Crowe-Washington Aff

Contention 1: The Status Quo

It’s been 45 years since Dr. King visited the mountaintop but we still live in a society where whole communities are rendered irrelevant. It’s time to change that. We have no illusions of grandeur regarding our ability to change federal policy, but what we can do, is debate. We’re here to bring those oppressed that are traditionally kept in the backroom of the debate space to its center. 

In the context of this year’s topic, that means energy justice.

Amongst our discussions of SMRs and the Agenda disad, it’s easy to forget that “Green” isn’t the only color relevant to the modern energy system. Black and brown communities are on the front lines of a war with the planet. Our discussions about the environment and energy incentives take place against a backdrop of structural racism that is seldom acknowledged.

Wiley 6
(Maya Wiley, Director of the Center for Social Inclusion, Summer 2006, “Overcoming Structural Racism,” Race, Poverty, and the Environment, Vol. 13, No. 1, online: http://www.urbanhabitat.org/node/504, accessed July 12, 2008)
Last winter, the ground never froze in Brooklyn, New York. In January
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social safety net for our most vulnerable communities and rein in corporate prerogative.

This is especially true in the context of alternative energy incentives:

Poor communities of color are being systematically excluded from this new wave of renewable energy perpetuating oppressive disparities
Anderson 12
Elsie Harper-Anderson, L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, Virginia Commonwealth University
(“Exploring What Greening the Economy Means for African American Workers, Entrepreneurs, and Communities”, May 2012, http://edq.sagepub.com/content/26/2/162)
Unfortunately, many of the neediest people and communities (particularly African Americans) are
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also lessens the likelihood that Black workers will be hired in green jobs.

This isn’t a problem restricted to the urban poor-all burdened by injustice uniquely. Thus, change must be manifested in different ways within these contexts to meet specific goals. 

Kirk 97
Schloar/Activist. chaired the women’s studies program at Antioch College (1992-95) and has taught courses in women’s studies, environmental studies, political science, and sociology at a range of academic institutions, including Rutgers, the University of Oregon, University of San Francisco, Colorado College, Hamilton College, and Mills College.
(“Ecofeminism and Environmental Justice: Bridges across Gender, Race, and Class”, 1997, http://people.reed.edu/~ahm/Courses/Reed-POL-372-2011-S3_IEP/Syllabus/EReadings/15.1/15.1.Kirk1997Ecofeminism.pdf)
The people most affected by poor physical environments in the United States are women and
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is a fruitful area for building alliances between ecofeminists and environmental justice activists.

These disparities called us to investigate how society has historically gone about social change:

Change is organic, and movements are ecological. They encompass various actors, interests, and methods all of which work towards a common goal. A constant threat to this delicate ecosystem is the lack of attention to the role of privilege and experiential understanding play in understandings of structural and material realities. 

For example, movements not based on race have tended to sidestep the issue through either tokenization or outright exclusion, resulting in the destruction of communities of color under the guise of overall progress. This false neutrality not only divides movements, but it stops true progress by preventing us from challenging the most pervasive systems of oppression
Olson 11
Joel, Founder Bring the Ruckus, associate professor of political theory at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff and a social justice activist.
(“Whiteness and the 99%”, 2011 http://bringtheruckus.org/files/OWS_Whiteness.pdf”)
The white democracy exists today. Take any social indicator—rates for college graduation
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at the path to a free society like a troll at the bridge.

Additionally, modern political debates usually frame energy in terms of the interest of either the polar bears or the profiteers. However, we think it’s time for these deliberations to take into account the plight of the poor. The unjust nature of the modern fuel system has created a vicious cycle of energy poverty. Households are faced with the prospect of “heat or eat” as they are denied equitable access to affordable, efficient energy.
Murphy, No Date
Pastor, Cross demoninational organizer, and Recent Recipient of the Sierra Club’s Distinguished  Special Service Award
(Reverend Robert F., “GOD’S  CURRENCY:  ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE” EJ Conference, http://www.ejconference.net/images/Murphy.pdf)
In the midst of this energy revolution - or perhaps there are two or three
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Will the poor be sacrificed  in order to help “save the earth”?

Poverty kills 232 million a year and neither the law nor politics is neutral-They have been a weapon of the elite. The system is waging a war on the poor everyday and the casualties far surpass those on any “conventional” battlefield
Abu-Jamal 98
(Mumia, Political Activist, “A Quiet and Deadly Violence”, September 19, http://www.angelfire.com/az /catchphraze/mumiaswords.html)
It has often been observed that America is a truly violent nation, as shown
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away, so that their great and terrible violence passes away with them.

Justice must be our overriding imperative-All communities are interconnected, beyond just constructed boundaries. Damage in one sows seeds of destruction in another. In return, we reap wars, environmental destruction, and inevitable extinction. Intellectual and political expediency is flypaper to progress. Making energy justice our intellectual strategy is key to incorporating these communities into decision making while laying the foundation for a sustainable politics
Bryant 95
(Bunyan Bryant, Professor in the School of Natural Resources and Environment, and an adjunct professor in the Center for Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Michigan, 1995, Environmental Justice: Issues, Policies, and Solutions, p. 209-212)
Although the post-World War II economy was designed when environmental consideration was not
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the highest magnitude; it requires development of an international tax, levied through
the United nations or some other international body, so that the world community can
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the production cycle, we should at least have that as a goal.
 
Contention 2: Energy Justice and You

Our role as academics is to prioritize questions of environmental justice in the debate space. Not only is this key to solve, but also to understand the foundations that create the need for new energy and environmental policies. Our method lays the groundwork for political action anemic to injustice. It’s time to bring the movement to the classroom
Rodriguez 6
Ph.D., Social Science Prof @ The University of Puerto Rico
(Jose, RE-VALUING NATURE:ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE PEDAGOGY,ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ECOCRITiCISM ANDTHE TEXTUAL ECONOMIES OF NATURE”, 2006, )
For various educators, the act of teaching environmental justiceshould not stray the field from
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and challenge environmental inequalities while proposingalternatives that promote justice, equality and democracy.

Equitable solutions regarding energy production require making justice our first priority. Placing disadvantaged communities at the center of our decision-making ensures the inevitable transition to renewables is a mechanism for emancipatory change and community empowerment. The alternative is the solidification of exclusionary distributional systems and the growth of newer forms of violence
Abramsky 10
Abramsky (visiting fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Science, Technology and Society; fmr. coordinator of the Danish based World Wind Energy Institute) 10
(Koyla, SPARKING AN ENERGY REVOLUTION Building New Relations of Production, Exchange, and Livelihood in Sparking A Worldwide Energy Revolution, ed. Koyla Abramsky, pg. 642)
The global flows of knowledge, raw materials, money, and labor that shape
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And this can happen astonishingly fast if communities are given the appropriate tools.