Environmental Securitization 1NC

1. Security is a speech act-the affirmatives framing of environmental threats locks in a

larger process of securitization.

Trenell 6(Paul, September, The (Im)possibilty of ‘Environmental Security’, Paul Trenell-- Department of International Politics,
University of Wales, http://cadair.aber.ac.uk/dspace/handle/2160/410)

Whilst ‘security’ is a concept imbued with the performative power to alter social relations, there is no guarantee that simply referring to an issue as a security issue will key into this performative capacity .

The process of mobilization along security lines follows more complex dynamics
which have received scant consideration in the environment-security literature to
date. To elaborate on this point it is necessary to delve a little deeper into the realm of security as a speech act . John Austin has split the speech act into three components: locutionary, illocutionary and
perlocutionary (Austin, 1975: 12-14). Jurgen Habermas has in turn claimed that “the three acts Austin distinguishes can be characterised in the following catchphrases: to say something, to act in saying
something, to bring about something through saying something” (1986: 288-289, emphasis in original). Where mobilization is what one seeks we are in the realm of the perlocutionary component of the speech
act, because the speaker is attempting to alter social relations, to bring about a change in the world. Until all three components have been completed a speech act remains incomplete and the performative

By merely labelling the environment as a security threat the

capacity of language to alter reality will not be realised.¶

speaker is only fulfilling the locutionary component of the speech act , that is saying something. In
order to complete the perlocutionary component, complete the speech act and key in to security’s performative capacity to alter social relations the speaker must engage with and convince his audience that his or

when casting
her truth claims are valid and warrant action. As Habermas has noted, “through perlocutionary acts the speaker produces an effect upon the hearer” (1986: 289). Therefore

an issue in security terms in order to achieve mobilization “what is essential is

the designation of an existential threat requiring emergency action or special
measures and the acceptance of that designation by a significant audience” (Buzan et al.,
1998: 27, my emphasis). The logic behind this stance stands to reason. Until the target audience has accepted the validity of

the securitizing actor’s truth claims no mobilization will follow from labelling the
issue as security. Therefore, when properly understood “securitization is
audience-centred” (Balzaqc, 1998: 25; see also Williams, 2003: 526), because unless the audience accepts the validity of, and acts upon, the labelling of
an issue with the ‘security’ tag the mobilization function which forms the very
purpose of security linkages will remain absent .

2. Environmental securitization perpetuates a logic of exceptionalism that makes global

violence inevitable

Brzoska 9(Michael, March, The Securitization of Climate Change and the power conceptions of security, Michael Brzoska is
the Scientific Director of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy and Professor of Political Science at the University of
Hamburg, Themenschwerpunkt 137-208, p. 137-145)

l.n the literature on securitization it is implied that when a¶ problem is securitized it is difficult to limit this to an increase¶ in attention and resources
devoted to mitigating the problem¶ (Brock 1997, Waever 1995). Securitization regularly leads to all-¶ round 'exceptionalism' in dealing with the issue

Methods and
as well as to¶ a shift in institutional localization towards ‘security experts’¶ (Bigot 2006), such as the military and police.

instruments associated with these security organizations - such as more use of arms, force
and violence - will gain in impor-¶ tance in the discourse on ‘what to do’. A good example of se-¶ curitization was the period leading to the Cold War
(Guzzini¶ 2004 ]. Originally a political conflict over the organization of¶ societies, in the late 1940s, the East-West confrontation became¶ an existential
conflict that was overwhelmingly addressed¶ with military means, including the potential annihilation¶ of humankind. Efforts to alleviate the political

conflict were,¶ throughout most of the Cold War, secondary to improving¶ milita.ry capabilities.¶ Climate change could meet a
similar fate. An essentially politi-¶ cal problem concerning the distribution of the costs of preven-¶ tion and adaptation and the losses and
gains in income arising¶ from change in the human environment might be perceived¶ as intractable, thus necessitating the build-up of military and¶

could, in
police forces to prevent it from becoming a major security¶ problem. The portrayal of climate change as a security prob-¶ lem

particular, cause the richer countries in the global North, which are less affected
by it, to strengthen measures aimed at protecting them from the spillover of
violent conflict from the poorer countries in the global South that will be most
affected by climate change. It could also be used by major powers as a
iustification for improving their military preparedness against the other major
powers, thus leading to arms races. This kind of reaction to climate change would
be counterproductive in various ways. Firstly, since more border protection,¶ as well as more soldiers and arms, is
expensive, the financial¶ means to compensate for the negative economic effects of¶ reducing greenhouse gas emission and adapting to climate¶
change will be reduced. Global military expenditure is again¶ at the levelof the height of the Cold War in realten-ns, reaching¶ more than US $1,200
billion in 2006 or 3.5 percent of global¶ income. While any estimate of the costs of mitigation (e.g. of¶ restricting global warrning to 2°C by 205 0] and
adaptation are¶ speculative at the moment,‘ they are likely to be substantial.¶ While there is no necessary link between higher military ex-¶ penditures
and a lower willingness to spend on preventing and¶ preparing for climate change, both policy areas are in competi-¶ tion for scarce resources.¶

the acceptance of the security consequences of climate change as an

Secondly,

intractable problem could well reduce efforts¶ to find peaceful solutions to the conflicts that will
inevitably come with climate change. Climate change will have major¶ consequences, particularly in countries where
living condi-¶ tions are already precarious (IPCC 2007, WBGU 2007). The con-¶ sequences of climate change on some basic fou.ndations of life,¶
such as fresh water supplies, arable land and agricultural pro-¶ ductivity in various parts of the world can already be roughly¶ estimated for various

There are also more or less well founded predictions of the

global-wan-ning scenarios.

consequences of reduced availability of natural resources such asarable land and

water on hunger and disease, even though such consequences are highly
dependent on counter-measures and adaptation efforts in affected regions. There
is no inevitability about these consequences.

3. The alternative is to refuse the affirmatives act of environmental

securitzation-This opens up new possibilities of participatory politics that
are a prerequisite to ecological survival

Dalby 92 (Simon- CIGI Chair in the Political Economy of Climate Change at the Balsillie School of International Affairs,
“Modernity, Ecology: The Dilemmas of Post-Cold War Security Discourse,” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Vol. 17, No. 1,
Winter 1992, pp 95-134, JSTOR)

Rethinking security along these lines requires a refusal of the metaphysics of domination and control. Even
more than in the case of military matters, neither economic or ecological security can ultimately
be ensured by violence, nor can they be ensured by the unilateral actions of a
single state. Instead, they require international cooperation and a participatory politics. "Security
is increasingly attained through the difficult process of global cooperation to
create mechanisms for non-violent dispute settlement and establish
environmental alliances."131 In the longer term, what all this suggests is the possibility of a
drastic rethinking of political structures. Transforming states, hard though it probably will be
in the face of the resistance of powerful vested interests, must be an important part of reformulating
security.152 The military understanding of security is one of force and imposed
solutions, secrecy, power, and surveillance. It is a logocentric metaphysical model that privileges certainty and stability over
the possibilities of change, and political order over the messy uncertainties of democratic practice . Conventional
security discourse is trapped within the metaphysics and structures of Western philosophy and the will
to dominate and control. A politics, and the related technology, that asserts ever greater power over things, tends to
undermine the basis of that power by generating indirect responses, usually in terms of single states
attempting to maximize security by increasing power, and so triggering arms race
phenomena— the so-called security dilemma phenomenon. A similar dynamic works in ecological
matters. The metaphysics of domination is linked in environmentalist discourse to the theme of the domination of nature.133
Technology and industry exploit nature and remake it according to their demands. Ecology is reduced to matters
of natural resources management, the administration of nature by a technologically sophisticated state system.
The diversity of species and the complex interconnections of ecosystems are
here reduced to matters of either commodities or worthless extraneous materials .
In the case of so-called renewable resources, the crucial conception is one of sustainable yield, as though forest or fish stocks were
cultivated fields.134 As the case of the Amazon so clearly reveals, development projects that attempt to force ever larger production
from sensitive environments by the use of technological power usually lead to ecological disruption.135 Insofar as states premise
their security policies on these projects leading to societal development, then insecurity returns to haunt the search for security in
terms of certainty, control, and order. This suggests that the masculine and Western metaphysical
understandings of power in terms of domination of nature, which environmentalist discourse criticizes, and control
over territorial states, which antigeopolitical thinking challenges, are not the appropriate ones for
rethinking security. Much more needed are approaches that focus on caring and
cooperation, recognition of mutual vulnerabilities, and the necessity to forge
consensus and agreement in the face of mutual insecurity .136 But these approaches involve
political input by grassroots groups and a democratization of both development and security that flies in the face of conventional
state-organized versions of both.137 Needed, too, are ecological metaphors of security—seeing
strength in diversity, conservation, interdependence, interconnectedness, and
adaptation rather than imposed physical power. Likewise, the gender dimension of security and
ecology need to be taken seriously in attempts to reform states and shift from "resourcism" to ecological
modes of society. Further still may be the necessity to distance philosophical
understanding of natural phenomena from purely instrumentalist perspectives,
recognizing that ecological relationships are better grounded in a metaphysics of
a "re-enchanted" nature.139 Ken Booth's ambitious attempt to rethink security for the 1990s reverses the theme of
security as domination and force. He reinterprets security in terms of emancipation, meaning both political liberty and the economic
capacity to render that liberty meaningful.140 He also distances security from the monopoly of states. Security is here understood
as security primarily for citizens; in doing this, Booth strips away the central assumption that states do necessarily provide security.
This point is crucial. Radically rethinking security inevitably has to deal with the role of
states, because the conventional discourse of security is all about states as the providers of security. So long as
security discourse remains intimately and uncritically entangled with state
politics, the more innovative possibilities for rethinking human community in the
aftermath of the Cold War and in the face of global ecological peril will be unnecessarily
limited. Booth's suggestion for rethinking security in terms of emancipation is an interesting possibility precisely because it
directly links a reformulated security with challenges to imposed and authoritarian power. To rethink security, then,
is to insist on exposing the power relations involved, both in the practical operations of politics and
the metaphysical underpinnings of modernist ontology. It involves challenging the use of security as
ideology by asking, "security specifically for whom?" in the face of assurances of security for
everyone. It must insist that ecological security is not about arranging resources to
maintain the existing state system, a form of natural resources management writ
large.141 Rather, alternative conceptions of security must focus on reforming the
state system to ensure the survival of planetary ecology. International equity and the consequent
reformulation of international economic arrange- ments are an essential part of a common security that can sustain the ecosystem.