Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase alternative energ[CONT]

Observation 1: The status quo A. The current shift to alternative energies renders biofuels inevitable Bennett 08 "The reason biofuels has a bright future...is the oil industry's future is not so bright. The bottom line is that biofuels are inevitable...They are a mainstream fuel that will fill the gap between fuel demand and petroleum supply." B. But Hemp is currently illegal in the US due to federal restrictions Martindale, 08 "Unfortunately, Federal anti-drug officials say that allowing such crops would create a slippery slope toward legalizing marijuana. Currently, the U.S. is the only developed nation that has not established hemp as a legal crop" C. The US uses a third of its corn for biofuels Bioenergy Buisness 08 "last year the US used a third of its maize (corn) crop for biofuels " D. Corn biofuels are raising food prices globally- Needs based off Eurocentrism are preceding all other world needs Brown 07 "This unprecedented diversion of the world's leading grain crop to the production of fuel will affect food prices everywhere. As the world corn price rises, so too do those of wheat and rice, both because of consumer substitution among grains and because the crops compete for land... The U.S. corn crop, accounting for 40 percent of the global harvest and supplying 70 percent of the world's corn exports, looms large in the world food economy...With corn supplies tightening fast, rising prices will affect not only products made directly from corn, such as breakfast cereals, but also those produced using corn...The grain it takes to fill a 25-gallon tank with ethanol just once will feed one person for a whole year. Converting the entire U.S. grain harvest to ethanol would satisfy only 16 percent of U.S. auto fuel needs Advantage 1: Eurocentrism A. The current Eurocentric alternative energy discourse is pushing the use of biofuels which are causing political instability, hunger, and failed humanitarian efforts worldwide CBC News 08 "Rising food prices cause political instability worldwide...the trend is likely to exacerbate both the incidence and depth of food insecurity worldwide. "The security implications [of the food crisis] should also not be underestimated as food riots are already being reported across the globe...unless the government is subsidizing consumers, consumers have no choice but to cut consumption. It's a very brutal scenario, but that's what it is." B. Eurocentrism naturalizes the exclusion and oppression of those in the third world causing poverty, hunger, dehumanization, and makes extinction inevitable Lander 06 "The perspective of Eurocentric knowledge is the central aids of a discourse that not only naturalizes but renders inevitable the increasingly intense polarization between a privileged minority and the worlds' excluded, oppressed majorities. Eurocentric knowledge also lies at the center of a predatory model of civilization that threatens to destroy the conditions that make life possible on Earth. " C. Hunger outweighs extinction LaFollette, 2003 "to survive on lifeboat earth, knowing that others were tossed overboard into the sea of starvation, would signify an indignity and callousness worse than extinction " D. Poverty Outweighs Nuclear War Gilligan 00 "even a hypothetical nuclear exchange...cannot begin to compare with structural violence, which continues year after year...every fifteen years, on the average, as many people die because of relative poverty as would be killed in a nuclear war" E. Dehumanization outweighs extinction- It makes violence against those that are not Eurocentic the norm Maiese 03 "Dehumanization is a psychological process whereby opponents view each other as less than human and thus not deserving of moral consideration. Jews in the eyes of Nazis and Tutsis in the eyes of Hutus (in the Rwandan genocide) are but two examples...Eventually, this can result in moral exclusion. Those excluded are typically viewed as inferior, evil, or criminal. We typically think that all people have some basic human rights that should not be violated. Innocent people should not be murdered, raped, or tortured...for individuals viewed as outside the scope of morality and justice, "the concepts of deserving basic needs and fair treatment do not apply and can seem irrelevant." Any harm that befalls such individuals seems warranted, and perhaps even morally justified...dehumanization makes the violation of generally accepted norms of behavior regarding one's fellow man seem reasonable, or even necessary." Advantage 2: Pakistan A. Rising food prices are causing political instability in Pakistan Gale 08 "Pakistan is affected by world food prices that have surged by about 83 percent in the past three years, provoking riots" B. The Taliban will potentially be the ruling party of Pakistan in 20 years Norman 08 "the Taliban found itself a better target of opportunity, Pakistan...This may mean tempering terrorist attacks and using more soft power to win the hearts and minds of the Pakistanis. In 20--30 years, it could be the ruling party of Pakistan." C. Allowing terrorist parties to rule threatens to create an Orwellian state that suppresses those living in states ran by terrorist parties Kellner 05 "Orwell envisaged a grim condition of total warfare in which his fictional state Oceania ruled its fearful and intimidated citizens through war, police state terror, surveillance, and the suppression of civil liberties. This constant warfare kept Oceania's citizens in a perpetual situation of mobilization and submission" Hence the plan: The United States federal government should substantially increase its incentives for alternative energy by removing the current DEA restrictions on the production of industrial hemp, capping cultivation of hemp to ï¿½ of existing farmland, and providing 100 percent tax refunds for the sale of hemp, to biofuel companies, grown the "soil bank"; eliminating existing laws dealing with the soil bank. We reserve the right to clarify. Solvency Gown 91 Hemp doesn't trade off with food production—uses empty lands while refertilizing for increased production. "we could grow enough hemp to replace our current use of both fossil fuels and trees on a portion of the "soil bank," the 90 million acres of farmland that the U.S. government pays farmers not to grow crops. Hemp does not deplete the soil of essential nutrients as many food crops do if grown repeatedly on the same lands. Leaves fall to the ground during the plant's entire growth cycle, fertilizing the soil. The deep shade of the tall plants chokes out weeds, and the deep root systems connect with water sources and loosen hard packed ground. Thus, hemp is a perfect tool for the reclamation of damaged, depleted, or marginal farmlands" Observation 4: Framework A. Interpretation: the aff should win if the plan is the best policy option in the debate. The neg should win if the plan is proven worse than the status quo or a policy option competitive with the plan. B. Standards 1) Ground –Forcing the aff to debate in whatever framework the neg picks moots eight minutes of our speech time. Because the K could literally be about anything, their so-called framework destroys aff ground because we can never predict what we'll have to compare our plan to. Even if there's some ground for us to respond to their arg, it's not good or predictable and losing the 1AC puts us at an inherent disadvantage. 2) Topic-specific education – only debates about the plan translate into education about the topic. There would be no reason to switch topics every year if not for plan-focus debate. K frameworks encourage ugenerics like the ‘state bad' K that are stale and uneducational. 3) Real-world implications- Every round we run this affirmative in we will be convincing judges that hemp should be a legal crop, that ties into the real world.