Relationality K - ADC Final

Ocean Eco-Critique
1NC
1NC Shell
The affirmative conceptualizes the ocean through the vocabulary of international relations
and sovereigntythis distances humanity from nature and turns ocean species into
something to be managed externally
Seckinelgin 6
[2006, Hakan Seckinelgin is a lecturer in international social policy in the department of social
policy, London School of Economics (LSE), The Environment and International Politics
International fisheries, Heidegger and social method,
http://guessoumiss.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/the-environment-and-international-politics.pdf]
This chapter has looked at how the
new international law of the sea, UNCLOS III, has reterritorialised
both ocean spaces and identities in relation to these spaces . I have argued that the main
reason behind the form of this territoriality is located in the general framework of IR,
which perceives the international on the basis of sovereign entities. The aim was to show how the fact
of international relations and the narration of this process inter-constituted each other.
Reading the case of the South Pacific, it has become clear that, within the disciplinary understanding of IR, it is
possible to account for a successful application of an environmental regime independent of
ecological concerns. Ecology does not play any role insofar as ecology does not function
through a logos based on a sovereign self . By reterritorialisation of ocean space and

identities, ecological concerns are further distanced . The questions that may be asked,
then, are located in and limited by this conceptual framework underpinned by the
concept of sovereignty . In a nutshell, the question is not about the success of the structural
forms that are created, but about how far they are sufficiently articulated and what the
possibility of these forms is on the basis of the nature of the problems they are trying to
solve. Therefore, Chapter 2 discusses what is disregarded while the success story is being told as an important part of the argument. Through
the introduction of species of tuna as an ecological component of the ocean system, I will attempt to dispute the above success story, seeing it as
an inadequate way of understanding and thinking about the international. 2 The issue of sovereignty in the context of International Law of the Sea
In order to be able to conduct a comprehensive analysis of South Pacific cooperation, it is necessary to achieve an understanding of all the related
parties in themselves and the impact of their relations on each others existence. Deciding who the parties to this interaction are on the basis of
the cooperation scheme can be a contentious issue, according to different perspectives. If one takes the parallel line of argument to the FFA, the
parties are those South Pacific island states. The consequences of the cooperation, none the less, suggest a different picture. Through
the
relational ethics implied in the ecological call of responsibility, this study considers the
species of the oceans as one of the major parties to the cooperation , albeit a silent one. In
addition, it
seems fundamentally important to consider the fishing industry as another relevant

party to the cooperation insofar as the existence of this industry has motivated, and will motivate, the South
Pacific states to cooperate and capitalise on their ocean spaces. So, here the cooperation scheme is
considered in its multiplicity multiple meanings (Heidegger 1968: 71) insofar as each party affected might bring a new meaning which would
alter the vision of the cooperation. The
implication of bringing all the related and affected parties
together would be to cast doubt on the success story that is based only on the interests of the South Pacific
states and the functional efficiency of the cooperative institutions. This move aims to talk about the interests of
species that are implicated in the cooperation scheme, but ignored as a relevant
component in the success story. This ignoring becomes particularly emphasised by

market concerns that motivate searches for managerial solutions more than
ecological ones . Furthermore, it is also an a contrario demonstration (through positive inclusion) of how
the absence of a holistic understanding produces a success story wrapped in subtle but
one-sided truth claims about resources, sovereignty, interests, and eventually about the
existential location of human beings on Earth. Thus this step aims to establish a path towards an interpretation which
contradicts the established understanding that is negatively related (Foucault 1990: 83) to ecology. This relation means that the
accepted frame of perception excludes and creates absences of things such as ocean
species. It dislocates them from their natural existential connectedness only to
relocate them as materials to support human existence . By bringing the analysis of
what is excluded from the institutional concern in the region, namely the systemic understanding of life in the oceans,
into the discussion, the natural location of species as material support for the development of the
region is disrupted. At the same time, through this analysis, the framework and impact of the new ocean
regime are related to the process that considers and reduces the environment to the limits
of a new political/territorial organisation on the basis of which a certain existential
normality for species is fixed. The possibility of understanding the ocean ecosystem and the
species therein is based on the new politically divided zones. It is argued that new
reorganisation allows individual zones to be articulated as environmentally

separate entities.
This division of humanity from nature results in extinctionunderstanding our
connectedness to the world is the only way to prevent cycles of planetary destruction
The Dark Mountain 9
[2009, Uncivilization, network of writers, artists, and thinkers, The Dark Mountain Manifesto,
http://dark-mountain.net/about/manifesto/]
The myth of progress is founded on the myth of nature. The first tells us that we are destined for greatness;
the second tells us that greatness is cost-free. Each is intimately bound up with the other. Both tell us that we are apart
from the world ; that we began grunting in the primeval swamps, as a humble part of
something called nature, which we have now triumphantly subdued . The very fact
that we have a word for nature is [5] evidence that we do not regard ourselves as part
of it. Indeed, our separation from it is a myth integral to the triumph of our civilisation. We are,
we tell ourselves, the only species ever to have attacked nature and won. In this, our unique glory is contained. Outside the citadels of selfcongratulation, lone voices have cried out against this infantile version of the human story for centuries, but it is only in the last few decades that
its inaccuracy has become laughably apparent. We are the first generations to grow up surrounded by evidence that
our attempt to
separate ourselves from nature has been a grim failure, proof not of our genius but
our hubris. The attempt to sever the hand from the body has endangered the progress
we hold so dear , and it has endangered much of nature too . The resulting upheaval underlies the
crisis we now face. We
imagined ourselves isolated from the source of our existence. The fallout from this
imaginative error is all around us: a quarter of the worlds mammals are threatened with imminent
extinction; an acre and a half of rainforest is felled every second; 75% of the worlds fish
stocks are on the verge of collapse; humanity consumes 25% more of the worlds
natural products than the Earth can replace a figure predicted to rise to 80% by midcentury. Even through the deadening lens of statistics, we can glimpse the violence to which our myths have
driven us. And over it all looms runaway climate change. Climate change, which
threatens to render all human projects irrelevant ; which presents us with detailed evidence of our lack of
understanding of the world we inhabit while, at the same time, demonstrating that we
are still entirely reliant upon it. Climate

change, which highlights in painful colour the head-on crash between civilisation and nature; which makes plain, more effectively than any
carefully constructed argument or optimistically defiant protest, how the machines need for permanent growth will require us to destroy
ourselves in its name. Climate change, which brings home at last our ultimate powerlessness. These are the facts, or some of them. Yet facts
never tell the whole story. (Facts, Conrad wrote, in Lord Jim, as if facts could prove anything.) The facts of environmental crisis we hear so
We hear daily about the impacts of our activities on the

environment (like nature, this is an expression which distances us from the reality of our
situation). Daily we hear, too, of the many solutions to these problems: solutions which usually
involve the necessity of urgent political agreement and a judicious application of human
technological genius. Things may be changing, runs the narrative, but there is nothing we
cannot deal with here, folks. We perhaps need to move faster, more urgently. Certainly we
much about often conceal as much as they expose.
need to accelerate the pace of research and development. We accept that we must
become more sustainable . But everything will be fine. There will still be growth, there will still be progress: these things
will continue, because they have to continue, so they cannot do anything but continue. There is nothing to see here. Everything will be fine. We
do not believe that everything will be fine. We are not even sure, based on current definitions of progress and improvement, that we want it to be.
Of all humanitys delusions of difference, of its separation from and superiority to the living world which surrounds it, one distinction holds up
better than most: we may well be the first species capable of effectively eliminating life on Earth .
This is a hypothesis we seem intent on putting to the test. We are already responsible for denuding the world of much of its richness,
magnificence, beauty, colour and magic, and we show no sign of slowing down. For a very long time, we imagined that nature was something
that happened elsewhere. The damage we did to it might be regrettable, but needed to be weighed against the benefits here and now. And in the
Perhaps we would make for the moon, where we

could survive in lunar colonies under giant bubbles as we planned our expansion across the
galaxy. But there is no Plan B and the bubble, it turns out, is where we have been living all the while. The bubble is that
worst case scenario, there would always be some kind of Plan B.
The bubble has cut us off from life on the only

planet we have, or are ever likely to have. The bubble is civilisation. Consider the
structures on which that bubble has been built. Its foundations are geological: coal, oil, gas millions upon
delusion of isolation under which we have laboured for so long.
millions of years of ancient sunlight, dragged from the depths of the planet and burned with abandon. On this base, the structure stands. Move
burning forests; beamtrawled ocean floors; dynamited reefs; hollowed-out mountains; wasted soil. Finally, on top of all
upwards, and you pass through a jumble of supporting horrors: battery chicken sheds; industrial abattoirs;
these unseen layers, you reach the well-tended surface where you and I stand: unaware, or uninterested, in what goes on beneath us; demanding
that the authorities keep us in the manner to which we have been accustomed; occasion- ally feeling twinges of guilt that lead us to buy organic
chickens or locally-produced lettuces; yet for the most part glutted, but not sated, on the fruits of the horrors on which our lifestyles depend.
Vote negative to inject ecological ethicsecological considerations cannot be fit with

conceptual IR toolsthe act of criticism helps us move towards a transpersonal ecology
and reveals the failures of dominant understandings
Seckinelgin 6
This book has sought to respond to the question posed in the introduction: Can International Relations understand and address the ecological call? In doing so the
book has gone through three stages. From the initial empirical case of ocean management in the South Pacific it moves to the possibility of understanding ecological
problems, or producing knowledge, in general, in IR and then locates this possibility of knowing in the larger philosophical framework. By doing so,
it
responds to the original question in the negative: IR cannot understand and address the
ecological call . The reason for this is given at the philosophical level. I argued that in order to respond to the question,
the philosophical rethinking of the humannature relationship is required in order
to consider an ecological ethics as the ground of the political and the methodology of
understanding. In this study, thinking means to locate oneself within the question, rather than
to exercise an abstract control of the issue as the objective enquirer in questioning.

Therefore, the thinking process does not prioritise one of the parties; rather it takes everyone
as part of a multiplicity that is being faced. To be able to think about an issue within its
complexity, one has to unfold the complexity without being inhibited by the habitual,
exclusionist categories. Within this process, the second dimension of questioning, then, tries to reflect
on, and eventually bring together , what is near that has been lost in the naturalness of
the common (Heidegger 1968: 129). The biological life of ocean species, their habitats and their life
dynamics are now important components of thinking about international ecological
problems presented in the oceans. However, at the same time, this is an unfolding of what is being disregarded in what is seen as
common or natural at present. It also follows that
by including these components of ocean life in the
consideration of the political, the process that has disregarded them so far can no
longer be presented as natural or common . Therefore, this process deconstructs1 the apparent
naturalness of the stand taken by International Relations in the face of ecological
challenge through building a dynamic thinking about the present in its complexity. At the same
time, this process of bringing ecological concerns into the analysis creates a philosophical
outlook in which ethical and epistemological concerns are grounded through this
ecological understanding. In conclusion, two questions might be asked. The first is: How can this analysis inform
the studying of IR/environment? The second is: How can this analysis help to address the actual
problem of environment articulated? The first question goes beyond the immediate question about the particular environmental
problem. It allows the study to articulate the problem on an ontological level, as a question of methodology. At the level of methodology the
empirical question becomes a question of understanding and conceptualisation within IR.
This also has important implications for the social sciences, which are constructed as discrete areas of study and understanding. It is at this level that
I have discussed the problem presented by the discipline. The empirical study is employed to show that responding to
the initial question of the ecological call, answered in the empirical framed in the disciplinary understanding, would remain silent to the call. The response adopts the
question to the limits of understanding within IR whereby ecological problems are persistently reduced to the question of management of regimes. Therefore,
rather than framing a response to an environmental problem as a policy formulation and

concluding the study within the ontological limits of IR, in considering the problem as an ethical issue, the
ethical position implied and deployed through IR is questioned . Ecological ethics is a

challenge to the study of International Relations, which, in its different schools, considers
a world a priori that may be understood , and thus as a given area to be studied.2 In their
most of the schools consider the world that may be understood, according to
the overarching international/sovereignty-based framework, in which a fundamental ethical position is implicitly
applied.3 In its different variants either as a problem-solving theory or as critical theory, IR also remains within the boundaries of
anthropocentric ontology.4 This pervasive ethical position then becomes a guarantee for
differences, none the less,
the method used in understanding international relations . By arguing that the question
of environment is foremost an ethical question and not a managerial one, the grounding
ethical assumption of International Relations is questioned. The morality of the abstracted
sovereign individual in relating to the other is scrutinised. The location of first abstracted,
and then radically individuated, human being is questioned.5 In this manner, also, the
possibility of a fixed delimitation of a disciplinary locus, dominant in the social sciences,
based on discrete categorisations of targeted subjectivities may be contested . In
rethinking an ethical relation between nature and human being in terms of belonging, a
new space is opened up . This rethinking contests the ideas of fixed the international
and the agents of action within it. By introducing a larger relationality, ecological ethics shows that the world
which can be studied in IR, as the domain of knowledge in international politics, is deceptive. Therefore, in unsettling
the grounds of justification of the conceptual plane that can be studied, ecological ethics not
only addresses the environmental issue but targets a problem within IR as a discipline.
it creates a general marker for questioning social method based on abstract

models of human being or the individual person.
Furthermore,
Links
LinkIR
The 1AC is a research project towards ocean policies that chooses to infuse it with the basic
metrics of IRthis makes all ecological considerations subject to environmental politics
and discounts our role in nature
Seckinelgin 6
The ecological call, of which ANWR and Rockall are only two manifestations, presents International Relations
with a fundamental challenge . What we see in these examples is very important. The governments
responses to these issues revolve around the disciplinary matrix of International
Relations. However, one of the main arguments in the discussion, namely the ecological claim,
urges us to stretch our vision provided by the discourse. The claim that the state, and hence the
domestic government, has a responsibility to people beyond its boundaries attempts to disintegrate
the image of responsibility based only on state relations in the international, which is not concerned necessarily
about people. Moreover, by bringing in a concern for species that are not able to vocalise their
dissent from the practices threatening their existential space, and therefore their being, this
ecological politics of contestation points to a discursive anomaly in International
Relations . The knowledge produced within the discourse in terms of the international
does not reflect what it is that we perceive to be international, and the larger context
implicated in the concept becomes obscured . Its knowledge claim remains restricted
through state behaviour and interests. Thus environmental politics becomes isolated from
the politics of ecological contexts and agents . This book claims that the discourse of
International Relations is paralysed by ecological problems. As it tries to overcome this
state of affairs through its traditional discourse, the situation becomes worse . In other words,
one can observe a rupture in the discipline through which power relations behind it may be
dissected. The internal constitution of the concept of sovereignty and the power relations implicit in it create the rupture insofar as the
ecological issues at hand are always already discounted internally in the discipline.
Therefore, the allure of theories of regimes and institutions structured on the basis of
established concepts such as state, sovereignty and the international, used as analytical tools of
engagement, seems outdated. They obscure the possibility of understanding the ecological
call and the implied responsibility therein . The question of this study, then, is: Can IR understand and address the
ecological call? This question will be expanded and located at a deeper philosophical level as I present the way in which I engage with the
question through this study.
LinkNational v. International
State oriented ocean politics divides pieces of the ocean into distinct national entities that
trades off with a communal understanding of it as shared and interconnected
Seckinelgin 6
On the one hand, the Bush administration refuses to agree on international obligations, as these do not allow the
USA a justification for the exploration and extraction of hydrocarbons. By using a domestic security argument the administration is able to put
aside a set of international obligations and also to take measures to change its environmental legislation, which would have international
ramifications. On the other hand, in
the context of the ocean space claimed for species by Greenpeace,

one needs to see the possibility of justification provided to the British government in International
Relations and conditions on which the governments action is justified. The authority of the
government to use a section of ocean space around Rockall derives from the United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea III (UNCLOS III), concluded in 1982, which established a new zone of sovereign rights
for coastal states and islands, i.e. an exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The UNCLOS III process was initiated to
formulate an ocean regime which would both deal with the environmental problems and
benefit coastal states. The most innovative and important change was the establishment of EEZs and the regime UNCLOS III
establishes on the basis of rights given to the coastal states. These rights were expressed in relation to
exploration, exploitation, conserving and managing the natural resources (Art. 56, 1a)9 of a certain
area of the ocean adjacent to the coastal states territory. By relating these rights to state sovereignty the
convention has created national spaces out of a global common . As a consequence, those
national jurisdictions have become legally isolated from the larger context in which they
are located. The position of both governments is based on the possibility of spatial
differentiation between states and the international in the way we try to understand international relations. By
this move international law also describes the content of these spaces. In the case of Rockall this means that the British government can isolate
the case within its internal, state systemic conceptualisation by making it part of Scotland, and can thus respond by transforming the case into
what may be discussed on the basis of national interest. In the US case, by
articulating an energy crisis the

administration transforms the situation into a national problem rather than its being
related to an international issue. This possibility of a sharp distinction between the two spaces also means that
the assimilation of the call for responsibility into national interest is mediated by
international law. It may be argued that the relationality and interconnectedness of human
beings and nature suggested by the activists actions is not addressed in the
governments responses. My intention, then, is to find an intellectual orientation for the critical analysis of this juncture
between the activists and the government. The juncture may be spotted between the official response and the ecological interconnectedness of
species that is, their relationality invoked in the protest as well as in the meaning of the non-response to the ecological call for responsibility
beyond official understanding of responsibility in terms of state interest. The critical in critical analysis means that the
analysis will
attempt to reveal the limits of knowing10 in terms of ecology within the discourse that
is framed by concepts of state, territory, interest and the international as they are
deployed by the governments. It is therefore important to conceptualise the nature of the problem between the call for
responsibility and the location of the official government response within International Relations. This location between the two sides allows us
to see what is at stake politically that is different from environmental politics. In the context of this book, the
discourse that limits
our understanding of politics is the study of international relations under the discipline of
International Relations (IR).11 The study of I nternational R elations is taken to be a discursive practice insofar as it produces and
forms the knowledge in relation to international relations.12 In this productive mode it applies discursive rules
and categories such as sovereignty and the international, without which the discipline of International Relations cannot explain actual
international relations; none the less, in
the statement of international relations these rules and categories

are always already assumed.13 The responses of the US administration and the British government to their opponents
reflect the discourse of IR, which is based on territorial sovereignty claims through the means of
international law and claims of priority of national interest over international
responsibility in other words, the discourse of International Relations through its rules and categories enables spatial differentiation
between international and national. It creates two sides of political action where the basis of action is grounded on different ethical relations. Put
differently, this spatial distinction also differentiates the mode of political concerns and agents. Through this structure the
state
becomes the agent of political discourse in the international under the assumption of
representing its territorial unity and the unified will of its citizens. In this enabling rests the question of how it is that concepts
of sovereignty and the international create the conditions of the discourse.14 The ecological call as expressed in ANWR and by the
destabilises the disciplinary moves that are based on the framework of

sovereignty and the international. As R.B.J. Walker suggests, the increasing importance of the problems
Greenpeace attempt
arising outside traditional sovereignty claims such as those involving the law of the sea, space
law and speculative claims about a global commons or planetary habitat makes traditional
belief that here is indeed here and there is still there (Walker 1993: 174) rather difficult to
sustain . The politics based on ecological relationality exposes the inner tensions of
the concept of sovereignty. The image of sovereignty as reflected in state action becomes
unstable, since these actions have larger consequences that cannot be assimilated within
the boundaries of sovereign decision-making.
LinkDevelopment
Ocean development puts a backseat to ecological considerations by turning ocean species
into external agents to be used for economic valueit necessitates a division of ocean
spaces based on property as exemplified by status quo EEZs
Seckinelgin 6
These linguistic
formulations of marine resources as agent and the new relationship

established are the means through which an EEZ area becomes functional as the industrial
zone that has become the engine of development. By definition, the ecological identity, which is
based on ecological life, of the resources is subsumed under the raison dtat in relation
to development. Furthermore, a problem of spatiality has been created. By conceptualising a special zone
that has a different and exclusive legal status from that of the rest of the ocean, attention
has been diverted to the immediate interest of the coastal states in their zones . Therefore,
the high seas have either been left alone or considered under different measures. Two
different systems of cooperation

have emerged: one for the high seas and one for the EEZs. The first system is based on the
traditional freedom of fishing on the high seas, which is a function of voluntary catch limits based on voluntary
involvement of fishing fleets that reflects the interests of all the parties involved. This structure, in relation to marine
resources, has no obligatory conservation or protection measures. Each fishing party may establish its own
limits and enjoy them without answering to any legal consideration. The second system is internal to EEZ areas as a
stock management exercise based on external bargaining strategy with DWFs. The system allows
individual coastal states to assess their own zones and then to make them available to third parties. In relation to neighbouring zones of coastal
states, sovereign considerations only facilitate consultation among the neighbouring zones rather than integrated policy (apart from the EU
Common Fisheries Policy). Since coastal states are granted exclusive rights on the choice of protective measures that are to be initiated in their
EEZs, it is difficult to maintain uniformity of measures of any kind through the borders, an issue which is crucial in the ocean system. At the end
of the day, the
final decision about any policy is usually/has to be based on national interest,

given that resources are established as central to a coastal states development. If one
considers the ecological call and the relationality expressed therein, it becomes clear that
the logic of UNCLOS III does not allow ecological relationality to appear as integral to the
understanding of oceans. The structure of UNCLOS III as a structure of spatial
differentiation by radical materialisation of life forms , namely reducing the life of species
to economic material forms, into agents of development is problematic to say the least. Given the
complexities of the resources that are meant to be managed, this
allows life forms to become distanced from
ecological considerations as part of a life world. Thus one could argue that it is highly questionable
how a system based on political divisions of individual interests could deal with a biological
and physical whole. Although UNCLOS III presents an innovative law-making process that has been instrumental in redefining the
relationship between nature and humankind, albeit implicitly, it could not manage to escape from the grounding constraints of its location. This
redefinition, hence the
reterritorialisation, takes the shape of repositioning within a certain framework. The repositioning is
located within the fragmented idea of the human and externalised environment . The
convention augments this fragmented understanding by establishing a possibility of
thinking about the environment on the basis of divided sovereign spaces. The epitomisation of this idea
may be seen as assessing ones own zone to decide about external access. Reterritorialisation, therefore, is a move for
further distancing in terms of ecological relations. It may be seen in relation both to the spatiality of the ocean
space and the relations among beings implicated therein. The
species of the fragmented EEZ space are now

related, or considered to be relevant, by the fact that they belong to a certain coastal state while other
species become irrelevant by distance and by belonging to a different coastal state. In short,
ocean space and the species have become materials that belong to someone , and thus
may be used according to the owners decision and needs.
LinkEnvironmental Management
Situating ecological concerns within institutional considerations just turns them into
environmental managerialism which maintains existing discourses
Seckinelgin 6
The ecological understanding defined as a holistic relationality between species and the
Earth presents an important discursive problem to International Relations .15 Of course,

there is an attempt to locate ecological problems as an environmental problem within the
discourse, as demonstrated by the British governments response. This prompts the question: How is it possible, in the face
of an invocation of ecological responsibility, to manage the environment in terms of
sovereign spaces? Stated differently by Michel Foucault in his attempt to locate the conceptualisation of sex in relation to the general
discourse of sexuality, [w]hat is at issue, briefly, is the over-all discursive fact, the way in which sex is put into discourse (Foucault 1990:
11). It
is important to realise that the transformation of ecological problems into

environmental issues is a discursive move. International Relations may explain the issue of
Rockall through environmental management terms based on British sovereign rights and
its international obligations and, by bringing this explanation, imposes its own discursive structure
over the issue. None the less, this precise juncture of transformation reveals the anthropocentric
prejudice of the discourse. Although there are those theories, or schools, of International
Relations that are receptive to the environmental problems, they remain within the
anthropocentric framework .16 The ecological call raised by these cases discussed above allows us to see the inadequacy of
the rules and categories of the discourse. Or, from a Foucauldian perspective, this inadequacy represents the internal
unvoiced and unthought existential values and norms in the discourse. In other words, to
bring the concept of the ecological into perspective is an attempt to uncover power17
reflected in the possibility of the conditions of knowledge framed in the discourse of
International Relations .18 This process also allows us to see what is political in
environmental politics and how it becomes subsumed under the discursive limits of politics
created by these values and norms implicit in the discourse.
LinkObservation
The use of observational systems reinforces the same logics that cause environmental
destruction in the first place
Liftin 99
[Karen Liftin, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington,
Approaches to Global Governance Theory, 87-89]
The use of ERS data in developing countries raises complex cultural, political, and ethical issues, and the technology is not without its critics. For
instance, Masahide Kato criticizes nonprofit groups
based in industrialized countries who supply satellitegenerated information to remote areas of developing countries. He believes they represent a new
form of imperialism rooted in a "globalist technosubjectivity" which renders the
indigenous peoples' territory as resources.63 Indeed, satellites seem to offer the tantalizing
prospect of a totalizing knowledge; as one early enthusiast proclaimed, they "show vast terrains in correct
perspective, from one viewpoint, and at one moment in time."64 Not surprisingly, that "one viewpoint" is
generally located in the North. Moreover, that uone moment in time" cannot capture centuries of
past environmental abuse, a fact which may prove profoundly disadvantageous for
developing countries when ERS data are used to assign responsibility for ecological
degradation.*5 While Kato perhaps too quickly condemns ERS technology, which we have seen can also be used to promote the interests
of local communities and indigenous groups, his critique reveals two interrelated questions regarding the political culture of epistemic authority
implicit in ERS technologies: the control of knowledge (who controls it and for what purposes) and the constitution of knowledge (what counts as
knowledge). One point seems unassailable: by
employing ERS data, environmental and indigenous rights

groups legitimize it as a source of credible knowledge. This is the price paid when local
communities gain the mantle of scientific objectivity by transposing their traditional
practices into the language of GIS. The kind of knowledge supplied by ERS technologies , it
may be argued, promotes precisely the impersonality and technological rationalism which are the
defining traits of modernity and which have been a primary source of environmental
destruction. Moreover, the voyeuristic nature of photography, including satellite imagery, may promote
a view of nature that is antithetical to the ecological goals of grassroots groups. In her famous
essay, On Photography, Susan Sontag has argued that "cameras implement the instrumental view of reality.
[They] arm vision in the service of powerof the state, of industry, of science."66 Spacebased Earth observation represents the ultimate Panopticon, whereby the gaze of
disciplinary power is globalized and internalized in people's consciousness everywhere.67 Yet
some grassroots groups are wagering that ERS can also "arm vision in the service of power" at the local level. Their efforts are perhaps too recent
for us to draw any decisive conclusions. Users
of satellite-generated Earth data have powerful cultural

and rhetorical tools on their sidespecifically Enlightenment ideals about the liberating
power of knowledge. According to one commentator, programs employing ERS information should be based on the premise that
"greater knowledge leads to greater wisdom," a premise that is at least debatable.6" But if the link between knowledge and
wisdom is weak, the link between knowledge and power may be more tenable. Indeed a
core assumption of the architects of ERS systems is that they offer "a whole new tool with
which to understand our own world, and once we understand it, we can manage it."69 Such
statements seem to presuppose a specifically modern conception of agency and
responsibility, with a rational, autonomous self capable of knowing {and thereby
controlling) the Other embodied in the natural "environment." Nonetheless, if this hallmark of
modernity is actually at the root of the global environmental crisis, then the faith in ERS
technology may be fundamentally misplaced. Given the deep entrenchment of the

knowledge/power nexus as a cultural cornerstone of modernity, to question the need for
information approaches heresy. Yet, given the stakes, one must wonder just what practical
results the information generated by ERS will yield. NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) will produce an unprecedented
quantity of data, at a cost of perhaps $20 billion; its data information system (EOSDIS) will be the largest data handling system ever constructed,
with a capacity of fourteen petabytes (a petabyte is 1015 bytes, or one billion megabytes).70 The
primary purpose of this

information is to guide policy makers in addressing global climate change. Given that less
than five percent of Landsat's data has ever been used, one might anticipate that ERS will
generate more information overload than wisdom.71 According to the World Meteorological Organization, a
satellite-based Global Climate Observing System, with EOS as its core, "will require substantial resources, but the costs to society from
continuing the present level of uncertainty about climate change are very much larger."72 What those costs are, who bears them, and how ERS
data will decrease them, are not discussed. The
assumption has been that ERS data, augmented by better computer

reduce the uncertainties surrounding climate change and serve as a guide to
rational action. Yet the recent IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) scientific assessment has
substantially undermined the claim that there is too much uncertainty to take decisive
action. While the 1990 IPCC assessment concluded that it was too early to say whether climate change was underway, the 1995 report
models, will
concludes that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate."73 That assessment, which took two years to
complete and involved more than two thousand scientists worldwide, provides the scientific grounds for a major shift in the policy discourse
towards the serious consideration of fossil fuel alternatives and other mitigation strategies. The contribution of ERS data to that discourse is far
from clear, but to
the extent that its link to the policy discourse goes unexamined, ERS runs the
risk of falling prey to the "technological imperative" of innovation for its own sake.74 A
global ERS system is expected to provide "the long-term measurements to determine the
habitability of the Earth."75 Yet if our planet's habitability is truly at risk, then the more
fundamental questions should be how to act under uncertainty, not how to "build a
comprehensive predictive model of the Earth's physical, chemical, and biological
processes."76 Will the knowledge gained through ERS technology tell us how to live
sustainably? The answer to the question will depend not only upon who uses the
information and to what purposes it is applied, but also upon a willingness to uncover the
hidden assumptions in the celebratory discourse surrounding ERS. In others words, the
patterns of epistemic authority which ERS promotes must be uncovered and interrogated.
LinkScience
Scientific approaches to nature distance humanity from it and reinforce Cartesian dualism
Young 8
[2008, Kelly, Trent Univesity, Dan Roronhiakewen Longboat, Trent University, Andrejs
Kulnieks, York Univesity, Beyond Dualism: Toward a Transdisciplanry Indigenous
Environmental Studies Model of Environmental Education Curricula, pdf, pg 4-5]
Historically, during the latter half of the twentieth century, there
was a concern about nature that grew into

environmental sciences based upon a scientific model about nature rather than a
naturalist and experiential model in nature. Environmental studies moved into books and field
courses. At this time there was a kinaesthetic loss of learning whereby humans no longer fully experienced
nature and moved toward text based knowledge as a dominant method of learning
about the environment in systems of education. The methods involved a shift from experiential learning in nature
to learning about the environment in a library. The birth of environmental education as outlined by
Carsons Silent Spring (1967) can be seen as a beginning call for people to critically question human
relationships with the natural world. From this early questioning to today, environmental education has continually
evolved and will continue to evolve, driven by both response and need to broaden its understanding of human and environmental interaction.
Environmental Science Model and Indigenous Environmental Model The rise of environmental education in North America included a
distinction between environmental studies and environmental sciences. Environmental
aspect between human and the environment drawing
studies looked at the human

upon a social root metaphor (subjective investigation of human in relation to
environment as data). Environmental sciences divided into specializations or disciplines in biology, chemistry, geography, and
physics classified as the natural sciences and positioned the environment as a system drawing upon a
mechanistic root metaphor of nature (objective investigation of environment as data): one is to measure, classify, quantify,
and examine it over a specified time, to develop a predictive model that could then be universalized and generalized. Emerging as a
sophisticated tool to predict and manage, science continues to dominate and control nature, extending from religious
and philosophical beliefs in a human domination of nature through a Cartesian paradigm (Bowers 2002; Gatta 2004;
Merchant 1980; Orr 1992). A science model is tied to a political and economic consumer-producer model through an objective analysis. This
began a process of legitimization whereby if science backs an idea then it must be true, and that if it is true then it has value, and value
can be equated to dollars. Since the way that science
is most often funded is so inextricably linked to the producer-consumer model, it has

value in its voice and is an extension of an elitist model whereby Latin is the foundational language and English becomes the
mode of scientific reporting to academia. This is evidenced by the fairly recent publication of the Oxford Dictionary of Ecology, first printed in
1994, that merges ecology and environmental sciences without any link to Indigenous Knowledge (IK). Another example includes a recent
effort to rejuvenate all aspects of the K- 12 curriculum with a focus on the environment through a report Shaping our Schools, Shaping our
Future (Report June 2007), by a working group on environmental education of the Ontario Ministry of Education in Canada. The report itself
examined how issues related to environmental education could be integrated across the school curriculum through an incorporation of an analysis
of the environment, climate change, and the importance of conservation into curricular designs. The working group reproduced an approach to
environmental education based on a scientific model in their report, exemplifying once again the reality that Indigenous Environmental
Knowledge (IEK) is often overlooked in environmental education curriculum decision-making processes.
LinkScience/Turns Case
Ocean science utilizes fragmented metrics that overly focus on value speciesthis ignores
the interconnectedness of ecosystems and leads to flawed dataturns the case and makes
all their claims suspect
Seckinelgin 6
The common approach in assessing the conditions of resources, none the less, has been to analyse
each single group in isolation. Then, generalisations about the state of the resources are
arrived at without paying real attention to the dynamics of sub-populations and

their larger impact . The regimes based on single species, therefore, have become rather
complacent about the ecological location of the species they are interested in. The material value of
the species has dominated the policy decisions, as will be shown below. The consequence of this may be seen in
the structure of regimes. In other words, material interest in and search for a single species shaped the way
the ecology is perceived that is, environment stratified according to particular interests
of regimes. This may, in fact, be seen as the result of the methods of data collection that have
been employed in marine resource assessment; that is, catch data. It is clear that the interests of
regimes have shaped these assessments . Therefore, it is an inter-constitutive relationship
between interest and method, and vice versa. In order for us to see the limitations of this approach, the first step
is to offer a brief explanation of the different fishing methods used in the Pacific and
elsewhere. The major methods are: (1) the longline fishery, a longline being a horizontal line with side hooks, set near the surface for
pelagic fish such as tuna, or on the bottom for demersal species; (2) the purse seine fishery, a purse seine being a net encircling a school of fish
such as tuna or mackerel. Floats are fastened to its upper edge and weights to its lower edge. These methods present target-specific
diversifications among themselves. The real question, then, is: What
is the impact of these fisheries structure on

the data that have been used in tuna management? The catch data from the fisheries are one of the
main sources of marine resource analyses in terms of the health, location, migration and
size of various stocks. The important issue here is the fact that most of the fleets target a main fish
group, which they pursue in the ocean. Therefore, their catch data is usually based on a
targeted species and very little attention, if any, is paid to the by-catch. This is a good intentions
situation, but it is not always valid. The important point to remember is the fact that a rich fishing ground is a real asset, so on many
occasions the catch statistics are modified to divert attention away from rich grounds , or
fishermen prefer not to report at all. Parallel to this, obviously a by-catch of any sort remains
unreported unless there is a strictly enforceable regulation. Even in that case the by-catch that is disposed of
(directly) remains unnoticed. Consequently, these events result in one-dimensional analyses of a given stock.
The interactive relations within which many species live become obscured . In addition,
the understanding of migration patterns seems fairly limited, since data collection depends
on fisheries, and all the migration paths seem to end in fishery grounds. First of all, this
technique, by its nature, does not show the way a given species travels. What is seen is only the point at
which it starts and ends, combined with a generally straight line. On top of this, when all the lines are inflated around the
fishing ground, it becomes self-justified to argue that there is no substantial trans-oceanic
migration. Moreover, the maps are species-specific, so it becomes extremely difficult to see the
interactive relationships among the species of a given area, let alone of the whole of the
ocean. Therefore, although science is helpful in understanding the nature of the marine
system, it is far from being accurate and should be considered in terms of these
limits (i.e. over its accuracy). The way in which scientific analyses are employed in an attempt to
ease the fishing industrys worries by being taken into account in the industrial practice of
fisheries, which in turn is reterritorialised into sovereign patches that is, shaped by
unconcerned motivation to produce more results in the production of a certain
understanding of species that are under consideration collapses the very space those
analyses are trying to understand into fragmented structures of material existence .

These may be seen as waiting to be used, and this fragmented structure somehow becomes
coherent in its exclusion from the life space of human beings. The following brief examples underline this
situation. They bring together issues and agents that are then discussed.
LinkConservation
Ocean conservation remains trapped in materialistic considerationsfar removed from
acknowledging ecological relationality
Seckinelgin 6
UNCLOS III has left the world with recognition of the necessity for conservation and protection
of the marine environment. This necessity is based on the material importance of resources to
the developmental effort of the coastal states. Although this may have some important
effects on the general conservation measures of the oceans, it is far removed from
acknowledging any ecological relationality among species. Nevertheless, it may be argued

that by initially creating such divisions at a time of realisation of the ecological complexity,
it has prompted a response, namely that it is not possible to manage oceans through unilateral
means based on rigid political formulations. This conjunction of reterritorialisation based
on UNCLOS III and the spatiality implied within it becomes a very important concern as a
result of the wide application of this form of relationality. In the remainder of this chapter I will analyse and
assess the impact of the application of UNCLOS III in the South Pacific. This assessment process is looking at a case which is seen largely as a
success story. The
possibility of this narrative of success is related to the discursive structure of

IR. The success story is based on the functional assessment of the regime rather than
on its impact on its subject matter . In this, there is an implicit grounding of what may be seen as the relevant subject of
concern. The attempt is not to deny the functional story, but to show that it
does not provide the whole picture when

ecological concerns are juxtaposed with functional understanding.
LinkEnvironmental Governance
Multilateral ocean protection efforts result in less cooperation and create ocean divisions
that tradeoff with an ecology of interconnectedness
Seckinelgin 6
The idea of cooperation in ocean management based on UNCLOS III has caused the
fragmentation of ocean space into areas of self-interest of individual states . In other words,
despite the fact that UNCLOS III calls for cooperation, it both expanded and strengthened
the impact of sovereignty. The second dimension is the fact that the reflection of strong sovereignty claims
on regional cooperation has resulted in an enhanced contrast between the high seas and the
newly created zones, and has somewhat dwarfed any attempt at wider cooperation for
ocean management that is based on a larger ecolog y than that of the individual
sovereign zones. It has also become implicitly obvious that the region would not take part in any formation
that gives less power to its member states or more control to others than they have now. It is
fair to argue that the region has become a closed block while having an internal fragmentation of
interest with regard to the management of the ocean. At this juncture, it is clear that the cultural
edifice is more or less cosmetic . The relations between member states are based on the
application of Western ideas of sovereign statehood and the rationale for those relations is
expressed as interest rather than deep cultural affiliation. Therefore, relations between members begin from
this common ground. They are not interested in the question of, for example, why these member
states have set development and progress targets based on an increase in national incomes
which is meant to be achieved through capitalising on ocean resources, despite the fact that
this understanding destabilises their social and cultural systems.
LinkClimate Change
Their relationship to climate change divides human influences on nature from natural
variations
Uggla 7
[2007, Ylva, Orebo University in Sweden (!), Journal of Political Ecology, Vol. 17,
http://jpe.library.arizona.edu/volume_17/Uggla.pdf]
The theory of global warming as a consequence of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions was raised several times in the twentieth century, but it was
not until the 1980s that climate change became a serious political issue. The logic underlying the
concern for global climate change is
international community's
based on climate modeling that indicates potential adverse effects-such as intensified
droughts and floods, and rising sea level-due to human GHG emissions. Climate modeling is also the prerequisite for
distinguishing
between natural climate variability and human-induced climate change, since periods of
frequent
rainfall, little or no rainfall, or of extreme weather events cannot positively be attributed to anthropogenic climate change. As Edwards puts it:
The inherent variability of weather makes it impossible to attribute individual storms, floods, droughts or hurricanes to changes in the global
climate. Only
by coupling statistical analyses to climate modeling exercises have scientists been able to
isolate and display the "fingerprint" of global warming in changing weather patterns around the world. (Edwards
2001: 33) Today, there is a complex alliance between science-based descriptions of climate change and climate policy (Edwards 2001: 34). In
this fusion of science and policy, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), set up in 1988 to provide independent scientific advice
on climate change, functions as a center of authority that must uphold its credibility in the eyes of both the scientific and policy communities
(Edwards and Schneider 2001; cf. Adger 2006). The role of the IPCC is not to conduct research, but to assess "on a comprehensive, objective,
open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of
human-induced climate change" (IPCC 1998: 1). The IPCC summarizes and communicates its assessments to support policy-making, and its
First Assessment Report, published in 1990, constituted the scientific basis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
IPCC reports present the scientific consensus that the Earth's

climate is being affected by human activities. The Assessment Reports are part of the scientific
construct of the consensus, and this consensus has remained relatively stable over time about one key factor: the sensitivity of the climate
to atmospheric CO2 doubling, expressed as a projected increase of global mean temperature (van der Sluijs 1998; cf. von Storch 2009). The
policy responses to climate change established in the UNFCCC are mitigation and adaptation.
"Mitigation" concerns reducing GHG emissions, and enhancing and protecting greenhouse gas sinks and reservoirs
such as forests and oceans. "Adaptation" concerns various human responses to experienced or expected consequences
of climate change, such as flood control and crop adjustment. Although adaptation includes both moderating
(UNFCCC), adopted in 1992 (Fig. 2). The
harm and exploiting beneficial opportunities, the international community's adoption of the UNFCCC is a sign of its great concern about the
adverse effects of climate change. Likewise, although previous and present climate variation has resulted and may result in natural disasters such
as droughts, floods, and landslides, the concern underlying mitigation is that anthropogenic climate change has contributed to increased
frequency of events including heat waves, heavy precipitation and intense tropical cyclone activity. Accordingly, climate policy has identified
human interference with the climate, and the need for mitigation measures (Klein et al. 2003; Tol 2005). The
focus on human
interference with the climate system is consistent with the scientific agenda that supports the logic of
mitigation, based on the presumption of a causal relationship between human activities and increased
concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, resulting in climate change with predominantly negative
consequences for society. In turn, this mitigation imperative results in a bias against adaptation (Pielke, 2005). The UNFCCC
provides an overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to control climate change. In the preamble to the UNFCCC, the contracting parties
articulate their concern "that human activities have been substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases", and that
this will lead to additional warming of the earth's surface and atmosphere. This may adversely affect natural ecosystems and humankind, so the
ultimate objective of the Convention (Article 2) is
to: achieve stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations
in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should
be achieved within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not
threatened and to enable
economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner (UNFCCC, Article 2).
These formulations
embrace the notion that human interference with the climate may result in a situation in which ecosystems can no longer adapt naturally, which
in turn will threaten human food supply, welfare and economic growth. From the preamble and the overall objective of the UN Convention, it
is clear that the concern expressed about the adverse effects of climate change exclusively concern
human survival and welfare.
LinkOcean Infrastructure
The affirmatives infrastructure is an attempt to distance humanity from nature
Duyser 10
[2010, Mitchell Duyser. Master of Architecture at University of Cincinnati. April 2010. Hybrid
Landscapes: Territories of Shared Ecological and Infrastructural Value. Masters Thesis.Pages 37]
The construct of modern
human life is built upon an invisible foundation. Not invisible as in undetectable, but invisible as in
hidden and forgotten. Representative of the infrastructure that enables civilization, this foundation is formed from the
human and ecological systems that support the continued expansion of modern society. Often unnoticed, this myriad of pipes, wires, rivers, and
oil elds is pushed out of the collective conscious and awareness. So dependent have we become on these systems, minor disruptions in their
functionality can threaten civilization itself. As exemplied by events like the 2007 Minneapolis bridge disaster1, and more abstract issues like
climate change, these
systems are approaching the point of widespread failure. Such threats of disaster are
currently the only events capable of bringing infrastructure to the surface of everyday experience, and will
occur with increasing frequency unless widespread societal action is taken. Humans need to change how they interact
with the rest of the world, specically focusing on the technologies that enable civilization,
and the collectively held societal perspective of the environment. Civilization can no longer afford to forget
about the systems that enable existence, nor can it assume that such infrastructures will be available indenitely. Infrastructure has
traditionally been intentionally and methodically hidden from view, buried underground, and moved to the outskirts of town. Allowing
humans to live free of concern for how necessities are acquired, organized, and distributed. The
infrastructure that is exposed, such as power lines, roads, and cellular towers, are rendered invisible by their ubiquity,
subsumed by the contemporary urban landscape. Throughout modern time, infrastructure has served to
insulate human activity from its effects on the rest of the planet. Away was a place anywhere but here, removed
from inuence over problems like water quality and climate change. The unavoidable truth however, that this isolation is not
physical but psychological, has been slowly revealing itself over the past fty years. Books like Rachel Carsons Silent Spring,
published in 1962, and movies like Al Gores An Inconvenient Truth, (2006) have helped illuminate the previously invisible systems binding
civilization to the rhythms of the planet. We can now attribute much of the current environmental uxus to the ignorance of our participation in
This ignorance or rather,

willingness to overlook mans interaction with the environment is not a recent societal or cultural development.
global and local ecology. Today, truly no place exists that has not experienced the impacts of humanity.2
Our actions and reasoning are deeply rooted in the classical tradition, dating back to the founding myths of Christianity and ancient Greece.
Perpetuated and augmented through the
Enlightenment and Industrialization, western culture has been left with a fractured
view of nature. One that idolizes and romanticizes the virgin wilderness while simultaneously working feverishly to exploit every
available natural resource in the name of societal and economic progress. Romanticism values nature for its aesthetic and sentimental appeal,
while Industrializations commoditization of the environment makes it subservient to human needs and desires. The assimilation of these views
has led to the perception of nature-as-beauty, allowing for the consumption of less beautiful landscapes with disregard for ecological
consequences. 3 New conceptualizations of nature must recognize the presence of complex and emergent systems, where the whole behaves in a
way that cannot be understood through the isolation of individual parts.4 Work in the eld of biomimicry, championed by the biologist Janine
Benyus and the architect William McDonough, is already moving towards this end. Both call for a new industrial organization that looks to
nature to provide specic technologies as well as methodologies for production that displace consumption and disposal with nutrient cycles that
are endlessly renewable and detoxifying for the environment.5 6 An architecture responsive to a redened conception of nature must address
both the physical and cultural relationships humans have with their environment. Such an architecture must visually and functionally integrate the
previously disparate activities of civilization and nature. Infrastructural
solutions can no longer come through
human ingenuity alone, but through mentorship and comprehension of the complex systems already existing in nature. This use of
biomimicry allows environmental design to evolve beyond the current sustainability movement where simply being less bad is still good
enough.7 Concepts like the USGBCs LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) system, and other supposedly
green building practices do nothing to change the fundamental relationship humans have
with the planet. They function under the dated and false assumption of humanity as a separate
system from the rest of nature. Polluting and consuming at a slightly slower rate is not a thoughtful means of reintegrating
civilization with ecology.
Impact
2NC Epistemology
Their policy analysis is tilted to exclude ecological concernsyou should be skeptical and
prefer our impacts
Seckinelgin 6
The possibility of narrating this success story may be located in a certain understanding of
what the success is. The region may be seen as successful only if the understanding of
cooperation is based on a certain perspective of the international . In terms of IR this story may
either be located in a realist stance, in which case South Pacific cooperation may be seen as successful so long as each member acts in pursuance
of its own interest without passing any overarching power to the institution. In addition, the institution may be seen within the realist concepts of
power maximisation and security (Stein 1990: 47) whereby each member can achieve those same aims through the facility of the cooperative
institution. Or it can be grounded as successful in a liberal standpoint. As Stein explains (1990: 47), cooperative arrangements could emerge as a
result of exchange (i.e. trade). Obviously, through
the application of a new Law of the Sea and the concept

of the EEZ the island states were located into a new set of economic relations within the
international economic structure, and their response to this new situation seems
appropriate, reflecting greater international division of labour and interdependence. Thus the institution is the response
of states to the requirements of the international market in pursuance of their self-interest.
Both perspectives consider the South Pacific cooperation to be a success story on the basis
of functional efficiency of the institutions or as an efficient aid to trade relations. The framework which
legitimises these stories only perceives the sovereign state as the unit of analysis. In this,
functional efficiency seems to be evaluated on the basis of individual gains among the
members of the cooperation or group gains in relation to external actors. Through this perspective and
the paradoxical spatiality in relation to oceans created by UNCLOS III has

been naturalised. The relationship between the institutions and what they are supposed to
understanding,
deal with is severed. The success is not based on how far institutions are suited to the issues
they are dealing with. Parallel to this discrepancy, it is clear that in the conventional narrative the
subject matter of the discussion (i.e. oceans and resources therein) has been disregarded
as a relevant concern. The concern arises in relation to the contribution of ocean

resources to the finances of development in each individual state. Although it is an
undeniable fact that innovative measures developed through the region are important,
they are assessed as successful insofar as they generate a positive financial flow into
the individual island states . When there is a danger to this positive flow, measures are disregarded. Overall, in both the
understanding and the application of UNCLOS III in the region, ecology, as defined in this
study, has been ignored. The complexity presented by the ocean system is not located
as a part of the formation formulated in UNCLOS III.
ImpactHierarchies
This dualistic thinking about human culture and nature is the root of all exclusion
Frank 3
[2003, Roslyn, University of Iowa, Shifting Identities: The Metaphorics of Nature-Culture
Dualism in Western and Basque Models of Self, http://www.metaphorik.de/04/frank.pdf]
These dyads reflect the underlying hierarchical ontological ordering that structures certain root metaphors found in Western thought (Olds
1992). It should be emphasised that the metaphoric understandings coded into the Western model form sets of asymmetric polarities, although
with mutually reinforcing, conceptual frames. For this reason, the
culture/nature dualism sets culture above nature, while the

mind/body dualism places mind above body. Then just as the polarity of reason/emotion can be identified with
masculine/feminine, culture/nature stands for a gendered dualism of masculine/feminine.
Stated differently, the metaphoric set of culture/mind/reason/masculine has its counterpart in nature/body/emotion/feminine. In this sense, the
dyads represent examples of Aristotelian proportional metaphors, that is, analogies in the form of A is to B what C is to D. Therefore, since in
the case of a proportional metaphor its mapping must always apply reciprocally to either of its co-ordinate terms, each individual component of
the dyad sets in Diagram 1 is available as a highly complex and expansive metaphoric resource.1 Moreover, although the reciprocity holding
between the dyads, i.e., their status as proportional metaphors, is clearly culturally grounded and hence historically bound, recognition of this
fact is not easy to achieve.2 This is because of the epistemic authority afforded to these concepts, an effect that, in turn, is derived from the
central role played by these metaphors in structuring Western thought, epistemology, ontology, and personhood.3 In
recent years
increasing attention has been paid to the development and/or recovery of conceptual frames capable of challenging
and overcoming these deeply embedded, hierarchically organised dualities that continue to
characterise Western thought. As Lakoff and Turner have observed, the worldview known as the Great Chain [of
Being] itself is a political issue. As a chain of dominance, it can become a chain of subjugation (Lakoff/Turner
1989: 213).4 Specifically I refer to efforts aimed at discovering a way to move out of an ontology grounded in a logic of dualities, and more
concretely, to the difficulties posed by the deeply embedded, dyadic conceptual frame known as mind/body, formerly soul/body, and its
conceptual twin, the polarity of culture/nature. Although many scholars have documented the evolution of these concepts within Western
thought, particularly the dyads of mind/body, male/female, and more recently, culture/nature,5 less attention has been paid to gaining a
Deconstructing the dualist paradigm

may appear as just one more example of the healthy self-criticism which now permeates anthropological theory. [] If
such analytical categories as economics, totemism, kinship, politics, individualism, or even society, have been
characterized as ethnocentric constructs, why should it be any different with the
disjuncture between nature and society? The answer is that this dichotomy is not just another analytical category
perspective on them from the outside. Indeed, as Descola and Plsson have noted:
belonging to the tool-kit of the social sciences; it is the key foundation of modernist epistemology. (Descola/Plsson 1996: 12) Perhaps one of
the most important and insightful explorations of the role of the nature/culture (society) dichotomy in Western thought is found in Latours
(1993) work. Briefly stated, these
dichotomous concepts have served two major purposes in ordering Western thought. First,
the hierarchical division of human and other(s) to function as innate and universal, initially
under the guardianship of theological foundationalism, i.e., Gods plan and a vertically oriented cosmology, then later
simply as the Law of Nature. This transition in the model occurred during the Enlightenment and coincided roughly with the period in
they have allowed
which absolute monarchies were loosing their grip on Europe. As a result, a new type of foundationalism was required, reflected in Linneaus
choice of the Great Chain of Being as the classifying mechanism for all of nature and humankind (cf. Schiebinger 1993). Thus, in this new type
of foundationalism, social
hierarchies were based, not on Gods plan, but rather on an unchanging and universalist
concept referred to as nature: justifications of existing inequalities were based on the
hierarchical order attributed to nature and, in turn, dictated by it. Similarly, in the 18th and 19th centuries, preDarwinian socioeconomic thought provided the ground for both Darwins competition metaphor and for the same type of metaphors in
the works of Spencer and other so-called Social Darwinists. Thus, although commonly viewed as mutually exclusive opposites, these two
antithetical concepts are linked and mutually reinforcing: the nature/culture
antithesis has played a major role in Western thought,

where nature is used to justify culture, the prevailing socioeconomic order, while at the same time, the prevailing
socioeconomic order, culture, is mapped onto this reified entity, things-in-themselves, called nature. In this conceptual circularity lies the reason
for this dyads key foundational role in modernist epistemology (cf. again Latour 1993).
ImpactValue
This dualism destroys meaning in the natural world, makes our lives pointless, and justifies
environmental exploitation
Ratner 11
[2011, Dena, Louisiana State University, Bhatter College Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies (ISSN 2249-3301), Volume 1, Number 1, Special
Issue on Earth, Nature, Environment, Ecosystem and Human Society]
There are two kinds of nothing that have a dangerous impact on the environment. One stems from dualistic philosophies that treat the outside
world as that which has no meaning. Although dualism
had been prevalent in Greek philosophy and Christian theology, Descartes

built on the idea that nature has no intrinsic value to justify the scientific study and exploitation
of nature. After all, why respect nature if it has no metaphysical value? The other kind of nothing is the one that Tolstoy and Camus wrote
about; it arises when the world is divorced both from internal consciousness and from eternal value. When nature has no
meaning, it is easy to conclude that life itself has no meaning. When life has no meaning, it does not matter if
you throw away your can of coke or recycle it. Nietzsche and Heidegger brought attention to western mans corrupted view of nature and can be
considered pioneers in environmental philosophy. Over the past thirty years, it has become increasingly difficult to ignore the consequences both
kinds of nothing have had on our environment. The
beliefs that nature is an exploitable nothing and that life has no

meaning have justified and perpetuated the trashing of our planet. What followed from Descartes scientific revolution
was the industrial revolution, a harbinger of ever more intrusive technologies, like factories and cars that sent pollutants into
the earths air, land, and sea. Now we face consequences of global warming like draughts, more extreme weather, the melting of the
polar ice caps, and rising sea levels. It is increasingly difficult to believe that we can exploit nature without feeling the negative effects. It seems
that never before has our connection with nature been more strongly proven. Perhaps environmentalism is the thread that can restore a connection
to the universe for those who otherwise believe in nothing. Stripping Nature of Meaning: In his Discourse on Method, Rene Descartes formulated
the idea that nature is disconnected from man in modern and rational terms. By doubting existence outside of his consciousness, Descartes
reasoned, intelligent nature is distinct from corporal nature (Descartes 27). Since Gods nature is perfect and of the intelligent variety, that
meant that corporal matter is that which lacks gods presence. Of course, the dualistic concept that matter lacks the essence of God is not original
to Descartes. It is an idea, which was propounded by the Socratics and brought into Christian thought by Augustine. Compare Augustines
concept of the origin of sin, You made the man but not the sin in him (Augustine 8) to Descartes, Though we often have ideas which contain
falsity, they can only be those ideas which contain some confusions and obscurity, in which respect they do not come from the supreme Being,
but proceed from or participate in nothingness (Descartes 29). So why didnt we see the same level of environmental devastation in Augustines
era as now? In justifying his publication of his principles, Descartes also wrote, Instead of the speculative philosophy now taught in the schools
we can find a practical one and justified using knowledge of nature to make ourselves master and possessors of nature (Descartes 45).
Descartes takes the idea that nature has no meaning out of the realm of speculation and thrusts it into the realm of action. Descartes writings in
the seventeenth century had an enormous impact on the scientific revolution and the subsequent industrial revolution. It seems no accident that
the popular concept that nature is an exploitable nothing, along with advances in technology, made an unprecedented
exploitation of the environment possible. The incipient stages of modern day air pollution started with the introduction of
factories and widespread consumption of coal when, virtually no one reckoned that burning coal or oil would tamper with our climate (Henson
27). By adding carbon dioxide to the Earths atmosphere over the past 150 years, humans have altered the worlds climate (Henson 7). After the
mid-1800s, Earths climate took a decided turn for the warmer and by the end of the twentieth century it was clear that global temperatures had
reached the highest temperatures seen in 1000 years (Henson 216). The IPCCs 2001 report break global emissions of carbon dioxide into four
major sectors: Industry, Buildings, Transportation, and Agriculture. These industries would not exist if it had not been for the industrial and
scientific revolutions. Dualism provided a philosophical justification for the objectivestudy and the exploitation of nature. The Impact of
Nihilism: Descartes explained the presence of God rationally, but for thinkers who could not find higher meaning, the dualistic
philosophy descended into cosmic and existential nihilism. Cosmic nihilism is related to dualism in that it denies
the possibility of finding meaning in nature, The cosmos is seen as giving no support to distinctively human aims or
values (Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy). When people believe that the world is alien to human value, the meaning of actions in the world
comes into question as well. This
view that life itself has no meaning is existential nihilism or, that which
negates the meaning of human life, judging it to be irremediably pointless, futile and absurd (Routledge Encyclopedia of
Philosophy). Both kinds of nihilism are dangerous for the environment. For a cosmic nihilist hog farmer, it does not matter if his hogwash flows
For an existential nihilist, there is no point in trying to

clean up a planet from which she will inevitably and eternally depart.
into a local river because the river has no inherent value.
ImpactNuclear War
Distance from nature desensitizes us to life kills value to life and is a precondition for
nuclear war
Bookchin 87
[1987, Murray, co-founder of the Institute of Social Ecology An Appeal For Social and
Psychological Sanity]
Industrially and technologically, we are moving at an ever-accelerating pace toward a yawning chasm with our eyes completely
blindfolded. From the 1950s onward, we
have placed ecological burdens upon our planet that have no

precedent in human history.Our impact on our environment has been nothing less than appalling. The problems raised by acid
rain alone are striking examples of [end page 106] innumerable problems that appear everywhere on our planet. The concrete-like clay layers,
impervious to almost any kind of plant growth, replacing dynamic soils that once supported lush rain forests remain stark witness to a massive
erosion of soil in all regions north and south of our equatorial belt. The equatora cradle not only of our weather like the ice caps but a highly
complex network of animal and plant lifeis being denuded to a point where vast areas of the region look like a barren moonscape. We no
longer "cut" our foreststhat celebrated "renewable resource" for fuel, timber, and paper. We sweep them up like dust with a rapidity and
"efficiency" that renders any claims to restorative action mere media-hype.
Our entire planet is thus becoming
simplified, not only polluted. Its soil is turning into sand. Its stately forests are rapidly being replaced by tangled weeds and
scrub, that is, where vegetation in any complex form can be sustained at all. Its wildlife ebbs and flows on the edge of
extinction, dependent largely on whether one or two nationsor governmental administrations
agree that certain sea and land mammals, bird species, or, for that matter, magnificent trees are "worth" rescuing as
lucrative items on corporate balance sheets. With each such loss, humanity, too, loses a portion of its own character
structure: its sensitivity toward life as such, including human life, and its rich wealth of sensibility. If we can learn to ignore the
destiny of whales and condorsindeed, turn their fate into chic clicheswe can learn to ignore the destiny of Cambodians in Asia, Salvadorans
in Central America, [end page 107] and, finally, the human beings who people our communities. If
we reach this degree of

degradation, we will then become so spiritually denuded that we will be capable of ignoring
the terrors of thermonuclear war. Like the biotic ecosystems we have simplified with our lumbering and slaughtering
technologies, we will have simplified the psychic ecosystems that give each of us our personal
uniqueness. We will have rendered our internal mileau as homogenized and lifeless as our
external milieuand a biocidal war will merely externalize the deep sleep that will have
already claimed our spiritual and moral integrity. The process of simplification, even more significantly than
pollution, threatens to destroy the restorative powers of nature and humanitytheir common ability to efface the forces of destruction and
reclaim the planet for life and fecundity. A humanity disempowered of its capacity to change a misbegotten "civilization," ultimately divested of
its power to resist, reflects a natural world disempowered of its capacity to reproduce a green and living world.
Alt
AltK2 Pragmatism
Its a prerequisite to pragmatic solutions to environmental problems
Paterson 6
[2006, Barbara, Red Orbit, Avian Demography Unit, Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Cape Town in South Africa,
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/410448/ethics_for_wildlife_conservation_overcoming_the_humannature_dualism/]
The challenge for environmental ethics is to find a solid rational justification for why nature should be
protected from human actions. Arguments that stress the instrumental value other species have for humans provide practical muscle for
conservation where it counts, on the ground (Myers 1979a). However, arguments based on instrumental value imply that it is the
conservationists responsibility to prove that such value exists. Although the conservation of nature
in general is widely
considered valuable, conservationists find that in practice they have to fight the same
battles again and again to protect wild species from harm. There is a perceived need to express the value of wild species
in objectively measurable economic terms that can be employed as incentives for wildlife conservation or as arguments against land uses that are
harmful to wildlife. This assumption is underpinned by a negative view of humanity, in that it assumes
that people in themselves

will not conserve nature unless it is clearly to their direct benefit. Humans and nature are seen
as being in profound conflict with each other. The concept of the wildlife conservationist is that of a resource manager whose
job is to manage natural resources for the benefit of people, but who is fighting an ongoing battle to prove the value of this work. The existence of
intrinsic value in nature, on the other hand, would free conservationists of the obligation to prove that there is value in conserving a particular
species. Although it is generally accepted that human life is intrinsically valuable, the possibility of intrinsic value in nonhuman life forms a large
part of the environmental ethics debate. Extensionist approaches, which aim to define moral criteria on which such value can be based, are
problematic for wildlife managers because they consider individual organisms, not species and ecosystems. By drawing directly from ecological
concepts rather than from a human-centered frame of reference, philosophers such as Leopold, Rolston, and others call for a rethinking of our
moral framework. Nonetheless, biocentric approaches to environmental ethics can be seen as implying the prioritization of nonhuman life over
human life, thus sharpening the dichotomy between humans and the natural environment. The
human- versus-nature
dualism that underpins both the instrumental and the intrinsic value approaches is unhelpful to wildlife
conservation and management, which are concerned with balancing both social and environmental goals. It is not surprising
that the endeavor of providing a rational ethical foundation for conservation is proving difficult, considering that the Western
worldview, which has become increasingly influential on a global scale, has for centuries seen the conquest and subjection of
nature as its greatest challenge. In contrast, the traditional Eastern view sees humanity as part of
nature, not as a rival (Ikeda 1994, p. 144). Ikeda suggests that the differing attitudes toward nature may be grounded in the
differences between the Eastern and Western views of life itself. In the tradition of Buddhist thought, Ikedas exposition of the
theories of dependent origination and the oneness of life and its environment transcends the man-nature dualism. This
approach provides a bridge between environmental ethics and the resolution of practical
environmental problems. Ikedas work does not in itself constitute an environmental ethic. However, the concepts of dependent
origination and the oneness of life and environment provide an ample platform for developing such an ethic. To Ikeda, ethics are not a
matter of timeless rules that can be applied to particular situations. Rather, ethics depend on a
sensitivity toward the principle of dependent origination. Consequently, Ikedas aim is not the development of an abstract theory
but rather the empowerment of the individual to lead a contributive way of lifebased on an
awareness of the interdependent nature of our lives-of the relationships that link us to others and our
environment (Ikeda 2002). The modern conservation paradigm, conservation for and with people, requires that we
overcome the dualism of human versus nature, which creates antagonism between
conservationists and other people. Ikedas philosophy provides a basis for a conservation philosophy that sees the
conservationist not as a defender of the natural world against the harmful impact of human actions but as one who realizes the
interdependences both between people and between people and nature, and who strives to awaken such
awareness in others in order to achieve a better future for all.
AltDiscourse Key
Discursive analysis is criticalpower hides its production of new knowledge through
discursive omissions and fissuresusing those to situating resistance is critical
Seckinelgin 6
The relationship between power/knowledge and discourse is an extremely interesting and

important one. In considering discourse as the reflection of deeper, internal values and
norms, and the relationship between them, it is possible to dissect the knowledge claim of a discourse in
relation to the underlying conditions of its production . In the privileged norms and values, those norms
and values that are silenced may be observed as well. The silenced relations in the
production of certain truth claims within a discourse represent where the resistance may
be located . In terms of the juncture between ecology and International Relations, the
location of this resistance can be the discussions of environmental management within
the discourse of International Relations (insofar as this location allows us to see the power relations and ethical
values deployed in the disciplinary parameters of sovereignty and the international).19 Through this understanding one
can analyse
the discursive production of environment as well as its inclusion in politics. What are the
power relations reflected in this knowledge? It does not mean that the challenge is external to the discourse. The
location of resistance is clearly within the discourse as an oppositional power relation that is silenced, which may be
mobilised to reflect the contingent power relations underpinning the possibility of
discourse. By showing the contingency of the discourse not only to what is being confidently
expressed but also to the silenced power relations, the knowledge claim becomes disrupted,
and the possibility of a new space is opened up. With this move, the explanatory power of the
discourse of International Relations based on spatial differentiation between sovereignty
and the international and the very legitimacy of this explanation are questioned.20
AltDisrupts IR
Locating ecology as the center of our concerns disrupts dominant IR considerations and
helps establish a transpersonal ecology
Seckinelgin 6
The relationship between analyses and what is being analysed is crucial. One would object to the above unfolding of the understanding of
environment within IR, on the basis that the analyses of regimes/institutions are based on what is being reflected in IR27 in other words,
through the logic of IR.28 As argued by Hans- Georg Gadamer, at the base of all logic lies an ontological restriction (Gadamer 1994: 124).
Even if the understanding of UNCLOS III, for example, reflects the logic of IR, which takes in environment as yet another issue area, there is no
attempt to question the possibility of this logic and the implications of this possibility for ecological concerns. Clearly the
introduction
of ecology as the location of this discussion disturbs the disciplinary logic. It leads to
the following question: Is it then possible in IR to explain this disciplinary logic without
assuming the natural existence of one of the two concepts sovereignty(state)/international that are
used to explain the subject matter of the discipline? By locating the question within an
ecological framework and language, the particular humannature relation as an ethical condition
which underpins the objective-functionalist understanding of ecology implicit in the

methodology of IR is disrupted . It reflects the lack of crucial questioning of the
location of humankind in all the discussions about institutions, regimes and their success
stories.29 By missing out the fundamental question, IR distances itself from seeing the problem, and thus
the solution becomes problematic. The transpersonal ecology of Naess attempts to
overcome these limits of thinking from a given ontological position of being human.
His position, none the less, needs further elaboration with which I will engage in Chapter 5. At this stage it is sufficient to relate the concept of
ecology I use in the context of anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric discussion to the concept located in the latter. In the nonanthropocentric ecology framework the
term ecology deployed in this book is trying to see the human

self in terms of ecological being. In other words, the location of the human self is situated in its
ecological space, and henceforth the possibility of understanding the international is
considered. In this, the implicit attempt is to dislocate the ethics of personhood that is defined
according to certain human attributes. This ethical outlook is used to value and give rights
to those members of the human species that have attributes of being a person. This ethical
position of evaluating the value of life is clearly inadequate, to say the least, in terms of
valuing nature, and is unlikely to produce an ecological understanding of rights for those
nonhuman and therefore non-person beings.30 This move from a larger perspective is also a polemic
with the general tendency in International Relations hence in the environmental approach within it to apply
philosophical concepts as they fit questions based on the discourse of International Relations. This a posteriori application of
concepts and methods to already ontologically value-fixed questions limits the possibility of
thinking in new ways, and stops the dynamic thinking process within a given
methodology. The ecological understanding, in the following analysis of the resources in the South Pacific, therefore,
by questioning the observing subjects location and bringing the life of species into the
discussion, unsettles the questions asked by the observing subject . It highlights a

different question, and transforms the location both of the observing subject and of the
question asked. It begins with ecology and analyses what happens to the analysis produced
(that is, the success story) by the discourse of International Relations when ecological understanding
is not pushed into predetermined formulations of sovereignty/the international. By drawing out the
ecological components of the ocean system, static discussions of territoriality are disrupted, and the
complexity of the ocean system begins to appear as an international concern.
AT PermNo Incorporation
The permutation attempts to appropriate ecological questions into institutional
frameworksthis shifts the question to environmental politics and trades off with calls to
ecological responsibility
Seckinelgin 6
This section will look at the implications of introducing a group of species into the way IR thinks. The
ecological question can

be only answered by the discipline of International Relations after the disciplinary
framework redefines what is being asked ; in other words, it can only respond if it understands
the problem as a failure in the steering mechanisms of international cooperation, regimes
or bargaining strategies. The first step is to change the location of the question from
ecology to environment. Through this shift, problems of an ecological nature can be

accommodated within the disciplinary boundaries of IR as management questions in relation to
use of nature that should be regulated through the international system. One important example of this may be implied in the contradiction
between the already mentioned declaration of the British PM in relation to climate change and actual government policy towards Rockall. By
considering climate change as an international environmental problem, policy-makers are

able to play spatial differentiation, and the nature of internal and external implied within it,
to allow for the obviously contradictory policy of more hydrocarbon production . In
other words, formulation of the problem in terms of the international environment allows
them, first, to use the national interest argument, which silences the ecological call, and the
implicit call for responsibility within it, which is not based on the social relations of states. Second, what can
be done has to be considered in terms of what is available as appropriate international
norms in IR. The problem becomes an issue of adapting proper regime standards that
are based on the concepts of sovereignty, the international, and the state behaviour
deriving from this framework.18 In the end, the question of ecological call is formulated
according to state behaviour in the international as one of the agenda points which must
be considered while a state is acting in the international. A clear example of this is given in Chapter 1 through
the description of the ocean regime established in the South Pacific. Here, the knowledge claim of IR in the context of
environment that is reflected in the state system is what is termed the constitutive model by Foucault (1992a:
356). He argues that those models are not just techniques of formalisation for the human sciences , or simple
means of devising methods of operation with less effort; they make it possible to create groups of phenomena as
so many objects for a possible branch of knowledge; they ensure their connection in the
empirical sphere, but they offer them to experience already linked together . Therefore, the
empirical what is experienced may be seen in the form of an already formulated structure. This
view is clearly open to challenge by regime theorists showing the large numbers of international environmental regimes that are functioning in
the international. By judging according to the IR literature19 on environmental regimes they may have a point. For example, a very important
book on this issue edited by Peter M. Haas, Robert O. Keohane and Marc A. Levy entitled Institutions for the Earth: Sources of Effective
International Environmental Protection represents a strong IR involvement with the issues. In their Introduction, the editors try to respond to a
major doubt as they define it: As long as governments protect national interests and refuse to grant significant powers to supranational
authorities, the survival of the planet is in jeopardy (Haas et al. 1994: 3). Although they recognise the problem expressed in this sceptical view,
they argue: Yet world government is not around the corner: organised international responses to shared environmental problems will occur
through cooperation among states. . . . Before becoming depressed by this prospect, we should note that interstate cooperation has achieved major
successes with problems that earlier seemed as daunting as UNCEDs agenda does today (Haas et al. 1994: 4). This is a fascinating read, since
(1) it seems to show that regime theorists are unable to think beyond the two options of interstate cooperation or world government. In other
words, they
cannot ask a question without thinking in terms of their theoretical frame of

reference in which states and their behaviour are taken to be the relevant means for
analyses. And (2) within that theoretical frame they cannot see what was wrong with
UNCED: 20 namely, that ecological problems considered and managed by institutions do not
address the ecological dimension as such but correspond to environmental agendas in the
structure of the international (which may be seen as one of the major problems):21 by institutions we mean persistent and
connected sets of norms, rules and practices that prescribe behavioural roles, constrain activity, and shape expectations (Haas et al. 1994: 5).
Without questioning the philosophical and ethical underpinnings of these institutions, they
seem to suggest that the problem is about institutional cooperation. In this, the understanding
aims at [t]he broad question . . . [of] whether international institutions, thus defined, promote change in national behaviour that is substantial
enough to have a positive impact, eventually, on the quality of the natural environment (ibid.). It is clear from this statement that the
reasons behind those environmental problems are not real issues of concern. The
intention is to test general institutions/ regime theory in a new area. This is supported by a
strong emphasis on the misleading dialectics between international norms and changing
state behaviour without asking where those norms originate, and how they enter into the
international in the first place. In other words, the relevance of the international norms is not
questioned as long as they are the result of state socialisation. 22 In the success story the
validity of international norms and the values which exist in them as natural conditions are
not questioned.23 Hence, the functional success24 story is being told without thinking about
the ecological in the case of UNCED ,25 even environmental consequences of these
norms. It is clear that environment is considered in relation to the now familiar international order in its perceived structure. Thus what
is discussed as the environment becomes something rather different from what is
implied in the ecological call . The possibility of national interest-based environmental

policies and control of their spill-over effect on the international environment repeats the
internal/external differentiation of IR by breaking down the idea of ecological
connections , which has nothing to do with abstract political spatial differentiation. As argued
by Banks, the
change in the narrative does not necessarily alter the underlying ideas. It also
shows that it is possible to ignore different questions and to formulate questions in relation
to institutional wisdom.26
AT PermRe-Thinking Key
Call to quick action is bad for the alternative, forecloses re-thinking
Latour 4
[2004, Bruno Latour is a French sociologist of science and anthropologist. He is especially known for his work in the field of Science and
Technology Studies (STS)., Politics of Nature, translated by Catherine Porter]
In this book, I should like to propose a different hypothesis that may justify my ill-timed intervention. From a conceptual standpoint, political
ecology has not yet begun to exist. The words ecology and politics have simply been
juxtaposed without a thoroughgoing rethinking of either term; as a result, we can draw no conclusions from the trials
that the ecology movements have gone through up to now, either about their past failures or about their possible successes. The reason for the
delay is very simple. People
have been much too quick to believe that it sufficed to recycle the old
concepts of nature and politics unchanged, in order to establish the rights and manners of a political ecology. Yet oikos, logos,
phusis, and polis remain real enigmas so long as the four concepts are not put into play at the same time. Political ecologists have
supposed that they could dispense with this conceptual work, without noticing that the notions
of nature and politics had been developed over centuries in such a way as to make any
juxtaposition, any synthesis, any combination of the two terms impossible. And, even more seriously, they have claimed, in
the enthusiasm of an ecumenical vision, to have gotten beyond the old distinction between humans and things, subjects of law and objects of
sciencewithout observing that these entities had been shaped, profiled, and sculpted in such a way that they had gradually become
incompatible. Far
from getting beyond the dichotomies of [hu]man and nature, subject and object,
modes of production, and the environment, in order to find remedies for the crisis as quickly as possible,
what political ecologists should have done was slow down the movement, take their time, then
burrow down beneath the dichotomies like the proverbial old mole. Such, at least, is my argument. Instead of cutting the Gordian knot, I am
going to shake it around in a lot of different ways. I shall untie a few of its strands in order to knot them back together differently. Where the
political philosophy of science is concerned, one
must take ones time, in order not to lose it. The ecologists
were a little too quick to pat themselves on the back when they put forward their slogan Think globally, act
locally. Where global thinking is concerned, they have come up with nothing better than a nature already
composed, already totalized, already instituted to neutralize politics. To think in truly global fashion, they needed to begin by
discovering the institutions thanks to which globalism is constructed one step at a time. And nature, as we shall see, could hardly
lend itself any less effectively to the process. Yes, in this book we are going to advance like the
tortoise in the fable; and like the tortoise, or at least so I hope, we shall end up passing the hare, which has decided, in
its great wisdom, that political ecology is an outmoded question, dead and buried, incapable of producing thought, unable to provide a new
foundation for morality, epistemology, and democracythe same hare that has claimed to be reconciling man and nature in a couple of great
leaps. In order to force ourselves to slow down, we will have to deal simultaneously with the sciences, with natures, and with politics, in the
plural.
Framework
Transpersonal Ecology
Debate should be a site for subject formationethical ecological study can enable a process
of transpersonal ecology that helps humans move beyond anthroprocentric outlooks and
adopt systems of guidelines that promote effective everyday decisions about nature and
social changeindicts of alternative solvency are used to maintain anthropocentric
thinking and should be deprioritized
Seckinelgin 6
Warwick Fox approaches Naess by identifying three strands in his ecological thinking. The first strand is the philosophical8 understanding of
ecology. The second strand is described by Naess as a concept used in relating to the level of questioning, which means that deep ecology implies
the depth of the question9 asked about ecology, which is, according to Naess, established on the basis of whether questions are about fundamental
philosophical concepts shaping the way we understand nature or not (cited in Fox 1995). The third approach is called Naesss popular sense of
deep ecology (Fox 1995: 11419). Their
starting point is to establish that each life has an intrinsic

value10 independent of human purposes, and the realisation of these values is only
possible through the richness and diversity of life, so humans have no right to destroy this
diversity unless there is a vital necessity to do so. The divide between shallow and deep ecology seems more plausible when these
considerations are taken into account. According to Fox, Naesss intention in formulating the above principles is
not to offer a technical articulation about life or vital but to provide a system of
guidelines which may be used to make decisions about nature. The above classification seems
appropriate insofar as there are seemingly distinct ways to approach ecology. However, Naess is not talking about different, separate approaches.
There is only one way of approaching ecology. He is formulating a methodology. If the path
he admired in questioning is being followed and why questions posed to his principles , the
obvious response would be to adopt his philosophical stand, namely selfrealisation, and to do this one has to ask deep questions. Otherwise, as individual blocks of understanding, neither of them are tenable.
This ingenious totality of Naess
makes others who are arguing for preservation and conservation

through stewardship or guardianship appear rather anthropocentric.11The term employed
by Fox to describe his interpretation of Naess to create his own ecological perspective is transpersonal ecology (1995: 197).
He emphasise that the prefix trans implies beyondness, as in transcendence (Fox 1995: 198). If
someone is going to transcend something, that person is supposed to overcome a standpoint
which is either true or false; that is, there is a notion of change. First, therefore, there has to be the
will for such a motion/change to happen and a recognition of the way in which it can
happen. He accepts that his understanding is influenced by developments in psychology (Fox 1995: 199215). Therefore, the
transpersonal self is defined in opposition to the egocentric self. This new way describes self
as a sense that extends beyond ones egoistic, biographical or personal sense of self, a sense
that is opening up to ecological awareness by realising ones wider ecological self (Fox 1995:
198). This view is distinctly non-anthropocentric in the sense that it does not, for example,
compare different beings on the basis of their evolutionary stages to value those
beings .12 Here, the attempt is clearly to overcome moral and ethical formulations
deriving from a certain perspective which are extremely difficult to resist. The arguments about
conservation and preservation in environmental discourse are usually based on human
interest, which considers such interest as superior mto the interests of the rest of nature.
Therefore, the value fixed on other life forms derives from their use value to humans. These are good
examples of what some authors have tried to replace with transpersonal ecology. In this perspective the conceptual tool
emphasised is things are (Fox 1995: 251), which warns the gazing subject about the fact that
there is a complex life out there independent of him or her. The attempt of transpersonal
ecology to create a new consciousness has important implications for the existing system. It
discredits the abstracted image of humankind while recognising its potential for
change. Therefore, the step taken by this approach is very constructive for the next phase of
ecology in finding appropriate ground to make humanity at home without fear of nature.
The discussion about nature is not without challenge. Whether or not there is a real nature13 or whether there can be a nature separate from
human construction are the questions asked by many postmodern thinkers such as Richard Rorty, who conceptualises nature as textuality pace
Jacques Derrida; that is, there is no nature outside-thetext. 14 In terms of transpersonal ecology there seem to be some obscure, not so clear areas
in this discussion which make the conjecture less persuasive, in relation to its possibility, when compared with the established system. For
example, Robin Attfield
is very reluctant to think about a new ethics and moral standpoint in his book The Ethics
of Environmental Concern: Believing, as I do, that matters of morality admit of truth, I am reluctant
to conclude that we can devise or invent a new ethic; and, even if we could invent one, I do
not see how it could establish its credibility unless it were not a new departure but an
extension, analogical or otherwise, of existing patterns of moral thought . . . then what is required is not
so much a replacement of moral traditions, or even their supplementation with new principles, as the more promising endeavour of developing in
a more consistent manner themes to which at least lip-service has long been paid. As
a result of this rather defeatist

attitude, Attfield and many others try to survive in the existing system by articulating
concepts of stewardship and conservation on the basis of future generations interests,
which is necessarily anthropocentric. 15 It is imperative to see how these concepts are played out in International
Relations once the species of tuna are introduced into the debate. In other words, the
focus at this stage is connected to the

assessment of the relevance of bringing the concept of ecology into the conventional
analysis of the situation.
AT EcoPragmatismAction Fails
Rethinking ecological relationships must precede actionaction cannot work when it
assumes identities like nature that dont exist
Morton 9
[2009, Tim, Rethink: Contemporary Art and Climate Change, Copenhagen: Alexandra Institute, 4952]
The melting world induces panic. Again, it's paradoxical. While we absolutely have complete responsibility for global warming and must act now
to curb emissions, we
also confront fantasies about acting now. Ideological injunctions to act

NOW inhibit coming to terms with ecology , in Percy Shelley's wonderful words, to imagine that
which we know. We are out of phase with contemporary science. When in this the bicentenary year of
Darwin's birth I have weekly arguments with humanists who don't have a clue about what
evolution is or even vaguely to have accepted it some proudly spurn it like an unappealing pair of sockswe have a problem.
Along with figuring out what implications science has for society and so on, humanists should be asking scientists to do
things for us. We should create websites that list experiments we need. My top suggestion would be
exploring the question, Is consciousness intentional? Negative results would provide a reason not to hurt life
forms. If consciousness were not some high up bonus prize for being elaborately wired, but low down, a default mode that came bundled with
the software, then worms are conscious in every meaningful sense. A worm could become a Buddha, as a worm. Or what if consciousness were
profoundly intersubjective? (Another blow to individualism.) Many
believe that theory is the opposite of practice.

I've been accused of not wanting to help Katrina victims because I'm too busy theorizing.
Your ideas are all very well for a lazy Sunday afternoon, but here in the real world, what are we actually going to
do? Yet one thing I want to do is break down the distinction between Sunday afternoon and every other day, and in the name of putting a bit
of Sunday afternoon into Monday morning, rather than making Sunday a workday. That's what I get paid to do. The injunction to act
now is based on preserving a Nature that never existed: this has real effects that may result
in more powerful catastrophe as we tilt at non-existent windmills. I'm not saying let's not
look after animals because they're not really natural. I'm trying to find a reason to look
after all beings precisely because they're not natural.
AT EcoPragmatismReformism Coopted
Reformism prevents a radical challenge to human ethical thought
The Dark Mountain 9
[2009, Uncivilization, network of writers, artists, and thinkers, The Dark Mountain Manifesto,
http://dark-mountain.net/about/manifesto/]
Nearly forty years on from Larkins words, doubt is what all of us seem to feel, all of the time. Too much filth has been chucked in the sea and
into the soil and into the atmosphere to make any other feeling sensible. The doubt, and the facts, have paved the way for a worldwide movement
of environmental
politics, which aimed, at least in its early, raw form, to challenge the myths of
development and progress head-on. But time has not been kind to the greens. Todays environmentalists
are more likely to be found at corporate conferences hymning the virtues of sustainability
and ethical consumption than doing anything as naive as questioning the intrinsic values of
civilisation. Capitalism has absorbed the greens, as it absorbs so many challenges to its ascendancy. A radical challenge to
the human machine has been transformed into yet another opportunity for shopping. Denial is
a hot word, heavy with connotations. When it is used to brand the remaining rump of climate change sceptics, they object noisily to the
association with those who would rewrite the history of the Holocaust. Yet the focus on this dwindling group may serve as a distraction from a far
larger form of denial, in its psychoanalytic sense. Freud wrote of the inability of people to hear things which did not fit with the way they saw
themselves and the world. We put ourselves through all kinds of inner contortions, rather than look plainly at those things which challenge our
fundamental understanding of the world. Today, humanity
is up to its neck in denial about what it has built, what it has

unfold before us and, if we acknowledge them at all,
we act as if this were a temporary problem, a technical glitch. Centuries of hubris block our ears
like wax plugs; we cannot hear the message which reality is screaming at us. For all our doubts and
discontents, we are still wired to an idea of history in which the future will be an upgraded version of the present. The assumption
remains that things must continue in their current direction: the sense of crisis only smudges the meaning of
that must. No longer a natural inevitability, it becomes an urgent necessity: we must find a way to go on having
supermarkets and superhighways. We cannot contemplate the alternative. And so we find ourselves,
become and what it is in for. Ecological and economic collapse
all of us together, poised trembling on the edge of a change so massive that we have no way of gauging it. None of us knows where to look, but
all of us know not to look down. Secretly, we all think we are doomed: even the politicians think this; even the environmentalists. Some of us
deal with it by going shopping. Some deal with it by hoping it is true. Some give up in despair. Some work frantically to try and fend off the
coming storm.
Aff Answers
2AC Perm
Permutation do the plan and ____ Environmental pragmatism is best. Alternatives like
anarchy, localism, spirituality, and eco-centrism will get squashed and worsen current
destruction
Taylor 2k Professor of Social Ethics
Bron, Professor of Religion & Social Ethics, Director of Environmental Studies, University of
Wisconsin-Oshkosh, BENENEATH THE SURFACE: CRITICAL ESSAYS IN THE
PHILOSOPHY OF DEEP ECOLOGY, P. 282-284
A more trenchant problem is how bioregionalists (and the anarchists who influenced their most influential theorists) often
assume
that people are naturally predisposed (unless corrupted by life in unnatural, hierarchical, centralized, industrial societies)
to cooperative behavior. This debatable assumption appears to depend more on radical
environmental faith, a kind of Paul Shepard-style mythologizing, than on ecology or anthropology.
Unfortunately for bioregional theory, evolutionary biology shows that not only cooperation
promotes species survival; so also, at times, does aggressive competitiveness. Based on its
unduly rosy view of the potential for human altruism, it is doubtful that bioregionalism can
offer sufficient structural constraints on the exercise of power by selfish and wellentrenched elites. It should be obvious, for example, that nation-state governments will not voluntarily
cede authority. Any political reorganization along bioregional lines would likely require widespread
violence and dislocation. Few bioregionalists seem to recognize this likelihood, or how
devastating to nature such a transitional struggle would probably be. Moreover, making an important
but often overlooked point about political power, political theorist Daniel Deudney warns: The sizes of the bioregionality based states would vary
greatly because bioregions vary greatly. This would mean that some states would be much more powerful than other [and] it is not inevitable that
balances of power would emerge to constrain the possible imperial pretensions of the larger and stronger states. Andrew Bard Schmookler, in his
critique of utopian bioregional progeny). For ignoring a specific problem of power. He asked: How
can good people prevent

being dominated by a ruthless few, and what will prevent hierarchies from emerging if
decentralized political self-rule is ever achieved? One does not have to believe all people are
bad to recognize that not all people will be good, he argued; and unless bad people all become
good, there is no solution to violence other than some kind of government to restrain the
evil few. Schmookler elsewhere noted that those who exploit nature gather more power to themselves.
How, then, can we restrain such power? There must be a government able to control the free exercise of
power, Schmookler concluded. Once when debating Green anarchists and bioregionalists in a radical environmental journal, Schmookler agreed
that political decentralization is a good idea. But if we move in this direction, he warned, there should be at the same time a world order
sufficient [to thwart] would-be conquerors. Moreover, Since the biosphere is a globally interdependent web, that world order should be able to
constrain any of the actors from fouling the earth. This
requires laws and means of enforcement. Schmookler

concluded, Government is a paradox, but there is no escaping it. This is because power is a
paradox: our emergence out of the natural order makes power and inevitable problem for
human affairs, and only power can control power. Bioregionalism generally fails to grapple adequately with the
problem of power. Consequently, it has little answer to specifically global environmental problems, such as atmospheric depletion and the
disruption of ocean ecosystems by pollution and overfishing. Political scientist Paul Wapner argues that this is because bioregionalism assumes
that all global threats stem from local instances of environmental abuse and that by confronting them at the local level they will disappear.
Nor does bioregionalism have much of a response to the globalization of corporate

capitalism and consumerist market society, apart from advocating local resistance or long-odds
campaigns to revoke the corporate charters of the worst environmental offenders. These efforts do little to hinder the
inertia of this process. And little is ever said about how to restrain the voracious appetite of a global-corporate-consumer culture for
the resources in every corner of the planet. Even
for the devout, promoting deep ecological spirituality and

ecocentric values seems pitifully inadequate in the face of such forces. Perhaps it is because they have
little if any theory of social change, and thus cannot really envision a path toward a
sustainable society, that many bioregional deep ecologists revert to apocalyptic scenarios.
Many of them see the collapse of ecosystems and industrial civilization as the only possible
means toward the envisioned changes. Others decide that political activism is hopeless, and
prioritize instead spiritual strategies for evoking deep ecological spirituality, hoping, self-consciously,
for a miracle. Certainly the resistance of civil society to globalization and its destructive inertia is honorable and important,
even a part a part of a wider sustainability strategy. But there will be no victories over globalization and
corporate capitalism, and no significant progress toward sustainability, without new forms of
international, enforceable, global environmental governance. Indeed, without new restraints on power both within
nations and internationally, the most beautiful bioregional experiments and models will be
overwhelmed and futile.
EcoPragmatism GoodAlt = Ignored

Alt alone gets ignored by policy practitioners key to combine theory with practice
Schmidtz 2k
[2000, David Schmidtz, Philosophy, University of Arizona, Environmental Ethics, p. 379-408]
Environmental philosophers often talk about environmental justice, but almost never talk
about environmental conflict resolution. This is unfortunate. From a mediators perspective, progress requires negotiation
and compromise. Moreover, achieving acceptable and stable compromise can be more important from an
environmental perspective than getting it right in some idealized sense that abstracts from
political realities. Where the world can go from here is constrained by the histories of stakeholders and by a plurality of values.
Mediators deal with the situation as it is. The practical relevance of environmental ethics depends on our ability to do likewise. We need
to think about conflict, not merely about how the world ought to be in the grand scheme of things. If
humanity were a decision-making entity, and if its component parts had no interests of their own, this entity might rationally decide to prune itself
back, amputating overgrown parts for the sake of the whole, thereby leaving more room for wildlife. In Africa, though, and in the developing
world more generally, if
people manage to protect their land and wildlife, it will be because doing so is in
their interest, not because doing so is in the interest of "the whole." If we fail to treat them as
players with interests of their own, we will be our own worst enemies. In formal terms, philosophy of
law distinguishes between procedural and substantive justice. Substantive justice is, roughly, a property of outcomes. It is about people (or any
entities with moral standing) receiving what they are due. Procedural justice is about following fair procedures: procedures intended to be
impartial. When philosophers discuss environmental justice, they usually have one or another notion of substantive justice in mind. In large
measure, though, conflict mediation tends to involve seeking justice in a procedural sense. Perhaps mediators should and do seek to ground
negotiations in principles of substantive justice as well. I am not a mediator and have no direct practical experience with institutions of conflict
mediation, so it is hard for me to say. What I can say with confidence is that philosophers need to do their part to complete the circle. What I have
in mind is that while mediators are trying to ground their practice in a sound theory, we could do our part by trying to ground our theories in the
requirements of sound practice. If
we say our philosophical principles ought to be put into practice, then

we implicitly if not explicitly are warranting those principles as compatible with sound practice. However, if
we make no effort to ground our theories in requirements of sound practice, then it would be fraudulent to
recommend our theory to practitioners. In that case, if and when practitioners respond by ignoring us, they will be doing
the right thing.[16]
EcoPragmatism GoodPublic Mobilization

Perm solves best the alt hampers public discussion of environmental problems
Light 02
[2002, Light, Andrew, Assistant Professor of Environmental Philosophy and Director,
Environmental Conservation Education Program, (Environmental Ethics: What Really Matters
What Really Works David Schmidtz and Elizabeth Willott, p. 556-57)]
In recent years a critique of this predominant trend in environmental ethics has emerged from within the pragmatist tradition in American
philosophy.' The force of this critique is driven by the intuition that environmental
philosophy cannot afford to be

quiescent about the public reception of ethical arguments over the value of nature. The original
motivations of environmental philosophers for turning their philosophical insights to the environment support such a position., Environmental
philosophy evolved out of a concern about the state of the growing environmental crisis, and a conviction that a philosophical contribution could
be made to the resolution of this crisis. But if environmental philosophers spend all of their time debating non-human centered forms of value
theory they will arguably never get very far in making such a contribution. For example, to continue to ignore human motivations for the act of
valuing nature causes many in the field to overlook the fact that most people find it very difficult to extend moral consideration to plants and
animals on the grounds that these entities possess some form of intrinsic, inherent, or otherwise conceived nonanthropocentric value. It is even
more difficult for people to recognize that nonhumans could have rights. Claims
about the value of nature as such do not

appear to resonate with the ordinary moral intuitions of most people who, after all, spend most of
their lives thinking of value, moral obligations, and rights in exclusively human terms. Indeed, while most
environmental philosophers begin their work with the assumption that most people think of value in human-centered terms (a problem that has
been decried since the very early days of the field), few have considered the problem of how a non-human-centered approach to valuing nature
can ever appeal to such human intuitions. The particular version of the pragmatist critique of environmental ethics that I have endorsed
recognizes that we
need to rethink the utility of anthropocentric arguments in environmental moral and

political theory, not necessarily because the traditional nonanthropocentric arguments in the field are false, but
because they hamper attempts to contribute to the public discussion of environmental problems, in
terms familiar to the public.
The response doesnt influence the environment

Killingsworth and Palmer 98
M. Jimmie and Jacqueline S., professor of English at Texas A&M and Associate Director,
Writing Programs Office, Landmak Essays on Rhetoric and the Environment, 1998, p. 213-4
To sum up, since
ecophilosophical discourse generally flies in the face of the prevailing social

paradigm, and offers its ethical insights and ecological panaceas in a language that is not
accessible to lay publics, it appears to be null and void from the beginning. In other words,
environmental ethics appears to be incapable of moving a democratic majority to support
policies leading toward sustainability. From a traditional philosophical point of view, this
situation is not a philosophical problem, since emphasis is placed primarily on identifying
basic principles and providing supporting arguments. From a rhetorical point of view,
however, it is, since effective philosophical discourse necessarily promotes societal
transformation. K. M. Sayre, for example, recently tweaked the beard of the lion in its own den, noting that If norms encouraging
conservation and proscribing pollution were actually in force in industrial society, it would not be the result of ethical theory; and the fact that
currently they are no in force is not alleviated by any amount of adroit ethical reasoning. Moreover,
empirical studies of public
opinion and voting behavior reveal an apparent paradox: more than two-thirds of adult
Americans consider themselves environmentalists even while the noose of ecocrisis
continues to tighten around their collective necks. This paradox disappears, however, deHavenSmite argues, once we realize that there is no empirical data to support the hypothesis that the
environmental movement involves any general philosophical reorientation of public
opinion. On the contrary, he continues, people become environmentalists not because of
environmental philosophy, but rather because of local issues adversely affecting or
threatening to affect the quality of their own lives (water quality, siting of a nuclear power plant, waste, and so on).
The environmental movement, on this argument, is better conceptualized not as a mass public
inspired by environmental ethics, but as a number of so-called local-issue publics
addressing ecological dysfunctions.
EcoPragmatism GoodInstitutions Inev

Institutions are inevitable and need to be used for change, but rejecting the statist frame
kills environmental coalitions
Eckersley 4
[2004, Robyn Eckersley, Professor in the School of Politics, Sociology, and Criminology @
University of Melbourne, 2004. The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty. Pg. 46]
This inquiry thus swims against a significant tide of green political theory that is mostly skeptical of, if not entirely hostile toward, the nationstate. Indeed, if a green posture toward the nation-state can be discerned from the broad tradition of green political thought, it is that the nationstate plays, at best, a contradictory role in environmental management in facilitating both environmental destruction and environmental protection
and, at worst, it is fundamentally ecocidal.6 From eco-Marxists to ecofeminists and ecoanarchists, there are few green political theorists who are
prepared to defend the nation-state as an institution that is able to play, on balance, a positive role in securing sustainable livelihoods and
ecosystem integrity.7 It is now a trite observation that neither environmental problems nor environmentalists respect national borders and the
principle of state sovereignty, which assumes that states ought to possess and be able to exercise more or less exclusive control of what goes on
within their territories. Indeed, those interested in global political ecology are increasingly rejecting the statist frame through which
international relations and world politics have been traditionally understood, preferring to understand states as but one set of actors and/or
institutions among myriad actors and institutions on the global scene that are implicated in ecological destruction.8 Thus many global political
ecologists tend not only to be skeptical of states, they are also increasingly sceptical of state-centric analyses of world politics, in general, and
global environmental degradation, in particular.9 Taken together, the analyses of green
theorists and activists seem to point

toward the need for alternative forms of political identity, authority, and governance that break with the traditional
statist model of exclusive territorial rule. While acknowledging the basis for this antipathy toward the nationstate, and the limitations of
state-centric analyses of global ecological degradation, I seek to draw attention to the positive role that states
have played, and might increasingly play, in global and domestic politics. Writing more than twenty years ago, Hedley Bull (a
proto-constructivist and leading writer in the English school) outlined the states positive role in world affairs, and his arguments continue to
provide a powerful challenge to those who somehow seek to get beyond the state, as if such
a move would provide a more lasting solution to the threat of armed conflict or nuclear war, social and
economic injustice, or environmental degradation.10 As Bull argued, given that the state is here to stay whether we
like it or not, then the call to get beyond the state is a counsel of despair, at all events if it means that we have to begin by abolishing or
subverting the state, rather than that there is a need to build upon it.11 In any event, rejecting
the statist frame of world

politics ought not prohibit an inquiry into the emancipatory potential of the state as a crucial
node in any future network of global ecological governance. This is especially so, given that one can expect states to persist
as major sites of social and political power for at least the foreseeable future and that any green transformations of the present
political order will, short of revolution, necessarily be state-dependent. Thus, like it or not, those concerned
about ecological destruction must contend with existing institutions and, where possible, seek to rebuild
the ship while still at sea. And if states are so implicated in ecological destruction, then an inquiry into the
potential for their transformation or even their modest reform into something that is at least more conducive to ecological sustainability
would seem to be compelling. Of course, it would be unhelpful to become singularly fixated on the redesign of the state at the
expense of other institutions of governance. States are not the only institutions that limit, condition, shape, and direct political power, and it is
necessary to keep in view the broader spectrum of formal and informal institutions of governance (e.g., local, national, regional, and
international) that are implicated in global environmental change. Nonetheless, while the state constitutes only one modality of political power, it
is an especially significant one because of its historical claims to exclusive rule over territory and peoplesas expressed in the principle of state
sovereignty. As Gianfranco Poggi explains, the political power concentrated in the state is a momentous, pervasive, critical phenomenon.
Together with other forms of social power, it constitutes an indispensable medium for constructing and shaping larger social realities, for
establishing, shaping and maintaining all broader and more durable collectivities.12 States play, in varying degrees, significant roles in
structuring life chances, in distributing wealth, privilege, information, and risks, in upholding civil and political rights, and in securing private
property rights and providing the legal/regulatory framework for capitalism. Every one of these dimensions of state
activity has, for
good or ill, a significant bearing on the global environmental crisis. Given that the green political project is
one that demands far-reaching changes to both economies and societies, it is difficult to imagine how such changes might occur on the kind of
scale that is needed without the active support of states. While it is often observed that states are too big to deal with local ecological problems
and too small to deal with global ones, the state nonetheless holds, as Lennart Lundqvist puts it, a unique position in the constitutive hierarchy
from individuals through villages, regions and nations all the way to global organizations. The state is inclusive of lower political and
administrative levels, and exclusive in speaking for its whole territory and population in relation to the outside world.13 In short, it
seems to
me inconceivable to advance ecological emancipation without also engaging with and seeking
to transform state power.
EcoPragmatism GoodState Key

The state is here to stay, ignoring it isnt an option. Rather than insist on working
completely outside it, we should find ways to build upon the good aspects of the state in
order to achieve environmental goals.
Eckersley 4
[Robyn, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at the University of Melbourne,
The Green State, p. 4-5]
This inquiry thus swims against a
significant tide of green political theory that is mostly skeptical of, if not entirely
hostile toward, the nation-state. Indeed, if a green posture toward the nation-state can be discerned from the
broad tradition of green political thought, it is that the nation-state plays, at best, a contradictory role in
environmental management in facilitating both environmental destruction and environmental protection and,
at worst, it is fundamentally ecocidal. From eco-Marxists to ecofeminists and ecoanarchists, there are few green political theorists who are
prepared to defend the nation-state as an institution that is able to play, on balance, a positive role in securing sustainable livelihoods and
ecosystem integrity. It is now a trite observation that neither environmental problems nor environmentalists respect national borders and the
principle of state sovereignty, which assumes that states ought to possess and be able to exercise more or less exclusive control of what goes on
within their territories. Indeed, those interested in global political ecology are increasingly rejecting the statist frame through which
international relations and world politics have been traditionally understood, preferring to understand states as but one set of actors and/or
institutions among myriad actors and institutions on the global scene that are implicated in ecological destruction. Thus many global political
ecologists tend not only to be skeptical of states, they are also increasingly sceptical of state-centric analyses
of world politics, in general, and global environmental degradation, in particular. Taken together, the analyses of
green theorists and activists seem to point toward the need for alternative forms of political
identity, authority, and governance that break with the traditional statist model of exclusive
territorial rule. While acknowledging the basis for this antipathy toward the nation- state, and the limitations of state-centric analyses of global
ecological degradation, I seek to draw attention to the positive role that states have played, and might increasingly play, in global and domestic
politics. Writing more than twenty years ago; Hedley Bull (a proto-constructivist and leading writer in the English school) outlined the states
positive role in world affairs, and his arguments continue to provide a powerful challenge to those who somehow seek to get beyond the state,
as if such a move would provide a more lasting solution to the threat of armed conflict or nuclear war, social and economic injustice, or
environmental degradationY As Bull argued, given
that the state is here to stay whether we like it or not,

then the call to get beyond the state is a counsel of despair, at all events if it means that we have
to begin by abolishing or subverting the state, rather than that there is a need to build upon
it. In any event, rejecting the statist frame of world politics ought not prohibit an inquiry into
the emancipatory potential of the state as a crucial node in any future network of global
ecological governance. This is especially so, given that one can expect states to persist as major sites of social and political power for
at least the foreseeable future and that any green transformations of the present political order will, short of
revolution, necessarily be state-dependent. Thus, like it or not, those concerned about ecological
destruction must contend with existing institutions and, where possible, seek to rebuild
the ship while still at sea. And if states are so implicated in ecological destruction, then an
inquiry into the potential for their transformation or even their modest reform into
something that is at least more conducive to ecological sustainability would seem to be
compelling.
EcoPragmatism GoodExtinction
Refusal of the responsibility to engage with established institutional power risks
environmental and human disaster on a massive scale.
Eckersley 4
[2004, Robyn Eckersley, Professor in the School of Politics, Sociology, and Criminology @
University of Melbourne, 2004. The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty. Pg. 46]
Liberalism not only preceded democracy in the modern age, it also provided its own rationale for the state (to protect the rights of individuals), an
account of its formal structure (separation of powers, representative government), an account of the terms on which coercive state power may be
exercised (by means of democratic law enacted by the peoples representatives), and an account of civil society (made up of autonomous
individuals). However, once we
historicize the particular liberal form in which modern democracy

has developed, it becomes possible to think about democracy and the state taking on other prefixes, such as ecological. This makes
it possible to rethink what role states might play and what form they might take in
embodying and giving effect to new social purposes and expanded democratic ideals. Such
a rethinking need not require any abandonment of the enduring features of the liberal
democratic state, such as the protection of civil and political rights that are essential to ecological citizenship, the election of
parliamentary representatives, the separation of powers, the idea that state power should not be absolute or arbitrary but rather limited and
exercised according to law, and the idea of toleration and respect for moral pluralism. Rather, critical
political ecology should

primarily take issue with the limited scope and quality of political representation,
participation, and dialogue, and the social and economic structures that constrain political decision
making in liberal democracies. The point is to unblock those democratic processes that
might subject to critical scrutiny those ideals and practices of autonomy that cannot be
generalized for all, including that are not conducive to an ecologically sustainable world. In effect, the quest of critical political
ecology may be understood as an attempt to adjust democracy to a world of more complex and intense economic, technological, and ecological
interdependence in order to extend the links between environmental protection and social justice. Ecological
freedom for all can

only be realized under a form of governance that enables and enforces ecological
responsibility. Ecological democracy is a postliberal rather than antiliberal democracy. The foregoing critique of liberalism may be seen
as seeking to reinterpret rather than reject the fundamental Enlightenment ideal of autonomy. Liberalisms otherwise laudable humanist impulse
to expand human autonomy comes to grief in the belief that autonomy can only or best be achieved by mastering the natural world through
increasingly sophisticated technologies and the application of instrumental reason. Time and time again-from
the splitting of the

atom to the building of mega-dams-instrumental rationality has served to imperil rather
than expand autonomy for large numbers of people and nonhuman species. As Theodor Adorno and Max
Horkheimer famously and prophetically put it, the fully enlightened Earth radiates disaster triumphant. A
more ecologically informed dialectic of enlightenment therefore requires an engagement with the mutually interdependent ideals of emancipation
and critique, or as Tim Hapvard has put it, the twin ideals of mastery and criticism. Emancipation is crucially dependent on critical questioning
(of authority, dogma, superstition, or blind faith). Ironically, however the way in which the basic liberal principle of autonomy has been idealized
as self-mastery has served to imperil the development of critical questioning in modern democracies in the new ecological age in ways that have
ultimately imperiled autonomy. It is as if liberalism has lost sight of the co-dependence of autonomy and critique by sheltering certain liberal
articles of faith from further critical exposure and transformation. By framing the problem as one of rescuing and reinterpreting the
Enlightenment goals of autonomy and critique, it is possible to identify what might be called a mutually informing set of liberal dogmas that
have for too long been the subject of unthinking faith rather than critical scrutiny by liberals. The
most significant of these

dogmas are a muscular individualism and an understanding of the self-interested rational
actor as natural and eternal; a dualistic conception of humanity and nature that denies human dependency on the biological
world and gives rise to the notion of human exemptionalism from, and instrumentalism and chauvinism toward, the natural world; the sanctity of
private property rights; the notion that freedom can only be acquired through material plenitude; and
overconfidence in the
rational mastery of nature through further scientific and technological progress. It is
difficult to see how these dogmas would survive critical scrutiny in a genuinely free
communication-community in the present ecological age. Indeed, some of these dogmas have already been the
subject of scrutiny from within liberal theory. However many contemporary liberal philosophers still seem to forget that
their liberal forebears forged their political ideals in a bygone world that knew nothing of the
horrors of bioaccumulation, threats of nuclear war, Chernobyl and Bhopal, mad cow
disease, and global warming.
EcoManagement Good
State based environmental management can be successfultheir evidence is overly
pessimistic
sgeirsdttir 7
[August 2007, slaug sgeirsdttir, The Environment and International Politics. International
Fisheries, Heidegger and Social Method (review), Global Environmental Politics, Volume 7,
Number 3, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/gep/summary/v007/7.3asgeirsdottir.html]
Seckinelgin argues that in order to take an ecological approach to managing the environment we must
move away both from viewing humans as separate from nature and also from our reliance
on the sovereign nation-state as the key institution to tackle environmental crises. But Seckinelgin stops
short of advocating a solution to foster global approaches to ecological problems; his goal is
primarily to challenge us to think about nature as a whole rather than as humans versus the environment. He defines ecology as "an awareness of
the interrelation and interconnectedness among the species in nature themselves (including human beings); and between species and the physical
components of nature where species are located and on which their existence depends" (p. 5). This understanding of ecology presents an
important discursive problem for international relations. When ecological challenges arise, the response within international relations is always
through the nation-state and its interest, not from the perspective of how the ecological challenge can best be solved from the perspective of the
entire planet and its people. In developing his theoretical argument, Seckinelgin uses the Third United Nations Law of the Sea Convention
(UNCLOS III) as an empirical study to illustrate his argument, with a concentrated focus on the shortcomings of the Convention to adequately
protect highly-migratory tuna fisheries in the South Pacific. UNCLOS III allowed states to create 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs),
which created artificial borders in the ocean that violate the ecological realities of the complex ecosystem the tuna inhabit. Tuna, and other
migratory stocks, present an interesting challenge to the system of sovereign states in that they do not respect the artificial 200-mile boundary
imposed by states and hence the only way to manage the stock is through international cooperation. Seckinelgin argues that territorializing the
ocean into 200-mile EEZs thwarts management based on ecological issues. The South Pacific is described as a success story in most academic
literature, with success defined as the ability of distant water fishing nations and South Pacific island states to sign cooperative agreements, rather
than whether the tuna stocks improved as a result of these agreements. In the South Pacific, the problem of management is compounded [End
Page 140] by the fact that small island states gained legal control over vast ocean areas they themselves have not been able to utilize. Most of the
Seckinelgin's
discussion of UNCLOS III and the highly migratory tuna fisheries in the Pacific does not mention the 1995 United
Nations Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the Convention Relating to
the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish
Stocks, which entered into force in 2001. The agreement grew out of the realization that UNCLOS III
did not adequately address the problems of managing straddling and highly migratory
stocks. While the Straddling Stocks Agreement is not perfect, it is an improvement over UNCLOS III as it
acknowledges the complexity of the ecosystem. For example it calls for states managing highly
migratory stocks to consider "the best scientific evidence available" and take "into account
fishing patterns, the interdependence of stocks" (Article 5.b.). It also emphasizes that states should
assess the impact of fishing and other human activities on "target stocks and species
belonging to the same ecosystem" (Article 5.d) and, finally, "adopt, when necessary, conservation
and management measures for species belonging to the same ecosystem or associated with
or dependent upon the target stocks" (Article 5.e). This omission is unfortunate, and leads to an
tuna is therefore caught by distant water fishing nations, such as Japan, Taiwan and the United States. It is surprising that
unnecessarily bleak view of the ability of the system of sovereign states to solve
ecological issues . The Straddling Stock Agreement shows that, on paper at least, countries can learn from
earlier mistakes . Any successful management of straddling and highly migratory species
depends nevertheless on cooperative management that requires negotiations among states.
As evident from a number of fisheries agreements in the North Atlantic, considerations
of a complex ecosystem are

often hard to achieve in practice. But as increasing attention to integrated ocean
management shows, the future may hold some promise for the ability of nation-states
to manage complex ecosystems.
AT Dualism Impact/Root Cause

Tracing the root cause to the human-nature dualism dooms action against specifc
environmental threats like global warming and pollution
Ellis 96
[1996, Jeffrey Ellis, Chief, Environmental, Safety and Health Engineering at United States Air
Force, MS in Civil Engineering, 1996, Uncommon ground: rethinking the human place in nature,
pg. 260]
Because of the complexity and seeming intransigence of environmental problems, it
is clearly time for radical environmentalists to focus

less on defining their differences and more on determining the common ground that might provide the basis for a more coherent and unified
ecology movement. As I hope this essay illustrates, if they hope to achieve a working consensus, radicals must strive to
resist the well-established tendency in environmental discourse to identify the single most
important and fundamental cause of the many environmental problems that have become
increasingly apparent in recent decades. The desire to essentialize environmental problems
and trace them all to one root cause is obviously a powerful one. If a root cause can be identified, then
priorities can be clearly established and a definite agenda determined. Although the intention behind this silver bullet approach to
understanding the global environmental crisis has been to provide the environmental movement with a dear
focus and agenda, its impact has been very nearly just the opposite. It has repeatedly proven to
be more divisive than productive in galvanizing a united front against
environmental destruction. This is not surprising. It would indeed be convenient if all ecological
problems sprang from the same source, but this is far from likely. If nothing else, during the last
forty years it has become abundantly clear that environmental problems arc deeply
complex. Not only have they proven extremely difficult to unravel scientifically, but they
have soc ial and political aspects that further compound their complexity. Global
warming, species extinction, pollution human population growth, depletion of resources,
and increased rates of life-threatening disease are just some of the many problems that
confront us. The idea that there is a single root cause to any one of these problems, let alone
to all of them taken together, is, to put it mildly, absurd. Because environmental problems
arc each the result of a multiplicity of causal factors, there can be no one comprehensive
solution to all of them. And yet radical environmental thinkers are correct in rejecting the piecemeal approach to environmental
problems that has become institutionalized in American society. Thus far, reform environmentalism has proven itself inadequate to the task of
halting the deterioration of the earth's ecological systems. But an
alternative to that approach will not emerge
until radicals reject the quixotic and divisive search for a root cause to the spectrum
of environmental problems that have been subsumed under the umbrella of the ecological
crisis. Instead of arguing with one another about who is most right, radicals must begin to consider the insights
each perspective has generated and work toward a more comprehensive rather than a
confrontational understanding of problems that have multiple, complex, and
interconnected causes.
Alt FailsNo Transition

Alt cant solve without a large scale transition to an ecologically ethical society
Weber 7
[05/24/07, D. G. Weber, Hakan Seckinelgin, The Environment and International Politics:
International Fisheries, Heidegger and Social Method, Int Environ Agreements (2007) 7:313
315]
While many of the ideas conveyed in this book are interesting and thought provoking, Seckinelgin
does not show how the

transition to an ecological ethos might come about or what an international system based
on this ethos might look like. He argues that the ecological call can only be answered by
individual respect for and questioning about nonhuman life, rather than legal/rationalist control, but he
also indicates that such respect can only be realized through individual reflection and
realization. If this is indeed the case, one is left wondering whether the Earth will survive long
enough for human-kind to evolve into an ecologically ethical society , or if such

evolution can take place at all. In addition to cognitive limits on human understanding of
large scale human-natural systems, coordination problems would still exist in a world
full of ecologically ethical individuals. It is easy to assume that these problems would be less
constricting when national interests are no longer the primary concern, but without actually
delving into the macro-level effects of this micro-level change in individual ethics, one
cannot be certain what type of regime would emerge.

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Ocean Eco-Critique

new international law of the sea, UNCLOS III, has reterritorialised

through a logos based on a sovereign self . By reterritorialisation of ocean space and

seems fundamentally important to consider the fishing industry as another relevant

implication of bringing all the related and affected parties

component in the success story. This ignoring becomes particularly emphasised by

reorganisation allows individual zones to be articulated as environmentally

crisis we now face. We

are still entirely reliant upon it. Climate

We hear daily about the impacts of our activities on the

Perhaps we would make for the moon, where we

The bubble has cut us off from life on the only

delusion of isolation under which we have laboured for so long.

Vote negative to inject ecological ethicsecological considerations cannot be fit with

to exercise an abstract control of the issue as the objective enquirer in questioning.

by including these components of ocean life in the

rather than framing a response to an environmental problem as a policy formulation and

ethical position implied and deployed through IR is questioned . Ecological ethics is a

it creates a general marker for questioning social method based on abstract

the context of the ocean space claimed for species by Greenpeace,

articulating an energy crisis the

discourse that limits

the statement of international relations these rules and categories

destabilises the disciplinary moves that are based on the framework of

the boundaries of sovereign decision-making.

formulations of marine resources as agent and the new relationship

different systems of cooperation

final decision about any policy is usually/has to be based on national interest,

allows life forms to become distanced from

species of the fragmented EEZ space are now

Earth presents an important discursive problem to International Relations .15 Of course,

is important to realise that the transformation of ecological problems into

employing ERS data, environmental and indigenous rights

of satellite-generated Earth data have powerful cultural

technology may be fundamentally misplaced. Given the deep entrenchment of the

primary purpose of this

assumption has been that ERS data, augmented by better computer

Historically, during the latter half of the twentieth century, there

was a concern about nature that grew into

studies looked at the human

is most often funded is so inextricably linked to the producer-consumer model, it has

arrived at without paying real attention to the dynamics of sub-populations and

is the impact of these fisheries structure on

analyses are trying to understand into fragmented structures of material existence .

acknowledging any ecological relationality among species. Nevertheless, it may be argued

possibility of this narrative of success is related to the discursive structure of

does not provide the whole picture when

concern for global climate change is

based on climate modeling that indicates potential adverse effects-such as intensified

IPCC reports present the scientific consensus that the Earth's

to: achieve stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations

economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner (UNFCCC, Article 2).

The construct of modern

This ignorance or rather,

solutions can no longer come through

the application of a new Law of the Sea and the concept

the paradoxical spatiality in relation to oceans created by UNCLOS III has

as a relevant concern. The concern arises in relation to the contribution of ocean

as a part of the formation formulated in UNCLOS III.

culture/nature dualism sets culture above nature, while the

Deconstructing the dualist paradigm

antithesis has played a major role in Western thought,

had been prevalent in Greek philosophy and Christian theology, Descartes