Deep Ecology AFF Will Malson Page 1 of 9

Deep Ecology AFF

A. Precursory Development ........................................................................................................2

i] Intro .............................................................................................................................................. 2
ii] Resolutional Analysis .................................................................................................................. 3
iii] Framework ................................................................................................................................. 4

B. Link: .....................................................................................................................................5
The United States military is already preparing for resource wars .................................................. 5

C. Analysis ................................................................................................................................6
This embodies ecology in its shallow form....................................................................................... 6

D. Impact...................................................................................................................................7
This shallow ecology threatens every ecosystem on Earth and our extinction .................................. 7

E. Alternative ............................................................................................................................8
Alternative: Deep ecology. Rather than having consumerism drag us along, evaluate ecosystem
impacts and alternative action ........................................................................................................ 8

F. Application............................................................................................................................9
The ballot is key .............................................................................................................................. 9
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Deep Ecology AFF

A. Precursory Development
i] Intro

When Thomas Jefferson finished drafting the Declaration of Independence 233 years ago, he and the
other Founders risked their lives and took a monumental step toward freedom. They launched the
revolution that resulted in our independence from Britain and, ultimately, our own unique government.
Unlike a monarchy, America’s democratic republic was founded on an idea, rather than an accident of
geography or a tribal identity.
But for people in other countries, the government existed first, and rights flowed from the government.
Our government is a reflection of the people; it is a government from the bottom up. Our basic rights do
not come from the state. They are inherent in us.
U.S. Senator Jon Kyl [R-Arizona; elected to the U.S. Senate in 1994 and re-elected in 2000 and 2006,
after having served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. As the Republican Whip, he is the
second-ranking member of the Senate Republican Leadership and responsible for building support on
key issues. He serves on the Senate’s Finance Committee, where he is the ranking Republican on the
Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight, and on the Judiciary Committee, where he is the ranking
Republican on the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security], “CELEBRATING
THE FOURTH OF JULY”, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 29, 2009,
http://kyl.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=315158

It is important to recognize the merit and truth in Jon Kyl’s words – government is a reflection of the
people. As the people subject to authority, we must hold morals and values in their proper place and
with the proper treatment; not doing so would make us guilty of allowing others without such morals
and values to influence government, making us guilty of the long-term effects of such a process. This
leads us to affirm the resolution and to stand Resolved: That the United States Federal Government
should significantly reform its environmental policy.
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Deep Ecology AFF

A. Precursory Devlopment
ii] Resolutional Analysis

The most important thing in today’s debate round is the resolution, which is why we offer Resolutional
Analysis as the next subsection of our case:

The resolution will be operationally defined; specific definitions will be provided upon request.
However, operationally defining the resolution is superior to a textbook because it provides the full
scope, uninhibited and limited by categorical reference. Environmental policy is just that – a policy that
is deemed an environmental policy, whether or not it sounds like one.
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Deep Ecology AFF

A. Precursory Devlopment
iii] Framework

In determining how to apply the resolution to the case, we have to determine the Framework, or the
requirement to look at the real-world. In debate, we can divide the real-world and made-up-world quite
effectively: the made-up-world is a Congress policy or an economic disad; anything that isn’t a priori.
Henceforth, everything that is a priori is real-world – topicality, kritiks, theory, and aff/neg
philosophy/positions. This case will primarily focus on the real-world – things that actually have impact,
rather than the made-up-world that doesn’t; thus, the framework is one of real-world impacts, a
recognition that fiat is illusionary and that the audience of the round (including the opposing team and
the judge) is who we’re really affecting.

This acknowledgement leads us to the next section:

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Deep Ecology AFF

B. Link:

Government
First, an identification of a government action (link); second, why the government acted accordingly
(analysis); and third, the impact to the government’s mindset (impact).

The United States military is already preparing for resource wars

Dr Tom Clonan [Irish Times Security Analyst. He lectures in the School of Media, DIT], “US generals planning for resource wars”,
Published by the Irish Times, September 22, 2008, http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2008/0922/1221998220381.html, brackets in original

ANALYSIS: The US military sees the next 30 to 40 years as involving a state of continuous war against
ideologically-motivated terrorists and competing with Russia and China for natural resources and markets, writes Tom Clonan
AS GENERAL Ray Odierno takes command of US forces in Baghdad from troop surge architect Gen David Petraeus, America has begun planning in
earnest for its phased withdrawal.
The extra brigade combat teams - or battlegroups - deployed to Iraq by Petraeus have already withdrawn and a further 8,000 troops have been diverted to
Afghanistan.
In January, the next president of the United States will conclude America's timetable for withdrawal in final negotiations with the Iraqi government.
Further evidence of America's future military intentions is contained in recently published strategy
documents issued by the US military.
Under the auspices of the US department of defence and department of the army, the US military have just published a document entitled 2008 Army
Modernization Strategy which makes for interesting reading against the current backdrop of deteriorating international fiscal, environmental, energy
resource and security crises.
The 2008 modernisation strategy, written by Lieut Gen Stephen Speakes, deputy chief of staff of the US
army, contains the first explicit and official acknowledgement that the US military is dangerously overstretched internationally. It states simply: "The
army is engaged in the third-longest war in our nation's history and . . . the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) has caused the army to become out of balance
with the demand for forces exceeding the sustainable supply."
Against this backdrop, the 90 page document sets out the future of international conflict for the next 30 to 40 years - as the US military sees it - and outlines
the manner in which the military will sustain its current operations and prepare and "transform" itself for future "persistent" warfare.
reveals a number of profoundly significant - and worrying - strategic positions that have been
The document
adopted as official doctrine by the US military. In its preamble, it predicts a post cold war future of
"perpetual warfare".
According to its authors: "We have entered an era of persistent conflict . . . a security environment much more ambiguous and unpredictable
than that faced during the cold war."
It then goes on to describe the key features of this dawning era of continuous warfare. Some of the characteristics are familiar enough to a world audience
accustomed to the rhetoric of the global war on terror.
"A key current threat is a radical, ideology-based, long-term terrorist threat bent on using any means available - to include weapons of mass destruction - to
achieve its political and ideological ends."
Relatively new, "emerging" features are also included in the document's rationale for future threats.
"We face a potential return to traditional security threats posed by emerging near-peers as we compete
globally for depleting natural resources and overseas markets."
This thinly-veiled reference to Russia and China will, perhaps, come as little surprise given recent events in Ossetia and Abkhazia. The explicit reference in
this context to future resource wars, however, will probably raise eyebrows among the international diplomatic community, who prefer to couch such
conflicts as human rights-based or rooted in notions around freedom and democracy.
The document, however, contains no such lofty pretences. It goes on to list as a pre-eminent threat to the security of the US and its
allies "population growth - especially in less-developed countries - [which] will expose a resulting 'youth bulge'."
This youth bulge, the document goes on to state, will present the US with further "resource competition"
in that these expanding populations in the developing world "will consume ever increasing amounts of
food, water and energy".
[paragraphs omitted]
It states explicitly that the US military is preparing to fight continuous resource wars "for the long haul".
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Deep Ecology AFF

C. Analysis

This embodies ecology in its shallow form

Andrew Light [Assistant professor of Environmental Philosophy at New York University, and Research
Fellow at the Institute for Environment, Philosophy, and Public Policy at Lancaster University, UK. He
has edited or co-edited thirteen books, including "Environmental Pragmatism" (1996), "Social Ecology
after Bookchin" (1999), and "Technology and the Good Life" (2000). He is also co-editor of the journal
"Philosophy and Geography" and President of the Society for Philosophy and Technology] & Holmes
Rolston III [University Distinguished Professor and Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State
University. He is often called "the father of environmental ethics" as an academic discipline and was
feature in "Fifty Key Thinkers on the Environment" (2001). He is author of numerous books including
"Philosophy Gone Wild" (1986), "Environmental Ethics" (1988), "Conserving Natural Value" (1997),
and "Genes, Genesis and God" (1999). He is past president of the International Society for
Environmental Ethics], “Environmental Ethics: An Anthology (Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies)”,
Page 267: Chapter 20: The Deep Ecological Movement: Some Philosophical Aspects by Arne Naess
[Norweigan philosopher and founder of deep ecology and ecosophy], Published by Wiley-Blackwell,
August 23, 2002, ISBN-10: 0631222944, ISBN-13: 978-0631222941
B. Resources
Shallow Approach: The emphasis is upon re- sources for humans, especially for the present generation
in affluent societies. In this view, the resources of the earth belong to those who have the technology to
exploit them. There is confidence that resources will not be depleted because, as they get rarer, a high
market price will conserve them, and substitutes will be found through techno- logical progress. Further,
plants, animals, and nat- ural objects are valuable only as resources for humans. If no human use is
known, or seems likely ever to be found, it does not matter if they are destroyed.
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Deep Ecology AFF

D. Impact

This shallow ecology threatens every ecosystem on Earth and our extinction
Bill Devall [professor of sociology at Humboldt State University. Guest lecturer and featured speaker at
universities in the United States and Australia and at national and international environmental
conferences] & George Sessions [professor of philosophy at Sierra College, Rocklin, California],
“Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered”, CHAPTER 6: SOME SOURCES OF THE DEEP
ECOLOGY PERSPECTIVE, page 127, Published by Gibbs Smith, January 19, 2001, ISBN-10:
0879052473, ISBN-13: 978-0879052478, italics in original
Protection of wilderness and near-wilderness is imperative. While primal peoples lived in sustainable
communities for tens of thousands of years without impairing the viability of ecosystems, modern technocratic-
industrial society threatens every ecosystem on Earth and may even be threatening to drastically change
the pattern of weather in the biosphere as a whole.
Technocratic-industrial society is moving into areas of the planet never inhabited by humans before,
including the oceans and the Antarc- tic continent. Tropical rain forests in Asia, Africa, South and
Central America, Oceania and Australia are under attack by an unprecedented array of technology and
plans for exploitation and development.28 Tropical rain forests contain the greatest biological diversity
of any type of ecosystem on Earth. The Eleventh Annual Environmental Report to the President (1980)
concluded:
A most serious threat to the biosphere is the rapid disappearance of tropical forests. In many tropical
forests, the soils, terrain, tempera- ture, patterns of rainfall, and distribution of nutrients are in
precarious balance. When these forests are disturbed by extensive cutting, neither trees nor productive
grasses will grow again. Even where conditions are more favorable to regrowth, extensive clearance
destroys the ecological diversity of tropical forests. These forests are habitat for the richest var- iety of
plant and animal species on earth.29
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Deep Ecology AFF

E. Alternative

The final section of the case is what philosophy we should have instead.
As shallow ecology has been identified to be the problem, we must replace it with an…

Alternative: Deep ecology. Rather than having consumerism drag us along, evaluate ecosystem
impacts and alternative action.
Andrew Light [Assistant professor of Environmental Philosophy at New York University, and Research
Fellow at the Institute for Environment, Philosophy, and Public Policy at Lancaster University, UK. He
has edited or co-edited thirteen books, including "Environmental Pragmatism" (1996), "Social Ecology
after Bookchin" (1999), and "Technology and the Good Life" (2000). He is also co-editor of the journal
"Philosophy and Geography" and President of the Society for Philosophy and Technology] & Holmes
Rolston III [University Distinguished Professor and Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State
University. He is often called "the father of environmental ethics" as an academic discipline and was
feature in "Fifty Key Thinkers on the Environment" (2001). He is author of numerous books including
"Philosophy Gone Wild" (1986), "Environmental Ethics" (1988), "Conserving Natural Value" (1997),
and "Genes, Genesis and God" (1999). He is past president of the International Society for
Environmental Ethics], “Environmental Ethics: An Anthology (Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies)”,
Page 267: Chapter 20: The Deep Ecological Movement: Some Philosophical Aspects by Arne Naess
[Norweigan philosopher and founder of deep ecology and ecosophy], Published by Wiley-Blackwell,
August 23, 2002, ISBN-10: 0631222944, ISBN-13: 978-0631222941
Deep Approach: The concern here is with re- sources and habitats for all life-forms for their own sake.
No natural object is conceived of solely as a resource. This leads, then, to a critical evaluation of human
modes of production and consumption. The question arises: to what extent does an in- crease in
production and consumption foster ul- timate human values? To what extent does it satisfy vital needs,
locally or globally? How can economic, legal and educational institutions be changed to counteract
destructive increases? How can resource use serve the quality of life rather than the economic standard
of living as generally promoted by consumerism? From a deep perspec- tive, there is an emphasis upon
an ecosystem approach rather than the consideration merely of isolated life-forms or local situations.
There is a long-range maximal perspective of time and place.
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Deep Ecology AFF

F. Application

Now that a mindset-problem has been identified and an alternative that avoids these problems has been
presented, we have to identify the Application for the affirmative case.

By casting an affirmative ballot, you are upholding the mindset and practices of deep ecology and
influencing real people, not a hypothetical governmental-scenario. This application via AFF ballot and
subsequent influence of people solves for the case – by changing people’s mindsets we can change
government (and since this is on an internet venue we get at least quadruple the effect).
The ballot is key.

However, a vote for the way things are would be a vote for shallow ecology’s mindset and practices,
thereby legitimizing the inevitable destruction in the status quo. Lacking the proper influence, people go
away unaffected and complacent – leaving the current system untouched by leaving their former
mindsets wholly intact and unaffected.

In this situation, the ballot is key – voting affirmative has real-world impact in the positive direction,
influencing everyone to be Resolved: That the United States Federal Government should
significantly reform its environmental policy.