PSM+Gabe+and+Jesse

= = =Aff= toc

Plan Text

 * The United States federal government should authorize the licensing of American companies to participate in the development of Cuba’s sugar ethanol industry and allow Cuban sugar ethanol imports.**

Contention 1: Sugar Ethanol Shift
Specht 13 [Jonathan-J.D. Wash. U St. Louis, Legal Advisor, “Raising Cane: Cuban Sugarcane Ethanol’s Economic and Environmental Effects on the United States,” Environmental Law & Policy Journal, Univ. of California Davis, Vol. 36:2, [] ]
 * Cuban sugarcane-based ethanol market is superior to American corn-based ethanol. It will slow the rate of climate change, pesticide use, and dead zones.**

IV. Environmental Effects of… domestic ethanol industry. n68

Scenario 1: Monoculture
Specht 13 [Jonathan-J.D. Wash. U St. Louis, Legal Advisor, “Raising Cane: Cuban Sugarcane Ethanol’s Economic and Environmental Effects on the United States,” Environmental Law & Policy Journal, Univ. of California Davis, Vol. 36:2, [] ]
 * Domestic corn-ethanol production is the root of massive species loss and ecosystem destruction in the Great Plains**

Incentivizing farmers to … filtered contaminants disappear. n100

Leahy 7 [Stephen- international environmental journalist, “Biodiversity: Farming Will Make or Break the Food Chain”, Inter Press Service, 5-3-07,http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/03/945/]
 * Monoculture model independently causes extinction**

" If all agricultural lands.. is too many.

Scenario 3: Climate Change
Muller 7-28- 20 12 [Richard, professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former MacArthur Foundation fellow, “The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic”, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?pagewanted=all]
 * Global Warming is happening – most recent and best evidence concludes that it is human induced**

CALL me a converted skeptic. … air trapped in polar ice.

CO2 is the primary driver of climate change – outweighs all alt causes Vertessy and Clark 3-13 **-** 2012 [Rob, Acting Director of Australian Bureau of Meteorology, and Megan, Chief Executive Officer at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, “State of the Climate 2012”, []]

Carbon dioxide (CO2 __) emissions … __ combustion of fossil fuels.

Global warming makes global agricultural production impossible – resulting in mass starvation Potsdam Institute, 2012 (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics, “Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided”, A report for the World Bank, November, http://climatechange.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/Turn_Down_the_heat_Why_a_4_degree_centrigrade_warmer_world_must_be_avoided.pdf)

The overall conclusions of … of nonclimatic factors.

4 degrees of warming make sustaining biodiversity impossible – the impact is extinction Potsdam Institute, 2012 (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics, “Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided”, A report for the World Bank, November, http://climatechange.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/Turn_Down_the_heat_Why_a_4_degree_centrigrade_w0armer_world_must_be_avoided.pdf)

Ecosystems and their… in human experience (Barnosky et al., 2012 4 degree warming is inevitable with current carbon usage trends – deceasing carbon emissions solve Potsdam Institute, 2012 (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics, “Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided”, A report for the World Bank, November, http://climatechange.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/Turn_Down_the_heat_Why_a_4_degree_centrigrade_warmer_world_must_be_avoided.pdf)

The emission pledges made at the … temperature rise of more than 6°C.

Contention 3: Solvency
Cuban sugar based ethanol is essential to replace oil based fuel—it’s the best solution for a transition away from oil-based fuel dependence—allowing access to the U.S. market is key Specht 13 [Jonathan-J.D. Wash. U St. Louis, Legal Advisor, “Raising Cane: Cuban Sugarcane Ethanol’s Economic and Environmental Effects on the United States,” Environmental Law & Policy Journal, Univ. of California Davis, Vol. 36:2, []]

"The United States of America … has thus far received.

And, joint ventures jumpstart the Cuban ethanol energy industry Alonso-Pippo et al. 8 [Walfrido Alonso-Pippo- former Vice-President of the Solar Energy Department at the University of Havana and a former member of the Cuban National Renewable Energies Front, where he was a specialist in biomass energy use, Carlos A. Luengo, John Koehlinger, Pierto Garzone, Giacinto Cornacchia, “Sugarcane energy use: The Cuban case,” __Energy Policy__, Vol. 36, Issue 6, June 2008, []]

The rise of the price of oil … alternative source of energy. Sugar ethanol importation from Cuba is superior to alternatives and solves impacts from domestic corn ethanol production—no environmental damage Specht 13 [Jonathan-J.D. Wash. U St. Louis, Legal Advisor, “Raising Cane: Cuban Sugarcane Ethanol’s Economic and Environmental Effects on the United States,” Environmental Law & Policy Journal, Univ. of California Davis, Vol. 36:2, [] ]

B. Environmental Effects of … -based ethanol should be encouraged.

Contention 4: Impact Debate
No great power war – interdependence, democracy, deterrence Robb 2012 [Doug, US Navy Lieutenant, “Now Hear This – Why the Age of Great-Power War Is Over”, May, 5/2012 [Lieutenant, US Navy, “”, US Naval Institute, []] In addition to geopolitical…, counterproductive, archaic, and improbable. Miscalc is impossible Quinlan 2009 [Sir Michael, visiting professor at King's College London, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Defence and former senior fellow at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, “Thinking About Nuclear Weapons: Principles, Problems, Prospects,” Oxford University Press] One special form of … of its conventionally armed launch. Trachtenberg 2000 (Prof of History, Pennsylvania (Marc, The "Accidental War" Question, http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/trachtenberg/cv/inadv(1).pdf) The second point has to do … __from leading__ directly __to__ general __war.__ Nuclear war doesn’t cause extinction Yehoshua(Ph.D.), an inter-disciplinary physicist, is an expert in electro-optics, high-energy physics and applications, and material science and Moshe Yanovskiy, Jan 2,“Nuclear Proliferation and Democracy”, http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/01/nuclear_proliferation_and_demo.html, CMR  Nuclear proliferation should no … nuclear-possessing states than the former.
 * Intervening actions check escalation **
 * Socol 2011**

=Neg=

CP 1
Text: The United States federal government should amend relevant definitions in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 to include algae-derived fuels eligible for all tax credits, subsidies, and price supports. Amending the RFS to include price supports for algae spurs green crude production. This provides clean renewable fuel – solves energy dependence and breaks the food/fuel link Jason Pyle (Chief Executive Officer, Sapphire Energy) June 12 2008 “Renewable Fuels And Food Prices,” CQ Congressional Testimony First, let me thank the Committee for its leadership on alternative, renewable fuels. Your keen focus and vision have resulted in the first ever Renewable Fuel Standard. Although there will inevitably be elements of RFS that will improve over time, you've guided the country along on the right path. Second, within the RFS debate, I want to thank this Committee for its vision and support for technology neutrality in RFS legislation, even though that vision did not survive final passage. As you predicted by supporting a technology neutral position, we are now seeing the evolution of an entirely new generation of renewable fuels. These fuels transcend the use of food as fuel feedstock. //The current dilemma that pits fuel against food// is just the first of many consequences of a technology-specific RFS. //Without a technology-neutral RFS//, this nation will not meet its goalsof providing 32 billion gallons of renewable fuel by 2022__.__ Although last year's Energy Independence and Security Act has yet to foster such solutions, this Committee should be applauded for anticipating an ever-expanding universe of alternative and renewable fuels. That's why I am here. I'm Jason Pyle, Chief Executive Officer of Sapphire Energy. Sapphireis one of several of this nation's best technology companies working to produce the next generation of renewable fuels. At Sapphire,we focus on the production of current fuel products, such as gasoline, diesel and aircraft fuel, from //completely renewable sources, such as// photosynthetic microorganisms, or //algae//. Our mission is to produce fuels for today's oil and gasoline infrastructure, and two weeks ago we announced thatSapphire had produced the first ever renewable, ASTM-compliant, 91 octane gasoline from microorganisms. Please refer to the attached two documents for more background on Sapphire Energy. The Problem One of the many reasons we have cheap food is the availability of cheap energy. We cannot expect to turn large amounts of food back into energy in an economic manner. In today's debate between food and fuel, we should not have to make a choice. Both are critical to the economy, the environment and the world at large; we should not match one against the other. But when price and demand rise for one, both suffer. Instead of a Pyrrhic choice between food and fuel, I offer the opportunity to transcend the debate and produce ample supplies of both, lead ing this nation to ward //energy independence//. Instead of a dispute between two basic necessities, we need a dialogue that supports truly sustainable alternative fuel sources. Over the past year we have all seen prices and demand rise for commodities such as corn, sugar and vegetable oil. The entire world now feels the pressure. Daily we are faced with reports of people who struggle to afford essentials. A host of factors has contributed to price increases for food and fuel: weather, heightened demand, a weaker dollar, decreasing supplies. Just like energy, food is linked in a global market. Once we begin fueling our cars with food crops, we witness international repercussions. Riots occurred in Mexico earlier this year over expensive corn flour. This price increase has been attributed to U.S. demand for corn-based ethanol products, leaving less maize available for export. Protests over similar issues have occurred around the world, //contributing to inflation and political instability//. Even at an increased rate of production, current domestic biofuel processes will meet part, but not all, of U.S. demand. If the entire annual domestic soybean crop of 3 billion bushels were converted to biodiesel at the current efficiency of 1.4 gallons per bushel, it would provide about 6.5% of U.S. diesel fuel production. Though certainly a valuable asset to our fuel supply, it is clear that a spectrum of additional and diverse biofuels sources will be necessary to fulfill demand. Congress first adopted the Renewable Fuels Standardin 2005, but wisely recognized that neither biodiesel nor ethanol would be the final solution. It created the program as a bridge to a new generation of fuels, and established a system of incentives to create a marketplace for new technologies. Congress should consider whether the incentives are neutral and fair. Ask whether these mechanisms will lead to the support and development of fuels that will give America true energy independence. //Congress should ensure that the next round of incentives can be applied to advanced technologies// such as Sapphire's. American innovation is the heart of our people and our economy; I urge you to support this with additional legislation that promotes a //technology-neutral RFS//. The Solution //Food for fuel concerns are real, but can be managed//. Industries such as ethanol from corn and biodiesel from vegetable oil can continue to play an important role in the energy mix. However ,if we intend to practically and economically reach the goals of the RFS, we must be ready to rapidly embrace new fuel technologies. We must call on American ingenuity and entrepreneurialism for the solutions. When Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, it put the country on a path toward an energy future independent of imported resources. As Americans, we must support this vision. We should strive to maximize production, create fuel-efficient cars, reduce the amount of driving we do and, finally, develop alternatives to fossil fuels. All these efforts deserve increased support. But withouta truly new source of fuel, the system will remain in turmoil, prices will soar and the conflict between food and fuel will persist. Senators, my colleagues and I at Sapphire Energy have been thinking about this for a long time. We knew that an energy source based on agriculture would serve this country best as a stepping stone to a green energy future. We knew that energy requiring vast amounts of fresh water resources was not a viable option. And, finally, if we wanted to make a difference quickly, we knew we needed a fuel that could be transported and refined just like petroleum. Two years ago we asked ourselves, "In a perfect world, how should the next generation of fuel be produced and distributed?" These were our founding principles: 1.Fuel production must not use farmland. Period. 2.Fuel production must be carbon neutral. 3.Fuel production and delivery must use the existing petroleum infrastructure. 4.Fuel production must scale domestically to reach tens of billions of gallons per year. 5. The next generation of fuel s must be compatible with today's vehicles. That sounded like a tall order. But Americans have dreamed big and delivered in the past - atomic energy, highways and railroads that crisscross our nation, a man on the moon, mapping the human genome. Now, a similar ingenuity has developed a completely renewable and homegrown source of gasoline. I offer that //we do not have to sacrifice food production for fuel production. We do not have to choose between powering our industries and feeding the hungry//__.__ The Sapphire processes and technologies are so revolutionary that the company is at the forefront of an entirely new industrial category called " //Green Crude Production// ". Products and processes in this category //differ significantly from other biofuels// because they are made solely from photosynthetic microorganisms, sunlight and CO2 ; do not result in biodiesel or ethanol; enhance and replace petroleum-based products; //are carbon neutral// and renewable; //and don't require any food crop or agricultural land//. The Sapphireprocess produces a replica of light sweet crude, green crude that can be used in traditional refining to make real gasoline, diesel, and aircraft fuel. Our feedstocks produce10 to100 times more energy per acre than cropland biofuels. A side benefi t of our process is thatthe microorganisms consume pollutants and convert them to fuel. Using the Sapphire process, we have dramatically altered the domestic energy and petrochemical landscape and avoided the food versus fuel debate. Please allow me to reiterate, the Sapphire process does not create ethanol; it does not produce biodiesel; it does not use crops or valuable farmland. Sapphire fuel is the fuel we use today, the kind that is in your car or truck or airplane right now. It's gasoline, diesel and aircraft fuel. Senators, this is a solution. //This is a truly renewable, truly sustainable, alternative fuel-// " Sapphire's green crude oil ". This fuel, Sapphire fuel, is the world's first truly renewable petrochemical product, produced by converting sunlight and CO2 into a renewable, carbon-neutral alternative to conventional fossil fuels, without the drawbacks of current biofuels. This fuel is compatible with the current energy infrastructure - cars, refineries, and pipelines. Sapphire's scalable production facilities will produce this fuel economically because production will be modular, transportable, fueled by sunlight, and not constrained by arable land, crops, or other natural resources. Sapphire has turned sunlight into gasoline.

Politics
a.) Uniqueness and internal link – CIR will pass – but bipartisanship is key to effective compromise AP 7/8 /13 (“Congress Is Back: Here's What's on the Bickering Agenda”, [], CMR)

In the GOP-controlled House, courteous behavior, even within the majority ranks, has barely been perceptible with the ignominious failure of the farm bill. Some //collaboration// will be necessary if the House is to move ahead on immigration legislation this month. ¶ Conservatives from safe, gerrymandered House districts have rebuffed appeals from some national Republicans who argue that embracing immigration overhaul will boost the party's political standing with an increasingly diverse electorate, especially in the 2016 presidential election. Those conservatives strongly oppose any legislation offering citizenship to immigrants living here illegally. ¶ Reflecting the will of the rank and file, House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and other Republicans have said the comprehensive Senate immigration bill that couples the promise of citizenship for those living here unlawfully with increased border security is a nonstarter in the House. ¶ Opening the Senate session on Monday, Reid urged the House to consider the Senate bill—a highly unlikely step. ¶ "Now it's our duty to convince our colleagues in the House, yes, they should vote with us," he said. " //Bipartisan// immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship makes economic and political sense ." ¶ House Republicans were assessing the views of their constituents during the weeklong July 4th break and planned to discuss their next steps at a private meeting Wednesday. ¶ Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Republicans would be hashing out "two key hot spots " in the meeting: the pathway to citizenship and health care. ¶ "We need to be the party of solutions and not always obstructing, and so I think there's an effort here that we ... need to fix this immigration system," McCaul said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." He predicted that the full House could take up immigration as early as this month, and that representatives from both chambers could be working to //resolve differences// in their versions late this year or early next. ¶ The House Judiciary Committee has adopted a piecemeal approach, approving a series of bills, none with a path to citizenship that Obama and Democrats are seeking. Democrats hope the single-issue bills get them to a conference with the Senate, where the prospects for a far-reaching overhaul //improve//. ¶ "I think what you're finding is that //there will be a compromise//, a smart compromise," Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., said Sunday, also on CBS. "You have to be smart. You have to be tough. But you have to be fair. And if you can do that, you'll have a full fix." b.) Link – [insert one specific to affirmative case you are debating…or] Major shifts in policy towards Latin America cause partisan battles Whitehead & Nolte 12 (Laurence Whitehead, senior research fellow in politics at Nuffield College, Oxford, and Detlef Nolte, acting president of the GIGA, director of the GIGA Institute of Latin American Studies, professor of political science at the University of Hamburg, Number 6, 2012, [], CMR)

US–Latin America relations are routinely managed by multiple bureaucratic agencies, which can act quite autonomously and are often not coordinated via a common ¶ strategy. Obama’s Latin America policy has frequently been //hampered// by //political ¶ polarization// and //partisan divisions// in Congress. „ The intermestic dimension of US–Latin American relations has complicated foreign ¶ policy, because a more self-confident and autonomous majority in Latin America ¶ has sometimes sought a policy shift with regard to highly sensitive topics, such as ¶ drugs, immigration and Cuba. ¶ „ One issue area where some would criticize the Obama administration is its slowness ¶ in improving relations with Brazil or placing Brazil on par with, for example, India. ¶ „ It is unlikely that Latin America’s modest ranking in US foreign policy will increase ¶ or that Washington’s priorities will shift much after the November 2012 elections. c.) Impact – CIR is key to the economy and competitiveness Green 7/2 - founder and president of FWD.us, an advocacy group created by technology leaders that promotes policies to keep the United States and its citizens competitive in a global economy (Joe, “House, knowledge economy needs immigrants”, [], CMR)

Our country has changed a lot during those 27 years, but not -- so far -- our immigration policy. Suffice it to say, if we can pass our generation's immigration reform, it will be a really big deal. ¶ America's greatest asset has always been its people, drawn here from all over the world. In the 21st century, our //economic future////depends on// immigrants more than ever. The fastest-growing sector of our economy is the knowledge economy, where the main competitive difference is people. ¶ In a globalized world where people and businesses have their choice of countries to locate in, continuing to have the best trained, hardest-working and most productive people in the world will keep the U nited S tates at //the forefront// of //global competitiveness//. We have some huge advantages: the top universities in the world, the top scientific researchers, and -- right alongside these -- our identity as a nation of immigrants and descendants of immigrants. ¶ At FWD.us, a nonprofit advocacy group, we are entrepreneurs, and we believe that one of the main reasons America is the leading entrepreneurial nation is that we are a nation of immigrants. Leaving behind your home country and everything you know to create a better life for your family is the essence of the risk-taking that characterizes the entrepreneurial ethos. ¶ I think back to my ancestors in the shtetls of Eastern Europe in the 19th century. They had probably never been more than two miles from their village, and got on a steamship to go to a country they had never even seen in a picture, knowing they would never return home. ¶ That is truly putting it all on the line to make a better life. It is not random, who chooses to emigrate, and the work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit of these immigrants have shaped the character of our country. Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley do not just identify with the experience of computer programmers coming to America to work at tech companies, but with everyone who comes here to make a better life. It's why we are working for comprehensive immigration reform. ¶ There are talented young people in America who were brought here by their parents who now cannot go to college or work because they are undocumented. These DREAMers are just waiting to contribute, and their parents, with the right accountability measures, should be able to join them by coming out of the shadows and contributing fully to their communities. ¶ In addition, we know that the best and the brightest come here to study, start companies and create jobs that grow our economy ; millions more are caught in limbo navigating a complex and broken system that is totally outdated for a modern economy and modern American families. We need to pass //c// omprehensive //i// mmigration //r// eform to unlock those contributions and by doing so change millions of lives. d.) Collapse of the US economic power causes nuclear war Khalilzad 11 Zalmay was the United States ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United Nations during the presidency of George W. Bush and the director of policy planning at the Defense Department from 1990 to 1992, “ The Economy and National Security”, 2-8-11, [], CMR

Today, economic and fiscal trends pose the //most severe// long-term //threat// to the U nited S tates’ position as global leader. While the United States suffers from fiscal imbalances and low economic growth, the economies of rival powers are developing rapidly. The continuation of these two trends could lead to a shift from American primacy toward a multi-polar global system, leading in turn to increased //geopolitical rivalry// and even //war////among// the //great powers//. The current recession is the result of a deep financial crisis, not a mere fluctuation in the business cycle. Recovery is likely to be protracted. The crisis was preceded by the buildup over two decades of enormous amounts of debt throughout the U.S. economy — ultimately totaling almost 350 percent of GDP — and the development of credit-fueled asset bubbles, particularly in the housing sector. When the bubbles burst, huge amounts of wealth were destroyed, and unemployment rose to over 10 percent. The decline of tax revenues and massive countercyclical spending put the U.S. government on an unsustainable fiscal path. Publicly held national debt rose from 38 to over 60 percent of GDP in three years. Without faster economic growth and actions to reduce deficits, publicly held national debt is projected to reach dangerous proportions. If interest rates were to rise significantly, annual interest payments — which already are larger than the defense budget — would crowd out other spending or require substantial tax increases that would undercut economic growth. Even worse, if unanticipated events trigger what economists call a “sudden stop” in credit markets for U.S. debt, the U nited S tates would be unable to roll over its outstanding obligations, precipitating a sovereign-debt crisis that would //almost certainly// compel a //radical retrenchment// of the U nited S tates internationally. Such scenarios would //reshape the international order//. It was the economic devastation of Britain and France during World War II, as well as the rise of other powers, that led both countries to relinquish their empires. In the late 1960s, British leaders concluded that they lacked the economic capacity to maintain a presence “east of Suez.” Soviet economic weakness, which crystallized under Gorbachev, contributed to their decisions to withdraw from Afghanistan, abandon Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, and allow the Soviet Union to fragment. If the U.S. debt problem goes critical, the U nited S tates would be compelled to retrench, reduc ing its military spending and shed ding international commitments. We face this domestic challenge while other major powers are experiencing rapid economic growth. Even though countries such as China, India, and Brazil have profound political, social, demographic, and economic problems, their economies are growing faster than ours, and this could alter the global distribution of power.These trends could in the long term produce a multi-polar world. //If U.S. policymakers fail to act// and other powers continue to grow, //it is not a question of whether but when// a new international order will emerge. The closing of the gap between the United States and its rivals could //intensify// //geopolitical competition among major powers//, increase incentives for local powers to play major powers against one another, and undercut our will to //preclude// or respond to //international crises// because of the //higher risk of escalation// .The stakes are high. In modern history, //the longest period of peace// //among the great powers has been the era of U.S. leadership//. By contrast, multi-polar systems have been unstable, with their competitive dynamics resulting in frequent crises and major wars among the great powers. Failures of multi-polar international systems produced //both world wars//. American retrenchment could have //devastating consequences// .Without an American security blanket, regional powers could //rearm// in an attempt to balance against emerging threats. Under this scenario, there would be a heightened possibility of //arms races//, //miscalc// ulation, or //other crises spiraling into all-out conflict//. Alternatively, in seeking to accommodate the stronger powers, weaker powers may shift their geopolitical posture away from the U nited S tates. Either way, hostile states would be emboldened to make //aggressive moves// in their regions.

Brazil DA
Uniqueness – US Brazil Relations at crossroads (Samuel W. Bodman and James D. Wolfensohn, Chairs; Julia E. Sweig, Project Director “Global Brazil and U.S.-Brazil Relations” Independent Task Force Report No. 66 CAIO accessed tm 7/9) __Brazil and the United States are now entering a period that has ____¶ ____great potential to solidify a mature friendship, one that entails everdeepening ____¶ ____trust in order to secure mutual benefits. This kind of relationship ____¶ ____requires the two countries to move beyond their historic ____¶ ____oscillation __between misinterpretation, public praise, and rebuke, and __¶ ____instead approach both cooperation and inevitable disagreement with ____¶ ____mutual respect and tolerance. __
 * Bodman and Wolfensohn, Chairs Independent Task Force CFR, 2011**

Link – unilateral action in the region by the US harms relations (Kellie, “The Possibility of Partnership”, Center for American Progress, March, [], accessed on 7/10/13, BT) __The combination of Brazil’s clear emergence on the world stage and the United States’ need to reassert itself as a multilateralist creates potential to forge a partnership born of ____¶ ____<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10pt;">overlapping interests. __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10pt;"> __This is a moment when both Brazil and the United States need to__ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 6pt;">¶ ____<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10pt;">prove themselves. Brazil needs to show that it is prepared to make hard decisions tied to ____<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 6pt;">¶ ____<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10pt;">the role of global stakeholder __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10pt;">, as it has done in Haiti by maintaining a critical peacekeeping presence in the troubled Caribbean nation. __And the United States must show that the era of U.S. unilateralism is over__. Today, Brazil is more outward looking from a diplomatic and business perspective than at any point in its history, and would make a beneficial partner for the United States as we confront the next four years. To bear fruit, however, __the relationship must be built on a positive, well-coordinated agenda, not as a reaction to difficult regional and global circumstances__. __Active maintenance of this initiative must come from the highest levels of both governments, without sacrificing the autonomy of each country’s foreign policy. Even though Brazil will not agree with the United States on every issue, it is in the United States’ interest to forge a cooperative, bilateral relationship. Brazil has much to contribute in regard to integrating emerging powers and technologies into international frameworks, as well as an active interest in growing its global stakeholder role. Brazil should be encouraged to seize this mantle in a meaningful way.__ __ ¶ __ Cooperation helps address climate change (Samuel W. Bodman and James D. Wolfensohn, Chairs; Julia E. Sweig, Project Director “Global Brazil and U.S.-Brazil Relations” Independent Task Force Report No. 66 CAIO accessed tm 7/9)
 * Meiman, 2009**
 * Bodman and Wolfensohn, Chairs Independent Task Force CFR, 2011**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">The Rousseff administration’s efforts to mitigate GHG emissions and <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 6pt;">¶ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">international efforts to strengthen global commitments to combat <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 6pt;">¶ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">climate change will likely come second to Brazil’s higher priorities of <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 6pt;">¶ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">economic growth and social development. Nevertheless, __many areas__ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 6pt;">¶ ____<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">of climate change mitigation are of mutual interest to Brazil and the ____<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 6pt;">¶ ____<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">United States, opening significant opportunities for cooperation. __ Good US - Brazil relations lead to protection of environment and transition to clean energy

Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, 2012 , “Fact Sheet: Strengthening the U.S.-Brazil Economic Relationship”, The White House, April 9th 2012, [], 7/10/13, JG

President Obama welcomed the outcome of the UN climate conference in Durban, with respect to both operationalizing the Cancun agreement and laying the foundation for a new regime applicable to all Parties from 2020 onwards. He highlighted his priority to continue to work together with Brazil to secure a successful outcome at the UN climate conference in Doha, including through the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate and ongoing cooperation through the Clean Energy Ministerial and the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas to hasten the transition to clean energy economies. ¶¶ • He further recognized the UN Secretary General’s Sustainable Energy for All initiative as an opportunity to highlight the imperative of increasing energy access and advancing energy efficiency and renewable energy development, noting that biofuels especially can make an important contribution to providing clean energy and addressing climate change, including in the international aviation sector. In addition, //he welcomed the strengthening of U.S.-Brazil dialogue on environment and sustainable development through the adoption of a new bilateral agreement focused on environmental impact assessment, advanced monitoring, risk analysis, and environmental justice//, and recognized the progress on bilateral cooperation with Brazil to protect forests and reduce deforestation through the Forest Investment Program.

CP 2
CP Text: The United States federal government should participate in the further development of Brazil’s sugar ethanol industry and increase Brazil sugar ethanol imports.

Brazil has a better industry than Cuba and can solve now.
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Esteban 2012 **<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 8pt;"> (Israel, Esteban: Correspondent for Thompson Reuders. REUTERS: "Brazil to Breathe Life into Faded Cuban Sugar Sector." Thompson Reuters: The world’s source of information and intelligence for businesspeople. <http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/30/brazil-cuba-sugar-idAFL2E8CUA7620120130>.)

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 8pt;">Cuba, where sugar once accounted for 90 percent of export earnings compared with under 5 percent last year, has drawn up plans to reorganize the industry and allow foreign investment for the first time since mills were nationalized. Its once-powerful Sugar Ministry was abolished last year, leaving it up to a new state-owned company to revamp the rusting industry, with many mills pre-dating the revolution and some built with capital provided by the Soviet Union **__<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">. Odebrecht would also produce ethanol from sugarcane as well as electricity from the biomass that is left over when the cane is crushed, according to the Brazilian sugar industry executive who is familiar with the details of the project. "Cuba is opening up the possibility of producing ethanol through energy generation and Odebrecht will build a distillery there," the executive said __**<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 8pt;">, adding the project is similar to one Odebrecht is developing in Angola. That is a $258 million undertaking in partnership with Angola's Sonagol oil company to produce 260,000 tonnes of sugar, 30 million liters of ethanol and 45 megawatts of electricity. Large-scale ethanol production in Cuba has come up against opposition from former president Castro, a fierce critic of the use of edible crops as fuel. Some experts believe that with sufficient investment **__<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">, Cuba has the potential to become the world's No. 3 biofuel producer after the United States and Brazil __**<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 8pt;">. Ron Soligo, economist at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and an expert on the Cuban sugar industry, calculates that the island could achieve ethanol output of 7.5 billion liters per year. Brazil, by comparison, produces roughly 20 billion liters. "But developing the ethanol sector in Cuba will take time, since most of the (cane-growing) land was abandoned for years," he said. **__<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Brazil, the world's No. 2 ethanol producer, has offered technical assistance to Cuba to produce the biofuel from cane. "The subject is on the table. There are investments planned in sugar and there exists a possibility that at some time this will be taken on board by the ethanol industry __**<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 8pt;">," a source at Brazil's foreign ministry told Reuters.

Warming Frontline
1. No extinction – species are resilient.
 * INPCC 11** . Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change. Surviving the unprecedented climate change of the IPCC. 8 March 2011. http://www.nipccreport.org/articles/2011/mar/8mar2011a5.html

In a paper published in //Systematics and Biodiversity//, Willis //et al//. (2010) consider the IPCC (2007) "predicted climatic changes for the next century" -- i.e., their contentions that "global temperatures will increase by 2-4°C and possibly beyond, sea levels will rise (~1 m ± 0.5 m), and atmospheric CO2will increase by up to 1000 ppm" -- noting that it is "widely suggested that the magnitude and rate of these changes will result in many plants and animals going extinct," citing studies that suggest that "within the next century, over 35% of some biota will have gone extinct (Thomas //et al//., 2004; Solomon //et al//., 2007) and there will be extensive die-back of the tropical rainforest due to climate change (e.g. Huntingford //et al//., 2008)." On the other hand, they indicate that some __biologists and climatologists have pointed out that "many of the predicted increases in climate have happened before, in terms of both magnitude and rate of change__ (e.g. Royer, 2008; Zachos //et al//., 2008), __and yet biotic communities have remained remarkably resilient__ (Mayle and Power, 2008) __and in some cases thrived__ (Svenning and Condit, 2008)." But they report that those who mention these things are often "placed in the 'climate-change denier' category," although the purpose for pointing out these facts is simply to present "a sound scientific basis for understanding biotic responses to the magnitudes and rates of climate change predicted for the future through using the vast data resource that we can exploit in fossil records."Going on to do just that, __Willis //et al//____. focus on "intervals in time in the fossil record when atmospheric CO2__ __concentrations increased up to 1200 ppm, temperatures in mid- to high-latitudes increased by greater than 4°C within 60 years, and sea levels rose by up to 3 m higher than present,"____describing studies of past biotic responses that indicate "the scale and impact of the magnitude and rate of such climate changes on biodiversity__ ." And what emerges from those studies, as they describe it, "is ev __idence for rapid community turnover, migrations, development of novel ecosystems and thresholds from one stable ecosystem state to anoth__ er." And, most importantly in this regard, they report " __there is very little evidence for broad-scale extinctions due to a warming world____.__ " In concluding, the Norwegian, Swedish and UK researchers say that "based on such evidence __we urge some caution in assuming broad-scale extinctions of species will occur due solely to climate changes of the magnitude and rate predicted for the next centur__ y," reiterating that " __the fossil record indicates__ __remarkable biotic resilience to wide amplitude fluctuations in climate."__ 2. No warrant for if ethanol CO2 reduction is adequate – solvency evidence indicates they might help cars, but that leaves factories all across the world still producing CO2. 3. Warming is natural – part of a cycle. Yes, there is no doubt about it __. The planet is experiencing a siege of abnormally high temperatures. This has now been going on for 15,000 to 18,000 years, a life-friendly period known as an interglacial cycle__. During glacial ages that exist about 90% of the time, our Northern Hemisphere is mostly covered with ice up to several miles thick. __Records of these alternating glacial and interglacial fluctuations reveal the near regularity of an electrocardiogram over many hundreds of thousands of years … beginning long before__ the man-made inventions of agriculture, smokestacks, SUVs and __carbon offset trading scams__. And just how abnormally warm is it now? Let's consider some "recent" comparisons. __Temperatures are probably about the same today as during a "Roman Warm Period__ " slightly more than __2,000 years ago__, and much warmer than the "Dark Ages" that followed. __They are cooler than the "Medieval Warm Period"__ about 1,000 years ago when Eric the Red and his Icelandic Viking tribe settled on grasslands of Greenland's southwestern coast, and much warmer than about 400 years ago when the Northern Hemisphere plunged into depths of a "Little Ice Age" (not a true Ice Age). Near the end of that period Washington's army suffered brutal cold at Valley Forge (1777), and Napoleon's, a frigid retreat from Russia (1812). 4. No warrant for a shift to cars – we have ethanol fuels now but people prefer the cheaper oil.
 * BELL 11-3-2010** (Larry, Prof at U Houston, http://www.forbes.com/2010/11/02/global-warming-climate-change-al-gore-opinions-columnists-larry-bell.html)

5. Carbon dioxide does not lead to global warming—Provides cooling through photosynthesis Philip **Haddad** June 22, **2011** PhD Chem. E. retd. Carbon Dioxide does not Cause Global Warming! http://www.alvinsun.net/articles/2011/06/22/opinion/editorials/doc4e0228a53ed3d528547342.txt __There is a mistaken notion that carbon dioxide is the cause of global warming__. Although there is a clear correlation between the rate of rise of temperature and the rate of rise of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, this is because 80 percent of our energy comes from fossil fuels. The __carbon dioxide is just an indicator of__ all the __energy consumed__. Where does all this energy go? It goes into the atmosphere. __The real damage caused by the “carbon dioxide greenhouse” myth it now is assumed that any energy source that does not produce carbon dioxide is acceptable. Hogwash!__ Energy is heat. __As a “greenhouse” gas, carbon dioxide is insignificant compared to water vapor.__ For example, in arid regions the temperature swings from very hot in the day to frigid at night due to loss of heat through radiation. Yet __the atmosphere__ there __has the same carbon dioxide concentration as the more humid areas. Furthermore, carbon dioxide provides cooling through photosynthesis__.

6. No evidence for how long until the sugarcane is fully functional and a part of the American energy supply, means it could take years past the tipping point.

7. Too late to stop warming __New research indicates the impact of rising CO2 levels in the Earth's atmosphere will cause unstoppable effects to the climate for at least the next 1000 years__, __causing researchers to estimate__ a collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet by the year 3000, and __an eventual rise in the global sea level of at least four metres.__ The study, to be published next week, is the first full climate model simulation to make predictions out to 1000 years from now. __It is based on best-case, 'zero-emissions' scenarios constructed by a team of researchers from the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis__ (an Environment Canada research lab at the University of Victoria) __and the University of Calgary__. "We created 'what if' scenarios," says Dr. Shawn Marshall, Canada Research Chair in Climate Change and University of Calgary geography professor. " __What if we completely stopped using fossil fuels and put no more CO2 in the atmosphere? How long would it then take to reverse current climate change trends and will things first become worse?" The research team explored zero-emissions scenarios beginning in 2010__ and in 2100.
 * CLICK GREEN 1-7-2011** (““Unstoppable effects” of climate change will last for 1,000 years,” http://www.clickgreen.org.uk/opinion/opinion/121749-%E2%80%9Cunstoppable-effects%E2%80%9D-of-climate-change-will-last-for-1,000-years.html)

8. Their evidence says it causes extinction in 2080 – that is plenty of time to adapt to environmental issues.

Monoculture
1. No reason why great plains Bio-D loss would lead to world Bio-D loss – species in Africa would be fine.

2. Species loss doesn’t snowball <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 8pt;">Thomas Gale <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 16pt;">Moore 98 <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 8pt;"> (Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford) 1998 Climate of Fear, 98-99 <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 8pt;">Nevertheless, the <span style="background-color: #00ffff; font-family: Cambria,serif;">loss of a class of living beings does not typically threaten other species <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif;">. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 8pt;"> Most //<span style="background-color: #00ffff; font-family: Cambria,serif;">animals and plants can derive their nutrients or receive //<span style="font-family: Cambria,serif;"> the other //<span style="background-color: #00ffff; font-family: Cambria,serif;">benefits //<span style="font-family: Cambria,serif;">provided by a particular species //<span style="background-color: #00ffff; font-family: Cambria,serif;">from more than a single source //<span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 8pt;">. <span style="background-color: #00ffff; font-family: Cambria,serif;">If it were true that the extinction of a single species would produce a cascade of losses, then the massive extinctions of the past should have wiped out all life <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 8pt;">. Evolution forces various life forms to adjust to change. A few may not make the adaptation but <span style="background-color: #00ffff; font-family: Cambria,serif;">others will mutate <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif;">to meet the new conditions <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 8pt;">. Although a particular chain of DNA may be eliminated through the loss of a species, other <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif;">animals or plants adapting to the same environment often produce similar genetic solutions with like proteins. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 8pt;"> It is almost impossible to imagine a single species that, if eliminated, would threaten us humans. Perhaps if the //E. coli// that are necessary for digestion became extinct, we could no longer exist. But those bacteria live in a symbiotic relationship with man and, as long as humans survive, so will they. Thus <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif;">any animal that hosts a symbiotic species need not fear the loss of its partner <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 8pt;">. As long as the host remains, so will parasites and symbiotic species.

3. We would cut the land down eventually for crops regardless of what the aff does – we constantly expand agriculture sectors with increased demand for food.

4. No impact—mass extinctions will be followed by recovery, not collapse <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 8pt;">Michael <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 16pt;">Ruse <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 8pt;">(Philosopher and Author) August 24 <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 16pt;">2002 <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 8pt;"> The Globe and Mail <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 8pt;">Let me say straight out that this is the most egregiously mislabelled book I have ever encountered. The author follows in the footsteps of the late Jack Sepkoski, a Chicago paleontologist (and incidentally a sometime student of Gould's), who performed brilliant mega-analyses of the fossil record <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif;">, gathering together huge amounts of data about past species (and higher taxa) and using computers to extract hitherto-unseen trends <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 8pt;">and salient features of life's history. Specifically, Sepkoski <span style="background-color: #00ffff; font-family: Cambria,serif;">found that there are times of evolutionary breakthrough, rises in numbers of certain forms of life, followed by cooling-off periods and then rapid decline. <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 8pt;">Together with his colleague David Raup, Sepkoski also investigated the massive extinction episodes that we find in the fossil record - one of the most recent and famous being the time 65 million years ago, when a comet hit the earth and finished off the dinosaurs. Yet fascinatingly, although Sepkoski argued that <span style="background-color: #00ffff; font-family: Cambria,serif;">extinction is incredibly important in life's history <span style="font-family: Cambria,serif;"> - the mammals would hardly have taken over the world if the dinos were still around - he concluded that in the long run, the overall patterns seem impervious to the extinctions. Life has a tempo of its own, apparently, and can continue despite disruptions..

Solvency
1. Evidence indicates that Cuba has funding now – US not needed. 2. Sugar ethanol industry development is super slow---years before they have a chance to solve advantages Specht 13 [Jonathan-J.D. Wash. U St. Louis, Legal Advisor, “Raising Cane: Cuban Sugarcane Ethanol’s Economic and Environmental Effects on the United States,” Environmental Law & Policy Journal, Univ. of California Davis, Vol. 36:2, [] ]

Like all new capitalist industries to emerge in the post-Castro era, whatever ethanol industry arises will have to deal with the painful transition from socialism to capitalism. The Cuban sugarcane ethanol industry willface similar challenges to other private sector industries that arise in the post-Fidel era. One of these challenges will be simply a lack of people with skills necessary for any industry. According to Edward Gonzalez and Kevin McCarthy of the RAND Corporation, "As a result of 40-plus years of communism, the labor force lacks the kinds of trained managers, accountants, auditors, bankers, insurers, etc., that a robust market economy requires ." n53 While these challenges will not be unique to Cuba's ethanol industry, they will put the country at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis existing ethanol exporters such as Brazil. This will be especially true if there is a significant lag time between the expiration of the ethanol tariff barriers at the end of 2011 and the eventual removal of the United [*181] States trade embargo against Cuba. ¶ Additionally, because Cuba's ethanol industry is currently almost non-existent, it will need a great deal of foreign expertise and investment to get started. However, s uch investments are unlikely to be made unless Cuba makes fundamental changes in its business climate. In the words of Gonzalez and McCarthy, "Capital investment, which Cuba's economy desperately needs and which is most likely to be supplied by foreign investors, will be difficult to attract without enforceable contracts, access to neutral adjudication of disputes, and a degree of predictability that has heretofore been lacking." n54 Any post-Castro government will likely begin to make such changes to increase the appeal of the island nation to foreign investment. However, implementing these changes will take time and trial and error, which will slow the creation of a sugarcane-based ethanol industry.

** The K **
[|**Mignolo**] **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"> 2006 [Walter D. Mignolo, Professor of Cultural Studies at Duke University, Citizenship, Knowledge, and the Limits of Humanity American Literary History 18.2 (2006) 312-331] ** I will describe the veiled connections as the logic of coloniality, and the surface that covers it I will describe as the rhetoric of modernity. __The rhetoric of modernity is that of salvation, whereas the logic of coloniality is a logic of imperial oppression. They go hand in hand, and you cannot have modernity without coloniality__ ; the unfinished project of modernity carries over its shoulders the unfinished project of coloniality. I will conclude by suggesting the need to decolonize "knowledge" and "being" and advocating that the (decolonial) "humanities" shall have a fundamental role to play in this process. Truly, "global citizenship" implies overcoming the imperial and colonial differences that have mapped and continue to map global racism and global patriarchy. __Changing the law and public policies won't be of much help in this process. What is needed is that those who change the law and public policy change themselves__. **[End Page 312]** __The problem is how that may take place if we would like to avoid the missionary zeal for conversion;__ //** the liberal and neoliberal belief in the triumphal march of Western civilization and of market democracy **// ; and the moral imperatives and forced behavior imposed by socialism. As I do not believe in a new abstract universal that will be good for the entire world, __the question is how people can change their belief that the world today is like it is and that it will be only through the "honest" projects of Christians, liberals, and Marxist-socialists that the world could be better for all, and citizenship will be a benediction for all. The changes I am thinking about are radical transformations in the naturalized assumptions of the world order.__ The naturalized assumptions I am thinking about are imperial–colonial, and they have shaped the world in which we live in the past five hundred years when Christianity and capitalism came together and created the conditions for the self-fashioned narrative of "modernity." Hence, __the transformations I am thinking about require an epistemic decolonial shift. Not a "new," a "post," or a "neo," which are all changes within the same modern colonial epistemology, but a //decolonial//__ (and not either a "deconstruction"), __which means a delinking from the rules of the game__ (e.g., the decolonization of the mind, in Ngugi Wa Th'iongo's vocabulary) in which deconstruction itself and all the "posts-" for sure are caught. __Delinking doesn't mean to be "outside" of either modernity or Christian, Liberal, Capitalist, and Marxist hegemony but to disengage from the naturalized assumptions that make of these four macronarratives__ "une pensee unique," to use Ignacio Ramonet's expression. [|2]__The decolonial shift begins by unveiling the imperial presuppositions that maintain a universal idea of humanity and of human being that serves as a model and point of arrival and by constantly underscoring the fact that oppressed and racialized subjects do not care and are not fighting for "human rights"__ (based on an imperial idea of humanity) __but to regain the "human dignity__ " (based on a decolonial idea of humanity) __that has and continues to be taken away from them by the imperial rhetoric of modernity__ (e.g., white, Eurocentered, heterosexual, and Christian/secular). __The conditions for citizenship are still tied to a racialized hierarchy of human beings that depends on universal categories of thought created and enacted from the identitarian perspectives of European Christianity and by white males.__ In the Afro-Caribbean intellectual tradition—from C. L. R. James to Frantz Fanon, Sylvia Wynter, and Lewis Gordon—the very concepts of the //human// and //humanity// are constantly under fire. [|3] Would indeed a black person agree with the idea that what "we" all have in common is our "humanity" and that we are "all equal" in being "different"? I would suspect that the formula would rather be of the type advanced by the **[End Page 313]** Zapatistas: "[B]ecause we are all equal we have the right to be different." [|4]__The universal idea of humanity,__ believe me, __is not the same from the perspective of__ black history, __Indian memories,__ or the memories of the population of Central Asia. __The humanities, as a branch of knowledge in the history of the university since the European Renaissance, have always been complicitous with imperial–colonial designs celebrating____a universal idea of the human model.__ The moment has arrived to put the humanities at the service of decolonial projects in their ethical, political, and epistemic dimensions; to recast the reinscription of human dignity as a decolonial project in the hands of the //damnes// rather than given to them through managerial designs of NGOs and Human Rights Watch that seldom if ever are led by actors whose human dignity is at stake. Decolonial projects imply downsizing human rights to its real dimension: an ethical imperative internal to imperial abuses but not really a project that empowers racialized subjects and helps them to regain the human dignity that racism and imperial projects (from the right, the left, and the center) took away from them. **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Expanding globalization to Cuba is part of an imperial strategy to displace revolutionary potential in Cuba. The outcome of the expansion of globalization is environmental destruction and inequality. ** **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Bliss 2005 (Dr. Susan Bliss: Director of Global Education, 7/5/2005, “Sustainability of Modern Cuba’s post revolution globalisation process”,) ** **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Globalisation is not a new phenomenon in Cuba __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">, evolving from the 16th century with the first expansion of European capitalism and accelerating from 1870-1914 with increased transport of goods. __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">But while the world became more globalized __** driven by falling trade barriers (1950-1980) and deregulation of financial institutions (1980s) **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Cuba experienced restricted globalisation because of US imposed sanctions __** (1960s- 2005). Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, ushering in perestroika and glasnost **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">, globalisation has threatened to engulf Cuba that has responded by developing a unique blend of both globalisation and localisation __** (glocalisation) emphasising heterogeneous development and cultural exclusiveness transforming the economy and society from late 19th century. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Many Cubans __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> still fervently adhere to strict egalitarian values of the revolution __** (Stokes, 2003) **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">arguing that western, materialistic globalisation ignores its dysfunctional aspects, such as environmental degradation, __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> loss of community, social inequality and needs to look at possible multiple, eclectic approaches to societal development __** (Toffler, 1990) for the development of a more sustainable, equitable future. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">For Castro, the global economy is an uneven playing field holding many dangers for small, developing countries, like Cuba, as it works towards a difficult blend of global market and restricted state and civil society economic management __**. For Cubans globalisation has a substantive meaning (transcontinental circuits of capital, trade and production) but an ideological use (neo-liberalism) that grew with the demise of the socialist bloc in early 1990s and had profound effects on the legitimacy of Cuban socialism, as an alternative to capitalism. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Most Cuban socialists support anti-globalisation as they envisage the US as the main driving force advocating financial imperatives and the rule of the strong. __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> In contrast Cubans believe it should be replaced with a socialist system that promotes equality and shared values of humanity and markets that are ‘free and fair’, equitably structured and immune from corporate power. __** **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Escobar 2004 [Arturo, Beyond the Third World: ** ** ****<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Imperial Globality, Global Coloniality, and Anti-Globalization Social Movements, Third world quarterly 2004. www.nd.edu/~druccio/Escobar.pdf‎] ** One of the main consequences, for Santos, of the collapse of emancipation into regulation is the structural predominance of exclusion over inclusion. Either because of the exclusion of many of those formerly included, or because those who in the past were candidates for inclusion are now prevented from being so, the problematic of exclusion has become terribly accentuated, with ever growing numbers of people thrown into a veritable “state of nature.” The size of the excluded class varies of course with the centrality of the country in the world system, but it is particularly staggering in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The result is a new type of social fascism as “a social and civilizational regime” (p. 453). This regime, paradoxically, coexists with democratic societies, hence its novelty. This fascism may operate in various modes: in terms of spatial exclusion; territories struggled over by armed actors; the fascism of insecurity; and of course the deadly financial fascism, which at times dictates the marginalization of entire regions and countries that do not fulfill the conditions needed for capital, according to the IMF and its faithful management consultants (pp. 447-458). To the former Third World corresponds the highest levels of social fascism of these kinds. This is, in sum, the world that is being created by globalization from above, or hegemonic globalization. Before moving on, it is important to complete this rough representation of today’s global capitalist modernity by looking at the US-led invasion of Iraq in early 2003. Among other things, this episode has made at last two things particularly clear: first, the willingness to use unprecedented levels of violence to enforce dominance on a global scale; second, the unipolarity of the current empire. In ascension since the Thatcher-Reagan years, this unipolarity reached its climax with the post-9/11 regime, based on a new convergence of military, economic, political and religious interests in the United States. In Alain Joxe’s (2002) compelling vision of imperial globality, what we have been witnessing since the first Gulf War is the rise of an empire that increasingly operates through the management of asymmetrical and spatialized violence, territorial control, sub-contracted massacres, and “cruel little wars,” all of which are aimed at imposing the neo-liberal capitalist project. At stake is a type of regulation that operates through the creation of a new horizon of global violence. This **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">empire regulates disorder through financial and military means, pushing chaos __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> to the extent possible to the outskirts of empire, creating a “predatory” peace to the benefit of a global noble caste and leaving untold poverty and suffering in its path. __** It is an empire that does not take responsibility for the wellbeing of those over whom it rules. As Joxe puts it: “ **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">The world today is united by a __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> new form of chaos, an imperial chaos, dominated by the imperium of the United States, though not controlled by it. __** We lack the words to describe this new system, while being surrounded by its images. ... World leadership through chaos, a doctrine that a rational European school would have difficulty imagining, necessarily leads to weakening states –even in the United States—through the emerging //sovereignty// of corporations and markets.” (2002: 78, 213). 7 The **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">new empire __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> thus operates not so much through conquest, but through the imposition of norms __** ( **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">free-markets, __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> US-style democracy __** and cultural notions of consumption, and so forth). **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">The former Third World is, __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> above all, the theatre of a multiplicity of cruel little wars which, rather than barbaric throwbacks, are linked to the current global logic __**. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">From Colombia and Central America __** to Algeria, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">these wars take place __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> within states or regions, without threatening empire but fostering conditions favorable to it. __** For **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">much of the former Third World __** (and of course to the Third World within the core) **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">is reserved __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> “the World-chaos” (107), free-market slavery, and selective genocide __**. In some cases, this amounts to a sort of “paleo-micro- colonialism” within regions (157), in others to balkanization, in yet others to brutal internal wars and massive displacement to free up entire regions for transnational capital (particularly in the case of oil, but also diamonds, timber, water, genetic resources, and agricultural lands). Often times these cruel little wars are fueled by Mafia networks, and intended for macro-economic globalization. It is clear that **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">this new Global Empire __** (“the New World Order of the American imperial monarchy,” p. 171) **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">articulates the “peaceful expansion” of the free-market economy with omnipresent violence in a novel regime of economic and military globality __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> –in other words, the global economy comes to be supported by a global organization of violence and vice versa __** (200). On the subjective side, what increasingly one finds in the Souths (including the South within the North) are “diced identities” and the transformation of cultures of solidarity into cultures of destruction. **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Mignolo 2009(Walter Mignolo, 2009, Epistemic Disobedience, Independent thought, and deconlonial freedom, **[|**http://waltermignolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/epistemicdisobedience-2.pdf**]**<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">, Walter Mignolo is a semiotician and Professor at Duke Univeristy, who has published extensively on semiotics and literary theory, and worked on different aspect of the modern and colonial world, exploring concepts such as global coloniality, the geopolitics of knowledge, transmodernity, border thinking, and pluriversality) ** **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">De-colonial thinking presupposes de-linking __** (epistemically and politically) **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">from the web of imperial knowledg __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">e __** (theo- and ego-politically grounded) from disciplinary management. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">A common topic __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> of conversation today, after the ﬁnancial crisis on Wall Street, is ‘how to save capitalism’ __**. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">A de-colonial question would be: ‘Why would you want to save capitalism and not save human beings? __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Why save an abstract entity and not the human lives that capitalism is __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> constantly destroying __** ?’ In the same vein, geo- and body-politics of knowledge **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">, de-colonial thinking and the de-colonial option place human lives and life in general ﬁrst rather than making claims for the ‘transformation of the disciplines’ __**. But, still, claiming life and human lives ﬁrst, de-colonial thinking is not joining forces with ‘the politics of life in itself’ as Nicholas Rose (2007) has it. Rose’s ‘politics of life in itself’ is the last development in the ‘mercantilization of life’ and of ‘bio-power’ (as Foucault has it **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">). In the ‘politics of life in itself’ political and economic strategies for controlling life at the same time as creating more consumers join forces. __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Bio-politics, in Foucault’s conception, was one of the practical consequences of an ego-politics of knowledge implemented in the sphere of the state. Politics of life in itself extends it to the market. Thus, politics of life in itself describes the enormous potential of bio-technology to generate consumers who invest their earnings in buying health-promoting products in order to maintain the reproduction of technology that will ‘improve’ the control of human beings at the same time as creating more wealth through the money invested by consumers who buy health-promoting technology. __** **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Mignolo 09 [Walter D. Mignolo, Epistemic Disobedience, Independent Thought and Decolonial Freedom, Theory and Culture 2009, published 2009] ** ONCE UPON a time scholars assumed that the knowing subject in the disciplines is transparent, disincorporated from the known and untouched by the geo-political configuration of the world in which people are racially ranked and regions are racially configured. From a detached and neutral point of observation (that Colombian philosopher Santiago Castro-Gómez (2007) describes as the //hubris of the zero point//), the knowing subject maps the world and its problems, classifies people and projects into what is good for them. Today that assumption is no longer tenable, although there are still many believers. At stake is indeed the question of racism and epistemology (ChukwudiEze, 1997; Mignolo, forthcoming). And **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">once upon a time scholars assumed that if you ‘come’ from Latin America you have to ‘talk about’ Latin America __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">; that in such a case you have to be a token of your culture. Such expectation will not arise if the author ‘comes’ from Germany, France, England or the US. __** In such cases it is not assumed that you have to be talking about your culture but can function as a theoretically minded person. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">As we know: the first world has knowledge, the third world has culture; Native Americans have wisdom, Anglo Americans have science. The need for political and epistemic delinking here comes to the fore, as well as decolonializing and decolonial knowledges, necessary steps for imagining and building democratic, just, and non-imperial/colonial societies __**. Geo-politics of knowledge goes hand in hand with geo-politics of knowing. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Who and when __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">, why and where is knowledge generated (rather than produced, like cars or cell phones)? Asking these questions means to shift the attention from the enunciated to the enunciation. __** And by so doing, turning Descartes’s dictum inside out: rather than assuming that thinking comes before being, one assumes instead **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">that it is a racially marked body in a geo-historical marked space that feels the urge or get the call to speak __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">, to articulate, in whatever semiotic system, the urge that makes of living organisms ‘human’ beings. __** By setting the scenario in terms of geo- and body-politics I am starting and departing from already familiar notions of ‘situated knowledges’. Sure, all knowledges are situated and every knowledge is constructed. But that is just the beginning. The question is: who, when, why is constructing knowledges (Mignolo, 1999, 2005 [1995])? **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Why did eurocentered epistemology conceal its own geo-historical and bio-graphical locations and succeed in creating the idea of universal knowledge as if the knowing subjects were also universal? This illusion is pervasive today in the social sciences, the humanities, the natural sciences and the professional schools. Epistemic disobedience means to delink from the illusion of the zero point epistemology. __** The shift I am indicating is the anchor (constructed of course, located of course, not just anchored by nature or by God) of the argument that follows. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">It is the beginning of any epistemic decolonial de-linking with all its historical, political and ethical consequences __**. Why? **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Because geo-historical and bio-graphic loci of enunciation have been located by __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">and through the making and transformation of the colonial matrix of power: a racial system of social classification that invented Occidentalism __** (e.g. IndiasOccidentales), that created the conditions for Orientalism; **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">distinguished the South of Europe from its center __** (Hegel) **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">and, on that long history, remapped the world as first, second and third during the Cold War. Places of nonthought (of myth __**, non-western religions, folklore, underdevelopment involving regions and people) today have been waking up from the long process of westernization. The anthropos inhabiting non-European places discovered that s/he had been invented, as anthropos, by a locus of enunciations self-defined as humanitas. Now, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">there are currently two kinds or directions advanced by the former anthropos __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> who are no longer claiming recognition by or inclusion in the humanitas, but engaging in epistemic disobedience and de-linking from the magic of the Western idea of modernity, ideals of humanity and promises of economic growth and financial prosperity (Wall Street dixit). __** One direction unfolds within the globalization of a type of economy that in both liberal and Marxist vocabulary is defined as ‘capitalism’. One of the strongest advocates of this is the Singaporean scholar, intellectual and politician Kishore Mahbubani, to which I will return later. One of his earlier book titles carries the unmistakable and irreverent message: Can Asians Think?: Understanding the Divide between East and West (2001). Following Mahbubani’s own terminology, this direction could be identified as de-westernization. Dewesternization means, within a capitalist economy, that the rules of the game and the shots are no longer called by Western players and institutions. The seventh Doha round is a signal example of de-westernizing options. The second direction is being advanced by what I describe as the decolonial option. The decolonial option is the singular connector of a diversity of decolonials. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">The decolonial paths have one thing in common: the colonial wound, the fact that regions and people around the world have been classified as underdeveloped economically and mentally. Racism not only affects people but also regions or, better yet, the conjunction of natural resources needed by humanitas in places inhabited by anthropos __**. De colonial options have one aspect in common with de-westernizing arguments: the definitive rejection of ‘being told’ from the epistemic privileges of the zero point what ‘we’ are, what our ranking is in relation to the ideal of humanitas and what we have to do to be recognized as such. However, decolonial and de-westernizing options diverge in one crucial and in disputable point: while the latter do not question the ‘civilization of death’ hidden under the rhetoric of modernization and prosperity, of the improvement of modern institutions (e.g. liberal democracy and an economy propelled by the principle of growth and prosperity), **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">decolonial options start from the principle that the regeneration of life shall prevail over primacy of the production and reproduction of goods at the cost of life __** (life in general and of humanitas and anthropos alike!). I illustrate this direction, below, commenting on ParthaChatterjee’s re-orienting ‘eurocentered modernity’ toward the future in which ‘our modernity’ (in India, in Central Asia and the Caucasus, in South America, briefly, in all regions of the world upon which eurocentered modernity was either imposed or ‘adopted’ by local actors assimilating to local histories inventing and enacting global designs) becomes the statement of interconnected dispersal in which decolonial futures are being played out. Last but not least, my argument doesn’t claim originality (‘originality’ is one of the basic expectations of modern control of subjectivity) but aims to make a contribution to growing processes of decoloniality around the world. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">My humble claim is that geo- and body-politics of knowledge has been hidden from the self-serving interests of Western epistemology __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> and that a task of decolonial thinking is the unveiling of epistemic silences of Western epistemology and affirming the epistemic rights of the racially devalued, and decolonial options to allow the silences to build arguments to confront those who take ‘originality’ as the ultimate criterion for the final judgment __** .1
 * The spread of neoliberal market mechanisms like joint ventures for oil exploration by the US is part of a colonial strategy that attempts to control Latin America for the benefit of modernist structures. **
 * The modus operandi of the affirmative’s economics is the historical drive behind colonization and mass violence against Latin America culminating in wars, violence and genocide in the name of their economic ideals **
 * The question of this debate is how best to challenge colonial institutions and foreground the lives of marginalized populations – this is an ethical imperative. **
 * Our alternative is to reject the affirmative – when confronted with colonial projects the only ethical response is radical negativity. We are compelled to be disobedient to modernity. **

** Econ **
**<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Shiva 2006 [Vandana, trained as a physicist and received her Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Western Ontario, Canada, “Globalization, Terrorism and Vicious Cycles of Violence”] ** Terror has become the code word of our times. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">We live in terror and fear: terror created either by the corporate hijack of our economies, resources and lives; or terror created by frustrated angry young men called terrorists who use the tools and logic of a terror system to try to pull it down __** **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">while they actually reinforce it __** ; or terror created by police states which morph all peace loving, democratic citizens into “terrorists” because these states themselves have morphed into corporate states that see their primary duty as the defence and protection of corrupt and greedy corporations and their illegitimate rights, rather than the protection of their citizens and the legitimate rights of people. Just a few years ago, the pundits of corporate globalization were telling us that globalization would herald an era of prosperity and peace. Instead, we have been thrown into unprecedented poverty and violence. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">The economic terrorism of corporate globalization, the political terrorism of fascist, corporate police states, and the cultural terrorism of fundamentalism and extremism feed on each other, creating vicious cycles of violence along with injustice and nonsustainability and fear __**. This paper is an attempt to understand how these vicious cycles are emerging and how we can create virtuous cycles of peace, hope, sustainability and justice. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">The “war against terror” declared in response to 9/11 was supposed to stop terrorist attacks. Instead, terrorism has increased worldwide. Bali and Moscow, Mombasa – every day there is news of new 9/11s. And smaller 9/11s have become routine __**. Attacks on US Targets in 2002 Nov. 24, Aqaba Pizza Hut set alight in Jordanian Red Sea resort Nov. 22, Dubai Gunman targets US military helicopter at Dubai’s al-Fujairah airport Nov. 21, Sidon US missionary Bonnie Penner killed in Southern Lebanon Nov. 21, Kuwait Two US soldiers shot while travelling near Camp Doha military base Nov. 20, Riyadh McDonald’s restaurant set ablaze near US airbase in Saudi Arabia’s Kharj province Nov. 13, Tripoli Bomb attacks on three American-style restaurants Nov. 12, Tripoli Bomb attacks on Pizza Hut restaurant in Northern Lebanon Oct. 28, Amman Gunmen kill US diplomat, Laurence Foley of the US Agency for International Development Oct. 8, Failaka One US marine killed and another injured by gunmen on Kuwaitian island Sept. 23, Beirut Small bomb in parking lot of McDonald’s restaurant May 9, Tripoli Explosion at Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Lebanon.1 India, which lost two Prime Ministers to terrorism, has seen terrorism increase since 9/11. More than a million soldiers were posted on the border of Pakistan after a terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001. Thirteen persons, including five terrorists, were killed in the attack. Earlier, on October 1, 2001, soon after 9/11, twenty-two persons were killed and sixty injured when a Jaish-e-Mohammed suicide bomber blew himself up outside the regional parliament of Jammu and Kashmir State. On May 14, 2002, thirty people, mostly women and children were killed by terrorists at Kaluchak in Jammu. The police killed the attackers. On February 27, 2002, fifty-seven Hindu activists returning from the controversial Ayodhya temple on the Sabarmati Express died when the train compartment they were travelling in was torched at Godhra station in Gujarat. Over the next few months more than two thousand Muslims were brutally killed in Gujarat as a backlash. The killings continue. On September 24, 2002, two terrorists stormed into Akshardham, the Swaminarain temple in Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat. Twenty-nine people, including four children and their security personnel, were killed. All temples in India were subsequently put under strict security. On November 3, 2002, the eve of India’s festival of lights which celebrates the victory of Ram over Ravana in the epic Ramayana, two terrorists were killed in an encounter in the largest new shopping plaza, Ansal Plaza in India’s capital. On November 22, 2002, two suicide bombers killed six security personnel and injured nine at a Central Reserve Police Force Formation in Srinagar. On November 24, 2002, militants attacked the Raghunath temple in Jammu killing nine persons and injuring forty-two. Another terrorist attack was simultaneously launched at the Shivalaya Mandir, a few hundred metres away from the Raghunath temple. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">How did the land of Buddha, Mahavir and Gandhi get to be labelled the “most dangerous place on earth”? How did the cradle of creeds based on compassion, inclusiveness and peace become the land of hatred, exclusion and potential nuclear war? __** How did a civilization based on diversity mutate into militarized monocultures? **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">There are no one-dimensional explanations for this tectonic transformation. But three forms of violence have converged in space and time in the Indian subcontinent: the violence of globalization, the violence of a global war, and the violence unleashed by a politics of fragmented and fundamentalist identities. Globalization is forging globally shaped, narrow nationalist identities, whilst national sovereignty and economic democracy are destroyed. Fundamentalism and terrorism are the other side of the globalization coin __**. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">The eruption of violence in India, the land of peace, is a product of the lethal mix of free trade and globalization – resulting in the impoverishment and vulnerability of the ordinary people and the death of economic democracy – and the rise of fragmenting politics based on fundamentalist ideologies, which both feed on people’s insecurities and divert political energies from the search for justice, basic needs and equality to a politics of hatred and war. The global war against terror unleashed since 9/11 – with the backdrop of the “crusades” and the “clash of civilizations” – has also contributed to the spread of the virus of hatred __**. Violence, war and genocide have been made the norm as corporate globalization is aided by the globalization of fascism. Fundamentalist Hindutva has gained support from the global war against terror to define Muslims as the “enemy”. As **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">the General Secretary of the World Hindu Council __**, Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">stated, “It is necessary for India, Jews and the Western world to come together and fight Islamic militants __** //. // ”2 However, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">this construction removes Muslims from their home in India and treats them all as potential terrorists. 9/11 and the response to it have reshaped the contours of India’s politics and culture. They have allowed the emergence of new fascistic tendencies emboldened by the global war against terror and the criminalization of all Muslims. __**
 * 1. turn - Western conceptions of globalization along with an attempt to rid the world of terrorists have created a vicious cycle by which terrorism becomes inevitable, thus reinforcing fascist violence, and making fundamentalism more prevalent **

**__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Of the many reasons put forward for __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> the current era of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism against the Western world one of the most compelling or explanatory, is accelerated globalization. Globalization can be defined as “growing interconnectedness [as] reflected in the expanded flows of information, technology, capital, goods, services and people throughout the world.” __** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"> The emphasis here is on “accelerated” globalization because globalization is by no means a new phenomenon — it is just that it is now proceeding at a much faster rate than was previously the case. The first great era of globalization was from roughly 1870 to 1914, but with the disruptions of two world wars, the great depression, and the Cold War, international capital flows as measured by foreign ownership of assets relative to world income, did not return to 1914 levels until 1980. Since then they have increased significantly. Generally speaking, accelerated globalization has been driven by the technological revolution that started in the late 1970s. The sources of contemporary terrorism date from this time period. Michael Mousseau has drawn out the distinction between “clientalist” and “market” economies and how terrorism can emerge when clientalist economies are bombarded with, but cannot adapt quickly enough to the market forces of globalization. Clientalist economies are based on implied and long-enduring obligations, reciprocity, gift giving, social linkages, ethnicity and kinship. They naturally lend themselves to the creation of in-groups and out-groups. Market economies are based on explicit contracts and statements of self interest among strangers that come to an end when the contract is completed. They naturally lend themselves to the liberal values of individualism, universalism, tolerance, equity, the rule of law and democracy. When a clientalist economy is increasingly exposed to market forces, clientalist linkages start to break down. But cultures change slowly; people experience the breakdown of their traditional forms of interaction, but they do not yet have the new values and beliefs. There is a period of social anarchy; a zero-sum culture emerges as people pursue their own interests without regard to any shared values, either market or clientalist. People deeply resent this new Hobbesian world, caused, in their view, by the growing Westernization or Americanization of their societies. The protection they are granted by virtue of being part of an in-group is fading and they are vulnerable to being enticed by any other in-group system that promises to put an end to insecurity, including religious fundamentalism. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">In extreme cases the result is the support of terrorism — facilitated by the in-group/ out-group values held by clientalist societies. “ __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">From the clientalist perspective, all in-group members are privileged and all out-group members are potential enemies or, at best, outsiders unworthy of empathy. This paucity of empathy is necessary for doing harm to, and tolerating the suffering of, all out-group members.” Mousseau’s analysis is supported by reports, scholarly articles, and books that implicitly or explicitly find the broad underlying source of contemporary terrorism to be people responding to, or coming to grips with, accelerated globalization and/or modernization. The 9/11 Commission report argues that Usama bin Laden “appeals to people disoriented by cyclonic change as they confront modernity and globalization... For those yearning for a lost sense of order in an older, more tranquil world, __** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"> he offers his ‘Caliphate’ as an imagined alternative to today’s uncertainty.” **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">A report by America’s National Intelligence Council points out: “In a rapidly globalizing world…religious entities provide followers with a ready-made community.” __** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"> One scholarly expert on terrorism, noting that terrorism “is as old as human history,” argues that the current phase is characterized by “religious fanatics who are the terrorists and the far more politically motivated states, entities, and people who would support them because they feel powerless and left behind in a globalizing world [emphasis added].” Another scholar describes the dominant feature of the contemporary and future security environment as being “a saga of individuals, freed from the constraints of tradition and culture and repression, finding their place in a changing, globalizing world.” **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">American defense analyst Thomas Barnett predicts more nationalism as globalization proceeds because “globalization empowers the individual at the expense of the collective, and that very American transformation of culture is quite scary for traditional societies.” Conflict is likely to be the outward expression of the psychological impact of globalization on traditional societies. “When a massive, accelerating, and disorienting process of modernization creates enormous social discord around the world, that search for identity and dignity can and will generate conflict.” __** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">Barnett gives the geographic boundaries of these conflicts. He argues they will take place within the “non-integrating gap” of countries that, in contrast to the “functioning core” of states that are progressively integrating their national economies into the world economy, remain fundamentally disconnected from globalization’s “expanding web of connectivity.” **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">For Barnett, the functioning core of states encompasses roughly two-thirds of the world’s population, including North America, Europe, Russia, China and India, while the non-integrating gap comprises most of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. __** Gregory D. **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Koblentz **, Assistant Professor, Department of Public and International Affairs and Deputy Director, Biodefense Program, George Mason University, "Biosecurity Reconsidered," INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, Spring **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">2010 ** , p. 96+, ASP. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 6pt;">The **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">threat of bioterrorism __**, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">may not be as severe __** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 6pt;">as some have portrayed it to be. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Few terrorist groups have attempted to develop __** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 6pt;">a **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">bio __** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 6pt;">logical  **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">weapons __** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 6pt;">capability, and  **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">even fewer have succeeded __**. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 6pt;">Prior to the anthrax letter attacks in 2001, only one group, the disciples of guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in Oregon, managed to cause any casualties with a biological agent. 86 The U.S. intelligence community estimates that of the fifteen terrorist groups that have expressed an interest in acquiring biological weapons, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">only three have demonstrated a commitment __** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 6pt;">to acquiring the capability to cause mass casualties with these weapons. 87 Groups such as Japan's Aum Shinrikyo and al-Qaida have demonstrated the desire to cause mass casualties and an interest in using disease as a weapon. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Despite concerted efforts __** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 6pt;">by both groups to produce deadly pathogens and toxins, however, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">neither has caused any casualties with such weapons, let alone developed a weapon capable of causing mass casualties __** **__. __** **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">The failures experienced by these groups illustrate the significant hurdles that terrorists face in progressing beyond crude weapons suitable for assassination __** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 6pt;">and the contamination of food supplies **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">to biological weapons based on aerosol dissemination technology that are capable of causing mass casualties __** **__. __** 88
 * Globalization creates the conditions for terrorism. **
 * Sloan 2007 ** (Elinor C., <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Elinor C. Sloan is Associate Professor of International Relations at Carleton University, Ottawa and a former defence analyst with Canada’s Department of National Defence, Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, March 2007, “Terrorism in 2025: Likely Dimensions and Attributes”, ITAC, [], accessed 7/9/13, JK)
 * Threat exaggerated—empirical record proves **

Gregg **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Easterbrook **, senior fellow at The New Republic, July 20 **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">03 ** , Wired, “We’re All Gonna Die!” http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.07/doomsday.html?pg=2&topic=&topic_set= 3. Germ warfare!Like chemical agents, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">bio __** logical **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">weapons have never lived up to their billing in pop __** ular **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">culture. __** Consider the 1995 medical thriller Outbreak, in which a highly contagious virus takes out entire towns. The reality is quite different. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Weaponized smallpox escaped from a Soviet laboratory __** in Aralsk, Kazakhstan, in 1971; **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">three __** people **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">died, no epidemic followed. In __** 19 **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">79, weapons-grade anthrax got out __** of a Soviet facility in Sverdlovsk (now called Ekaterinburg); **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">68 died, no epidemic. The loss of life was __** tragic, but **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">no greater than __** could have been caused by **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">a single conventional bomb. In __** 19 **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">89, workers at a US government facility __** near Washington **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">were __** accidentally **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">exposed to Ebola __** virus. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">They walked around __** the community **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">and hung out with family and friends for __** several **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">days __** before the mistake was discovered. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">No one died. __** The fact is, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">evolution has spent millions of years conditioning mammals to resist germs. Consider the Black Plague. It was the worst known pathogen in history __**, loose in a Middle Ages society of poor public health, awful sanitation, and no antibiotics. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Yet it didn’t kill off humanity. Most people __** who were caught in the epidemic **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">survived. Any superbug introduced into today’s Western world would encounter top-notch public health, excellent sanitation, and an array of medicines specifically engineered to kill bioagents. __** Perhaps one day some aspiring Dr. Evil will invent a bug that bypasses the immune system. Because it is possible some novel superdisease could be invented, or that existing pathogens like smallpox could be genetically altered to make them more virulent (two-thirds of those who contract natural smallpox survive), biological agents are a legitimate concern. They may turn increasingly troublesome as time passes and knowledge of biotechnology becomes harder to control, allowing individuals or small groups to cook up nasty germs as readily as they can buy guns today. But **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">no superplague has ever come close to wiping out humanity __** before, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">and it seems unlikely to happen __** in the future.
 * Bioweapons won’t spread and cause epidemics – even if they do, not many would die **

Keith **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Johnson **, “Gains in Bioscience Cause Terror Fears,” WALL STREET JOURNAL, 8—11— **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">10, ** [], accessed 5-4-11. Both houses of Congress have legislation in the works to strengthen the country's ability to detect, prevent and, if necessary, recover from large-scale attacks using bioweapons. All the government attention comes despite the absence of known terrorist plots involving biological **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">weapons. According to U.S. counterterrorism officials, al Qaeda last actively tried to work with bioweapons—specifically anthrax—before the 2001 invasion of that uprooted its leadership from Afghanistan. While terrorists have on occasion used chemical weapons—such as chlorine and sarin gas—none have yet employed a biological agent, counterterrorism officials and bioweapons researchers say __**. The U.S. anthrax attacks were ultimately blamed on a U.S. scientist with access to military bioweapons programs.
 * Terrorists not interested in bioweapons—Al Qaeda last pursued in 2001 **

**<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Melhem et al 06 ** – PhD, Professor of Structural Engineering (Dr. G. A. Melhem, Dr. A. S. Kalelkar, Dr. S. Saraf “Managing LNG Risks: Separating the Facts from the Myths” updated 2006, http://archives1.iomosaic.com/whitepapers/Managing%20LNG%20Risks.pdf) Historical review of LNG safety in the United States and worldwide __ The LNG industry in the ____ U __ nited __ S __ tates __ and worldwide enjoys an exceptional marine and land safety record. In the past thirty years, Japan has received nearly all of its natural gas in the form of LNG transported by ship. Once every 20 hours an LNG ship arrives at the busy Tokyo bay, unloads its LNG cargo, and leaves safely __. In the last three decades and with more than 40,000 voyages by sea worldwide, there has not been a single reported LNG release from a ship’s cargo tank. __ LNG tankers have experienced groundings and collisions during this period, but none has resulted in a major spill. This is partly due to the double-hulled design of LNG tankers __ which offers significant protection to the double walled LNG containers. __ During the past sixty years of LNG operations, not a single general public fatality has occurred anywhere in the world because of LNG operations. __ This exceptional safety record can be attributed to several key factors: (a) The LNG industry understands the physical and chemical hazard characteristics3 of LNG and have used that knowledge to instill and maintain an excellent safety culture in LNG operations and to advance the engineering of safety systems and standards4 for storage and transport of LNG, (b) The LNG industry is heavily regulated5 in the United States and worldwide, and (c) __ The use of multiple layers of safeguarding __ (primary containment, secondary containment, instrumented safety systems, operational systems, and safe separation distances) __ is common practice in LNG systems and operations. __ AS **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Kalelkar **, 8/ **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">2006 ** , Dr. G. A. Melhem (President and CEO @ ioMosaic), Dr. A. S. Kalelkar (Principal Consultant @ ioMosaic), Dr. S. Saraf (partner @ ioMosaic), and Henry Ozog (general partner @ ioMosaic), “Managing LNG Risks: Separating the Facts from the Myths,” ioMosaic Corporation (a leading provider of safety and risk management consulting services), http://archives1.iomosaic.com/whitepapers/Managing%20LNG%20Risks.pdf **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Myth __** No. 1 **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">An LNG tanker holds __** thirty three million gallons of LNG, or twenty billion gallons of natural gas, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">the energy equivalent of fifty five Hiroshima bombs __**. __ Fact __ : **__ The estimation of hazard based on energy content is __****__ very misleading and erroneous. Using the same flawed reasoning __** relating LNG energy content to hazard potential, **__ one can conclude that __** : • 3 hours of sun shine over 10 square feet equals 3.2 lbs of TNT explosive • **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">A 24 gal automobile gas __** oline **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">tank equals 1,225 lbs of TNT __** explosive • 1,000 lbs of wood equals 3,530 lbs of TNT explosive • 1,000 lbs of coal equals 4,470 lbs of TNT explosive **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Hazard potential depends on both the amount of energy and the rate at which it is released __**. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Energy release during LNG burning is __** relatively **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">slow __**. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Explosion energy is released “lightning-like” causing the formation of a shock wave __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> that __** travels outwards and **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> can cause __** severe **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> damage to people and property __**.
 * Zero risk of LNG explosions – empirics and new tech **
 * LNG explosions don’t cause extinction **

**<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Quoddy 8 ** (Bay LLC, “Safety & Security”, http://www.quoddylng.com/safety.html) The **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">ships will employ __** both **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">double containment __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> of __** their **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">contents and double hulls, ensuring a __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">very low risk of any __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">spills or accidents __**. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">This full containment ensures that if __** leaks or **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">spills __** do **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">occur, the LNG will be __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">contained __** and isolated. The double hulls ensure a very low risk that any breach would even reach the hull containment tanks. The vessels are designed with a double hull to ensure minimization of leakage in the event of a collision or grounding, as well as separate ballast. **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Quoddy 8 ** (Bay LLC, “Safety & Security”, http://www.quoddylng.com/safety.html) **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">LNG facilities have extensive __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">, state-of-the-art warning systems, including gas detectors __**, ultraviolet or infrared **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">fire __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">detectors __** , **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">smoke __** or combustion product **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">detectors __** , low **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">temperature detectors __** , and detectors to monitor LNG levels and vapor pressures. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Codes and standards from state, national, and international agencies __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> and institutions insure the chances of any releases are __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">very small __**, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">and __** if there are releases, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">the volume __** of the release **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">is minimal __**. In addition to warning systems, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">LNG facilities have __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">automated firefighting systems __**, including foam, dry chemical, or water dispersal **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">and __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">automatic shutdown __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">systems __**. **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Quoddy 8 ** (Bay LLC, “Safety & Security”, http://www.quoddylng.com/safety.html) Are LNG tankers and storage facilities likely terrorist targets? ¶ All parts of our critical energy infrastructure have been reassessed since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Security consciousness throughout the United States is heightened. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Shippers have redoubled __** their already-stringent **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">efforts to ensure security __** of transportation and the safety **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">of terminals __**. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">There is no indication that LNG __** facilities or **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">ships are __** more likely **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">terrorist __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">targets __** than other cargo ships or higher visibility political targets such as federal or state landmarks, public gatherings or bridges and tunnels. Nonetheless, LNG suppliers work closely with U.S. agencies charged with national security, and many developers contract with international experts who test their plans, procedures, people, and training to ensure they are sound. First, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">stringent access controls exist __** at both the point of origin and the point of destination. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Both __** the liquefaction and re-gasification **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">terminals have __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">gated security access and continuous surveillance __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> monitoring __**. Next, highly specialized, well- **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">trained personnel serve as __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">crewmembers __**. Before an LNG ship enters U.S. waters, the immigration service validates the crew. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">There is a buffer zone required between tankers and other traffic __**, and tugboats control the direction of tankers as they approach a terminal. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Oversight is __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">handled by the __** U.S. **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Coast Guard __** and host port authority pilots. Finally, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">the Coast Guard boards ships __** before they enter U.S. waters **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">if it deems the ship a security risk __**.
 * No accidents – **
 * A) Double hulls **
 * B) Safety systems **
 * Multiple checks prevent LNG terrorism **

** Environment **
(Mark Carey, assistant professor of history at Washington and Lee University where he teaches Latin American and environmental history. He won the 2008 ¶ Leopold-Hidy Prize for his article, "The History of Ice: How Glaciers Became an ¶ Endangered Species (Environmental History, July 2007), April 2009, “Latin American Environmental History: Current Trends, Interdisciplinary Insights, and ¶ Future Directions”, Jstor, 7/6/13 SS, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40608469)
 * The economic imbalances of societies are at the heart of environmental destruction and warfare, be skeptical of “natural” disasters, they exist as results of exploitation rather than divine happenings **
 * Carey 09 **

DISASTER SCHOLARS ARE AMONG the most prominent to blur nature-culture ¶ dichotomies, and this is a research area where historians have made important ¶ historiographical contributions. They underscore __the social roots of catastrophe__ by __demonstrat__ing __how marginalized populations suffer disproportionately when ¶ catastrophes occur. The same historical processes that make populations vulnerable ¶ to so-called "natural" disasters-such as race and class divisions or land and resource__ ¶ loss- also contribute to warfare and revolutionary movements. Within nations and ¶ __on a global scale, **power imbalances and economic inequality are thus at the center of ¶ disasters and wars**__. Disaster studies in Latin America generally focus on earthquakes, floods, and ¶ weather-related catastrophes such as hurricanes, El Niño, and drought.77 Earthquake ¶ research tends to focus on single events, such as Lima in 1746, San Juan, Argentina in ¶ 1944, Huaraz, Peru in 1970, or Mexico City in 1985, among others.78 Scholars examining ¶ these earthquakes uncover not only the disaster impacts but also the politics of relief ¶ and reconstruction. Charles Walker, for example, argues that the 1746 earthquake- ¶ tsunami in Peru provided a clean slate for enlightened leaders to implement new ¶ reforms that challenged elite authority and reigning social hierarchies.79 Provocative ¶ __studies on Caribbean hurricanes have unearthed both the social underpinnings of ¶ disaster vulnerability and the short- and long-term implications of disasters, such ¶ as Cuba's altered economy and closer relations with the United States__ following the ¶ three deadly 1840s hurricanes that Louis Pérez examines.80 El Niño scholarship has ¶ increasingly expanded beyond Peru to emphasize scientific, political, social, and even ¶ cultural aspects.81 ¶ Drought research is notable for its integration of climatic data into social analysis. ¶ Georgina __Endfield links the changing climate to human vulnerability in colonial ¶ Mexico__. This approach not only grounds her analysis in the social landscape of New ¶ Spain but also merges climate and water issues with disaster and agrarian studies. In a study of a recent El Niño event in Mexico, Hallie Eakin also focuses on household ¶ vulnerability to identify which regions, families, and communities were best (and least) ¶ able to adapt to extreme weather events. Both Eakin and Endfield demonstrate how ¶ __climatic vulnerability was produced historically and stemmed from social, political, ¶ and economic conditions rather than simple "acts of God."__82 Scholars have also studied ¶ drought in Northeast Brazil.83 While analyzing drought's profound impact on people, ¶ land, and livelihoods, they also analyze techno-scientific responses and the politics and ¶ discourse of disaster. Many of these studies increasingly probe the power dimensions of ¶ drought. Timothy Finan reveals how Brazilian elites manipulated drought discourse to ¶ accumulate wealth and power.84 Globally, Mike Davis suggests that millions died in late ¶ nineteenth century El Niño events-which generated drought in Brazil-because of the ¶ "fatal meshing of extreme events between the world climate system and the late Victorian ¶ world economy__": western European imperial powers had taken control of local people's ¶ land and labor, and thus their ability to grow and procure food__.85 Climatic disasters ¶ sometimes produced surprising historical changes, too. Glacier melting that triggered ¶ massive floods and avalanches in Peru also fostered new scientific studies, inspired ¶ innovative engineering projects, jump-started economic modernization campaigns, and ¶ provided platforms for fresh political agendas from within and beyond the Andes.86 ¶ __Wars account for another type of disaster. And environmental analyses of war ¶ in Latin America,__ which tend to focus on post-i96os Central America, echo Davis's ¶ condemnations of the ways in which __the global economy and geopolitics create ¶ vulnerable populations and cause disasters. In contrast to most environmental histories ¶ of warfare that examine the effects of weapons, science, technology, and military ¶ resource consumption, the small historiography on Latin America emphasizes the ¶ environmental dimensions leading to war as well as consequences__.87 William Durham's ¶ analysis of the 1969 Honduras-El Salvador Soccer War illuminates the role of ecology ¶ and environmental conflicts. He shows how resource scarcity and land loss drove ¶ 300,000 Salvadorans to emigrate into an already strained situation in Honduras.88 ¶ Daniel Faber makes this point more broadly and emphatically, arguing that "Marxist ¶ and socialist theory should place the ecological crisis at the center of any analysis ¶ of revolution and imperialism in Central America."89 For Faber__, capitalism produces ¶ multiple environmental effects that include warfare as well as the overexploitation ¶ of natural resources and the transformation of the peasantry from subsistence to the ¶ capitalist export sector.__ T__hese social studies of warfare and disasters in Central America__ ¶ link with more recent scholarship on environmental justice.90 They also __point to the__ ¶ importance of understanding social relations and power dynamics- the fundamentals ¶ of social history- __inherent in past human-environment interactions’__


 * Globalization makes their solvency impossible – we have connected the world in a way that magnifies minor accidents and spreads them across the globe – making the collapse of the environment and economy inevitable. **
 * Redhead 2009 ** (Steve Redhead, Professor of Sport and Media Cultures at the University of Brighton in the UK, “MOBILE ACCELERATED NONPOSTMODERN CULTURE”, Working Papers in Mobile Accelerated Nonpostmodern Culture (MANC), 2009, Pg 5-8, JK)

Paul Virilio, the French urban theorist of speed and catastrophe is responsible (Virilio, 2007b: 68) for the development of the 0 of ‘claustropolis’ (which in his thinking has replaced cosmopolis). **__Dromomania is Virilio’s term for those obsessed with speed and a society where everyone has to keep moving and accelerating – a fitting label for our finance capitalism driven twenty-first century descent into global chaos. Virilio,__** __too,__ **spotted the potential future ‘integral accident’ in globalisation; the linking together of the world’s stock markets in the 1980s. He told Philippe Petit,** prophetically, in interview in 1996, twelve years before the 2008 crash: ‘__T__**he speed of circulation has supplanted money. The production that resulted from this three-dimensional money is itself eliminated in favour of pure speculation, in other words a pure electronic game. The movement of dematerialisation which I analysed in reference to the city and the neighbour reappears in the case of money. The logic is exactly the same, in other words, the aesthetics of disappearance, and what is disappearing now is production and the money referent. We exceeded the limit of the speed of exchange with the Trading programme that combined the stock markets into one.** Wall Street, London, Frankfurt and Tokyo are now just one stock market’. (Virilio with Petit, 1999: 107) **__Virilio also told Petit__** in the same interview **__that the 1987 stock exchange meltdown was ‘an accident’ waiting to happen__** (again): ‘**__With the acceleration following the transportation revolution of the last century, the number of accidents suddenly multiplied and sophisticated procedures had to be invented in order to control air, rail and highway traffic.__** With the current world-wide revolution in communication and telematics, **__acceleration has reached its physical limit, the speed of electromagnetic waves.__** __So__ **there is the risk not of a local accident in a particular location, but rather of a global accident that would affect if not the entire planet, then at least the majority of people concerned by these technologies** **__. __** On this subject, consider the stock market crash of 1987that resulted from the implementation of the Programme Trading of automatic stock quotations on Wall Street. It is apparent that this new notion of the accident has nothing to do with the Apocalypse, but rather with the imperious necessity to anticipate in a rational way this kind of catastrophe by which the interactivity of telecommunications would reproduce the devastating effects of a poorly managed radioactivity – think about Chernobyl.’ (Virilio and Petit, 1999: 93 ) **__For Virilio ‘the stock market crash’ of 1987 was a ‘sign of what’s to come’__** __(Virilio and Petit, 1999: 91).__ **In June 2007 he predicted that the ‘stock market…is in danger of crashing far more seriously than it did in 1929, since all the stock markets are now interconnected’** (Virilio and Lotringer, 2008: 230). Paul Virilio, arguably ‘the most provocative French cultural theorist on the contemporary intellectual scene’ (Armitage, 2001: 1) has not yet spawned his own online journal of ‘Virilio’ Studies unlike his compatriot, the late Jean Baudrillard (2). If it ever did exist it is a safe bet that the International Journal of Virilio Studies journal would feature strongly Virilio’s idea of the ‘accident’ and that the notion of ‘catastrophe’ would be a dominant theme. So would ‘bunker archaeology’. In the late 1950s a young Paul Virilio (Armitage, 2000, Armitage, 2001, Redhead, 2004a, Redhead, 2004b) first put pen to paper about the German bunkers he had begun photographing along the Atlantic coast. The work went on until 1965. The bunkers along the Atlantic Wall totalled 15,000 and were designed to repel Allied attack against occupied France. These bunkers had fascinated Virilio since he was a ten year old boy evacuated to Nantes in the Second World War. He always saw himself as a ‘blitzkreig baby’ or ‘war baby’ where he studies at the ‘university of disaster’ (Virilio, 2009b) and later was himself conscripted into the French army during the Algerian war of independence. Virilio subsequently published the very short piece ‘Bunker Archeologie’ (see translation in Redhead, 2004a: 11-13) and eventually a book called Bunker Archeology (Virilio, 2009a, English translation) following an original French edition and the exhibition of his collection of text and images on the bunkers at the Decorative Arts Museum in Paris in 1975. Sociologist Mike Gane has written, convincingly, of Paul Virilio’s ‘bunker theorising’ (Gane, 2000) and I have proposed a ‘bunker anthropology’

**<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Molyneux and Steinberg 1995 [Maxine and Deborah Lynn, Mies and Shiva’s Ecofeminism: a new testament? Published Feminist Review Spring 1995 no. 49] ** As the opening quote of this paper suggests, narratives are essential to the way we know and understand the world in which we live. That is, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">narratives describe the ontological structure of the world in which we live and provide guidelines for how we know that world. __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Epistemological and ontological foundations are often hidden in narratives. These hidden foundations __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> within narratives deny differences and devalue the interrelated, ongoing process of all creation if the particularity of the narrative is forgotten. __** That is, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">their (ideal) epistemological claims lose touch with the (material) ontological context in which they are made. When knowledge claims no longer claim particularity, but universality, they deny their contextuality and claim a knowledge boundary beyond which no one can see and which must be assumed rather than critically engaged.2 They then lead to hegemonic knowledge claims that centralize knowledge, agency, and the capacity for truth in the claimer of an assertion __** .3 In other words, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">they idealize the material world and all life therein and colonize that world with their own truth claims __** .4 Both idealism and materialism are in this sense, “idealistic”: all reality is made to fit one, human, eco-socially located explanation. Or, put another way, both are reductionistic: they try to reduce all reality to a human idea(l). Contrarily, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">epistemological and ontological narratives that recognize the postfoundational, contextual nature of knowledge often recognize and respect differences and particularity precisely because they focus on the contexts of knowledge __** (thereby exposing “foundations” as partial rather than universal).5 These epistemologies **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> are more conducive to knowledge claims about ontology that recognize agency (and thus value) in the other and lead to understandings of truth as a communicative and dialogical process (rather than a monological claim) __**. That is, through a dialogical process, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">these claims remain open to the evolving material world and “others’” knowledge claims therein __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">. __** They value both the material and the ideal aspects of life. Furthermore **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">, by acknowledging the tentative nature between knowing and reality, these postfoundational knowledge claims require us to take responsibility for our knowledge assertions and our actions based on these knowledge assertions __** .6 These narratives, then, have implications for anthropology and ethics. Many postcolonial, feminist, mujerista, latina/o, womanist, and other critical discourses share in this form of epistemological/ontological respect of diversity and taking responsibility for knowledge claims. These **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">critical discourses have uncovered the hidden assumptions about race, class, gender, in hegemonic narratives __**. Why, then, do I focus on social/ist ecofeminism?7 Social/ist **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">ecofeminist epistemologies/ontologies inherently focus on the relationships among human beings (gender, race, class, etc.), and on the relationships between humans and the rest of the natural world __**. That is, they see humans as part of the rest of the natural world and not as an exception to the rest of the natural world. Although the ecofeminists whose work I examine can be grouped under the category of “social/ist” ecofeminism, they are by no means a homogeneous group of thinkers. What does unite them is a respect for the agential capacities and value of all life on the planet along with respect for the inherent diversity of life on the planet. Likewise, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">they claim that nature-culture, self-other, conscious-matter are co-constitutive __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">, constructed categories. “A view of nature can be seen as a projection of human perceptions of self and society onto the cosmos __**. Conversely, theories about nature have historically been interpreted as containing implications about the way individuals or social groups behave or ought to behave.”8 **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">For humans, there is no getting outside the textof nature-culture. __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">9 These social/ist ecofeminists challenge foundationalism that asserts a one-to-one relationship between thought and reality, and nonfoundationalism that claims that all reality is made through language systems alone. “In layers of history, layers of biology, layers of natureculture, complexity is the name of our game __** .”10 Rather than a Platonic (and in many cases Christian) valuing of the ideal over the material or a physicalist reduction of the ideal to the material (which is also an idealism, if one considers that reality is idealmaterial), **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">these ecofeminists assert that nature-culture, ideal-material, mindbody, spirit-flesh, are the starting points for reflection on the world in which we humans live. __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> This is the exact type of starting point, for instance, that Rosemary Ruether suggests in the title (and content) of her book Gaia (earth/material) and God (ideal/prophetic). __** 11 It is what I am referring to in this article as a social/ist ecofeminist eco-ontology. Far from being relativists, these ecofeminists argue that human beings must take responsibility for our beliefs about the world and the actions that ensue from those beliefs. Neither universality (a form of hyperidealism) nor relativity (also a form of hyperidealism) allow for this type of epistemic responsibility. “Relativism and totalization are both ‘god tricks’ promising vision from everywhere and nowhere equally and fully.”12 Both universality and relativity lead to a denial of the eco-social contextual subject. If one posits no “foundation,” then neither relativity nor universality makes any sense; rather, contextuality is the name of the game. For ecofeminists, the ecological is just as important as the social/historical when talking about epistemological locatedness: “There is no epistemic process to which we have access that is not a matter of embodiment within an ecological niche.”13
 * Universal truth claims about the environment ignore particular histories and particular epistemologies which privileges the material world and colonizes both people and the environment in the sake of perfection – allowing more ecological destruction. **

(Jennifer C., Associate Professor of English and the Director of the Africana Studies Program at The George Washington University, “Burried in Guana: Race, Labor, and Sustainability”, Project Muse, Spring 2012, [|http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_literary_history/v024/24.1.james.html#back], accessed 7/5/13, JK)
 * Green capitalism is a myth, created so that we can ignore the damage we do to the environment, and feel better about our practices. Environmental destruction is part of capitalism’s nature, and it will inevitably do so. **
 * James 2012 **

**__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Eco-materialists have long held that many for-profit businesses manufacturing "sustainable" products, such as "green" paper products, or claiming "sustainable" practices intentionally encourage unnecessary and destructive consumption __**. Marxist literary critic **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Leerom Medovoi maintains that while random acts of "sustainable capitalism" might satisfy consumers' desire to be good environmental citizens, sustainability and capitalism remain fundamentally irreconcilable. __** Noting the title of Shell Oil's 2001 handbook "people, planet, profit" as a particularly egregious instance in which a corporation has appropriated green discourse [End Page 117] to prolong its environmental recklessness he worries that **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">eco-consumerism of any stripe may "substitute for some more profound ethical critique . . . and political transformation" (132). Retooling Freudian disavowal, the psychic splitting which occurs when humans turn away from those disturbing "facts" about ourselves that we have glimpsed but cannot face, Medovoi finds our relationship to sustainable capitalism equally defensive. The only way we can imagine a healthy planetary future with capitalism is if we willfully deny its "second contradiction": its irrational tendency to harm the environments on which its own survival depends. __** [|2] This is where the disavowed "dark subtext" of sustainability threatens to surface (131 **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">). "To sustain" can also mean to be the recipient of injury, as when one "sustains" a wound (131). But sustaining a wound is not the same as succumbing to one; it connotes that the harmed has endured the injury for a period of time and has survived it. __** As Medovoi explains capitalism has no intention of wantonly killing us all, as other decriers of neoliberalism might believe. More efficiently, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">it "seeks to gauge the kind and amount of life that must not be killed now so that . . . extraction can continue indefinitely into the future" ( __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">142). It needs us—at least some of us—to "tolerate" the escalating injury it will inflict as it continues to sustain itself (142). Thus, the very discourse of "sustainability," with its disavowed subtext always trying to emerge, comes uncannily close to revealing capitalism's own disavowal: it damages and then endeavors to cover that damage by marketing us a solution. __**

(Julian Eagles, Phd from London School of Economics, “Guy Debord and the Integrated Spectacle”, http://www.fastcapitalism.com, Fast Capitalism, 9/1/13, accessed 7/5/13, JK) Now, I think the way in which the Situationists imagine that the spectacle reproduces itself, remains, on a general level, the same throughout their oeuvre -early or late.[|[13]] That said, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">the particular manner in which the spectacle modifies the individual’s passions is portrayed, in Debord’s later oeuvre, as a more intensive process of repression than the Situationists previously imagined. Arguably, this stronger repression refers to the following __** (although I must stress that this is not made explicit in Debord’s later writings **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">): that as the capitalist system, by the 1980s, produced a greater range of commodified goods and reified roles for people to consume, there emerged, for the mass of the population, niche markets for commodities. ¶ Spectacular society, through offering a huge range of ‘image-objects’ __** [|[14]] (alienated goods and roles) **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">for consumption,[|__[15__]] manipulates the individual’s sexual instinct. It stimulates – via images – the individual’s real desires, but only permits ‘pseudo-gratification’.[|__[16__]] The individual, whose passions are subjected to a type of repression as they are ‘rechannelled…in roles’ (Vaneigem 1994: 133) or through the consumption of goods, experiences controlled pleasure; the spectacle, therefore, frustrates the realization of the individual’s real desires.[|__[17__]] __** Post 1968, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">modern capitalism __**, due to changes in mass production techniques, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">offers a greater variety of image-objects from which to choose than hitherto. __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> And it is through the niche marketing of commodities, it seems, that the spectacle has become more sophisticated in its manipulation of the individual’s real desires. Yet this requires – although this is potentially problematic for the spectacle – that the individual becomes more aware of the specificity of his or her desires __** (see section III). That said, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">the spectacle continues, __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> nevertheless, to thwart genuine self-realization, as it re-routes the individual’s authentic desires towards commodified forms of leisure or play.[|__[18__]]¶ In addition to modern capitalism’s manipulation of the individual’s sexual instinct, I think it can also be argued that the integrated spectacle manipulates, as did the spectacle (in a minor way) in its diffuse form and (to a greater extent) in its concentrated version __**, the instinct of self-preservation to help perpetuate itself (see below).[|[19]] With this in mind, let us explore in greater detail how the spectacle in its integrated form functions.¶ **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">In his Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, Debord brings the notion of fear more to the fore.[|__[20__]] He claims that:¶ Going from success to success, until 1968 modern society was convinced it was loved. It has since had to abandon these dreams; it prefers to be feared __** (Debord 1990: 82).¶ What Debord implies here, I think, is that the 1968 rebellion in France revealed –particularly to the ruling class – that the majority of the population was not deeply integrated into spectacular society. In addition to this, D **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">ebord suggests that the spectacle ‘has at least sufficient lucidity to expect that its free and unhindered reign will very shortly lead to a significant number of major catastrophes’ __** (1990: 62). **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">He points to an ecological catastrophe, citing __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> the dangers associated with nuclear power plants and the destruction of the earth’s ozone layer by CFC gases (1990: 34-8, 62). He also mentions an economic catastrophe, ‘in banking, for example’ (1990: 62). For Debord, then, the circumstances of the post 1968 era have been conducive for fear to become a major factor in relation to the reproduction of spectacular society.[|__[21__]] __** ¶ Surveillance organizations, which lurk in the background ready to strike at organized opposition, make people fear the consequences of dissent. They ensure that proletarian[|[22]] opposition to spectacular society is ‘eliminated’ (Debord 1990: 80) or ‘dispersed’ (1990: 84). Debord maintains that: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Under spectacular domination people conspire to maintain it, and to guarantee what it alone would call its well-being. This conspiracy //is a part// of its very functioning (1990: 74).
 * Modern capitalism has pushed us into the society of the spectacle, where capitalism continues its existence through giving us small, pseudo-gratifications for the desires it creates – such as claiming to stop environmental destruction and terrorism. This ensures global catastrophe. **
 * Eagles 2012 **

Mary ** O'Grady ** (is a member of the editorial board at The Wall Street Journa) WSJ – April 24, ** 2013 ** http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324474004578442511561458392.html
 * No drilling in the squo – all companies have bailed. **
 * __ Then came promises of an oil boom and __** last week **__ the predictable bust. __** The **__ Brazil __** ian state-owned Petrobras PETR4.BR +1.01% **__ had given up on deep-sea drilling in Cuba __** n waters in 2011. **__ Repsol __** REP.MC -2.46% **__ gave up in __** May **__2012__** . The deep water platform it was using was then passed to **__ Malaysia __** 's state-owned Petronas, which also **__ came up empty __** . **__ Venezuela __** 's PdVSA **__ had no luck either __** . In November **__ Cuba announced that the rig that had been in use would be heading to Asia __** . **__ Last week __****__ came the end of shallow-water drilling. __**
 * Cuban drilling is safe – access to technology and safety standards prove **
 * Sadowksi 12 ** (Richard – Managing Editor of Production of the Journal of International Business and Law Vol. X, J.D Candidate at Hofstra University, “Cuban Offshore Drilling: Preparation and Prevention within the Framework of the United States’ Embargo”, 2012, http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1497&context=sdlp)
 * __ Fears that Cuban offshore drilling poses serious __****__environmental threats because of the proximity to the U__** nited **__S__** tates **__and the prohibition on U.S. technology transfer__** **__are overblown__** . **__ Cuba has at least as much incentive to ensure __****__ safe-drilling practices as does the__****__ U __** nited **__ S __** tates, and **__reports indicate that Cuba is__** **__ taking safety seriously .__** 64 Lee Hunt, President of the Houston-based International Association of Drilling Contractors, said, “[t] **__he Cuban oil industry has put a lot of research, study and thought into what will be required to safely drill__** ,” and that “ **__they are very knowledgeable of international industry practices__****__and have incorporated many of these principles__** into their **__safety__****__ and __****__ regulatory planning and requirements__** .” 65 Thus, while the economic embargo of Cuba restricts American technology from being uti - lized, **__ foreign sources have provided __****__ supplemental alternatives __** . 66

** Impact Framing **
**<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Kanth 2005 [Rajani Kannepalli Kanth, Against Eurocentrism: A Transcendent Critique of Modernist Science, Society, and Morals 67-69] ** __ The firearm, the printing press __, paper, __and the compass were to become the prime tools of Western domination of non-Western cultures; today, in the__ golden __era of neoliberalist finance, one might add only__ commerce and credit—that is, __trade and financial dependency__ — __as the other set of allied mechanisms__. The simple, if ironic, fact that all of these were originally non-European inventions must be a sobering thought to those prone to genuflect before the putative superiority, and originality, of modernist science. It might also be noted that the (putative) absence of a compass did not inhibit navigation on the part of several non-European peoples who engaged in explorations not of necessity confluent with the motives of trade and conquest __. It was not a__ state of mind, nor a __penchant for reflection, that furthered the rapid development of European natural science__ (although the entire effort was located within the metaphysical matrix of anthropocentrism) __but rather dire industrial necessity in the context of desperate international, and internecine, rivalry and war, features that have but little changed in the modern period where most research that is amply funded is still of the strategic kind.__ If one but adds commercial greed, to industrial need, then we effectively sum up the driving ethos—the colossal strengths and weakness—of European science. Salutary to note, in this regard, that neither Vedic wisdom, wherein science and ethics were combined, nor Buddhist or Jain explorations in mathematics, were either provoked by, or were concomitants of, conquest and accumulation but bore a purity of ardor and endeavor that has simply no modernist European equivalent leastways in the classical period of the Enlightenment (this does not mean that the later post-Vedic tradition did not inculcate philosophy as statecraft.. Kautilya's Arthashastra, in that regard, compares favorably with, if long prior to, Machiavelli's ideas). However, the new scientific outlook of the Enlightenment was not engendered unopposed and had to fight it way over the back of older traditions of science that were far more hospitable to humbler social needs and necessities, that is, they were not driven solely by greed or power. Much as the ideas of liberalism triumphed over church ideology by virtue not of better argument or better evidence, contrary to modernist legend, but the power of better organized force (as instanced in the politics of Galileo in success, and the lost crusade of the great Paracelsus, in failure), the new sciences simply expelled the old arts and pushed them to the outer margins of existence. __Superior force, organization, and iron discipline were the redoubtable tools of European mastery, but even they, in themselves, may not have sufficed to effect the supreme dominance that is visible today in all corners of the world__ (excepting China, which remains the least Europeanized of any modernist social formation) __were this force not to be supplemented with a philosophy of domination that__, __to this day, has no pareil in the history of human endeavors. Non-European empires__, faced with the European peril, __had to learn the hard way that guns without arguments almost fail to fire altogether. Somewhere in the Renaissance, Europe possessed itself of such an inexorable ideology, a veritable manifest, of conquest of all things—and peoples__. __The very spirit of the ruling European (and his North-American counterparts) today is informed with this wantonly conquistadorean, carpetbagging, temper, still seeking gullible subjects cum consumers, wherever possible, still seeking to__ take without giving, to rule without consent, ready to cheat on treaties, renege on friends, and __exact from the weak and the helpless__. __The craven U.S. invasion of Grenada__, infamous act of state piracy apart, __where the mightiest force on earth trampled on the poorest little island imaginable, and then awarded themselves a glittering gallery of medals__ —more than one medal each for every soldier, sailor, and marine landed (and many who never landed incidentally)— __can convey but a very small appreciation of just how far from even the very simplest norms of morality European "civilization" has traversed in but a few centuries (equally linear and unbroken is the red line of infamy that connects the atrocities of the Europeans in Africa and the technology driven savagery of Americans in Vietnam)__. Indeed, __the very word itself today has no readily agreed upon meaning or significance in modernist society—just as similarly, economics, the ruling logos of modernism, has no place for__, and comprehension of, __the idea of fairness or justice, terms which are literally meaningless within that discourse. With the destruction of normative ties, the social basis of morality erodes and becomes privatized__ (small wonder that the U.S. Supreme Court deems, with much relief, morality a local, community resource subject to local adjudications and alterations of fashioris). __Morality__, __like ethics, becomes merely an option, among many choices, for the ordinary person, to be exercised when it involves the least cost to the practitioner__ ; like faith, its close country cousin, it has become effectively dispensable, and quite sub-optimal, as a workable code for conduct. Once again, the United States (where bad guys win with a grim, degrading, monotony), the most degenerately advanced in these directions, is living testimony to the simple rectitude of these propositions, whose truth is confirmable by simple, direct observation alone.
 * 1. Trade is utilized by the Western powers to create financial dependency of other nations and force a colonial strategy upon those populations and embeds violence and racism in everyday political life. **

**<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Antov 11 ** [Michael – Department of Political Science at Duke University, “Economic Interdependence and International Conflict: The Implications of Membership in International Economic, Financial, and Monetary Organizations and Multilateral Preferential Trade Agreements”, December 15th, 2011, [], Chetan] In contrast to the liberal arguments, realists have argued that in an anarchic world in which states are solely concerned with preserving their existence, the more interactions among states there are, the higher the likelihood of conflict (Mearsheimer, 1995). That is, **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">economic interdependence provides __** yet another potential **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">interstate asymmetry and is __** thus **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">a reason for conflict initiation. __** Most notably in the economic interdependence – conflict debate, Katherine **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Barbieri’s __** //**__ empirical tests __**// **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> have shown that __****__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"> bilateral trade increases the probability of __** MIDs **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">(militarized interstate disputes). __** (1996, 2001, 2002). Her central claim is that, “rather than inhibiting conflict, extensive economic interdependence increases the likelihood that dyads will engage in militarized interstate disputes” (1996: 29). Barbieri recognizes that low to moderate degrees of interdependence may reduce the likelihood of conflict, but she argues that, the more extensive the linkages become, the more likely interdependence will have the opposite effect. As Maoz points out, another powerful realist theory is that **__<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">states’ strategic interests matter more than economic interdependence does – countries can be economically interdependent and still fight over non-economic interests __** (2009). Realists have focused on the causes of war and “have emphasized the conflictual aspects of international transactions whereas liberals clearly emphasize the beneficial aspects. From this different starting point, realists come to the conclusion that //**__ [economic] interdependence either increases the likelihood of war or is not related to war initiation __**// ” (McMillan, 1997: 40). Moreover, it should be noted that realists are above all concerned with war (in terms of armed conflict with at least 25 battle-related deaths or other much higher death thresholds), while liberals have considered a diversity of conflict types, primarily focusing on MIDs.
 * 2. Economic interdependence doesn’t check **

The Off
The spread of neoliberal market mechanisms by the US is part of a colonial strategy that attempts to control Latin America for the benefit of modernist structures. [|Mignolo] 2006 [Walter D. Mignolo, Professor of Cultural Studies at Duke University, Citizenship, Knowledge, and the Limits of Humanity American Literary History 18.2 (2006) 312-331] I will describe the veiled connections as the logic of coloniality, and the surface that covers it I will describe as the rhetoric of modernity. __The rhetoric of modernity is that of salvation, whereas the logic of coloniality is a logic of imperial oppression. They go hand in hand, and you cannot have modernity without coloniality__ ; the unfinished project of modernity carries over its shoulders the unfinished project of coloniality. I will conclude by suggesting the need to decolonize "knowledge" and "being" and advocating that the (decolonial) "humanities" shall have a fundamental role to play in this process. Truly, "global citizenship" implies overcoming the imperial and colonial differences that have mapped and continue to map global racism and global patriarchy. __Changing the law and public policies won't be of much help in this process. What is needed is that those who change the law and public policy change themselves__. **[End Page 312]** __The problem is how that may take place if we would like to avoid the missionary zeal for conversion; //the liberal and neoliberal belief in the triumphal march of Western civilization and of market democracy//__ ; and the moral imperatives and forced behavior imposed by socialism. As I do not believe in a new abstract universal that will be good for the entire world, __the question is how people can change their belief that the world today is like it is and that it will be only through the "honest" projects of Christians, liberals, and Marxist-socialists that the world could be better for all, and citizenship will be a benediction for all. The changes I am thinking about are radical transformations in the naturalized assumptions of the world order.__ The naturalized assumptions I am thinking about are imperial–colonial, and they have shaped the world in which we live in the past five hundred years when Christianity and capitalism came together and created the conditions for the self-fashioned narrative of "modernity." Hence, __the transformations I am thinking about require an epistemic decolonial shift. Not a "new," a "post," or a "neo," which are all changes within the same modern colonial epistemology, but a //decolonial//__ (and not either a "deconstruction"), __which means a delinking from the rules of the game__ (e.g., the decolonization of the mind, in Ngugi Wa Th'iongo's vocabulary) in which deconstruction itself and all the "posts-" for sure are caught. __Delinking doesn't mean to be "outside" of either modernity or Christian, Liberal, Capitalist, and Marxist hegemony but to disengage from the naturalized assumptions that make of these four macronarratives__ "une pensee unique," to use Ignacio Ramonet's expression. [|2]__The decolonial shift begins by unveiling the imperial presuppositions that maintain a universal idea of humanity and of human being that serves as a model and point of arrival and by constantly underscoring the fact that oppressed and racialized subjects do not care and are not fighting for "human rights"__ (based on an imperial idea of humanity) __but to regain the "human dignity__ " (based on a decolonial idea of humanity) __that has and continues to be taken away from them by the imperial rhetoric of modernity__ (e.g., white, Eurocentered, heterosexual, and Christian/secular). __The conditions for citizenship are still tied to a racialized hierarchy of human beings that depends on universal categories of thought created and enacted from the identitarian perspectives of European Christianity and by white males.__ In the Afro-Caribbean intellectual tradition—from C. L. R. James to Frantz Fanon, Sylvia Wynter, and Lewis Gordon—the very concepts of the //human// and //humanity// are constantly under fire. [|3] Would indeed a black person agree with the idea that what "we" all have in common is our "humanity" and that we are "all equal" in being "different"? I would suspect that the formula would rather be of the type advanced by the **[End Page 313]** Zapatistas: "[B]ecause we are all equal we have the right to be different." [|4]__The universal idea of humanity,__ believe me, __is not the same from the perspective of__ black history, __Indian memories,__ or the memories of the population of Central Asia. __The humanities, as a branch of knowledge in the history of the university since the European Renaissance, have always been complicitous with imperial–colonial designs celebrating____a universal idea of the human model.__ The moment has arrived to put the humanities at the service of decolonial projects in their ethical, political, and epistemic dimensions; to recast the reinscription of human dignity as a decolonial project in the hands of the //damnes// rather than given to them through managerial designs of NGOs and Human Rights Watch that seldom if ever are led by actors whose human dignity is at stake. Decolonial projects imply downsizing human rights to its real dimension: an ethical imperative internal to imperial abuses but not really a project that empowers racialized subjects and helps them to regain the human dignity that racism and imperial projects (from the right, the left, and the center) took away from them.

Expanding globalization to Cuba is part of an imperial strategy to displace revolutionary potential in Cuba. The outcome of the expansion of globalization is environmental destruction and inequality. Bliss 2005 (Dr. Susan Bliss: Director of Global Education, 7/5/2005, “Sustainability of Modern Cuba’s post revolution globalisation process”,) Globalisation is not a new phenomenon in Cuba, evolving from the 16th century with the first expansion of European capitalism and accelerating from 1870-1914 with increased transport of goods.But while the world became more globalized driven by falling trade barriers (1950-1980) and deregulation of financial institutions (1980s) Cuba experienced restricted globalisation because of US imposed sanctions (1960s- 2005). Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, ushering in perestroika and glasnost, globalisation has threatened to engulf Cuba that has responded by developing a unique blend of both globalisation and localisation (glocalisation) emphasising heterogeneous development and cultural exclusiveness transforming the economy and society from late 19th century. Many Cubans still fervently adhere to strict egalitarian values of the revolution (Stokes, 2003) arguing that western, materialistic globalisation ignores its dysfunctional aspects, such as environmental degradation, loss of community, social inequality and needs to look at possible multiple, eclectic approaches to societal development (Toffler, 1990) for the development of a more sustainable, equitable future. For Castro, the global economy is an uneven playing field holding many dangers for small, developing countries, like Cuba, as it works towards a difficult blend of global market and restricted state and civil society economic management. For Cubans globalisation has a substantive meaning (transcontinental circuits of capital, trade and production) but an ideological use (neo-liberalism) that grew with the demise of the socialist bloc in early 1990s and had profound effects on the legitimacy of Cuban socialism, as an alternative to capitalism. Most Cuban socialists support anti-globalisation as they envisage the US as the main driving force advocating financial imperatives and the rule of the strong. In contrast Cubans believe it should be replaced with a socialist system that promotes equality and shared values of humanity and markets that are ‘free and fair’, equitably structured and immune from corporate power.

The modus operandi of the affirmative’s economics is the historical drive behind colonization and mass violence against Latin America culminating in wars, violence and genocide in the name of their economic ideals Escobar 2004 [Arturo, Beyond the Third World: Imperial Globality, Global Coloniality, and Anti-Globalization Social Movements, Third world quarterly 2004. www.nd.edu/~druccio/Escobar.pdf‎] One of the main consequences, for Santos, of the collapse of emancipation into regulation is the structural predominance of exclusion over inclusion. Either because of the exclusion of many of those formerly included, or because those who in the past were candidates for inclusion are now prevented from being so, the problematic of exclusion has become terribly accentuated, with ever growing numbers of people thrown into a veritable “state of nature.” The size of the excluded class varies of course with the centrality of the country in the world system, but it is particularly staggering in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The result is a new type of social fascism as “a social and civilizational regime” (p. 453). This regime, paradoxically, coexists with democratic societies, hence its novelty. This fascism may operate in various modes: in terms of spatial exclusion; territories struggled over by armed actors; the fascism of insecurity; and of course the deadly financial fascism, which at times dictates the marginalization of entire regions and countries that do not fulfill the conditions needed for capital, according to the IMF and its faithful management consultants (pp. 447-458). To the former Third World corresponds the highest levels of social fascism of these kinds. This is, in sum, the world that is being created by globalization from above, or hegemonic globalization. Before moving on, it is important to complete this rough representation of today’s global capitalist modernity by looking at the US-led invasion of Iraq in early 2003. Among other things, this episode has made at last two things particularly clear: first, the willingness to use unprecedented levels of violence to enforce dominance on a global scale; second, the unipolarity of the current empire. In ascension since the Thatcher-Reagan years, this unipolarity reached its climax with the post-9/11 regime, based on a new convergence of military, economic, political and religious interests in the United States. In Alain Joxe’s (2002) compelling vision of imperial globality, what we have been witnessing since the first Gulf War is the rise of an empire that increasingly operates through the management of asymmetrical and spatialized violence, territorial control, sub-contracted massacres, and “cruel little wars,” all of which are aimed at imposing the neo-liberal capitalist project. At stake is a type of regulation that operates through the creation of a new horizon of global violence. This empire regulates disorder through financial and military means, pushing chaos to the extent possible to the outskirts of empire, creating a “predatory” peace to the benefit of a global noble caste and leaving untold poverty and suffering in its path. It is an empire that does not take responsibility for the wellbeing of those over whom it rules. As Joxe puts it: “ The world today is united by a new form of chaos, an imperial chaos, dominated by the imperium of the United States, though not controlled by it. We lack the words to describe this new system, while being surrounded by its images. ... World leadership through chaos, a doctrine that a rational European school would have difficulty imagining, necessarily leads to weakening states –even in the United States—through the emerging //sovereignty// of corporations and markets.” (2002: 78, 213). 7 The new empire thus operates not so much through conquest, but through the imposition of norms ( free-markets, US-style democracy and cultural notions of consumption, and so forth). The former Third World is, above all, the theatre of a multiplicity of cruel little wars which, rather than barbaric throwbacks, are linked to the current global logic. From Colombia and Central America to Algeria, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East these wars take place within states or regions, without threatening empire but fostering conditions favorable to it. For much of the former Third World (and of course to the Third World within the core) is reserved “the World-chaos” (107), free-market slavery, and selective genocide. In some cases, this amounts to a sort of “paleo-micro- colonialism” within regions (157), in others to balkanization, in yet others to brutal internal wars and massive displacement to free up entire regions for transnational capital (particularly in the case of oil, but also diamonds, timber, water, genetic resources, and agricultural lands). Often times these cruel little wars are fueled by Mafia networks, and intended for macro-economic globalization. It is clear that this new Global Empire (“the New World Order of the American imperial monarchy,” p. 171) articulates the “peaceful expansion” of the free-market economy with omnipresent violence in a novel regime of economic and military globality –in other words, the global economy comes to be supported by a global organization of violence and vice versa (200). On the subjective side, what increasingly one finds in the Souths (including the South within the North) are “diced identities” and the transformation of cultures of solidarity into cultures of destruction. The question of this debate is how best to challenge colonial institutions and foreground the lives of marginalized populations – this is an ethical imperative. Mignolo 2009(Walter Mignolo, 2009, Epistemic Disobedience, Independent thought, and deconlonial freedom, [], Walter Mignolo is a semiotician and Professor at Duke Univeristy, who has published extensively on semiotics and literary theory, and worked on different aspect of the modern and colonial world, exploring concepts such as global coloniality, the geopolitics of knowledge, transmodernity, border thinking, and pluriversality) De-colonial thinking presupposes de-linking (epistemically and politically) from the web of imperial knowledg e (theo- and ego-politically grounded) from disciplinary management. A common topic of conversation today, after the ﬁnancial crisis on Wall Street, is ‘how to save capitalism’. A de-colonial question would be: ‘Why would you want to save capitalism and not save human beings?Why save an abstract entity and not the human lives that capitalism is constantly destroying ?’ In the same vein, geo- and body-politics of knowledge, de-colonial thinking and the de-colonial option place human lives and life in general ﬁrst rather than making claims for the ‘ transformation of the disciplines’. But, still, claiming life and human lives ﬁrst, de-colonial thinking is not joining forces with ‘the politics of life in itself’ as Nicholas Rose (2007) has it. Rose’s ‘politics of life in itself’ is the last development in the ‘mercantilization of life’ and of ‘bio-power’ (as Foucault has it ). In the ‘politics of life in itself’ political and economic strategies for controlling life at the same time as creating more consumers join forces. Bio-politics, in Foucault’s conception, was one of the practical consequences of an ego-politics of knowledge implemented in the sphere of the state. Politics of life in itself extends it to the market. Thus, politics of life in itself describes the enormous potential of bio-technology to generate consumers who invest their earnings in buying health-promoting products in order to maintain the reproduction of technology that will ‘improve’ the control of human beings at the same time as creating more wealth through the money invested by consumers who buy health-promoting technology. Our alternative is to reject the affirmative – when confronted with colonial projects the only ethical response is radical negativity. We are compelled to be disobedient to modernity. Mignolo 09 [Walter D. Mignolo, Epistemic Disobedience, Independent Thought and Decolonial Freedom, Theory and Culture 2009, published 2009] ONCE UPON a time scholars assumed that the knowing subject in the disciplines is transparent, disincorporated from the known and untouched by the geo-political configuration of the world in which people are racially ranked and regions are racially configured. From a detached and neutral point of observation (that Colombian philosopher Santiago Castro-Gómez (2007) describes as the //hubris of the zero point//), the knowing subject maps the world and its problems, classifies people and projects into what is good for them. Today that assumption is no longer tenable, although there are still many believers. At stake is indeed the question of racism and epistemology (ChukwudiEze, 1997; Mignolo, forthcoming). And once upon a time scholars assumed that if you ‘come’ from Latin America you have to ‘talk about’ Latin America ; that in such a case you have to be a token of your culture. Such expectation will not arise if the author ‘comes’ from Germany, France, England or the US. In such cases it is not assumed that you have to be talking about your culture but can function as a theoretically minded person. As we know: the first world has knowledge, the third world has culture ; Native Americans have wisdom, Anglo Americans have science. The need for political and epistemic delinking here comes to the fore, as well as decolonializing and decolonial knowledges, necessary steps for imagining and building democratic, just, and non-imperial/colonial societies. Geo-politics of knowledge goes hand in hand with geo-politics of knowing. Who and when, why and where is knowledge generated (rather than produced, like cars or cell phones)? Asking these questions means to shift the attention from the enunciated to the enunciation. And by so doing, turning Descartes’s dictum inside out: rather than assuming that thinking comes before being, one assumes instead that it is a racially marked body in a geo-historical marked space that feels the urge or get the call to speak, to articulate, in whatever semiotic system, the urge that makes of living organisms ‘human’ beings. By setting the scenario in terms of geo- and body-politics I am starting and departing from already familiar notions of ‘situated knowledges’. Sure, all knowledges are situated and every knowledge is constructed. But that is just the beginning. The question is: who, when, why is constructing knowledges (Mignolo, 1999, 2005 [1995])? Why did eurocentered epistemology conceal its own geo-historical and bio-graphical locations and succeed in creating the idea of universal knowledge as if the knowing subjects were also universal? This illusion is pervasive today in the social sciences, the humanities, the natural sciences and the professional schools. Epistemic disobedience means to delink from the illusion of the zero point epistemology. The shift I am indicating is the anchor (constructed of course, located of course, not just anchored by nature or by God) of the argument that follows. It is the beginning of any epistemic decolonial de-linking with all its historical, political and ethical consequences. Why? Because geo-historical and bio-graphic loci of enunciation have been located by and through the making and transformation of the colonial matrix of power: a racial system of social classification that invented Occidentalism (e.g. IndiasOccidentales), that created the conditions for Orientalism; distinguished the South of Europe from its center (Hegel) and, on that long history, remapped the world as first, second and third during the Cold War. Places of nonthought (of myth, non-western religions, folklore, underdevelopment involving regions and people) today have been waking up from the long process of westernization. The anthropos inhabiting non-European places discovered that s/he had been invented, as anthropos, by a locus of enunciations self-defined as humanitas. Now, there are currently two kinds or directions advanced by the former anthropos who are no longer claiming recognition by or inclusion in the humanitas, but engaging in epistemic disobedience and de-linking from the magic of the Western idea of modernity, ideals of humanity and promises of economic growth and financial prosperity (Wall Street dixit). One direction unfolds within the globalization of a type of economy that in both liberal and Marxist vocabulary is defined as ‘capitalism’. One of the strongest advocates of this is the Singaporean scholar, intellectual and politician Kishore Mahbubani, to which I will return later. One of his earlier book titles carries the unmistakable and irreverent message: Can Asians Think?: Understanding the Divide between East and West (2001). Following Mahbubani’s own terminology, this direction could be identified as de-westernization. Dewesternization means, within a capitalist economy, that the rules of the game and the shots are no longer called by Western players and institutions. The seventh Doha round is a signal example of de-westernizing options. The second direction is being advanced by what I describe as the decolonial option. The decolonial option is the singular connector of a diversity of decolonials. The decolonial paths have one thing in common: the colonial wound, the fact that regions and people around the world have been classified as underdeveloped economically and mentally. Racism not only affects people but also regions or, better yet, the conjunction of natural resources needed by humanitas in places inhabited by anthropos. De colonial options have one aspect in common with de-westernizing arguments: the definitive rejection of ‘being told’ from the epistemic privileges of the zero point what ‘we’ are, what our ranking is in relation to the ideal of humanitas and what we have to do to be recognized as such. However, decolonial and de-westernizing options diverge in one crucial and in disputable point: while the latter do not question the ‘civilization of death’ hidden under the rhetoric of modernization and prosperity, of the improvement of modern institutions (e.g. liberal democracy and an economy propelled by the principle of growth and prosperity), decolonial options start from the principle that the regeneration of life shall prevail over primacy of the production and reproduction of goods at the cost of life (life in general and of humanitas and anthropos alike!). I illustrate this direction, below, commenting on ParthaChatterjee’s re-orienting ‘eurocentered modernity’ toward the future in which ‘our modernity’ (in India, in Central Asia and the Caucasus, in South America, briefly, in all regions of the world upon which eurocentered modernity was either imposed or ‘adopted’ by local actors assimilating to local histories inventing and enacting global designs) becomes the statement of interconnected dispersal in which decolonial futures are being played out. Last but not least, my argument doesn’t claim originality (‘originality’ is one of the basic expectations of modern control of subjectivity) but aims to make a contribution to growing processes of decoloniality around the world. My humble claim is that geo- and body-politics of knowledge has been hidden from the self-serving interests of Western epistemology and that a task of decolonial thinking is the unveiling of epistemic silences of Western epistemology and affirming the epistemic rights of the racially devalued, and decolonial options to allow the silences to build arguments to confront those who take ‘originality’ as the ultimate criterion for the final judgment .1

Water
1. No internal link between one US aquifer and the entire global supply of water – they can’t solve for their impact.

2. Ogallala Aquifer will dry up inevitably- alt causes Snyder, 13 [Michael- B.S. in Commerce Univ. of Virginia, J.D. Univ. of Florida, “30 facts about the coming water crisis that will change the lives of every person on the planet,” March 4th, 2013, http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/30-facts-about-the-coming-water-crisis-that-will-change-the-lives-of-every-person-on-the-planet] The world is rapidly running out of clean water. Some of the largest lakes and rivers on the globe are being depleted at a very frightening pace, and many of the most important underground aquifers t hat we depend on to irrigate our crops will soon be gone. At this point, approximately 40 percent of the entire population of the planet has little or no access to clean water, and it is being projected that by 2025 two-thirds of humanity will live in "water-stressed" areas. But most Americans are not too concerned about all of this because they assume that North America has more fresh water than anyone else does. And actually they would be right about that, but the truth is that even North America is rapidly running out of water and it is going to change all of our lives. Today, the most important underground water source in America, the Ogallala Aquifer, is rapidly running dry. The most important lake in the western United States, Lake Mead, is rapidly running dry. The most important river in the western United States, the Colorado River, is rapidly running dry. Putting our heads in the sand and pretending that we are not on the verge of an absolutely horrific water crisis is not going to make it go away. Without water, you cannot grow crops, you cannot raise livestock and you cannot support modern cities. As this global water crisis gets worse, it is going to affect every single man, woman and child on the planet. I encourage you to keep reading and learn more. ¶ The U.S. intelligence community understands what is happening. According to one shocking government report that was released last year, th e global need for water will exceed the global supply of water by 40 percent by the year 2030 ... ¶ This sobering message emerges from the first U.S. Intelligence Community Assessment of Global Water Security. The document predicts that by 2030 humanity's "annual global water requirements" will exceed "current sustainable water supplies" by forty percent. ¶ Oh, but our scientists will find a solution to our problems long before then, won't they? ¶ But what if they don't? ¶ Most Americans tend to think of a "water crisis" as something that happens in very dry places such as Africa or the Middle East, but the truth is that almost the entire western half of the United States is historically a very dry place. The western U.S. has been hit very hard by drought in recent years, and many communities are on the verge of having to make some very hard decisions. For example, just look at what is happening to Lake Mead. Scientists are projecting that Lake Mead has a 50 percent chance of running dry by the year 2025. If that happens, it will mean the end of Las Vegas as we know it. But the problems will not be limited just to Las Vegas. The truth is that if Lake Mead runs dry, it will be a major disaster for that entire region of the country. This was explained in a recent article by Alex Daley... ¶ Way before people run out of drinking water, something else happens: When Lake Mead falls below 1,050 feet, the Hoover Dam's turbines shut down – less than four years from now, if the current trend holds – and in Vegas the lights start going out. ¶ Ominously, these water woes are not confined to Las Vegas. Under contracts signed by President Obama in December 2011, Nevada gets only 23.37% of the electricity generated by the Hoover Dam. The other top recipients: Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (28.53%); state of Arizona (18.95%); city of Los Angeles (15.42%); and Southern California Edison (5.54%). ¶ You can always build more power plants, but you can't build more rivers, and the mighty Colorado carries the lifeblood of the Southwest. It services the water needs of an area the size of France, in which live 40 million people. In its natural state, the river poured 15.7 million acre-feet of water into the Gulf of California each year. Today, twelve years of drought have reduced the flow to about 12 million acre-feet, and human demand siphons off every bit of it; at its mouth, the riverbed is nothing but dust. ¶ Nor is the decline in the water supply important only to the citizens of Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. It's critical to the whole country. The Colorado is the sole source of water for southeastern California's Imperial Valley, which has been made into one of the most productive agricultural areas in the US despite receiving an average of three inches of rain per year. ¶ Are you starting to get an idea of just how serious this all is? ¶ But it is not just our lakes and our rivers that are going dry. ¶ We are also depleting our groundwater at a very frightening pace as a recent Science Daily article discussed... ¶ Three results of the new study are particularly striking: First, during the most recent drought in California's Central Valley, from 2006 to 2009, farmers in the south depleted enough groundwater to fill the nation's largest human-made reservoir, Lake Mead near Las Vegas -- a level of groundwater depletion that is unsustainable at current recharge rates. ¶ Second, a third of the groundwater depletion in the High Plains occurs in just 4% of the land area. And third, the researchers project that if current trends continue some parts of the southern High Plains that currently support irrigated agriculture, mostly in the Texas Panhandle and western Kansas, will be unable to do so within a few decades. ¶ In the United States we have massive underground aquifers that have allowed our nation to be the breadbasket of the world. But once the water from those aquifers is gone, it is gone for good. That is why what is happening to the Ogallala Aquifer is so alarming. The Ogallala Aquifer is one of the largest sources of fresh water in the world, and U.S. farmers use water from it to irrigate more than 15 million acres of crops each year. The Ogallala Aquifer covers more than 100,000 square miles and it sits underneath the states of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming and South Dakota. Most Americans have never even heard of it, but it is absolutely crucial to our way of life. Sadly, it is being drained at a rate that is almost unimaginable.

3. ** The economic imbalances of societies are at the heart of environmental destruction and warfare, be skeptical of “natural” disasters, they exist as results of exploitation rather than divine happenings ** (Mark Carey, assistant professor of history at Washington and Lee University where he teaches Latin American and environmental history. He won the 2008 ¶ Leopold-Hidy Prize for his article, "The History of Ice: How Glaciers Became an ¶ Endangered Species (Environmental History, July 2007), April 2009, “Latin American Environmental History: Current Trends, Interdisciplinary Insights, and ¶ Future Directions”, Jstor, 7/6/13 SS, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40608469)
 * Carey 09 **

DISASTER SCHOLARS ARE AMONG the most prominent to blur nature-culture ¶ dichotomies, and this is a research area where historians have made important ¶ historiographical contributions. They underscore __the social roots of catastrophe__ by __demonstrat__ing __how marginalized populations suffer disproportionately when ¶ catastrophes occur. The same historical processes that make populations vulnerable ¶ to so-called "natural" disasters-such as race and class divisions or land and resource__ ¶ loss- also contribute to warfare and revolutionary movements. Within nations and ¶ __on a global scale, **power imbalances and economic inequality are thus at the center of ¶ disasters and wars**__. Disaster studies in Latin America generally focus on earthquakes, floods, and ¶ weather-related catastrophes such as hurricanes, El Niño, and drought.77 Earthquake ¶ research tends to focus on single events, such as Lima in 1746, San Juan, Argentina in ¶ 1944, Huaraz, Peru in 1970, or Mexico City in 1985, among others.78 Scholars examining ¶ these earthquakes uncover not only the disaster impacts but also the politics of relief ¶ and reconstruction. Charles Walker, for example, argues that the 1746 earthquake- ¶ tsunami in Peru provided a clean slate for enlightened leaders to implement new ¶ reforms that challenged elite authority and reigning social hierarchies.79 Provocative ¶ __studies on Caribbean hurricanes have unearthed both the social underpinnings of ¶ disaster vulnerability and the short- and long-term implications of disasters, such ¶ as Cuba's altered economy and closer relations with the United States__ following the ¶ three deadly 1840s hurricanes that Louis Pérez examines.80 El Niño scholarship has ¶ increasingly expanded beyond Peru to emphasize scientific, political, social, and even ¶ cultural aspects.81 ¶ Drought research is notable for its integration of climatic data into social analysis. ¶ Georgina __Endfield links the changing climate to human vulnerability in colonial ¶ Mexico__. This approach not only grounds her analysis in the social landscape of New ¶ Spain but also merges climate and water issues with disaster and agrarian studies. In a study of a recent El Niño event in Mexico, Hallie Eakin also focuses on household ¶ vulnerability to identify which regions, families, and communities were best (and least) ¶ able to adapt to extreme weather events. Both Eakin and Endfield demonstrate how ¶ __climatic vulnerability was produced historically and stemmed from social, political, ¶ and economic conditions rather than simple "acts of God."__82 Scholars have also studied ¶ drought in Northeast Brazil.83 While analyzing drought's profound impact on people, ¶ land, and livelihoods, they also analyze techno-scientific responses and the politics and ¶ discourse of disaster. Many of these studies increasingly probe the power dimensions of ¶ drought. Timothy Finan reveals how Brazilian elites manipulated drought discourse to ¶ accumulate wealth and power.84 Globally, Mike Davis suggests that millions died in late ¶ nineteenth century El Niño events-which generated drought in Brazil-because of the ¶ "fatal meshing of extreme events between the world climate system and the late Victorian ¶ world economy__": western European imperial powers had taken control of local people's ¶ land and labor, and thus their ability to grow and procure food__.85 Climatic disasters ¶ sometimes produced surprising historical changes, too. Glacier melting that triggered ¶ massive floods and avalanches in Peru also fostered new scientific studies, inspired ¶ innovative engineering projects, jump-started economic modernization campaigns, and ¶ provided platforms for fresh political agendas from within and beyond the Andes.86 ¶ __Wars account for another type of disaster. And environmental analyses of war ¶ in Latin America,__ which tend to focus on post-i96os Central America, echo Davis's ¶ condemnations of the ways in which __the global economy and geopolitics create ¶ vulnerable populations and cause disasters. In contrast to most environmental histories ¶ of warfare that examine the effects of weapons, science, technology, and military ¶ resource consumption, the small historiography on Latin America emphasizes the ¶ environmental dimensions leading to war as well as consequences__.87 William Durham's ¶ analysis of the 1969 Honduras-El Salvador Soccer War illuminates the role of ecology ¶ and environmental conflicts. He shows how resource scarcity and land loss drove ¶ 300,000 Salvadorans to emigrate into an already strained situation in Honduras.88 ¶ Daniel Faber makes this point more broadly and emphatically, arguing that "Marxist ¶ and socialist theory should place the ecological crisis at the center of any analysis ¶ of revolution and imperialism in Central America."89 For Faber__, capitalism produces ¶ multiple environmental effects that include warfare as well as the overexploitation ¶ of natural resources and the transformation of the peasantry from subsistence to the ¶ capitalist export sector.__ T__hese social studies of warfare and disasters in Central America__ ¶ link with more recent scholarship on environmental justice.90 They also __point to the__ ¶ importance of understanding social relations and power dynamics- the fundamentals ¶ of social history- __inherent in past human-environment interactions’__

Warming Frontline
1. No extinction – species are resilient.
 * INPCC 11** . Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change. Surviving the unprecedented climate change of the IPCC. 8 March 2011. http://www.nipccreport.org/articles/2011/mar/8mar2011a5.html

In a paper published in //Systematics and Biodiversity//, Willis //et al//. (2010) consider the IPCC (2007) "predicted climatic changes for the next century" -- i.e., their contentions that "global temperatures will increase by 2-4°C and possibly beyond, sea levels will rise (~1 m ± 0.5 m), and atmospheric CO2will increase by up to 1000 ppm" -- noting that it is "widely suggested that the magnitude and rate of these changes will result in many plants and animals going extinct," citing studies that suggest that "within the next century, over 35% of some biota will have gone extinct (Thomas //et al//., 2004; Solomon //et al//., 2007) and there will be extensive die-back of the tropical rainforest due to climate change (e.g. Huntingford //et al//., 2008)." On the other hand, they indicate that some __biologists and climatologists have pointed out that "many of the predicted increases in climate have happened before, in terms of both magnitude and rate of change__ (e.g. Royer, 2008; Zachos //et al//., 2008), __and yet biotic communities have remained remarkably resilient__ (Mayle and Power, 2008) __and in some cases thrived__ (Svenning and Condit, 2008)." But they report that those who mention these things are often "placed in the 'climate-change denier' category," although the purpose for pointing out these facts is simply to present "a sound scientific basis for understanding biotic responses to the magnitudes and rates of climate change predicted for the future through using the vast data resource that we can exploit in fossil records."Going on to do just that, __Willis //et al//____. focus on "intervals in time in the fossil record when atmospheric CO2__ __concentrations increased up to 1200 ppm, temperatures in mid- to high-latitudes increased by greater than 4°C within 60 years, and sea levels rose by up to 3 m higher than present,"____describing studies of past biotic responses that indicate "the scale and impact of the magnitude and rate of such climate changes on biodiversity__ ." And what emerges from those studies, as they describe it, "is ev __idence for rapid community turnover, migrations, development of novel ecosystems and thresholds from one stable ecosystem state to anoth__ er." And, most importantly in this regard, they report " __there is very little evidence for broad-scale extinctions due to a warming world____.__ " In concluding, the Norwegian, Swedish and UK researchers say that "based on such evidence __we urge some caution in assuming broad-scale extinctions of species will occur due solely to climate changes of the magnitude and rate predicted for the next centur__ y," reiterating that " __the fossil record indicates__ __remarkable biotic resilience to wide amplitude fluctuations in climate."__ 2. No warrant for if ethanol CO2 reduction is adequate – solvency evidence indicates they might help cars, but that leaves factories all across the world still producing CO2. 3. Warming is natural – part of a cycle. Yes, there is no doubt about it __. The planet is experiencing a siege of abnormally high temperatures. This has now been going on for 15,000 to 18,000 years, a life-friendly period known as an interglacial cycle__. During glacial ages that exist about 90% of the time, our Northern Hemisphere is mostly covered with ice up to several miles thick. __Records of these alternating glacial and interglacial fluctuations reveal the near regularity of an electrocardiogram over many hundreds of thousands of years … beginning long before__ the man-made inventions of agriculture, smokestacks, SUVs and __carbon offset trading scams__. And just how abnormally warm is it now? Let's consider some "recent" comparisons. __Temperatures are probably about the same today as during a "Roman Warm Period__ " slightly more than __2,000 years ago__, and much warmer than the "Dark Ages" that followed. __They are cooler than the "Medieval Warm Period"__ about 1,000 years ago when Eric the Red and his Icelandic Viking tribe settled on grasslands of Greenland's southwestern coast, and much warmer than about 400 years ago when the Northern Hemisphere plunged into depths of a "Little Ice Age" (not a true Ice Age). Near the end of that period Washington's army suffered brutal cold at Valley Forge (1777), and Napoleon's, a frigid retreat from Russia (1812). 4. No warrant for a shift to cars – we have ethanol fuels now but people prefer the cheaper oil.
 * BELL 11-3-2010** (Larry, Prof at U Houston, http://www.forbes.com/2010/11/02/global-warming-climate-change-al-gore-opinions-columnists-larry-bell.html)

5. Globalization makes their solvency impossible – we have connected the world in a way that magnifies minor accidents and spreads them across the globe – making the collapse of the environment and economy inevitable.
 * Redhead 2009 ** (Steve Redhead, Professor of Sport and Media Cultures at the University of Brighton in the UK, “MOBILE ACCELERATED NONPOSTMODERN CULTURE”, Working Papers in Mobile Accelerated Nonpostmodern Culture (MANC), 2009, Pg 5-8, JK)

Paul Virilio, the French urban theorist of speed and catastrophe is responsible (Virilio, 2007b: 68) for the development of the 0 of ‘claustropolis’ (which in his thinking has replaced cosmopolis). Dromomania is Virilio’s term for those obsessed with speed and a society where everyone has to keep moving and accelerating – a fitting label for our finance capitalism driven twenty-first century descent into global chaos. Virilio, __too, spotted the potential future ‘integral accident’ in globalisation; the linking together of the world’s stock markets in the 1980s. He told Philippe Petit,__ prophetically, in interview in 1996, twelve years before the 2008 crash: ‘__The speed of circulation has supplanted money. The production that resulted from this three-dimensional money is itself eliminated in favour of pure speculation, in other words a pure electronic game. The movement of dematerialisation which I analysed in reference to the city and the neighbour reappears in the case of money. The logic is exactly the same, in other words, the aesthetics of disappearance, and what is disappearing now is production and the money referent. We exceeded the limit of the speed of exchange with the Trading programme that combined the stock markets into one.__ Wall Street, London, Frankfurt and Tokyo are now just one stock market’. (Virilio with Petit, 1999: 107) Virilio also told Petit in the same interview that the 1987 stock exchange meltdown was ‘an accident’ waiting to happen (again): ‘With the acceleration following the transportation revolution of the last century, the number of accidents suddenly multiplied and sophisticated procedures had to be invented in order to control air, rail and highway traffic. With the current world-wide revolution in communication and telematics, acceleration has reached its physical limit, the speed of electromagnetic waves. __So there is the risk not of a local accident in a particular location, but rather of a global accident that would affect if not the entire planet, then at least the majority of people concerned by these technologies__. On this subject, consider the stock market crash of 1987that resulted from the implementation of the Programme Trading of automatic stock quotations on Wall Street. It is apparent that this new notion of the accident has nothing to do with the Apocalypse, but rather with the imperious necessity to anticipate in a rational way this kind of catastrophe by which the interactivity of telecommunications would reproduce the devastating effects of a poorly managed radioactivity – think about Chernobyl.’ (Virilio and Petit, 1999: 93 ) For Virilio ‘the stock market crash’ of 1987 was a ‘sign of what’s to come’ __(Virilio and Petit, 1999: 91). In June 2007 he predicted that the ‘stock market…is in danger of crashing far more seriously than it did in 1929, since all the stock markets are now interconnected’__ (Virilio and Lotringer, 2008: 230). Paul Virilio, arguably ‘the most provocative French cultural theorist on the contemporary intellectual scene’ (Armitage, 2001: 1) has not yet spawned his own online journal of ‘Virilio’ Studies unlike his compatriot, the late Jean Baudrillard (2). If it ever did exist it is a safe bet that the International Journal of Virilio Studies journal would feature strongly Virilio’s idea of the ‘accident’ and that the notion of ‘catastrophe’ would be a dominant theme. So would ‘bunker archaeology’. In the late 1950s a young Paul Virilio (Armitage, 2000, Armitage, 2001, Redhead, 2004a, Redhead, 2004b) first put pen to paper about the German bunkers he had begun photographing along the Atlantic coast. The work went on until 1965. The bunkers along the Atlantic Wall totalled 15,000 and were designed to repel Allied attack against occupied France. These bunkers had fascinated Virilio since he was a ten year old boy evacuated to Nantes in the Second World War. He always saw himself as a ‘blitzkreig baby’ or ‘war baby’ where he studies at the ‘university of disaster’ (Virilio, 2009b) and later was himself conscripted into the French army during the Algerian war of independence. Virilio subsequently published the very short piece ‘Bunker Archeologie’ (see translation in Redhead, 2004a: 11-13) and eventually a book called Bunker Archeology (Virilio, 2009a, English translation) following an original French edition and the exhibition of his collection of text and images on the bunkers at the Decorative Arts Museum in Paris in 1975. Sociologist Mike Gane has written, convincingly, of Paul Virilio’s ‘bunker theorising’ (Gane, 2000) and I have proposed a ‘bunker anthropology’

6. Carbon dioxide does not lead to global warming—Provides cooling through photosynthesis Philip **Haddad** June 22, **2011** PhD Chem. E. retd. Carbon Dioxide does not Cause Global Warming! http://www.alvinsun.net/articles/2011/06/22/opinion/editorials/doc4e0228a53ed3d528547342.txt __There is a mistaken notion that carbon dioxide is the cause of global warming__. Although there is a clear correlation between the rate of rise of temperature and the rate of rise of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, this is because 80 percent of our energy comes from fossil fuels. The __carbon dioxide is just an indicator of__ all the __energy consumed__. Where does all this energy go? It goes into the atmosphere. __The real damage caused by the “carbon dioxide greenhouse” myth it now is assumed that any energy source that does not produce carbon dioxide is acceptable. Hogwash!__ Energy is heat. __As a “greenhouse” gas, carbon dioxide is insignificant compared to water vapor.__ For example, in arid regions the temperature swings from very hot in the day to frigid at night due to loss of heat through radiation. Yet __the atmosphere__ there __has the same carbon dioxide concentration as the more humid areas. Furthermore, carbon dioxide provides cooling through photosynthesis__.

7. No evidence for how long until the sugarcane is fully functional and a part of the American energy supply, means it could take years past the tipping point.

8. Too late to stop warming __New research indicates the impact of rising CO2 levels in the Earth's atmosphere will cause unstoppable effects to the climate for at least the next 1000 years__, __causing researchers to estimate__ a collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet by the year 3000, and __an eventual rise in the global sea level of at least four metres.__ The study, to be published next week, is the first full climate model simulation to make predictions out to 1000 years from now. __It is based on best-case, 'zero-emissions' scenarios constructed by a team of researchers from the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis__ (an Environment Canada research lab at the University of Victoria) __and the University of Calgary__. "We created 'what if' scenarios," says Dr. Shawn Marshall, Canada Research Chair in Climate Change and University of Calgary geography professor. " __What if we completely stopped using fossil fuels and put no more CO2 in the atmosphere? How long would it then take to reverse current climate change trends and will things first become worse?" The research team explored zero-emissions scenarios beginning in 2010__ and in 2100.
 * CLICK GREEN 1-7-2011** (““Unstoppable effects” of climate change will last for 1,000 years,” http://www.clickgreen.org.uk/opinion/opinion/121749-%E2%80%9Cunstoppable-effects%E2%80%9D-of-climate-change-will-last-for-1,000-years.html)

9. Their evidence says it causes extinction in 2080 – that is plenty of time to adapt to environmental issues.

10. Universal truth claims about the environment ignore particular histories and particular epistemologies which privileges the material world and colonizes both people and the environment in the sake of perfection – allowing more ecological destruction. Molyneux and Steinberg 1995 [Maxine and Deborah Lynn, Mies and Shiva’s Ecofeminism: a new testament? Published Feminist Review Spring 1995 no. 49] As the opening quote of this paper suggests, narratives are essential to the way we know and understand the world in which we live. That is, narratives describe the ontological structure of the world in which we live and provide guidelines for how we know that world. Epistemological and ontological foundations are often hidden in narratives. These hidden foundations within narratives deny differences and devalue the interrelated, ongoing process of all creation if the particularity of the narrative is forgotten. That is, their (ideal) epistemological claims lose touch with the (material) ontological context in which they are made. When knowledge claims no longer claim particularity, but universality, they deny their contextuality and claim a knowledge boundary beyond which no one can see and which must be assumed rather than critically engaged .2 They then lead to hegemonic knowledge claims that centralize knowledge, agency, and the capacity for truth in the claimer of an assertion .3 In other words, they idealize the material world and all life therein and colonize that world with their own truth claims .4 Both idealism and materialism are in this sense, “idealistic”: all reality is made to fit one, human, eco-socially located explanation. Or, put another way, both are reductionistic: they try to reduce all reality to a human idea(l). Contrarily, epistemological and ontological narratives that recognize the postfoundational, contextual nature of knowledge often recognize and respect differences and particularity precisely because they focus on the contexts of knowledge (thereby exposing “foundations” as partial rather than universal).5 These epistemologies are more conducive to knowledge claims about ontology that recognize agency (and thus value) in the other and lead to understandings of truth as a communicative and dialogical process (rather than a monological claim). That is, through a dialogical process, these claims remain open to the evolving material world and “others’” knowledge claims therein. They value both the material and the ideal aspects of life. Furthermore, by acknowledging the tentative nature between knowing and reality, these postfoundational knowledge claims require us to take responsibility for our knowledge assertions and our actions based on these knowledge assertions .6 These narratives, then, have implications for anthropology and ethics. Many postcolonial, feminist, mujerista, latina/o, womanist, and other critical discourses share in this form of epistemological/ontological respect of diversity and taking responsibility for knowledge claims. These critical discourses have uncovered the hidden assumptions about race, class, gender, in hegemonic narratives. Why, then, do I focus on social/ist ecofeminism?7 Social/ist ecofeminist epistemologies/ontologies inherently focus on the relationships among human beings (gender, race, class, etc.), and on the relationships between humans and the rest of the natural world. That is, they see humans as part of the rest of the natural world and not as an exception to the rest of the natural world. Although the ecofeminists whose work I examine can be grouped under the category of “social/ist” ecofeminism, they are by no means a homogeneous group of thinkers. What does unite them is a respect for the agential capacities and value of all life on the planet along with respect for the inherent diversity of life on the planet. Likewise, they claim that nature-culture, self-other, conscious-matter are co-constitutive, constructed categories. “A view of nature can be seen as a projection of human perceptions of self and society onto the cosmos. Conversely, theories about nature have historically been interpreted as containing implications about the way individuals or social groups behave or ought to behave.”8 For humans, there is no getting outside the textof nature-culture. 9 These social/ist ecofeminists challenge foundationalism that asserts a one-to-one relationship between thought and reality, and nonfoundationalism that claims that all reality is made through language systems alone. “In layers of history, layers of biology, layers of natureculture, complexity is the name of our game .”10 Rather than a Platonic (and in many cases Christian) valuing of the ideal over the material or a physicalist reduction of the ideal to the material (which is also an idealism, if one considers that reality is idealmaterial), these ecofeminists assert that nature-culture, ideal-material, mindbody, spirit-flesh, are the starting points for reflection on the world in which we humans live. This is the exact type of starting point, for instance, that Rosemary Ruether suggests in the title (and content) of her book Gaia (earth/material) and God (ideal/prophetic). 11 It is what I am referring to in this article as a social/ist ecofeminist eco-ontology. Far from being relativists, these ecofeminists argue that human beings must take responsibility for our beliefs about the world and the actions that ensue from those beliefs. Neither universality (a form of hyperidealism) nor relativity (also a form of hyperidealism) allow for this type of epistemic responsibility. “Relativism and totalization are both ‘god tricks’ promising vision from everywhere and nowhere equally and fully.”12 Both universality and relativity lead to a denial of the eco-social contextual subject. If one posits no “foundation,” then neither relativity nor universality makes any sense; rather, contextuality is the name of the game. For ecofeminists, the ecological is just as important as the social/historical when talking about epistemological locatedness: “There is no epistemic process to which we have access that is not a matter of embodiment within an ecological niche.”13

Solvency
1. Evidence indicates that Cuba has funding now – US not needed. 2. Sugar ethanol industry development is super slow---years before they have a chance to solve advantages Specht 13 [Jonathan-J.D. Wash. U St. Louis, Legal Advisor, “Raising Cane: Cuban Sugarcane Ethanol’s Economic and Environmental Effects on the United States,” Environmental Law & Policy Journal, Univ. of California Davis, Vol. 36:2, [] ]

Like all new capitalist industries to emerge in the post-Castro era, whatever ethanol industry arises will have to deal with the painful transition from socialism to capitalism. The Cuban sugarcane ethanol industry willface similar challenges to other private sector industries that arise in the post-Fidel era. One of these challenges will be simply a lack of people with skills necessary for any industry. According to Edward Gonzalez and Kevin McCarthy of the RAND Corporation, "As a result of 40-plus years of communism, the labor force lacks the kinds of trained managers, accountants, auditors, bankers, insurers, etc., that a robust market economy requires ." n53 While these challenges will not be unique to Cuba's ethanol industry, they will put the country at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis existing ethanol exporters such as Brazil. This will be especially true if there is a significant lag time between the expiration of the ethanol tariff barriers at the end of 2011 and the eventual removal of the United [*181] States trade embargo against Cuba. ¶ Additionally, because Cuba's ethanol industry is currently almost non-existent, it will need a great deal of foreign expertise and investment to get started. However, s uch investments are unlikely to be made unless Cuba makes fundamental changes in its business climate. In the words of Gonzalez and McCarthy, "Capital investment, which Cuba's economy desperately needs and which is most likely to be supplied by foreign investors, will be difficult to attract without enforceable contracts, access to neutral adjudication of disputes, and a degree of predictability that has heretofore been lacking." n54 Any post-Castro government will likely begin to make such changes to increase the appeal of the island nation to foreign investment. However, implementing these changes will take time and trial and error, which will slow the creation of a sugarcane-based ethanol industry.

3. Green capitalism is a myth, created so that we can ignore the damage we do to the environment, and feel better about our practices. Environmental destruction is part of capitalism’s nature, and it will inevitably do so. (Jennifer C., Associate Professor of English and the Director of the Africana Studies Program at The George Washington University, “Burried in Guana: Race, Labor, and Sustainability”, Project Muse, Spring 2012, [|http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_literary_history/v024/24.1.james.html#back], accessed 7/5/13, JK)
 * James 2012**

Eco-materialists have long held that many for-profit businesses manufacturing " sustainable" products, such as "green" paper products, or claiming "sustainable" practices intentionally encourage unnecessary and destructive consumption. Marxist literary critic Leerom Medovoi maintains that while random acts of "sustainable capitalism" might satisfy consumers' desire to be good environmental citizens, sustainability and capitalism remain fundamentally irreconcilable. Noting the title of Shell Oil's 2001 handbook "people, planet, profit" as a particularly egregious instance in which a corporation has appropriated green discourse [End Page 117] to prolong its environmental recklessness he worries that eco-consumerism of any stripe may "substitute for some more profound ethical critique . . . and political transformation" (132). Retooling Freudian disavowal, the psychic splitting which occurs when humans turn away from those disturbing "facts" about ourselves that we have glimpsed but cannot face, Medovoi finds our relationship to sustainable capitalism equally defensive. The only way we can imagine a healthy planetary future with capitalism is if we willfully deny its "second contradiction": its irrational tendency to harm the environments on which its own survival depends. [|2] This is where the disavowed "dark subtext" of sustainability threatens to surface (131 ). "To sustain" can also mean to be the recipient of injury, as when one "sustains" a wound (131). But sustaining a wound is not the same as succumbing to one; it connotes that the harmed has endured the injury for a period of time and has survived it. As Medovoi explains capitalism has no intention of wantonly killing us all, as other decriers of neoliberalism might believe. More efficiently, it "seeks to gauge the kind and amount of life that must not be killed now so that . . . extraction can continue indefinitely into the future" ( 142). It needs us—at least some of us—to "tolerate" the escalating injury it will inflict as it continues to sustain itself (142). Thus, the very discourse of "sustainability," with its disavowed subtext always trying to emerge, comes uncannily close to revealing capitalism's own disavowal: it damages and then endeavors to cover that damage by marketing us a solution.

4. Modern capitalism has pushed us into the society of the spectacle, where capitalism continues its existence through giving us small, pseudo-gratifications for the desires it creates – such as claiming to stop environmental destruction. This ensures global catastrophe. (Julian Eagles, Phd from London School of Economics, “Guy Debord and the Integrated Spectacle”, http://www.fastcapitalism.com, Fast Capitalism, 9/1/13, accessed 7/5/13, JK) Now, I think the way in which the Situationists imagine that the spectacle reproduces itself, remains, on a general level, the same throughout their oeuvre -early or late.[|[13]] That said, the particular manner in which the spectacle modifies the individual’s passions is portrayed, in Debord’s later oeuvre, as a more intensive process of repression than the Situationists previously imagined. Arguably, this stronger repression refers to the following (although I must stress that this is not made explicit in Debord’s later writings ): that as the capitalist system, by the 1980s, produced a greater range of commodified goods and reified roles for people to consume, there emerged , for the mass of the population, niche markets for commodities. ¶ Spectacular society, through offering a huge range of ‘image-objects’ [|[14]] (alienated goods and roles) for consumption,[|__[15__]] manipulates the individual’s sexual instinct. It stimulates – via images – the individual’s real desires, but only permits ‘pseudo-gratification’.[|__[16__]] The individual, whose passions are subjected to a type of repression as they are ‘rechannelled…in roles’ (Vaneigem 1994: 133) or through the consumption of goods, experiences controlled pleasure; the spectacle, therefore, frustrates the realization of the individual’s real desires.[|__[17__]] Post 1968, modern capitalism, due to changes in mass production techniques, offers a greater variety of image-objects from which to choose than hitherto. And it is through the niche marketing of commodities, it seems, that the spectacle has become more sophisticated in its manipulation of the individual’s real desires. Yet this requires – although this is potentially problematic for the spectacle – that the individual becomes more aware of the specificity of his or her desires (see section III). That said, the spectacle continues, nevertheless, to thwart genuine self-realization, as it re-routes the individual’s authentic desires towards commodified forms of leisure or play.[|__[18__]] ¶ In addition to modern capitalism’s manipulation of the individual’s sexual instinct, I think it can also be argued that the integrated spectacle manipulates, as did the spectacle (in a minor way) in its diffuse form and (to a greater extent) in its concentrated version, the instinct of self-preservation to help perpetuate itself (see below).[|[19]] With this in mind, let us explore in greater detail how the spectacle in its integrated form functions.¶ In his Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, Debord brings the notion of fear more to the fore.[|__[20__]] He claims that:¶ Going from success to success, until 1968 modern society was convinced it was loved. It has since had to abandon these dreams; it prefers to be feared (Debord 1990: 82).¶ What Debord implies here, I think, is that the 1968 rebellion in France revealed –particularly to the ruling class – that the majority of the population was not deeply integrated into spectacular society. In addition to this, D ebord suggests that the spectacle ‘has at least sufficient lucidity to expect that its free and unhindered reign will very shortly lead to a significant number of major catastrophes’(1990: 62). He points to an ecological catastrophe, citing the dangers associated with nuclear power plants and the destruction of the earth’s ozone layer by CFC gases (1990: 34-8, 62). He also mentions an economic catastrophe, ‘in banking, for example’ (1990: 62). For Debord, then, the circumstances of the post 1968 era have been conducive for fear to become a major factor in relation to the reproduction of spectacular society.[|__[21__]]¶ Surveillance organizations, which lurk in the background ready to strike at organized opposition, make people fear the consequences of dissent. They ensure that proletarian[|[22]] opposition to spectacular society is ‘eliminated’ (Debord 1990: 80) or ‘dispersed’ (1990: 84). Debord maintains that: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Under spectacular domination people conspire to maintain it, and to guarantee what it alone would call its well-being. This conspiracy //is a part// of its very functioning (1990: 74).
 * Eagles 2012**

Framing
1. Trade is utilized by the Western powers to create financial dependency of other nations and force a colonial strategy upon those populations and embeds violence and racism in everyday political life. Kanth 2005 [Rajani Kannepalli Kanth, Against Eurocentrism: A Transcendent Critique of Modernist Science, Society, and Morals 67-69] __The firearm, the printing press__, paper, __and the compass were to become the prime tools of Western domination of non-Western cultures; today, in the__ golden __era of neoliberalist finance, one might add only__ commerce and credit—that is, __trade and financial dependency__ — __as the other set of allied mechanisms__. The simple, if ironic, fact that all of these were originally non-European inventions must be a sobering thought to those prone to genuflect before the putative superiority, and originality, of modernist science. It might also be noted that the (putative) absence of a compass did not inhibit navigation on the part of several non-European peoples who engaged in explorations not of necessity confluent with the motives of trade and conquest __. It was not a__ state of mind, nor a __penchant for reflection, that furthered the rapid development of European natural science__ (although the entire effort was located within the metaphysical matrix of anthropocentrism) __but rather dire industrial necessity in the context of desperate international, and internecine, rivalry and war, features that have but little changed in the modern period where most research that is amply funded is still of the strategic kind.__ If one but adds commercial greed, to industrial need, then we effectively sum up the driving ethos—the colossal strengths and weakness—of European science. Salutary to note, in this regard, that neither Vedic wisdom, wherein science and ethics were combined, nor Buddhist or Jain explorations in mathematics, were either provoked by, or were concomitants of, conquest and accumulation but bore a purity of ardor and endeavor that has simply no modernist European equivalent leastways in the classical period of the Enlightenment (this does not mean that the later post-Vedic tradition did not inculcate philosophy as statecraft.. Kautilya's Arthashastra, in that regard, compares favorably with, if long prior to, Machiavelli's ideas). However, the new scientific outlook of the Enlightenment was not engendered unopposed and had to fight it way over the back of older traditions of science that were far more hospitable to humbler social needs and necessities, that is, they were not driven solely by greed or power. Much as the ideas of liberalism triumphed over church ideology by virtue not of better argument or better evidence, contrary to modernist legend, but the power of better organized force (as instanced in the politics of Galileo in success, and the lost crusade of the great Paracelsus, in failure), the new sciences simply expelled the old arts and pushed them to the outer margins of existence. __Superior force, organization, and iron discipline were the redoubtable tools of European mastery, but even they, in themselves, may not have sufficed to effect the supreme dominance that is visible today in all corners of the world__ (excepting China, which remains the least Europeanized of any modernist social formation) __were this force not to be supplemented with a philosophy of domination that__, __to this day, has no pareil in the history of human endeavors. Non-European empires__, faced with the European peril, __had to learn the hard way that guns without arguments almost fail to fire altogether. Somewhere in the Renaissance, Europe possessed itself of such an inexorable ideology, a veritable manifest, of conquest of all things—and peoples__. __The very spirit of the ruling European (and his North-American counterparts) today is informed with this wantonly conquistadorean, carpetbagging, temper, still seeking gullible subjects cum consumers, wherever possible, still seeking to__ take without giving, to rule without consent, ready to cheat on treaties, renege on friends, and __exact from the weak and the helpless__. __The craven U.S. invasion of Grenada__, infamous act of state piracy apart, __where the mightiest force on earth trampled on the poorest little island imaginable, and then awarded themselves a glittering gallery of medals__ —more than one medal each for every soldier, sailor, and marine landed (and many who never landed incidentally)— __can convey but a very small appreciation of just how far from even the very simplest norms of morality European "civilization" has traversed in but a few centuries (equally linear and unbroken is the red line of infamy that connects the atrocities of the Europeans in Africa and the technology driven savagery of Americans in Vietnam)__. Indeed, __the very word itself today has no readily agreed upon meaning or significance in modernist society—just as similarly, economics, the ruling logos of modernism, has no place for__, and comprehension of, __the idea of fairness or justice, terms which are literally meaningless within that discourse. With the destruction of normative ties, the social basis of morality erodes and becomes privatized__ (small wonder that the U.S. Supreme Court deems, with much relief, morality a local, community resource subject to local adjudications and alterations of fashioris). __Morality__, __like ethics, becomes merely an option, among many choices, for the ordinary person, to be exercised when it involves the least cost to the practitioner__ ; like faith, its close country cousin, it has become effectively dispensable, and quite sub-optimal, as a workable code for conduct. Once again, the United States (where bad guys win with a grim, degrading, monotony), the most degenerately advanced in these directions, is living testimony to the simple rectitude of these propositions, whose truth is confirmable by simple, direct observation alone.

2. Economic interdependence doesn’t check Antov 11 [Michael – Department of Political Science at Duke University, “Economic Interdependence and International Conflict: The Implications of Membership in International Economic, Financial, and Monetary Organizations and Multilateral Preferential Trade Agreements”, December 15th, 2011, [], Chetan] In contrast to the liberal arguments, realists have argued that in an anarchic world in which states are solely concerned with preserving their existence, the more interactions among states there are, the higher the likelihood of conflict (Mearsheimer, 1995). That is, economic interdependence provides yet another potential interstate asymmetry and is thus a reason for conflict initiation. Most notably in the economic interdependence – conflict debate, Katherine Barbieri’s //empirical tests// have shown that bilateral trade increases the probability of MIDs ( militarized interstate disputes). (1996, 2001, 2002). Her central claim is that, “rather than inhibiting conflict, extensive economic interdependence increases the likelihood that dyads will engage in militarized interstate disputes” (1996: 29). Barbieri recognizes that low to moderate degrees of interdependence may reduce the likelihood of conflict, but she argues that, the more extensive the linkages become, the more likely interdependence will have the opposite effect. As Maoz points out, another powerful realist theory is that states’ strategic interests matter more than economic interdependence does – countries can be economically interdependent and still fight over non-economic interests (2009). Realists have focused on the causes of war and “have emphasized the conflictual aspects of international transactions whereas liberals clearly emphasize the beneficial aspects. From this different starting point, realists come to the conclusion that //[economic] interdependence either increases the likelihood of war or is not related to war initiation// ” (McMillan, 1997: 40). Moreover, it should be noted that realists are above all concerned with war (in terms of armed conflict with at least 25 battle-related deaths or other much higher death thresholds), while liberals have considered a diversity of conflict types, primarily focusing on MIDs.

Cap K

 * Modeling of neoliberal economic policies by the US towards any other state advances neoliberalism everywhere, especially in the target state **
 * Gathii ’11 ** (James Thuo, Wing-Tat Lee Chair in Internation Law and Professor of Law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, “The Neoliberal Turn in Regional Trade Agreements,” Washington Law Review 86.3, October 2011, ProQuest, 07/06/13, ..http://search.proquest.com/docview/909616504/13F1625DC522878C31F/2?accountid=7113 SM)

Further, **__bilateralism … by developing countries.__**

The modern Globalization is a reaffirmation of labor control techniques, Specifically the American hegemon is a construction of racial division and domination Quijano 2k, (Anibal Quijano, PhD and professor in sociology, “Coloniality of power and Eurocentrism in Latin America”, 7/5/13 SS, [])

What is termed … ¶ the world market.

Capitalism is devoid of ethics—it objectifies all people and inter-personal relations. Lamothe 12 , (Ryan LaMothe, Professor of Theology at St. Meinrad College, 7 July 2012, “The Spirits of Capitalism and Christianity and Their Impact on the Formation of Healthcare Leaders”, Journal of Religion and Health, 7/9/13 SS, [])

The third point deals with the … limiting its less savory effects

(Mark Carey, assistant professor of history at Washington and Lee University where he teaches Latin American and environmental history. He won the 2008 ¶ Leopold-Hidy Prize for his article, "The History of Ice: How Glaciers Became an ¶ Endangered Species (Environmental History, July 2007), April 2009, “Latin American Environmental History: Current Trends, Interdisciplinary Insights, and ¶ Future Directions”, Jstor, 7/6/13 SS, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40608469)
 * The economic imbalances of societies are at the heart of environmental destruction and warfare, be skeptical of “natural” disasters, they exist as results of exploitation rather than divine happenings **
 * Carey 09 **

DISASTER SCHOLARS ARE … __in past human-environment interactions’__

Reject the aff, thus creating space and allowing for the germination of alternative politics
 * Aparicio and Blaser ’08 ** (Juan Ricardo Aparicio, Associate Professor of Languages and Sociocultural Studies at the University of the Andes, Phd. In Anthropology from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Mario Blaser, professor of Anthropology at University of California, Davis, “The ‘Lettered City’ and the Insurrection of Subjugated Knowledges in Latin America, Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 81, No. 1 (Winter ’08), JSTOR http://www.jstor.org/stable/30052740 SM)


 * __ The rejection of the modern … of the communal system as best as they can. __**

Consult Brazil CP

 * Text- The United States federal government should enter in prior binding consultation with the government of Brazil over the authorization and licensing of American oil companies to participate in the development of Cuba’s energy resources.**

Consultation key to relations – need high level dialogue to act properly (Samuel W. Bodman and James D. Wolfensohn, Chairs; Julia E. Sweig, Project Director “Global Brazil and U.S.-Brazil Relations” Independent Task Force Report No. 66 CAIO accessed tm 7/9) __The Task Force recommends__ __… the other’s interest.__
 * Bodman and Wolfensohn, Chairs Independent Task Force CFR, 2011**

Brazil Influence DA
Uniqueness – US Brazil Relations at crossroads (Samuel W. Bodman and James D. Wolfensohn, Chairs; Julia E. Sweig, Project Director “Global Brazil and U.S.-Brazil Relations” Independent Task Force Report No. 66 CAIO accessed tm 7/9) __Brazil and the__ __… and tolerance.__
 * Bodman and Wolfensohn, Chairs Independent Task Force CFR, 2011**

Link – unilateral action in the region by the US harms relations (Kellie, “The Possibility of Partnership”, Center for American Progress, March, [], accessed on 7/10/13, BT) __The combination of Brazil’s .. mantle in a meaningful way.____ ¶ __
 * Meiman, 2009**

US- Brazil relations key to security cooperation including drugs and terrorism

Brown, Director of Operations for the Office of the Defense, 2013 , Lawrence, “RESTORING THE "UNWRITTEN ALLIANCE: Brazil-U.S. Relations”, National Defense University Press, [], 2nd Quarter 2013, 7/9/13, JG

With the war in Iraq … Unwritten Alliance be restored.

Drug cartel violence kills many – brutal deaths
 * AP 12 ** (“Nameless bodies pile up in drug cartel violence,” //Daily News//, 7/24/2012, [], 7/10/2013, SLiu)

MEXICO CITY — After … been done, Garcia said.

China
Multiple alt causes – Hanson and Lee 13 (Stephanie and Brianna – Council on Foreign Relations, “U.S.-Cuba Relations”, 1/31, http://www.cfr.org/cuba/us-cuba-relations/p11113) What is the //main …// U.S. policy in the region.
 * A) Political views**

Hanson and Lee 13 (Stephanie and Brianna – Council on Foreign Relations, “U.S.-Cuba Relations”, 1/31, http://www.cfr.org/cuba/us-cuba-relations/p11113) What are the issues //…// in presidential elections.
 * B) Human Rights, Guantanamo, and Cuban exiles**

Hanson 13 (Daniel – economics researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, “It's Time For The U.S. To End Its Senseless Embargo Of Cuba”, 1/16, http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/16/its-time-for-the-u-s-to-end-its-senseless-embargo-of-cuba/) While the embargo has…, and//international legal penalties//.
 * C) The rest of the Embargo – the plan is only a fraction**

Cole 12 -- Taipei-based journalist who focuses on military issues in Northeast Asia and in the Taiwan Strait (J. Michael, 9/3, "Taiwan Hedges its Bets on China," http://thediplomat.com/flashpoints-blog/2012/09/03/taiwan-hedges-its-bets-against-china/) //By a number of yardsticks//, … Kinmen and China’s Xiamen.
 * Taiwan-China relations are high**

Shor 12 (Francis, Professor of History – Wayne State, “Declining US Hegemony and Rising Chinese Power: A Formula for Conflict?”, Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, 11(1), pp. 157-167) While the U nited S tates no … commitment to national security.
 * No US-China war – economics**

Environment 1nc

 * The acceleration of a capitalist society has caused small accidents to escalate – means that failure of tech is inevitable in a world of capitalism.**
 * Redhead 2009 ** (Steve Redhead, Professor of Sport and Media Cultures at the University of Brighton in the UK, “MOBILE ACCELERATED NONPOSTMODERN CULTURE”, Working Papers in Mobile Accelerated Nonpostmodern Culture (MANC), 2009, Pg 5-8, JK)

Paul Virilio, the French .. proposed a ‘bunker anthropology’

Mary O'Grady (is a member of the editorial board at The Wall Street Journa) WSJ – April 24, 2013 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324474004578442511561458392.html Then came promises … //the end of shallow-water drilling.// Padgett 12 (Tim, “The Oil Off Cuba: Washington and Havana Dance at Arms Length Over Spill Prevention”, 1/27, http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2105598,00.html) On Christmas Eve, a massive, //…//, says the Cubans "seem very motivated to do the right thing." Sadowksi 12 (Richard – Managing Editor of Production of the Journal of International Business and Law Vol. X, J.D Candidate at Hofstra University, “Cuban Offshore Drilling: Preparation and Prevention within the Framework of the United States’ Embargo”, 2012, http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1497&context=sdlp) Fears that Cuban offshore … have provided //supplemental alternatives//. 66
 * No drilling in the squo – all companies have bailed.**
 * Status quo solves – US inspections of rigs**
 * Cuban drilling is safe – access to technology and safety standards prove**

Economy 1nc
Melhem et al 06 – PhD, Professor of Structural Engineering (Dr. G. A. Melhem, Dr. A. S. Kalelkar, Dr. S. Saraf “Managing LNG Risks: Separating the Facts from the Myths” updated 2006, http://archives1.iomosaic.com/whitepapers/Managing%20LNG%20Risks.pdf) Historical review of LNG safety in the United States and worldwide __ The LNG industry ____ in the ____ … __ __ in LNG systems and operations. __
 * Zero risk of LNG explosions – empirics and new tech**

AS Kalelkar, 8/ 2006 , Dr. G. A. Melhem (President and CEO @ ioMosaic), Dr. A. S. Kalelkar (Principal Consultant @ ioMosaic), Dr. S. Saraf (partner @ ioMosaic), and Henry Ozog (general partner @ ioMosaic), “Managing LNG Risks: Separating the Facts from the Myths,” ioMosaic Corporation (a leading provider of safety and risk management consulting services), http://archives1.iomosaic.com/whitepapers/Managing%20LNG%20Risks.pdf Myth No. 1 An LNG … severe damage to people and property.
 * LNG explosions don’t cause extinction**

Quoddy 8 (Bay LLC, “Safety & Security”, http://www.quoddylng.com/safety.html) The ships will employ … grounding, as well as separate ballast.
 * No accidents –**
 * A) Double hulls**

Quoddy 8 (Bay LLC, “Safety & Security”, http://www.quoddylng.com/safety.html) LNG facilities have … automatic shutdownsystems.
 * B) Safety systems**

Quoddy 8 (Bay LLC, “Safety & Security”, http://www.quoddylng.com/safety.html) Are LNG tankers and storage … ship a security risk.
 * Multiple checks prevent LNG terrorism**