Arctic Oil/Gas Neg

2NC A2: Cede Political

Fighting for government change is suicidal in the energy system – our position as academics must prioritize SOCIAL ANALYSIS above PRAGMATISM

http://seedconsortium.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/45925604/Byrne_etal.pdf

Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Established in 1980 at the University of Delaware, the Center is a leading institution for interdisciplinary graduate education, research, and advocacy in energy and environmental policy. CEEP is led by Dr. John Byrne, Distinguished Professor of Energy & Climate Policy at the University. For his contributions to Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1992, he shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Panel's authors and review editors.

Democratic Authoritarian Impulses and Uncritical Capitalist Assumptions When measured in social and political-economic terms, the current energy discourse appears impoverished. Many of its leading voices proclaim great things will issue from the adoption of their strategies (conventional or sustainable), yet inquiry into the social and political-economic interests that power promises of greatness by either camp is mostly absent. In reply, some participants may petition for a progressive middle ground, acknowledging that energy regimes are only part of larger institutional formations that organize political and economic power. It is true that the political economy of energy is only a component of systemic power in the modern order, but it hardly follows that pragmatism toward energy policy and politics is the reasonable social response. Advocates of energy strategies associate their contributions with distinct pathways of social development and define the choice of energy strategy as central to the types of future(s) that can unfold. Therefore, acceptance of appeals for pragmatist assessments of energy proposals, that hardly envision incremental consequences, would indulge a form of selfdeception rather than represent a serious discursive position. An extensive social analysis of energy regimes of the type that Mumford (1934; 1966; 1970), Nye (1999), and others have envisioned is overdue. The preceding examinations of the two strategies potentiate conclusions about both the governance ideology and the political economy of modernist energy transitions that, by design, leave modernism undisturbed (except, perhaps, for its environmental performance).

Framework Answers

Sequencing is key – focusing on state politics absolves individual responsibility for the environment and turns case – independent reason to vote neg

Trennel 6 (Paul, Ph.D of the University of Wales, Department of International Politics, “The (Im)possibility of Environmental Security”)

Thirdly, it can be claimed that the security mindset channels the obligation to address environmental issues in an unwelcome direction. Due to terms laid out by the social contract “security is essentially something done by states…there is no obligation or moral duty on citizens to provide security…In this sense security is essentially empty…it is not a sign of positive political initiative” (Dalby, 1992a: 97-8). Therefore, casting an issue in security terms puts the onus of action onto governments, creating a docile citizenry who await instructions from their leaders as to the next step rather than taking it on their own backs to do something about pressing concerns. This is unwelcome because governments have limited incentives to act on environmental issues, as their collectively poor track record to date reveals. Paul Brown notes that “at present in all the large democracies the short-term politics of winning the next election and the need to increase the annual profits of industry rule over the long term interests of the human race” (1996: 10; see also Booth 1991: 348). There is no clearer evidence for this than the grounds on which George W. Bush explained his decision to opt out of the Kyoto Protocol: “I told the world I thought that Kyoto was a lousy deal for America…It meant that we had to cut emissions below 1990 levels, which would have meant I would have presided over massive layoffs and economic destruction” (BBC: 2006). The short-term focus of government elites and the long-term nature of the environmental threat means that any policy which puts the burden of responsibility on the shoulders of governments should be viewed with scepticism as this may have the effect of breeding inaction on environmental issues. Moreover, governmental legislation may not be the most appropriate route to solving the problem at hand. If environmental vulnerabilities are to be effectively addressed “[t]he routine behaviour of practically everyone must be altered” (Deudney, 1990: 465). In the case of the environmental sector it is not large scale and intentional assaults but the cumulative effect of small and seemingly innocent acts such as driving a car or taking a flight that do the damage. Exactly how a legislative response could serve to alter “non-criminal apolitical acts by individuals” (Prins, 1993: 176- 177) which lie beyond established categories of the political is unclear. Andrew Dobson has covered this ground in claiming that the solution to environmental hazards lies not in piecemeal legislation but in the fostering of a culture of ‘ecological citizenship’. His call is made on the grounds that legislating on the environment, forcing people to adapt, does not reach the necessary depth to produce long-lasting change, but merely plugs the problem temporarily. He cites Italian ‘car-free city’ days as evidence of this, noting that whilst selected cities may be free of automobiles on a single predetermined day, numbers return to previous levels immediately thereafter (2003: 3). This indicates that the deeper message underlying the policy is not being successfully conveyed. Enduring environmental solutions are likely to emerge only when citizens choose to change their ways because they understand that there exists a pressing need to do so. Such a realisation is unlikely to be prompted by the top-down, state oriented focus supplied by a security framework.

They isolate policy from politics—condensing advocacy to a 4 second plan means you can’t assess who debated better—plan focus trains you not to defend the process by which you make conclusions, which turns their offense

Gunder et al, Aukland University senior planning lecturer, 2009

(Michael, Planning in Ten Words or Less: A Lacanian Entanglement with Spatial Planning pgs 111-2)

The hegemonic network, or bloc, initially shapes the debates and draws on¶ appropriate policies of desired success, such as the needs of bohemians, knowledge¶ clusters, or talented knowledge workers, as to what constitutes their desired¶ enjoyment (cobblestones, chrome and cappuccinos at sidewalk cafes) and what¶ is therefore lacking in local competitiveness. In tum, this defines what is blighted¶ and dysfunctional and in need of economic, spatial planning, or other, remedy.¶ Such an argument is predicated on a logic, or more accurately a rhetoric, that a¶ lack of a particular defined type of enjoyment, or competitiveness (for surely they¶ are one and the same) is inherently unhealthy for the aggregate social body. Lack¶ and its resolution are generally presented as technical, rather than political issues.¶ Consequently, technocrats in partnership with their "dominant stakeholders” can¶ ensure the impression of rationally seeking to produce happiness for the many,¶ whilst, of course, achieving their stakeholders' specific interests (Gunder and¶ Hillier 2007a, 469).

The current “post-democratic” milieu facilitates the above through avoidance¶ of critical policy debate challenging favoured orthodox positions and policy¶ approaches. Consideration of policy deficiencies, or alternative “solutions”, are¶ eradicated from political debate so that while “token institutions of liberal democracy”:¶ are retained, conflicting positions and arguments are negated (Stavrakakis 2003,¶ 59). Consequently, “the safe names in the field who feed the policy orthodoxy are¶ repeatedly used, or their work drawn upon, by different stakeholders, while more¶ critical voices are silenced by their inability to shape policy debates' (Boland 2007,¶ 1032). The economic development or spatial planning policy analyst thus continues¶ to partition reality ideologically by deploying only the orthodox "˜successful' or¶ "best practice' economic development or spatial planning responses. This further¶ maintains the dominant, or hegemonic, status quo while providing "a cover and¶ shield against critical thought by acting in the manner of a "buffer" isolating the¶ political held from any research that is independent and radical in its conception¶ as in its implications for public policy' (Wacquant 2004, 99). At the same time,¶ adoption of the hegemonic orthodoxy tends to generate similar policy responses¶ for every competing local area or city-region, largely resulting in a zero-sum game¶ (Blair and Kumar 1997).

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