West Coast Publishing Ocean 2014 affirmative page

Managerialism Answers

Managerialism Answers – Luke is wrong/Alternative fails

Luke would advocate alternative energy as a reversal of U.S. eco-imperialism

Timothy W. Luke, PhD., Program Chair in the Government and International Affairs, School of Public and International Affairs, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2003, "Eco-Managerialism: Environmental Studies As A Power/Knowledge Formation,” Aurora Magazine Online, http://web.archive.org/web/20030802005346/http://aurora.icaap.org/2003Interviews/luke.html, Accessed 4/4/2014

What do we want out of this? I think if there's a politics engaged now in our environmentalism, it's that of a kind of eco-imperialism, which basically says, in the United States we've got ours and we're going to keep it. What's ours is ours and what's yours is ours. That's the way it is. Out of the guise of whatever - terrorism, radical Islamicism, whatever - if the United States needs to go somewhere in order to secure the world's oil or secure the world's anything, that will be done. And the kind of politics that's engaged here is not one of mass democracy in the traditional sense of anybody who's part of the republic should be willing to fight for the republic. It's really based upon technocratic experts who go out and engage in war in multinational coalitions to make this happen. So there is a pretty perverse kind of eco-imperialism building in this kind of global ecology.

Luke’s criticism leads to scapegoating of all individual responsibility

Leslie Paul Thiele, University of Florida, September 1998, “Review: Ecocritique: Contesting the Politics of Nature, Economy, and Culture, By Timothy W. Luke,” American Political Science Review, V. 92, No.3, p. 689.

In another chapter, Luke aptly questions whether the voluntary simplicity and frugality of green consumers will suffice to preserve nature in the face of a global economy structured by the logic of corporate capitalism. Luke's depiction of the omnipotence of corporate capitalism, however, has the effect of freeing the individual from all environmental responsibility and undermining the incentive for individuals to organize against institutionalized environmental degradation.

Luke admits peak oil is here and would say “yes” to new energy sources

Timothy W. Luke, PhD., Program Chair in the Government and International Affairs, School of Public and International Affairs, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2003, "Eco-Managerialism: Environmental Studies As A Power/Knowledge Formation,” Aurora Magazine Online, http://web.archive.org/web/20030802005346/http://aurora.icaap.org/2003Interviews/luke.html, Accessed 4/4/2014

Global oil production has probably peaked in the '90s. We're using more oil than we're finding. The Cornucopians would say, "Don't worry, cool out, it'll be fine. We'll discover more oil somewhere." Perhaps. But right now we're not. In the meantime, transnational enterprise has been much more successful selling cars and trucks to all kinds of people, and that's creating resource scarcity and causing resource problems. So the political, who's friend and who's enemy, re-emerges in the ecological. A lot of what has been going on in environmental affairs has been the tradition liberal confusion of that. How can you overlay the economic, the social, the cultural, and aesthetic over these kinds of conflicts? That's one thing that I think is emerging in the dynamics of the ecological that very few people talk about. If resources are getting scarce, then that leads to conflict. And conflict may lead to military problems, or at least lead to all kinds of quasi neo para crypto imperialist acts. The last great superpower of the world is going around poking his nose in everybody's business, with the purpose of "fight terrorism", or is it doing other things?

Managerialism Answers – Luke is wrong/Economy Turn

Luke alternative would crash the global economy

Timothy W. Luke, PhD., Program Chair in the Government and International Affairs, School of Public and International Affairs, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2003, "Eco-Managerialism: Environmental Studies As A Power/Knowledge Formation,” Aurora Magazine Online, http://web.archive.org/web/20030802005346/http://aurora.icaap.org/2003Interviews/luke.html, Accessed 4/4/2014

Question: Doesn't the politicization of the environment itself produce its own government and politics? In effect aren't you saying all we can do is minimize the harm we do to ourselves and nature, but that we can't ever get out of a managerial position? Timothy Luke: I don't know about that. I think we can get out of it. The question is, how do you get out of it? You could have a nuclear war. You could have a big bio-terrorist accident or attack. You could have an asteroid hit things and mess it up. There's a lot of ways to disrupt the global economy globally, which would get you out of it. You'd have to start back at some previous state. But making a conscious choice to get from where we're at now to whatever would seem to be a more "rational, ecological" way of doing things, will basically require, sadly enough, a value change. People have to value doing things differently.

Economic Collapse causes multiple scenarios of nuclear war

Aaron Friedberg, professor of politics and international relations at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School and Gabriel Schoenfeld, senior editor of Commentary, is a visiting scholar at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, N.J., October 21, 2008, “The Dangers of a Diminished America,” Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122455074012352571.html, Accessed 4/4/2014

Then there are the dolorous consequences of a potential collapse of the world's financial architecture. For decades now, Americans have enjoyed the advantages of being at the center of that system. The worldwide use of the dollar, and the stability of our economy, among other things, made it easier for us to run huge budget deficits, as we counted on foreigners to pick up the tab by buying dollar-denominated assets as a safe haven. Will this be possible in the future? Meanwhile, traditional foreign-policy challenges are multiplying. The threat from al Qaeda and Islamic terrorist affiliates has not been extinguished. Iran and North Korea are continuing on their bellicose paths, while Pakistan and Afghanistan are progressing smartly down the road to chaos. Russia's new militancy and China's seemingly relentless rise also give cause for concern. If America now tries to pull back from the world stage, it will leave a dangerous power vacuum. The stabilizing effects of our presence in Asia, our continuing commitment to Europe, and our position as defender of last resort for Middle East energy sources and supply lines could all be placed at risk. In such a scenario there are shades of the 1930s, when global trade and finance ground nearly to a halt, the peaceful democracies failed to cooperate, and aggressive powers led by the remorseless fanatics who rose up on the crest of economic disaster exploited their divisions. Today we run the risk that rogue states may choose to become ever more reckless with their nuclear toys, just at our moment of maximum vulnerability. The aftershocks of the financial crisis will almost certainly rock our principal strategic competitors even harder than they will rock us. The dramatic free fall of the Russian stock market has demonstrated the fragility of a state whose economic performance hinges on high oil prices, now driven down by the global slowdown. China is perhaps even more fragile, its economic growth depending heavily on foreign investment and access to foreign markets. Both will now be constricted, inflicting economic pain and perhaps even sparking unrest in a country where political legitimacy rests on progress in the long march to prosperity. None of this is good news if the authoritarian leaders of these countries seek to divert attention from internal travails with external adventures. As for our democratic friends, the present crisis comes when many European nations are struggling to deal with decades of anemic growth, sclerotic governance and an impending demographic crisis. Despite its past dynamism, Japan faces similar challenges. India is still in the early stages of its emergence as a world economic and geopolitical power. What does this all mean? There is no substitute for America on the world stage. The choice we have before us is between the potentially disastrous effects of disengagement and the stiff price tag of continued American leadership.

Managerialism Answers - Good (General)

Responsible management is essential to prevent extinction

Timothy W. Luke, Program Chair of the Government and International Affairs Program, School of Public and International Affairs at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1997, Ecocritique, p. 80

Although resource managerialism can be criticized on many levels, it has provisionally guaranteed some measure of limited protection to wilderness areas, animal species, and watercourses in the United States. And, whatever its flaws, the attempt to extend the scope of its oversight to other regions of the world probably could have a similar impact. Resource managerialism directly confronts the existing cultural, economic, and social regime of transnational corporate capitalism with the fact that millions of Americans, as well as billions of other human beings, must be provisioned from the living things populating Earth's biosphere (the situation of all these other living things, of course, is usually ignored or reduced to an aesthetic question). And, if they are left unregulated, as history has shown, the existing corporate circuits of commodity production will degrade the biosphere to the point that all living things will not be able to renew themselves. Other ecological activists can fault resource managerialism, but few, if any, of them face these present-day realities as forthrightly in actual practice, largely because the prevailing regimes of state and corporate power, now assuming the forms of the "wise use" movement, often regard even this limited challenge as far too radical. Still, this record of "success" is not a license to ignore the flawed workings of resource managerialism. In fact, this forthright engagement with resource realities raises very serious questions, as the global tactics of such agencies as the Worldwatch Institute reveal.

Top-down managerialism is crucial to protect the environment

Peter Jacques, Department of Political Science University of Central Florida, February 28, 2007, "A Green Theory of the State: Explaining the State as a Pursuit of Nature," Presented at the annual meeting of the Int’l Studies Association 48th Annual Convention, Accessed 4/5/2014, http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p180224_index.html
In the functionalist perspective, the State comes to exist through a natural need to sew the various parts of the organism together. In the liberal form, the State comes to exist to enforce private property that comes from labor, and its division allows for more affluence, property and expansion. But—where is nature? None of the power that is wielded by the early imperial States is possible without organizing nature first. In order to do this, a strong hierarchical regime is necessary to command the seizure of local non-human nature to build the initial power base—as the British did in converting their forests into ships—and then using this power base to pursue more non-human nature and peoples to funnel into the machine that converts this all into treadmills of wealth and power—as the British used those ships to sail to distant lands and commandeer the people’s lives and natural wealth.

Managerialist approaches are necessary and do not foster domination of nature

Paul H. Gobster, Research Social Scientist with the USDA Forest Service and R. Bruce Hull, PhD, Professor of Forestry, Virginia Tech University, 2000, Restoring Nature: Perspectives from the Social Sciences and Humanities, p. 59

There are cases where restoration, even if it results in the production of an artifact, does not lead to the domination described by Katz. Imagine a case in which the restoration project is one that will restore a corridor between two wilderness preserves. If there is positive natural value in the two preserves that is threatened because wildlife is not allowed to move freely between them, then restoration projects that would restore a corridor (by removing roads, for example) would actually not only morally permissible but also possibly ethically required depending on one’s views of the value of the nature in the preserves. This is not restoration as a second best to preservation or a distraction from preservation; it is restoration as an integral and critical part of the maintenance of natural value. So even if we agree with Katz that humans cannot really restore nature, it does not follow that they ought not to engage in restoration projects that actually repair the damage caused by past domination rather than further that domination.

Statist managerialism is the best approach to protect and preserve the environment

John Barry, PhD., Reader in Politics at the Queen’s University-Glasgow and Robyn Eckersley, Professor in the School of Politics, Sociology and Criminology, University of Melbourne, 2005, The State and the Global Ecological Crisis, p. 91.

Moreover, as a matter of principle, it can be argued that environmental benefits are public goods that ought best be managed by democratically organized public power, and not by private power. Such an approach is consistent with critical theory's concern to work creatively with current historical practices and associated understandings rather than fashion utopias that have no purchase on such practices and understandings. In short, there is more mileage to be gained by enlisting and creatively developing the existing norms, rules, and practices of state governance in ways that make state power more democratically and ecologically accountable than designing a new architecture of global governance de novo (a daunting and despairing proposition).

Managerialism Answers - Good (Fisheries/Famine turn)

Management of ocean fisheries is inevitable and essential to global food supplies

John Marra, the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, July 14, 2005, “When will we tame the oceans?,” Nature, Vol. 436, pp. 175-176.

If history is a guide, the ability of the ocean to supply the fish we take will soon reach its limit despite the best efforts at management, such as environmental restoration or ecosystem-based fisheries management. The collapse of ocean fisheries comes at a time of accelerating demand for food, especially of animal protein. World food production must double in the next 50 years to keep pace with population growth, and the world’s oceans must play an increasingly important role as a food source. In the past 20 years alone, farming of marine fish and shellfish along coastlines has grown about 10% per year. So far, most of the expansion in aquaculture has come from farming freshwater species, such as tilapia and catfish, in ponds. But marine aquaculture, or mariculture, is also growing, and given eventual limits to space on land, moves towards expanded mariculture, such as the recent US proposal, will accelerate in the years to come. The demise of ocean fisheries and the destruction of marine habitats help to explain why ocean domestication is inevitable. But we need to carefully consider how this domestication should happen to avoid many of the pitfalls cited by environmentalists and scientists.

Famine risks collapsing all civilization via war

George Plumb, Environmental Activist, May 18, 2008, “Was Malthus just off a few decades?,” Time Argus, Accessed 4/5/2014, http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080518/FEATURES05/805180310/1014/FEATURES05

Once again the world's food situation is bleak. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the price of wheat is more than 80 percent higher than a year ago, and corn prices are up by 25 percent. Global cereal stocks have fallen to their lowest level since 1982. Prices have gone so high that the United Nations World Food Program, which aims to feed 73 million people this year, reported it might have to reduce rations or the number of people it will help. Food riots are happening in many countries and threaten to bring down some countries as starving people demand better from their government. However, this time the problem will not be so easy to solve. There are some 75 million more people to feed each year! Consumption of meat and other high-quality foods — mainly in China and India — has boosted demand for grain for animal feed. Poor harvests due to bad weather in this country and elsewhere have contributed. High energy prices are adding to the pressures as some arable land is converted from growing food crops to biofuel crops and making it more expensive to ship the food that is produced. According to Lester Brown, president of the World Policy Institute, "This troubling situation is unlike any the world has faced before. The challenge is not simply to deal with a temporary rise in grain prices, as in the past, but rather to quickly alter those trends whose cumulative effects collectively threaten the food security that is a hallmark of civilization. If food security cannot be restored quickly, social unrest and political instability will spread and the number of failing states will likely increase dramatically, threatening the very stability of civilization itself."

Managerialism Answers - Good (Fisheries/Famine Extension)

New fisheries management policies can improve methods to reduce environmental harm while meeting food supply needs

IPSO, 2014, International Programme on the State of the Ocean, “The Main Factors Destroying Ocean Health,” Accessed 4/6/2014, http://www.stateoftheocean.org/threats.cfm

We are taking about 9,000-10,000 tonnes of fish from the Ocean every hour (based on a catch of 80-90 million tonnes per year). The fishing methods used - as well as the sheer scale of the plunder - are having devastating effects on both the fish targeted and virtually all other marine creatures, from seabirds to coral. As a result of unsustainable fishing practices, previously abundant fisheries - such as north-west Atlantic cod - can now produce only a fraction of the food yielded in the past. Yet recent research has shown that by applying precautionary management practices, fisheries can be sustainable and provide food for future generations in a way that is profitable. The new methods of managing marine capture fisheries recognize that the role of fishing has to be viewed as part of the ecosystem. This is critical, given the future demands that will be placed on our food supply by an increasing world population. The new, sustainable practices include the development of networks of marine protected areas and systems of ownership of fisheries by the fishers themselves.

Declining fish stocks are inevitable. Management is the only way to maintain sustainability

John Marra, the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, July 14, 2005, “When will we tame the oceans?,” Nature, Vol. 436, pp. 175-176.

Following the cultivation of land for food, society must take the next step: large scale domestication of the ocean. Last month, the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration proposed legislation to expand fish farming in US federal waters up to 200 miles from the coast, and to increase the numbers of species that can be farmed. Many reacted with dismay to this announcement. But I believe these people are ignoring the inevitable. Aquaculture is entirely responsible for the increase in world fish harvests that has occurred in the past 18 years. We have already accepted domestication of the land; now is the time to accept the same for the seas. The land was transformed with little consideration for the consequences. For the ocean, we will have to decide, and soon, how domestication should take place, so that it is managed in ways that maintain environmental health and sustainability.

Managerialism Answers - Good (Oceans)

Ocean management is inevitable. Once we recognize this, we can craft new solutions

John Marra, the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, July 14, 2005, “When will we tame the oceans?,” Nature, Vol. 436, pp. 175-176.

There is no question that these are significant problems to overcome; such environmental ills echo those visited on the land since the advent of farming. But if we recognize that domestication of the ocean is starting to happen, we can craft a research agenda to mitigate the problems and maintain both economic and ecological sustainability. Research questions for the mariculture industry span basic and applied research, and policy — from marine biology and physical oceanography, to engineering and the law. Which fish species can be adapted to captivity, that is, domesticated throughout their life cycle? How can their health and diets be maintained? Are there alternatives to the small pelagics currently fed to farmed fish, such as by-catch? Where should mariculture systems be situated, in terms of ocean dynamics and the surface wave environment? How should they be constructed and maintained? Answering these questions in turn raises legal and policy concerns. One solution to many of the problems associated with coastal mariculture is to move the systems further offshore — to the waters of the outer continental shelves, and beyond to the open ocean. Generally, offshore systems cause less coastal pollution, but can dramatically increase costs. Nevertheless, pilot projects under development illustrate the potential for creative solutions.

Ocean management policies are crucial to reverse current degradation and ensure long-term sustainability

Rachel Brittin, Pew Oceans Commission, June 3, 2013, “Future of America’s Oceans: Better or Worse?” Pew Oceans Commission,

http://www.pewenvironment.org/news-room/other-resources/future-of-americas-oceans-better-or-worse-85899479449, Accessed 4/8/2014

Our oceans today appear to be undergoing fundamental changes from many directions. Today and in the decade ahead, the United States needs to pursue a holistic, ecosystem-based approach to managing our fisheries to help build resilience in our oceans and respond to existing and future global threats such as the shift of fish toward the poles and deeper as ocean waters warm. This includes:  Providing stronger legal authority to protect essential fish habitats and minimize nontarget catch. Requiring forward-thinking plans to restore and maintain healthy and resilient ocean ecosystems.  Safeguarding forage fish—such as menhaden and sardines, which help form the foundation of the ocean food web—from unsustainable exploitation. Preventing the expansion of fishing into new areas and on species until adequate science and ecosystem protection measures are in place. Incredible challenges lie ahead for preserving our marine environment and sustainably managing our ocean resources. But if we remain committed to sound science and long-term sustainability—the vision of the Pew Oceans Commission a decade ago—we can ensure that our oceans stay bountiful and beautiful for generations to come.

Adopting a stewardship mentality is essential to protect deep ocean environments

Alan Neuhauser, Staff Writer, February 18, 2014, “Scientists Call for Deep Ocean 'Stewardship',” US News & World Report, http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/02/18/scientists-call-for-deep-ocean-stewardship, Accessed 4/6/2014

“Human society has undergone tremendous changes and we rarely, if ever, think about these affecting our ocean, let alone the deep ocean,” said Lisa Levin, a biological oceanographer at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. “The truth is that the types of industrialization that reigned in the last century on land are now becoming a reality in the deep ocean.” At an annual meeting for the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago on Sunday, Levin and others called on government and business leaders to adopt a “stewardship mentality,” chiefly through “international cooperation” and the development of “an entity that can develop and oversee deep-ocean stewardship," in an effort to minimize harm from development.

"From a legal perspective, the deep ocean is filled with contradictions. Deep sea mineral resources located beyond national boundaries are part of the 'Common Heritage of Mankind' under international law, but the fish and octopi that swim just above the seafloor are not," said Kristina Gjerde, senior high seas adviser to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Global Marine and Polar Programme. "To prevent harm we can never hope to repair, precautionary rules need to be in place to guide all human uses of the deep ocean across boundaries and across sectors."

Managerialism Answers - Good (MPAs/Marine Reserves)

Marine reserves show how managerial policies can foster sustainability

IPSO, 2014, International Programme on the State of the Ocean, “The Main Factors Destroying Ocean Health,” Accessed 4/6/2014, http://www.stateoftheocean.org/solutions.cfm#

A crisis on a global scale demands a solution of equal magnitude. IPSO believes that Marine Reserves are our single best hope for averting disaster at an Earth System level. Marine Reserves are the marine equivalent of national parks. Based on the same scientifically-developed model we use to manage terrestrial over-exploitation, Marine Reserves are protected no-take areas. They are the Ocean equivalent of setting aside areas of the rainforest, for example, so that they can continue to create global oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide. By building pockets of resilience, Marine Reserves will allow the Ocean to recover from the stressors we have placed upon it and revert to its natural state, with diverse ecosystems and healthy habitats. As such, Marine Reserves fulfill both an immediate need for protection and a long-term approach capable of managing our Ocean and all of the demands we make upon it.

Marine Protected Areas prove management policies can be effective

Natalie Torkelson, student researcher, June 17, 2013, “Are Marine Protected Areas Effective?,” RJ Dunlap Marine Conservation Program, University of Miami, http://rjd.miami.edu/conservation/are-marine-protected-areas-effective, Accessed 4/8/2014

This study was comparing the trophic, species, and functional diversity between protected and non-protected areas. By comparing these things it is possible to make some inferences about the communities and the composition of these communities. Community composition and structure can be used to determine if an ecosystem is productive and healthy. High functional diversity is one indicator of a productive ecosystem. This study demonstrated that protection affects trophic levels and community structure, and implementing protected areas could help ensure that the ecosystem remains productive. This study is encouraging because it shows that protecting an area is actually making a difference in that ecosystem. There is much more research that needs to be done to determine the best ways to implement a Marine Protected Area, and to ensure that these protected areas are actually effective. With more studies like this one, which look at community structure rather than focusing on single- species conservation, policy makers may be more efficient at designating effective protected areas. With more protected areas, ecosystems are likely to remain healthy and productive and the full benefits of the ecosystem services they provide can be utilized.