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Obama will win now but it’s close and could reverse

Burns and Schultheis 9/19 Alexander and Emily are writers for Politico. “Mitt Romney needs poll vault to win,” 2012, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81392.html

Mitt Romney faces an increasingly daunting path to victory in the 2012 presidential race,

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saying the country is on the right track and the economy is improving.

Wind PTC unpopular – framed as fiscally irresponsible

Silverstein 8/22 Ken is a contributor to Forbes. “Wind Energy Generating A Lot of Mud,” 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2012/08/22/wind-energy-generating-a-lot-of-mud/

The presidential candidates are sure slinging a lot of mud. But that dirt is

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begin generating when the wind dies down, making it expensive to operate.

Romney decks US-Russia Relations – threatens global insecurity, prolif, and extinction

Felton 12 Emmanuel Felton is a Toni Stable Fellow at the Columbia School of Journalism. "Mitt Romney Russia Quotes Signal Big Problems For Future US-Russian Relations," March, http://www.policymic.com/articles/6202/mitt-romney-russia-quotes-signal-big-problems-for-future-us-russian-relations

The importance of America’s alliance with Russia is highlighted by the very context of Obama

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, global security will continue to be undermined by an increasingly hostile Kremlin.

US-Russia relations key to solve extinction

Allison 11 (Graham, 10/30, Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, “10 reasons why Russia still matters,” http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=161EF282-72F9-4D48-8B9C-C5B3396CA0E6)

That central point is that Russia matters a great deal to a U.S

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Tehran to joining China in preventing U.N. Security Council resolutions.

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Incentives cause government dependence and undermines incentives for innovation

Loris 11 Nicolas Loris is an analyst in the Heritage Foundation’s Roe Institute of Economic Policy Studies. "Power Down the Subsidies to Energy Producers" Aug 3  www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2011/08/power-down-the-subsidies-to-energy-producers

America has an energy addiction - and it’s not an addiction to oil, as

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companies that seek handouts most strenuously are those that cannot compete without them.

Solves great power war

Baru 9 Sanjaya is a Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School in Singapore Geopolitical Implications of the Current Global Financial Crisis, Strategic Analysis, Volume 33, Issue 2 March 2009 , pages 163 – 168

Hence, economic policies and performance do have strategic consequences.2 In the modern

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to find adequate financial resources to simultaneously sustain economic growth and military power. 

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Targeting specific industries and technology fails-~--cap and trade is key to market-based solutions that solve the case better

Morris et al 12 Adele C. Morris, Fellow and Deputy Director of the. Climate and Energy Economics project at Brookings,  Pietro S. Nivola, Charles Schultze, Brookings Scholars, "CLEAN ENERGY:REVISITING THE CHALLENGES OF INDUSTRIAL POLICY" June 4 www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2012/6/04%20clean%20energy%20morris%20nivola%20schultze/04_clean_energy_morris_nivola_schultze.pdf

Public investments of these magnitudes, targeted at specific industries, arguably constitute an industrial

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market prices that many clean energy subsidies will succeed in deploying new technologies.

Subsidy and incentive elimination levels the playing field-~--allows a free market approach to energy policy

WSJ 12 "The Energy Subsidy Tally" Aug 18 lexis

So for every tax dollar that goes to coal, oil and natural gas,

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would save $37 billion. That's an energy plan that makes sense.

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Thus, Chris and I endorse an interrogation and analysis of the historical paradigm of Settlerism that undergirds energy production in the United States, via a negation of the resolution

Water use is on the brink

Gleick et al. 12

Peter H. Gleick, President and Co-Founder of the Pacific Institute in the United States, 6/19/12, “A Twenty-First Century U.S. Water Policy,” pg. 9

The relative abundance or scarcity of water is of general interest to hydrologists and other

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Freshwater Ecosystems, for a description of the decommissioning of the Elwha Dam).

Energy production uses vast amounts of water

Hussey and Pittock 12

Karen Hussey, Senior Lecturer in the Fenner School of Environment and Society at The Australian National University, and Jamie Pittock, Program Leader in Australia and United States–Climate, Energy and Water at the US Studies Centre, 3/29/12, “The Energy–Water Nexus: Managing the Links between Energy and Water for a Sustainable Future,” Ecology and Society 17(1): 31

It is when water and energy rely on each other that the most complex challenges

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/07, see Kenway et al. 2008, p. vi).

Energy production harms natives water rights

Berry 12

Kate A. Berry, Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Nevada, Reno, writing in a book by Peter H. Gleick, President and Co-Founder of the Pacific Institute in the United States, 6/19/12, “A Twenty-First Century U.S. Water Policy,” pg. 95

There are strong and growing links between water and energy challenges in Indian Country.

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the nationwide average of 1.2 percent (National Wildlife Federation 2010).

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You should prioritize questions of epistemology-~--in the context of economics the knowledge-production process is more important than the outcomes

Anderson 89 Thomas, Libertarian Alliance, "Economics and Knowledge" Economic Notes No. 21 www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/econn/econn021.pdf

Before there can be a substantial or meaningful advance of knowledge in any discipline,

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remember to trace back, isolate, present and check your fundamental premises.

The affirmative forecloses the ability of markets and human ingenuity to solve the impacts they invoke-~--fatal conceit in the context of energy policy makes their impacts inevitable and cause policy failure

Robinson 8 Colin, Institute of Economic Affairs “Climate Change Policy: Challenging the Activists,” http://www.iea.org.uk/files/upld-book440pdf?.pdf

There is, however, more to the apocalyptic forecast than that because it always

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years, they were still lower in real terms than in 1980.3

This is an a priori voting issue-~--sound economic epistemology is key to the efficacy of all social and political praxes-~--accesses every impact

Reisman 96 George, Pepperdine University Professor Emeritus of Economics, Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics, http://www.capitalism.net/Capitalism/Economics%20and%20Capitalism.htm

In the absence of a widespread, serious understanding of the principles of economics,

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be unable to survive in the absence of Western food and medical supplies.

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The aff ignores the prior question of Native American colonization. Where are we? How did we get here? What right does our government have to exist? They fail to come to terms with a basic material fact: we are colonial occupiers of stolen land.  Failure to address these questions means that their politics of liberation will fail.

Churchill, 03 (Ward, Acts of Rebellion: The Ward Churchill Reader, “I am Indigenist: Notes on the Ideology of the Fourth World”).

Leaving aside questions concerning the validity of various treaties, the beginning point for any

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for attainment of everyone seriously committed to accomplishing positive change in North America.

Their project is destroyed by the failure to address colonial violence.  No state can both wage a racist war within its borders and claim to engage in politics of liberation.  Moreover, they will make things WORSE because the continued failure of progressivism will result in a public disenchanted with the very notion of fundamental change.

Churchill, 03  (Acts of Rebellion: The Ward Churchill Reader.  THE NEW FACE OF LIBERATION:

Indigenous Rebellion, State Repression, and the Reality of the Fourth World).

It’s time to stop fantasizing and confront what this consummation might look like. To

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question, then, comes down to where to look for a replacement.

Given the aff's negligence, our alternative is to prioritize land return. This must come before engaging the aff, which abandons material questions in favor of theoretical gestures that only serve to comfort colonial oppressors.

Churchill, 03 (Ward, Acts of Rebellion: The Ward Churchill Reader, “I am Indigenist: Notes on the Ideology of the Fourth World”).

Not only is it perfectly reasonable to assert that a restoration of native control over

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make themselves part of the problem rather than becoming part of the solution.

Absent the alternative extinction is inevitable—preventing the formation of the state and colonization of North America is vital to change the way humans relate to each other.

Churchill, 03 (Ward, Acts of Rebellion: The Ward Churchill Reader, “Radioactive Colonization”).

It is worth observing that the ensuing decolonization of Native North America would offer benefits

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goes around, comes around, ” as Charlie Manson liked to say).  

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First, a limited topic of discussion that provides for equitable ground is key to productive inculcation of decision-making and advocacy skills in every and all facets of life-~--even if their position is contestable that’s distinct from it being valuably debatable-~--this still provides room for flexibility, creativity, and innovation, but targets the discussion to avoid mere statements of fact-~--T debates also solve any possible turn

Steinberg and Freeley 8 *Austin J. Freeley is a Boston based attorney who focuses on criminal, personal injury and civil rights law, AND **David L. Steinberg , Lecturer of Communication Studies @ U Miami, Argumentation and Debate: Critical Thinking for Reasoned Decision Making pp45-

Debate is a means of settling differences, so there must be a difference of

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particular point of difference, which will be outlined in the following discussion.

Second, discussion of specific policy-questions is crucial for skills development-~--we control uniqueness: university students already have preconceived and ideological notions about how the world operates-~--government policy discussion is vital to force engagement with and resolution of competing perspectives to improve social outcomes, however those outcomes may be defined-~--and, it breaks out of traditional pedagogical frameworks by positing students as agents of decision-making

Esberg and Sagan 12 *Jane Esberg is special assistant to the director at New York University's Center on. International Cooperation. She was the winner of 2009 Firestone Medal, AND **Scott Sagan is a professor of political science and director of Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation “NEGOTIATING NONPROLIFERATION: Scholarship, Pedagogy, and Nuclear Weapons Policy,” 2/17 The Nonproliferation Review, 19:1, 95-108

These government or quasi-government think tank simulations often provide very similar lessons for

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quickly; simulations teach students how to contextualize and act on information.14

Third, switch-side is key-~--Effective deliberation is crucial to the activation of personal agency and is only possible in a switch-side debate format where debaters divorce themselves from ideology to engage in political contestation

Patricia Roberts-Miller 3 is Associate Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Texas "Fighting Without Hatred:Hannah Ar endt ' s Agonistic Rhetoric" JAC 22.2 2003

Totalitarianism and the Competitive Space of Agonism¶ Arendt is probably most famous for her

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not relativist, adversarial but not violent, independent but not expressivist rhetoric.

Key to social improvements in every and all facets of life

Steinberg and Freeley 8 *Austin J. Freeley is a Boston based attorney who focuses on criminal, personal injury and civil rights law, AND **David L. Steinberg , Lecturer of Communication Studies @ U Miami, Argumentation and Debate: Critical Thinking for Reasoned Decision Making pp9-10

If we assume it to be possible without recourse to violence to reach agreement on

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in our intelligent self-interest to reach these decisions through reasoned debate.

Only portable skill-~--means our framework turns case

Steinberg and Freeley 8 *Austin J. Freeley is a Boston based attorney who focuses on criminal, personal injury and civil rights law, AND **David L. Steinberg , Lecturer of Communication Studies @ U Miami, Argumentation and Debate: Critical Thinking for Reasoned Decision Making pp9-10

After several days of intense debate, first the United States House of Representatives and

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customer for out product, or a vote for our favored political candidate.

Effective deliberation is the lynchpin of solving all existential global problems

Christian O. Lundberg 10 Professor of Communications @ University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, “Tradition of Debate in North Carolina” in Navigating Opportunity: Policy Debate in the 21st Century By Allan D. Louden, p311

The second major problem with the critique that identifies a naivety in articulating debate and

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with the existential challenges to democracy [in an] increasingly complex world. 

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The US is nothing like past imperial nations – their comparisons are bankrupt

Victor Davis Hanson, Ph. D. in Classics, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a Professor Emeritus at California University, Fresno, “A Funny Sort of Empire: Are Americans really so imperial?” National Review Online, November 27, 2002, http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson112702.html,

It is popular now to talk of the American "empire." In Europe particularly

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to coax a reluctant populace, not constrain a blood-drunk rabble.

Endorsement of the West is necessary to keep the global economy running

BOOT 2006 (Max, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Weekly Standard, 4-10)

Mandelbaum also points to five economic benefits of American power. First, the United

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the United States "became the indispensable supplier of demand to the world."

Economic decline leads to global nuclear war

Green and Schrage 9 – Senior Advisor and Japan Chair @ CSIS and Associate Professor @ Georgetown University AND CSIS School Chair in International Business and Former Senior Official with the US Trade Representative’s Office (Michael J. and Steven P., “It’s not just the economy,” State Department and Ways and Means Committee, Asia Times, 3/26, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/asian_economy/kc26dk01.html)

Facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, analysts at the World Bank

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demonstration effect of liberal norms we are urging China to embrace at home.

Imperialism is critical to preventing wild-fire proliferation – status quo less dangerous than world of alternative

Stephen Peter Rosen, PhD from Harvard University in 1979 and is currently the Beton Michael Kaneb Professor of National Security and Military Affairs in the Department of Government, Harvard University, “An Empire, If you Can Keep It,” The National Interest, Spring 2003, LN Academic,

Rather than wrestle with such difficult and unpleasant problems, the United States could give

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is not at all clear that the alternatives are that much more attractive.

Prolif causes nuclear war

Martin Hellman 8, Prof Emeritus of Engineering @ Stanford, “Defusing the Nuclear Threat: A Necessary First Step,” http://www.nuclearrisk.org/statement.php

Nuclear deterrence has worked for over fifty years, while attempts at nuclear disarmament have

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equally important component of the risk, namely the failure rate of deterrence.

Their authors are coffeehouse hacks – they ignore the actions of the individuals outside the US

Victor Davis Hanson, Ph. D. in Classics, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a Professor Emeritus at California University, Fresno, “A Funny Sort of Empire: Are Americans really so imperial?” National Review Online, November 27, 2002, http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson112702.html,

Much, then, of what we read about the evil of American imperialism is

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critics are left with the same old empty jargon of legions and gunboats.

The alternative’s blanket rejection of US hegemony results in global genocide

Todd Gitlin, Writer for Mother Jones, an Investigative Activist  Organization,7/14/2003. "Goodbye, New World Order: Keep the Global Ideal  Alive,” http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/gitlin/2003/07/we_478_01.html

The point is that this would be a terrible time to give up on internationalism

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international law with enforcers; not empire, but human rights with guns.

Every credible measure of study shows violence is down because of everything consistent with the aff-~--heg, democracy, liberal trade-~--it’s only a question of sustaining current dynamics and preventing shocks to the system

Pinker 11 Steven Pinker is Professor of psychology at Harvard University "Violence Vanquished" Sept 24 online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904106704576583203589408180.html

On the day this article appears, you will read about a shocking act of

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that the Long Peace and rights revolutions coincided with the electronic global village.

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No impact-~--mitigation and adaptation will solve-~--no tipping point or “1% risk” args

Robert O. Mendelsohn 9, the Edwin Weyerhaeuser Davis Professor, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, June 2009, “Climate Change and Economic Growth,” online: http://www.growthcommission.org/storage/cgdev/documents/gcwp060web.pdf

The heart of the debate about climate change comes from a number of warnings from

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range climate risks. What is needed are long‐run balanced responses.

Tech and adaptive advances prevent all climate impacts-~--warming won’t cause war

Dr. S. Fred Singer et al 11, Research Fellow at The Independent Institute, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, President of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Member of the International Academy of Astronautics; Robert M. Carter, Research Professor at James Cook University (Queensland) and the University of Adelaide (South Australia), palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist and environmental scientist with more than thirty years professional experience; and Craig D. Idso, founder and chairman of the board of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Geophysical Union, American Meteorological Society, Arizona-Nevada Academy of Sciences, and Association of American Geographers, et al, 2011, “Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report,” online: http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2011/pdf/FrontMatter.pdf

Decades-long empirical trends of climate-sensitive measures of human well-being

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warming has coincided with periods of peace, prosperity, and social stability.

Warming will be slow, there’s no impact, and adaptation solves

William Yeatman 9, Energy Policy Analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, February 3, 2009, “Global Warming 101: Science,” online: http://www.globalwarming.org/2009/02/03/global-warming-101-science/

A “planetary emergency—a crisis that threatens the survival of our civilization and

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is not the civilization-ending catastrophe Al Gore purports it to be.

No warming-~--temperatures are trending down and negative feedbacks solve any impact

Fritz Vahrenholt 12, Honorary Professor of chemistry at the University of Hamburg, former Umweltsenator in the German Ministry for Environment, Scientific Reviewer for the 2010 IPCC, February 8, 2012, interviewed by Welt Online, a German newspaper, online: http://thegwpf.org/international-news/4932-the-cold-sun-why-the-climate-catastrophe-wont-happen.html

Welt Online: Will it become even colder soon?¶ Vahrenholt: First of all

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waterless planet like Venus a long time ago in our long geological history.

Too many challenges to renewable development – tribal dynamics and bureaucratic inefficiency preclude solvency

CNS, 9/7/11, Courthouse News Service, “In a Quest for Renewable Energy, Tribes Try to Catch the Wind”, *Osborn is President of Disgen – a Colorado based company, http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/09/07/39577.htm

Other Challenges¶ Frustrated by the way things stand with the utility, Osborn said

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a goal worth pursuing until I'm dead. That's the promise I've made."

Can’t solve – natives won’t accept renewable development

Crystal D. Masterson, 2010, Third-year student, University of Oklahoma College of Law, “COMMENT: WIND-ENERGY VENTURES IN INDIAN COUNTRY: FASHIONING A FUNCTIONAL PARADIGM”, American Indian Law Review, Lexis

The Native Americans' relationship with nature presents a further obstacle to siting wind projects on

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those relating to operation include aesthetics, noise, and avian mortality. n166