Particularism NC:

Negate—deny the truth of.

Status quo ethics demand a duality of structural idealism or chaotic nihilism. However, the
world is constantly oscillating between the poles of chaos and order. Only a particularized
view of ethics can answer this complexity. Arnott:
I suggest that Turner's account of the oscillation between structure and anti-structure as the force
behind dynamic and creative society provides us with a fortuitous mode of entry into Guattari's
more complex and terminologically rich analysis and prospective insights. The latter employs the
term 'chaosmosis' to describe the oscillation between the two poles of chaos and complexity,
between the virtual and its manifold and transient actualizations. Although there is in a sense a
unilinear progression leading out of the infinite speeds of chaos towards the finitude of
actualization, the former is not thereby fully eradicated or covered over: "At the source of a
world's constitution there is always a certain modality of chaotic discomfort in its organicity,
functionality and relations of alterity" (C p. 81). No experience is more sensitive to this
persistence of chaos than the psychotic, and Guattari devotes much attention to delineating the
precise nature of such experiences with regard to their unique relation to chaos and social
organization. We should note that Guattari's conception of chaos bears close similarities to the
nature of anti-structure as Turner understands it. There is, however, a problem with the
structure/anti-structure distinction in that it expresses a rigid dichotomy, and if we are to take it
as an ontological description, it seems hard to imagine how we might conceive of anti-structure,
that which is patently not structured, giving rise to that which is. The relation between the
ontological modalities of chaos and complexity as conceived by Guattari do not persist in a
simple relation of opposition or contradiction. Chaos is not simply the antithesis of structure or
organization, but rather describes an ontological 'homogenesis' which would include not only
virtual entities or particles in relatively free or disorganized states but also the potential relations
constitutive of their ordering. Such relations would never be fixed, and a process of selection
must begin to take place if any existential fixity or grasping is to be achieved or actualized. "The
movement of infinite virtuality of incorporeal complexions carries in itself the possible
manifestation of all the components and all the enunciative assemblages actualizable in finitude"
(C p. 112). The psychotic experience is characterized as a selective process, but one which is not
limited to a consistency with the processual orderings already carried out. It is in this sense
understood as autopoietic and is liminal to the extent that it crosses the threshold between
complexity and chaos to return with fresh insights and new existential perspectives: "It is not
therefore Being in general which irrupts in the chaosmic experience of psychosis, or in the pathic
relationship one can enter into with it, but a signed and dated event, marking a destiny, infecting
previously stratified significations. After such a process of dequalification and ontological
homogenesis, nothing will be like it was before. But the event is inseparable from the texture of
the being brought to light" (C p. 81). Note that the experience of psychosis shares with Turnerian
liminality the qualities of 'stripping' and 'levelling' which problematize the structure and permit
potential access to what Guattari calls 'the ontological roots of creativity'. It is in this way that
psychotic experience is linked to or prefigures aesthetic experience which seeks to explore
ontological univocity and develop its potentials in unforeseen and unpredictable ways. This
aestheticization of subjective experience is constitutive of a Bergsonian 'open morality' in that it
engenders new Universes of value which no longer possess the qualities of universals. Such
processes of aesthetic creativity, which are not limited to great works of art, or even to artistic
practice in any traditional sense, but which apply a broadly aesthetic paradigm to all selective
functions, economic, social, political, educational and so on, always involve a relation of
heteropathy, characterized by an initial ‘dequalification’ followed by the creation of new
qualifications as necessary. As Guattari explains: "every aesthetic decentring of points of view,
every polyphonic reduction of the components of expression passes through a preliminary
deconstruction of the structures and codes in use and a chaosmic plunge into the materials of
sensation. Out of them a recomposition becomes possible, an enrichment of the world
(something like enriched uranium), a proliferation not just of the forms but of the modalities of
being" (C p. 90). This is where Guattari's conception of the production of subjectivity becomes
crucial. With the introduction of the aesthetic paradigm as a principal contributing factor in this
production, we can expect a change in existential modes, less reliance on or resignation towards
the general stratification of society, and an increased awareness of the finitude and potential
transiency of dominant Universes of value. In other words, the aesthetic paradigm involves a
certain distancing from the mechanism and stasis of structure, inaugurating a social process
whose increased adaptability and creative freedom ensures its capacity to deal with the problems
which confront it, problems which at the moment seem insurmountable. Guattari has no faith in
the dominant scientific and rationalist paradigms in this regard, because their conservative
tendencies and rules and thus their distance from the ontological root of creativity make them
incapable of engendering the kind of adaptability which seems to be required if we are to
confront our most pressing global problems.
Stephen J. Arnott 2001 “Liminal Subjectivity and the Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm of Felix
Guattari”, Limen 1/2001 – journal for theory and practice of liminal phenomena

This knowledge of the world comes from involvement in it – constantly searching and
questioning. Philosophical truth only comes from pragmatic inquiry – that hijacks their
ethical model since its dependent on the NC Hickman:
Dewey thought that this ‘‘picture theory’’ or ‘‘spectator theory’’ of knowledge was deeply
flawed. He reasoned that knowing is not just the capturing of a picture or impression, but an
active and experimental involvement of an entire organism (not just a ‘‘thinking substance’’ or
even a brain) with the raw materials of its experience in such a manner that tools—including
habits and concepts, for example—are brought to bear on those materials and new products are
formed. And he thought that the point of making these new products was not to take a more
accurate picture representation of what was or had been the case (an external ‘‘state of affairs’’),
but rather to deal with felt problems and difficulties in ways that effected their resolution. He
thought that inquiry is always launched for the sake of resolving some specific felt difficulty.
When inquiry is successful, he argued, it produces a new product—a new outcome. For Dewey
there is no such thing as knowledge in general, but the production of new knowledge in specific
cases, ranging from the most quotidian to the most abstract, involves technology just as surely as
cases of problem-solving in chemical engineering. This is because we live forward in time in a
world that is perilous at best and in continual need of being ‘‘tuned up.’’ We have to keep
turning out new knowledge-products, including new tools and methods, if we are to convert
conditions that range all the way from what is merely irritating to what is life-threatening into
situations that are stable, harmonious, and more nearly what we wish them to be. For Dewey,
therefore, one of the most important concerns of philosophy was not so much epistemology, or
the attempt to deal with the problem of skepticism, but logic, or the theory of inquiry. Inquiry, he
once wrote, is not so much a matter of ‘‘grasping antecedently given sureties’’ as it is a matter of
experimentation, or ‘‘making sure’’ (LW.1.123). Unlike modernist epistemology, Dewey’s
notion of inquiry emphasizes the use of raw materials and the tools that have been designed for
the refinement of those materials. It also involves other tools whose purpose it is to refine and
reconstruct tools that already exist, but that are simpler and more primitive. Inquiry also requires
the production and stockpiling of intermediate parts, among which are relatively secure concepts
and objects. The end or goal of inquiry is products that can be said to be finished in a relative
sense of that term, that is, satisfactory until they are challenged by further experience and
demonstrated to be in need of reworking or reconstruction. It was by means of this view of the
instrumental or productive role and function of inquiry in human experience that Dewey avoided
the problems that had vitiated the work of many of his predecessors. His view avoids the
problems of the empiricism advanced by John Locke, for example, since the central place that
his instrumentalism gives to production allows it to undercut both the sensory atomism and the
associationism on which such empiricism depends. The problem with putative sensory atoms,
Dewey argued, is that they are not primitive at all. They are the products of reflection. And the
problem with associationism is that its associations tend to be arbitrary if they are based on
nothing more than an arrangement of sensory atoms. His view avoids the difficulties of Cartesian
rationalism, moreover, by treating productive inquiry as a public, observable enterprise that takes
place within a community, and not as something that takes place within private, non-extended,
albeit reified mind. Dewey called inquiry ‘‘an outdoor fact,’’ and thought it no less natural and
observable than activities such as chewing or walking. It also avoids the pitfalls generated by the
Kantian treatment of knowledge, especially the view that perceptual and conceptual contents
have different origins, by treating perceptual and conceptual materials as functional aspects of
ongoing inquiry, even as different portions or aspects of judgments. In Dewey’s view, the
perceptual is concerned with marking out and locating a problem in inquiry, whereas the
conceptual is concerned with setting out possible methods of solution. That both types of
materials function correlatively within organized inquiry is apparent from the structure of
judgments, whose subjects, Dewey pointed out, tend to be perceptual and whose predicates tend
to be conceptual. Dewey worked out his extended technological metaphor for inquiry at great
length in the introduction to his 1916 Essays in Experimental Logic. That essay is pervaded by
technological figures. Here is a typical example: Hence, while all meanings are derived from
things which antedate suggestion or thinking or ‘‘consciousness’’—not all qualities are equally
fitted to be meanings of a wide efficiency, and it is a work of art to select the proper qualities for
doing the work. This corresponds to the working over of raw material into an effective tool. A
spade or a watch-spring is made out of antecedent material, but does not pre-exist as a ready-
made tool; and the more delicate and complicated the work which it has to do, the more art
intervenes. (MW.10.354) In the same essay Dewey asserted that ‘‘there is no problem of why
and how the plow fits, or applies to, the garden, or the watch-spring [does] to time-keeping. They
were made for those respective purposes; the question is how well they do their work, and how
they can be reshaped to do it better’’ (MW.10.354–55). This passage contains several points that
are important to the issue at hand, namely the relevance of philosophy as a tool for tuning up
technological culture. First, Dewey wanted to demystify those entities traditionally called
‘‘logical objects,’’ ‘‘essences,’’ and ‘‘ideals,’’ by taking them out of the psychical or meta-
physical realms they had occupied in the works of Plato and Frege, for example, and by treating
them as so many tools in a toolbox. These tools include logical connectives and numbers,
abstract terms such as ‘‘democracy,’’ and essences such as ‘‘the family.’’5 When it is understood
that these entities are tools and the products of tools, then it will also be understood that they are
open to reconstruction and reconfiguration. They will not be honored as essences that are
deemed to be fixed and finished for all time. Since Dewey’s program is radical, its application
would involve certain casualties. Among the big losers, to name just a few examples, would be
Platonism in mathematics and the doctrine of original intent in constitutional law. This is
because each of these positions, as it is usually articulated, depends upon the premise that its
respective essence or ideal is absolute and fixed, and not instrumental and consequently in need
of continuing reconstruction as circumstances dictate. So Dewey argued that essences and ideals
should be treated not as absolute and fixed, but instead as just more artifacts, constructed not so
much by inquiry as arising from inquiry. They are not found within a chain of inference, but are
instead the by-products of inference. In this way they are like agricultural implements that are
developed and improved not as a direct consequence of farming but incidentally, as the by-
products of tilling, planting, and harvesting. In all this Dewey was developing a metaphor that
would allow him to bring the various types of inquiry we term ‘‘successful’’ under one general
formula. He worked out what was already implicit in the work of his fellow pragmatists Charles
Sanders Peirce and William James. For those philosophers, all successful inquiry is productive of
new outcomes that are more secure than the situations that occasioned the inquiry that produced
them. This is true in the sciences, in the arts, in engineering, in agriculture, and in quotidian or
everyday enterprises as well. As Dewey argued in his 1938 Logic, the subject matter and the
specific tactical methods of inquiry may be, and most likely are, different from one of these
enterprises to the next; but each enterprise nevertheless participates within a more general
strategic form of inquiry that he called the ‘‘general method of intelligence.’’ Because his root
metaphor was technological, however, Dewey was able to do explicitly what Peirce and James
had done only implicitly. He was able, for example, to reconstruct the important categories of
human activity traditionally termed ‘‘theory,’’ ‘‘practice,’’ and ‘‘production.’
Larry Hickman “John Dewey as a Philosopher of Technology”
http://classes.matthewjbrown.net/teaching-files/philtech/hickman-dewey.pdf
Thus, the standard is consistency with the pragmatic particularity of moral judgments. It
doesn’t collapse to util since it’s about the structure of moral action, not its consequences.
Precludes the aff:
Prefer:
Imagine max is looking for his tennis racket and he has a good reason to believe it is in a
certain location – also imagine max has another reason he left it at the court. But what if he
finds it in his closet after his beliefs. Here’s the problem: Chapman, Andrew. “The Gettier
Problem.” 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology, 25 July
2018, 1000wordphilosophy.com/2014/04/10/the-gettier-problem// First, the thought is that a
person must believe something to in order to know it. It would seem contradictory to claim that
Max knows, but that Max doesn’t believe, that his tennis racquet is in the closet. Second, it
would seem contradictory to claim to Max knows that his tennis racquet is in the closet while his
racquet is actually back at the court. Max might believe that his racquet is in the closet and be
wrong. He might believe that he knows that his racquet is in the closet and be wrong. He might
even have good evidence that his racquet is in the closet and nonetheless be wrong. In none of
these cases would we say that Max knows where his racquet is, since what he believes is false.
Finally, it seems as though Max needs some justification, evidence, or good reason to believe
that his racquet is in the closet in order for him to know that it is.3 Suppose that Max has no good
reason to believe that his racquet is in the closet. If Max just guesses that it’s in the closet, even if
he serendipitously gets things right, it seems as though Max, while having a true belief, has an
unjustified true belief, and hence, does not have knowledge.

Now negate:
1) Elimination ignores energy hardships from a transition period Hernandez:
“Energy is considered a basic need in modern industrialized societies. It plays a crucial role
in fulfilling most other human needs, be it through heating, cooling, refrigeration, and basic
electricity, which are tied to health needs. For example, an asthmatic who relies on electric-
powered nebulizers, or a diabetic who needs to refrigerate his/her insulin, has energy needs
related specifically to health conditions. Most households, regardless of health conditions,
need access to a home environment that is properly heated or cooled, and increasingly
require television, phone, and Internet services for access to information and help. “Energy
burden” reflects the disproportionate allocation of financial resources among low-income
households on energy expenditures. Compared to middle- and upper-income households that
spend 5 percent or less of their total household income on energy purchases, low-income
householders spend 10 percent or more of their income on energy expenses. The burden is
even greater among the very poor, who are likely to spend an upwards of 20 percent on
energy purchases. Moreover, it is more challenging for low-income households to adapt to
large fluctuations in energy pricing, as experienced with oil, [and] gas, and electricity rates in
recent years. Further, low-income homes are disproportionately less energy efficient
compared to non-poor households, particularly in urban areas where the housing stock is
older. Even further, poverty rates have been increasing. The U.S. government’s official
poverty rate in 2008 was 13.2 percent, up from 12.5 percent in 2007, although some argue
that U.S. poverty rates are systematically underestimated. Financial assistance and subsidies
 for needy families have been chronically underfunded in the home energy sector. Therefore,
utilities hardships are a major component of the housing affordability crisis for low-income
families with payment accountability. Utilities-related debt, shutoffs, inefficient heating
systems, antiquated appliances, and extreme home temperatures have significant health
impacts, including respiratory illness, pneumonia, increased fire risk, bronchitis, hunger, and
stress among others. For poor householders, meeting these basic energy needs can be
challenging. Children, in particular, suffer in families experiencing high energy burden. They
have nutritional deficiencies, higher risks of burns from non-conventional heating sources,
higher risks for cognitive and developmental behavior deficiencies, and increased incidences
of carbon monoxide poisoning.”
Hernandez, Diana and Stephen Bird. “Energy burden and the need for integrated low-income
housing and energy policy.” Poverty Public Policy, vol. 2, no. 4, November 2010.
2) The aff negates…
PQD DA:
Environmental protection is a political question – it’s not in the jurisdiction of the courts.
The aff causes PQD violations by forcing the courts to take an implicit stance on climate
change and environmental protection.
Shapiro 10 [Ilya, EN BANC BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE THE CATO INSTITUTE IN
SUPPORT OF DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES,
https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/comer_v_murphy_oil_usa.pdf] CKarcher
Even if Plaintiffs had Article III standing, their lawsuit nevertheless would be nonjusticiable
under the political question doctrine. That doctrine excludes from judicial review those
controversies which revolve around policy choices and value determinations constitutionally
committed for resolution to the halls of Congress or the confines of the Executive Branch. The
Judiciary is particularly ill suited to make such decisions, as courts are fundamentally
underequipped to formulate national policies or develop standards for matters not legal in nature.
Japan Whaling Ass’n v. Am. Cetacean Soc’y, 47 U.S. 221, 230 (1986) (internal quotation marks
omitted). As Justice Frankfurter warned, “a court is likely to lose its way if it strays outside the
modest bounds of its own special competence and turns the duty of adjudicating only the legal
phases of a broad social problem into an opportunity for formulating judgments of social policy.”
Williams v. N.C., 317 U.S. 287, 307 (1942) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). Accordingly, courts
have traditionally declined to resolve cases that “lack . . . judicially discoverable and manageable
standards for resol[ution],” or are brought “without an initial policy determination of a kind
clearly for nonjudicial discretion,” Baker, 369 U.S. at 217. “[U]nder our Constitution, there are
some questions that cannot be answered by the judicial branch. Out of due respect for our
coordinate branches and recognizing that a court is incompetent to make final resolution of
certain matters, these political questions are deemed ‘nonjusticiable.’” Lane v. Halliburton, 529
F.3d 548, 557 (5th Cir. 2008). This case presents a quintessentially political question: should
federal and state governments regulate greenhouse gas emissions out of concern for their impact
on Earth’s climate? In particular, Plaintiffs seek a federal court determination that Defendants’
greenhouse gas emissions—which are made by every human being and business on the planet—
were unlawful. And Plaintiffs seek this conclusion not because Defendants violated any federal
or state statute capping emissions or because Defendants failed to observe some EPA guideline
or emissions limitation—there are no such rules or regulations. Instead, Plaintiffs urge a federal
court to declare Defendants’ emissions unlawful precisely because the legislature and executive
have not done so. See, e.g., TAC at ¶ 18 n.13. Plaintiffs’ lawsuit seeks to embroil a federal court
in momentous and contested scientific, economic, and policy choices well before the political
branches have decided upon any standard of care that might give content to potential common
law duties arising from greenhouse gas emissions. Allowing this lawsuit to proceed would
violate the separation of powers and would ignore the superior democratic accountability and
institutional competence of the coordinate branches of government.4 Even a cursory review of
Plaintiffs’ complaint reveals the overtly political nature of their claims. In Plaintiffs’ view, the
democratically accountable branches have “refused to regulate,” TAC at ¶ 38, or have “tak[en]
the wrong actions in those instances where they have acted,” id. at ¶ 18 n. 13, or have failed to
act because of “the substantial gap in political power between the people who cause global
warming . . . and the interests most affected by global warming,” id. at ¶ 14. This unabashed
attempt to conscript the judiciary into serving as a proxy EPA may well answer the impassioned
call of commentators, academics (including some amici in this case), and the plaintiffs’ bar to
seek social change through the courts. See, e.g., Randall S. Abate, Automobile Emissions and
Climate Change Impacts: Employing Public Nuisance Doctrine as Part of a “Global Warming
Solution” in California, 40 Conn. L. Rev. 591, 626-27 (2008) (“Desperate times call for
desperate measures. In light of the climate change crisis . . . there is a need for heroic litigation to
go beyond the bounds of traditional doctrine and try to promote public good through creative use
of common law theories like public nuisance.”); Mary Christina Wood, Atmospheric Trust
Litigation, in Adjudicating Climate Change: Sub-National, National, and Supra-National
Approaches (William C.G. Burns & Hari M. Osofsky, eds.) (2009, Cambridge University Press)
(“[J]udges have become so accustomed to issuing rulings within the detailed confines of
statutory law that many may have lost the imagination to construct meaningful remedies under
traditional common law. At a time in history when thinkers across the world are calling for new,
innovative technologies and practices to address climate crisis, lawyers should pioneer
promising, if untested, legal constructs to address carbon loading of the atmosphere”). But
answering this call cannot be reconciled with constitutional limits on the judicial power. For
similar reasons, this case presents the type of generalized grievance that courts consistently find
improper for judicial resolution: the gravamen of Plaintiffs’ complaint is that they, like all people
worldwide, have been injured by the political branches’ failure to adopt comprehensive global
warming policies. Federal courts are wisely reluctant to entertain lawsuits where, as here, the
asserted individual interest is “comparatively minute and indeterminable.” Frothingham v.
Mellon, 262 U.S. 447, 487 (1923). Plaintiffs’ grandiose theory of causation illustrates the
generalized nature of any allegedly harmful activities or asserted injuries. Some of the many
links in their attenuated chain of causation are global “sea level rise,” TAC at ¶ 30, and “a
marked increase in global temperature.” Id. at ¶ 40. These global effects, they allege, cause
“increases in the frequency and magnitude of tropical cyclones . . . and other severe weather
conditions, plus damage to many natural ecosystems.” Id. at ¶ 9. Despite their request for
damages only on behalf of Mississippians, Plaintiffs clearly seeks to vindicate interests shared by
all inhabitants of the planet. Plaintiffs’ lawsuit “respect[s] the nation, not individual rights,” g v.
Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 166 (1803), and is thus clearly outside “the competence of the Judiciary,”
U.S. Dept. of Commerce v. Montana, 503 U.S. 442, 458 (1992). This lawsuit becomes even
more troubling when this Court considers how the adjudication of Plaintiffs’ claims would
proceed. Carmichael v. Kellogg, Brown & Root Servs., Inc., 572 F.3d 1271, 1281 (11th Cir.
2009) (explaining that a court “must analyze [an] appellant’s claim as it would be tried, to
determine whether a political question will emerge”). Making the requested determinations of
liability, whether at summary judgment or at trial, will necessarily require the court to consider
and decide, among other contested matters, if global warming is a phenomenon, whether and the
extent to which it is man-made, whether it contributes to the intensity of global weather events,
and whether it exacerbated Hurricane Katrina. The court also will have to evaluate and identify
the relative responsibility shared by individuals and businesses worldwide for what are
admittedly undifferentiated greenhouse gas emissions, undertake (or omit) a costbenefit analysis,
assess the reasonableness of Defendants’ discrete emissions and activities in light of the benefits
derived therefrom, and balance the tradeoffs that come with establishing the standard of care of a
greenhouse gas emitter. These tasks are well beyond the ken of the judicial office. Moreover,
Plaintiffs should not be allowed to circumvent the limits of justiciability because they cleverly
masquerade their political grievance as a common law nuisance action. The political question
doctrine applies with full force where, as here, a federal court has been asked to adjudicate a tort
claim “without any manageable standards for making reasoned determinations regarding the[]
fundamental elements of negligence claims.” Id. at 1288. “It is difficult to see how [a court]
could impose liability on [Defendants] without at least implicitly deciding the propriety of the
United States’ decision[s]” regarding environmental policy, which would be effectuated through
a complex web of treaties, statutes, and administrative decisions. Corrie v. Caterpillar, Inc., 503
F.3d 974, 982 (9th Cir. 2007). Despite Plaintiffs’ attempt at artful pleading, this case is not about
their common law rights—it is about vindicating Plaintiffs’ conception of the public interest;
Plaintiffs seek to impose substantial costs on particular industries to change behavior they find
objectionable because of its alleged contribution to global environmental phenomena. In other
words, Plaintiffs ask the courts to formulate environmental policy by crafting reasonableness
standards for the lawfulness of decades of defendants’ emissions. But “[o]ne of the most obvious
limitations imposed by [Article III] is that judicial action must be governed by standard, by rule.”
Lane, 529 F.3d at 560 (internal citations and quotations omitted). In our system of government,
these standards and rules are provided by the political branches, not the judiciary. In sum, this
Court is “faced with two roads diverging, one leading through the unmarked forest of judicial
guesswork and one leading through the clearing of agency expertise.” Am. Trucking Ass’ns, Inc.
v. ICC, 682 F.2d 487, 492 (5th Cir. 1982). Plaintiffs’ claims will require the court to balance
multifarious economic, environmental, industrial, social, and international interests and
policies—tasks properly left to the expertise and democratic accountability of the political
branches and administrative agencies. Recognizing this case as nonjusticiable wisely protects the
courts from making “decisions of a kind for which the Judiciary has neither aptitude, facilities
nor responsibility.” Chicago & S. Air Lines v. Waterman S. S. Corp., 333 U.S. 103, 111 (1948).
Indeed, the broad policy questions raised by this case are precisely the type that the political
branches are engineered to answer—and which the judiciary is “specifically designed to be bad
at.” Scalia, 17 Suffolk U. L. Rev. at 896.
PQD violations crush global coordination necessary to solve climate change –
independently turns the aff.
Tribe 10 [Laurence H., the Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Harvard Law School; Joshua D.
Branson, J.D., Harvard Law School and NDT Champion, Northwestern University; and Tristan
L. Duncan, Partner, Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P., January 2010, “TOO HOT FOR COURTS
TO HANDLE: FUEL TEMPERATURES, GLOBAL WARMING, AND THE POLITICAL
QUESTION DOCTRINE,”
http://www.wlf.org/Upload/legalstudies/workingpaper/012910Tribe_WP.pdf] CKarcher
But that being said, if the Second Circuit was implying that such claims are justiciable in part
because they are relatively costless, it was wrong again. In the wake of the recent Copenhagen
climate negotiations, America is at a crossroads regarding its energy policy. At Copenhagen, the
world—for the first time including both the United States and China—took a tremulous first step
towards a comprehensive and truly global solution to climate change.44 By securing a modicum
of international consensus—albeit not yet with binding commitments—President Obama laid the
foundation for what could eventually be a groundbreaking congressional overhaul of American
energy policy, an effort that will undoubtedly be shaped by considerations as obviously political
as our energy independence from hostile and unreliable foreign regimes and that will both
influence and be influenced by the delicate state of international climate negotiations.45 Against
this backdrop, courts would be wise to heed the conclusion of one report that what “makes
climate change such a difficult policy problem is that decisions made today can have significant,
uncertain, and difficult to reverse consequences extending many years into the future."46 This
observation is even more salient given that America—and the world—stand at the precipice of
major systemic climate reform, if not in the coming year then in the coming decade. It would be
disastrous for climate policy if, as at least one commentator has predicted,47 courts were to
“beat Congress to the punch” and begin to concoct common law “solutions” to climate change
problems before the emergence of a legislative resolution. Not only does judicial action in this
field require costly and irreversible technological change on the part of defendants, but the prior
existence of an ad hoc mishmash of common law regimes will frustrate legislators’ attempts to
design coherent and systematic marketbased solutions.48 Indeed, both emissions trading regimes
and carbon taxes seek to harness the fungibility of GHG emissions by creating incentives for
reductions to take place where they are most efficient. But if courts were to require reductions of
randomly chosen defendants—with no regard for whether they are efficient reducers— they
would inhibit the effective operation of legislatively-created, market-based regimes by
prematurely and artificially constricting the size of the market. And as one analyst succinctly put
it before Congress, “[a]n insufficient number of participants will doom an emissions trading
market.”49 There is no doubt that the “Copenhagen Accord only begins the battle” against
climate change, as diplomats, bureaucrats, and legislators all now begin the lengthy struggle to
turn that Accord’s audacious vision into concrete reality.50 But whatever one’s position in the
debate between emissions trading and carbon taxes, or even in the debate over the extent or
indeed the reality of anthropogenic climate change, one thing is clear: legislators, armed with the
best economic and scientific analysis, and with the capability of binding, or at least strongly
incentivizing, all involved parties, are the only ones constitutionally entitled to fight that battle.
CONCLUSION Some prognosticators opine that the political question doctrine has fallen into
disrepute and that it no longer constitutes a viable basis upon which to combat unconstitutional
judicial overreaching.51 No doubt the standing doctrine could theoretically suffice to prevent
some of the most audacious judicial sallies into the political thicket, as it might in the climate
change case, where plaintiffs assert only undifferentiated and generalized causal chains from
their chosen defendants to their alleged injuries. But when courts lose sight of the important
limitations that the political question doctrine independently imposes upon judicial power–even
where standing problems are at low ebb, as with the Motor Fuel case–then constitutional
governance, and in turn the protection of individual rights and preservation of legal boundaries,
suffer. The specter of two leading circuit courts manifestly losing their way in the equally real
thicket of political question doctrine underscores the urgency, perhaps through the intervention
of the Supreme Court, of restoring the checks and balances of our constitutional system by
reinforcing rather than eroding the doctrine’s bulwark against judicial meddling in disputes either
expressly entrusted by the Constitution to the political branches or so plainly immune to coherent
judicial management as to be implicitly entrusted to political processes. It is not only the climate
of the globe that carries profound implications for our future; it is also the climate of the times
and its implications for how we govern ourselves.
Renewables DA:
A rapid push to renewables without prior planning causes resource wars – multiple
hotspots.
Freeman and Bazilian ‘18 [Madison Freeman and Morgan Bazilian (Madison Freeman is a
research associate for energy and U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and an
energy and environment fellow with Young Professionals in Foreign Policy. Morgan Bazilian is
the executive director of the Payne Institute and a professor of public policy at Colorado School
of Mines. He is also a non-resident fellow at the Columbia University Center on Global Energy
Policy and a non-resident senior associate with the Energy and National Security Program at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies.), 10-8-2018, "How Renewable Energy Could Fuel
Future Conflicts — Georgetown Journal of International Affairs," Georgetown Journal of
International Affairs, https://www.georgetownjournalofinternationalaffairs.org/online-
edition/2018/10/8/how-renewable-energy-could-fuel-future-conflicts] CKarcher
Renewable energy technologies promise to help our world avert some of the worst impacts of
climate change. However, some of the minerals and metals they require could contribute to
conflict. In the past, fossil fuels were the primary link between energy and conflict, as control
and transport of oil and gas drove political unrest, wars over territory, and interventions by
powerful countries concerned with securing their supply chains. However, the energy landscape
is changing rapidly, with cleaner sources of electricity swiftly replacing fossil fuels. The energy
transition now seems inevitable, with renewable energy technologies forecasted to constitute
almost half of global electricity generation by 2050. While the global transition to clean energy
promises a more sustainable energy future, the switch also creates new challenges through the
control of critical minerals used for clean energy technology. Investment in clean energy
technologies totaled over $330 billion in 2017 and is expected to accelerate over the coming
decades, which will cause the demand for minerals critical to these technologies to change
accordingly.For example, the global lithium-ion battery market could more than quadruple to
$93 billion by 2025. Driven by the booming electric vehicle market and expanding energy
storage sector, demand will increase for lithium, cobalt, and magnesium. Clean energy minerals
and metals, similar to fossil fuels, are concentrated in certain geographic areas, and may be
subject to similar contests over their control. As the world continues to transition from oil, gas,
and coal to solar and wind, policymakers must take careful steps to ameliorate the risk of
negative externalities from the changing landscape of mineral extraction. Clean Energy Risks
Multiple Forms of Conflict Growth of clean energy technologies may increase the risk of at least
three types of conflict: outbreaks of violence in states with weak institutions, competition over
global resource commons, and weaponization of minerals essential to these technologies in trade
disputes. First, reserves of metals and minerals for clean energy technologies can motivate
violent conflict in states with weak institutions and rule of law. Similar to the “resource curse” of
many oil-rich states, developing nations with large natural resource endowments often
experience corruption and violence as different groups vie to control wealth-generating
extractive operations. For instance, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) produces more
than 60 percent of the world’s cobalt, a key component of lithium-ion batteries for electric
vehicles and electricity storage. The country already suffers from widespread violent conflict,
perpetuated by mining wealth, that has driven the creation of at least seventy armed groups,
resulted in massive humans rights violations, and displaced millions. An increase in demand for
cobalt for electric vehicles and grid-scale battery storage could further intensify conflict in the
country. Second, these minerals could also increase competition among states over the global
commons. The Arctic Ocean and the South China Sea, two contested maritime areas, both
contain considerable mineral and metal deposits along undersea fault lines. As ice retreat opens
up more of the Arctic Ocean, exploration for deep-sea deposits of minerals useful for clean
energy technology could drive countries that claim territory in the region to assert their claims
more forcefully. In the South China Sea, Beijing has begun to develop deep sea mining
capacities, which will contribute to its effort to establish control of the mineral-rich seabed.
China has demonstrated its willingness to flaunt international law and violate other countries’
sovereign claims to the seabed. Conflict over deep-sea minerals would aggravate these disputes.
Finally, China’s hegemony over the global mining operations of many of these critical minerals
creates a risk that it will use these elements as trade weapons. China produces 95 percent of rare
earth elements and leads production in many other minerals and metals critical to clean energy
technologies. This control is highly centralized within specific Chinese companies – one Chinese
firm, Tianqi Lithium, controls nearly half of the world’s lithium. As part of China’s strategy to
become the “center of the clean energy universe,” these minerals are integral to its economic
future. Past trade disputes, including China's withholding of rare earths from Japan in 2010,
should cause concern, as they show Beijing is willing to ignore international trade norms
surrounding critical metals and minerals. As the trade war between the United States and China
escalates, there is a risk that China may leverage these minerals’ geopolitical power and restrict
their export to the United States.
Arctic war draws in great powers – goes nuclear.
Khodarenok ‘19 [Mikhail Khodarenok (Mikhail Khodarenok, military commentator for RT.com.
He is a retired colonel. He served as an officer at the main operational directorate of the General
Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.) , 11-20-2019, "Big war in the Arctic: How could it
happen?," https://www.rt.com/op-ed/463661-arctic-war-route-sea/] CKarcher
The Arctic’s ice cover is melting, which presents new economic opportunities for the Arctic
states, while also making the competition between them stiffer. Can these opposing interests lead
to a large-scale war in the region? The fight for the resource-rich region now involves not just
the Arctic Ocean countries –the US, Russia, Canada, Norway, and Denmark– but powers from
other regions as well, such as, for instance, China. Polar research is no longer a purely scientific
endeavor, the focus has now shifted towards economic aspects, which in turn has led to a serious
political debate between the Arctic states. Russia’s comeback in the Arctic In the “wild 1990s”,
almost all Russian military units stationed in the Arctic were downsized. There was basically no
army presence all along the coastline, from Murmansk to Chukotka. Russia lost control over the
vast region. Now Russia is returning to the Arctic and is using new technological solutions to
stake its claim. The Russian Armed Forces are rapidly increasing their military potential and
presence in the region. Moscow has the largest ice-breaker fleet in the world. It is building
military and navy bases as well as airfields in the region. It is also improving its air support
systems and anti-aircraft protection, and is upgrading its radars But other Arctic states are doing
the same. This begs the question whether conflicting interests in the region could lead to a full-
scale war. Indeed, there are all kinds of disagreements and discord between the Arctic states at
this point. And some of them are potentially dangerous. First, borders between exclusive
economic zones in the Arctic Ocean are not defined because of a certain ambiguity in
international law, which leads to different interpretations and disagreements. For example, an
exclusive economic zone’s width is not supposed to be over 200 nautical miles (370.4 km) from
the so-called baseline. But if a country can prove that some section of the ocean floor is part of
its continental shelf, then this country’s exclusive economic zone could be expanded. This has
important practical implications, because the country would then get the right to explore the
ocean floor and develop its natural resources, create and use man-made islands, and build
different facilities. This could turn into a very lucrative endeavor, since the Arctic region could
potentially hold up to a quarter of global oil and gas reserves. Northeast Passage dispute The
second important problem in the Arctic is the debate about states’ authorities over the Northeast
Passage (NEP). The shipping route is becoming increasingly accessible to commercial vessels
because of melting ice. Lately, the US has been getting more vocal about restricting Russia’s
presence and promoting the idea of turning the NEP (called the Northern Sea Route in Russia),
into an international route, as opposed to part of the Russian national transport infrastructure.
The US also seeks to increase its activity in the Arctic. One of the strategies used by the
Americans is deploying a significant number of US Coast Guard units in the region. Western
experts claim that Russia’s position on the NEP/Northern Sea Route is not always convincing, as
allegedly it violates international maritime law to some degree and goes against the principle of
the peaceful use of the seas and oceans. Moscow argues that Russia has authority over the NEP
which passes through its exclusive economic zone and any vessels willing to use this route have
to ask for its permission. This difference could potentially cause serious incidents. Let’s imagine
a scenario where, for example, US Navy vessels are going through the NEP claiming that they
are using the route based on the freedom of the seas principle. This doctrine allows for free
passage through territorial waters if this section is part of an international maritime trade route.
But in reality this often causes all kinds of incidents – clashes, attempts to force vessels out, etc.
Military issues There are also military issues in the Arctic. In the mid-1990s, Russia developed
the Northern Strategic Bastion concept, which defined special measures for maintaining combat
survivability of strategic missile submarines. The idea was to create secure zones around ballistic
missile-armed submarines, with air and sea support, as well as stationary underwater illumination
systems. If that doctrine had been implemented, it would’ve been challenged by the US and
serious pressure from them would have been expected. By the way, nuclear ballistic missile-
carrying submarines are usually deployed in neutral waters. This would’ve been a cause for great
concern in the US. But this factor is not as significant as the previous two. These problems have
always existed, in the Arctic and everywhere else. Americans are in a similar situation. They
have relatively small zones where nuclear ballistic missile submarines are deployed and they
guard these areas using all available means and resources. But this is an ongoing thing. To
analyze a potential large-scale war in the Arctic, we have to bear in mind one important factor –
any conflict between the existing players in the region poses a risk of turning into a nuclear war.
NATO is clearly interested in the Arctic – in the broadest sense. So, on the one side of the scale
we have the US, Norway, Canada, Greenland, and Denmark. On the other side, there is Russia.
China now also joins the club, since it has been actively making its way into the Arctic region
recently. China is seeking to get a foothold in the Arctic, so that it can one day use the northern
routes for commercial shipping – if the climate allows. Basically, every developed country has
its interests in the Arctic - it’s just that not everyone openly admits that. As soon as the Arctic pie
is on the table, every one of them will claim their piece. At this point, commercial shipping in the
Arctic Ocean is, for the most part, not economically expedient. Unfortunately, target indicators
for goods to be shipped from Russia via the Northern Sea Route have not been met so far. Today,
this route is still too risky, and these risks outweigh the advantages of using the Northern Sea
Route/NEP and saving time. Maritime container shipping between China, South-East Asia and
Europe that goes through the Suez Canal around Africa has long been established – and
perfected. These routes see ships of incredible sizes, and the number of containers shipped is
jaw-dropping, too, while the price of shipment is relatively low. The whole thing runs like
clockwork. Figuratively speaking, you can buy a ticket, board your ship, and know that you will
arrive at your destination on time. With the NEP, you can buy a ticket, but before you set sail,
you might get a message, “Sorry, in the Vilkitsky Strait, a windstorm has driven the pack ice 4
meters thick too close to the shore.” Everyone wants to make sure that their trip goes as
scheduled, and this schedule should be set for years to come. Arctic Ocean conflict wouldn’t
differ from South China Sea or Persian Gulf However, the situation in the Arctic Ocean may
change dramatically, if the ice continues to melt at current rates. The Northwest Passage may
become completely free of ice in the next 40-50 years. This route goes across the Arctic Ocean
along the Northern shores of North America and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. It will be the
shortest way from Shanghai to New York. If that happens, it will give rise to the same kind of
problems that exist today around the NEP. The US is most likely to claim authority over the
route, while China is sure to say that such claims violate maritime law and go against the
freedom of navigation principle. In the geopolitical sense, any kind of situation that may unfold
in the Arctic Ocean will in general be similar to what we see today in the Persian Gulf or around
the [disputed] Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. However, it should be noted that all Arctic
region players are nuclear powers with major military capabilities or are members of military
alliances – it means that the whole range of deterrence mechanisms would come into play,
should anything happen. It is very unlikely that nuclear powers would resort to nuclear strikes;
they would probably use some other mechanism to settle the issue. And such mechanisms would
keep the situation from spiraling to a full-scale war, since this kind of conflict can turn into a
nuclear one already at phase two. Russia, for one, would have only two options if a serious
incident happened. Moscow could either hang out the white flag or use nuclear weapons. The
fact that the size of the Russian Fleet is nowhere near that of the US Navy will largely define the
decision-making process. There is no doubt that Washington understands it very well. In other
words, who would risk becoming a target of a nuclear strike, with just some cod and oil at stake?
So there is not going to be a large-scale war. There is definitely not going to be a ‘traditional’
war with an official declaration, introduction of martial law, etc. Wars are a territorial thing,
limited by national borders. If a war erupts in the Arctic, it will inevitably spread to the Arctic
states’ territories. In other words, any war involving Russia will spill beyond the Arctic. This
will be the logic behind the countries’ actions in the Arctic. However, the number of disputes is
sure to grow, but there is no reason to believe that the situation in general will be any different
from the disputes in the South China Sea, the Persian Gulf, or from the disagreements over oil
and gas in the Eastern Mediterranean, where tensions tend to escalate all the time. All in all,
there is indeed no major difference between the Arctic and other tense regions. Of course, there
are all kinds of horrifying scenarios of things going wrong in the Arctic. We can’t completely
rule out the nuclear apocalypse option, but it’s nothing new – we’ve been living in this situation
for quite some time.
No effect on emissions IIASA ’18 [International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. (2018,
February 7). Removing fossil fuel subsidies will not reduce CO2 emissions as much as
hoped. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 13, 2019 from
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180207140349.htm] CKarcher
Summary: Removing fossil fuel subsidies would have only a small effect on CO2 emissions and
renewable energy use, new research has shown. The largest emissions savings would be in oil
and gas exporting countries, where fewer poor people would be affected, and subsidy removal
can be aided by currently low oil prices. Share: FULL STORY Removing fossil fuel subsidies
would have only a small effect on CO2 emissions and renewable energy use, new research has
shown. The largest emissions savings would be in oil and gas exporting countries, where fewer
poor people would be affected, and subsidy removal can be aided by currently low oil prices.
Fossil fuel subsidies amount to hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide, and removing them
has been held up as a key answer to climate change mitigation. Unfortunately it is not the silver
bullet many had hoped, IIASA-led analysis published in the journal Nature shows. Removing
fossil subsidies would only slightly slow the growth of CO2 emissions, with the result that by
2030 they would only be 1-5% lower than if subsidies had been maintained, regardless of
whether oil prices are low or high. This equates to 0.5-2 gigatonnes (Gt/year) of CO2 by 2030,
significantly less than the voluntary climate pledges made under the Paris climate agreement,
which add up to 4-8 Gt/year and are themselves not enough to limit warming to 2°C. "The reason
for this small overall effect is two-fold," says IIASA researcher Jessica Jewell, lead author on the
paper. "First, these subsidies generally apply only to oil, gas, and electricity. That means that in
some cases the removal of subsidies causes a switch to more emissions-intensive coal. Second,
while these subsidies add up to substantial sums of money, the rate per unit of energy is not high
enough to have a big effect on global energy demand, which would decrease by only 1-7% after
subsidies are removed." In addition, subsidy removal would not boost renewable energy use
significantly, the team found. This is because it is generally cheaper to reduce energy demand
than to substitute subsidized fuels with renewables. Although the global effect on emissions is
low, the impact varies between regions. The largest effects of removing subsidies were found in
areas that export oil and gas, such as Russia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North
Africa. In these regions, the emissions savings caused by subsidy removal would either equal or
exceed their climate pledges. Developing economies which are not major oil and gas exporters
would generally experience much smaller effects of removing the subsidies. Some of the models
used even suggested a rise in emissions for some regions, such as Africa and India, as a result of
switching from unsubsidized oil and gas to coal. Subsidy removal and the poor The regional
differences highlight one very important aspect of subsidy removal that needs to be taken into
consideration: the impacts on the poor. Many fossil fuel subsidies were put in place to help those
with lower income, and despite the fact that most of the money goes to the rich, the poorer you
are, the more of your household budget comes from these subsidies, so their removal would have
a much larger impact on daily life. For instance, removing subsidies means that the switch to
modern fuels may become out of reach for many poor people, the results show. As a
consequence they are stuck using firewood or charcoal, which both emit more greenhouse gases
and are damaging to health. Fortunately, the highest numbers of poor people are concentrated in
the regions where removal of subsidies will have the weakest effect on CO2 emissions.
Removing subsidies in richer oil and gas exporting regions would therefore provide significantly
greater emissions savings and have a less detrimental impact on the poor. This is facilitated by
today's low oil prices. "The governments of oil and gas producing countries are already under
pressure to reduce spending on subsidies as revenues shrink," says Jewell. "This provides a
unique political opportunity to remove subsidies in countries where it will have the largest effect
on emissions and the smallest impact on the poor." Ultimately, these results do show benefits of
removing fossil fuel subsidies, especially in certain regions, but care is needed for
implementation. "We're not saying: don't get rid of subsidies, we're saying that we need to be
aware that it might have less of an effect than hoped, and it could have a disproportionally large
effect on the poor," says Keywan Riahi, study co-author and IIASA Energy Program director.
"But well-designed policies can achieve subsidy removal without affecting the poor. A scheme
being trialed in India, for example, removed subsidies on cooking gas in general but continues to
support the poorest households through rebates."
Numerous barriers make fossil fuel consumption inevitable regardless of economic
incentives. Rentschler and Bazilian 17:
Jun Rentschler (University College London, Institute for Sustainable Resources; Oxford Institute
for Energy Studies) and Morgan Bazilian (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm).
Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Volume 11, Issue 1, Winter 2017, Pages 138–
155. JDN. “Principles for Designing Effective Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reforms.”
https://academic.oup.com/reep/article/11/1/138/2992925/ // TK

For instance, Avner et al. (2014) find that in an urban setting the effectiveness of carbon and fuel
taxes is cut in half when they are not complemented by investments in public transport
infrastructure. This is because even if fuel prices increase, people will continue to rely on fossil
fuel–intensive private transport if there are no public transport alternatives. Principles for
Designing Effective Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reforms This example highlights that even if subsidies
are reduced and fuel prices increased, there may be significant barriers that make households and
firms unable or unwilling to adjust their behavior or invest in more efficient technology
(Rentschler, Bleischwi􀄵, and Flachenecker 2016). These barriers may include information,
capacity, or financial constraints or may be related to infrastructure, fiscal mismanagement,
market structures, or systemic risks and uncertainty (including the long-term credibility of such
fiscal policy). This means that it cannot be taken for granted that the removal of subsidies will
alone automatically trigger large environmental benefits. For instance, trade or information
barriers may prevent firms from having access to modern, energy efficient technology, which
they could install once energy prices increase. Capacity or financial constraints may cause firms
to struggle to implement energy efficiency measures or prevent households from retrofi􀄵ing
their dwellings to increase energy efficiency. As emphasized by the World Bank (Fay et al.
2015), environmental taxes or FFS reforms alone cannot address the complexity of existing
market and government failures.

US subsidies have minimal effect on warming—general studies ignore differences between

world regions. Meyer 18:
Robinson Meyer (staff writer at the Atlantic, covering climate change and technology). “The
World Spends $400 Billion Propping Up Oil Companies. Is That Bad?” The Atlantic. 8 February
2018. JDN. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/maybecu cutting-fossil-fuel-
subsidies-wouldnt-do-much-good/552668/ // TK
But maybe all the rigamarole isn’t worth it. A new study, published this week in the journal
Nature, argues that withdrawing subsidies wouldn’t have as large an effect as anticipated. In both
the world’s richest and poorest countries, canceling fossil-fuel subsidies would neither
significantly reduce carbon-dioxide pollution nor increase the amount of investment in
renewable energy between now and 2030. Only in countries in a sort of middle tier—moderately
wealthy places that export vast amounts of oil and gas, like Russia, Venezuela, or Saudi
Arabia—would cutting subsidies lead to major declines in emissions. And even on a global scale,
slashing fossil-fuel subsidies would do less to help the climate than would universal adoption of
the Paris Agreement on climate change, the study argues. That accord—which would only hold
global warming to about 3 degrees Celsius, failing to hold off environmental devastation or
dangerous sealevel rise—would nonetheless avert between four and eight gigatons of carbon-
dioxide pollution every year. Killing subsidies would only prevent 0.5 to two gigatons of
pollution annually. “We’re not advocating keeping subsidies. We’re just advocating a more
regionally differentiated discussion of them,” said Jessica Jewell, an author of the paper and a
political-economy researcher at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in
Austria. “A lot [of attention] has been focused on subsidy removal in [developed] OECD
countries, whereas when you look at our results, the discussion politically should be on focusing
on subsidy removal in oil- and gas-exporting regions,” she told me. This finding is, she admits,
diplomatically challenging. Countries in North America and Western Europe—except for the
United States—have historically pushed for a more aggressive global climate policy. But it’s in
the countries most resistant to reducing emissions—Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and others
near them—that slashing subsidies would have the biggest effect. The new paper provides a
useful global context for arguments happening in many world capitals. Most governments spend
most of their subsidy money on the consumption side—that is, they help[ing] poor and middle-
class people buy fossil fuels. Cutting that support can be ethically and environmentally tricky. In
India, for example, cutting the subsidies sometimes led to increases in greenhouse-gas
emissions—because the country’s poorest citizens, unable to afford kerosene, started burning
even dirtier fuels like firewood or charcoal.

As a model becomes more complete, it becomes less understandable to the point of

uselessness. However as a model becomes less realistic, by definition it wouldn’t reflect the
real world. Inglis-Arkell 13,
[Esther Inglis-Arkell. “Bonini's Paradox proves that you can't make a useful AND accurate
model.” Pyshics. Gizmodo. October 18, 2013. https://io9.gizmodo.com/boninis-paradox-proves-
that-you-cant-make-a-useful-an-1445082177] //
All models break down, eventually. Whether they are physical models, mathematical models, or
long, wordy descriptions, no model can completely describe what an object actually is. And that,
according to business professor Charles Bonini, is only half the problem. As you try to make a
model more and more accurate, you run into another kind of trouble.¶ When you want to find the
best route to a destination, you grab a map. But perhaps the map isn't enough. You need to know
what streets won't let you turn left. You want to know if there's going to be a roadblock, or
traffic. Of course you can get a more accurate map, but there's going to be more visual clutter on
it. You'll have to sort through more information to set your course.¶ And what if you need even
more accurate information? Perhaps you're walking, and you need to know where impassable
boundaries are, or what the elevation changes are like. Get a map with that information, and
there's even more clutter. Once you collect information, and you need an expert to interpret the
information for you. Eventually, you reach a degree of accuracy that makes it easier just to strike
out on your own and hope for the best.¶ And this is Bonini's Paradox: The less information a
model carries about its subject, the less useful it's going to be in helping someone understand that
subject. And yet, the more information a model carries about its subject, the less useful it's going
to be in helping someone understand any single point of that subject. Any sufficiently detailed
map of a region is going to be just as dense and difficult as the region itself. Any sufficiently
detailed model of a brain is going to be a brain.¶ This sounds spurious — or like a scientist's
version of a Magritte painting. It does, however, make an important point. Any model, of
anything, is in an act of editing. It picks out what we think is important regarding the subject, and
directs our attention to how that important thing can be manipulated.