways that was previously unforeseen. Who would have thought the US would export ethanol to Brazil, he said, referring to US shipments sent to that country earlier this year. Tolman also touted a new partnership between the US ethanol industry and the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). If ethanol works for NASCAR, it shows that problems with other engines are a myth, he said. The four-day
International Fuel Ethanol Workshop began on Monday.