1NC — Niles — Round 5

1NC — Off Case

 1NC---OFF
UNCOOPERATIVE FEDERALISM CP.
The 50 states and all relevant subnational territories should condition cooperation
with federal initiatives on the United States federal government [adopting a federal
jobs guarantee]
It competes and solves---conditioning the AFF never fiats it, but results in federal
adoption AND aggressively expands dual sovereignty.
Bloomberg ’21 [Scott; September 17; Associate Professor of Law, University of Maine School of Law;
Social Science Research Network, “Frenemy Federalism,” Draft Manuscript, p. 2-40]
i. Uncooperative Federalism

Dean Heather Gerken and Professor Jessica Bulman-Pozen have categorized state legalization of marijuana as an instance of uncooperative
federalism.108 In their influential 2009 essay, Uncooperative Federalism, Gerken and Bulman-Pozen observe that scholars had traditionally
conceived of our system of federalism through one of two lenses. Under
the “state autonomy” model of federalism, the
states and the federal government are dual sovereigns who act as autonomous rivals, allowing states to
act as dissenters to federal policies they deem undesirable. 109 In contrast, under the “cooperative federalism” approach, the
states are like agents or servants of the federal government, dutifully carrying out a federal program to achieve a shared objective.110

Uncooperative federalism presents a third type of relationship between the states and the federal government, one that
recognizes a principal’s or master’s dependence on their agents or servants, and the concomitant power of an
embedded agent or servant to push back against their superior. 111 Sometimes, the states do not dutifully
cooperate in administering a federal program, but actively seek to change or undermine that program.
They are uncooperative.
Gerken and Bulman-Pozen identify three categories of state actions that constitute uncooperative federalism. The first is “licensed” dissent,
which occurs when “Congress explicitly contemplates that states will deviate from federal norms in implementing federal policy, but states take
that invitation in a direction the federal government may not anticipate.”112 State efforts to catalyze federal welfare reform provide an
example. In the 1980s, states such as Wisconsin and Michigan utilized a waiver provision of the federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children
welfare program (“AFDC”) to “recast an entitlement for poor families struggling to raise children into a temporary grant for recipients who
would quickly move into the private workforce.”113 Departing from the existing federal policy, the states began enacting welfare-to-work
requirements that required welfare recipients to actively seek employment and terminated AFDC benefits after a set period of time.114
These uncooperative states largely succeeded in changing federal welfare law when Congress passed the Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.115

The second form of uncooperative federalism occurs when states exploit gaps in federal regulatory schemes. In such cases,
“the federal government does not contemplate state variation but states have sufficient discretion that they find ways to
contest federal policy.”116 Gerken and Bulman-Pozen offer California’s efforts to regulate air pollution more stringently than the EPA
as an example of this strain of uncooperative federalism. The state has successfully exploited a narrow exception to the
Clean Air Act’s preemption provision to drive federal emissions standards for decades.117

The third, and “strongest,” form of uncooperative federalism is civil disobedience, where states “simply refuse to comply with
the national program or otherwise obstruct it.”118 Gerken and Bulman-Pozen cite state pushback to the Patriot Act as an
example. After Congress passed the Act, several states enacted resolutions that prohibited their agencies from assisting the federal government
in enforcing the Act.119 This
uncooperative action had real effect, as “the federal government relies on the
states for enforcement assistance.”120
In early 2009, the federal-state relationship regarding marijuana fit within the uncooperative federalism framework, falling into the civil
disobedience bucket.121 At that point, thirteen states had legalized medical marijuana, a costly blow to the federal government due to its
dependence on the states for assistance in enforcing marijuana prohibition.122 The DEA, meanwhile, was “actively working to undermine the
decriminalization efforts underway in California, the state with the most nationally visible decriminalization policy.”123 Indeed, federal
prosecutions of individual medical marijuana users and marijuana businesses in California were commonplace in the early 2000s.124

ii. Increased Federal Cooperation

There is a great deal more cooperation in the federal-state marijuana relationship than there was when Gerken and Bulman-Pozen originally
described it as uncooperative federalism. Since 2009, dozens more states have legalized medical marijuana and many have also legalized the
drug for recreational use. In
conjunction with these state policy changes, the federal government’s policy
changed as well: It became far more cooperative with the states.

Though the federal government indisputably has the constitutional authority to prosecute marijuana businesses
and users operating in states where marijuana is legal, over the years it has agreed---expressly at times and tacitly at others---to allow
those businesses and users to avoid prosecution. This form of federal cooperation began with a series of DOJ memoranda instructing U.S.
Attorneys not to prosecute marijuana businesses and users acting in compliance with state law.

In 2009, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden issued a policy memorandum to U.S. Attorneys titled “Investigations and Prosecutions in States
Authorizing the Medical Use of Marijuana.”125 The “Ogden Memo,” as it has become known, instructed U.S. Attorneys in states that legalized
medical marijuana to deprioritize the enforcement of federal marijuana law against individuals who use medical marijuana in compliance with
state law.126 As a result, the federal government stopped prosecuting medical marijuana users unless the user failed to comply with
state law in a manner that implicated one of several “potential federal interest[s]” listed in the Ogden Memo.127

State leadership’s key to adapt ossified international structures to evolving existential

risks.
Weiss ‘22 [Charles, the first Science and Technology Adviser to the World Bank, serving in that position
from 1971-86, became Distinguished Professor of Science, Technology and International Affairs (STIA) at
the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in 1997, was the director of the STIA program from
1997-2006, now Distinguished Professor Emeritus, and a Visiting Scholar at the American Association for
the Advancement of Science, “13 Playing with Fire,” Survival Nexus: Science, Technology, and World
Affairs, Oxford University Press, 2022, p. 251-266]

We are needlessly allowing technology to take the world to the brink of disasters from accidental climate
disruption, nuclear war, and pandemics— at the same time that we are allowing the means for controlling
these technologies to erode. In effect, we are edging closer and closer to cliffs from which we have removed the
guardrails. Fortunately, people are beginning to develop— or at least to think about— protections against
some of these dangers. A technology-based model of authoritarian government is being promoted and exported as a technological,
economic, and political challenge to Western liberal democracies. The Internet and social media, conceived as vehicles for free exchange of
information and platforms for untrammeled innovation, in some countries have become instruments of repression. At the same time, a
systematic, worldwide campaign of misinformation and disinformation, spread via social and mass media, has deliberately sown distrust in the
democratic process, in government, in international institutions, in science, in expertise of all kinds, and in the very idea that there is such a
thing as truth. In the United States, the scientific consensus concerning climate change has been overwhelmed by misinformation and
disinformation spread by political and business interests that it threatens, while public messaging regarding the CO VID-19 pandemic has been
at best mixed. All this has made it difficult for people to understand the complex and dangerous new threats to the environment, to their
health, to their security, and to democratic government. Stimulating and Guiding Technological Change Science and technology have
much to contribute to the resolution of all these issues. We need better scientific understanding of the
climate, of the ways in which diseases spread, and of the likely impact of gene drivers and geoengineering. We need technological
innovations to prevent or cure non- communicable diseases, alleviate malnutrition, conserve resources, defend against cyberattack, and
restructure our economies along more sustainable and equitable lines. But we cannot depend on science and technology to address
these issues on their own. We also need policies and institutions that not only support research and encourage
technological innovation but also guide scientific research and technological change in responsible directions. This will
require both “top-down” measures by national governments and “bottom-up” pressures from public opinion, from
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and from state and local governments that are often more directly responsive
to public pressure. It will need ideas and inspiration from businesses, universities, research institutes, individual inventors, and
ordinary citizens, and support from public opinion and from the actions and advocacy of individuals and
communities. In some cases, it will require sustained effort to resist commercial, political, and military pressures to ignore broader social
and environmental problems when investing in research and innovation and to deploy technologies before at least some of their consequences
are understood and anticipated. The response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the denial of the reality of climate change in a number of
countries show how even the best scientific advice can be undercut by the words and actions of shortsighted, self-interested political leaders.
We need to devise limits on technological innovations like autonomous weapons and hypersonic missiles that can lead to
unintended nuclear war. We need to restructure our economy and redesign our cities to end, or at least to limit the use of fossil
fuels and to increase the efficiency of our use of energy and materials. We need controls on technologies like artificial intelligence,
gene drivers, and geoengineering, all of which both promise major benefits and involve great risks. We need to
defend ourselves against technology-based attacks on the values of freedom of thought, communication, innovation, and
access to information that were embodied in the original design of the Internet and social media but are now under attack. At the same
time, we need new science and technology to develop novel approaches to environmental sustainability: improved
sources of renewable energy and innovative approaches to efficient energy use. We need both to expand and to restructure our electric energy
grids to electrify our economy and to improve their efficiency, reliability, and security. We need to restructure our agricultural economy, our
urban infrastructure and our transportation systems. We need explicit measures to ensure that everyone can participate in the benefits of
technological change. We need research and development on orphan technologies, and vaccines and cures for the diseases that mainly affect
people in low- income countries. Not a small menu. Some of these issues,like climate change, nuclear weapons, and global
health, are governed by long-standing regimes, norms, and institutions that now need strengthening and
refurbishing to meet new political, economic, and techno logical challenges. Nonproliferation and anti-missile agreements need to be
restored and extended to limit or ban development and deployment of hyper sonic missiles, destabilizing weapons that are now under rapid
development in many countries. Voluntary national limits on greenhouse gas emissions need to be urgently increased. Time is running out, and
costs will be much greater the longer we take for effective action to mitigate and adapt to climate disruption. In the global health sphere, the
system for emergency preparedness and pandemic control needs increased and sustained political and financial support to replace the long-
standing pattern of crisis-to-crisis, feast-or-famine funding. Most low- income countries still need basic health infrastructure, both to provide
health services to their population and to identify and control epidemic disease that could spread beyond their borders. Cyberweapons, too,
can quickly get out of control and wreak enormous damage on critical infrastructure, including the systems of command-and- control on which
we would depend to prevent accidental escalation of a localized conflict to full-scale war. Like hypersonic missiles, the response to these
weapons depends on artificial intelligence. Unlike hypersonic missiles, cyberweapons do not lend themselves to the type of verifiable arms
control regime that has so far been successful for nuclear weapons. What is more, many governments op pose any limits on the use of
cyberweapons, despite the risk they pose of acci dental escalation. Continued research and international discussion on how these weapons can
be controlled are urgent priorities. Geoengineering and gene drivers also take the world into uncharted terri tory. Their governance is
complicated by the fact that they are accessible not only to governments, but also to private businesses, NGOs, and
individuals. It is far from clear how decisions should be made as to whether and under what circumstances these
technologies should be developed, and what criteria should govern any such decisions. Advocates for these technologies have developed
roadmaps for deploying them in a way that minimizes risks. Still, there are fundamental disagreements over whether geoengineering and gene
drivers should be developed and implemented at all, and there is substantial support for the idea that one or both should be banned outright.
Critics have called for moratoriums until the broader questions can be explored by a broad range of worldwide stakeholders, disciplines, and
cultures. However, the disagreements we have outlined will probably never be totally resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, and deployment
decisions will eventually have to be made one way or the other. The governance of the Internet and social media involves measures to pre
serve the global Internet and to address those issues of cybersecurity that are of common concern to countries with very different political
systems and very different ideas concerning civil liberties and human rights. The competition be tween authoritarian and democratic
governments over freedom of information and innovation is likely to go on for a long time, but both sides have a strong in terest in maintaining
a functioning global Internet and in avoiding catastrophic damage to information and telecommunication systems. Several academies of
science, research institutes, NGOs, and religious organ izations have proposed codes of conduct and declarations of principle to deal with the
difficult philosophical, ethical, and practical issues involved in all these issues. These represent a useful beginning, and one may hope that they
will reach the level of consensus that would allow them to be codified into national legisla tion or international agreements. Dealing with these
issues will require respect for expertise in the fields to which we have often referred: science, technology, politics, economics, business, law,
and culture. We will need to incorporate scientific advice into decision making processes, and to acknowledge and manage the risks and
uncertainties in our understanding of the science and the technology we are trying to manage, as well as in their ramifications for the larger
society. There is also a need to edu cate governments and the public, both on the underlying science and technology and on their links to the
broader context. Finally, I would urge that there is a need for an international obligation to identify areas for scientific research and
technological innovation that can help to resolve these issues and to support this research with adequate financial, human and institutional
resources. This last re quirement should become a general principle that should become part of the ac cepted framework for thinking about
global issues and incorporated into formal agreements on these matters as a matter of usual practice. Dealing with complex global,
technology-intensive issues like these is a tall order, especially when they require democratic countries to find common in
terest with countries with whose governments they are otherwise deeply at odds. Nevertheless, the world has faced such
issues successfully before under the arguably more difficult conditions of the Cold War, which pitted two
ideologically opposed superpowers against each other that nevertheless managed to agree on elaborate
and technically demanding measures to avoid nuclear holocaust. There have been major innovations since the days of the
Cold War that will help with these new challenges. Civil society is a source for new ideas and new institutional arrangements.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and epistemic communities provide scientific advice and education on climate to
international negotiators and to the public. Multi-stakeholder meetings develop “bottom-up” codes of conduct, norms, and
standards that sometimes make their way into more formal government and international declarations and
eventually into national legislation and international agreements. State and city governments combine
forces across borders to deal with issues when their national governments shrink from action. Flexible, informal,
or voluntary arrangements facilitate international cooperation in situations where binding obligations and formal
agreements would be cumbersome or slow moving. Pragmatic, informal institutional arrangements
arise to manage international resources when more formal institutions or agreements would be
cumbersome or impractical. Private foundations support research in areas neglected by governments and intergovernmental
organizations. “Innovative developing countries” like India and China develop and market profitable products for low- income people.
Multinational corporations and NGOs support innovations to meet the needs of people without market power. And a billion-dollar network of
agricultural laboratories develops improved technology for small-scale farmers in low-income countries.
 1NC---OFF
COURTS CP.
The United States federal judiciary should rule that Constitutional guarantees compel
[providing guaranteed jobs to non-Donald J. Trump citizens of the United States]
Solves the case, but through a different process that breaks the PQD.
Rotem Litinski, 11-30-2019, BA in PoliSci from Berkeley, "Economic Rights: Are They Justiciable, and
Should They Be?," American Bar Association,
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/

economic-justice/economic-rights--are-they-justiciable--and-should-they-be-/, b

Many have questioned whether it is constitutionally acceptable for a court to assess the progressive realization
of economic rights,
which would require
the actions of several mechanisms in concert. Because the responsibility of constructing and
enforcing laws belongs to the legislative and the executive branches, respectively, judicial enforcement of
economic rights might be misconstrued as a denigration of the checks and balances system. On the other hand, judicial
review necessitates that courts evaluate the consistency of legislation and government action with constitutional ideals, aspirations, and
obligations. Ensuring the human rights of individuals to shelter, food, and basic economic stability, foundational to the realization of their
human dignity, is well within those constitutional bounds. Regardless, U.S. courts often gag themselves by denying their
power to constitutionalize socioeconomic rights.

Due to their unelected status, the role and expanse of the courts is constantly in question. But it is this status that
insulates judges from the public, enabling them to protect individuals and groups while exercising
objectivity. There is an institutional bias toward preserving the public good over individual rights because the latter creates a risk that may
conflict with a public interest, a risk that public officials want to minimize. Whereas public officials may base decisions off
public approval, insulated judges are distanced from public sentiments and can remain consistent in their values and
decisions. These factors establish the credibility needed to exercise powerful judicial review.

Economic Rights as Derivatives of Constitutional Provisions

In practice, democratic constitutions often compel

the court to gag itself to counteract judicial overextension and
relegate jurisdiction to the State. The court has an obligation—similar to the positive duties imposed on the State—to
intervene if unconstitutional legislation unreasonably infringes on the basic rights and liberties of individuals to functionally engage
in society. This obligation is as rooted in human rights and economic justice as it is in the Constitution.

PQD blocks norm development for drone warfare.

Hafetz ’17 [Jonathan; January 6; Professor of Law at Seton Hall University, J.D. from Yale University, M.
Phil. From Oxford University, B.A. from Amherst College; Just Security, “The Troubling Application of the
Political Question Doctrine to Congressional Force Authorizations,”
https://www.justsecurity.org/36021/troubling-application-political-question-doctrine-congressional-
force-authorizations/]

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Nov. 21 dismissed the suit brought by U.S. Army Captain Nathan Michael Smith
challenging the legality of the military campaign against ISIS under Operation Inherent Resolve. The opinion by Judge
Colleen Kollar-Kotelly rejecting the suit on political question grounds is troubling. (Judge Kollar-Kotelly also denied Smith had
standing based on his claim that continuing to fight in an unauthorized military action against ISIS would violate his oath to support and defend
the Constitution). The Obama administration’s release last month of its Report on the Legal and Policy Frameworks Guiding and Limiting the
United States’ Use of Military Force and Related National Security Considerations (“Framework Report”), while admirable in several respects
(see Marty Lederman’s comprehensive summary), crystalizes concerns about the potential ramifications of the political question ruling in Smith
v Obama.

In Smith, the plaintiff maintained that neither the 2001 nor 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF)—the former enacted for al
Qaeda and the Taliban, the latter for Iraq—constituted authorization for military action against ISIS. Such action, the plaintiff therefore argued,
was unlawful under the 60-day time limit imposed by the War Powers Resolution. The district court
held that the suit presented a
nonjusticiable political question because the issues raised were primarily ones committed to the political branches of government
and because the court lacked judicially manageable standards. This holding, as Michael Glennon has argued here, and Marty has argued here,
here, and here, misconstrues and misapplies the political question doctrine. In short, a suit asking a court to interpret the scope and meaning of
a congressional force statute—and, particularly, what entities it applies to—presents a legal question squarely within the province and ability of
the judiciary to decide.

Smith’s suit, in the court’s view, would have failed anyway for lack of standing. But the
court’s political question ruling sweeps
more widely and if followed, would bar suit by future plaintiffs raising similar merits claims even where
they unquestionably had standing. Those future plaintiffs could include, for example, individuals detained
by the United States or harmed by U.S. drone strikes (including family members of individuals killed in such strikes). The ruling would
foreclose those persons from claiming that the U.S. action was illegal if it were predicated on their connection to ISIS or to another group that
fell outside current force authorizations.

The Obama administration’s Framework Report underscores these concerns, particularly as executive power is handed to a Trump
administration that could jettison existing policy constraints while further enlarging America’s forever war against terrorist groups.

The Framework Report highlights several broader trends. First, itreinforces that the U.S. armed conflict against al Qaeda
and the Taliban seems only to expand, not contract, with time. Since 2001, it has extended to other groups,
whether because they fall under the al Qaeda umbrella (like ISIS) or are deemed associated forces (as al-Shabaab recently was).

Second, the Report underscores that, under the current framework, the president generally has authority—even if he does not exercise it—to
detain and target individuals based solely on their purported membership in a military group covered by the 2001 AUMF. That authority thus
permits status-based detention or targeting, without resort to claims of self-defense.

Third, the Report reinforces that additional restrictions on this broad legal authority exist only as a matter of policy. As such, they may be
discarded by the next administration. Further, the policies themselves—which apply heightened requirements for using lethal force outside
areas of active hostilities—have proven susceptible to workarounds in practice (See the valuable New York Times reporting by Charlie Savage,
Eric Schmitt, and Mark Mazzetti on how in Somalia the U.S. military has avoided limitations in the May 2013 Presidential Policy Guidance
through assertions of an independent power of collective self-defense, which includes assistance to U.S. partners on the ground).

Courts remain an important check on elastic counterterrorism powers. This check will become even
more important in a Trump administration that expansively interprets existing—or future—force
authorizations while disregarding restraints. In the past, suits challenging particular drone strikes—both ex-ante and
ex-post—have been dismissed on threshold justiciability grounds. Smith, however, is the first decision to hold that the central
underlying question—the meaning and scope of executive power under a congressional force authorization—is itself a political
question. As Smith explained “Plaintiff asks the Court to second-guess the Executive’s application of these statutes to specific facts on the
ground in an ongoing combat mission halfway around the world” (emphasis in original). Smith’s rationale would prevent other challenges to the
application of force authorizations not only to ISIS, but also to other, yet unidentified, groups.

Extinction---miscalculated AND intentional nuclear war.

Boyle ’13 [Michael; 2013; Professor of Political Science at La Salle University, former Lecture in
International Relations and Research Fellow in the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political
Violence; International Affairs, “The Costs and Consequences of Drone Warfare,” vol. 89]
The race for drones

An important, but overlooked, strategic consequence of the Obama administration’s embrace

of drones is that it has generated a
new and dangerous arms race for this technology. At present, the use of lethal drones is seen as acceptable to US policy-
makers because no other state possesses the ability to make highly sophisticated drones with the range, surveillance capability and lethality of
those currently manufactured by the United States. Yet therest of the world is not far behind. At least 76 countries
have acquired UAV technology, including Russia, China, Pakistan and India.120 China is reported to have at least 25
separate drone systems currently in development.121 At present, there are 680 drone programmes in the world, an
increase of over 400 since 2005.122 Many states and non-state actors hostile to the United States have begun to
dabble in drone technology. Iran has created its own drone, dubbed the ‘Ambassador of Death’, which has a range of up to 600
miles.123 Iran has also allegedly supplied the Assad regime in Syria with drone technology.124 Hezbollah launched an Iranian-made drone into
Israeli territory, where it was shot down by the Israeli air force in October 2012.125

A global arms race for drone technology is already under way. According to one estimate, global spending on
drones is likely to be more than US$94 billion by 2021.126 One factor that is facilitating the spread of drones (particularly
non-lethal drones) is their cost relative to other military purchases. The top-of-the line Predator or Reaper model costs approximately US$10.5
million each, compared to the US$150 million price tag of a single F-22 fighter jet.127 At that price, drone technology is already within the
reach of most developed militaries, many of which will seek to buy drones from the US or another supplier. With
demand growing, a
number of states, including China and Israel, have begun the aggressive selling of drones, including attack drones, and
Russia may also be moving into this market.128 Because of concerns that export restrictions are harming US competitiveness in the drones
market, the Pentagon has granted approval for drone exports to 66 governments and is currently being lobbied to authorize sales to even
more.129 The Obama administration has already authorized the sale of drones to the UK and Italy, but Pakistan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have
been refused drone technology by congressional restrictions.130 It is only a matter of time before another supplier steps in to offer the drone
technology to countries prohibited by export controls from buying US drones. According to a study by the Teal Group, the US will account for 62
per cent of research and development spending and 55 per cent of procurement spending on drones by 2022.131 As the market expands, with
new buyers and sellers, America’s ability to control the sale of drone technology will be diminished. It is likely that the US will retain a
substantial qualitative advantage in drone technology for some time, but even that will fade as more suppliers offer drones that can match US
capabilities.

The emergence of this arms race for drones raises at least five long-term strategic consequences, not all of which
are favourable to the United States over the long term. First, it is now obvious that other states will use drones in ways that are inconsistent
with US interests. One reason why the US has been so keen to use drone technology in Pakistan and Yemen is that at present it retains a
substantial advantage in high-quality attack drones. Many of the other states now capable of employing drones of near-equivalent technology
—for example, the UK and Israel—are considered allies. But this situation is quickly changing as other leading geopolitical players, such as
Russia and China, are beginning rapidly to develop and deploy drones for their own purposes. While its own technology still lags behind that of
the US, Russia has spent huge sums on purchasing drones and has recently sought to buy the Israeli-made Eitan drone capable of surveillance
and firing air-to-surface missiles.132 China has begun to develop UAVs for reconnaissance and combat and has several new drones capable of
long-range surveillance and attack under development.133 China is also planning to use unmanned surveillance drones to allow it to monitor
the disputed East China Sea Islands, which are currently under dispute with Japan and Taiwan.134 Both Russia and China will pursue this
technology and develop their own drone suppliers which will sell to the highest bidder, presumably with fewer export controls than those
imposed by the US Congress. Once both governments have equivalent or near-equivalent levels of drone technology to the United States, they
will be similarly tempted to use it for surveillance or attack in the way the US has done. Thus, through its own over-reliance on drones in places
such as Pakistan and Yemen, the US may be hastening the arrival of a world where its qualitative advantages in drone technology are eclipsed
and where this technology will be used and sold by rival Great Powers whose interests do not mirror its own.

A second consequence of the spread of drones is that many

of the traditional concepts which have underwritten
stability in the international system will be radically reshaped by drone technology. For example, much of
the stability among the Great Powers in the international system is driven by deterrence, specifically nuclear
deterrence.135 Deterrence operates with informal rules of the game and tacit bargains that govern what states, particularly those holding
nuclear weapons, may and may not do to one another.136 While it is widely understood that nuclear-capable states will conduct aerial
surveillance and spy on one another, overt
military confrontations between nuclear powers are rare because they
are assumed to be costly and prone to escalation. One open question is whether these states will exercise
the same level of restraint with drone surveillance, which is unmanned, low cost, and possibly deniable.
States may be more willing to engage in drone overflights which test the resolve of their rivals, or engage in ‘salami tactics’ to see
what kind of drone-led incursion, if any, will motivate a response.137 This may have been Hezbollah’s logic in sending a drone into Israeli
airspace in October 2012, possibly to relay information on Israel’s nuclear capabilities.138 After the incursion, both Hezbollah and Iran boasted
that the drone incident demonstrated their military capabilities.139 One could imagine two rival states—for example, India and Pakistan—
deploying drones to test each other’s capability and resolve, with untold consequences if such a probe were misinterpreted by the other as an
attack. As drones get physically smaller and more precise, and as they develop a greater flying range, the temptation to use them to spy on a
rival’s nuclear programme or military installations might prove too strong to resist. If this were to happen, drones might gradually erode
the deterrent relationships that exist between nuclear powers, thus magnifying the risks of a spiral of conflict
between them.

Another dimension of this problem has to do with the risk of accident. Drones are prone to accidents and
crashes. By July 2010, the US Air Force had identified approximately 79 drone accidents.140 Recently released documents have revealed that
there have been a number of drone accidents and crashes in the Seychelles and Djibouti, some of which happened in close proximity to civilian
airports.141 The rapid proliferation of drones worldwide will involve a risk of accident to civilian aircraft, possibly producing an international
incident if such an accident were to involve an aircraft affiliated to a state hostile to the owner of the drone. Most of the drone accidents may
be innocuous, but some will carry strategic risks. In December 2011, a CIA drone designed for nuclear surveillance crashed in Iran,
revealing the existence of the spying programme and leaving sensitive technology in the hands of the Iranian government.142 The expansion of
drone technology raises the possibility that some of these surveillance drones will be interpreted as attack drones, or that an
accident or
crash will spiral out of control and lead to an armed confrontation.143 An accident would be even more dangerous if
the US were to pursue its plans for nuclear-powered drones, which can spread radioactive material like a dirty bomb if they crash.144

Third, lethal drones

create the possibility that the norms on the use of force will erode, creating a much
more dangerous world and pushing the international system back towards the rule of the jungle. To some
extent, this world is already being ushered in by the United States, which has set a dangerous precedent that a state may simply kill foreign
citizens considered a threat without a declaration of war. Even John Brennan has recognized that the US is ‘establishing a precedent that other
nations may follow’.145 Given this precedent, there is nothing to stop other states from following the American lead and using drone strikes to
eliminate potential threats. Those ‘threats’ need not be terrorists, but could be others— dissidents, spies, even journalists—whose behaviour
threatens a government.

One danger is that drone use might undermine the normative prohibition on the assassination of leaders and government officials that most
(but not all) states currently respect. A greater danger, however, is that the US will have normalized murder as a tool of statecraft and created a
world where states can increasingly take vengeance on individuals outside their borders without the niceties of extradition, due process or
trial.146 As some of its critics have noted, the Obama administration may have created a world where states will find it easier to kill terrorists
rather than capture them and deal with all of the legal and evidentiary difficulties associated with giving them a fair trial.147

Fourth, there is a distinct danger that the world will divide into two camps: developed states in possession of drone technology, and weak
states and rebel movements that lack them. States with recurring separatist or insurgent problems may begin to police their restive territories
through drone strikes, essentially containing the problem in a fixed geographical region and engaging in a largely punitive policy against them.
One could easily imagine that China, for example, might resort to drone strikes in Uighur provinces in order
to keep potential threats from emerging, or that Russia could use drones to strike at separatist
movements in Chechnya or elsewhere. Such behaviour would not necessarily be confined to authoritarian governments; it is equally
possible that Israel might use drones to police Gaza and the West Bank, thus reducing the vulnerability of
Israeli soldiers to Palestinian attacks on the ground. The extent to which Israel might be willing to use drones in combat and surveillance
was revealed in its November 2012 attack on Gaza. Israel allegedly used a drone to assassinate the Hamas leader Ahmed Jabari and employed a
number of armed drones for strikes in a way that was described as ‘unprecedented’ by senior Israeli officials.148 It is not hard to imagine Israel
concluding that drones over Gaza were the best way to deal with the problem of Hamas, even if their use left the Palestinian population subject
to constant, unnerving surveillance. All of the consequences of such a sharp division between the haves and have-nots with drone technology is
hard to assess, but one possibility is that governments
with secessionist movements might be less willing to
negotiate and grant concessions if drones allowed them to police their internal enemies with ruthless
efficiency and ‘manage’ the problem at low cost. The result might be a situation where such conflicts are contained but not
resolved, while citizens in developed states grow increasingly indifferent to the suffering of those making secessionist or even national
liberation claims, including just ones, upon them.

Finally, drones have the capacity to strengthen the surveillance capacity of both democracies and authoritarian regimes, with significant
consequences for civil liberties. In the UK, BAE Systems is adapting military-designed drones for a range of civilian policing tasks including
‘monitoring antisocial motorists, protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers’.149 Such drones are also envisioned as monitoring Britain’s
shores for illegal immigration and drug smuggling. In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued 61 permits for
domestic drone use between November 2006 and June 2011, mainly to local and state police, but also to federal agencies and even
universities.150 According to one FAA estimate, the US will have 30,000 drones patrolling the skies by 2022.151 Similarly, the European
Commission will spend US$260 million on Eurosur, a new programme that will use drones to patrol the Mediterranean coast.152 The risk that
drones will turn democracies into ‘surveillance states’ is well known, but the risks for authoritarian regimes may be even more severe.
Authoritarian states, particularly those that face serious internal opposition, may tap into drone technology now available to monitor and
ruthlessly punish their opponents. In semi-authoritarian Russia, for example, drones have already been employed to monitor pro-democracy
protesters.153 One could only imagine what a truly murderous authoritarian regime—such as Bashar al-Assad’s Syria—would do with its own
fleet of drones. The expansion of drone technology may make the strong even stronger, thus tilting the balance of power in authoritarian
regimes even more decisively towards those who wield the coercive instruments of power and against those who dare to challenge them.

Conclusion

Even though it has now been confronted with blowback from drones in the failed Times Square bombing, the United States has yet to engage in
a serious analysis of the strategic costs and consequences of its use of drones, both for its own security and for the rest of the world. Much
of the debate over drones to date has focused on measuring body counts and carries the unspoken assumption that if drone strikes
are efficient—that is, low cost and low risk for US personnel relative to the terrorists killed—then they must also be effective. This article has
argued that such analyses are operating with an attenuated notion of effectiveness that discounts some of the other key dynamics—such as
growing anti-
the corrosion of the perceived competence and legitimacy of governments where drone strikes take place,
Americanism and fresh recruitment to militant networks—that reveal the costs of drone warfare. In other
words, the analysis of the effectiveness of drones takes into account only the ‘loss’ side of the ledger for the ‘bad
guys’, without asking what America’s enemies gain by being subjected to a policy of constant surveillance and attack.
In his second term, President Obama has an opportunity to reverse course and establish a new drones policy which mitigates these costs and
avoids some of the long-term consequences that flow from them. A more sensible US approach would impose some limits
on drone use in order to minimize the political costs and long-term strategic consequences. One step might be to limit the use of drones to
HVTs, such as leading political and operational figures for terrorist networks, while reducing or eliminating the strikes against the ‘foot soldiers’
or other Islamist networks not related to Al-Qaeda. This approach would reduce the number of strikes and civilian deaths associated with
drones while reserving their use for those targets that pose a direct or imminent threat to the security of the United States.

Such a self-limiting approach to drones might also minimize the degree of political opposition that US drone strikes generate in states such as
Pakistan and Yemen, as their leaders, and even the civilian population, often tolerate or even approve of strikes against HVTs. Another step
might be to improve the levels of transparency of the drone programme. At present, there are no publicly articulated guidelines stipulating who
can be killed by a drone and who cannot, and no data on drone strikes are released to the public.154 Even a Department of Justice
memorandum which authorized the Obama administration to kill Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, remains classified.155 Such non-
transparency fuels suspicions that the US is indifferent to the civilian casualties caused by drone strikes, a perception which in turn magnifies
the deleterious political consequences of the strikes. Letting some sunlight in on the drones programme would not eliminate all of the
opposition to it, but it would go some way towards undercutting the worst conspiracy theories about drone use in these countries while also
signalling that the US government holds itself legally and morally accountable for its behaviour.156

A final, and crucial, step towards mitigating the strategic consequences of drones would be to develop internationally
recognized standards and norms for their use and sale. It is not realistic to suggest that the US stop using its
drones altogether, or to assume that other countries will accept a moratorium on buying and using
drones. The genie is out of the bottle: drones will be a fact of life for years to come. What remains to be
done is to ensure that their use and sale are transparent, regulated and consistent with internationally recognized human
rights standards. The Obama administration has already begun to show some awareness that drones are dangerous if placed in the wrong
hands. A recent New York Times report revealed that the Obama administration began to develop a secret drones ‘rulebook’ to govern their
use if Mitt Romney were to be elected president.157

The same logic operates on the international level. Lethal drones will eventually be in the hands of those who will use them with fewer scruples
than President Obama has. Without a set of internationally recognized standards or norms governing their sale and use, drones will proliferate
without control, be misused by governments and non-state actors, and become an instrument of repression for the strong. One remedy might
be an international convention on the sale and use of drones which could establish guidelines and norms for their use, perhaps along the lines
of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) treaty, which attempted to spell out rules on the use of incendiary devices and
fragment-based weapons.158 While enforcement of these guidelines and adherence to rules on their use will be imperfect and marked by
derogations, exceptions and violations, the presence of a convention may reinforce norms against the flagrant misuse of drones and induce
more restraint in their use than might otherwise be seen. Similarly, a UN investigatory body on drones would help to hold states accountable
for their use of drones and begin to build a gradual consensus on the types of activities for which drones can, and cannot, be used.159 As the
progenitor and leading user of drone technology, the
US now has an opportunity to show leadership in developing an
international legal architecture which might avert some of the worst consequences of their use.
 1NC---OFF
SHUTDOWN DA.
Last-minute spending to avert a government shutdown passes now, but it’s fragile.
Kinery ’8/31 [Emma; August 31; Correspondent; “White House asks Congress for short-term funding
to avoid government shutdown,” CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/31/white-house-asks-
congress-for-short-term-funding-to-avoid-shutdown.html]

WASHINGTON — The WhiteHouse on Thursday asked Congress to pass a short-term measure to fund the federal
government and avoid a shutdown at the end of September.

A spokesperson with the U.S. Office of Management and Budget said a short-term
continuing resolution will be needed in the next
month, keeping government funding at its current levels while negotiations continue over longer-term
appropriations bills.

Funding for the federal government is set to run out on Sept. 30 unless action is taken by Congress. With a month to go until the
deadline, the Republican-led House of Representatives has only managed to pass one of the 12 bills needed to fund the government, according
to Reuters.

Deep divisions remain between the parties with Republicans looking to implement large spending cuts unlikely to pass
in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden requested a stopgap measure to cover standard government programs and an
additional $40 billion — $24 billion for Ukraine and other foreign policy challenges, nearly $4 billion for border and migration issues and $12
billion for disaster relief to boost the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Biden warned against a government shutdown while visiting FEMA headquarters Thursday in Washington, D.C., stressing the
effect it would have on agencies.

"It would be a serious, serious problem," Biden said.

Leaders of both parties have signaled an openness to a continuing resolution. Both House Speaker Kevin McCarthy
and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer expressed openness to the idea earlier this month.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday said the current budget negotiations are "a pretty big mess."

"I think we're going to end

up with a short-term congressional resolution, probably into December as we struggle to figure out
exactly what the government's spending level is going to be," McConnell said.

The plan envelops Biden’s PC in a political firestorm.

Laura Paddison 7-6-2018; HuffPost editor; Here's What You Need To Know About The Federal Jobs
Guarantee; HuffPost; https://www.huffpost.com/entry/federal-job-guarantee-
explained_n_5b363f4ae4b007aa2f7f59fc; DL
What do the critics say?
The jobs guarantee is a polarizing policy, with critics on both sides of the political spectrum. A key
concern with an idea this big and potentially unwieldy is the actual logistics of implementing it. How would the
government and local communities be able to come up with suitable, socially beneficial jobs for potentially tens of millions of people? For Matt
Bruenig, founder of the People’s Policy Project, a think tank, this is the main problem. “The idea that thousands of administrations across the
country will be able to usefully employ random flows of labor with random sets of skills in random durations is fairly implausible,” he wrote in
March. Similarly, Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, wrote in April: “I don’t think we
have the public sector managerial capacity right now to oversee the work of 11 million people ― who will be coming from varying backgrounds
and labor qualifications ― and ensure that they will be perceived as undertaking socially useful tasks.” Meanwhile, criticisms from the
right tend to focus on cost. Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute, a right-leaning think tank, says he applauds the goal of encouraging
good jobs at high wages, but calls the proposal of a guaranteed jobs program “fantasy land.” His criticisms are many and
vociferous. A jobs program could scoop up far more workers than envisioned, maybe 30 million, Riedl told HuffPost. “The wages and
benefits would be higher than what 40 percent of workers already earn,” he said. “Therefore they would not only attract the unemployed but
those out of the workforce, retirees and anyone earning less or who is unhappy with their job.” At the $56,000 some advocates have estimated
each job would cost, the whole program could cost between $1 trillion and $2 trillion a year , he says. Riedl argues
such a program would also “eviscerate” low-paying sectors like retail, fast food and landscaping. “The laws of supply and
demand are very clear that not all industries, especially in rural areas where costs are lower, can afford to pay $15 an hour
plus full benefits,” he said. And even if the private sector could afford to pay, he says, many workers might be attracted to the
government program because they’d be less likely to get fired from a guaranteed job scheme. Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson
writes that guaranteed jobs would “almost certainly be a disaster,” and that such a program would add to the
deficit and lead to inflation. In a May column, he expressed his opposition bluntly: “The fact that it’s taken seriously is
evidence that many Democrats, like Republicans before them, embrace loony economic agendas that are more public-
relations gestures than sensible policy.” Has any other country done it? Not to the universal extent envisioned here, but two
countries have initiated forms of a jobs guarantee. In Argentina, the Jefes y Jefas de Hogar Desocupados (Program for Unemployed Male and
Female Heads of Households) was introduced after a financial crisis in 2001. Federally funded and locally administered, the program offered
guaranteed employment of at least four hours a day in community-created jobs to the unemployed heads of households. The program was
phased out after a few years and replaced with more traditional social spending efforts. And India has the National Rural Employment
Guarantee, which gives up to 100 days of guaranteed paid employment per year to workers from rural households. It was found to increase
earnings in low-income households by 13 percent and reduce the gender pay gap. The program is still going, but payments to workers are
frequently late and the government has been accused of denying it funds. Will
it be implemented in the U.S.? Not without a
radical restructuring of the political landscape. “It’s going to require Democrats to take over the House
and the Senate and win back the White House,” Kelton said. “The GOP is not going to deliver this to us ― we are going to
have to fight for it.”
Government shutdown collapses the US military.
Flournoy ’18 [Michelle; January 19; former Under Secretary of Defense, currently co-founder at
WestExec, a strategic advisory firm; “What Happens to the Military if the Government Shuts Down,”
NPR, https://www.npr.org/2018/01/19/579227924/what-happens-to-the-military-if-the-government-
shuts-down]

As we just heard, whatever happens with this midnight deadline on a government shutdown, we know this - all active duty
military will carry on normal duty status. That's according to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. But this morning Mattis, in a speech at Johns Hopkins
University, also said this.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JIM MATTIS: We need a budget, and we need budget predictability if we're to sustain our military's primacy.
KELLY: Budget predictability. Well, let's unpack how budget predictability or the current lack thereof affects the military. We've got on the line
Michele Flournoy, former undersecretary of defense for policy under President Obama. Michele Flournoy, good to speak with you again.

MICHELE FLOURNOY: Good to speak with you.

KELLY: I imagine you lived through a shutdown or two in your years at the Pentagon. Can you tell me how that unfolded?
FLOURNOY: Well, there were several times when we had to plan for a shutdown and once when it actually occurred. And the striking thing is
how much senior leader time, attention, bandwidth was diverted from the main mission of the department, which at the
time was running operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, to actually planning for this massive disruption in the normal day-to-day
business of the department. It had very bad implications or impacts on morale of the - particularly the civilian workforce that
was furloughed. And it was just highly disruptive and highly distracting from the main mission.
KELLY: Well, let me ask what your response is when you hear this. I mean, President Trump has tweeted - now I'm going to quote - " a
government shutdown will be devastating to our military," end quote. Will it?
FLOURNOY: So the shutdown itself would not be devastating to the U.S. military. But what is devastating is what Secretary Mattis referred to,
which is the lack of a regular budget. So when you live from continuing resolution to continuing resolution you can't plan for the long term.
You can't start new programs. You can't make the necessary investments in modernization, in future capabilities.
You can't necessarily plan and sustain the kind of investment in readiness, operations and maintenance and repairs. We
haven't had regular budgets for quite some time. And that is what's really hurting the military.

KELLY: What type programs, what type contracts, what type commitments - when you talk about maintaining military readiness and advancing
that readiness, what type things aren't happening?

FLOURNOY: So in all of the services you've seen a lot of maintenance deferred. And you can do that as a very short-term stopgap
measure. But to do it over years and years and years, it now means that you have Army brigades that haven't been to the required
training to be ready. It means that you have Air Force pilots who haven't been able to fly the number of hours to remain
proficient. You may not have the munitions stockpile you need to actually do the exercises or to do the operations that you
might need to do. It means - it frankly, I think, was a contributing factor to the kinds of collisions that we've seen in the Pacific fleet
for the Navy.
KELLY: In what way, if I could stop you there for a second?

FLOURNOY: There's an investigation underway, but the early indications suggest that in order to send ships out on deployment some
certifications were not necessarily made, some training was cut short or skipped. And so you actually had a degradation in the
readiness of the sailors to actually be driving the ships safely.
KELLY: Are you talking to old friends, former colleagues at the Pentagon this week? What are you hearing?

FLOURNOY: I'm hearing a lot of frustration because, you know, Secretary Mattis today unveiled a new defense strategy that highlighted the fact
that we are re-entering an era of great power competition. We have a resurgent Russia that's been very aggressive
in Ukraine and on its borders and through, you know, information campaigns here and in Europe. We have a rising China that
has a different view of what the order should be in Asia. Being able to protect our vital interests and our allies will require
significant investment in our military for the future. And to do that, we have to have sort of regular order and discipline
in a budgeting process. And it's the absence of that that hurts us.

Primacy stops extinction from global war, nuclear terror, and arms racing.
Brands ’18 [Hal; January 16; Professor of Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins University’s School of
Advanced International Studies, Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments;
American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump, “Does America Have Enough Hard Power?” Ch. 6]
Primacy and Post-Cold War Grand Strategy

Since World War II, the

United States has had a military second to none. Since the Cold War, America has committed to
having overwhelming military primacy. The idea, as George W. Bush declared in 2002, that America must possess
“strengths beyond challenge” has featured in every major U.S. strategy document for a quarter century; it
has also been reflected in concrete terms.6

From the early 1990s, for example, the

United States consistently accounted for around 35 to 45 percent of world defense
spending and maintained peerless global power-projection capabilities.7 Perhaps more important, U.S. primacy
was also unrivaled in key overseas strategic regions—Europe, East Asia, the Middle East. From thrashing
Saddam Hussein’s million-man Iraqi military during Operation Desert Storm, to deploying—with impunity—two carrier
strike groups off Taiwan during the China-Taiwan crisis of 1995– 96, Washington has been able to project military
power superior to anything a regional rival could employ even on its own geopolitical doorstep.
This military dominance has constituted the hard-power backbone of an ambitious global strategy. After the Cold
War, U.S. policymakers committed to averting a return to the unstable multipolarity of earlier eras, and to
perpetuating the more favorable unipolar order. They committed to building on the successes of the postwar era by
further advancing liberal political values and an open international economy, and to suppressing international
scourges such as rogue states, nuclear proliferation, and catastrophic terrorism. And because they recognized
that military force remained the ultima ratio regum, they understood the centrality of military preponderance.

Washington would need the military power necessary to underwrite worldwide alliance commitments. It would
have to preserve substantial overmatch versus any potential great-power rival. It must be able to answer the
sharpest challenges to the international system, such as Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 or jihadist
extremism after 9/11. Finally, because prevailing global norms generally reflect hard-power realities, America
would need the superiority to assure that its own values remained ascendant. It was impolitic to say that U.S. strategy
and the international order required “strengths beyond challenge,” but it was not at all inaccurate.

American primacy, moreover, was eminently affordable. At the height of the Cold War, the United States spent over 12 percent of GDP on
defense. Since the mid-1990s, the number has usually been between 3 and 4 percent.8 In a historically favorable international environment,
Washington could enjoy primacy—and its geopolitical fruits—on the cheap.

Yet U.S. strategy also heeded, at least until recently, the fact that there was a limit to how cheaply that primacy could be had. The American
military did shrink significantly during the 1990s, but U.S. officials understood that if Washington cut back too far, its primacy would erode to a
point where it ceased to deliver its geopolitical benefits. Alliances would lose credibility; the stability of key regions would be eroded; rivals
would be emboldened; international crises would go unaddressed. American primacy was thus like a reasonably priced insurance policy. It
required nontrivial expenditures, but protected against far costlier outcomes.9 Washington paid its insurance premiums for two decades after
the Cold War. But more recently American primacy and strategic solvency have been imperiled.

The Darkening Horizon

For most of the post–Cold War era, the international system was— by historical standards—remarkably benign. Dangers
existed, and as the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, demonstrated, they could manifest with horrific effect. But for two decades after
the Soviet collapse, the world was characterized by remarkably low levels of great-power competition, high
levels of security in key theaters such as Europe and East Asia, and the comparative weakness of those
“rogue” actors—Iran, Iraq, North Korea, al-Qaeda—who most aggressively challenged American power.
During the 1990s, some observers even spoke of a “strategic pause,” the idea being that the end of the Cold War had afforded the United
States a respite from normal levels of geopolitical danger and competition. Now, however, the strategic horizon is darkening, due
to four factors.

First, great-power military competition is back. The world’s two leading authoritarian powers—China and
Russia—are seeking regional hegemony,

contesting global norms such as nonaggression and freedom of navigation, and developing the military
punch to underwrite these ambitions. Notwithstanding severe economic and demographic problems, Russia has conducted
a major military modernization emphasizing nuclear weapons, high-end conventional capabilities, and
rapid-deployment and special operations forces — and utilized many of these capabilities in conflicts in
Ukraine and Syria.10 China, meanwhile, has carried out a buildup of historic proportions, with constant-dollar
defense outlays rising from US$26 billion in 1995 to US$226 billion in 2016.11 Ominously, these expenditures have funded
development of power-projection and anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) tools necessary to threaten China’s
neighbors and complicate U.S. intervention on their behalf. Washington has grown accustomed to having a
generational military lead; Russian and Chinese modernization efforts are now creating a far more
competitive environment.
Second, the international outlaws are no longer so weak. North Korea’s conventional forces have
atrophied, but it has amassed a growing nuclear arsenal and is developing an intercontinental delivery
capability that will soon allow it to threaten not just America’s regional allies but also the continental United States.12
Iran remains a nuclear threshold state, one that continues to develop ballistic missiles and A2/AD
capabilities while employing sectarian and proxy forces across the Middle East. The Islamic State, for its part, is
headed for defeat, but has displayed military capabilities unprecedented for any terrorist group, and shown that
counterterrorism will continue to place significant operational demands on U.S. forces whether in this context or in
others. Rogue actors have long preoccupied American planners, but the rogues are now more capable than at any time in
decades.

Third, the democratization of technology has allowed more actors to contest American superiority in
dangerous ways. The spread of antisatellite and cyberwarfare capabilities; the proliferation of man-portable air
defense systems and ballistic missiles; the increasing availability of key elements of the precision-strike complex
— these phenomena have had a military leveling effect by giving weaker actors capabilities which were
formerly unique to technologically advanced states. As such technologies “proliferate worldwide,” Air Force Chief
of Staff General David Goldfein commented in 2016, “the technology and capability gaps between America and our
adversaries are closing dangerously fast.”13 Indeed, as these capabilities spread, fourth-generation systems
(such as F-15s and F-16s) may provide decreasing utility against even non-great-power competitors, and far more fifth-
generation capabilities may be needed to perpetuate American overmatch.

Finally, the number of challenges has multiplied. During the 1990s and early 2000s, Washington faced rogue states and jihadist
extremism—but not intense great-power rivalry. America faced conflicts in the Middle East—but East Asia and Europe were comparatively
secure. Now, the oldthreats still exist—but the more permissive conditions have vanished. The United States
confronts rogue states, lethal jihadist organizations, and great-power competition; there are severe
challenges in all three Eurasian theaters. “I don’t recall a time when we have been confronted with a more diverse
array of threats, whether it’s the nation state threats posed by Russia and China and particularly their substantial nuclear
capabilities, or non-nation states of the likes of ISIL, Al Qaida, etc.,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
commented in 2016. Trends in the strategic landscape constituted a veritable “litany of doom.”14 The United States
thus faces not just more significant, but also more numerous, challenges to its military dominance than it has
for at least a quarter century.
 1NC---OFF
T-TAXES.
Fiscal redistribution must be taxes and transfers
Jesuit and Mahler 17 (David K., Aldi J. Hagenaars Luxembourg Income Study (LIS)
Memorial Award and Director of the School of Public Service and Global Citizenship for
the College of Humanities and Social and Behavioral Sciences at Central Michigan
University, Vincent A., Professor in the Political Science department at Loyola University
Chicago, 3-9-2017, “Fiscal Redistribution in Comparative Perspective: Recent Evidence
from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Data Centre,” pg 184,
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316498958.008) – NT-RS
Fiscal redistribution by the state is, of course, not of one piece. In particular, it is possible that different trends will be in
evidence for the two main modes of direct redistribution: taxes and social transfers. To explore this, we have partitioned the
total Gini reduction accomplished by the state into two components: the part achieved by direct taxes and
the part achieved by social transfers. We have further disaggregated the Gini reduction as a result of transfers into programmes
aimed primarily at the elderly and those aimed primarily at working-age persons.

Violation: they aren’t.

Vote NEG – anything else massively explodes the topic and decks links to core
generics.
 1NC---OFF
STATES CP.
The fifty states and all relevant sub-national actors should uniformly:
-eliminate redundant welfare and wealth-favoring tax programs.
-implement a financial tax.
-implement an exit tax.
-implement a value added tax.
-implement a corporate tax.
-implement a payroll tax
-implement a carbon tax
-reappropriate Medicaid funding to fund the plan.
-implement a wealth tax
-establish Anti-Recession Budget Reform Initiatives backed by State Reserve Banks.
-implement an income tax
-adopt a job guarantee, and fund green jobs.

That’s more than enough funding.

Oshan Jarow 5-19-2020; fellow with Future Perfect at Vox, degree in economics & philosophy; A
Negative Income Tax for the 21st Century; Musing Mind; https://www.musingmind.org/essays/negative-
income-tax-proposal

How to Pay for NIT

For my funding calculations, I chose to use Philip Harvey’s $1.09 trillion as the funding target rather than
my own. I do so to demonstrate that whatever the cost, an achievable funding proposal is well within
reach.

Funding Summary

A $1.09 trillion NIT program could be funded through two categories of funding. First, eliminating or
reforming existing welfare and tax programs. Second, implementing new progressive taxes.

We could eliminate redundant welfare programs such as the earned income tax credit, supplemental
security income, supplemental nutritional assistance program, and temporary assistance for needy
families (total revenue of $198 billion). We could eliminate wealthy-favoring tax programs like the
mortgage interest deduction and the real estate tax deduction ($89 billion). And we could reduce the
defense department’s budget by 10% ($59 billion).

In total these provide $346 billion towards the cost. I then offer two strategies for approaching the
remaining $744 billion via progressive taxation.
We may either enact one single, large tax, or we may prefer implementing a series of smaller
progressive taxes. Options for the single tax include a value added tax (raising $600 billion - $1.3 trillion
in new revenue depending on exclusions), or an adaptation of Saez & Zucman’s proposed national
income tax that draws upon both labor and capital. They estimate a 6% flat rate could raise $1.2 trillion.
I estimate phasing the tax in on incomes above the NIT breakeven point to a top rate of 5% would be
sufficient to cover the remaining $744 billion.

For the series of smaller taxes, we could fully fund the NIT with: progressive top income tax rates ($18.9
- $70 billion), carbon tax ($100 - $210 billion), wealth tax ($118 - 375 billion), financial transaction tax
($70 billion), and raising the effective corporate tax rate ($235 billion).

Exit tax solves. California proves it works and uniformity is possible.

Nathanson 23 [Michael Nathanson; Chair and Chief Executive Officer of The Colony Group; 3/17/23;
“California Wealth and Exit Tax Shows a Window Into the Future”; https://news.bloombergtax.com/tax-
insights-and-commentary/california-wealth-and-exit-tax-shows-a-window-into-the-future]

The recently introduced California wealth tax proposal essentially contains three components. The first,
a wealth tax of 1% on household wealth over $50 million and 1.5% on wealth over $1 billion, would
apply starting in 2024 and to those with over $50 million starting in 2026. It would be based on
worldwide net worth, with some exceptions, and would apply to full-time, part-year, and temporary
residents, subject to apportionment. The second component is an exit-tax structure that allows the
wealth tax to be applied for several years after a taxpayer leaves California. Also included are provisions
that enable certain taxpayers to defer payment by contracting to pay the tax in the future, even if they
leave. The third component is an enabling amendment to the California constitution. While the
California proposal is unlikely to pass, thanks in part to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s opposition, ultrawealthy
taxpayers should be wary of what it portends. The California proposal doesn’t stand alone. Proposed
legislation in Hawaii would impose a tax of 1% on state net worth exceeding $20 million, and proposed
legislation in Washington would impose a tax of 1% on taxable worldwide wealth over $250 million.
Other states, including New York, have taken steps toward taxing the ultrawealthy, though primarily
through higher taxes on capital gain and other income. Late last year, Massachusetts imposed a surtax
of 4% on income over $1 million through a ballot initiative—and this example is perhaps telling. The
“Massachusetts millionaires’ tax” had been introduced and defeated multiple times before finally
becoming law. The most recent wealth-tax proposals may not pass this year but, as in Massachusetts,
it’s not the first time such proposals have been considered. They, too, may be part of a trend in which
voters and politicians gradually become more comfortable with a targeted new tax. Adding to the
pressure, some state budget deficits are growing, forcing them to make difficult decisions. In California,
the projected deficit of $22.5 billion roughly coincides with the projected $21.6 billion of revenue
offered by the wealth tax proposal. Then there’s the national rhetoric surrounding wealth inequality,
with several politicians unsuccessfully calling for a national wealth tax. The political hurdles for a
national wealth tax, however, are greater than they are in progressive states, making these states a
natural testing ground. As for the potential for exit taxation, fears of losing revenue from wealthy
taxpayers moving to lower-tax jurisdictions aren’t unfounded. They’re the main reason why the eight
states mentioned above acted in concert. According to the US Census Bureau, such migration already
has been occurring.
Balanced budget plank solves.
Steven Attewell 9 (Steven Attewell is completing his PhD in history at the University of California at
Santa Barbara, where he specializes in the history of public policy. His dissertation discusses the history
of public employment from the New Deal to the rise of Reagan. He co-authors a blog called “The
Realignment Project”, which discusses current political developments and proposed policies through the
lens of history. “Fifty-State Keynesianism - Part Deux” http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/fifty-
state-keynesianism-part-deux)

A 50-State Solution: One of the things that's often puzzled me about the progressive movement is our lack of willingness to use the initiative process to
our advantage in both achieving policy ends and mobilizing the electorate - consider the way in which the Republican Party used anti-gay marriage propositions in
2002 and 2004 to gin up their right-wing base, change the political debate from economic issues to their wedge issues, and attack the civil rights and civil liberties of
queer Americans. In 2006, we saw a little bit of this strategy on the progressive side, using minimum wage initiatives to increase working class turnout in states like
Ohio, but to the best of my knowledge it hasn't become a standard part of the Democratic Party political toolkit. Hence, the
first step in establishing
"50-state Keynesianism" is to promote, state-by-state an "Anti-Recession Budget Reform Initiative." (if
anyone has a better name for it, I'm open to suggestions). This initiative should amend the state constitution's balanced

budget requirement to allow the state, when the economy is in recession (i.e, two quarters of negative economic growth)
to run a limited deficit (two years maximum) for the purposes of funding counter-cyclical stimulus programs (limited to say,
5-10% of state GDP). We should begin our push in those areas which are deep blue states and which tend to have weaker balanced budget requirements - New
England would be a good starting place, especially with Vermont as the lone non-balanced budget state sitting there as a model for how deficit spending won't
destroy western civilization. The Rust Belt states that have been especially hit hard, like Michigan or Ohio, would probably be receptive to a message that it's better
to spend money to create jobs than to balance a budget by throwing teachers and other state workers out of their jobs. As usual, the major prizes would be New
York and California, given their size and political weight. Second, in order to build state capacity for Keynesian economic policy, we should also push for
the creation of State Reserve Banks. Here, I really have to credit Ellen Brown over at the Huffington Post for promoting this idea and bringing it to my
attention. This amazingly simple yet powerful idea takes its example from, of all places, the state of North Dakota, which has operated the Bank of North Dakota
since 1919. It works like this - the state charters a public bank, and instead of placing its reserves, tax revenues, deeds for public
lands, and so forth in a variety of state banks (as most states do), it puts all of them in the public bank to act as the bank's

capital base. (Note: as long as the bank only circulates U.S dollars, it's perfectly constitutional, avoiding the Article I,
Section 10 bar against states issuing coin or bills of credit) The bank then acts like a reserve bank, using the power of "fractional

reserve lending" (i.e, that a bank can generate much more money in loans than it keeps in its vaults, thus
multiplying many times over its actual reserves, as long as it keeps back a portion to redeem deposits) to generate
loans, act as a local "lender of last resort" (thus buttressing the work of the Federal Reserve and FDIC during credit crises), and (this is the
key bit) allowing the State to borrow money in order to deficit spend in a recession without relying on the ideologically-biased bond

market and the credit agencies who've taken a hammer to state bond ratings while maintaining A ratings for AIG and Lehman Brothers. The State could

then use these loans (which would be much cheaper than ordinary bonds, given that its essentially paying interest to itself ) to maintain public

services and fund public works and other stimulus measures in a recession. Let's take California as an example. The state has a normal
workforce of 18.5 million people, of which 2.146 million are currently unemployed (a rate of 11.6%). The objective of a new job insurance

system would be to create enough jobs to bring the rate down to an acceptable level - say, by 50% down
to 5.8%. (Note, while I would consider 5.8% unemployment to be unnecessarily high, and while we may want to consider ultimately lowering the official
"acceptable rate," for the moment, let's consider simply meeting the immediate crisis). In order to create 1,073,000 jobs, the state would need to spend
approximately $40 billion (taking into account wages, payroll taxes, and non-labor costs such as equipment, materials and land - although the state would probably
require counties and localities to put up at least part of the latter two items). Now , if we were simply to fund this off of Job Insurance
contributions, you're looking at $200 a month, which is quite high, although I imagine that it would be affordable for middle class folks
and up. However, if you were to split the costs between contributions and State Reserve Bank lending (and/or

general fund contributions), you could drop it to $100 a month (50-50), or $33 a month (say, 33/66 or, 33/33 and 33 from general

fund). Note that this is the cost if you have to do it all in one go - if we think about this a system to prevent the next recession, you can implement the

Job Insurance system in economic good times, and build up a reserve, which would allow you to run the system on still
lower job insurance premiums - a $20 a month premium for example, would allow you to build up $4 billion a year, allowing you to build up $20 billion in just 5
years. Moreover, if you create a target for jobs to be created when unemployment grows to a certain level, the
lower the level, the cheaper the program. If, for example, California had done this back in October 2008 when unemployment was only 8%,
it would only have cost $29.6 billion to reduce the unemployment rate down to 4%, which would have buoyed consumer spending, forestalled foreclosures, and
prevented further job losses in the private sector.
 1NC---OFF
DEATH CULT K.
The 1AC’s investment into debate’s death cult causes psychic violence and serial policy
failure. Vote NEG---this is a gateway issue.
Bjork ’93 [Rebecca Bjork; 1993; Former Associate Professor at the University of Utah; Reflections on
the Ongoing Struggle; Debater's Research Guide 1992-1993: Wake Forest University, Symposium,
http://groups.wfu.edu/debate/MiscSites/DRGArticles/Oudingetal1992Pollution.htm]
I remember listening to a lecture a few years ago given by Tom Goodnight at the University summer debate camp. Goodnight lamented what
he saw as the
debate community's participation in, and unthinking perpetuation of what he termed the "death
culture." He argued that the embracing of "big impact" arguments--nuclear war, environmental
destruction, genocide, famine, and the like-by debaters and coaches signals a morbid and detached fascination
with such events, one that views these real human tragedies as part of a "game" in which so-called "objective
and neutral" advocates actively seek to find in their research the "impact to outweigh all other impacts"--the round-winning argument that will
carry them to their goal of winning tournament X, Y, or Z. He concluded that our
"use" of such events in this way is
tantamount to a celebration of them; our detached, rational discussions reinforce a detached, rational
viewpoint, when emotional and moral outrage may be a more appropriate response. In the last few years, my
academic research has led me to be persuaded by Goodnight's unspoken assumption; language is not merely some transparent
tool used to transmit information, but rather is an incredibly powerful medium, the use of which inevitably has real
political and material consequences. Given this assumption, I believe that it is important for us to examine the
"discourse of debate practice:" that is, the language, discourses, and meanings that we, as a community of debaters and coaches,
unthinkingly employ in academic debate. If it is the case that the language we use has real implications for how we view
the world, how we view others, and how we act in the world, then it is imperative that we critically examine our own discourse
practices with an eye to how our language does violence to others. I am shocked and surprised when I hear myself saying things like,
"we killed them," or "take no prisoners," or "let's blow them out of the water." I am tired of the "ideal" debater being defined as one who has
mastered the art of verbal assault to the point where accusing opponents of lying, cheating, or being deliberately misleading is a sign of
strength. But what I am most tired of is how women debaters are marginalized and rendered voiceless in such a discourse community. Women
who verbally assault their opponents are labeled "bitches" because it is not socially acceptable for women to be verbally aggressive. Women
who get angry and storm out of a room when a disappointing decision is rendered are labeled "hysterical" because, as we all know, women are
more emotional then men. I am tired of hearing comments like, "those 'girls' from school X aren't really interested in debate; they just want to
meet men." We can all point to examples (although only a few) of women who have succeeded at the top levels of debate. But I find myself
wondering how many more women gave up because they were tired of negotiating the mine field of discrimination, sexual harassment, and
isolation they found in the debate community. As members of this community, however, we have great freedom to define it in whatever ways
we see fit. After all, what is debate except a collection of shared understandings and explicit or implicit rules for interaction? What I am calling
for is a critical examination of how we, as individual members of this community, characterize our activity, ourselves, and our interactions with
others through language. We must become aware of the ways in which our mostly hidden and unspoken assumptions about what "good"
debate is function to exclude not only women, but ethnic minorities from the amazing intellectual opportunities that training in debate
provides. Our nation and indeed, our planet, faces incredibly difficult challenges in the years ahead. I believe that it is not acceptable anymore
for us to go along as we always have, assuming that things will straighten themselves out. If the rioting in Los Angeles taught us anything, it is
that complacency breeds resentment and frustration. We
may not be able to change the world, but we can change our
own community, and if we fail to do so, we give up the only real power that we have.
1NC — Case
 1NC---Advantage 1
No internal link to public health---random unemployed people can’t catch
bioterrorists if the government can’t.
Food insecurity is unlinked from war.
Cliffe 16 – Sarah F. Cliffe, the director of New York University’s Center on International Cooperation,
International Relations and International Economic Policy MA at Columbia University. [Food Security,
Nutrition, and Peace, 4-3-16, https://cic.nyu.edu/news_commentary/food-security-nutrition-and-
peace]//BPS

However, current research does not yet indicate a clear link between climate change, food insecurity and
conflict, except perhaps where rapidly deteriorating water availability cuts across existing tensions and weak institutions. But a series of
interlinked problems – changing global patterns of consumption of energy and scarce resources, increasing demands for food imports (which
draw on land, water, and energy inputs) can create pressure on fragile situations. Food security – and food prices – are a highly political issue,
being a very immediate and visible source of popular welfare or popular uncertainty. But their link
to conflict (and the wider links between
climate change and conflict) is indirect rather than direct. What makes some countries more resilient than others? Many
countries face food price or natural resource shocks without falling into conflict. Essentially, the two
important factors in determining their resilience are: First, whether food insecurity is combined with other
stresses – issues such as unemployment, but most fundamentally issues such as political exclusion or human rights abuses. We sometimes
read nowadays that the 2006-2009 drought was a factor in the Syrian conflict, by driving rural-urban migration that caused societal stresses. It
may of course have been one factor amongst many but itwould be too simplistic to suggest that it was the primary
driver of the Syrian conflict. Second, whether countries have strong enough institutions to fulfill a social compact with
their citizens, providing help quickly to citizens affected by food insecurity, with or without international assistance.
During the 2007-2008 food crisis, developing countries with low institutional strength experienced more food price protests than those with
higher institutional strengths, and more than half these protests turned violent. This for example, is the difference in the events in Haiti versus
those in Mexico or the Philippines where far greater institutional strength existed to deal with the food price shocks and protests did not spur
deteriorating national security or widespread violence.

Overfishing is a myth---the newest, most comprehensive studies show stocks are

rebounding.
Bryce ’20 [Emma; January 17; MS in Science Journalism from New York University, work appeared in
publications including The Guardian, Wired Magazine UK, Audubon Magazine, The Atlantic, The New
York Times, Slate, and Yale e360; Anthropocene Magazine, “Contrary to Popular Belief, Fish Stocks Are
Not Declining in All Parts Of The Ocean,” https://anthropocenemagazine.org/2020/01/the-verdict-
managing-fisheries-really-does-work/]

Fisheries management around the world is working, increasing ecosystem abundance and safeguarding
harvests for the future, across huge swathes of global ocean.

This piece of good news comes from a new PNAS study, and it’s giving researchers cause for optimism,
because until now there’s been a dominant belief that fish stocks are declining in most parts of the
planet’s oceans. The comprehensive new paper points out that while overfishing continues to be a
major concern, it certainly doesn’t describe the case everywhere.

Instead, the study showed that wherever fisheries are being scientifically monitored, there has actually been an average
increase in abundance over the past few decades. The researchers put this down to improved
management in these monitored fisheries – which allows stocks to recover and replenish, thanks to measures
including catch limits designed to curtail overfishing.

What’s more,
because scientifically monitored fisheries make up a surprising 50% of all the reported catch
in the world, this paints a much more positive picture of how fisheries may actually be faring across
large parts of the globe.
Zooming in to the country-scale, the researchers drew up an index of fisheries management around the world to rank countries’ efforts. This
revealed that those regions that have taken steps to intensively manage their fisheries – among them, Alaska, the West Coast of the United
States, Norway, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands – showed increasing stock abundance, or fisheries that were at least improving.

In contrast, in regions that ranked lower on the index because management is more lax – like parts of the Mediterranean and North Africa –
harvest rates are three-fold higher. Consequently, fish stocks there were only half as abundant as better-managed fisheries, the analysis
showed.

This provided evidence of a concrete link between reduced fishing pressure – driven by better management – and more abundant fisheries.
And, this
is occurring in more places than we think, despite the gloomy prognosis on overfishing we’ve
become accustomed to. “Fish stocks are not all declining around the world. They are increasing in many
places, and we already know how to solve problems through effective fisheries management,” the
researchers said.

Previous studies on fisheries management relied on databases that only looked at about 20% of the world’s catch –
which was too limited to get a realistic gauge on how effective management efforts really are. The major
boon of this study is that it brings that figure up by 30%, to now cover half the world’s recorded catch.
 1NC---Advantage 3
Democracy causes great-power war---extinction.
Dr. Daina Chiba 21, Associate Professor of Political Science in the Department of Government and
Public Administration at the University of Macau, Ph.D. in Political Science from Rice University, LL.M in
Jurisprudence and International Relations from Hitotsubashi University, and Dr. Erik Gartzke, Professor
of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego, PhD in Political Science from the University
of Iowa, “Make Two Democracies and Call Me in the Morning: Endogenous Regime Type and the
Democratic Peace”, 2/19/2021, https://dainachiba.github.io/research/make2dem/Make2Dem.pdf

The democratic peace—the observation that democracies are less likely to fight each other than are other pairings of states— is one
of the most widely acknowledged empirical regularities in international relations. Prominent scholars
have even characterized the relationship as an empirical law (Levy 1988; Gleditsch 1992). The discovery of a special
peace in liberal dyads stimulated enormous scholarly debate and led to, or reinforced, a number of policy initiatives by various governments
and international organizations. Although a broad consensus has emerged among researchers regarding the empirical correlation between joint
democracy and peace, disagreement remains as to its logical foundations. Numerous theories have been proposed to account for how
democracy produces peace, if only dyadically (e.g., Russett 1993; Rummel 1996; Doyle 1997; Schultz 2001).

At the same time , peace appears likely to foster or maintain democracy (Thompson 1996; James, Solberg,
andWolfson 1999). A vast swath of research in political science and economics proposes explanations for the origins of liberal government
involving variables such as economic development (Lipset 1959; Burkhart and Lewis-Beck 1994; Przeworski et al. 2000; Acemoglu and Robinson
2006; Epstein et al. 2006) and inequality (Boix 2003), political interests (Downs 1957; Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003), power hierarchies (Moore
1966; Lake 2009), third party inducements (Pevehouse 2005) or impositions (Peceny 1995; Meernik 1996), geography (Gleditsch 2002b), and
natural resource endowments (Ross 2001), to list just a few examples. Each of these putative cause s of democracy is also
associated with various explanations for international conflict. Indeed, some as yet poorly defined set of canonical
factors may contribute both to democracy and to peace, making it look as if the two variables are directly related ,

even if possibly they are not .

We seek to contribute to this literature, not by proposing yet another theory to explain how democracy vanquishes war, but by estimating the
causal effect of joint democracy on the probability of militarized disputes using a quasi-experimental research design. We begin by noting that
some of the common causes of democracy and peace may be unobservable , generating an
endogenous relations hip between the two. Theories of democracy and explanations for peace are at a
formative state ; it is not possible to utilize detailed, validated and widely accepted models of each of
these processes to assess their interaction. Indeed, to a remarkable degree democracy and peace each
remain poorly understood and weakly accounted for empirically , despite their central roles in
international politics. We address the risk of spurious correlation by applying an instrumental variables
approach . Having taken into account possible endogeneity between democracy and peace, we find
that joint democracy does not have a n independent pacifying effect on interstate conflict. Instead, our
findings show that democratic countries are more likely to attack other democracies than are non-
democracies. Our results call into question the large body of theory that has been proposed to account for the
apparent pacifism of democratic dyads.
Can’t solve corporate power---card zero says unions are key.
Can’t solve warming---lack of political will and other countries.
There’s no impact---it’s decades off, rejected by scientific consensus---adaption and
intervening actors check.
Robert H. Wade 21, Professor of Global Political Economy at the London School of Economics, DPhil
and MPhil in Social Anthropology from Sussex University, Master’s in Economics from Victoria
University, BA in Economics from Otago University, “What is the Harm in Forecasting Catastrophe Due to
Man-Made Global Warming?”, Global Policy Journal, 7/22/2021,
https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/22/07/2021/what-harm-forecasting-catastrophe-due-man-
made-global-warming
Conclusion

I have argued that the “plausible” risks of climate change are commonly exaggerated within the climate community. Recall
for example, Christiana Figueres, 2020, “The scary thing is that after 2030 it basically doesn’t really matter what humans do”; Kevin Drum, 2019,
“[The Green New Deal] would only change the dates for planetary suicide by a decade or so”; Frank Fenner, 2010, “We’re going to
become extinct. Whatever we do now is too late.” Many more in the same doomsday vein.

We have seen that the

standard global warming models have a powerful built-in bias to exaggerate the rate of
future temperature rise, as seen in (most of) them “hindcasting” temperature rises several times faster than
actually observed. We have seen that forecasters commonly take “worst-case scenarios” as “likely scenarios in the
absence of radical action” (eg reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050), to the point where Nature recently published a paper sub-titled,
“Stop using the worst-case scenario for climate warming as the most likely outcome”.

The dismaying thing is that scientists and advocates have

been making catastrophising global warming forecasts of this
kind fordecades past, normally dated some 10 to 30 years into the future. The due date comes without catastrophe,
but never a retrospective holding to account. Rather, on to the next catastrophising forecast another 10 to 30 years
ahead. Scientists-writers-activists know the catastrophe forecasts get the attention, the clicks, the research funding.
We saw the exaggeration mechanism spelled out by Richard Betts of the BBC, Holman Jenkins of the Wall St Journal, and climate scientist Judith
Curry.

The built-in exaggeration of the costs of climate change blunts the parallel with nuclear power plants. We know with high certainty the costs of
nuclear explosions. We know the costs of global temperature going above 1.5 C above “pre-industrial” much less certainly, and we can see the
mechanisms by which the likely costs are being systematically exaggerated.

On the other hand, there is abundant evidence that even without the doomsday exaggerations the plausible risks of climate change could be very serious, in particular because of the inherent
political economy difficulty of getting needed global or regional cooperation when political action is mostly at the level of sovereign nation states (see the G20).

Coal power generation is the single biggest source of GHG emissions, and emissions from coal consumption will probably not fall fast, whatever the promises. First, coal is cheap, accessible and
generates reliable power for many developing countries; in Asia, coal alone generates 40 percent of energy consumption, much higher than the world average of 29 percent. (12) Second,
developing countries, including China, assert a strong claim on carbon space to power their economic development. They see it partly as a matter of fundamental justice, since developed
countries emitted most of the CO2 that is already in the atmosphere and seas as the necessary condition for them becoming developed. Developed countries promise finance and technical
assistance on a massive scale to accelerate the energy transition in developing countries – and have a long track record of leaving promises as promises. (See the global distribution of Covid
vaccines. See the results of vaunted “voting reform” in the World Bank, leaving the US with 17% and China with 6%.) What is more, the Japanese government plans up to 22 new coal power
plants, as it closes nuclear plants in the wake of Fukushima.

Then comes a question: does drawing attention to the doomsday exaggerations of the CCC – “disaster”, “catastrophe”, “extinction”, “fiddling while the planet burns” - serve to reduce the
political and public pressures for necessary ameliorative action, in a world where powerful fossil lobbies seek to block or delay such action for reasons independent of “evidence”? Should
“Third Way” essays like this one not be published, because “give them (deniers, sceptics) an inch and they will take a mile”? To what extent must mass publics be “panicked” in order to induce
enough collective political and business action – national, international – to substantially slow the growth of GHG emissions? If we can sustain emission- and temperature-curbing action only
by holding up the certainty of disaster, catastrophe, extinction, then better to let the doomsday exaggerations continue as the necessary condition for that ameliorative action. What is the
harm, when the alternative is ruin for humanity and the biosphere?

The danger is that the repeated wild exaggerations produce a public backlash, a discrediting, and a strengthening of the many “deniers” who see “leftists, governments, and the United
Nations” as the source of malevolence in the world. A more accurate accounting of the evidence would (hopefully) produce a more calibrated and sustained public and business response.

What to do? (13)

The IPCC should allocate some 10% of its budget to a Red Team, dedicated to independent scrutiny of its evidence and conclusions (especially the Summary for Policymakers). (14) The IPCC
should revise its mandate to require it explicitly to focus on interactions between natural forces and human actions, as it is now almost required not to, biassing its assessment of the state of
scientific knowledge towards “man-made global warming” as an almost separate system.

Learned societies should more actively seek to understand and publicize the reasons for repeated large-scale discrepancies between “hindcasts” and “forecasts” on the one hand and actual
observations on the other, discrepancies strongly biased towards “disaster”.

It is particularly important that the knee-jerk attribution of extreme weather events to global warming be challenged with reference to evidence. Judith Curry explained – quoted earlier -- why

CCC advocates have a powerful incentive to attribute cases of extreme weather to global warming, tout
court. She has recently written, “Apart from the reduced frequency of the coldest temperatures, the signal of global
warming in the statistics of extreme weather events remains much smaller than that from natural
climate variability, and is expected to remain so at least until the second half of the 21rst century .” She goes
on to amplify a point made earlier about the limits of the climate models used for the IPCC assessment reports: they are driven

mainly by predictions of future GHG emissions. They do not include predictions of natural climate
variability arising from solar output, volcanic eruptions or evolution of large-scale multi-decadal ocean
circulations. They do a particularly poor job of simulating regional and decadal-scale climate variability.
(15)

Participants on both sides have to learn the art of respecting the principle of free speech while maintaining the standards of civil discourse.

While I have stressed the CCC’s support for urgent and radical changes to the way we live, work and govern, some CCC champions argue that the world economy could continue on a largely
unchanged growth trajectory provided that we switch fast from fossil fuels to renewables. Indeed, this switch is beginning to happen fast, with coal and nuclear energy production unable to
compete without subsidies in areas where natural gas, wind and solar resources are readily available.

But to say that life can continue as before provided we substitute renewables for fossil fuels obscures the huge difficulties for many developing countries of getting out of fossil fuels while
growing fast enough to reduce the income gap with developed countries.

We must give high priority to investments in “clean coal” technologies, such as carbon capture, storage and use, to make the dirtier coal cleaner in existing and new coal-power plants; and link
coal-power retirement to the coming on-stream of attractive alternatives. The multilateral development banks have recently or will soon announce bans on coal power. The G7 leaders
meeting in mid 2021 promised to stop using government funds to finance new international coal power plants by the end of 2021. China’s Belt and Road Initiative should increase its pressure
on host countries to cut back on dirty coal and boost clean coal and renewables.

A high and immediate priority is to build a robust financing and technical assistance mechanism for help from developed to developing countries. The Paris Agreement instituted a Mitigation
pillar and an Adaptation pillar. Intense debate took place around the third, Loss and Damage, the name of a mechanism to compensate for the destruction that Mitigation and Adaptation
cannot prevent. Developed countries by and large have sought to marginalize the Loss and Damage pillar, as they have long sought to marginalize Special and Differential Treatment for
developing countries in trade and investment agreements. “Finance is something that really rich countries, particularly the US, have made sure that there is no progress and not even
discussion on”, remarked Harjeet Singh, senior advisor at Climate Action Network International. (16)

My “forecast” is that in
the next two to three decades to midcentury we will make rapid progress in scientific knowledge
about weather and climate, helped by longer and more accurate satellite and ocean records and by a new generation of
climate models that operate at one to ten kilometers scale (as distinct from the current models’ 50 kilometer scale). We will probably
continue to make rapid progress in decoupling GHG from GDP growth, with a combination of state direction-
setting and private innovation focused on transformations in energy, transport, buildings, industry and agriculture, using incentives
like research and development subsidies and tax credits for technology investment, and penalties for carbon-intensive activities. (17) In
transport, this entails coordination across urban planning decisions, public transport investment, future of remote working, infrastructures for
electric charging and hydrogen loading. (18) Transformations in these systems are
already underway, and the prospect of
vast new green investments, supported and under-written by the state, will intensify them. These green investments will
open productive investment opportunities previously limited by stagnant wages and rising debt, which have driven investment into increasingly
speculative ventures. If by two or three decades ahead it looks as though the second half of this century could well experience globally extreme
climate and ocean events, we will be much more knowledgeable about what to do than we are today. (19)
 1NC---Advantage 2
Recessions moderate war---upswings enflame them.
Laio ’19 [Jianan; 2019; Shenzhen Nanshan Foreign Language School; International Symposium on Social
Science and Management Innovation, “Business Cycle and War: A Literature Review and Evaluation,”
vol. 68]

Through the comparison of the two views, it can be found that both sides are too vague in the description of the concept of business
cycle. According to economists such as Joseph Schumpeter, the business cycle is divided into four phases: expansion,
crisis, recession, recovery. [12] Although there are discords in the division and naming of business cycle, it is certain that they are
not simply divided into two stages of rise and recession. However, as mentioned above, scholars who discussed the
relationship between business cycle and war often failed to divide the business cycle into four stages in
detail to analyze the relationship.

First, warcan occur at any stage of expansion, crisis, recession, recovery, so it is unrealistic to assume that
wars occur at any particular stage of the business cycle. On the one hand, although the domestic economic
problems in the crisis/recession/depression period break out and become prominent in a short time, in fact, such challenge exists
at all stages of the business cycle. When countries cannot manage to solve these problems through conventional approaches,
including fiscal and monetary policies, they may resort to military expansion to achieve their goals, a theory known as Lateral Pressure. [13]
Under such circumstances, even countries in the period of economic expansion are facing downward pressure on the economy and may try to
solve the problem through expansion. On the other hand, although the
resources required for foreign wars are huge for
countries in economic depression, the decision to wage wars depends largely on the consideration of the
gain and loss of wars. Even during depression, governments can raise funding for war by issuing bonds. Argentina, for example, was
mired in economic stagflation before the war on the Malvinas islands (also known as the Falkland islands in the UK). In fact, many governments
would dramatically increase their expenditure to stimulate the economy during the recession, and economically war is the same as these
policies, so the claim that a depressed economy cannot support a war is unfounded. In addition, during the crisis period of the business cycle,
which is the early stage of the economic downturn, despite the economic crisis and potential depression, the country still retains the ability to
start wars based on its economic and military power. Based on the above understanding, war has the conditions and reasons for
its outbreak in all stages of the business cycle.

Second, the economic origin for the outbreak of war is downward pressure on the economy rather than optimism or
competition for monopoly capital, which may exist during economic recession or economic prosperity. This is due to a
fact that during economic prosperity, people are also worried about a potential economic recession. Blainey pointed
out that wars often occur in the economic upturn, which is caused by the optimism in people's mind [14],
that is, the confidence to prevail. This interpretation linking optimism and war ignores the strength contrast between the warring
parties. Not all wars are equally comprehensive, and there have always been wars of unequal strength. In such a war, one of the parties tends
to have an absolute advantage, so the expectation of the outcome of the war is not directly related to the economic situation of the country.
Optimism is not a major factor leading to war, but may somewhat serve as stimulation. In addition, Lenin attributed the war
to competition between monopoly capital. This theory may seem plausible, but its scope of application is obviously too narrow. Lenin's theory
of imperialism is only applicable to developed capitalist countries in the late stage of the development capitalism, but in reality, many wars take
place among developing countries whose economies are still at their beginning stages. Therefore, the theory centered on competition among
monopoly capital cannot explain most foreign wars. Moreover, even wars that occur during periods of economic expansion are likely to result
from the potential expectation of economic recession, the "limits of growth" [15] faced during prosperity – a potential deficiency of market
demand. So the downward pressure on the economy is the cause of war.

Inequality’s declining.
Wright et. al ‘19 [Joshua D., Elyse Dorsey, Jonathan Klick, and Jan M. Rybnicek; University Professor
and Executive Director, Global Antitrust Institute at Scalia Law School; Attorney Advisor to Commissioner
Noah Joshua Phillips, United States Federal Trade Commission; Professor of Law, University of
Pennsylvania; Counsel in the antitrust, competition, and trade practice of Freshfields, Bruckahus
Deringer LLP; Arizona State Law Review, “REQUIEM FOR A PARADOX: The Dubious Rise and Inevitable
Fall of Hipster Antitrust,” vol. 51]

2. The Empirical Evidence: Is Inequality Really Growing?

All of the papers discussed above assume

that inequality has increased in recent years. This view is fairly
common among economists and would seem to be borne out as seen in Figure 2 below, which presents
the Gini coefficient for U.S. incomes for the last fifty years.166

Figure 3, which plots the ratio of the share of US income among the fifth quintile of income-earning households to the share among the first
quintile of households167 tells a similar story.

inequality measures can be significantly affected by a

Robert Kaestner and Darren Lubotsky underscore the point that
failure to account for government transfers and employee benefits that presumably substitute for cash
income.168 Given that healthcare costs have grown faster than inflation in recent years, a failure to
account for health insurance benefits could significantly affect economic inequality measures.
Reviewing estimates from the literature, Kaestner and Lubotsky find that including health insurance substantially
reduces the gap between incomes at the high end of the distribution and those at the low end .169
Interestingly, however, the authors find that there
is still an upward trend in inequality over time when the cash
equivalent of health insurance and government transfers are included.170 The trend, however, is
substantially muted.171 Specifically, including government transfers and the imputed value of employer
subsidized health insurance, Kaestner and Lubotsky indicate that the ratio of income between households at
the ninetieth percentile and the tenth percentile was about five in 1995, growing to 5.2 in 2004 and to
5.6 in 2012.172

Growth is unsustainable and causes extinction---the impossibility of decoupling within

available time necessitates degrowth.
Stuart ’21 [Diana; 2021; Associate Professor in the Sustainable Communities Program and in the
School of Earth and Sustainability at Northern Arizona University; Ryan Gunderson; Assistant Professor
of Sociology and Social Justice Studies in the Department of Sociology and Gerontology and Affiliate of
the Institute for the Environment and Sustainability at Miami University; Brian Petersen; Associate
Professor in the Geography, Planning and Recreation Department at Northern Arizona University; The
Degrowth Alternative, A Path to Address our Environmental Crisis? p. 1-33]
1 Addressing our environmental crisis

The words “crisis” and “emergency” are increasingly used by scientists and in the media to describe the state of our environment. For example,
in 2019 an article representing the views of 11,000 scientists was published in BioScience, titled “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate
Emergency” (Ripple et al. 2019). Also, in 2019, the “Call it a Climate Crisis” campaign urged media organizations to use the words “climate
crisis” instead of “climate change,” resulting in a widespread increase in the use of the term.

The terms “ecologicalcrisis” and “biodiversity crisis” are also now commonly used by conservation scientists
and in the media. For example, a letter representing almost 100 scientists was published in October of 2018 titled: “Facts about our
ecological crisis are incon-trovertible” (Green et al. 2018). A year later, a “bleak” United Nations report on biodiversity and ecosystem services
(IPBES 2019a) resulted in scientists publicly calling for rapid funding and intervention to address the “biodiversity crisis” (Malcom et al. 2019).

Are we indeed facing multiple environmental crises? General definitions of a “crisis” include a decisive moment or crucial time, a critical phase
that determines all future events, a condition of danger or precarity, threats to primary goals, being affected by serious problems, extreme
trouble, and a time of great difficulty. In addition, according to Venette (2003: 43), a “ crisis
is a process of transformation
where the old system can no longer be maintained.” Evidence suggests that, in terms of all of these different
meanings, we are in a state of environmental crisis, which includes the dual crises of climate change and
biodiversity loss. We briefly present some of the most recent and compelling scientific evidence demonstrating the reality and severity of
these crises below.

Our presentation of the evidence of these crises is brief, as the overall objective of this book is to examine how we can best address them. We
present some of the most authoritative and boldest statements from scientists about the possible and likely impacts if we stay on our current
course. Then we quickly shift to focus on solutions. For reasons we will describe, we are skeptical of popularly proposed solutions to tackle
these crises and instead seek out more far-reaching and transformative alternatives. We focus on a key lever in our system that drives the
speed and direction of our material and energy flows, economic growth, and examine degrowth as an alternative to move us towards a better
and more sustainable future.

Evidence of our climate and biodiversity crises

Mounting evidence indicates that we are in a climate crisis. With

only a little more than 1°C increase in average global
temperatures since preindustrial levels, we are already seeing serious impacts including unprecedented
fires, floods, and hurricanes; and much more severe impacts are projected as warming continues. Steffen
et al. (2018) explain the real possibility of reaching a critical threshold of warming or a global tipping point after
which additional warming would be uncontrollable, resulting in a “Hothouse Earth” scenario. In Nature,
Lenton et al. (2019: 595) state that climate change
“is an existential threat to civilization,” explaining that “the evidence
from tipping points alone suggests that we are in a state of planetary emergency: both the risk and
urgency of the situation are acute.”

Climate impacts are already unfolding and the crisis will amplify with increasing climate-related
disasters, melting ice, and rising sea levels. The 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report Global
Warming of 1.5°C contains much bolder language than previous reports to stress the significant difference in impacts between a 1.5°C and a 2°C
increase in average global temperatures and the need for immediate, unprecedented, and far-reaching action. In addition, a 2019 report in the
Lancet details how climate change is already impacting human health globally and warns of devastating health impacts as warming continues
(Watts et al. 2019). Lastly, Ripple et al. (2019: 1), representing the Alliance of World Scientists, identify “disturbing” and “worrisome” vital signs
of climate impacts that they state “clearly and unequivocally” illustrates we are in a “climate emergency.”

Although the climate crisis contributes to biodiversity loss (Thomas et al. 2004), it is considered a separate, yet related,
crisis. Conservation biologists pointed out years ago that we are in the midst of the sixth global mass extinction event,
driven by humans (Barnosky et al. 2011), also referred to as the “extinction tsunami” (Lovejoy 2017) or “biological
annihilation” (Ceballos et al. 2017). Recent indicators of a biodiversity crisis include half of all vertebrate
populations in decline (Ceballos et al. 2017), a global extinction rate of approximately 200 species each day
(Green et al. 2018), the loss of 29% of birds in North America since 1970 (Rosenberg et al. 2019), and 1 million species (25%) facing extinction
globally (IPBES 2019a). A comprehensive report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
(IPBES 2019a) concludes that humans are driving global changes in plant and animal life that are
unprecedented in history.

The biodiversity crisis will increasingly impact human societies. While many people overlook human
dependency on other species, scientists continue to argue that at current rates we will alter the natural world in
ways that threaten not only human well-being but also human existence (Ceballos et al. 2015). The concept of
ecosystem services has been used for decades to emphasize the ways that humans benefit from and
depend on ecosystems (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005) and projections of global change reveal the
potential severity of social impacts from biodiversity loss. The IPBES media release (2019b) states that species loss
has accelerated to rates that “constitutes a direct threat to human well-being in all regions of the
world.” The United Nations biodiversity chief warns of ecological thresholds and tipping points that could result in a
cascade of extinctions, collapse, and social impacts (Conley 2019).
If a crisis is a decisive moment, crucial time, or a critical phase that determines future events, then, according to scientists, we are in a state of
environmental crisis. If a crisis is a condition of danger or precarity that poses serious problems, extreme trouble, and great difficulty, then the
science again indicates we are in a climate and ecological crisis. In addition to scientists, an increasing number of other people now recognize
these serious threats. For example, United States (US) public opinion polls reveal that more than a quarter of Americans consider climate
change a “crisis” with a further 36% defining it as a “serious problem” (CBS News 2019). In addition, 60% of Americans polled think government
should do something to address global warming and 70% believe environmental protection is more important than economic growth (Marlon
et al. 2019). In the United Kingdom (UK), 85% of citizens are concerned about climate change, 52% are very concerned, and 55% think the UK
should bring emissions to net zero before 2050 targets (Dickman and Skinner 2019).

If we define a crisis as “a process of transformation where the old system can no longer be maintained” (Venette 2003: 43), we also see
mounting evidence that we are in a state of crisis. According to scientists, the
status quo can no longer be maintained and
instead “rapid and far-reaching changes are needed in all aspects of society” (IPCC 2018). Lenton et al. (2019: 595)
explain that “[n]o amount of economic cost–benefit analysis is going to help us. We need to change our approach to the climate problem.”
Ripple et al. (2019: 3, 4) and the Alliance of World Scientist state that to “secure a sustainable future, we must change how
we live” and “[t]he good news is that such trans-formative change, with social and economic justice for all, promises far greater human well-
being than does business as usual.” If we are indeed in a state of crisis, where the old system must be replaced, what kind of new system do we
need? What changes are necessary to minimize ecological and social impacts?

What kind of change is needed?

There is a vast amount of scientific evidence supporting the reality and seriousness of both the climate and biodiversity crises. We presented
only a small portion of this evidence and every week more is produced by scientists across the globe. Instead of going any further into the
science supporting the realities of these crises, this book focuses on what changes are needed to address them. In other words, if we accept
that we are indeed facing an unprecedented environmental crisis, how can society respond in ways that are effective and just?

There are many proposed solutions to address our environmental crisis. As we will discuss in Chapter 2, popularly discussed solutions include
individual behavior changes, market-based schemes, techno-logical innovations and efficiency gains, renewable energy creation,1 and
geoengineering. But will these be enough? Do they represent the “far-reaching” changes in all aspects of society called for by scientists? Do
they represent the “transformative change” that scientists call for? In Chapter 2, we present evidence demonstrating the inadequacy of popular
proposed solutions. We also illustrate exactly why these pro-posed solutions will not be sufficient—because they are not transformative or far-
reaching and, most critically, they fail to address the root driver of these problematic environmental conditions.

Many scientists now agree that a system prioritizing economic growth is a root driver of both the climate
and biodiversity crises. Green et al. (2018: 1), representing nearly 100 scientists, argue that governments have betrayed us
“in failing to acknowledge that infinite economic growth on a planet with finite resources is non-viable.”
Steffen et al. (2018: 5–6) state that “[t]he present dominant socioeco-nomic system, however, is based on high-carbon economic growth and
exploitative resource use” and we need “changes in behavior, technology and innovation, governance, and values.” The IPBES summary report
(2019a: 10) similarly explains:

A key component of sustainable pathways is the evolution of global financial and economic systems to
build a global sustainable economy, steering away from the current, limited paradigm of
economic growth… It would also entail a shift beyond standard economic indicators such as gross domestic product to include
those able to capture more holistic, long-term views of economics and quality of life.

Lastly, Ripple et al. (2019: 4) state that:

Excessive extraction of materials and overexploitation of ecosystems, driven by economic

growth, must be quickly curtailed to maintain long-term sustainability of the biosphere … Our goals
need to shift from GDP growth and the pursuit of affluence to-ward sustaining ecosystems and improving human well-being by
prioritizing basic needs and reducing inequality.

Why are these scientists focusing so much on GDP? GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product and represents the market value of all goods and
services produced in a specific time period. GDP was created as an indicator during World War II, aimed to assess productive capa-bilities for
the war effort. Increasing GDP annually was then widely adopted as a global economic goal, with average yearly increases in the US of around
3%. That means every year more and more goods are produced and services offered.

However, producing
an ever-increasing amount of goods and services each year continues to require an
increasing amount of materials and energy. It therefore makes sense that a GDP growth of 1% equals a 0.6% growth in material
use (Wiedmann et al. 2015) and a 1% increase in GDP equals a 0.5–0.7% increase in carbon emissions (Burke et al. 2015). It also makes sense
that the most notable carbon emissions reductions have occurred during economic recession due to a
reduction in production and consumption (Feng et al. 2015). Based on their analyses of carbon budgets, Anderson and Bows
(2011) find that overall reductions in economic growth are necessary to effectively address climate change.

In terms of biodiversity loss, the production

of goods drives higher rates of extraction and use of resources
impacting land use, habitat, hunting/harvesting, pollution, invasive species, and climate change—all
major drivers of extinction (Ceballos et al. 2017; IPBES 2019a; Otero et al. 2020). The production of beef, soybeans, and
biofuels (Rudell et al. 2009) drives deforestation in the tropics, the leading cause of terrestrial extinction (Sodhi et al.
2009). In addition, globalized trade has resulted in the proliferation of invasive species (Mooney and Hobbs 2000;
Otero et al. 2020). Czech et al. (2012) and Sol’s (2019) analyses reveal a strong positive association between GDP growth and species
endangerment. In a 2020 review, Otero et al. il-lustrate how economic growth increases resource use, trade, land use change,
climate change, and invasive species—all contributing to bio-diversity loss. As the United Nations biodiversity chief Paşca Palmer
explains, this means that to address the biodiversity crisis, “[w]e need a transformation in the way we consume and
produce” (Conley 2019). Scientists increasingly agree that to address climate change and biodi-versity loss we need to rethink and
even recreate our economic system.
Questioning economic growth

The science illustrates that it is not GDP growth that results in in-creased carbon emissions and species extinction, but the increase in material
and energy use associated with economic growth. Thus, many people have turned
to the idea of decoupling to address this
problematic relationship. Decoupling, in absolute terms, would mean creating a production system where economic
growth could increase without increasing environmental impacts. Yet, as we will detail in Chapter 3, absolute
decoupling remains elusive in terms of resource use and much too slow in terms of reducing carbon
emissions (Hickel and Kallis 2019; Schor and Jorgenson 2019). Those who continue to defend decoupling and the idea of
“green growth” largely rely upon data that fails to take into account imported goods and system
complexities beyond national borders (see Knight and Schor 2014; Schor and Jorgenson 2019).

What the evidence shows is that absolute

decoupling for materials is likely impossible and that absolute
decoupling of carbon emissions is nowhere near the rates necessary (Hickel and Kallis 2019). What decoupling does
provide is a useful concept to rationalize the continuation of GDP growth and wealth accumulation for a relatively small portion of the
population: in 2017, the wealthiest 1% of individuals held 82% of all global wealth (Oxfam 2018). A small subset of the population has greatly
benefited from a system that prioritizes eco-nomic growth, but this system is now increasingly putting all people in
danger. Given that decoupling as a solution remains elusive in reality, reliance on the idea is a risky approach as our
environmental crisis continues to escalate (Schor and Jorgenson 2019).

A key idea in this debate is biophysical limits. Scientists and economists have long disputed the existence of biophysical or
planetary limits. If we assume there are no limits, then we can continue to prioritize never-ending economic
growth and the extraction, production, and consumption to support that growth. If we believe that there are limits, however,
then we need to modify our social systems in ways that stay within these limits or we end up in
“ecological overshoot” or exceeding safe “planetary boundaries” (Rockstrom 2009).

Ecological economists, scientists, and environmentalists increasingly argue that our current use of natural resources and
energy already surpasses the Earth’s biophysical limits (e.g., Jackson 2009; Daly 2013). According to Rockstrom (2009), we
have already surpassed boundaries related to the nitrogen cycle, biodiversity, and climate (Steffen et al.
2015). Based on the ecological footprint concept, Earth Overshoot Day represents the day each year that humanity uses more resources and
services than can be regenerated in a year. Every year that day comes earlier. As explained by Pope Francis (EOD 2019):

The fact that has shocked me the most is the Overshoot Day: by July 29th, we used up all the regenerative resources of 2019. From
July 30 we started to consume more resources than the planet can regenerate in a year. It’s very serious. It’s a global emergency.

Schmelzer (2015) argues that the cause of overshoot is economic growth and “increasing levels of material production run up
to the ecological limits of a finite planet.” Scientists also agree that never-ending
economic growth on a finite planet is
“non-viable” (Green et al. 2018). While we are not yet seeing global resource shortages in line with neo-Malthusian projections, the climate
and biodiversity crises represent warning signs of the non-viability of our current trajectory.

If we accept that we must live within biophysical limits, we then need

to reduce production and consumption levels in
places where people are over-producing and over-consuming, namely wealthy countries. In these wealthy countries, the
goal of increasing GDP has resulted in increased marketing and the production of unnecessary and purposefully short-lived goods (Hickel
2019a). As material production has continued to increase in these countries, advertising encourages people to buy more additional goods and
credit cards and debt enable these purchases. Yet data
continues to show that after basic human needs are met,
additional material goods do not increase happiness and/or well-being (Easterlin et al. 2010). Despite technological
innovations and productivity gains, work time has increased to produce more and more goods per person (Circle Economy 2020). Rauch (2000)
estimated that if we lived off of the productivity from a 40-hour work week in 1975 we would only need to work 23 hours per week, and if we
lived off of 1950 productivity levels we would only need to work 11 hours per week. We are working more to produce more and have more, but
we are not any happier and we are heading deeper into crises.

Does prioritizing economic growth make sense? Kallis (2015a) argues that the idea of never-ending economic growth is “absurd” and explains,
“if the Egyptians had started with one cubic metre of stuff and grew it by 4.5% per year, by the end of their 3,000-year civilization, they would
have occupied 2.5 billion solar systems.” In terms of entropy law, researchers have quantitatively illustrated the
“thermodynamic impossibility” of never-ending economic growth and deemed it irresponsible to
continue on the current trajectory (Earp and Romeiro 2015: 643). Even with a reasonable assumption of
technological innovation and the substitution of resources, their analysis indicates a catastrophic
outcome if we maintain the status quo.
The possibly catastrophic outcomes bring into question the moral implications of economic growth. Given the uncertainties of future
technological and economic developments, is it moral to assume we will find ways to continue to support economic growth? If
we follow
the precautionary principle, the appropriate approach would be to assume that there are biophysical
limits and unknown thresholds and to act accordingly to reduce the risk of surpassing them. If we act, we
could also change our system in ways that could be socially beneficial. Even if the risks of these crises are overstated, we
could still benefit from changing our system in the ways necessary to address them. Therefore, the risks associated with
assuming there are versus there are no biophysical limits are substantially different and have vast moral implications.
If, despite the increasing evidence, world leaders continue to act as if there are no biophysical limits and prioritize economic growth before addressing our environmental crisis, the projected impacts would be unequally
experienced and result in clear injustice in terms of racial, economic, intergenerational, and inter-species justice. The rise of a youth climate change movement has brought new attention to the intergenerational injustice of these
crises and activists are calling out the immorality of the economic growth paradigm. For example, 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, Greta Thunberg spoke to the United Nations, stating:

People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all they can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare
you!

If we listen to the scientists and acknowledge the improbability of “science fiction” level technology saving us from the environmental crisis (Earp and Romeiro 2015: 649), then continuing with the status quo becomes clearly
immoral. Mounting evidence more than justifies deeply questioning economic growth and examining alternative paths forward.

Degrowth for a better future?

We, the authors, are three social scientists who have been studying environmental issues for many years, especially issues related to climate change, biodiversity conservation, and agriculture. After studying social and ecological
impacts and identifying the causes and drivers of these impacts, we were left questioning the adequacy of dominantly proposed solutions and seeking more effective alternatives. Upon being convinced by the evidence that the
economic growth imperative is a key driver of the problems we study, we stumbled upon a whole body of literature and scholarship presenting another way forward: degrowth.

We approach degrowth from a position of great concern over how to justly address our climate and biodiversity crises. We are convinced that a system prioritizing economic growth is a key driver of these crises, so we seek to
understand how we can change our society to move away from growth. Degrowth is a planned downscaling of pro-duction and consumption in wealthy, overconsuming countries to transition to a steady-state economy that exists
within biophysical limits and can be sustained. It is living with enough and reproducing that level of enough, not producing more and more for the sake of GDP growth. It is working less, producing less, and consuming less
unnecessary things. Degrowth also has the potential to substantially increase equality, health, and well-being. There are also legitimate questions and concerns about degrowth, including the use of the term “degrowth,” which we
will discuss later in this book.

Degrowth does not aim to decrease GDP but abandons it as a societal goal and aims to reduce the material and energy throughput pushing us over biophysical limits. In this way, it would alleviate many of the stressors causing the
climate and biodiversity crises. It would also present an opportunity to restructure society around new goals aimed at improving social and ecological well-being. Jackson (2009) argues that due to ecological limits it is not a matter
of if the economy will contract but when. With degrowth, we can choose a transition to a more sustainable system rather than wait for the climate and biodiversity crises to trigger possible economic and social collapse.

In the following chapters, we examine how a degrowth transition could address our climate and biodiversity crises. We transparently take a normative position: protecting current and future generations of humans and other
species is important and a worthy reason to re-think our social and economic system. In Chapter 2, we summarize evidence showing that mainstream solutions to these crises are insufficient. In Chapter 3, we present evidence that
challenges the economic growth paradigm and illustrates the problems in continuing with the status quo. Chapter 4 describes degrowth, including key principles, policy proposals, and associated lifestyle changes. Chapter 5
discusses some of the primary critiques of degrowth. Our final chapter examines how a degrowth transition might actually come about and the challenges and opportunities moving forward.

Our overall goal in this book is to examine degrowth as a way to minimize the impacts associated with our environmental crisis and to offer a more just future. While we will present substantial evidence that supports a degrowth
transition, we will also at times take critical positions and question certain proposals and ideas. Our overall examination focuses on what might result in the best possible future. We are indeed in a clear state of crisis: it is a decisive
moment and a crucial time in history, we face serious dangers and challenges ahead, our decisions today will have far-reaching impacts into the future, and our current system can no longer be maintained. In this book, we ex-
amine degrowth as an alternative to address this crisis and support a better future. Gills and Morgan (2019: 13), argue “We need to start thinking about degrowth as responsible and not radical. We need to start thinking of it as the
realistic option.” This book aims to further the consideration of degrowth as a viable alternative and to examine how it could be used to create a more sustainable and just future.

[[CHAPTER 1 NOTE OMITTED]]

[[CHAPTER 2 BEGINS]]
2 Beyond false solutions

A primary reason to consider degrowth as a response to the climate and biodiversity crises is the mounting
evidence illustrating that other proposed solutions will either be insufficient or too risky and therefore represent
“false solutions.” While some current solutions do indeed offer positive contributions, they remain insufficient because the
economic growth imperative undermines their potential. Solutions that ignore the relationship between the system that
drives economic growth and our environmental crisis leave the primary driver intact.

The false solutions we examine here include individual behavioral changes (without changing the social systems in which
individual behaviors are structured), market-based solutions through carbon pricing, improving energy and carbon
efficiency (without pursuing total reductions in energy consumption), expanding renewable energy (but not simultaneously
reducing fossil fuel use and total energy consumption), and lastly geoengineering (which is too risky). The first two mainstream
solutions are common in both climate change and biodiversity efforts while the last three are specific to climate change. Some of these
solutions overlap. For example, many suggested individual behavioral changes are “market-based solutions” in that they recommend changes
in consumptive habits, assuming that this will influence market dynamics in environmentally beneficial ways.

We have purposefully chosen the straightforward and polemical term “false solutions” because alone these solutions are empty promises. They
are “false” either because they are (1) inadequate or (2) too risky and (3) divert attention and funding away from adequate, more just, and less
risky solutions. By “inadequate,” we mean the solution is characterized by one or more of the following:

Too slow or small in impact to meet prominent emissions reductions targets.

Too slow or small in impact to dramatically slow or halt biodiversity loss.

Paradoxically increases environmental pressure (as in the case of the “Jevons paradox”).

One of the false solutions, solar

geoengineering, may have the potential to adequately address global warming but is simply too
risky to pursue when compared to alternative pathways.
Our other criterion of a false solution, that it diverts attention and funding from adequate solutions, deserves qualification. Some of these
solutions, especially individual behavioral changes and the expansion of renewable energy, are essential for a degrowth transition if combined
with the strategies outlined in Chapter 5. For example, changing the in-dividual behaviors of large groups of people is of critical importance to
significantly reduce carbon emissions and slow or halt biodiversity loss. We do not object to changing individual behaviors, but given the
evidence we do not believe that changing individual behaviors within the current social formation will meet ecological goals and are also
skeptical of the assumption that changes in individual behaviors will lead to system-level changes. The following sections summarize the
inadequacies and/or risks of these solutions and provide evidence that they divert funding and attention away from more effective and less
risky solutions.
Individual behavioral changes

The call to “go green” usually implies changing our lifestyle and every-day routines to address environmental problems, including switching to energy-efficient lightbulbs, weatherproofing homes, driving less or buying a hybrid car,
carpooling, taking shorter showers, and buying “greener” products. Yet increasing evidence shows that individual behavioral changes are inadequate responses to our environmental crisis and, more importantly, divert attention,
and even reduce support for, more effective system-altering responses.

We recognize there are clear benefits to adopting environmentally friendly behaviors. However, as a solution (1) greening one’s lifestyle is inadequate when pursued alone or even when paired with other false solutions, (2) the
focus on individual consumptive practices misunderstands relations between production and consumption and reproduces the social system that drives biodiversity loss and climate change, and, most importantly, (3) the narrow
focus on changing lifestyles in main-stream narratives overlooks the structural basis of the ecological crisis, thereby diverting attention from more effective and just solutions.

While we are unaware of any empirical studies that assess the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of lifestyle changes on biodiversity conservation, there is evidence of their inadequacy for addressing climate change, also a known
driver of biodiversity loss. Individual- to household-level changes have been estimated to be able to reduce emissions by around 7% (Dietz et al. 2009) to 22% (Jensen 2009) in the US. However, to avoid catastrophic warming and
limit warming to 1.5°C, the US should reach net-zero emissions by 2030 (Climate Action Tracker 2019). Lifestyle changes within the existing system cannot reduce emissions at the rate and scale necessary to avoid catastrophic
warming. It is important to again emphasize that we are not against individual behavioral changes, we are merely pointing out that they are insufficient, as supporters of this strategy know (Dietz et al. 2009).

A second reason individual behavioral changes are a false solution is due to the focus on changing consumptive behavior. “Going green” often means “shopping green.” However, as Galbraith (1958) and others (Schnaiberg 1980)
argued long ago, production drives consumption, primarily through advertising and the creation of false needs via the culture industry (Marcuse 1964; Horkheimer and Adorno 1969). A system that requires constant growth must
keep expanding pro-duction and also increase consumption to create buyers for more and more products. The focus on “greening” consumption cannot address this relationship because it assumes the relationship is inverted (i.e.,
that consumption drives production). Relatedly, the marketed “green-ness” of most green commodities is questionable. For example, food, textile, and woods-products companies who use at least one form of “sustainable sourcing
practice” (52%) (e.g., third-party organic certification) typically only address one or a few inputs (71%) and rarely address environmental issues (Thorlakson et al. 2018).

The third and most important reason individual behavioral change should be considered a false solution is that this focus diverts attention away from the structural and system-level changes needed to adequately address our
environmental crisis (Brulle and Dunlap 2015). As Szasz argues in Shopping our way to safety (2007), the attempt to protect ourselves from environmental hazards through shopping leads to “political anesthesia,” or “a false sense
of security undercutting political support for reform,” thereby reproducing the existing social order (Szasz 2007: 202). For example, the option of implementing household actions to reduce emissions makes people less likely to
support carbon taxes (Werfel 2017). Further, there is empirical evidence that individual behavioral changes may have other counterintuitive effects: when re-cycling options are available people increase resource use (Catlin and
Wang 2013) and purchasing “green” products leads to less altruistic actions (Mazar and Zhong 2010). Relatedly, the financial savings gained from reducing one’s carbon footprint often fund other activities that act to shift the
impacts elsewhere (Wapner and Willoughby 2005).

Market-based solutions

Market-based solutions are common in both climate change and biodiversity policy. In climate change policy, carbon markets
usually consist of cap-and-trade and or carbon offset programs, implemented or under consideration in many regions
from city to interstate levels, including Australia, California, the European Union (EU), New Zealand, Quebec, Canada, and South Korea (Muȗls
et al. 2016). Cap-and-trade programs set emissions limits and freely distribute or auction off “allowances” to emit to companies, who then
trade their right to pollute, while carbon offset programs allow emitters to invest in carbon mitigation projects, many in developing countries,
to “offset” their own carbon emissions.

The largest and longest continuous carbon market is the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS). Assessments of the EU ETS vary considerably
depending on methodological choices (see Martin et al. 2016), ranging from the argument that most reductions in emissions resulted from
other factors such as the global financial crisis and expanded renewable energy (Nicolas et al. 2014) to a 2.4–4.7% reduction in total emissions
from 2005 to 2007 along with slight decreases in emission intensity during Phase II (2008–2012) (see Muȗls et al. 2016: 5). A more favorable
recent study estimates a ~10% decrease in emissions between 2005 and 2012 in four participating countries (France, the Netherlands, Norway,
and the UK) at a firm-level, specifically when comparing the emissions of non-ETS installations to ETS installations (e.g., power stations). In
other words, even the most favorable assessment does not analyze all countries, merely compares dirtier installations to slightly less (a tenth
less) dirty installations and does not analyze the ETS’s im-pact on total emissions (Dechezleprêtre et al. 2018). Along
with insufficient
reductions in emissions, carbon markets have led to paradoxical and even scandalous outcomes,
including accidentally incentivizing firms involved in a carbon offset scheme to produce more of a highly
potent greenhouse gas byproduct (HFC-23) in order to destroy it to gain emissions credits to sell to
polluters (for review, see Klein 2014).

Coupled with their negligible impacts, a more important reason that carbon markets should be
understood as false solutions is they reproduce the system that drives climate change and divert
attention from alternative social solutions (e.g., Lohmann 2005, 2010; Foster et al. 2009; Stuart et al. 2019). This is not only a
theoretical argument. Lohmann (2005) shows how the Kyoto Protocol’s emphasis on emissions trading, pushed by the US who ironically did not
ratify the treaty, redirected attention in the form of intellectual and financial resources from alternative policies and social changes that have
the potential to actually significantly reduce emissions. Criticisms of the Protocol in favor of strong policies were scorned as a “do-nothing”
stance. Similarly, a corporate watchdog non-profit makes the case that the mere existence of the EU ETS continues to undermine the ability of
new emissions regulations to take hold (Corporate Europe Obser-vatory 2015).

Market-based solutions are also common in biodiversity conservation, from biodiversity offsets—where the degradation of habitats, species,
ecosystem functions, etc. in one location are “offset” in an-other location (Bull et al. 2013)—to ecotourism, where ecologically minded tourists
supposedly create incentives for residents to engage in nature conservation (Duffy 2008). Not only is the actual effectiveness of “neoliberal
conservation” dubious, the underlying problem with these approaches is they reproduce and expand the system that drives biodiversity loss
(Igoe and Brockington 2007; Brockington and Duffy 2010; Igoe et al. 2010; Büscher et al. 2012). The destruction of nature due to profit
accumulation is interpreted as a new accumulation strategy, which has contradictory outcomes.

Robertson’s (2004, 2006) analysis of wetland mitigation banking serves as an excellent illustration. A “No Net Loss to Wetlands” policy was put
in place under the George H.W. Bush administration, with the aim of total wetland acreage remaining constant by “offsetting” degraded
wetlands in different geographical areas. The policy allowed developers to buy “wetland mitigation credits” from owners of an undeveloped
wetland or companies who restore degraded wetlands (“wetland mitigation banks”). A developer who fills a wetland to build condos, for
example, can buy wetland credits from an off-site mitigation bank. Quantifying and commensurating the “value” lost at the development site
and the “value” gained at the mitigation banking site created a contradiction. Mitigation banks measured their value-gained as “bundles” of
“ecological functions” while acreage was the proxy measure for bundles of ecological functions at the development site. The mitigation banks
began to opportunistically ex-ploit created ecological functions (i.e., superfluous fabricated markets) which clashed with the mitigation permit
market’s need for quantitative abstraction (Robertson 2004).

While individual behavior changes and market-based solutions are common in climate and biodiversity conservation, the next three false
solutions—efficiency gains, renewable energy without rapid reductions in fossil fuel use, and geoengineering—are all specific to climate policy
—yet as stated earlier, climate change also drives biodiversity loss.

Energy and carbon efficiency

Because of its ubiquity in climate policy, it may strike the reader as strange to label improving energy efficiency (energy use per dollar) and
carbon efficiency (emissions per dollar) as “false solutions.” The goals of improving efficiency or, put differently, reducing carbon in-tensity, are
so widespread in climate change discourse that they are taken for granted. However, there is a fundamental limitation of this approach: the
Jevons paradox.

The Jevons paradox—named after the economist William Stanley Jevons for his finding that improved efficiency of steam engines in-
creased total coal consumption (Clark and Foster 2001)—refers to a commonly found association between increased
resource use despite improved efficiency (e.g., Alcott 2005; Sorrell 2007; Polimini et al. 2008; York et al. 2009, 2011; York 2010;
Clement 2011; York and Mc-Gee 2016). The Jevons paradox is a paradox because the usual assumption is that improvements in efficiency will
decrease total resource use because fewer resources are used per economic unit. To be clear, not all “rebound effects”—when the benefits of
efficiency gains are partially or fully consumed by changes in resource use—are “backfires,” rebound effects above 100% (Santarius 2012).
Further, the Jevons paradox refers to an association between improved efficiency and increased emissions, which is not necessarily a causal
association (York and McGee 2016). However, causal
drivers have been identified, including improvements in
efficiency reducing prices per economic unit, which increases the use of the given resource or
investment in the use of other resources (for review, see Santarius 2012; York and McGee 2016).

Regardless of the magnitude of the rebound effect and the causal drivers of the Jevons paradox, it is clear that
improving efficiency is an inadequate route to tackle climate change for the simple reason that, in general,
global carbon efficiency has improved while total emissions increased (York 2010). Nations with higher
levels of efficiency generally have higher rates of CO2 emissions, electricity consumption, and energy
use (York and McGee 2016). In the US, individual state emissions increase in general despite improving carbon intensity by around 30%
(Clement 2011).

The data are clear that improving energy and carbon efficiency is associated with counterintuitive results. Then why is a reliance on efficiency
still so common in climate policy? One reason is that it ap-peals to economic interests. Following the US’s non-ratification of the Kyoto Protocol
despite getting what they wanted (carbon markets) (see above), the George W. Bush administration then turned to carbon in-tensity as a more
economically friendly climate change strategy, one that allows for and even encourages continued economic growth and does not restrict
future emissions (i.e., does not impose any real cap) (Roberts and Parks 2006: 142ff). This approach appeals to economic interests and
reproduces and expands rather than challenges the driv-ers of climate change precisely because economic growth and emis-sions are linked
(see Chapter 3). For the latter reason, coupled with the problem of the Jevons paradox, improving efficiency in the current system remains a
false solution.

Renewable energy without reducing fossil fuel use and total energy consumption

To be clear at the outset of this section, we support the development of renewable energy (see Gunderson et al. 2018c). A massive expansion
of renewable energy, especially in wind and solar, is a prerequisite to a sustainable society that supports relatively large-scale human organi-
zations. While renewables have their own negative environmental im-pacts that are often ignored (Zehner 2012), these impacts are negligible
compared to the continued use of fossil fuels. Renewable energy is a false solution only when it is promoted without also (1) promoting re-
ductions in fossil fuels and (2) reductions in total energy consumption. We discuss each point below.

Calls for the expansion of renewables often assume that one new unit of renewable energy will displace
one unit of fossil fuel-based energy. However, this is not the case. Only a “very modest” displacement of
fossil fuel-generated energy sources with renewable energy sources occurred in the last five decades in most countries (York
2012). The problem is made clear by York and Bell (2019): fossil fuel development has steadily increased despite the
comparably slight expansion of renewables. In fact, without simultaneously reducing fossil fuel development, renewable energy
development may contribute to increases in energy use by increasing supply, thereby spurring demand
(Zehner 2012; York 2016). As long as the call to expand renewables does not explicitly tackle the problem of the simultaneous expansion of
fossil fuels and renewables, renewables will remain a false solution.

A second common oversight in the climate policy emphasis on expanding renewable energy is the fact that renewables
have much lower energy return on energy invested (EROEI) ratios (e.g., 60:1 for coal compared to 18:1 for
wind and 6:1 for solar) (Hall et al. 2014). This means that the amount of usable energy output (energy return)
relative to the energy that went into procuring that energy (energy invested) is much lower for
renewables than fossil fuels. Further, renewables have lower power densities, meaning that they take up more
space than fossil fuel sources (e.g., wind and solar require around 90–100 times more area than natural gas) (van Zalk and Behrens
2018; for summary, see Leiden University 2018).

Neither lower EROEI ratios nor lower power densities are reasons to avoid transitioning to renewables. However, for these reasons and others,
it is unlikely that a nearly 100% renewable energy supply is possible in a constantly growing economy
and, instead, would require reductions in total energy use and a smaller overall economy (Trainer 2007;
Kallis 2017; Hickel 2019a; see Chapter 5). To clarify, rapidly developing renewables is critical, yet to be an effective solution it must also be
accompanied by simultaneous and significant reductions in fossil fuel development and overall reductions in energy consumption.

Geoengineering

“Geoengineering” or “climate engineering” refers to “a broad set of methods and technologies that aim to deliberately alter the climate system
in order to alleviate impacts of climate change” (Boucher et al. 2013). There
are two broad categories of geoengineering
strategies: (1) Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) or “carbon geoengineering,” strategies to remove CO2 from the
atmosphere or at sources of fossil fuel combustion1 and sequestering it underground or under the ocean (U.S. National Research Council
2015a) and (2) Solar Radiation Management (SRM) or “solar geoengineering,” strategies to redirect incoming solar
radiation back into space (U.S. National Research Council 2015b). These strategies are appealing to many as they are framed as “quick-
fix,” easy, and cheap solutions to the climate crisis (Gunderson et al. 2018b, 2019).

While we do not review all carbon and solar geoengineering strategies here (e.g., The Royal Society 2009; U.S. National Research Coun-cil
2015a, 2015b; Zhang et al. 2015), we focus on the two most widely discussed techniques from each category: bioenergy with carbon capture
and storage (BECCS), a form of carbon geoengineering, and stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), a form of solar geoengineering. We make the
case that BECCSis currently too ineffective to be considered a viable climate change strategy, at least in the short term,
and SAI is far too risky to be considered a viable response. We then argue that geoengineering diverts attention and
resources away from more effective and safer alternatives.
BECCS is a carbon geoengineering strategy based on burning crops for power generation (“bioenergy”), such as big trees, and, while burning
them in power stations, capturing and storing the carbon emissions (“with carbon capture and storage”) (Fridahl 2017). The ap-proach is
appealing because plants are carbon sinks, which reduces atmospheric CO2 and CCS would prevent the carbon released when burning these
plants from reentering the atmosphere. In theory, the outcome would be negative emissions (Pour et al. 2017). The
bulk of empirical
evidence is from separate bioenergy and CCS facilities and a single ethanol-based BECCS demonstration
plant (Anderson and Peters 2016; Turner et al. 2018). In other words, the technology remains largely unproven (see Fuss et al.
2014).

Another major barrier facing BECCS is locating suitable land area to grow biomass crops—requiring acreage
up to three times the size of India to meet climate goals (Anderson 2015; for other barriers, see Baik et al. 2018; Turner et
al. 2018). This much area used for growing bioenergy crops may compete with land used for food crops
(National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2018). For these reasons and others, BECCS has been called a “dangerous
distraction” (Fuss et al. 2014) and “high-stakes gamble” (Anderson and Peters 2016: 183) that diverts attention away from tested and effective
mitigation strategies.

SAI, the most prominently discussed solar geoengineering strategy due to its low cost, is a proposal to inject sulfur
particles into the stratosphere to redirect incoming solar radiation back into space (Keith 2013; U.S. National Research
Council 2015b). It is the only strategy we categorize as a “false solution” on the grounds that it is far too risky. Risks include unknown
impacts on weather, plants, and clouds; the potential for droughts and famine; potential to exacerbate
the ozone hole; an increase in acid rain and air pollution; problems emanating from potential commercial
control and military use; and, most frighteningly, the possibility for a “termination effect,” where, if SAI
cannot be maintained after being implemented, temperatures could increase rapidly due to a build-up of
background emissions (see Robock 2008a, 2008b; Robock et al. 2009, 2010; Boucher et al. 2013; Ferraro et al. 2014).

In addition to its serious risks, which could permanently alter global cycles, SAI is also a false solution because it
diverts attention away from more effective and just responses. While solar geoengineering scientists push for increasing
mitigation efforts and are usually cautious about their support for geoengineering (Reynolds et al. 2016), there is good reason to anticipate that
SAI may be implemented in order to reproduce the current social priorities and system that drives climate change (Gunderson et al. 2019). Not
only are economic justifications for SAI common (e.g., that it is much cheaper than reducing emissions), which will appeal to those with the
power to implement climate policy, but there is some evidence of support for SAI from the elite (e.g., Bill Gates), fossil fuel industry
representatives, and even climate denialist organizations (e.g., the Heartland Institute) (Hamilton 2013; Gunderson et al. 2019). SAI could very
well rationalize the continued extraction and use of fossil fuels (Gunderson et al. 2019).

While individual geoengineering strategies must be evaluated separately and we find some forms of carbon geoengineering to have some potential to reduce carbon concentrations if
embedded in different social conditions (see Stuart et al. 2020), geoengineering currently is broadly labeled a false solution here due to its reliance on untested technology and, in the case of
SAI, association with unjustifiable risks. Further, geoengineering strategies divert attention and resources away from effective and just climate change solutions.

Addressing systemic contradictions

This chapter argues that commonly discussed solutions to biodiversity loss and climate change are “false solutions” in the sense that they are inadequate and divert attention away from more
effective and just solutions or, in the case of SAI, are far too risky and divert attention away from more just and less risky solutions. We conclude with a brief explanation as to why these
approaches are likely to continue to be inadequate.

Mainstream climate policy leaves the current social priorities and system unquestioned or assumes its unchangeability and/or desirability. However, as we explain in Chapter 3, it is the basic
structures and dynamics of our current social and economic system—prioritizing economic growth—that drives climate change and biodiversity loss. These solutions will remain inadequate
because their implementation does not transform but, instead, reproduces the social order that accelerates our environmental crisis. The problem with reproducing rather than transforming
the contemporary model of society is that it also reproduces fundamental social-ecological contradictions that are intrinsic to the dynamics of this model. In Chapter 5, we further examine
these contradictions and how growth relates to capitalism as well as socialism.

Failing to get at the engine that keeps driving us deeper into crisis undermines the potential of solutions. For example, efficiency and renewable energy have the potential to reduce total
emissions, but in an economy that must grow the result is an overall increase in energy use and emissions. As we examine in later chapters, in a system that does not require increasing levels
of production and consumption, these solutions can play a key role in addressing our environmental crisis. However, a prerequisite to their effective implementation is abandon-ing the
economic growth imperative that continues to constrain their potential.

[[CHAPTER 2 NOTE OMITTED]]

[[CHAPTER 3 BEGINS]]
3 The case against economic growth

As mainstream solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises are increasingly deemed insufficient and leading scientists continue to identify
economic growth as a key driver of these crises, it seems plausible that society may reconsider prioritizing economic growth. However, there
remains substantial social and political resistance to the notion that growth is harmful. Economic growth as something desirable and “good” for
society has been normalized to the degree that many people cannot imagine a world with different priorities. The underlying belief that a
prosperous society must always have increasing wealth accumulation supports a system with ever increasing levels of production, sales, and
consumption. The assumption is that this production-consumption engine must keep going or else the whole system will breakdown. Yet the
data reveals that the vast majority of wealth created from this system continues to go to a small portion of the population, while the ongoing
production-consumption engine is driving us all further into environmental crisis and toward possible social collapse.

As stated by Hickel and Kallis (2019: 15), “As scientists we should not let political expediency shape our view of facts. We should assess the facts
and then draw conclusions, rather than start with palatable conclusions and ignore inconvenient facts.” For those faithful to the idea of never-
ending economic growth, we present three key reasons to question these convictions. First, evidence
from the past and present
suggests that life with less or no economic growth can be prosperous in terms of social and ecological
well-being and that prioritizing GDP growth can actually reduce measures of standards of living and social
well-being. Therefore, we should deeply question the assumption that GDP growth is a requirement for a thriving society.

Second, there is substantial evidence illustrating that GDP is positively correlated with material and energy
use, carbon emissions, environmental degradation, and species extinction. The dominant solution to address this
problematic relationship is “decoupling” economic growth from environmental harm (via green growth), yet research shows that
there is no evidence of the necessary decoupling in material resource use and no evidence supporting
that the decoupling of carbon emissions can be accomplished at the rate necessary to meet the IPCC’s
1.5°C or 2°C targets (Hickel and Kallis 2019; Parrique et al. 2019; Schor and Jorgenson 2019).

Beyond the empirical evidence, a third argument focuses on the moral implications of increasing GDP growth when the known risks of doing so
are great and there are no existing solutions to sufficiently address these risks. The likely
impacts to current and future
generations of humans and other species are severe and irreversible. We discuss the moral implications of relying on
the unproven idea of rapid decoupling and promoting the ideology of green growth. Should we err on the side caution, even when it goes
against indoctrinated ideas of progress?

These three arguments are described and supported below. We especially draw from several key recent publications (Hickel and Kallis 2019;
Parrique et al. 2019; Schor and Jorgenson 2019) that more clearly and convincingly support these arguments than any previous evidence. Lastly,
we illustrate how these arguments lead us towards the conclusion that an overall reduction in production and consumption in line with
“degrowth,” is a necessary pathway to best protect current and future generations of humans and
other species from an otherwise catastrophic trajectory.
Do we need economic growth?

The economy is generally defined as the production, distribution, and consumption of resources—or the
use of material resources to satisfy human needs or values (Kallis 2018). Economies have existed for thousands of years
using systems of reciprocity, sharing, barter, or money as the basis of resource exchange. We can imagine a society with an economy that does
not include the concept of accumulating profit, where resources are exchanged, given, traded, or shared based on need. If poverty is a lack of
profit accumulation, then this society would be deemed poor. But if poverty is a lack of food, shelter, leisure time, health, and well-being, then
this could be a very wealthy society.

For thousands of years economies existed without continual accumulation of wealth and material goods, yet for
the past 200 years the global economy has been increasingly geared toward growing levels of
accumulation. Our modern economy is defined by this prioritization of never-ending profit and wealth
accumulation rather than the exchange of resources for use (see Chapter 5). This is the ultimate driver of growth, as more goods and
services sold increases profit accumulation. Increasing the production of goods and services may seem justified to meet the needs of a growing
population, yet as we detail below, resource use per person has increased. Increased consumption is necessary for the increased
production and sales to support greater levels of profit accumulation. However, this does not mean that wealth is accumulated equally or that
everyone has the resources they need (see Hickel 2017).
To support rising levels of profit accumulation, there has been an increase in human productivity as well as the total goods per person produced and consumed over time. In the past century, global per capita resource use has
doubled (Parrique et al. 2019). In addition, global material use has quadrupled since 1970, growing twice as fast as the human population (Circle Economy 2020). More materials and energy are being used per person over time, far
beyond what is justified based on population growth and human needs. As productivity rates have in-creased, prioritizing growth has mandated that these gains be invested in further production and profitability. Yet as Schor and
Jorgenson (2019: 325) explain, this need not be the case:

The optimal rate of growth depends on workers’ preferences for goods and leisure. If workers want to take their productivity growth in the form of shorter hours, the labor market will equilibrate with fewer hours
supplied.

We should not assume a system with increasing levels of accumulation is a “natural” system simply because we are accustomed to it. Although the primary driver of increases in material and energy throughput is the structural
characteristics of our current economic system (see Chapter 5), it is critical that we understand the origins of GDP growth as a social priority and also question if it should remain a priority.

It was not until the 1950s that economic growth in terms of GDP be-came a policy priority for the US and other nations (Victor 2010). The concept of GDP emerged during the Great Depression when Simon Kuznets was asked to
create a way to track the productive power of a country. GDP was specifically used during World War II to assess productivity for the war effort. Yet, after the war ended, policymakers continued to use GDP as a positive indicator
based on the assumption that if people are making and buying goods at an increasing rate, then society is flourishing. However, as quoted in Semuels (2016) even Kuznets doubted the use of GDP in this way, warning: “[t]he welfare
of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income.” Despite Kuznets’ skepticism, GDP has remained the primary indicator of social progress and the goal of increasing GDP has driven global policy.

Do high levels of GDP growth indicate that a society is flourishing? Increasing evidence suggests it does not. Despite an average 3% increase in GPD in the US, at least 43 million Americans are still living in poverty, wages have not
considerably increased since the 1980s and even with positive GDP growth the median income of households has declined (Semuels 2016). In addition, many countries with lower rates of GDP growth, such as Scandinavian
countries, actually have higher levels of equality, health, education, and well-being. In places where ample resources are available, it makes little sense to focus on increasing production (and GDP) when remaining problems are
related to distribution and the adequate provisioning of social services (Hickel 2019a).

A growing number of economists agree that GDP is a problematic indicator of progress and well-being (e.g., Victor
2010; Daly 2013; Dietz 2015; Stiglitz 2019a,b). GDP does not distinguish between costs and benefits; it only includes flows of money, not stocks
of resources; it fails to include activities with no market value; and it does not provide information on how wealth is distributed. Critics point
out that an event causing significant harm, such as a natural disaster or oil spill, can increase GPD. Increased production does not translate into
increased social well-being. Easterlin et al. (2010), among others, have shown that economic growth that goes beyond satisfying basic needs
does not lead to increased happiness. More evidence supports the position that GDP
has actually undermined qualitative goals,
such as social and ecological well-being (O’Neill 2012; Stiglitz 2019a). Alternative indicators, such as the Index of Sustainable
Economic Welfare and the General Progress Indicator, illustrate how GDP can increase while measures of well-being decrease. Relatedly,
economic growth does not increase human well-being per unit of environmental pressure after a certain level of affluence (Dietz et al. 2012),
despite the fact that mainstream economics views “increasing affluence . . . as essentially equivalent to human well-being” (Dietz 2015: 125). As
argued by Nobel award winning economist Joseph Stiglitz (2009), not only is GDP a poor measure of well-being but “ chasing GDP growth
results in lower living standards.”
Stiglitz has been increasingly vocal about the risks of using GDP as the primary indicator of progress, calling for alternative indicators that better
support social and ecological well-being. Stigltiz (2019b) states that “we need better tools to assess economic performance and social progress”
and explains that his concerns about GDP “have now been brought to the fore with the climate crisis.” Her further argues “[i]f we measure the
wrong thing, we will do the wrong thing.” Not only is chasing GDP growth leading us further into environmental crisis, but it also prevents the
flourishing of other positive conceptions of social progress. As explained by Daly (2013: 24), while it is largely believed that “without economic
growth all progress is at an end . . . [o]n the contrary, without growth . . . true progress finally will have a chance.”

Economic growth and our environmental crisis

Chapter 1 included many examples of leading scientists identifying GDP growth as a primary driver of the climate and biodiversity crises. While
all of the examples given will not be restated here, in both cases, scientists have found positive correlations between GDP growth and
environmental degradation. This makes sense when we acknowledge that increasing production results in increasing levels
of resource use, pollution, and carbon emissions. GDP growth of 1% equals a 0.6% growth in material use (Wiedmann et al.
2015) and a 1% increase in GDP equals a 0.5–0.7% increase in carbon emissions (Burke et al. 2015). It is not a coincidence that the
most notable reductions in carbon emissions have occurred during economic recessions (Feng et al. 2015;
Hickel and Kallis 2019; Parrique et al. 2019). In addition, studies show a strong positive association between GDP
growth and species endangerment (Czech et al. 2012; Sol 2019), as many activities that create wealth result in
habitat loss, pollution, deforestation, and other negative impacts to a range of species (Cavlovic et al. 2000).
Despite these environmental impacts, GDP growth is defended and maintained as a global priority largely based on the concept of “decoupling”
as a remedy to these problematic relationships. Decoupling refers to the idea that we can create conditions where increases in GDP do not
result in negative environmental impacts. Thus, there can be “green growth.” Promoting green growth through decoupling has been the
primary strategy of many global governing bodies to support “progress” and “development” while addressing our escalating environmental
crisis. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) officially adopted decoupling as a goal in 2001 followed by the
European Commission, United Nations Environment Programme, and the World Bank (Parrique et al. 2019). Decoupling also remains a specific
target in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (see Hickel 2019b).
Decoupling depends on the use of green technologies that are more efficient and based on alternative energy sources as well as a transition
away from material goods and towards a service and information-based economy (Hoffman 2016). Jackson (2009) makes the distinction
between relative and absolute decoupling. Relative
decoupling refers to reduced environmental impact per unit of
economic output, whereas absolute decoupling refers to the overall reduction of environmental impacts. While
relative decoupling (per unit output) can be seen in many cases, increases in total production continue to
increase overall environmental degradation—making absolute decoupling more elusive (Parrique et al. 2019).
However, it is absolute decoupling that is necessary to reduce overall environmental impacts (Jackson 2009).

Evidence indicates that decoupling remains largely a theory rather than an empirically proven solution to
the climate and biodiversity crises. Daly (2013) explains that decoupling is limited by the interdependence of production
between different economic sectors and by the fact that expanding service and information sectors will not
substantially reduce the use of energy and material goods. In addition, efficiency gains are not indefinite
and increasing levels of production to support GDP growth undermine efficiency gains (Ward et al. 2016). Thus
far, the evidence supports these explanations. Cases where absolute decoupling has been identified are
often based on territorial material use or emissions, not on overall consumption which includes
materials imported and carbon emissions related to imports (Knight and Schor 2014; Hickel and Kallis 2019; Parrique et
al. 2019). In addition, identified decoupling in many cases is temporary and recoupling occurs when
conditions change (Hickel and Kallis 2019; Parrique et al. 2019). To effectively address our environmental crisis,
decoupling would need to be absolute, permanent, global, and occur at a rate fast enough to meet the
IPCC’s 1.5°C target (IPCC 2018).

More studies are concluding that there is no evidence that global absolute decoupling of material
resource use has occurred or can occur in the future. On average, every 10% rise in GDP has been accompanied with a 6%
increase in material footprint (Wiedmann et al. 2015). Efficiency gains cannot be realized when the material footprint of OECD
nations has increased by 50% between 1990 and 2008—they are “trumped by increases in volume” (Parrique et al. 2019: 23).
As stated by Hoffman (2016: 36), “dematerialized growth remains an illusion.” The material intensity of GDP per
capita increased by 60% between 1900 and 2009 (Bithas and Kalimeris 2018). This evidence supports Hickel and Kallis’ (2019:
7) conclusion that: “green growth theory—in terms of resource use—lacks empirical support.” Resource use has direct
implications for carbon emissions and biodiversity loss, as use of water, forests, energy, and other
resources increase with GDP (Cavlovic et al. 2000; Czech et al. 2012; Sol 2019).
In terms of carbon emissions, there is limited evidence supporting the success of current decoupling efforts and mounting evidence supporting
the conclusion that global decoupling cannot occur at rates fast enough to stay within 1.5°C or 2°C of warming.
Jorgenson and Clark (2012) demonstrate a strong relationship between per capita carbon emissions and GDP per capita in developed nations
that is stable over time. Mardani et al. (2019) illustrate a bidirectional coupling between GDP and carbon emissions. Despite carbon
markets and increases in efficiency and renewable energy sources, Granados and Spash (2019) find that carbon
emissions in the US are still significantly correlated with economic growth. Hickel and Kallis (2019) identify
countries where territorial decoupling has occurred and state that absolute decoupling is technologically possible; however, once import-
related emissions have been included almost no countries have thus far achieved permanent absolute
decoupling (Schor and Jorgenson 2019).

Studies using empirical data illustrate how modest

decoupling in developed nations has been a result of increased
carbon-intensive production in developing nations (Jorgenson and Clark 2012; Knight and Schor 2014; Schor and Jorgenson
2019). In other words, environmental impacts are being exported. Knight and Schor (2014) report:

While we find some reduction in the linkage between economic growth and territorial emissions, once
we account for
high-income countries’ offshoring of emissions, there is no evidence of decoupling.
Based on mounting evidence, Parrique et al. (2019: 24) conclude that there has “never been a global pattern of absolute
decoupling of CO2 from economic growth.”

Even with the possibility of absolute decoupling of carbon emissions through significant investment in energy
efficiency and renewable energy, this decoupling would need to occur at a rate fast enough to keep
warming from passing dangerous critical thresholds (Parri-que et al. 2019). We are currently on a trajectory
for warming of 4.2°C (2.5–5.5°C) by 2100, yet leading scientists argue we need to keep warming below 1.5°C (IPCC 2018). The important
question then becomes: what level and rate of decoupling is necessary to accomplish this goal? Hickel and Kallis (2019: 8) examine this question
in depth and argue:
absolute reductions in carbon emissions are possible to achieve . . . however, the objective is not simply to reduce emissions (a matter of flows), but to keep total emissions from exceeding specific carbon budgets.

This is a matter of achieving absolute decoupling at a fast-enough rate. Hickel and Kallis (2019) explain that the only climate scenarios that keep warming below 2°C rely on BECCS for negative emissions. Yet, as we argued in
Chapter 2, this technology is not yet developed and assumptions about negative emissions remain unproven. Including BECCS in scenarios, however, has allowed for a larger carbon budget and continued support for green growth.

Perhaps more clearly than ever, Hickel and Kallis (2019: 10, 11) explain how absolute decoupling of carbon emissions to stay within 1.5°C or even 2°C targets while sustaining economic growth is not only highly unlikely but likely
impossible:

Without BECCS, global emissions need to fall to net zero by 2050 for 1.5°C, or by 2075 for 2°C. This entails reductions of 6.8 per cent per year and 4 per cent per year, respectively. Theoretically, this can be
accomplished with (a) a rapid shift to 100 per cent renewable energy to eliminate emissions from fossil fuel combustion (Jacobson and Delucchi 2011); plus (b) afforestation and soil regeneration to eliminate
emissions from land use change; plus (c) a shift to alternative industrial processes to eliminate emissions from the production of cement, steel, and plastic.

If we assume global GDP continues to grow at 3 per cent per year (the average from 2010 to 2014), then decoupling must occur at a rate of 10.5 per cent per year for 1.5°C, or 7.3 per cent per year for 2°C. If global
GDP grows at 2.1 per cent per year . . . then de-coupling must occur at 9.6 per cent per year for 1.5°C, or 6.4 per cent per year for 2°C. All of these targets are beyond what existing empirical models indicate is
feasible.

Parrique et al. (2019: 15) agree with this conclusion, finding that if we
need a 45% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030
(IPCC 2018), then “even the decrease of emissions achieved in the most successful national cases of absolute
decoupling are far from being sufficient to keep global warming from passing a critical threshold.” Hickel
(2019a) also argues that even under the most optimistic assumptions, continued GDP growth will push us past
the carbon budgets for both 1.5°C and 2°C targets. This supports Anderson and Bows (2011) earlier work illustrating that the necessary
emissions reductions are incompatible with continued economic growth. Anderson estimates that as of 2019 wealthy nations need to re-duce
emissions by 12% per year to stay within a 2°C target (Hickel and Kallis 2019), yet emissions reductions any greater than 3–4% per year are
incompatible with economic growth (Anderson and Bows 2011).

If we cast aside the unsubstantiated assumption that BECCS can be a highly effective negative emissions technology (see Chapter 2), then we
are left with only one possible way to stay within the IPCC’s (2018) 1.5°C target. Only one scenario in the IPCC special report (2018) did not rely
on BECCS. This scenario was published by Grubler et al. (2018) and stays within 1.5°C of warming through reducing total global energy use by
40% (by 2050), reducing total global material production and consumption by 20%, afforestation projects, and dematerialization through an
increase in sharing material goods and commodities (see Hickel and Kallis 2019). Given a lack of any evidence that BECCS can result in the
projected negative emissions, the Grubler scenario represents a more feasible and realistic approach.

Parrique et al. (2019) make an important point: these findings in no way mean that we should oppose the efficiency gains and a transition to
renewable energy that would support a decoupling strategy. In fact, these are important and even essential to reduce total carbon emissions.
Yet, they are not sufficient to reduce emissions at the rate necessary. This would also require reducing total production and consumption. They
promote “complementing efficiency-oriented policies with sufficiency policies, with a shift in priority and emphasis from the former to the latter
even though both have a role to play” (Parrique et al. 2019: 3). In other words, as we explained in the previous chapter, the potential of our
best technological solutions can only be realized if we simultaneously reduce production and consumption.

The moral implications of green growth

Green growth proponents argue that even though we currently lack concrete evidence that decoupling at
the rate necessary is possible, future technological innovation will be able to rapidly increase the rate
of decoupling. This faith in human technological advancement is widespread, as seen through techno-optimist and eco-modernist
positions (Grunwald 2018). While we agree that there will surely be some advances in technology in the short
and long term that could help to address our environmental crisis, the extent of technological
advancement necessary is significant and cannot be assumed. As Parrique et al. (2019: 51) explain,
relying only on technology to mitigate climate change implies extreme rates of eco-innovation improvements, which current trends
are very far from matching, and which, to our knowledge, have never been witnessed in the history of our species.
In other words, the
pace of technological evolution necessary has no precedent in human history and
therefore cannot be depended upon to address the urgency of the climate crisis.

Parrique et al. (2019: 55) also identify multiple factors that are likely to impede decoupling in the future and
undermine green growth as a solution. These factors include: “(1) Rising energy expenditures, (2) rebound
effects, (3) problem shifting, (4) the underestimated impact of services, (5) the limited potential of recycling
in a growing economy, (6) insufficient and inappropriate technological change, and (7) cost shifting.” They
explain each of these factors and how they undermine decoupling. Given that each of these factors independently could impede
possible decoupling, together they should raise significant skepticism about green growth strategies. Parrique et al.
(2019: 55) state that due to these factors, “the decoupling hypothesis appears highly compromised, if not clearly
unrealistic.”
Given the lack of evidence in support of sufficient decoupling as well as the many obstacles preventing a rapid green growth pathway, Hickel
and Kallis (2019) and Parrique et al. (2019) support a precautionary approach. As
the stakes are extremely high (e.g., possible
ecological and social collapse), and the future remains incredibly uncertain (e.g., are there critical thresholds?
what are they? what are the impacts?), the most responsible and moral pathway is to be cautious. Hickel and Kallis
(2019: 15) explain:

[o]ne may insist that green growth hasn’t occurred because it has not been tried, the fact that it hasn’t been empirically observed till
now then becoming irrelevant. We follow instead a more precau-tionary approach.

The evidence demonstrates a clear positive relationship between GDP growth and our environmental crisis. In addition, there are no
known solutions that can be employed to continue to support economic growth and sufficiently address
this crisis. Therefore, is it moral to rely on unproven or non-existent technological fixes? When leading scientists agree on the drivers of
these crises, why do our political leaders knowingly allow these drivers to continue?
Throughout human history those in power attempt to retain power. This has been called “elite rigidity” (Geyer and Rihani 2012) or “social reproduction” (Wright 2010). In many ways our current political system is currently rigid
and unchanging in order to protect the individuals and corporations who benefit most from the current fossil fuel-based, profit-maximizing system (Klein 2015). This is one reason the US has been demoted to the status of a “flawed
democracy” (Economist Intelligence Unit 2019). Green growth is an ideology promoted to protect the current system and conceal the underlying contradictions leading us further into environmental crises (Gunderson et al. 2018c).
However, is it moral to protect the economic interests of the few, through promoting false solutions, while putting all people, eco-systems, and other species at risk? Youth environmental activists increasingly demand that world
leaders protect their future and “put people before profits,” drawing attention to the immorality of continuing with business as usual. The fact that the current system is unable to respond to a moral imperative that resonates with
nearly all humans reveals the need to radically change the system.

The ongoing failure to address our environmental crisis contributes to multiple forms of injustice. Failing to provide a safe climate and environment for future generations of humans results in generational injustice. Causing
widespread species extinction and population collapse is an issue of interspecies injustice and ecocide. In addition, those who are and will continue to be most impacted by these crises are primarily poor people in the Global South,
or the “global majority.” Our environmental crisis will increasingly be experienced unequally, hurting those who are most vulnerable. Yet it is wealthy countries who are most responsible for this crisis, who continue to overproduce
and overconsume resources, and who need to do the most to urgently change course. As global injustices multiply, false solutions need to be exposed for what they are: unsubstantiated faith in technological solutions and green
growth pathways that protect the current system and benefit the economic interests of the few.

Beyond economic growth

As stated by Hickel and Kallis (2019: 15), “policy should be made on the basis of robust empirical evidence, rather than on the basis of speculative theoretical possibilities.” The evidence presented in this chapter makes a strong
case that adhering to policies prioritizing economic growth not only limits the effectiveness of mitigation measures but ultimately undermines efforts to sufficiently address our environmental crisis. Relationships between GDP
growth and increasing carbon emissions and biodiversity loss are clear and there is ample evidence that reducing overall material and energy consumption in wealthy countries would increase the success of efforts to address the
climate and biodiversity crises.

Models and projections illustrate how reducing economic growth even slightly increases possible
decoupling and emissions reductions. As Hickel and Kallis (2019: 7) explain in terms of resource use, “[a]s the growth rate
approaches zero, absolute decoupling becomes more feasible, and is likely to last longer.” Lower rates of
production and consumption (resulting in lower GDP), would also allow for more success in climate mitigation efforts. Yet to keep warming
within 1.5°C or 2°C targets substantial reductions are necessary. Schroder and Storm (2018) find that emissions reduction to limit warming to
2°C can be only accomplished if economic growth is reduced to 0.45% annually. However, a 1.5°C target has not been shown to be possible
without a degrowth scenario (Hickel and Kallis 2019). Grubler et al. (2018) and Van Vuuren et al. (2018) both not only contain scenarios of keep-
ing temperatures within 2°C, but also rely on reducing material and energy throughput. Lastly, Hickel (2019a) cites additional scenarios that
illustrate the feasibility of reaching environmental targets and in-creasing social well-being with degrowth pathways (i.e., D’Allessandro et al.
2018; Victor 2019).

Given the evidence undermining the reality of effective and fast green growth, we need to rethink economic growth. As stated clearly by Hickel
and Kallis (2019:15), “[i]t
is more plausible that we will be able to achieve the necessary reductions in resource
use and emissions without growth than with growth.” Parrique et al. (2019: 59) similarly argue that in contrast to unproven
negative emissions technologies and green growth strategies, “reducing production and consumption is not an abstract narrative.” We know
that the necessary reductions are possible and even desirable. Ecological economists and others ar-gue that letting go of economic growth as a
priority will allow space for other types of growth to flourish, increasing health, happiness, and environmental (and therefore human)
sustainability (Daly 2013; Stiglitz 2019a,b).