STEM Aff
Topshelf
Plan
The United States Federal Government should substantially increase funding and regulation
for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics programs in elementary and
secondary education in the United States including initiatives to hire more teachers of color
and non-male teachers
Inherency
Right now plan is not being done because Trump wants to devolve education and keep
climate change education out of schools
Nicole Gorman, 2016, How Will Donald Trump Impact STEM Education?, Education World, Education World Contributor, Nicole Gorman has a BA
in Journalism and Political Science from the University of Connecticut and has been a staff writer at several
publications,www.educationworld.com/a_news/how-will-donald-trump-impact-stem-education-667807267
It’s hard to tell, because Trump has spoken very little about education in general during his campaigning and has on
only a few occasions made mention of how committed he is to improving STEM education. Fortunately, The Scientific
American asked Donald Trump’s campaign several questions about how he views science, and one of those questions touched specifically on science
education in schools. The question reads: American students have fallen in many international rankings of science and math performance, and the
public in general is being faced with an expanding array of major policy challenges that are heavily influenced by complex science. How would your
administration work to ensure all students including women and minorities are prepared to address 21st century challenges and, further, that the public
has an adequate level of STEM literacy in an age dominated by complex science and technology? Trump’s campaign responded and gave
all indication that Trump will not be following in Obama’s footsteps and implementing federal STEM initiatives.
"Our top-down-one-size-fits-all approach to education is failing and is actually damaging educational outcomes for our children,” Trump’s
campaign said. "If we are serious about changing the direction of our educational standing, we must change our educational models and allow the
greatest possible number of options for educating our children. The
management of our public education institutions should be
done at the state and local level, not at the Department of Education.” While federal STEM initiatives seem
unlikely, one thing Trump is very likely to do is affect how climate change science is taught in schools. Trump
has made it clear that he falls in the camp of skeptics who believe more research needs to be done before climate
change can viewed as fact. "There is still much that needs to be investigated in the field of 'climate change,'" Trump's campaign said to the
Scientific American. This has angered many educators who cite 99 percent of the scientific community standing behind the fact that climate change is
happening and who want to make sure they have the resources and support to teach their students the right thing. " It is more than possible
that the sweeping Republican triumph at the national level may embolden local efforts to undermine the teaching
of evolution and climate change. These are worrying signs for science education,” writes National Center for Science Education (NCSE) Executive
Director Ann Reid.
Right now plan is not being done because Trump is cutting STEM education programs –
NASA education program proves
Loren Grush, March 17, 2017, Trump’s biggest budget cuts to NASA: ranked, The Verge, Loren Grush has a BA in broadcast Journalism from the
University of Texas at Austin and is a science reporter at The Verge and Assistant Editor at Popular Science,
://www.theverge.com/2017/3/17/14947444/trump-budget-plan-cuts-nasa-asteroid-mission-europa
This is the area that’s hit hardest by Trump’s budget request. In fact, NASA education, which received $115 million for fiscal year
2016, would be completely eliminated for fiscal year 2018. As its name implies, NASA education is responsible for
doing outreach to students and educators, in order get more people interested in entering science and
engineering. One way the education program makes that easier for the space agency is by having a central hub for
doing all of the centers’ educational activities. “One of the areas we focused in on was building a strong coordination office at NASA, so
each individual science mission and exploration mission didn’t have to figure out its own broader engagement strategy,” Kumar Garg, a former assistant
director at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, tells The Verge. NASA education also does a series of
investments in schools — ranging from the K–12 levels to undergraduate and graduate programs — through the National Space Grant and
Fellowship Program. The funds from this program are used to support schools and individuals, in order to prepare students for jobs in aerospace and
related industries. Education also runs NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Programs, or MUREP, which helps to strengthen minority
colleges and educational institutions, so that their students are prepared for STEM fields. NASA education is also
responsible for the much more fun and indirect educational outreach initiatives. Astronauts visiting classrooms?
That’s organized through NASA education. Fun space-related camps? Also done through the education program .
The president’s budget request calls for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate to pick up the responsibility of coordinating education outreach. But for
now, it’s unclear how the directorate will do that.
Right now plan is not being done because Trump is planning to cut STEM education – after
school STEM programming proves
STEM Next, March 31, 2017, Trump Administration’s Budget Would Devastate Afterschool STEM Learning Opportunities For Our Nation’s Youth,
STEM Next is a nonprofit run out of the University of San Diego Center for Education Policy and Law - it is staffed by scientists, academics, and public
relations professionals; sites.sandiego.edu/stemnext/trump-administrations-budget-devastate-afterschool-stem-learning-opportunities-nations-youth/
President Trump’s proposed budget cuts to afterschool programs would deny millions of American youth the
opportunity to engage in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) learning; inhibit the development of the nation’s future
scientists, engineers, inventors, and business leaders; and cut young people off from building the skills they need to advance in school, work, citizenship
and life. If enacted by Congress, the President’s budget would eliminate the 21st Century Community Learning Centers
program, the single largest source of funding for afterschool and summer programs that enroll 1.6 million
students across rural, urban and suburban communities in all 50 states. Afterschool and summer programs
provide essential learning opportunities for young people. This is particularly true when it comes to STEM learning – a national
priority. And afterschool programs have the support of an overwhelming number of Americans: a recent Quinnipiac poll found 83% are opposed to cuts
in afterschool funding. The Administration has said there is no evidence that these programs are effective. That is simply not true. Research shows that
students participating in afterschool programs increase their grades and academic achievement. Earlier this month, STEM Next launched STEM Ready
America: Inspiring and Preparing Students for Success with Afterschool and Summer Learning, featuring new research that found students participating
in STEM-focused afterschool programs report increased interest in STEM careers and gains in high-demand skills such as critical thinking and
perseverance. This research was the latest in a growing body of evidence. For example, research by Dr. Deborah Vandell of UC Irvine and colleagues
found that students who regularly participate in afterschool programs achieved gains in math and other academic subjects, improved their work habits,
and had better school day attendance. Because math proficiency is the gateway to post-secondary STEM majors, closing the achievement gap in math
is essential to expanding the pipeline of future STEM leaders. In 2015, the National Academy of Sciences Board of Science Education released
a report noting that out-of-school STEM programs are well suited to building interest in STEM and identity as a STEM learner, reinforcing a similar point
made by the President’s Advisory Council on Science and Technology in its 2010 report to the President. Eliminating the 21st Century Community
Learning Centers program is out of step with the actions America’s business, civic, philanthropic, education and community leaders are taking to
improve STEM education. Many of these leaders have come together through the STEM Learning Ecosystems initiative, which supports dynamic
collaborations to ensure all young people have opportunities to gain STEM skills and realize their potential. Major corporations are leading partners in
STEM learning ecosystems across the country, recognizing the importance of STEM education to workforce and economic development. States across
the country also understand the vital role afterschool STEM plays in education and workforce development. We can look to Indiana and Nebraska for
example, two states central to revitalizing the STEM manufacturing sector. Leaders in these states authored articles in STEM Ready
America highlighting how they are infusing high quality STEM into afterschool programs to ensure that young people are engaged, prepared and ready
for the STEM-centric future. The President’s proposal would be particularly devastating to low-income children of color
and girls who already face barriers to pursuing STEM careers. For example, the wealthiest 20% of families devote almost seven
times the resources to their children’s enrichment activities outside school than do the poorest 20%, leading to a significant learning and opportunity gap,
resulting in a 4,000-hour deficit between middle class and low-income children in afterschool and summer learning by the time they reach sixth grade.
Economic Growth Advantage
Uniqueness: In the status quo, long term economic growth is unlikely
In the status quo, long term economic growth is unlikely. The labor force is growing too slowly
Isabel V. Sawhill and Eleanor Krause, Tuesday, December 20, 2016, The Trump administration’s claim it can double long-term GDP growth is
unrealistic, Brookings Institute, Isabel V. Sawhill is a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution - received her Ph.D. from New York
University, Eleanor Krause is a Research Assistant at the Brookings Institution and has a MA in Public Administration from the University of
Washington,https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-trump-administrations-claim-it-can-double-long-term-gdp-growth-is-unrealistic/
To be sure, we might well see strong growth in the very short run before the economy hits its ceiling and inflation
resurfaces. But as an estimate of the economy’s longer run potential, extending out over a decade, a growth rate
of 3.5 or 4 percent is fanciful. Here’s why. Labor force growth is slowing to a crawl. The population is aging, the
dramatic advance of women into the labor market is waning, and male participation has been declining for
decades. We will be lucky if the labor force grows by 0.5 percent a year. That means labor productivity growth would have to
grow by 3 percent a year. Over the past decade, it grew by just over 1 percent. So the Trump administration seems to be assuming that they can more
than double productivity growth. For these reasons, no serious forecaster is projecting a growth rate in this range, as shown in the
chart below. And each new forecast is lower than the last, as our official economy-watchers reflect recent experience in their estimates.
In the status quo, long term economic growth is unlikely. We cannot expect the historical average to
continue into the future
Jeff Hybiak, August 6, 2016, Broken Model, SEM Trader's Blog, CFA® is the Sr. Portfolio Manager & Chief Operating Officer at SEM Wealth
Management, Jeff Hybiak has a BS in Business and Finance from the University of Colorado as well as the highest level of Chartered Financial Analyst
cedentials,https://www.semtradersblog.com/single-post/2016/08/06/Broken-Model
I like to say, "sooner or later the Fundamentals will matter." What I mean is over the very long-term, stocks will reflect the growth
rate of earnings, which can only grow in conjunction with a growing economy. So that leads us to the key question -- what growth rate should
we expect for the economy? The constant decline in the long-term growth rate should tell most rationale
economists that we cannot expect the economy to grow at the long-term average unless we see significant developments
that can increase our productivity and thus our economic output. For some reason, the Fed and most economists continue to use
the long-term average of 3.2% as their target. Our study this week shows that it is highly likely the best long-term growth
we can expect going forward is somewhere between the current "Potential GDP" (Growth in Productivity + Growth in Labor Force) around
2.5% or the 30 year long-term growth average of 2.7%. Given the declining labor force and our heavy debt load, it is also
possible we see long-term growth fall to 1.6%, which is the 10 year average GDP growth rate. Looking at the Potential GDP
based on the past 10 years, our GDP growth could fall to Japan-like 1% levels.
In the status quo, long term economic growth is unlikely. There aren’t enough technological
innovations to drive future growth.
Cowen 2011
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/01/the-great-stagnation-excerpt.html
I’m also persuaded by the median income numbers because they are supported by related measurements of other magnitudes. For example, another
way to study economic growth is to look not at median income but at national income, gdp, or gross domestic product, the total
production of goods and services. Charles I. Jones, an economist at Stanford University, has “disassembled” American economic growth
into component parts, such as increases in capital investment, increases in work hours, increases in research and development, and other factors.
Looking at 1950–1993, he found that 80 percent of the growth from that period came from the application of
previously discovered ideas, combined with heavy additional investment in education and research, in a manner that
cannot be easily repeated for the future. In other words, we’ve been riding off the past. Even more worryingly, he finds that now
that we are done exhausting this accumulated stock of benefits, we are discovering new ideas at a speed that will
drive a future growth rate of less than one-third of a percent (that’s a rough estimate, not an exact one, but it is consistent with the
basic message here). It could be worse yet if the idea-generating countries continue to lose population , as we are seeing in
Western Europe and Japan.
Link: The plan will cause an improvement in students’ educational outcomes
More teachers of color will improve educational outcomes for students of color
Breen, et al. 2015
https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/172504/Bear_Breen_Minster_Sanchez_Schlueter%20Minnesota%E2%80%99s%20Teachers%20of%20Color.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
A literature review by Villegas and Irvine (2010) reports that the research examined “suggests that students of
color accrue academic benefits when taught by a same-race teacher or when exposed to a teaching force (at the
school or district level) that is racially/ethnically representative of the student population.” Outcomes of success
identified across research were test scores, high school completion rates, college matriculation rates, school
attendance, and enrollment in academically rigorous classes.
Integrated STEM programs taught by teachers of color improve student learning
Minnesota Compass
http://www.mncompass.org/education/stem/assets/make-connections-build-foundations-tab-best-practices.php
Although research on the effects of integrated STEM education on student outcomes is at an early stage, there is evidence of beneficial effects on
student learning. Two studies have synthesized existing research on the effects of integrated STEM K-16 teaching approaches using meta-analysis–
one involving 28 studies of STEM integration (1) and the other involving 31 studies of science-math integration (2). Overall, both studies found
that STEM or science-math integration approaches increased student learning compared to traditional non-integrated
approaches. One study found that the benefits of STEM integration are largest in elementary school and smallest in college, with middle school/high
school being in the middle. The study of science-math integration did not report a clear pattern by grade level. Both studies found that integration was
more beneficial for science learning than for math learning. The science-math integration study examined the relative efficacy of different levels/types of
integration: sequenced, parallel (taught separately and simultaneously using parallel concepts), partial (taught partially together and partially separate),
enhanced (one subject is the major discipline with the other included in instruction), and total (subjects are taught together in intended equality). The
"total" method was found to be most effective for student learning (especially for science), and the parallel method was found to be least effective. In
sum, the integration of STEM subjects generally benefits student learning , with the benefits being larger or smaller depending on
the subject and the method of integration, and with some suggestion that benefits are larger at lower grade levels. Teacher
preparation and professional development Excellence in teaching STEM requires deep content knowledge, a strong grasp of how children learn, and
mastery of the teaching skills needed to help students meet proficiency standards in STEM subject areas. Major changes are needed in preparing
teachers to provide instruction in science in grades K-8. These changes are described in the following passage from Taking science to school: Learning
and teaching science in grades K-8: Professional development is key to supporting effective science instruction. We call for a dramatic departure from
current professional development practice, both in scope and kind. Teachers need opportunities to deepen their knowledge of the science content of the
K-8 curriculum. They also need opportunities to learn how students learn science and how to teach it. They need to know how children's understanding
of core ideas in science builds across K-8, not just at a given grade or grade band. They need to learn about the conceptual ideas that students have in
the earliest grades and their ideas about science itself. They need to learn how to assess children's developing ideas over time and how to interpret and
respond (instructionally) to the results of assessment. In sum, teachers need  opportunities to learn how to teach science as an integrated body of
knowledge and practice—to teach for scientific proficiency. They need to learn how to teach science to diverse student populations, to provide
adequate opportunities for all students to learn science. These needs represent a significant change from what virtually all active teachers learned in
college and what most colleges teach aspiring teachers today (3). Teacher preparation K-8 teachers need deeper content knowledge in the STEM
subjects they teach. This requires more coursework in college-level science and math outside of the department of education than typically occurs
currently in teacher preparation programs. The science courses should include engineering and technology content. Greater opportunities to learn the
teaching skills to teach STEM subjects effectively are also needed for K-8 teachers, including skills in helping underrepresented groups succeed in
STEM subjects. Methods or pedagogy courses should be connected to residencies or professional development schools to help teacher candidates
learn specific practices and tools they can apply in student teaching. Student teaching experiences should be carefully selected and supervised, well
matched to the context in which candidates will likely teach, and where good teaching skills are modeled. An example of a K-8 teacher preparation
initiative that contains these elements is the STEM Certificate required of all elementary education majors at St. Catherine's University. The certificate
requires that elementary education majors complete three courses: one engineering course, one chemistry course, and one biology course. They also
must complete a one-semester residency in an elementary school before student teaching in which they teach math, science, and social studies in an
integrated block. Research indicates that top-performing teachers can make a dramatic difference in student
achievement and suggests that assigning top-performing teachers to student groups currently underrepresented
in STEM fields could make a substantial difference in helping such students successfully prepare for STEM fields. However,
frequently low-income and minority students have less access to the best math and science teachers. It is also
important for teacher preparation programs to emphasize recruiting, supporting, and preparing aspiring teachers
of color and diverse backgrounds for K-8 teaching so that teacher demographics more closely match student
demographics.
Internal Link: Improving educational outcomes will cause long term economic
growth
Improving educational outcomes will cause long term economic growth. Human capital is the key
to increasing worker productivity
Wendy Dobson & Umar Boodoo, 2013,
Human Capital Formation and Growth: Microeconomic Dimensions, Wendy K. Dobson is Co-Director at the Rotman Institute for International Business
Professor of Economic Analysis and Policy- she holds a PhD, Princeton University SM, Harvard University, School of Public Health MPA, Harvard
University, Kennedy School of Government BScN, University of British Columbia; Muhammad Umar Boodoo is a Fellow in the Department of
Management at the London School of Economics - he completed his PhD in economics at the University of Toronto, www2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/Human%20Capital%20Formation%20and%20Growth%20Microeconomic%20Dimensions%20-%20Overview.pdf
At the country level Lucas’ (1988) earlier work and the seminal contributions of Paul Romer (1986, 1990, 1992) to the literature on endogenous
growth theory emphasized the importance of human capital formation in the growth process , that is, the use of
resources to educate and augment the productivity abilities of the labor force . These works developed the insights – which
today are taken for granted – that one of the reasons economies grow is because knowledge and skills development
become generally available. Growth results not just from a growing labor force but because of augmentation of
labor force quality and diversity. These insights imply that per capita incomes of different societies can diverge; that social investments
in human capital formation matter – and some societies may under-invest relative to what is necessary to sustain long-term growth. A third
implication is that while formal education is key to human capital accumulation , it must be appropriate, that is, supply skills that
people can use. Additional insights about how human capital can be viewed as one of the sources of growth come from North and Thomas (1973) who
noted that simply adding more educated people is growth, while the use made of education and the ways labor supplies are augmented is what causes
growth. An economy’s incentive structures influence whether it grows, stagnates or declines over time. An expanding labor force is an asset if workers
have incentives to be productive, but it is a potential burden if they do not. Thus economic growth is sustained by labor market
institutions that reward education, skills training and productive employment, and by financial institutions that facilitate such behavior.
Acemoglu and his colleagues (2005, 2012) argue the importance of inclusive (rather than extractive) institutions. Without inclusive institutions and fiscal
and social incentives, for example, educated people may apply their knowledge in the pursuit of rent seeking rather than in generating wealth.
Improving educational outcomes will cause long term economic growth. Improving human capital is
the key to developing the new technologies that will accelerate growth
S. Vijesandiran & T. Vinayagathasan, 2015,
Dynamic Relationship between Human Capital and Economic Growth in Sri Lanka: A Co-Integration Analysis, Asian Online Journals - Growth Vol 2 No 2
20-29, 2015, S. Vijesandiran & T. Vinayagathasan are both professors in the Department of Economics and Statistics, Faculty of Arts, University of
Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, http://www.asianonlinejournals.com/index.php/Growth/article/view/608
Despite there being many factors that affect the growth rate of an economy, human capital has been identified as
the most prominent factor in recent decades by researchers. Recent decades have seen an explosion in research, both
theoretical and empirical, that attempts to focus on the correlation between human capital and economic growth . Thus, it
is crucial that we review the related literature, if we are to understand the precise relationship between these two variables. This section briefly reviews
the relevant theoretical studies, and then goes on to discuss the findings of existing empirical studies that pertain to the human capital–economic growth
nexus. Growth, 2015, 2(2): 20-29 22 Theoretical studies identified a positive relationship between human capital and
economic growth (e.g., (Lucas, 1988; Mankiw et al., 1992; Bergheim, 2005; Maritra and Mukhopadhyay, 2012). Maritra and Mukhopadhyay (2012)
confirm that investing
on education and health accumulates human capital and leads to innovative technological
progress which increases productivity and thus accelerates the economic growth in the long run. Lucas
(1988) suggests that public
expenditure contributes positively to income growth in the short run.
Improving educational outcomes will cause long term economic growth. Both theory & data
confirm it, and the effects are massive
Woessmann 2014
www.eenee.de/dms/EENEE/Analytical_Reports/EENEE_AR20.pdf
The case for education can be made from many perspectives. This
report makes the economic case for education. Based on the
most recent empirical evidence, it shows the crucial role of education for individual and societal prosperity.
Education is a leading determinant of economic growth, employment, and earnings in modern knowledge-based
economies such as the European Union. Ignoring the economic dimension of education would therefore endanger the
prosperity of future generations, with widespread repercussions for poverty, social exclusion, and the financial
sustainability of social security systems. The available evidence warrants a strong focus of the EU policy agenda on the importance of
education, knowledge, and skills. From a theoretical perspective, education can be viewed as an investment into the
knowledge and skills of people. It equips people with the skills that make them more productive in performing their
work tasks and it conveys the knowledge and competencies that enable people to generate and adopt the new ideas that spur innovation and
technological progress. To the extent that this increases individual productivity, educated individuals will be able to earn higher wages and – in
societies with effective minimum wages – less likely to be unemployed. At the macroeconomic level, education can spur long-run economic growth by
increasing aggregate productivity through accumulated human capital and by helping to generate and diffuse innovations which bring technological
progess. Beyond the economic benefits in the narrow sense, education also offers nonproduction benefits such as increased work satisfaction, improved
health decisions, reduced crime, improved citizenship, and better parenting. Empirical evidence strongly supports these theoretical
considerations. At the country level, education is indeed one – if not the most – important determinant of economic
growth. If measured by the skills actually learned, the education of its population is very closely linked to a
nation’s long-run growth rate. An increase in educational achievement by 50 PISA points translates into 1
percentage point higher rates of economic growth in the long run. This means that if the European Union was
successful in improving average student achievement by the equivalent of 25 PISA points, the economic gain
would amount to an astounding €35 trillion. Put differently, this amount is the cost to the EU of not improving the quality of its school
systems.
Impact: Long Run Economic growth is a significant benefit
Long run economic growth is a significant benefit. Even small improvements can improve people’s
standard of living by increasing incomes. This is a high probability utilitarian impact.
Mester 2015
https://www.clevelandfed.org/newsroom-and-events/speeches/sp-20151015-long-run-economic-growth.aspx
like to focus on the important topic of long-run economic growth. I call it important because living
standards, as measured by income per person, are inextricably tied to long-run growth. Over time, even small
differences in growth can translate into large differences in average income per person. For example , based on
Census Bureau projections of population growth, if real GDP were to grow at 2.0 percent per year over the next 20 years,
instead of 2.5 percent, the difference in income at the end of that period would amount to about $7,000 per
person. As Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas wrote when contemplating the questions raised by cross-country differences in per capita GDP, “Once one
This afternoon I’d
starts to think about them, it is hard to think about anything else.”1
Long run economic growth is a significant benefit. It improves people’s standard of living by making
products much easier to access
Nye 2008
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/StandardsofLivingandModernEconomicGrowth.html
To see how much more an American worker can buy today, compare the number of hours he would have had to work to obtain various items in 1895
versus 2000 (Table 1). Whereas a one-hundred-piece china set would have taken 44 hours of labor income in 1895, a
twenty-first-century American would need to work 3.6 hours or less for it. The numbers are 28 versus 6 hours,
respectively, for a gold locket; and 260 versus 7.2 hours for a one-speed bicycle (taken from De Long 2000, based on prices
in the 1895 Montgomery Ward catalog). Comparing the prices charged in the Montgomery Ward catalog with prices today—both expressed as a multiple
of the average hourly wage—provides an index of how much our productivity in making the goods consumed back in 1895 has multiplied. The
productivity multiple for the Encyclopedia Britannica is vastly understated in the table because the Internet has made the encyclopedia far cheaper. A
banquet for the wealthy in the mid-1800s might have consisted of roast beef and chicken, ham, potatoes, fried
fish, heavy soups, different types of beans, and perhaps some cake. Today, this type of meal is consumed in the
Midwest’s all-you-can-eat restaurants for $8.99 a person, with special $2.00 discounts for senior citizens. The
only difference is that today’s meal has fresher fruits and vegetables, which, in the 1800s, could often not have
been obtained at any price out of season, as well as juice, both diet and non-diet soft drinks, and cake and ice
cream. Even these comparisons understate the increases in our well-being over the past century. The official
statistics do not reflect the enormous range of goods and services widely consumed today that were not
available at any price in earlier times. This is most obvious for medicine. Prior to antibiotics, the common cold or flu was not a
mere inconvenience but often a life-threatening disaster. A small wound, if improperly cared for, might have become infected
and resulted in the loss of an arm or leg. While still in office, President Calvin Coolidge saw his younger son die of a blood infection from a
blister incurred while playing tennis on the White House lawn without socks. Absent the polio vaccine, tens of thousands of children
became handicapped every year, and parents everywhere worried that their living environments were not clean
enough to forestall the infection. More recently, triple bypasses and even heart transplants have gone from being
an unattainable miracle to being the perquisites of a very rich or very fortunate few, to almost routine procedures
in the developed world. On a more mundane level, can any medicine have done as much good for as little cost as aspirin? This simple and
inexpensive product not only reduces headaches and fevers, but also lowers the likelihood of heart attacks and, perhaps, some cancers. This
improvement is due to product availability and better knowledge. Less than 150 years ago, controversy still existed over whether doctors and nurses
should wash their hands and disinfect their instruments before performing operations and delivering babies. Ignaz Semmelweis discovered that, indeed,
they should—a discovery, incidentally, that gained him no fortune and drew great resentment. Moreover, we can scarcely go a day
without using inventions and innovations that were once the stuff of science fiction. Cell phones, flat-screen TVs,
airbags and antilock brakes, CT scans, digital video players, portable computers, and, of course, the World Wide
Web were completely unavailable a few decades ago.
Long run economic growth is a significant benefit. It improves people’s standard of living by
improving working conditions and labor rights
Flanagan 2006
https://books.google.com/books?id=xH12CAAAQBAJ&pg=PT62&lpg=PT62&dq=%22economic+growth%22+AROUND(50)+%22working+conditions%22
&source=bl&ots=OLaVFVf_T1&sig=EbAQYVu7YBK0_q1QWOnTzOWH1Qw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjYj4bMkp3UAhUKyoMKHdSLCQ4ChDoAQg5MAY#v=onepage&q=%22%20economic%20growth%20improves%20most%20working%20conditions%20and%20labor%20rights%22&f=
false
The previous chapter documented the widespread improvement in working conditions and labor rights in the last third of the twentieth century without
explaining why the broad improvement occurred. This chapter began the study of why labor conditions change by reminding us that trade, migration, and
capital flows between countries are not the only potentially important influences on working conditions and labor rights. Putting globalization aside, the
foremost influence on labor conditions is level of development. At any given time, international differences in per capita income
are associated with significant differences in virtually all labor conditions. Over time, economic growth improves most working
conditions and labor rights. During the last third of the twentieth century, economic growth improved working
conditions and labor rights in most countries. Negative growth of real per capita GDP between 1970 and 2000 is found only in Jamaica,
Nicaragua, Peru, Venezuela, and a dozen (mainly sub-Saharan) African countries. To an important extent, the
inequality in incomes, nonmonetary working conditions, and labor rights observed around the world result from differences in the level of
economic development and national economic growth rates. Improving economic growth in the poorest countries
encourages improvements in their labor conditions. Recognizing the powerful role of level of development opens a broad policy menu
for advancing labor conditions. Any country, no matter what its stance toward economic integration, can improve national labor
conditions by implementing policies and building national institutions that raise its economic growth rate . Factors
that raise economic growth in closed economies include higher rates of technical progress, investments in physical and human capital, and
establishment of institutions that clarify property rights and enforce contracts. Looking forward, the connection between growth and labor conditions has
an important implication for globalization: any effect that international trade or other globalization mechanisms have on per capita income will influence
working conditions and most labor rights. If trade and other globalization mechanisms raise growth-an issue addressed in the next chapter-then by the
evidence in this chapter, increasing trade also improves a country’s labor conditions. The connection between growth and labor conditions is
symmetrical. Policies and institutions that slow or reduce economic growth retard improvements in labor conditions. Actual declines in real per capita
GDP, as in the few countries mentioned above, eventually reduce the quality of labor conditions.
Advantage 2: Diversity Good
Uniqueness: AA males are bombarded with racist messages of success
In the status quo racism is a prevalent because black male success is narrowly limited to the
racist narrative of athletic and entertainment achievement
Dr. Ty-Ron Douglas, Dr. Pat Ivey, and Kim Bishop, 2015,
Identity, Leadership, and Success: A Study of Black Male Student-Athletes at the University of Missouri, Ty-Ron Douglas is Assistant Professor of PK12
Leadership and Policy Program Coordinator of PK12 Leadership and Policy at the University of Missouri, Dr Pat Ivey is the Associate Athletic Director at
University of Missouri. Ivey received his undergraduate degree in 1996 in Hotel and Restaurant Management and he completed his master's in Health
Education and Promotion with an emphasis in Curriculum and Instruction in 2000, Kim Bishop is the Associate Athletic Director at the University of
Missouri - she graduated with her undergraduate degree in Communication from the University of Missouri and was also a swimmer competing for the
Tigers from 1997-2001. She then went on to obtain her Master's degree in Student Affairs Administration in 2004, also from the University of Missouri.,
www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/Douglas%2C%20Ivey%2C%20Bishop%2C%2
0NCAA%20Final%20Report%2C%20Black%20Male%20Student%20Athlete%20Study%2C%201.4.2016%2C%20submitted.pdf
The masterscript on Black men in the U.S. has a long and disturbing history that has been crafted since the
forced arrival of enslaved Africans (Franklin, 2007). Documents and deficit doctrines, such as Daniel Moynihan’s (1965) report, The Negro
Family: The Case for National Action, have assisted in establishing and maintaining Black male stereotypes of abortment, apathy, and abuse (Dodson,
2007). Dominant views about Black men have proved especially problematic and persistent, particularly in social
institutions (like schools) (Beasley, Miller, and Cokley, 2014). Because of the pervasiveness of these stereotypes, Black males are
often required to prove that their instincts are not animalistic, anarchic, and anti-intellectual (Dodson, 2007). Sadly,
some Black males embrace the identity of the hyper-sexualized, anti-intellectual who uses the “cool pose” to shroud self-doubt, insecurities, and pain
(Majors and Billson, 1992). Certainly, walking onto a college campus and being given an athletic scholarship or uniform does not exempt Black males
from having to figure out who they are amidst competing messages espoused by the media, family, coaches, friends, and the neighborhoods that
nurtured them (Harrison et al., 2002; Melendez, 2008). The reality is that some actions and characteristics that are celebrated and denote success in an
athletic environment are considered crimes and reify stereotypes off the field (Beasley, Miller, and Cokley, 2014). For example, the celebration of terms
and concepts like “beast mode,” or “making a great steal or violent hit” exemplify the complex terrain that Black male student athletes must navigate.
Gause (2008) speaks to the current condition of Black masculinity by highlighting society’s collective fascination with a narrow,
performance-orientated brand of Black masculinity that commodifies the lives and images of black male rappers
and athletes for the sake of capitalistic gain. The notion of “performativity” is particularly poignant for the black male body which has been
the subject of dehumanizing, debilitating, and narrow historical, cultural, and ideological inscriptions and ideologies (Butler, 1999). For example, the
deification of a black male body leaping above a basketball rim to complete a dunk partnered with the “ signifying
absences” of other diverse forms of positive black male expression (e.g. a Black Academic All American at MU)
can demarcate limits to Black male dreams, identities, success (Butler, 1999, p. 173). Edwards (2000) describes the contradiction
this way: Black student-athletes from the outset have the proverbial ‘three strikes’ against them. They must contend, of course, with the connotations
and social reverberations of the traditional ‘dumb jock’ caricature. But black student-athletes are burdened also with insidiously racist implications of the
myth of ‘innate black athletic superiority,’ and the more blatantly racist stereotype of the ‘dumb Negro’—condemned by racial heritage to intellectual
inferiority. (p. 126) Administrators and athletic programs that desire to facilitate the healthy development of Black male athletes must account for this
“entangled web of contradiction” (Edwards, 2000). Certainly, there is much to learn about who our Black male athletes are at MU and the complex
identities and contexts they must navigate as Black men, students, athletes, sons, brothers, and leaders.
In the status quo racism is a prevalent because black students are told to be athletes, which
destroys opportunities and growth for black children and communities
Dr. Boyce Watkins, July 21, 2014,
5 Reasons Black Men Havent Advanced Over The Last 40 Years, Dr. Watkins earned BA and BS degrees with a triple major in Finance, Economics and
Business Management. He then earned a Masters Degree in Mathematical Statistics from University of Kentucky and a PhD in Finance from Ohio State
University, thyblackman.com/2014/07/21/5-reasons-black-men-havent-advanced-over-the-last-40-years/
I was in the grocery store overhearing two young,
intelligent brothers doing a precise breakdown of Amare Stoudemire’s new contract with the New York
Knicks. They were surely fans of the ESPN show, “First Take” and could have easily been commentators themselves. They talked about the
Knicks’ prospects for next year, salary cap implications of a pending trade, and why Amare should probably
consider playing for a team that might help him contend for a championship. It’s OK for brothers to love sports,
but why can’t we also love science in the same way? Why not break down your OWN investment portfolio and
entrepreneurial possibilities instead of living vicariously through someone you’ll never meet? Why are we so
obsessed with sports that we love athletics to the exclusion of nearly everything else? Why do we allow people
in our communities to suck up our kids into football and basketball programs at an early age, but aren’t equally
diligent in getting these young men into programs that will lead to economic prosperity? Let’s be real: That little
man is probably NEVER going to make it to the NFL or NBA, and even if he does make it without a good
education, he is probably going to end up broke. Why in the world would we let our future husbands and fathers be led to slaughter?
One of the reasons that young black men are not able to keep up with the rapid educational progress of young black women is
because too many of us get so caught up in a ridiculous, irrational hoop dream that we never get the chance to
become something else. As prominent attorney and former Oklahoma Sooner Damario Solomon Simmons once said, “Education should NOT
be your plan B. It should be your plan A.” Sports are destroying millions of young black men.
3) We let the world convince us that we are uneducated athletic goons:
In the status quo racism is a prevalent because racist cultural messaging to black students
tells them only the pathway to success is sports and not education
John Phillips, November 16, 2015, Legacy of the Past? Slavery’s Impact on Modern Black Identity, Law Street, John Phillips studied political
science at the George Washington University and is a staff writer for Law Street Media, https://lawstreetmedia.com/issues/entertainment-andculture/perverse-black-identity/
In the 21st century, African-Americans enjoy more equality and freedom in the United States than ever before. However, in just the past few years,
issues of civil rights have once again come to the forefront. The ruinous relationship between young black men and law enforcement has
rapidly ascended to the height of public discourse and consciousness–at a level not seen since the 1960s and 1970s. Although there has been
robust discussion regarding police-minority relations, a more comprehensive discussion of institutional racism
in the media and the black identity it contrives has seldom been had. Many theorize that this black identity may
be a significant impediment to economic mobility within the black community, especially when many black
boys will grow up either wanting to be like Michael Jordan or Tupac Shakur. Achieving that level of fame
in athletics and music is clearly difficult to accomplish, so when these boys don’t make it, criminality can
become a third path that is both viable and desirable. Critics of the black identity argue that possibly it is the
legacy of the past that is reinforcing these career paths and preventing progress. Read on to learn about this criticism of the
modern black identity, its roots in slavery, and its perpetuation in the media. Succeeding in sports, particularly basketball and football, is a
status symbol in American society as a whole, but even more so in the black community. As John Milton
Hoberman states, “the celebration of black athleticism as a source of clan pride exists on a scale most people do not
comprehend.” Athletic greats like Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Jim Brown and many other black athletes enjoy a high level of
reverence in their cultural community and function as role models for young black males. From a young age
black males, many of whom live in areas of poverty, view these athletes and their humble backgrounds as a way
out of poverty and the ghetto. They then begin to define themselves in terms of their athletic ability. As Professors S.
Plous and Tyrone Williams of Wesleyan University point out, this emphasis on athletic prowess today is predicated upon the
emphasis on physical capabilities which once made slaves valuable . Slaves who were stronger and more physically capable
were more proficient in their labor. Similarly, in the 21st century, many argue that too many black teens are infatuated with physical
abilities through the medium of sports. The importance of African-Americans being physically more capable began in slavery, but has
since evolved into a norm and a source of pride in the black community. There’s a worry that today it amounts to deluding young black
male teens into undermining their education in favor of an improbable athletic career. These critics of the modern black
identity point out that slaves did not enjoy the luxury of an education. Therefore, quality education is the necessary first step to
reform these stereotypes and place black youth on attainable paths to success.
Solvency: Plan decreases racism
The plan will decrease racism because ToC key to reversing racist internalization through
cultural and personal connections
Cara McClellan, February 5, 2015
A Real Black Teacher, Teach for America, Cara McClellan is a Federal Law Clerk for the Delaware District, Cara is a graduate of Yale College, Penn
Graduate School of Education and Yale Law School and she has published in the Yale Journal of Sociology, Yale Law and Policy Review Inter Alia and
the Huffington Post,https://www.teachforamerica.org/top-stories/real-black-teacher
Eventually, I realized, exactly what my kids needed to see: a black woman, who talked exactly like I talk naturally.
They needed to hear new vocabulary words and proper grammar as well as familiar phrases. They needed to know that I
watched Girls on HBO, played tennis, and listened to alternative music. But they also needed to know that I listened to Kendrick Lamar, watched Real
Housewives, and know how to turn double dutch. More importantly they needed to know how I fell in love with Nikki Giovanni and admired Ida B. Wells. I
say more importantly, because I think that is the best gift that a “real black teacher” can give her kids—the perspective of learning to
explore racial identity through history and English class—modeling the experience of connecting the academic to the deeply
personal. But it also mattered that just being myself in the classroom created teachable moments for my kids. At
the end of his detention, I asked LaShawn what he meant when he said real black teachers do not hold
detentions, even though I already knew the sentiment behind his words. On one level he was commenting on my discipline style, my TFA systems of
rewards and scaled consequences, which did not map onto how he had seen other black adults discipline. On another level, he was just pissed that he
was missing gym and embarrassed that he was in trouble. He was testing to see if he could ruffle my feathers by saying something he knew was
disrespectful to say to an adult. Lashawn looked uncomfortable as he tried to tell me what he meant. “ You know… you don't
curse at us or act ghetto.” He stumbled. “You don’t seem like you would hit someone,” he finally said. To which I
responded, “if not cursing and not acting ghetto and not hitting someone means not being black, then being
black means cursing and acting ghetto and violent?” I knew what he was getting at, but I wanted him to really
think about what he was saying. “Be careful,” I said. “Not just about what you say about me, but what you say about
yourself.” Our kids need diverse teachers. They need to have more teachers who look like them and more
teachers who come from their communities. We are an asset because we are affirming, because we are role
models, and because we challenge them to imagine new possibilities of what it means to be black and to be lowincome. Our kids also need teachers who do not look like them and do not come from their communities, but care very deeply and can expose our
students to difference. The sad reality is that our country is still segregated and the classroom is a rare moment of contact
that our kids have with people outside of the community. Finally, our kids need teachers whose identities are
complex. While I looked like my kids, I could not say I came from their community; I was from about 30 minutes further up the expressway, and our
moments of disconnect were a reminder of both how big Philadelphia is, and how isolated the inner-city is. But most importantly, our kids need to
see authentic adults, who are comfortable in their own skin.
The plan will decrease racism because black STEM teachers are key to positive role modeling
for students
Harry F Preston V, Fall 2016,
The Case for a Teacher Like Me, The Professional Educator, Harry F Preston V teaches engineering and co-chairs the career and technical education
department at Edmondson-Westside High School in Baltimore - He majored in physics at Benedict College and earned a masters in urban education
and administration from Johns Hopkins University, www.aft.org/sites/default/files/ae_fall2016preston.pdf
Because I am a black male educator who teaches at an urban high school where almost all of my students
receive free or reduced-price meals, I understand the importance of providing access to additional opportunities
and supports, as well as to images of success. Students cannot imagine future educational and career
opportunities if they've never seen them firsthand. That's why I never say to my students, 'Your only limit is your imagination.' To me,
the old cliche's is inherently biased. Many of my students come from families with so few educational or financial resources that their imaginations are
understandably confined by their experiences. And for many black male students in particular, those experiences have been
especially limited. However, in recent years there has been a shift in thinking among young black males regarding careers they can pursue.
Thanks largely to the success and popularity of President Obama, young black students are seeing more black professionals in increasingly prominent
roles, and as a result, they are beginning to consider pursuing such roles for themselves. While Obama's presence alone has been inspiring, his My
Brother's Keeper program has become possibly the biggest 'call to action' in support of black males, just as important, U.S-Secretary of
Education John King -also a black man-has emphasized the need for more educators of color to help change the
trajectory of our black boys. King has shared publicly that the issue is personal for him. In May, I had the distinct honor of introducing him at
this year's National Summit on Teacher Diversity in Washington, D.C. The audience and I listened to him describe the profound impact his educators
had on his educational path. He stressed in no uncertain terms how important a strong, diverse teaching force is to
ensuring our students engage in their learning and personal growth. Other males of color, such as public intellectuals, can make
such an impact as well. For instance, the famous astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who is of African American and Puerto Rican descent, had a
powerful effect on me. Though I never met him, I could really connect with him - something clicked - when he talked about science on television. That
same connection can occur in the classroom. An educator of color can give students of color-especially black
male -a concrete image of possibility. To turn that possibility into reality, we must ultimately change the
conversation about who's in education-and change who's in the conversation about education.
The plan will decrease racism because ToC key to opening avenues for black students and
breaking the racist narrative of sports and entertainment
Jonte Lee, May 8, 2017
Making an Impact in DCPS and Beyond, Smithsonian Science Education Center, Jonte Lee holds a bachelor of science in biology from Southeastern
Louisiana University, a master’s of science in marketing from Texas A&M University, and a secondary science education certification from Howard
University, https://ssec.si.edu/stemvisions-blog/making-impact-dcps-and-beyond
of 2001. I was in Dr. Echoles’ college Educational Psychology course. During her lecture, Dr.
Echoles mentioned her father has a PhD and her sister has a medical degree. I was in awe. I couldn’t believe it.
An African American family with multiple advanced degrees. I’d never encountered such an individual before. It
was motivating and inspiring. Being an African American male, I searched for teachers that looked like me, but
unfortunately, I had very few from preschool through graduate school. I only had two African American male
teachers and two STEM teachers of color. My experience with Dr. Echoles taught me that African Americans with
advanced degrees exist in great numbers, and I need to serve as a mentor for the next generation of students of
color. The Leadership Summit goal is to recruit, retain, and train STEM teachers of color. This work is incredibly important to me
because of my experience with Dr. Echoles. Having more STEM teachers of color will show students of color that it is
It was the spring
possible to obtain advanced degrees, and we are not limited to the stereotypical careers as seen on TV and the
movie screen. My team was composed of women and men of color, and each team member has taught or is teaching in the classroom. There were
representatives from District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS; teacher and principal), the Office of State Superintendent of Education, and District of
Columbia Public Schools central office.
Impact: Racism is the Root Cause of all oppression
Racism is the root cause of modern oppression – operates at all levels and magnifies other
forms of oppression
National Collaborative for Health Equity, July 2015,
Community Strategies to End Racism and Support Racial Healing: The PLACE MATTERS Approach to Promoting Racial Equity, Founded in 2014, the
National Collaborative was established to promote health equity through action, leadership, inclusion, and collaboration. Health equity, in our view,
requires creating the conditions that foster the best possible health for all populations, regardless of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or nativity,
http://caseygrants.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Community-Strategies-to-End-Racism-and-Promote-Racial-Healing.pdf
Too often we allow fear to paralyze action specifically focused on healing the divisions that fuel racism, and we default to implementing well-meaning but
limited programs; such efforts are simply powerless in creating effective and sustained improvements, because racism remains a root cause
of many of the racial inequities in U.S. communities. PROBLEM STATEMENT The U.S. population is living longer than ever before,
with life expectancy on average approaching 79 years. However, many people of color experience poorer health relative to whites across the life cycle,
beginning at birth with higher rates of infant mortality, and proceeding through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood with higher rates of chronic and
infectious diseases, and concluding at the end of the life cycle with higher rates of premature mortality. These inequities cannot be attributed to genetics
or behavior. Racism operates at several levels – cultural, institutional, interpersonal, and personal. These factors,
described in more detail below, significantly shape health inequities throughout the United States. Racism harms all
people by devaluing and separating them from each other. It denies people of color equal access to benefits,
privileges, and power, while providing whites with greater access to opportunities in many aspects of life. This
results in people of color living in a world where opportunity is limited and curtailed because of the color of their
skin. They have higher and disproportionate rates of incarceration, but lower rates of educational attainment,
access to wealth, and home ownership. They are more likely to be born as low-weight babies, they are born burdened
by the racism that will permeate their lives, and they are more likely to die early. During their lives, they will experience disproportionate
health burdens, such as higher rates of diabetes, high-blood pressure, and sexually transmitted diseases. Racism forms a major factor in
success and well-being in the United States, and throughout our history some groups (e.g., whites) have been defined
as worthy of full inclusion while others, such as African Americans, Latinos, American Indians /Alaska Natives, Southeast Asians, Pacific
Islanders, and others in communities of color have been devalued and disadvantaged by policy and culture. Racism is
expressed in multiple ways that reinforce each other: at the personal and interpersonal levels individual feelings, beliefs, and
interactions express negative evaluations of historically excluded groups; at the cultural level, the beliefs of historically included
groups about what is right and beautiful are imposed on others; and at the structural/institutional level, explicit
and implicit laws, rules, and expectations of public and private institutions and systems advantage historically
included groups while disadvantaging excluded groups. At the personal and interpersonal levels, members of historically
included groups may express explicit and/or unconscious bias and prejudice toward communities of color, while
persons in historically excluded groups may internalize negative views of their own group . Emerging research in
cognition and brain science has shown how intergenerational exposure to racism and ongoing discomfort in multiracial encounters are expressed both
as implicit bias and dynamic physiological responses. The expressions of racism have expanded over time and include both
old-fashioned racism that justifies policies of racial/ethnic advantage by claiming the superiority of historically
included groups; and modern racism that offers nonracial justifications for policies that nonetheless
disadvantage historically excluded groups. As participants in PLACE MATTERS, we are seeking to improve life outcomes for people of
color and other low-income residents of communities disproportionately impacted by racism and other systemic inequities. We have found that
successful adoption of the social-determinants-of-health frame and place-based approach to the elimination of health inequities requires communities to
directly address the legacy and enduring consequences of racism operating at multiple levels. Experiences and scholarly work throughout the U.S. have
indicated that, without directly addressing racism and other systemic inequities, communities remain unable to move from dialogue to a place of
innovative policymaking and constructive change toward racial equity. We urge all communities to address the roles of racism and privilege in their
communities. Additionally, racism is the “canary in the coal mine.” Because racial/ethnic inequities and the systemic
factors that create and sustain these inequities are perhaps the most observable forms of oppression, assisting
individuals and communities in addressing racism is a key strategy in addressing other forms of oppression,
sexism, classism, homophobia, and ethnocentrism. Racism cuts across, and is imbedded in or layered into, all
other forms of oppression. When it is addressed, society is improved for all oppressed groups.
Racism is the root cause of oppression - the lie of black inferiority is the root cause of all
oppression for the last 400 years
Enola Aird
and Daryl Rowe, October 7, 2014,
New Haven Register, Columns; Forum: Time to address the root cause of the devaluing of black lives, Enola G. Aird is the founder and president of Community Healing Network Inc., a nonprofit
organization working to build a global grassroots movement to help black people overcome and overturn the lie of black inferiority and heal from the emotional legacies of enslavement and racism., Daryl
Rowe, Ph.D., is the president of the Association of Black Psychologists, a nonprofit organization that seeks to promote and advance the profession of African psychology, influence and effect social
change, and develop programs that address and work to alleviate problems of Black communities and other ethnic groups., www.nhregister.com/article/NH/20141007/NEWS/141009627
Ironically, the persistent tensions so near to Dred Scott’s final resting place raise the same question he tried to get the Supreme Court to address. Are
black people in America clothed with any rights the white man is bound to respect? And yet, in our demands for justice, we risk
overlooking the need for black people to address the root cause of the wanton killings of our children and so
much else that is ailing our communities: the myth of black inferiority. The myth, or as we prefer to call it, the lie of black
inferiority, says that black people are inferior to white people. It says that we are not as lovable, beautiful,
capable, and worthy as other people. It was devised four centuries ago to justify the enslavement and
colonization of African people--and it is still very much with us. For almost 400 years, it has shaped the world’s
perceptions of black people as being less than human. Powerful negative stereotypes grounded in that lie have
limited the prospects and sense of possibilities for far too many black children. The lie contributes to the blackwhite health and academic achievement gaps, as well as the epidemic of violence among our youth, and the
criminalization and mass incarceration of black people. The lie of black inferiority is a root cause of the killings of
black children. And it is the reason that no matter how much we try, as a nation, to move forward on the issue of
race, we seem to be standing still, and, even worse, going backward. Consider this. We have had a century and a half of
constitutional amendments, court decisions, and civil rights laws ... and yet: In the words of the first African American First Lady of the United States,
“Today, by some measures, our schools are as segregated as they were back when Dr. King gave his final speech.” The increasing
incarceration rates among black men coupled with the sharp drop in black employment rates have left most
black men today in a position relative to white men that is no better than the position they occupied in the late
1960s. There is overwhelming evidence of racial discrimination in the job market. Black preschoolers are far
more likely than other racial groups to be suspended. What’s going on? We have been trying to fight racism against
black people without attacking its foundation: the lie of black inferiority. It still promotes the dehumanization of
black people and the devaluing of black lives. It is at the root of our devaluing of ourselves. And it is the source of
historical and continuing emotional trauma in the black community. The wanton killing of black people will not end until we
overcome and overturn both the lie of black inferiority and its evil twin, the lie of white superiority. How do we begin to do this? First, we
need to
boldly imagine a future in which black people are free of all the negative stereotypes that have burdened us for
nearly four centuries. What would that future look like? What would it feel like? How would life be different for
our children if we decided to defy the lie of black inferiority and embrace the truth of black humanity? We need to
write our own, new, empowering narrative about what it means to be a person of African ancestry in the 21st
century.
Racism is the best root cause explanation for modern societal ills – historical analysis
ROBERT C. LIEBERMAN professor of political science and public affairs at Columbia University 2003
(Race and the Limits of Solidarity American Welfare State Development in Comparative Perspective Race and the Politics of Welfare Reform
(Paperback) by Sanford F. Schram (Editor), Joe Soss (Editor), Richard C. Fording (Editor))
An alternative approach is to compare the United States to other countries that share certain political and social characteristics in order to see how
countries with differently organized racial politics confronted similar problems of welfare state development and whether particular racial configurations
are associated with particular social policy coalitions. In the United States, the centrality of race, usually taken as an exceptional feature of
American politics, arises from the history of African slavery in North America that reaches back almost as far as
permanent European settlement of the continent (Berlin 1998; see also Tannenbaum 1946; Elkins 1959). But slavery was only
one form of rule based on racial distinctions. More generally, the processes by which racially defined rule shapes
political institutions and strategic political circumstances may apply in a variety of contexts (Davis 1966). Other
systems in which rule is based on racial categories include apartheid (including Jim Crow in the American
South), certain brands of nationalism (including nationalism's totalitarian variants), and, most relevant for the
present comparison, imperialism and colonialism. "Two new devices for political organization and rule over
foreign peoples were discovered during the first decades of imperialism ," wrote Hannah Arendt (1968, r8). "One was race
as a principle of the body politic, and the other was bureaucracy as a principle of foreign domination." Like slavery
and segregation, imperialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries constituted rule by "whites" of European descent
over "blacks," conducted through a set of formal institutions and social arrangements supported by an ideology of racial
superiority. All of these forms of rule were also justified and explained by other means economic, political,
diplomatic and a complete explanation of slavery, segregation, or imperialism would surely involve all of these (see
Baumgart 1982). But underlying these explanations, or at least deeply intertwined with them, is what W. E. B. Du Bois (1986, 16) called the
color line, "the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Africa and Asia, in America and the islands of the sea." Similarly, imperialism and
colonialism, no matter how extensively they involved other factors, constituted irreducible structures of racial rule.
Advantage 3: Warming
Uniqueness: Not solving global warming now
In the status quo climate change warming will increase because current global climate
agreements are inefficient and ineffective
Bretschger May 16
[Lucas: President of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, “Equity and the Convergence of Nationally Determined
Climate Policies,” Economics Working Paper Series, May 2016, https://www.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/mtec/cer-eth/cer-ethdam/documents/working-papers/WP-16-246.pdf p. 1-2 // emb].
There is broad public consensus that the Paris Agreement on climate change constitutes a milestone in international environmental
policy. For the first time in history the world community unanimously agreed on limiting global warming by adopting specified procedures. Yet,
concrete climate policy measures are not implemented on a global level but formulated in terms of independent
country contributions, which may be called the "bottom-up" approach to climate policy. It encourages broad policy participation but
has been criticized as being neither efficient nor equitable.1 Indeed, current policy contributions are not efficient
because countries marginal abatement costs are not equalized and the internationally agreed temperature targets are
not reached. This contrasts with the principles of environmental economics, according to which an efficient policy
would set a unique world carbon price or limit the quantity of world carbon emissions on an optimal level. Moreover, policy
contributions are not equitable because certain countries are significantly more ambitious in emission abatement
than others, reáecting that no general guidelines or benchmarks for burden sharing have been implemented so far. It is
important to analyze the gap between the currently agreed and an efficient climate policy. Advising governments to adopt optimal policies may be called
the "top-down" approach to environmental policy. It is correct according to theory but risks to ignore all the problems associated with getting the policy
approved by the political process; with global warming this even includes international negotiations. Hence, the top-down procedure usually misses the
transition costs of changing an economy to a new equilibrium. Difficulties typically arise because of policy induced changes in the sectoral structure and
the income distribution. In fact, climate policy affects the different economic sectors and household types in an asymmetric manner. Public perception is
often biased, however, see Sterner (2011).2 Already on a national level, equity (or perceived equity) is a prime concern when crafting
environmental policy. Accordingly, green tax reforms and emission trading systems usually contain a redistribution component favoring those
groups which are mostly affected by policy. On the international level, distributional problems are only compounded. This especially holds true for
climate change and climate policies, which have both a major impact on world income distribution. Without any policy, less developed and
vulnerable countries will suffer disproportionately.3 With stringent climate policies, carbon-intensive countries
have to bear signifcant costs to decarbonize their economies.
In the status quo climate change warming will increase because without action now warming
will increase and get out of control
Ramanathan 2015
Veerabhadran, Prof of Applied Ocean Sciences, University of California, San Diego. “Bending the Curve: Ten scalable
solutions for carbon neutrality and climate stability, Executive Summary”
http://universityofcalifornia.edu/sites/default/files/Bending_the_Curve_F5_spreads.pdf
Of the CO2 released to the air, 44 percent remains for a century or longer ; 25 percent remains for at least a millennium. Due to
fast atmospheric transport, CO2 envelopes the planet like a blanket. That blanket is growing thicker and warmer at an
accelerating pace. It took us 220 years — from 1750 to 1970 - to emit about 1 trillion tons of CO2 . We emitted the next trillion in less than 40
years. Of the total 2 trillion tons humans have put into the atmosphere, about 44 percent is still there. At the current rate of emission – 38 billion tons per
year and growing at a rate of about 2 percent per year – the third trillion will be added in less than 20 years and the fourth trillion by 2050. How does the
CO2 blanket warm the planet? It works just as a cloth blanket on a cold winter night keeps us warm. The blanket warms us by trapping our body heat.
Likewise, the CO2 blanket traps the heat given off by the Earth’s surface and the atmosphere. The surface and atmosphere
absorb sunlight and release this solar energy in the form of infrared energy, some of which escapes to space. The human-made CO2 blanket is very
efficient at blocking some of this infrared energy, and thus warms the atmosphere and the surface. How large? Each trillion tons of emitted
CO2 can warm the planet by as much as 0.75 degrees Celsius. The 2 trillion tons emitted as of 2010 has committed the planet to
warming by 1.5 degrees Celsius. The third trillion we would add under business-as-usual scenarios would commit us to warming by 2.25 degrees
Celsius by 2030. How soon? A number of factors enter the equation. To simplify, we likely will witness about 1.5 degrees Celsius (or
two-thirds of the committed warming) by 2050, mostly due to emissions already released into the atmosphere (although that amount of warming could
come as early as 2040 or as late as 2070). By 2050, under a business-as-usual scenario, we will have added another trillion
tons and the 2050 warming could be as high as 2 degrees Celsius – and the committed warming would be 3
degrees Celsius by 2050. What is our predicament? We get deeper and deeper into the hole as time passes if we keep emitting at present rates
under business-as-usual scenarios. The problem is that CO2 stays in the atmosphere so long; the more that is there, the hotter Earth gets. If we wait
until 2050 to stop emitting CO2 , there would be no way to avoid warming of at least 3 degrees Celsius because the
thickness of the blanket covering Earth would have increased from 900 billion tons (as of 2010) to about 2 trillion tons (in 2050). Our predicament
is analogous to stopping a fast-moving train: You have to put on the brakes well in advance of the point you need
to stop; otherwise you will overshoot the mark. Unless we act within few years, 2 degrees Celsius warming will
be upon on us by 2050. Unlike in a game of chess played with a compassionate opponent, we cannot take back
our flawed moves when checkmate is imminent.
In the status quo climate change warming will increase because there is no political will and
markets aren’t incentivized to solve
Christine Rose, November 30, 2015, Climate change responses are up to us, The Daily Blog, Christine Rose is an environmental activist who
focuses primarily on issues of biodiversity and endangered species,thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/11/30/climate-change-responses-are-up-to-us/
instruments like emission trading (pollution markets) won’t solve the climate change eco-apocalypse. Market
systems are what got us into this problem in the first place. What we need is a whole new economic system, system change, not
climate change. After all, climate change is just the latest expression of a fatalistic commodification and abuse of the planet that is
Coca-cola capitalism. It’s the model that is flawed, and we can’t use ‘green growth’ as a way out of environmental
damage without creating more. We can’t continue to chop down rainforests and burn ancient peatlands releasing smoke, CO2, and destroying
But economic
habitats without a kickback from nature. Capitalism is eating itself because it’s using up all the natural capital and polluting the free commons that
underpinned its development in the first place. There can’t be infinite growth in a finite world. It’s estimated we’ve made 50% of
species extinct in the last 40 years, a process called ‘the great acceleration’ in the effects of mankind, capitalism and industrialisation on the
ecosphere. There’s only so much (so little) rainforest left, so many fish (so few), limited clean water, glaciers, biodiversity… and capitalism is reducing it
to waste that’s clogging up the ocean and atmospheric commons. We can only externalise environmental effects to a limit given we live in a closed
system and reports are that we have already pushed it over the brink. Politicians have short, electoral cycle based time horizons,
so it’s no coincidence that Bill English, Finance Minister, considers preparation for climate change effects “not a pressing issue”.
Capitalism is too big to fail, and capital interests are too big for NZ’s ministers to get into a staring contest with. The government won’t go near its own
‘sacred cow’, dairy farming, and put measures in place to attenuate its effects. Just the same way Barak Obama refused to link clean energy with the
bail out of the major car companies in the US after the Global Financial Crisis, crony capitalism is king. No wonder Parisian climate change activists
have been sentenced to house arrest and protests have been banned. Leaders don’t really want their growth agenda disturbed by calls for alternative
action. But the response of the world’s public to climate change fears, is what provides hope, even if our leaders
fail. We are the 99% and many environmental solutions lie in our hands. We are the power behind the ‘great transition’
to a more democratic, just system for all nature, humans included . Refusing to be part of a corrupt, ecocidal and wasteful system
is within our capacity. Refusing to buy products with palm oil, not eating meat, riding a bike, picking up rubbish, planting a garden, participating in the
informal and gift economy, creating and occupying new commons, forging new forms of creative resistance, these are all paths to a new economic and
social model and a better environmental future.
Solvency: STEM classes -> Science literacy
The plan will increase scientific literacy – access to technology and materials is key to solve
Cynthia Hudley, May 2013, Education and urban schools, American Psychological Association, Cynthia Hudley, PhD, is a professor of graduate
school of education at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Hudley received her PhD in educational psychology from The University of California
at Los Angeles in 1991, www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/indicator/2013/05/urban-schools.aspx
The American mythology continues to insist that education is the path to the middle class for those struggling to escape the grip of poverty. However,
the education that poor, urban students in public schools receive is demonstrably insufficient to make them
competitive with their more advantaged, middle and upper income peers. There is much talk today, for example, about the
importance of STEM careers for the future of our youth and for our country. Yet, mathematics classes in high-poverty high schools
are twice as likely to be taught by a teacher with a credential other than mathematics as are mathematics classes at lowpoverty high schools. Similarly, for science classes at high-poverty high schools, teachers are three times as likely to be
credentialed in areas other than science as those who teach science at low-poverty high schools (Wirt et al.,
2004). Irrespective of teacher credentials and subject specific concerns, in general teachers in high-poverty schools more often report
having to work with outdated textbooks in short supply; outdated computers and other kinds of technology; and
inadequate or nonexistent science equipment, materials and labs. As well, the amount and variety of collegepreparatory or advanced placement offerings lag significantly behind schools serving more advantaged populations (Freel,
1998). Combined with deficient supplies, materials and opportunities to learn, deteriorating physical plants, often
another characteristic of high-poverty urban schools, can diminish student engagement and achievement . More
than a decade ago, physical conditions in urban schools predicted academic engagement and performance (Lewis et al.,
1999) but basic materials — including textbooks, science equipment and desks — were generally in disrepair or absent. Thus, conditions
in highpoverty schools too often render them sites of developmental risk rather than competent assets that would enhance
student developmental outcomes. Theories of stress and coping define structural conditions such as dirty bathrooms and physical decay as
stressors that undermine students’ ability to concentrate (Evans & Kim, 2013), and lack of concentration, or poor “on-task behavior,” is a core indicator of
low motivation and disengagement in students. However, when school facilities provide intellectual support and resources, all students can develop
academically as they explore their own intellectual abilities. Providing laptops for urban adolescents, for example, has increased achievement and
engagement when computer use moves beyond rote skill practice (Penuel, 2006). A reform initiative that provided laptops and
wireless access in an urban high school (Project Hiller) increased standardized test scores, student motivation and
technological literacy for adolescents in grades 8 and 9 (Light, McDermott, & Honey, 2002). An innovative project to teach physics concepts to
urban high school students using video technology developed students’ sense of agency for subject matter that is too often closed to low-income, urban
students (Elmesky, 2005). Substandard curriculum, facilities and physical plants are undeniable stressors sometimes
found in high-poverty schools. But well equipped, technologically sophisticated facilities and challenging
curriculum provide demonstrated benefits for all students’ intellectual development.
The plan will increase scientific literacy – closing the funding gap helps underserved schools
achieve scientific literacy
Mark Rosenberg, 2016,
Developing Indicators for Undergraduate STEM Education, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, MARK ROSENBERG is the fifth president of Florida International University (FIU),
where he oversees an expansion of FIU’s investments into STEM education - He received a B.A. in political science from Miami University, an M.A. and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of
Pittsburgh, sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/dbassesite/documents/webpage/dbasse_173980.pdf
A growing body of research demonstrates that attrition
from undergraduate STEM fields is higher among students with
weaker K-12 academic backgrounds than among those with stronger preparation (Astin and Astin 1992; Kokkelenberg and
Sinha 2010; Mendez et al 2008; Shaw and Barbuti 2010; Strenta et al 1994; Whalen and Shelley 2010). Inadequate K-12 preparation,
especially in mathematics and in development of scientific reasoning, contributes to low academic achievement
in undergraduate STEM (Clewell, Anderson, and Thorpe, 1992; Allen and Haniff, 1991; Millet, 2003; Thomas, 1987). For underrepresented
minority students in particular, access during high school to a strong mathematics and science curriculum, achieving
high test scores, and earning high grades are the three most important predictors of successfully completing a 4-year
STEM degree. (AAAS, 2001; Bonous and Hammarth, 2000; Elliott, et al, 1996). Although completing the full range of advanced math and science
coursework during high school (i.e., Algebra I, Algebra II, geometry, calculus, biology, chemistry, and physics) predicts performance in undergraduate
STEM, just 57 percent of Black students, 47 percent of American Indian/Native Alaskan students, and 67 percent of Latino students attend high schools
that offered this full range, compared to 71 percent of white students and 81 percent of Asian students (US Department of Education Office for Civil
Rights, 2014). In 2009, the most recent year for which data are available, 22 percent of Black high school graduates, 23
percent of Latino high school graduates, and 14 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native high school graduates
completed biology, chemistry and physics, compared to 31 percent of whites and 54 percent of Asians (US Department of
Education, 2014). In the same year, just 6 percent of African American and 9 percent of Latino high school graduates completed calculus, compared to
18 percent of whites and 42 percent of Asians (Ibid). Low-income, Black, American Indian, and Latino students are less likely than other students to
participate in Advanced Placement courses of any kind (Theokas and Saaris, 2013). Further, nearly one third of math courses in
predominantly-minority schools are taught by out-of-field teachers (Education Trust, 2008) and schools in the highest
quartile of student poverty are 30 percent more likely than schools in the lowest poverty quartile to have a
teacher without a science degree (Banilower et al, 2013). Given the severity of these inequities in K-12 schooling, it is not
surprising that Black, Latino, and American Indian high school graduates, along with graduates from less affluent
families, are less likely to meet college readiness benchmarks in mathematics and science (ACT, 2015), and are more likely to
be placed into developmental math upon college entry (Sparks and Malkus, 2013).
K-12 students also have unequal access to highquality instruction in the use of computers – tools that are increasingly essential for success in undergraduate
STEM. Experts participating in an NRC workshop (2011c) suggested that computational thinking – a fundamental skill in solving problems by drawing
on computer science principles (Wing, 2006) – should be a core proficiency that would enhance individuals’ success in a technology-driven society,
increase interest in information technology careers, improve U.S. global competitiveness, and support inquiry in STEM and other disciplines. However,
schools give scant attention to teaching computer science, or even basic computer literacy (The Association for Computing Machinery and The
Computer Science Teachers Association, 2010), and there are disparities based on race, and socioeconomic status. For example, a recent study
focusing on California (Level Playing Field Institute, 2015) found that nearly 75 percent of schools with the highest percentage of underrepresented
students of color offered no computer science courses and only 2 percent of schools with the highest percentage of underrepresented students of color
offered Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science. Although Black and Latino students make up 59 percent of California public school students, they
comprised just 11 percent of 2014 AP Computer Science test takers. Disparities based on socioeconomic status and percentage of English Language
Learners were also apparent; for example, over 75 percent of schools with the highest percentage of low-income students
offered no computer science courses and among these schools, only 4 percent offered AP computer science. In
addition, opportunities to learn about computing are not equally accessible to male and female students . For
example, one recent survey of undergraduates majoring in computer science and computer engineering (Varma, 2009) found that, relative to males,
female students had late exposure to computers both at home and in school. Female students’ high schools had few computers that were not easily
accessible, their computer science classes did not cover programming, and their high school teachers seldom encouraged them to pursue computers as
a field of study.
The plan will increase scientific literacy – China and Singapore prove increased funding for
STEM solves
Battelle Technology, January 2014, STEM Building a 21st Century Workforce to Develop Tomorrow's New Medicines, Battelle Technology is
a research and consulting firm specializing in technological and medicinal innovation,phrma-docs.phrma.org/sites/default/files/pdf/stem-education-report2014.pdf
Countries like China and Singapore have developed and implemented strategies specifically aimed at gaining a
competitive edge in STEM fields, making major investments in improving the state of STEM education to increase
the number of scientists, engineers, and other STEM graduates overall. As a result of their investments, they
have the highest rates of science and math literacy among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
countries while the U.S. now ranks among the bottom half. There is increasing concern that the U.S. will lose its competitive edge in
STEM talent which will result in a loss of innovative capacity and related economic contributions and eventually lead U.S. businesses to look to other
countries for needed STEM talent.
Internal Link: Science literate citizens solve global warming
Scientific literacy will solve climate change – distinguishing misinformation
Maceo Carrillo Martinet, MARCH 19TH, 2012, A New Agenda for Science Education, The Journal of Sustainability Education, Dr. Maceo Carrillo
Martinet is an ecologist and educator - he earned his PhD in Biology from the University of New Mexico, www.susted.com/wordpress/content/a-newagenda-for-science-education_2012_03/
Ironically, the
lack of student proficiency and interest in math and science comes at a time when we are
dangerously teetering on the edge of earth’s ecological limits. Whether you believe in climate change or not,
most people would agree that for humanity to survive the 21st century we need the young generations to have a
strong scientific and technical understanding and creativity. We need a general citizenry to have some scientific
background and appreciation of the earth in order to confront the monumental environmental challenges we face ,
such as cancers, diabetes, oceans with more plastic than plant life, and rivers swelling with Styrofoam and caffeine. A recent study of U.S.
citizen’s views on climate change showed that 57% of the population believes that global warming is happening,
a significant decrease compared to a similar study in 2008 (America’s Climate Choices 2010). This lack of understanding
of climate change has a lot to do with the massive, corporate-funded disinformation campaign about climate
change, but it also has to do with the absence of a basic ecological literacy of the population. Although climate change
is a challenging and complex phenomenon to understand, if
the general population was ecologically literate it would be much
more difficult to pass disinformation as fact.
Scientific literacy will solve climate change – understanding causes of the problem
Bibi Thomas and James J Watters, October 25, 2015,
Perspectives on Australian, Indian and Malaysian approaches to STEM education, Bibi Thomas is a research scientist and educator in Queensland
Australia - she holds a Preject Management Degree from PRINCE 2 and the Project Management Institute, James J Watters is Adjunct Professor at the
Queensland University fo Technology in Brisbane Australia - he holds a PhD from Griffith University as well as an MEd, GDEd, and
BSc,www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059315000966
In an age when major social and environmental problems are threatening human survival, high quality science and
mathematics education is central to ecological sustainability and economic prosperity (The Royal Society, 2010 ; UNESCO, 1999).
Global problems such as climate change, overpopulation, resource management, agricultural production, health, biodiversity, declining
energy and water sources among other issues put even more pressure on developing science and technology and require an
international approach to resolving these issues. Science is seen as a powerful way of thinking and understanding
the basis of these problems. However, numerous studies have noted a declining level interest towards science,
technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) both in terms of enrolment (Ali and Shubra, 2010 ; Sjøberg and Schreiner,
2005) and student motivation towards science learning (Elías, 2009 ; Osborne et al., 2003) especially in many western
countries and powerhouse economies of Asia. In contrast, various studies suggest a greater interest among school aged children in developing
countries such as India and Malaysia towards STEM than Western counterparts (Shukla, 2005 ; Sjøberg and Schreiner, 2005). The high level of interest
in non-developed countries is desirable given the Declaration of Budapest (UNESCO, 1999) which argued that: As scientific knowledge has become a
crucial factor in the production of wealth, so its distribution has become more inequitable. What distinguishes the poor (be it people or countries) from the
rich is not only that they have fewer assets, but also that they are largely excluded from the creation and the benefits of scientific knowledge. (p. 463) As
recently as December 2011, the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2012) has
committed action on global climate change with major implications for countries such as India and China to develop or adopt technological solutions to
pollution. In particular, STEM
education is an essential element of the global response to climate change or any of the other
technological issues facing contemporary society. In this paper we explore the educational challenges faced by India, Malaysia and
Australia in terms of priorities, philosophy and practices. All three countries have strong historical and economic relationships but different priorities for
their future development. Australia has provided educational training for students from both India and Malaysia since the 1950s and many scientific
leaders in both India and Malaysia have experienced their professional training in Australia. Common to all three is the role English has played in
education and governance. But also common is the philosophical heritage given the influence of Islamic science and contributions of Indian science and
mathematics on western science. The question we ask is what lessons can be learned from science education practices across three that can inform
and guide future directions for each.
Scientific literacy will solve climate change – engaged citizenry
Belle Boggs, NOV. 24 2013,
“Tell Your Second-Grade Teacher I’m Sorry”, Slate, Belle Boggs is an author of several award winning articles and a book - she teaches MFA program
at North Carolina State
University,www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/education/2013/11/science_education_in_america_why_k_12_students_fall_behind_in_science.h
tml
We have a lot to be sorry for—and a lot to worry about. Start with climate change, for a particularly fearsome example.
Most climate scientists agree that, unless global carbon emissions are curtailed, we are headed for irreversible
climate change: an increase of 2 degrees Celsius by 2040 and 4 degrees by 2070. A rise of 2 degrees would likely mean natural, economic, and
social disaster—droughts, famines, floods, storms. A rise of 4 degrees would be catastrophic for human life across the globe. However, the
average American is more skeptical of the seriousness of global warming than he was in 1997. Forty percent of
Americans believe that global warming is not caused by human activity. Sixteen percent believe global warming
is “not that much of a threat” or “not a threat at all.” Certainly the above examples of scientific illiteracy have much to
do with our political climate, in which a belief in science is often pitted against a belief in God or the free market. But it is also true that
without a proper foundation in science, which ideally begins before kindergarten, individuals are vulnerable to
misunderstanding, the same kind that kept Day and Sonny Lacks from seeking treatment for life-threatening medical conditions. They are also
easy targets for misinformation and manipulation, the forces behind our country’s increasing climate change
skepticism.
Impact: Global warming bad
Global warming is an existential threat - warming feedback loops will get out of control
Ryan Cooper, December 8, 2016, Can Democrats become climate crusaders?, The Week, Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at
TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post,
theweek.com/articles/665953/democrats-become-climate-crusaders
Climate change is an existential threat to the United States of America and to humanity as a whole, and time is running very
short to undertake the necessary top-to-bottom overhaul of world society to stave it off. That is why Democrats must
become the party of fervent climate radicalism — there simply is no alternative. Especially not with President-elect Trump, who just announced he is
going to appoint Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA — a man who was caught by The New York Times sending oil company-
presents a political difficulty. Unlike previous existential threats —
like Nazi Germany, for example — the really serious danger of climate change is far in the future, it will gather strength
relatively slowly, and, above all, knowledge of it comes through a highly technical and abstract scientific process.
"Armed men will invade and kill us all" is easy to understand and culturally familiar; "in 50 to 100 years climate
feedbacks could spin out of control and do irreparable damage to the biosphere which supports human life" is
not. Nevertheless, it will be possible for Democrats and the left to thread this needle, if they can maintain their focus.
Any unaddressed existential threat almost must be a political opportunity — it's simply a stiff problem of political
ideology, communication, and organizing.
written complaints to the EPA on his own letterhead. This
Global warming is an existential threat - it is the largest comparative impact
Wagner and Weitzman, 2015,
Gernot Warner - Lead senior economist, Environmental Defense Fund; Martin L. Weitzman, Professor of
economics, Harvard University.; Ensia -- "How Does Climate Stack up against Other Worst-Case Scenarios?." 4/1/2015 http://ensia.com/voices/howdoes-climate-stack-up-against-other-worst-case-scenarios/
What we know about climate change is bad. What we don’t know makes it potentially much worse. But climate
change isn’t the only big problem facing society. Opinions differ on what should rightly be called an “existential
risk” or planetary-scale “catastrophe.” Some include nuclear accidents or terrorism. Others insist only nuclear war, or at least a
large-scale nuclear attack, reaches dimensions worthy of the “global” label. There are half a dozen other candidates that seem to
make it on various lists of the worst of the worst, and it’s tough to come up with a clear order of which most demands our attention and limited resources.
In addition to climate change, let’s consider asteroids, biotechnology, nanotechnology, nukes, pandemics,
robots and “strangelets,” strange matter with the potential of swallowing the Earth in a fraction of a second. That might strike some as a rather
short list. Aren’t there thousands of potential risks? One could imagine countless ways to die in a traffic accident alone. That’s surely the case. But
there’s an important difference: While traffic deaths are tragic on an individual level, they are hardly catastrophic as a class. Every entry on our
list has the potential to wipe out civilization as we know it. All are global, highly impactful and mostly irreversible
in human timescales. Most are highly uncertain. … For one, only two on the list — asteroids and climate change —
allow us to point to history as evidence of the enormity of the problem. For asteroids, go back 65 million years to the one that
wiped out the dinosaurs. For climate, go back a bit over 3 million years to find today’s concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and sea levels
up to 20 meters (66 feet) higher than today. … If we could rank worst-case scenarios by how likely they are to occur, we’d have taken a huge step
forward. If the chance of a strangelet or robot takeover is so small as to be ignorable, probabilities alone might point to
where to focus. But that’s not all. The size of the impact matters, too. So does the potential to respond. What
then, if anything, still distinguishes climate change from the others remaining: biotechnology, nanotechnology, nukes and
pandemics? For one, the relatively high chance of eventual planetary catastrophe . In Climate Shock, we zero in on eventual
average global warming of 6 °C (11 °F) as the final cutoff few would doubt represents a true planetary catastrophe. Higher temperatures are beyond
anyone’s grasp. ... That, more than anything, should lead us to put the climate problem in its proper context. Climate is not the only “worst-case
scenario” imaginable. Others, too, deserve more attention. But none of that excuses inaction on climate. And more importantly, there’s
perhaps no
other problem where the probability of disaster multiplied by the magnitude of disaster is as high as with climate.
Global warming is an existential threat - the vast majority of reports agree
Richard Schiffman 13, environmental writer @ The Atlantic citing the Fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “What Leading Scientists
Want You to Know About Today's Frightening Climate Report,” 9/27/13, The Atlantic, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/leadingscientists-weigh-in-on-the-mother-of-all-climate-reports/280045/
The polar
icecaps are melting faster than we thought they would; seas are rising faster than we thought they
would; extreme weather events are increasing. Have a nice day! That’s a less than scientifically rigorous summary of the findings of the
Fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released this morning in Stockholm.¶ Appearing exhausted after a nearly two
sleepless days fine-tuning the language of the report, co-chair Thomas Stocker called climate change “the greatest challenge of our
time," adding that “each of the last three decades has been successively warmer than the past,” and that this trend is likely to continue into the
foreseeable future.¶ Pledging further action to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said, "This isn’t a run of the mill
report to be dumped in a filing cabinet. This isn’t a political document produced by politicians... It’s science."¶ And that science needs to be
communicated to the public, loudly and clearly. I canvassed leading climate researchers for their take on the findings of the vastly influential IPCC report.
What headline would they put on the news? What do they hope people hear about this report?¶ When I asked him for his headline, Michael Mann, the
Director of the Earth Systems Science Center at Penn State (a former IPCC author himself) suggested: "Jury In: Climate Change Real,
Caused by Us, and a Threat We Must Deal With."¶ Ted Scambos, a glaciologist and head scientist of the National Snow and Ice Data Center
(NSIDC) based in Boulder would lead with: "IPCC 2013, Similar Forecasts, Better Certainty." While the report, which is issued every six to seven years,
offers no radically new or alarming news, Scambos told me, it puts an exclamation point on what we already know, and refines our evolving
understanding of global warming.¶ The IPCC, the indisputable rock star of UN documents, serves as the basis for global climate negotiations, like the
ones that took place in Kyoto, Rio, and, more recently, Copenhagen. (The next big international climate meeting is scheduled for 2015 in Paris.) It is
also arguably the most elaborately vetted and exhaustively researched scientific paper in existence . Founded in 1988 by
the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization, the IPCC represents the distilled wisdom of over 600 climate researchers
in 32 countries on changes in the Earth’s atmosphere, ice and seas. It endeavors to answer the late New York mayor Ed Koch’s famous question “How
am I doing?” for all of us. The answer, which won’t surprise anyone who has been following the climate change story, is not very well at all. ¶ It is now 95
percent likely that human spewed heat-trapping gases — rather than natural variability — are the main cause of climate change, according to today’s
report. In 2007 the IPCC’s confidence level was 90 percent, and in 2001 it was 66 percent, and just over 50 percent in 1995. ¶ What’s more, things are
getting worse more quickly than almost anyone thought would happen a few years back.¶ “If you look at the early IPCC predictions back from 1990 and
what has taken place since, climate change is proceeding faster than we expected,” Mann told me by email. Mann helped develop the famous hockeystick graph, which Al Gore used in his film “An Inconvenient Truth” to dramatize the sharp rise in temperatures in recent times. ¶ Mann cites the decline
of Arctic sea ice to explain : “Given the current trajectory, we're on track for ice-free summer conditions in the Arctic in a matter of a decade or two...
There is a similar story with the continental ice sheets, which are losing ice — and contributing to sea level rise — at a faster rate than the [earlier IPCC]
models had predicted.”¶ But there is a lot that we still don’t understand. Reuters noted in a sneak preview of IPCC draft which was leaked in August that,
while the broad global trends are clear, climate scientists were “finding it harder than expected to predict the impact in specific regions in coming
decades.”¶ From year to year, the world’s hotspots are not consistent, but move erratically around the globe. The same has been true of heat waves,
mega-storms and catastrophic floods, like the recent ones that ravaged the Colorado Front Range. There is broad agreement that climate change is
increasing the severity of extreme weather events, but we’re not yet able to predict where and when these will show up. ¶ “ It is like watching a
pot boil,” Danish astrophysicist and climate scientist Peter Thejll told me. “We understand why it boils but cannot predict where the next bubble will
be.Ӧ There is also uncertainty about an apparent slowdown over the last decade in the rate of air temperature increase. While some critics claim that
global warming has “stalled,” others point out that, when rising ocean temperatures are factored in, the Earth is actually gaining heat faster
than previously anticipated.¶ “Temperatures measured over the short term are just one parameter,” said Dr Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institute
of Oceanography in an interview. “There are far more critical things going on; the acidification of the ocean is happening a lot faster
than anybody thought that it would, it’s sucking up more CO2, plankton, the basic food chain of the planet, are
dying, it’s such a hugely important signal. Why aren’t people using that as a measure of what is going on?”¶ Barnett thinks that recent
increases in volcanic activity, which spews smog-forming aerosols into the air that deflect solar radiation and cool the atmosphere, might help account
for the temporary slowing of global temperature rise. But he says we shouldn’t let short term fluctuations cause us to lose sight of the big picture.¶ The
dispute over temperatures underscores just how formidable the IPCC’s task of modeling the complexity of climate change is. Issued in three parts (the
next two installments are due out in the spring), the full version of the IPCC will end up several times the length of Leo Tolstoy’s epic War and Peace.
Yet every last word of the U.N. document needs to be signed off on by all of the nations on earth. ¶ “I do not know of any other area of any complexity
and importance at all where there is unanimous agreement... and the statements so strong,” Mike MacCracken, Chief Scientist for Climate
Change Programs, Climate Institute in Washington, D.C. told me in an email. “What IPCC has achieved is remarkable (and why it merited the Nobel
Peace Prize granted in 2007).”¶ Not surprisingly, the IPCC’s conclusions tend to be “conservative by design,” Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric scientist
with the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology told me: “The IPCC is not supposed to represent the controversial forefront of climate
science. It is supposed to represents what nearly all scientists agree on, and it does that quite effectively.Ӧ Nevertheless, even these understated
findings are inevitably controversial. Roger Pielke Jr., the Director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of
Colorado, Boulder suggested a headline that focuses on the cat fight that today’s report is sure to revive: "Fresh Red Meat Offered Up in the Climate
Debate, Activists and Skeptics Continue Fighting Over It." Pielke should know. A critic of Al Gore, who has called his own detractors "climate
McCarthyists," Pielke has been a lightning rod for the political controversy which continues to swirl around the question of global warming, and what, if
anything, we should do about it. ¶ The public’s skepticism of climate change took a dive after Hurricane Sandy. Fifty-four percent of Americans are now
saying that the effects of global warming have already begun. But 41 percent surveyed in the same Gallup poll believe news about global warming is
generally exaggerated, and there is a smaller but highly passionate minority that continues to believe the whole thing is a hoax. ¶ For most climate
experts, however, the battle is long over — at least when it comes to the science. What remains in dispute is not whether climate change is happening,
but how fast things are going to get worse.¶ There are some possibilities that are deliberately left out of the IPCC projections, because we simply don’t
have enough data yet to model them. Jason Box, a visiting scholar at the Byrd Polar Research Center told me in an email interview that: “The scary
elephant in the closet is terrestrial and oceanic methane release triggered by warming.” The IPCC projections don’t include the possibility — some
scientists say likelihood — that huge quantities of methane (a greenhouse gas thirty times as potent as CO2) will eventually be released from thawing
permafrost and undersea methane hydrate reserves. Box said that the threshhold “when humans lose control of potential management of the problem,
may be sooner than expected.Ӧ Box, whose work has been instrumental in documenting the rapid deterioration of the Greenland ice sheet, also
believes that the latest IPCC predictions (of a maximum just under three foot ocean rise by the end of the century) may turn out to be wildly optimistic, if
the Greenland ice sheet breaks up. “We are heading into uncharted territory” he said. “W e are creating a different climate than the Earth
has ever seen.” ¶ The head of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, speaks for the scientific consensus when he says that time is fast running out
to avoid the catastrophic collapse of the natural systems on which human life depends. What he recently told a group of
climate scientist could be the most chilling headline of all for the U.N. report: ¶ "We have five minutes before midnight."
Neg: Inherency Ans
Answers to Inherency
Right now plan will be done because Trump supports STEM ed
Sheva Quinn, Feb 5, 2017, The Future of STEM Education in America, QSTREAM University, Sheva Quinn is the Founder and Chief Education
Officer at QSTREAM Academy of Excellence and has over 5 years of African American centered STEM pedagogy, qstreamuniversity.org/the-future-ofstem-education-in-america/
With Barack Obama now out of office and Donald Trump serving as the present president of the United States, STEM students, educators and parents
are concerned about the future of STEM education. In 2016, when Scientific American inquired about the future of STEM
education, The Trump campaign responded as follows: “There are a host of STEM programs already in
existence.  What the federal government should do is to make sure that educational opportunities are available
for everyone.  This means we must allow market influences to bring better, higher quality educational
circumstances to more children.  Our cities are a case-study in what not to do in that we do not have choice
options for those who need access to better educational situations .  Our top-down-one-size-fits-all approach to education is
failing and is damaging educational outcomes for our children.  If we are serious about changing the direction of our educational
standing, we must change our educational models and allow the greatest possible number of options for
educating our children.  The management of our public education institutions should be done at the state and local level, not at the Department
of Education.  Until more choices are provided in our cities, those who tout their concern about educational outcomes cannot be taken seriously. ”
Right now plan will be done because the Senate loves STEM education
Chris Van Hollen, Wednesday, May 17, 2017,
Senators to Trump Administration: Do Not Hurt Workforce by Cutting NASA Education Funding, Chris Van Hollen is a Senator from Maryland - he
earned a BA in philosophy from Swathmore, a MA in public policy from Harvard, and a JD from Georgetown,
https://www.vanhollen.senate.gov/content/senators-trump-administration-do-not-hurt-workforce-cutting-nasa-education-funding
U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen joined Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI a
group of 31 Senators in a letter urging the
Senate Appropriations Committee to support NASA’s Office of Education in the coming fiscal year. President Trump’s
budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2018 (FY18) would eliminate NASA’s Office of Education, which works to inspire and educate students across the
country to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). “Given the importance of STEM education and the success
of Hidden Figures, which was recently celebrated by high-ranking members of the Trump Administration at a screening
at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, we were disappointed by President Trump’s budget proposal to eliminate funding for NASA’s
Office of Education in FY18,” wrote the Senators. “We recognize that you face significant budget constraints, but we urge you to support the
NASA Office of Education because its mission is critical to boosting the nation’s workforce competitiveness.”
Right now plan will be done because Trump will increase STEM ed spending
James Brown, November 13, 2016, First look at STEM in the Trump administration, STEMx, James Brown is Executive Director of the STEM
Education Coalition and was formerly a nuclear engineer, www.stemx.us/news/2016/11/first-look-at-stem-in-the-trump-administration/
Placing a greater priority on STEM education has always had a very bipartisan base of support and we expect
that to continue. President Obama used the so-called bully pulpit a great deal to talk about STEM education themes and the need for 21st century
skills to compete in a global economy. As a candidate, Trump talked a lot about putting people back to work, especially in
manufacturing. You can’t do that without focusing on STEM education themes. I also expect we will see a greater
focus on career and technical education and it’s linkages to STEM, which are many.
Neg: Growth Ans
Uniqueness Defense: In the status quo, long term economic growth is likely.
In the status quo, long term economic growth is likely. The Federal Reserve’s economic
growth projections are positive and stable
Colonial First State Asset Management 2017
http://www.cfsgam.com.au/uploadedFiles/Content/Insights/Articles/CFSGAM-US-Fed-Note-March-2017.pdf
As per the usual quarterly pattern, the Fed has updated its economic forecasts. As detailed in the table below, the
changes to the economic projections are very minor. On the labour market, the unemployment rate forecast is unchanged at 4.5% for
2017, 2018 and 2019. The longer-run unemployment rate forecast has been lowered marginally to 4.7% from 4.8%. For 2017 the Fed’s GDP
growth forecast is unchanged at 2.1%. The year-end 2018 GDP growth forecast is up marginally to 2.1% (from 2.0%), with the 2019
forecast unchanged at 1.9%. The longer-run GDP forecast is also unchanged at 1.8%.
In the status quo, long term economic growth is likely. Productivity is increasing, putting US growth above other similar countries
James Marple, March 28, 2017, For U.S. Economic Growth, Two Percent is the new THREE percent, TD Economics, James Marple is a Senior
Economist with TD Bank Group - he received his graduate degree in Economics from the University of Toronto in 2005,
https://www.td.com/document/PDF/economics/special/EconomicGrowth2017.pdf
Putting it together, our forecast for medium-term real GDP growth just shy of 2% is based on productivity growth
accelerating sufficiently to offset the expected slowdown in hours worked. We expect output per hour in the business sector to
accelerate from an estimated 0.3% rate in 2016 to around 1.6%. This is consistent with an investment rebound that will see growth
in capital services grow faster than labor. Capital deepening explains close to half of the rise in productivity. The remaining comes from TFP growth. This
rate of TFP growth is consistent with historical rates from the 1970s to early 1990s excluding the exceptional period of the late 1990s and early 2000s. In
other words, it is a normal, but not extraordinary rate of technological change. This adds up to business sector growth of modestly above 2% (Chart 12).
Since GDP tends to grow slower than the business sector, largely reflecting slower growth in government, GDP growth is likely to be somewhat lower.
Based on the historical growth gaps, this is consistent with real GDP growth of just below 2.0%. While low relative to its
own history, this is still relatively high compared to other advanced economies with aging populations. Similar exercises for Japan and
Europe yield economic growth under 1%.
In the status quo, long term economic growth is likely. Official growth statistics are too
pessimistic because they overstate inflation
Davies 2017
http://blogs.ft.com/gavyndavies/2017/04/30/is-us-productivity-finally-perking-up/
It also seems that the US
official statisticians may now be willing to admit that they have been underestimating productivity
growth because inflation is overstated, and real output is understated , in the GDP data. Until recently, economists in the Federal
Reserve and other official sources have strongly rejected claims that there is any downward bias in the productivity data, and the latest IMF paper (see
above) agrees with that conclusion. But economists in other countries, including the UK, have had a more open mind on this question. Jan Hatzius
is one of the economists who believes that US data are understating the true rate of productivity growth by as
much as 0.5-0.75 percentage points a year, a figure that is probably greater than the mismeasurement in earlier decades. If so, then
the measurement problem may explain part of the slowdown in the official productivity data. Hatzius argues that the
sharp increase in the quality of services provided by new products in consumer technology has not been picked
up in the data, so real output is higher, and inflation lower, than shown in the government’s data. A large part of
the problem stems from the introduction of entirely new products (such as the iPhone). These products may
greatly enhance the real value of services to consumers in ways that are not included in consumer price data [3].
Hatzius believes that the US Bureau of Labor Statistics is now more willing to allow for these effects in calculating the CPI, especially in technology and
health products. Mnuchin’s ambitious growth target What is the conclusion from all this? There has probably been some recovery
in US productivity growth in the recent past, driven by a reduction in the temporary headwinds that appeared after the GFC. Further
gains are probable as the headwinds fade further into the distance.
Link Defense: The plan will not cause an improvement in students’ educational
outcomes
The plan will not improve students’ educational outcomes unless it spends a lot of money. Existing
programs cost over $120k per teacher of color trained, or $20 billion for 160,000 teachers
Morton 2017
http://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/innovative-training-program-places-more-minority-teachers-in-seattles-public-schools/
A total of 74
teachers have graduated from the Seattle Teacher Residency since its debut four years ago. The graduates now work in 31
percent of them are teachers of color — double the 20 percent
diversity rate for all teachers who work in Seattle Public Schools, and four times the state rate of 10 percent. And
schools, with another 23 candidates in the pipeline. Forty-one
nearly all the residency graduates who start teaching in a high-needs school returned there for a second and third year. That’s much higher than the 71 percent retention rate
for other Seattle teachers hired in the same year, according to the Alliance for Education, a nonprofit that oversees the Seattle residency. “The residency was founded to
accelerate student achievement by creating a diverse pipeline of teachers committed to teaching five years in Seattle’s highest-need classrooms,” said program director
Marisa Bier. Seattle’s program is one of 23 in a national network overseen by the National Center for Teacher Residencies. In many teacher
preparation programs, candidates spend a lot of time at a college of education or in fast-track courses learning about classroom management, lesson planning and education
trends. The programs are often criticized for not providing enough classroom experience. The Seattle residency, in contrast, prepares aspiring teachers primarily through a
yearlong apprenticeship with an experienced teacher while the novices take coursework at the University of Washington. Residents, who receive a monthly stipend, commit to
teaching at least five years at a high-poverty school or in a special-education classroom in the Seattle district. They also can apply for additional tuition reimbursement. All
that is costly: Seattle’s program budgets about $50,000 per resident.
Pushing STEM will harm the labor pool by creating oversupply and worse busts
http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth
The Georgetown study estimates that nearly two-thirds of the STEM job openings in the United States, or about 180 000 jobs per year, will require
bachelor’s degrees. Now, if you apply the Commerce Department’s definition of STEM to the NSF’s annual count of science and engineering bachelor’s
degrees, that means about 252 000 STEM graduates emerged in 2009. So even if all the STEM openings were entry-level positions and even if only
new STEM bachelor’s holders could compete for them, that still leaves 70 000 graduates unable to get a job in their chosen field. Of course, the pool of
U.S. STEM workers is much bigger than that: It includes new STEM master’s and Ph.D. graduates (in 2009, around 80 000 and 25 000, respectively),
STEM associate degree graduates (about 40 000), H-1B visa holders (more than 50 000), other immigrants and visa holders with STEM degrees,
technical certificate holders, and non-STEM degree recipients looking to find STEM-related work. And then there’s the vast number of STEM degree
holders who graduated in previous years or decades. Even in the computer and IT industry, the sector that employs the most STEM workers and is
expected to grow the most over the next 5 to 10 years, not everyone who wants a job can find one. A recent study by the Economic Policy
Institute (EPI), a liberal-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C., found that more than a third of recent computer science graduates aren’t working in their
chosen major; of that group, almost a third say the reason is that there are no jobs available. Spot shortages for certain STEM specialists do crop up.
For instance, the recent explosion in data analytics has sparked demand for data scientists in health care and retail. But the H-1B visa and similar
immigrant hiring programs are meant to address such shortages. The problem is that students who are contemplating what field to specialize in can’t
assume such shortages will still exist by the time they emerge from the educational pipeline. What’s perhaps most perplexing about the claim of a STEM
worker shortage is that many studies have directly contradicted it, including reports from Duke University, the Rochester Institute of Technology,
the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Rand Corp. A 2004 Rand study, for example, stated that there was no evidence “that such shortages have
existed at least since 1990, nor that they are on the horizon.” That report argued that the best indicator of a shortfall would be a widespread rise in
salaries throughout the STEM community. But the price of labor has not risen, as you would expect it to do if STEM workers were scarce. In computing
and IT, wages have generally been stagnant for the past decade, according to the EPI and other analyses. And over the past 30 years, according to the
Georgetown report, engineers’ and engineering technicians’ wages have grown the least of all STEM wages and also more slowly than those in nonSTEM fields; while STEM workers as a group have seen wages rise 33 percent and non-STEM workers’ wages rose by 23 percent, engineering salaries
grew by just 18 percent. The situation is even more grim for those who get a Ph.D. in science, math, or engineering. The Georgetown study states it
succinctly: “At the highest levels of educational attainment, STEM wages are not competitive.” Given all of the above, it is difficult to make a case that
there has been, is, or will soon be a STEM labor shortage. “If there was really a STEM labor market crisis, you’d be seeing very different behaviors from
companies,” notes Ron Hira, an associate professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, in New York state. “You wouldn’t see
companies cutting their retirement contributions, or hiring new workers and giving them worse benefits packages. Instead you would see signing
bonuses, you’d see wage increases. You would see these companies really training their incumbent workers.” “None of those things are observable,”
Hira says. “In fact, they’re operating in the opposite way.” So why the persistent anxiety that a STEM crisis exists? Michael S. Teitelbaum, a Wertheim
Fellow at Harvard Law School and a senior advisor to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, has studied the phenomenon, and he says that in the United
States the anxiety dates back to World War II. Ever since then it has tended to run in cycles that he calls “alarm, boom, and bust.” He says the cycle
usually starts when “someone or some group sounds the alarm that there is a critical crisis of insufficient numbers of scientists, engineers, and
mathematicians” and as a result the country “is in jeopardy of either a national security risk or of falling behind economically.” In the 1950s, he notes,
Americans worried that the Soviet Union was producing 95 000 scientists and engineers a year while the United States was producing only about 57
000. In the 1980s, it was the perceived Japanese economic juggernaut that was the threat, and now it is China and India. You’ll hear similar arguments
made elsewhere. In India, the director general of the Defence Research and Development Organisation, Vijay Kumar Saraswat, recently noted that in
his country, “a meagre four persons out of every 1000 are choosing S&T or research, as compared to 110 in Japan, 76 in Germany and Israel, 55 in
USA, 46 in Korea and 8 in China.” Leaders in South Africa and Brazil cite similar statistics to show how they are likewise falling behind in the STEM
race. “The government responds either with money [for research] or, more recently, with visas to increase the number of STEM workers,” Teitelbaum
says. “This continues for a number of years until the claims of a shortage turn out not to be true and a bust ensues.” Students who graduate during the
bust, he says, are shocked to discover that “they can’t find jobs, or they find jobs but not stable ones.” At the moment, we’re in the alarm-headingtoward-boom part of the cycle. According to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office, the U.S. government spends more than US $3
billion each year on 209 STEM-related initiatives overseen by 13 federal agencies. That’s about $100 for every U.S. student beyond primary school. In
addition, major corporations are collectively spending millions to support STEM educational programs. And every U.S. state, along with a host of public
and private universities, high schools, middle schools, and even primary schools, has its own STEM initiatives. The result is that many people’s fortunes
are now tied to the STEM crisis, real or manufactured. Clearly, powerful forces must be at work to perpetuate the cycle. One is obvious: the bottom line.
Companies would rather not pay STEM professionals high salaries with lavish benefits, offer them training on the job, or guarantee them decades of
stable employment. So having an oversupply of workers, whether domestically educated or imported, is to their benefit. It gives employers a larger pool
from which they can pick the “best and the brightest,” and it helps keep wages in check. No less an authority than Alan Greenspan, former chairman of
the Federal Reserve, said as much when in 2007 he advocated boosting the number of skilled immigrants entering the United States so as to “suppress”
the wages of their U.S. counterparts, which he considered too high. Governments also push the STEM myth because an abundance of scientists and
engineers is widely viewed as an important engine for innovation and also for national defense. And the perception of a STEM crisis benefits higher
education, says Ron Hira, because as “taxpayers subsidize more STEM education, that works in the interest of the universities” by allowing them to
expand their enrollments. An oversupply of STEM workers may also have a beneficial effect on the economy, says Georgetown’s Nicole Smith, one of
the coauthors of the 2011 STEM study. If STEM graduates can’t find traditional STEM jobs, she says, “they will end up in other sectors of the economy
and be productive.” The problem with proclaiming a STEM shortage when one doesn’t exist is that such claims can actually create a shortage down the
road, Teitelbaum says. When previous STEM cycles hit their “bust” phase, up-and-coming students took note and steered clear of those fields, as
happened in computer science after the dot-com bubble burst in 2001. Emphasizing STEM at the expense of other disciplines carries other risks.
Without a good grounding in the arts, literature, and history, STEM students narrow their worldview—and their career options. In a 2011 op-ed in The
Wall Street Journal, Norman Augustine, former chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, argued that point. “In my position as CEO of a firm employing
over 80 000 engineers, I can testify that most were excellent engineers,” he wrote. “But the factor that most distinguished those who advanced in the
organization was the ability to think broadly and read and write clearly.”
Case will fail – STEM reforms have to be broad and intricately thought out – sweeping
proposals will fail due to lack of a tenable conceptual model (NEG)
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0002764209356230
The science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce has been a source of U.S. policy action for more than 50 years. Yet our
public discussion and policy responses are misdirected because of poor conceptual models, reliance on single variables instead of multiple indicators,
and little recognition of the conflicting interests of various groups that stand to gain or lose from specific policy changes. As a result, there seems to be
little satisfaction in the current state of the policy process on the STEM workforce. This article presents and discusses some of the key variables used to
evaluate the STEM workforce and some of the policy levers that can and are used to change the state of the U.S. STEM workforce system.
Case will fail because it is too simplistic – similar plans have been tried and have failed (NEG)
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0002764209356230
Inadequate supply may be how the crisis is defined by business, academic, and political leaders, but some STEM workers view the problem very
differently. A recent entry in a popular blog by a technology worker offers this starkly different picture. The writer says, I am a former American tech
worker, programmer and systems analyst who is now functionally unemployed at the age of 50. What happened? Why? What to do? Does anyone relate
to this or give a darn? These are some questions I wake up to and live with each day, trying to turn 20+ years of work on large scale IBM business
systems and databases into a salvageable work life. Since 2003, I’ve worked in real estate (not a “real” job in most places), substitute teacher, Home
Depot Flooring associate, contract writer for a struggling home builder, and tech writer for a small tech business with a spotty business history. Why was
I once employable, making a reasonable income, and now almost unemployable with the business and tech skills amassed over 20+ years?
(Anonymous, 2007) This blog entry cannot be dismissed as an anecdote because it faithfully represents the experiences and concerns of a sizable
share of STEM workers. There are literally thousands of similar stories that have appeared on the Internet and in news reports over the past few years
from workers in a variety of STEM fields. Not surprisingly, these workers believe that the real STEM crisis is a lack of demand. It is obvious, based on
the strong language used all around, that key stakeholders— industry and university leaders and a significant share of STEM workers—are highly
dissatisfied with the current state and direction of the STEM labor market. But they offer seemingly conflicting assessments and policy prescriptions. So
which is it, a lack of supply or of demand? Or could both conditions exist simultaneously? Too often policy discussions and proposals are driven by a
single variable presented in isolation, such as the number of degrees. Those discussions ignore other system variables key to diagnosing and predicting
how the entire system would respond to particular policy changes. They also frequently treat the STEM labor market as homogeneous, when in fact it is
better characterized as a multiple labor markets, demarcated by occupation, level of degree, geographic location, industry-specific knowledge, and years
of experience. The STEM Workforce Data Project conducted by the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology (CPST) helps to fill the
data gaps by bringing together many key variables, at a disaggregated level, in one set of reports (Ellis, 2007). The project is a series of nine reports and
two white papers that present data on wages, gender and minority participation, enrollments and degrees, employment levels, employment forecasts,
and foreign-born participation. It provides analysts with a broad range of facts to help them evaluate conflicting viewpoints about the STEM workforce.
Although the data supplied by the project constitute a necessary step, they are not sufficient. Better analytic frameworks need to be built to judge STEM
workforce policies. Current conceptual models, whether implicit or explicit, are too limited. They do not account for the complexity of the STEM workforce
system, with its multiple factors, feedback loops, interconnectedness, and adaptation. As a result, analysts have a poor ability to predict the full array of
impacts of specific policy choices even when good data are at hand.
Internal Link Defense: Improving educational outcomes will not cause long term
economic growth
Improving educational outcomes will not cause long term economic growth. There is no
relationship between human capital and long term growth
Andreas Rauch & Serge A. Rijsdijk, 21 October 2011,
The Effects of General and Specific Human Capital on Long-Term Growth and Failure of Newly Founded Businesses, Entrepreneurship: Theory and
Practice Journal, Andreas Rauch is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Groningen and Affiliated
Researcher at the Johannes Kepler University Linz - He received his PH.D at University of Amsterdam; Serge is assistant professor of Innovation
Management at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and holds PhD in New Product Marketing from the Faculty of Industrial Design
Engineering, TU Delft, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6520.2011.00487.x/full
A theoretical perspective that has been used to explain both growth (Wiklund, Patzelt, & Shepherd, 2009) and failure
(Shepherd & Wiklund, 2006) builds on human capital theory. Human capital consists of the skills and knowledge that
individuals acquire through their investments in schooling , on-the-job training, and other types of experiences (Becker, 1964).
Importantly, the relative magnitude of the relationship between human capital and performance depends on the success criterion used (Unger et al.,
2011). Thus, the human capital literature does allow assumptions concerning the relative magnitude of the relationship between human capital and
different success indicators. Human capital theory was originally developed to explain variations in financial returns of employees. The theory
predicts that people attempt to receive a compensation for their investments in human capital and, thus, try to
maximize the economic benefits over their lifetime (Becker). Applied to entrepreneurship, this means that entrepreneurs with high
human capital must receive appropriate benefits from their venturing activities. Therefore, entrepreneurs’ human capital should be positively associated
with a preference of size and growth (Cassar, 2006; Unger et al.). Moreover, entrepreneurs want to compensate for their human capital investments over
their lifetimes (Cassar; Gimeno et al., 1997). Growth reflects success over a period of time more appropriately than, for instance, profit levels at a certain
point of time (Delmar, 1997). Finally, human capital may lead to better decisions and more learning and knowledge that, in turn, have long-term
consequences (Ackerman & Humphreys, 1990). Thus, the effects of human capital may very well accumulate over time. A large number of empirical
studies have addressed the relationship between human capital and business growth (Cooper et al., 1994; Dahlqvist, Davidsson, & Wiklund, 2000).
Unger et al. performed a meta-analysis of 70 studies examining the relationship between human capital and
performance. The results indicated that the overall size of the relationship between human capital and growth is
relatively small (r = .068), and the findings reported in the literature vary considerably (Unger et al.). Thus, despite the
large number of studies from different countries included in the meta-analysis, it is difficult to detect strong
relationships. However, the meta-analysis did not focus on newly established enterprises, and moreover, most studies included in the meta-analysis
did not address the long-term effects of human capital.
Improving educational outcomes will not cause long term economic growth. Education
doesn’t actually improve human capital, it just identifies smart ambitious people
Kenny 2014
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-07/why-education-spending-doesnt-lead-to-economic-growth
Analysis by Lawrence Katz and Claudia Goldin suggests that increased educational attainment among Americans from 1915 to 1999 might account for
10 percent of the growth in U.S. GDP over that time. Some commentators contend that this an underestimate (PDF). But at the global level, no
relationship has been found between a more educated population and more rapid economic development. There
has been an explosion in schooling in developing countries, but many show nothing like explosive growth in
GDP per person. By 2010, the average Kenyan had spent more years in school than the average French citizen
had in 1985. But Kenya’s GDP per capita in 2010 was only 7 percent of France’s GDP per head 25 years earlier.
What explains the limited impact of increased education on economic growth? A possible answer is that
education acts as a filter rather than an investment. A recent study (PDF) in Italy found that test scores had a
significant impact on the earnings of employees—but none on the earnings of self-employed people. One
interpretation of that result is that schooling signals persons with intelligence and ambition, rather than actually
imparting or indicating skills that make them better at their jobs over the long term. Signaling helps as a screening tool for
employers, but makes no difference to people who work for themselves. Presumably, they already know how smart and ambitious they are. (Think Bill
Gates: Harvard let him in, signaling smarts, but he didn’t finish his studies before going off to become the world’s richest man; apparently Gates didn’t
feel he needed to complete the course load to succeed).
Improving educational outcomes will not cause long term economic growth. More education
is pointless if people don’t have good reasons to put it to good use
Wolla 2013
https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/page1-econ/2013/09/01/what-are-the-ingredients-for-economic-growth/
In the end, to paraphrase Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas Jr., it is difficult to minimize the importance of
economic growth. The
role of incentives is vital in this regard. Incentives matter—a lot. The decisions to save, invest, attend college,
start a business, hire an additional worker, buy a piece of equipment, or develop a new idea depend on a multitude of
factors. Among the most important factors is the role of well-designed institutions. How a nation designs and operates its
economic and political infrastructure is crucial because such infrastructure provides the proper incentives for
individuals, firms, and policymakers to undertake activities that generate rising standards of living over time.
Impact Turn: Long term economic growth is actually a significant harm
Long term economic growth is actually significant harm. It trades off with a huge number of
proposals that could improve standards of living
Speth 2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-gustave-speth/growth-fetish-five-reason_b_4018166.html
4. The over-riding imperative to grow gives over-riding power to those, mainly the corporations, which have the capital and technology to deliver
that growth, and, much the same thing, it undermines the case for a long list of public policies that would improve national
well-being but are said to “slow growth” and to “hurt the economy.” Thomas Friedman says that economic globalization puts
countries in a golden straightjacket — creating new wealth but constraining national policies. Far more encompassing is the straightjacket of the growth
imperative. It is possible to identify a long list of public policies that would slow GDP growth , thus sparing the environment,
while simultaneously improving social and individual well-being. Such policies include shorter workweeks and
longer vacations; greater labor protections, including a “living” minimum wage, protection of labor’s right to
organize, and generous parental leaves; guarantees to part-time workers; a new design for the twenty-first-century corporation,
one that embraces rechartering, new ownership patterns, and stakeholder primacy rather than shareholder primacy; restrictions on advertising;
incentives for local and locally owned production and consumption; strong social and environmental provisions in trade
agreements; rigorous environmental, health, and consumer protection; greater economic equality with genuinely
progressive taxation of the rich (including a progressive consumption tax) and greater income support for the poor; increased
spending on neglected public services; and initiatives to address population growth at home and abroad. Taken together, these
policies would undoubtedly slow GDP growth, but quality of life would improve, and that’s what matters.
Long term economic growth is actually significant harm. It will make us poorer and reduce
living standards
Daly 2005
Hermany Daly, a professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. From 1988 to 1994 he was senior economist in the environment
department of the Work Bank, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN; September 2005, p. 100-107,“Economics In A full World”
Growth is widely thought to be the panacea for all the major economic ills of the modern world. Poverty? Just grow the
economy (that is, increase the production of goods and services and spur consumer spending) and watch wealth trickle down. Don't try to redistribute
wealth from rich to poor, because that slows growth. Unemployment? Increase demand for goods and services by lowering interest rates on loans and
stimulating investment, which leads to more jobs as well as growth. Overpopulation? Just push economic growth and rely on the resulting demographic
transition to reduce birth rates, as it did in the industrial nations during the 20th century. Environmental degradation? Trust in the environmental Kuznets
curve, an empirical relation purporting to show that with ongoing growth in gross domestic product (GDP), pollution at first increases but then reaches a
maximum and declines. Relying on growth in this way might be fine if the global economy existed in a void, but it does not. Rather the economy is
a subsystem of the finite biosphere that supports it. When the economy's expansion encroaches too much on its
surrounding ecosystem, we will begin to sacrifice natural capital (such as fish, minerals and fossil fuels) that is
worth more than the man-made capital (such as roads, factories and appliances) added by the growth. We will
then have what I call uneconomic growth, producing "bads" faster than goods--making us poorer, not richer.
Once we pass the optimal scale, growth becomes stupid in the short run and impossible to maintain in the long
run. Evidence suggests that the U.S. may already have entered the uneconomic growth phase. Recognizing and
avoiding uneconomic growth are not easy. One problem is that some people benefit from uneconomic growth and thus have no incentive for change. In
addition, our national accounts do not register the costs of growth for all to see. Humankind must make the transition to a sustainable
economy--one that takes heed of the inherent biophysical limits of the global ecosystem so that it can continue
to operate long into the future. If we do not make that transition, we may be cursed not just with uneconomic
growth but with an ecological catastrophe that would sharply lower living standards. But the facts are plain and
uncontestable: the biosphere is finite, nongrowing, closed (except for the constant input of solar energy), and constrained by the
laws of thermodynamics. Any subsystem, such as the economy, must at some point cease growing and adapt itself to a
dynamic equilibrium, something like a steady state. Birth rates must equal death rates, and production rates of
commodities must equal depreciation rates.
Long term economic growth is actually significant harm. It reduces standards of living by
creating pollution that hurts human health
Bretschger & Vinogradova 2016
https://www.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/mtec/cer-eth/resource-econ-dam/documents/people/lbretschger/Health_25.01.2016_new.pdf
the risks of polluted
air, water, and soils to human health are significant and sizeable. Higher levels of air pollution cause larger exposure
of human population to heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, and both chronic and acute respiratory diseases. The World Health
Organization reports that outdoor air pollution in cities and rural areas caused 3.7 million premature deaths worldwide in 2012
The natural environment has major impacts on two key dimensions of human development: income and health. Specifically,
(WHO 2014). Some 88% of those premature deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries. Air quality is a very serious concern in most cities of
emerging economies, e.g., Beijing and Shanghai. Health costs of air and water pollution in China have been estimated to amount to 4.3 percent of its
GDP (World Bank 2007). For developed countries the empirical results are striking as well. A recent study found that, in Europe, air pollution
costs no less than USD$ 1.6 trillion a year in diseases and deaths, causing approximate 600,000 premature
deaths (WHO and OECD 2015). As a consequence, reducing air pollution has become a top political priority of the European environmental policy. By
reducing emissions from burning coal, forests, and biomass, countries can restrict rural and urban air pollution, which improves the cardiovascular and
respiratory health of the population. The reduction can be achieved by policies and investments supporting cleaner transportation, energy-efficient
housing, renewable power generation, and better municipal waste management. Major negative effects on human health are also
caused by low water and soil quality. In many less developed countries, poor access to safe and unpolluted water resources is a major
cause of various diseases. Policies and investments improving water quality and sanitation can accelerate attainment of multiple environmental and
health-related goals in low and middle-income countries, where cardiovascular and respiratory disorders, diarrhoea, malaria, dengue fever, and
schistosomiasis harm the well-being of individuals on a large scale. 2 From an economic perspective, the various pollution-induced health problems
have several common features. First, they arise from negative market externalities. Hence, free markets do not provide optimal allocations so that
environmental policies are warranted. Second, if external costs are not internalized, the negative pollution impacts rise with the level of
economic activities, i.e. with economic growth . Third, the health effects of pollution are important and sizeable, affecting the
macroeconomic performance of an economy. The health status of the population thus constitutes an important aspect of green growth and sustainable
development. Finally, the health impacts of pollution are uncertain and random, both at the level of individuals and of the aggregate economy. In fact,
regions and countries are often affected by waves of diseases, causing fluctuations not only in the economic output but in the overall welfare of the
population. The most substantial health shocks arise with epidemic and pandemic diseases. An epidemic occurs when a particular very contagious
disease spreads quickly and infects a large percentage of population. Diseases can be air-borne or water-borne; water pollution plays a major role in the
latter case. Pandemic is a contagious disease affecting people throughout the world or on multiple continents at the same time. It may be caused by
externalities from the agricultural sector using intensiÖed methods of production, like in the cases of swine and bird flu.
Neg: Diversity Ans
Uniqueness Defense: Racism is being combatted in the status quo
In the status quo racism is already being combatted because students of color identify and
resist negative stereotypes
Leoandra Onnie Rogers et al, 2013,
“I’m Not Going to Become No Rapper”: Stereotypes as a Context of Ethnic and Racial Identity Development, Journal of Adolescent Research, Onnie
Rogers is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University - she is joined by Niobe Way (Professor of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt), Maria G Hernandez (project associate at the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education at New York University), and Diane L Hughes
(Professor of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt), http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.849.8538&rep=rep1&type=pdf
middle school students, particularly youth of color during their 8th-grade interviews, are
focused on not becoming or resisting stereotypes associated with their ethnic or racial group and that this
process is a significant part of their construction of identities . Other studies have also noted the role of
avoidance as well as the importance of “counter stereotypes” in the construction of identities (Oyserman et al., 1995;
Spencer, 1995; von Hippel et al., 2001; Way et al., 2008). In the 8th grade, African American adolescents in our study spoke of
avoiding becoming a thug, a teenage parent, an academic underachiever, or a gang member; while Chinese American
Our data also indicated that
students spoke about avoiding becoming a victim of bullying, a “nerd” or “geek,” or someone who is perceived as “uncool.” Dominican Americans spoke
of avoiding becoming unsuccessful, an underachiever, or someone who engages in bad behavior; while European Americans, among the few who
revealed such patterns, spoke of avoiding becoming a victim of bullying or a snob (or “know it all”). This pattern may be particularly true for
youth of color, in comparison to White youth, because they are more likely than their White peers to be the
recipients of negative stereotypes and thus have more reason to resist stereotypes. While Erikson (1968) describes the
negative identities that ethnic minorities may acquire, he does not discuss the process of resistance that many young people appear to engage in with
respect to negative stereotypes. Future research needs to explore whether these patterns of resistance are evident in other samples such as those that
include students who attend ethnically or racially homogeneous schools. Ironically, schools that are racially and ethnically homogeneous may not
provoke as much concern about stereotypes and the need to resist them as schools that are more diverse.
In the status quo racism is already being combatted because other role models already
available
Ta-Nehisi Coates, January/February 2017,
My President Was Black, The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates is a national correspondent for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social
issues. He is the author of The Beautiful Struggle and Between the World and Me, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/my-presidentwas-black/508793/
Barack Obama’s
victories in 2008 and 2012 were dismissed by some of his critics as merely symbolic for African
Americans. But there is nothing “mere” about symbols. The power embedded in the word nigger is also symbolic. Burning crosses
do not literally raise the black poverty rate, and the Confederate flag does not directly expand the wealth gap. Much as the unbroken ranks of
43 white male presidents communicated that the highest office of government in the country—indeed, the most
powerful political offices in the world—was off-limits to black individuals, the election of Barack Obama
communicated that the prohibition had been lifted. It communicated much more. Before Obama triumphed in
2008, the most-famous depictions of black success tended to be entertainers or athletes. But Obama had shown
that it was “possible to be smart and cool at the same damn time,” as Jesse Williams put it at the BET party. Moreover, he had not
embarrassed his people with a string of scandals. Against the specter of black pathology, against the narrow images of welfare moms
and deadbeat dads, his time in the White House had been an eight-year showcase of a healthy and successful
black family spanning three generations, with two dogs to boot. In short, he became a symbol of black people’s everyday,
extraordinary Americanness.
In the status quo racism is already being combatted because there are already programs and
role models for AA students in STEM
National Society of Black Engineers, January 27, 2017, National Society of Black Engineers Launches #Blackstemlikeme Campaign,
NSBE is a professional society of professors, professionals, and students from all across the United States, https://www.nsbe.org/PressReleases/NSBE-Launches-Blackstemlikeme-Campaign.aspx
Leveraging the immense popularity of the hit movie “Hidden Figures,” the National Society of Black Engineers
(NSBE) has launched a nationwide campaign titled #BlackSTEMLikeMe. This unique multimedia initiative is aiming to
encourage black students and professionals in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) to share their
stories and passions; bring visibility to the important work they are doing; show black boys and girls that a
future in STEM is an incredible and attainable career path; demonstrate the value of NSBE membership and celebrate the unique,
wonderful and life-changing aspects of the African-American community — past and present. The campaign is designed to move NSBE
toward the main goal of its 10-year strategic plan, which is to lead the U.S. to produce 10,000 African-American
bachelor’s degree recipients in engineering annually by 2025, up from 3,501 graduates in 2014 . “Hidden Figures,”
released in theaters nationwide on Jan. 6, tells the story of how three African-American women — Katherine Johnson, Dorothy
Vaughan and Mary Jackson — contributed critical math, engineering and computer science work to the early missions of
the U.S. space program. The movie, which is getting great reviews and was the No. 1 film at the box office in its first two
weekends, is bringing a major focus to the often overlooked contributions of the black STEM community.
Solvency Defense: The plan will not decrease racism
The plan will not decrease racism unless it spends a lot of money. Existing programs cost over $120k
per teacher of color trained, or $20 billion for 160,000 teachers
Morton 2017
http://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/innovative-training-program-places-more-minority-teachers-in-seattles-public-schools/
A total of 74
teachers have graduated from the Seattle Teacher Residency since its debut four years ago. The graduates now work in 31
percent of them are teachers of color — double the 20 percent
diversity rate for all teachers who work in Seattle Public Schools, and four times the state rate of 10 percent. And
schools, with another 23 candidates in the pipeline. Forty-one
nearly all the residency graduates who start teaching in a high-needs school returned there for a second and third year. That’s much higher than the 71 percent retention rate
for other Seattle teachers hired in the same year, according to the Alliance for Education, a nonprofit that oversees the Seattle residency. “The residency was founded to
accelerate student achievement by creating a diverse pipeline of teachers committed to teaching five years in Seattle’s highest-need classrooms,” said program director
Marisa Bier. Seattle’s program is one of 23 in a national network overseen by the National Center for Teacher Residencies. In many teacher
preparation programs, candidates spend a lot of time at a college of education or in fast-track courses learning about classroom management, lesson planning and education
trends. The programs are often criticized for not providing enough classroom experience. The Seattle residency, in contrast, prepares aspiring teachers primarily through a
yearlong apprenticeship with an experienced teacher while the novices take coursework at the University of Washington. Residents, who receive a monthly stipend, commit to
teaching at least five years at a high-poverty school or in a special-education classroom in the Seattle district. They also can apply for additional tuition reimbursement. All
that is costly: Seattle’s program budgets about $50,000 per resident.
Solvency Turn: The plan will increase racism
The plan will cause more racism because merely hiring Teachers of Color will increase
tokenization and white-male dominated hierarchies – the problem is retention not recruitment
Nicole S. Simon, Susan Moore Johnson, and Stefanie K. Reinhorn, July 2015, The Challenge of Recruiting and Hiring Teachers of Color:
Lessons From Six High-Performing, High-Poverty, Urban Schools, in The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers Harvard Graduate School of
Education,Nicole S Simon is a Research Affiliate with Harvard University and holds a B.S. in Human Development and an M.S. in Design &
Environmental Analysis, both from Cornell University - Susan Moore Johnson is the Jerome T. Murphy Research Professor in Education at Harvard
University and doctorate of edcuation from Harvard University - STEFANIE K. REINHORN is an advanced doctoral student in the Education Policy
Leadership and Instructional Practice program at Harvard Graduate School of Education and holds a B.A. in Art History from Princeton University and an
Ed.M. from Harvard in Education Policy and Management, https://projectngt.gse.harvard.edu/files/gseprojectngt/files/the_challenge_of_recruiting_and_hiring_teachers_of_color_diversity_july_2015.pdf
All schools
reported making a deliberate effort to hire more Black and Latino teachers, which was usually
incorporated with the schools’ carefully developed, active recruitment and hiring processes . Each school had
strategically adapted its process to address the unique challenges of recruiting and hiring teachers of color. To identify potential recruits, schools first
determined where the candidates whom they sought might be found and then developed partnerships with human capital organizations and with
“connectors” in an effort to recruit them. Principals recognized the important role that current teachers of color might play in recruiting more teachers of
color and therefore each school engaged teachers of color in their recruitment and hiring processes in some way. At two schools, teachers of color were
active partners in developing and enacting a strategy; at one school, they even reported initiating a school-wide effort. Teachers were clear that this
worked because the school was already an inclusive environment where conversations about race were commonplace. At other schools, however,
school leaders and talent staff formulated an image advertising strategy that depended on current teachers of
color. But, they did not formally acknowledge the extensive role that teachers of color were expected to fulfill. In
these schools, teachers of color often expressed skepticism about their school’s motives and said they felt like
tokens whose image was, as one said, being used as “a tool for marketing.” Schools also adapted their hiring processes to ensure that
the few teachers of color in the applicant pool were carefully considered—and courted. However, in spite of their extensive recruitment and hiring efforts,
the pool of applicants of color was insufficient and schools were beginning to expand their pool by training new teachers through in-house TT programs.
Schools also increased the diversity of their staff by hiring support staff and non-core subject teachers who were
Black or Latino. Collectively, these initiatives were promising, but some expressed concerns about what one called a
“hierarchy triangle” that was developing as new teachers and support staff were people of color and the more
veteran teachers and those in leadership positions were White .
The plan will cause more racism because ToC recruitment can’t reduce racism in schools
alone – it actually gets worse because of the white supremacist structure
Rachelle Rogers-Ard and Christopher B Knaus, November 30, 2012,
Educational Genocide: Examining the Impact of National Education Policy on African American Communities, ECI Interdisciplinary Journal for Legal and
Social Policy Volume 2 Issue 1, Dr. Rachelle Rogers-Ard is an educator, administrator and mother of four with over 24 years' experience modeling and
teaching Culturally Responsive Instruction and Leadership Development, Christopher Knaus is Professor of Education at the University of Washington Tacoma,ecipublications.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=ijlsp
Those who have already successfully navigated post-secondary institutions and want to become teachers are
never happy that they must go back into a world that , for many people of color, was difficult, silencing, linguistically and
culturally absent, and drastically unequal (Lewis, 2006; Obidah, Buenavista, Gildersleeve, Kim, & Marsh, 2007). Some teachers of color
jump the hoops because they believe that classrooms can be transformative spaces, particularly for AfricanAmerican children. One Oakland teacher reported that she teaches because “I didn't have good teachers, and I don't want that to be the case for our children”
(personal communication, 2011). However, many teachers of color choose to find other ways to work with children (after-school
programs, community-based organizations, churches, and through volunteering) for the same reasons that African-American children drop out
of school: They cannot stand to see themselves becoming part of a process designed to silence people of color.
Every year, beginning teachers of color morph from transformative and excited professionals who want to create
classrooms that would be different from those they experienced as youth, to jaded, deflated balloons who tire of
battling within schools that are designed as test prep machines. These same teachers who were silenced by the
oppressive, traditional, and mainly white professoriate found in college education programs, slowly become the silencer of
children living in poverty. New teachers without tenure who question curriculum, create spaces where children’s voices are valued, heard and responded
to, and where test scores take a back seat to creative, responsive curriculum are ridiculed. They are told that they need to follow heavily-scripted
curriculum designed to ensure that children are not “left behind,” and threatened with removal if they do not
comply. Teachers who resist because they care more about children than district pacing guides are removed,
leave on their own, or are pushed out. For many African-American teachers, the cost of fulfilling the colonizing
mission of schools is much too high. Ironically, this is the same result for many of our dropouts who don’t see
themselves in the curriculum and who can’t find adults who have time to care.
The plan will cause more racism because centering solutions on blackness only masks the
real problem, which is whiteness
Thea Monyee, June 29, 2015,
WE CANNOT HAVE HONEST DISCUSSIONS ABOUT RACISM IF WE REFUSE TO CONFRONT WHITENESS, For Harariet blog, Thea Monyee has a
BS in Human Services and a MS in Marriage and Family Therapy and has been published in three books about race in America,,
www.forharriet.com/2015/06/we-cannot-have-honest-discussions-about.html?m=1#axzz3eUPu6wxq
Racism is not about blackness. It is about whiteness. The question two weeks ago should not have been, “Is Rachel Dolezal black?”
or a question of “What is blackness?” The question should have been, “Why doesn’t Rachel Dolezal want to be white?”
The Charleston 9—Reverend Clementa Pinckney, Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, Tywanza Sanders, Reverend DePayne Middleton-Doctor,
Reverend Daniel Simmons Sr., Myra Thompson, and Reverend Sharonda Singleton—were not murdered because of their blackness. They were
murdered because of Dylann Roof’s whiteness. Whiteness is described by Marilyn Frye, as “a socially and politically structured
ideology that results in the unequal distribution of power and privilege based on skin color.” bell hooks adds that
it is “a state of unconsciousness, often invisible to white people, which perpetuates a lack of knowledge or
understanding of difference, which is a root cause of oppression.” We continuously examine racism by its
effects on black people, instead of its roots in whiteness. As convenient as this is for white people , especially those
who pride themselves on being “color-blind,” it continuously lays the burden of resolving racial issues at the foot of the very people it devastates.
The result is a conversation where both black and white never create a solution to the root cause of systemic racism: Whiteness. But isn’t this
the conversation we claim we want to have? The conversation that is long overdo even after Barack Obama has been elected…twice? Yes. It is the
honest, straightforward conversation sidestepped by mainstream media, avoided by white people, and mumbled in the privacy of black homes. It is
the conversation that challenges white people to evaluate, “Do I benefit from being white? Why am I resistant to
owning the history of my ancestors and how it has impacted people of color all over the world? Is it possible that
I unconsciously harbor racial bias?” The choice to avoid discussing whiteness is a matter of life and death . The
reasons we avoid conversations about whiteness are: One, conversations about whiteness makes white people feel uncomfortable; and two, most black
people are not comfortable with making white people feel uncomfortable. Historically, giving up our space to ensure the comfort of white people has
been a necessity to ensure self-preservation. Today, not much has changed. Black people still allow and even support shifting from
significant conversations about white violence and privilege to headlines about black on black crime and
whether hip hop is to blame for white kids saying the N word. Trayvon Martin’s murder became a story about how black youth dress. McKinney
became a story about why black people don’t know how to swim. The story about the Charleston 9 became a story about mental illness and gun control.
We, black people, actually spent an entire week arguing over whether a pathological liar and clearly white woman should be entitled to define herself as
a black woman because she picked up a brown crayon, at age five. Really? White people being uncomfortable is a part of the
healing process, and it is the pathway to developing authentic alliances . Many self-proclaimed white allies are perfectly
comfortable pitying blackness and interjecting their opinions into conversations about the black experience, until you mention whiteness. Mentioning
whiteness unearths the infected parts of their identity, and the unexamined narrative that is edited out of every single story about race. It often reveals a
well intentioned, yet privileged human being with no framework for how to use their whiteness to address and attack systemic racism. So long as
issues of race are centered on blackness, whiteness will show its dangerous face in our organizations, our churches, in uniforms, and in our
untested allies. It is our responsibility to make whiteness the focal point of race centered conversations, to allow white people to learn from
their discomfort, and to remember that our blackness is not the reason that racism exists.
Impact Defense: Reducing racism is not as significant a benefit as the Aff claims,
because it is not the root of all other types of oppression.
Racism is not the root cause of oppression – even in situations of racism it’s not clear
whether racism is the primary or secondary cause of oppression
Shelby 7 Tommie Shelby, Professor of African and African American Studies and of Philosophy at Harvard, 2007, We Who Are Dark: The
Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity
Others might challenge the distinction between ideological and structural causes of black disadvantage, on the grounds
that we are rarely, if ever, able to so neatly separate these factors, an epistemic situation that is only made worse by the fact that
these causes interact in complex ways with behavioral factors. These distinctions, while perhaps straightforward in the abstract, are
difficult to employ in practice. For example, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the members of a poor
black community to determine with any accuracy whether their impoverished condition is due primarily to institutional
racism, the impact of past racial injustice, the increasing technological basis of the economy, shrinking state
budgets, the vicissitudes of world trade, the ascendancy of conservative ideology, poorly funded schools, lack of personal
initiative, a violent drug trade that deters business investment, some combination of these factors, or some other
explanation altogether. Moreover, it is notoriously difficult to determine when the formulation of putatively raceneutral policies has been motivated by racism or when such policies are unfairly applied by racially biased public
officials.¶ There are very real empirical difficulties in determining the specific causal significance of the factors that create and perpetuate black
disadvantage; nonetheless, it is clear that these factors exist and that justice will demand different practical remedies according to each factor's relative
impact on blacks' life chances. We must acknowledge that our social world is complicated and not immediately transparent to common sense, and thus
that systematic empirical inquiry, historical studies, and rigorous social analysis are required to reveal its systemic structure and sociocultural dynamics.
There is, moreover, no mechanical or infallible procedure for determining which analyses are the soundest ones. In addition, given the inevitable bias
that attends social inquiry, legislators and those they represent cannot simply defer to social-scientific experts. We must instead rely on open public
debate—among politicians, scholars, policy makers, intellectuals, and ordinary citizens—with the aim of garnering rationally motivated and informed
consensus. And even if our practical decision procedures rest on critical deliberative discourse and thus live up to our highest democratic ideals, some
trial and error through actual practice is unavoidable.¶ These difficulties and complications notwithstanding, a general recognition of the distinctions
among the ideological and structural causes of black disadvantage could help blacks refocus their political energies and self-help strategies. Attention to
these distinctions might help expose the superficiality of theories that seek to reduce all the social obstacles that blacks face to contemporary forms of
racism or white supremacy. A more penetrating, subtle, and empirically grounded analysis is needed to comprehend the
causes of racial inequality and black disadvantage . Indeed, these distinctions highlight the necessity to probe
deeper to find the causes of contemporary forms of racism, as some racial conflict may be a symptom of broader
problems or recent social developments (such as immigration policy or reduced federal funding for higher education)
.
No root cause – their kritik is a reductionist attempt at describing a complex system
Kavalski 2007
(doctoral training in international politics at Loughborough University (UK), held the Andrew Mellon Fellowship position at the American Institute for
Indian Studies (New Delhi, India), the Killam Postdoctoral position at the Department of Political Science, University of Alberta (Canada), and research
positions at Aalborg University (Denmark) and at the Institute for the International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict, Ruhr Universität-Bochum
(Germany). (Emilian,“The fifth debate and the emergence of complex international relations theory: notes on the application of complexity theory to the
study of international life,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, September 2007, EBSCO)//js)
These instances draw attention to the issue of causality in complex systems. Owing to the unpredictability of interactions, it is
impossible to discern ‘the causal arrows, precisely because in feedback loops causal arrows are directionless or circular’ (Hoffman and Riley 2002, 311).
In this respect, complex systems indicate sensitivity to alterations in initial conditions and random events . Thus,
actions have indirect and complicated effects and outcomes may not correspond with the intentions of any of the
actors. Interactions are more likely than not to call up unintended consequences that can defeat purposive behaviour,
because, in a system, the fates of the units and their relations with others are strongly influenced by interactions at other places and at earlier periods of
time ... [and] it is hard to treat issues separately: disputes that would be small if they could be isolated are highly consequential because the
world is tightly interconnected. (Jervis 1997, 17–24) It is this density of self-organization that makes complex systems—like the pattern of
international politics—hard to understand (Snyder and Jervis 1993, 5). The following sections address the frameworks for understanding and
explanation implied in the use of CT to the study of international life and the ways in which it constitutes a complex system.
The world is too complex – there is no such thing as a root cause nor a silver bullet to address
it
Wasafiri 2017
(Systemcraft: an approach to navigating complex change, Wasafiri is a Nigerian NGO specializing in International Relations consultation with over 40
international employees, www.wasafiriconsulting.com/systemcraft-approach-navigating-complex-change/)
Across such diverse challenges, we increasingly find common characteristics that help explain why the problem
feels intractable. Firstly, the issue has no root cause. Rather it is the outcome of a web of different dynamics and human
interactions; it is systemic and it is complex. Secondly, the issue is constantly evolving and adapts under new
influences; it is emergent. Thirdly, no single institution has clear responsibility, and no single actor can entirely
perceive how the system is operating. Fourthly, there is no immediate identifiable solution,
only interventions that might make the problem better. Finally, and most importantly, the problem appears intractable in relation to the
quality of collaboration between the system’s stakeholders; there is a lack of adaptive capacity. Under
enormous pressure to act, and with
the best of intentions, people often respond to such complex problems with measures that fail to deliver change,
and can even acerbate the problem. Two caricatures are helpful to consider: The silver bullet: Bright, articulate
people present compelling arguments for single, ambitious interventions that will provide rapid results.
Consistently, the system finds ways to resist this change and problems worsen . Rice tariffs in Nigeria leads to massive
smuggling through Benin. Weekend shifts for UK doctors causes an exodus of professionals to other countries. An oil company compensates
generously after their truck ran over a goat, thereby inspiring herders to usher their flocks into the roads. The perfect plan: Meticulous deskbased planning by development experts presents neat causal chains from interventions to impact, aiming to ensure
value for money and management for results. Implementers are accountable to delivering the plan on time and on budget. Meanwhile the
issue and context is evolving and is more complex and resistant than the plan supposed. Unintended
consequences unfold. Free distribution of improved seeds undermines local markets and production. Al Shabab establishes a protection racket
to sequester money from local institutions benefitting from aid money.
Neg: Warming Ans
Uniqueness Defense: Climate change is being solved now
In the status quo Climate change warming will decrease because international agreements are
already solving
Jeff Goodell, December 14, 2015,
Jeff Goodell is an American author and contributing editor to Rolling Stone magazine with a focus on energy and environmental issues - he is a winner of hte Grantham Prize and Sierra Club's David
Brower Award for excellence in environmental journalism, www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-paris-climate-agreement-changes-everything-20151214
This is not to say there wasn't plenty of backroom drama in the final hours: would China accept the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C that was
being pushed by the small island nations? Would Saudi Arabia throw a monkey wrench into the deal at the last minute? Would India balk because it
wanted more help with new energy technology? The word at the conference was, "Everything is up for grabs until it's not." But the hard problems
had been solved by several years of talks between the U.S. and China, the two 800-pound gorillas in this deal.
Negotiations were also propelled by Mother Nature, who had been wreaking havoc around the planet, as well as by climate activists, who had dialed up
the political pressure on leaders around the world. Perhaps most important, the rapidly declining price of clean energy – the cost of solar power has
fallen by 80 percent in the past few years – made it much easier to imagine a future without fossil fuels. The conference, which was held at an old airport
on the outskirts of Paris, had a kind of Woodstock vibe – not because dancing diplomats were tripping on biofuel, but because of the feeling
among many attendees that Paris marked the beginning of one of the biggest cultural, political and economic
shifts the world has ever seen. To kick off the meeting, heads of state from 150 nations all posed for a group photo. Outside the conference
itself, there were hundreds of side events, parties and rallies that featured trash pickers from India, billionaries like Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates,
celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio and Bianca Jagger, climate refugees from eroding islands in Alaska, scientists and economists from universities
around the world, and activists marching for human rights. If you cared about climate, it was the place to be. Everyone knew something
important was going to happen here. And it did. 196 nations of the world made voluntary commitments to cut
carbon pollution and help the vulnerable nations of the world deal with the impacts of climate change. There are
plenty of devils in the details (the World Resources Institute has a good summary of the agreement), but the larger message was unambiguous: after
decades of arguing, fighting and betrayal, the people of the world stood together and said goodbye to fossil fuels. The conference was so full of
good feeling that it almost felt like a Coke commercial. Of course, given the degree to which climate change is already ravaging the planet, this farewell
should have happened twenty years ago. As far as the details of the Paris agreement go, there are two big accomplishments worth mentioning. The first
is that it more or less eliminated the old distinction between developed and developing countries, which was enshrined in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and
led to two decades of political warfare both in the U.S. and abroad (and was one of the big reasons the Kyoto Protocol was never ratified by the U.S.).
The basic idea was that the developed world – i.e., the U.S. and the European Union – bore the burden for cutting emissions first, largely because they
were the ones who had caused the problem with their 150-year-long fossil fuel party. In order to grow, the developing world – i.e. China and India –
believed it had the right to do the same thing. This binary distinction was a big diplomatic blunder, not only because developing nations like China and
India are quickly becoming the largest carbon polluters on the planet (even if per capital emissions are well below the U.S.), but also because it created
a political dynamic in the U.S. that allowed deniers in Congress to argue that if China and India weren't doing anything to solve the problem, why should
we? The Paris agreement eliminates the old binary distinction – now nations are expected to contribute to the best of their abilities. By putting everyone
in the same boat, the Paris agreement underscores an essential truth: We have one atmosphere, and if we screw it up, everyone suffers. The second
big accomplishment is that the agreement sets up a kind of public accounting method for carbon pollution (and one which,
unlike commitments to emissions reductions, will be legally binding). Public accounting is key to making sure the emissions
reductions that nations claim they are making are real, and not just carbon PR designed to boost their status as good global citizens.
Accounting standards will take time to evolve, but the Paris agreement at least begins the process.
In the status quo global cooling is the trend
Ferrara 14
(Peter, **Graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, senior fellow for entitlement and budget policy @ Heartland, senior fellow at the Social Security Institute, White House Office of Policy
Development under President Reagan, Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under the first President Bush**, “The Period Of No Global Warming Will Soon Be Longer Than the Period
of Actual Global Warming,” 2/24, http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2014/02/24/the-period-of-no-global-warming-will-soon-be-longer-than-the-period-of-actual-global-warming/, CMR)
If you look at the record of global temperature data, you will find that the late 20th Century period of global warming actually lasted
about 20 years, from the late 1970s to the late 1990s. Before that, the globe was dominated by about 30 years of global cooling, giving rise in the
1970s to media discussions of the return of the Little Ice Age (circa 1450 to 1850), or worse. But the record of satellite measurements of
global atmospheric temperatures now shows no warming for at least 17 years and 5 months, from September, 1996 to
January, 2014, as shown on the accompanying graphic. That is surely 17 years and 6 months now, accounting for February. When the period of no
global warming began, the alarmist global warming establishment responded that even several years of temperature data does not establish a climate
trend. That takes much longer. But when the period of no global warming gets longer than the period of actual global
warming, what is the climate trend then? Even worse for the theory of catastrophic, anthropogenic (human caused),
global warming is that during this now extended period of no global warming mankind’s emissions of the carbon
dioxide (CO2) that are supposed to be predominant in causing global warming continued to explode, with one third of
all CO2 added to the atmosphere since the industrial revolution occurring during this period. The Economist magazine shocked the global warming
establishment with an article in March, 2013 that began with this lede: “OVER the past 15 years air temperatures at the Earth’s
surface have been flat while greenhouse-gas emissions have continued to soar. The world added roughly 100 billion tonnes
of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010. That is about a quarter of all the CO2 put there by humanity since 1750.” That one quarter is
actually now one third since the industrial revolution, which is now increasingly at stake in this debate. We are not going to be able to power anything
remotely like the modern industrial revolution, which is actually straining even now to burst out of the “Progressive” bonds holding it back (at least in
America), using the wind sources that powered the Roman economy, plus dancing on sunbeams. Moreover, the now extended trend of no
global warming is not turning around any time soon. That increasingly established trend is being produced by long term natural
causes. Even rank amateurs among the general public can see that the sun is the dominant influence on the Earth’s temperatures. Even the most
politicized scientists know that they cannot deny that solar activity such as sun spot cycles, and variations in solar magnetic fields or in the flux of cosmic
rays, have contributed to major climate changes of the past, such as the Little Ice Age, particularly pronounced from roughly 1650 AD to 1850 AD, the
Medieval Warm period from about 950 AD to 1250 AD, during which global temperatures were higher than today, and the early 20th century Warming
Period from 1910 to 1940 AD. That solar activity, particularly sunspot cycles, is starting to mimic the same patterns that were seen during the Little Ice
Age, as I discussed in a previous column. As a result, outside politically correct Western circles, where science today has been Lysenkoized on this
issue, there is a burgeoning debate about how long of a cooling trend will result. Britain’s Met Office, an international cheerleading headquarters for
global warming hysteria, conceded in December, 2012 that there would be no further warming at least through 2017, which would make 21 years with no
global warming. The German Herald reported on March 31, 2013 regarding Russian scientist Dr Habibullo Abdussamatov from the St. Petersburg
Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory, “Talking to German media the scientist who first made his prediction in 2005 said that after studying sunspots and
their relationship with climate change on Earth, we are now on an ‘unavoidable advance towards a deep temperature drop.’” His colleague Yuri
Nagovitsyn is quoted in The Voice of Russia saying, “we could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years.” Skepticism over
the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is increasingly embraced in China and elsewhere in Asia as well. In addition, every 20 to 30
years, the much colder water near the bottom of the oceans cycles up to the top, where it has a slight cooling effect on global temperatures until the sun
warms that water. That warmed water then contributes to slightly warmer global temperatures, until the next churning cycle. Known as the Pacific
Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), these natural causes are also contributing to the stabilized and now even
slightly declining natural global temperature trends. The foundation for the establishment argument for global warming are 73 climate models collected
by the UN’s IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). But the problem is that the warming trends projected by these
models are all diverging farther and farther from the real world trend of actual temperature observations discussed
above, as I showed in a previous column, with another graphic. Because none of these models have been scientifically validated based on past
temperature observations, they constitute a very weak scientific argument that does not remotely establish that the “science is settled,” and “global
warming is a fact.” The current data discussed above establishes indisputably that global warming is not a fact today .
In the status quo Climate change warming will decrease because markets are already solving
global warming
Ronald Bailey, Nov. 18, 2016, Is Climate Change Already Solved? Reason Magazine, Ronald Bailey is the award-winning science correspondent
for Reason magazine and Reason.com, where he writes a weekly science and technology column, reason.com/blog/2016/11/18/is-climate-changealready-solved
The global clean energy transition has already taken off. That is the mantra repeated in countless speeches, presentations, panel
discussions, activist manifestoes, open letters and official pronouncements here at the COP22 U.N. climate change conference. If true, then the
problem of man-made global warming is well on the way to being solved. For example, in his swan song on Wednesday at
COP22, Secretary of State John Kerry declared, "The market is clearly headed towards clean energy, and that trend
will only become more pronounced." He continued, "The United States is right now, today, on our way to meeting all
of the international targets that we've set, and because of the market decisions that are being made, I do not believe
that that can or will be reversed." At the High-Level Meeting on Climate Change involving CEOs and government officials on Wednesday in
Marrakech, Lise Kingo, Executive Director of the U.N. Global Compact asserted: "The climate movement is unstoppable. More and
more companies are taking action, and seeing new opportunities for growth and innovation." On Wednesday, the
leaders of some 300 businesses signed an open letter urging President-elect Trump to support the Paris Agreement. In conjunction with the letter Matt
Patsky, CEO of the socially responsible Trillium Asset Management firm stated, "The enormous momentum generated by the business and
investment community to address climate change cannot be reversed and cannot be ignored by the Trump administration. That train has left
the station and to stand in its way is folly."
Solvency Defense: The plan will not increase scientific literacy
The plan will not increase scientific literacy unless it spends a lot of money. Existing programs cost
over $120k per teacher of color trained, or $20 billion for 160,000 teachers
Morton 2017
http://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/innovative-training-program-places-more-minority-teachers-in-seattles-public-schools/
A total of 74 teachers have graduated from the Seattle Teacher Residency since its debut four years ago. The graduates now work
in 31 schools, with another 23 candidates in the pipeline. Forty-one percent of them are teachers of color — double the 20
percent diversity rate for all teachers who work in Seattle Public Schools, and four times the state rate of 10
percent. And nearly all the residency graduates who start teaching in a high-needs school returned there for a second and third year. That’s much
higher than the 71 percent retention rate for other Seattle teachers hired in the same year, according to the Alliance for Education, a nonprofit that
oversees the Seattle residency. “The residency was founded to accelerate student achievement by creating a diverse pipeline of teachers committed to
teaching five years in Seattle’s highest-need classrooms,” said program director Marisa Bier. Seattle’s program is one of 23 in a national
network overseen by the National Center for Teacher Residencies. In many teacher preparation programs, candidates spend a lot of time at a college
of education or in fast-track courses learning about classroom management, lesson planning and education trends. The programs are often criticized for
not providing enough classroom experience. The Seattle residency, in contrast, prepares aspiring teachers primarily through a yearlong apprenticeship
with an experienced teacher while the novices take coursework at the University of Washington. Residents, who receive a monthly stipend, commit to
teaching at least five years at a high-poverty school or in a special-education classroom in the Seattle district. They also can apply for additional tuition
reimbursement. All that is costly: Seattle’s program budgets about $50,000 per resident.
The plan won’t increase scientific literacy - Scientific literacy is impossible to measure and is
semantically meaningless
Henry H. Bauer, 1994,
Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method, Henry Hermann Bauer is an emeritus professor of chemistry and science studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University - Bauer
received his Ph.D. from the University of Sydney in Australia, https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=NN7E3r_w09IC&oi=fnd&pg
=PR7&dq="scientific+literacy"+STEM+confirmation+bias&ots=bjyFHhqv4q&sig=XBBJCoB_un1aMcZYzukPHonQNRo#v=onepage&q&f=false
Now I agree that misconceptions
about science are rampant. But they are rampant among scientists as well as
humanists and social scientists, among science writers as well as the general public. They are rampant even
among those who purport to measure or survey scientific literacy. There are things drastically wrong with almost
everything that has been said about the supposedly critical state of scientific illiteracy. The definitions of
scientific literacy are worse than inadequate; the measures of literacy discriminate against the most literate; and
predictions of the consequences of scientific illiteracy are not supported by the evidence. Definitions The widely
publicized surveys are based on the notion that scientific literacy has three components: (1) the substantive concepts within science; (2) the nature of
scientific activity; and (3) the role of science in society and culture. So far, so good. Anyone who has a reasonable understanding of these three things
might well be called "scientifically literate." Scientists might prefer to add to the first component "facts" or "phenomena," but that would be largely a
semantic quibble: there would be little disagreement over the actual content of the knowledge in question. Trouble begins, though, when we
look at how one goes about testing how good a person's understanding is of the three components. Measures As an indication
of how familiar one is with scientific concepts, one is asked: "Do you have a clear understanding, or only a general sense, or little or no understanding of:
molecule; DNA; radiation?" In the scoring, the person who has a clear understanding naturally emerges as more scientifically literate than someone who
has only a general sense. Yet who can claim with justification to have a clear understanding of DNA? Certainly those who are most directly engaged in
trying to unravel the intricacies of DNA's functions would hardly claim to have a clear understanding: they are aware, for one thing, that the function of
much of the chromosomal DNA is not yet known. But those who know less about it might well imagine themselves to have a clear understanding just
because they know that DNA has something to do with heredity. That question (like many badly drawn multiple-choice questions) discriminates against
the genuinely knowledgeable. Again, who could claim with justification to have a clear sense of radiation? How clear can one's understanding be when
radiation needs in some cases to be described by equations for particles and in others by equations for waves? Would a truly insightful-or, dare I say, a
truly literate-person claim a clear understanding of radiation, at least before physics has constructed a Grand Unified Theory? Sophisticated students
know that high scores come to those who give the expected answer, be it right, wrong, or somewhere in between. Most people would give the
"right" answer to the question "Does the Earth go round the Sun, or does the Sun go round the Earth?" But the
scientific literate might wish to say "Neither," or "It isn't known," or "That isn't a meaningful question," having in
mind that the solar system seems not to be centrally located in the universe and that no absolute frame of
reference within the universe has yet been found. "Electrons are smaller than atoms." Of course-so long as one sticks to notions held in
the first quarter of this century, when atoms and electrons were just little particles. But the person who has heard about quantum mechanical tunneling
might not be so sure, knowing that electrons tunnel very much more easily than atoms because the electron's wave function spreads sensibly so much
farther. These quibbles over specific concepts pale, however, in comparison with one's dismay at how an understanding of "the scientific
approach" is determined: To be classified as understanding the process of scientific study, a respondent had to report that scientific study involved
(1) the advancement and potential falsification of generalizations and hypotheses, leading to the creation of
theory, (2) the investigation of a subject with an open mind and a willingness to consider all evidence in determining results, or (3) the use of
experimental or similar methods of controlled comparison or systematic observation. Responses that characterized scientific study as the accumulation
of facts, the use of specific instruments (i.e., looking at things through a microscope), or as simply careful study, were coded as incorrect. But
historians (among others) have inescapably demonstrated that what actually happens in science cannot be described
like that. The best one could say for that view of science is that mainstream philosophy of science and fledgling sociology of science were speaking in
such terms fifty years ago. In later chapters, I shall look at ramifications of this wrongheaded view of science. For the moment, note merely that it cannot
answer salient questions about science: What made the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century? If the scientific method produces reliable
knowledge, why have scientific theories to be continually amended? Respondents to these surveys of scientific literacy, then, are
liable to be classed as literate if they hold superseded, inadequate views and as less literate, or even illiterate, if their understanding is more
adequate. But, quite sensibly, the measurers do not rely on just this single question to decide whether one understands what scientific study is. Other
questions are asked to determine whether people apply their understanding to actual cases. For instance, they are asked to characterize astrology as
very scientific, sort of scientific, or not at all scientific, "because person who correctly understood the scientific process would have rejected the notion of
astrology as scientific."
The plan won’t increase scientific literacy – it trades off with and is inferior to the humanities
Valerie Strauss, August 10, 2016, Why more STEM classes won’t help solve the serious STEM achievement gap, The Washington Post, Valerie
Strauss covers education for the Washington Post and runs The Answer Sheet blog, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answersheet/wp/2016/08/10/why-more-stem-classes-wont-help-solve-the-serious-stem-achievement-gap/?utm_term=.05e39ab16fdb
When most people talk about beefing up STEM education, they mean expanding the availability of the integrated learning of science, technology,
engineering and math classes. It’s needed, proponents say, because there simply aren’t enough young Americans educated well enough in these
subjects to take the available jobs in the 21st Century economy — and because there is a huge STEM achievement gap between whites and blacks, the
poor and the wealthy. But what if this achievement gap can’t be solved by more STEM classes ? That’s the argument made in
the following post by Esther Dyson and Lucy N. Friedman. Dyson is a journalist and commentator on emerging digital technology, a philanthropist and
an entrepreneur through EDventure Holdings. She also serves on the Board of Directors of ExpandED Schools, a non-profit dedicated to closing the
learning gap by increasing access to enriched education experiences. Friedman is the founder and president of ExpandED Schools, a nonprofit
dedicated to closing the learning gap. Since its founding in 1998, ExpandED Schools has provided more and better learning time to more than 800,000
kids in New York City and beyond. Yet we must be wise about how we attempt to narrow this gap. Many, no doubt, will read this
report and call for more technology in under-served schools. Bring in the lab coats and computers and beakers and
robots. Teach children to code and build and measure. It’s great to focus on tech and coding, but invention is
only a small part of actual innovation. If an increased focus on STEM comes at the expense of sports and arts and humanities, we all
lose. After all, problem solvers need people skills to see their creative ideas to actual implementation .Thinking about it this
way, much of effective technology and engineering literacy draws upon experiences that take place on ball fields and theater sets, in dance studios and
debate halls. In fact, one need only look at the engineering design process itself to understand why a well-rounded education and extra-curricular
experiences are best poised to cultivate the skills measured by the technology and engineering literacy assessment.
The plan won’t increase scientific literacy - STEM knowledge is too narrow
Keit A Spencer, December 23, 2015, Don’t Study STEM. Study the Arts, The Bold Italic, Keith A Spencer is Editor-in-Chief of The Bold Italic and
has been printed in Jacobin, Salon, Dissent and Full Stop, https://thebolditalic.com/don-t-study-stem-study-the-arts-the-bold-italic-san-francisco62679bb0bfff
Let’s start with the STEM mind. In both science and applied-science fields like engineering, students are taught that there
are universal laws — generally, equations or principles that govern the field. And the purpose of a STEM education is to pick out
and understand those laws. They are not to be questioned, not too much at least; if you do question them, you
get a chain of questions that always ends with “Because that’s the way the constants were set in our universe when
the Big Bang happened.” The arts are not like this. The arts mind , like the humanities mind, teaches that truth is gray,
that there is not one way of seeing the world but rather a multitude of ways. In STEM, students are often given
problem sets, questions with only one right answer. Yet in the arts and humanities, we are tasked with identifying
problems that have never been noticed before. A lot of people who have the STEM mind never learn the arts mind. And here’s where a
problem arises: if you learn only the STEM mind, it’s hard to understand how the world works clearly. If you don’t study the
arts much while you’re young (at least enough to understand how one’s mind works in a creative mode), you run the risk of accepting the
STEM mind as the only mind — the idea that there is some inherent way that the universe runs, some sole
principle that you, as a scientist or technologist, are entitled to uncover. And then you’ll apply that to fields
where it makes no sense, fields like education and government, thinking that because you understand STEM, you
understand how the universe works — and in the process, piss a lot of people off and feel entitled to do so. The STEM mind is also the
reason why Silicon Valley has such a diversity problem, since the STEM mind, unwisely, turns to science to explain gender and racial gaps in STEM
fields. This news item reappears constantly, such as when former Harvard president Lawrence Summers claimed that “men outperform[ed] women in
maths and sciences because of biological difference”; or when Nobel Prize–winning biologist James Watson, a discoverer of DNA and a brilliant STEM
mind, made racist remarks; or when privileged start-up bro Peter Shih penned a sexist rant about why women in SF are not all that, thinking his rampant
misogyny would go unchecked. The STEM mind assumes that it understands the world in its entirety because it
understands its physical laws, whereas the arts minds doesn’t assume the world is even understandable. Because there’s an inherent
empathy at the core of the arts, it’s a much more penetrable position from which one might understand a complex social issue like a lack of gender
diversity or oppression. I am not saying that you should not study STEM fields at all — merely, that there is a way of thinking that comes from studying
the arts and the humanities that, generally, you don’t get from studying STEM fields. Moreover, those who don’t study the arts enough to understand its
M.O. may never learn this way of thinking. I come from a family of many scientists. When our dinner-table discussions stray
from science topics, the conversation becomes dominated by people who are utterly certain that, because they
are scientists, they have a total and thorough understanding of politics, culture, society and religion, and that
their view is precisely right. They apply an imagined set of universal laws to fields that don’t have universal laws.
This is also why scientists can be so hubristic. Physics is perhaps the most conceited science; Ernest Rutherford famously said, “All
science is either physics or stamp collecting.” Many physicists still believe this and pooh-pooh all other fields. One of the ultimate reasons why I left the
sciences was because I felt this attitude emanate from my fellow physics majors; they scoffed at any attempt to dissect politics or social issues, resolute
in their belief that they understood politics and economy and culture perfectly. After all, those fields were merely stamp collecting. This attitude,
which many STEM folks have, epitomizes a lot of recent public arguments over social issues. The hubris of Uber and
other “sharing economy” companies, with their insistence that there is something inherently just about their business model, is characterized by a deepseated belief that technology is inherently good — as if this were a universal law.
Internal Link Turn: Scientific Literacy worsens climate change
Scientific literacy worsens climate change – confirmation bias
DL Stocum, July 2015, Reflections on scientific literacy, education and worldview, Journal of Civic Literacy, DL Stocum is Professor of Biology
Emeritus - he holds a PhD from from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/civiclit/article/view/19686
our worldviews are maintained by channeling our reasoning through an emotional
filter designed to create self-deception (Deweese-Boyd, 2010; Bortolotti & Mameli, 2012). Thus people tend to search for,
interpret or recall information that confirms their worldview, regardless of whether or not the information is true
(Nickerson, 1998). This phenomenon, termed “confirmation bias” has long been known to psychologists and is the basis
Psychological research suggests that
for the feeling of “truthiness,” a clever term introduced by StephenColbert. We tend to divide along what we call left biased (liberal) and right biased
(conservative) ideologies defined by the proportions of collectivist vs. individualist leanings we have. Some research even suggests that the
development of left vs. right worldviews may be the result of genetic- or epigenetic-based physiological and psychological predispositions fortified by
environment (Doll, Hutchinson, & Frank, 2011; Hibbing, Smith, & Alford, 2014; Weeden & Kurzban, 2014). Confirmation bias is well
illustrated in the debate over the risks posed by climate change. In general, those who think the risks are high
have a liberal worldview and those who are skeptical of such risks have a conservative worldview. Kahan et al. (2012)
tested whether the level of perceived risk in either group correlates with their level of scientific literacy (the “Science Comprehension Thesis,” SCT) or
with their ideology (the “Cultural Cognition Thesis,” CCT). The scientific and mathematical literacy of all subjects was measured using the NSF Science
and Engineering Indicators plus a set of 14 mathematical questions. The SCT predicted that level of scientific literacy would correlate with degree of
perceived risk, whereas the CCT predicted that risk level would correlate with worldview. The result was that risk perception correlated with
worldview, not scientific literacy. Furthermore, the study indicated that acquisition of more data on climate change changed no one’s mind, but
simply strengthened the correlation via confirmation bias. One would predict the same to be true for other controversial issues.
Scientific literacy worsens climate change – backfire effect
Tim Requarth, APRIL 19 2017, Scientists, Stop Thinking Explaining Science Will Fix Things, Slate, Tim Requarth is a freelance science journalist
and director of NeuWrite. He has a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Columbia University, where he also teaches science writing,
www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2017/04/explaining_science_won_t_fix_information_illiteracy.html
It seems many scientists would take matters into their own hands by learning how to better communicate their subject to the masses. I’ve taught science
communication at Columbia University and New York University, and I’ve run an international network of workshops for scientists and writers for nearly a
decade. I’ve always had a handful of intrepid graduate students, but now, fueled by the Trump administration’s Etch A Sketch relationship to facts,
record numbers of scientists are setting aside the pipette for the pen. Across the country, science communication and advocacy groups report upticks in
interest. Many scientists hope that by doing a better job of explaining science, they can move the needle toward
scientific consensus on politically charged issues. As recent studies from Michigan State University found, scientists’ top reason for
engaging the public is to inform and defend science from misinformation. It’s an admirable goal, but almost certainly destined to fail.
This is because the way most scientists think about science communication—that just explaining the real
science better will help—is plain wrong. In fact, it’s so wrong that it may have the opposite effect of what they’re trying to achieve.
Before getting fired up to set the scientific record straight, scientists would do well to first consider the science of science communication. The theory
many scientists seem to swear by is technically known as the deficit model, which states that people’s opinions
differ from scientific consensus because they lack scientific knowledge . In 2010, Dan Kahan, a Yale psychologist,
essentially proved this theory wrong. He surveyed over 1,500 Americans, classifying each person’s “cultural worldview” on a scale
that roughly correlates with politically liberal or conservative. He then assessed each person’s scientific literacy with questions such as “True or False:
Electrons are smaller than atoms.” Finally, he asked them about climate change. If the deficit model were correct, Kahan reasoned,
then people with increased scientific literacy, regardless of worldview, should agree with scientists that climate
change poses a serious risk to humanity. That’s not what he found. Instead, Kahan found that increased scientific literacy
actually had a small negative effect: The conservative-leaning respondents who knew the most about science thought
climate change posed the least risk. Scientific literacy, it seemed, increased polarization. In a later study, Kahan added a twist: He asked
respondents what climate scientists believed. Respondents who knew more about science generally, regardless of political leaning, were better able to
identify the scientific consensus—in other words, the polarization disappeared. Yet, when the same people were asked for their own opinions about
climate change, the polarization returned. It showed that even when people understand the scientific consensus, they may not
accept it. The takeaway is clear: Increasing science literacy alone won’t change minds. In fact, well-meaning attempts by
scientists to inform the public might even backfire. Presenting facts that conflict with an individual’s worldview , it turns out, can
cause people to dig in further. Psychologists, aptly, dubbed this the “backfire effect.”
Scientific literacy worsens climate change – studies prove more information leads to
polarization
ALYSSA BATTISTONI, MAY 30, 2012, Why Science Education Won't Solve Our Climate Problems, Mother Jones, Alyssa Battistoni writes about
politics and the environment for Campus Progress. She studied Political Science at Stanford University, and wrote for the Stanford Progressive - She
holds a master's in Nature, Society, and Environmental Policy at Oxford University, www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/05/science-educationwont-solve-climate-change
Think the reason we can't address climate change is because people don't understand climate science? Think again: a new study suggests that
people with higher scientific comprehension use their abilities not to disinterestedly parse the complicated
details of climate science, but to better fit available evidence to their preexisting values and group identifications.
A team of researchers associated with the Cultural Cognition Project at Yale Law School compared scientific literacy and
numeracy with beliefs about climate change and value-laden worldviews for an article published this week in Nature Climate
Change. Their conclusions? As individuals' scientific comprehension went up, concern about climate change declined
slightly. That relationship isn't what you'd expect to see if ignorance about science explained a lack of concern
about climate change, as the "scientific comprehension thesis" (SCT) would suggest; the graph below demonstrates the difference between what
SCT predicts and how people actually responded. But not everyone with greater scientific understanding was equally likely to
be less concerned about climate change; the correlation split sharply depending on respondents' worldviews . As
the study explains, "members of the public with the highest degrees of science literacy and technical reasoning
capacity were not the most concerned about climate change. Rather, they were the ones among whom cultural polarization
was greatest." While those results don't jibe with the SCT, they do make sense according something called the cultural cognition thesis (CCT), which
suggests that people tend to perceive risks in a way that corresponds to the values of their identity groups. Think about it:
An oil worker who expresses concern about climate change may be mocked, while an English professor who calls climate science a hoax may be
shunned. People therefore adjust their beliefs to fit those of others around them: according to the study, "public divisions over climate change stem not
from the public’s incomprehension of science but from a distinctive conflict of interest: between the personal interest individuals have in forming beliefs in
line with those held by others with whom they share close ties and the collective one they all share in making use of the best available science to
promote common welfare." Or, as researcher Ellen Peters of Ohio State University puts it, "What this study shows is that people with
high science and math comprehension can think their way to conclusions that are better for them as individuals
but are not necessarily better for society."
Impact Defense: Climate change is not as significant a harm as the aff claims.
Climate change is not an existential threat –worst case scenarios are highly unlikely
and will take a long time
Owen Cotton-Barratt et al., 2017,
Existential Risk Diplomacy and Governance, Global Priorities Project 2017, Owen leads the research at the Global Priorities Project, part of the Centre
for Effective Altruism. He has a PhD in mathematics from the University of Oxford, was a founding member of Giving What We Can, and is a James
Martin Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute. He has written papers in mathematics, economics, and philosophy, and his research
currently focuses on how we can prioritise between pressing problems under conditions of uncertainty. His fellow authors are academics and program
managers from the Existential Risk Institute, https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Existential-Risks-2017-01-23.pdf
The most likely levels of global warming are very unlikely to cause human extinction.15 The
existential risks of climate change
instead stem from tail risk climate change – the low probability of extreme levels of warming – and interaction with other
sources of risk. It is impossible to say with confidence at what point global warming would become severe enough to pose an existential threat.
Research has suggested that warming of 11-12°C would render most of the planet uninhabitable,16 and would completely devastate agriculture.17 This
would pose an extreme threat to human civilisation as we know it.18 Warming of around 7°C or more could potentially produce conflict and instability on
such a scale that the indirect effects could be an existential risk, although it is extremely uncertain how likely such scenarios are.19
Moreover, the timescales over which such changes might happen could mean that humanity is able to adapt
enough to avoid extinction in even very extreme scenarios.
Warming is slow and far less impactful than they predict – newest and most accurate climate
science support. IPCC models are running way too hot
Michaels and Knappenberger 2015 (Patrick J. Michaels - director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, holds AB
and SM degrees in biological sciences and plant ecology from the University of Chicago, and he received a PhD in ecological climatology from the
University of Wisconsin at Madison) (Paul C. “Chip” Knappenberger - assistant director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, holds
an MS and BA degrees in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia) “Climate Models and Climate Reality: A Closer Look at a Lukewarming
World”, December 15, CATO WORKING PAPER
For periods of time longer than about 20 years, the observed trends from all data sources fall beneath the lower bound
which contains 95 percent of all model trends and in the majority of cases, falls beneath even the absolute smallest trend found in any of the 102
climate model runs. One other very encouraging result, using the satellite and balloon data, is that the observed trends are very flat, meaning that they
are constant, neither increasing nor decreasing depending upon length of record. Greenhouse physics actually predicts this, so what we are seeing may
very well in fact be the greenhouse-gas-generated response, not random noise. It is simply that the rate of warming is far beneath what
has been forecast. The amount of that overprediciton comports well with a growing body of scientific findings
and growing understanding that the sensitivity of the earth’s surface temperature to rising atmospheric
greenhouse gas levels—as directly determined from observations— lies towards (and yet within) the low end of the mainstream
(IPCC AR5) assessed likely range. Since 2011, at least 14 studies published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature provide strong evidence
that the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS)—how much the earth’s average surface temperature will rise under a doubling of the atmospheric carbon
dioxide concentration—lies near the low end of the IPCC estimates (Figure 5). This recent research includes investigations of the earth’s thermal
response to changes in climate forcings that have taken place over the past century, millennium, and over glacial periods. Several of these research
findings were published subsequent to the 2013 release of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), and thus were not included in that Assessment.
Others were considered in the IPCC AR5, and still others were ignored. And while the IPCC AR5 did reflect some influence on these new low ECS
estimates—by expanding its “likely” range of ECS estimates downward to include 1.5°C (the low end was 2.0°C in the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment
Report) and omitting a “best estimate” value (which had previously been given as 3.0°C in the 2007 report)—it still doggedly held on to its high end
“likely” estimate of 4.5°C. This was a disservice to the latest science, but was a necessary step to preserve the IPCC’s reliance on climate projections
made by models with an ECS averaging 3.2°C and ranging from 2.1°C to 4.7°C—the same models recently evaluated by Christy and in our AGU
presentation. Had the IPCC fully embraced an ECS near 2.0°C—that which the recent literature suggests—it would have had to throw out much of the
rest of the report. We explained the IPCC’s conundrum in this post on Cato’s blog. A more detailed and extremely compelling report on how the IPCC
should have handled the new ECS findings was put together by the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Any serious examination of the extant ECS
literature would be remiss not to carefully consider the content of the GWPF report (which convincingly argues for an ECS of 1.75°C or even a bit lower).
One may argue that ECS estimates based upon one or two centuries of observations may not fully capture very long-term climate responses, and that
therefore such ECS estimates are likely too low. While the magnitude (or even the existence) of the underestimate is difficult to
assess, what is certain is that whatever the influence may be, it is only fully manifest on timescales far beyond even
multiple human generations. In other words, when attempting to assess the coming climate changes over the next century or so, observationally
based ECS estimates—estimates derived directly from the extant temperature histories both of the surface temperature as well as oceanic heat
content—are very appropriate. This is even more so for estimates of the “transient” climate sensitivity—the temperature rise at the time of a doubling of
the atmospheric CO2 concentration, as that is likely to occur sometime in the second half of this century, before the ECS is realized. Again, the
recent estimates from real - world behavior of the atmosphere and ocean are far beneath climate model
expectations; see the GWPF report for a recent round-up. That the actual ECS (at least as assessed over century times scales) is likely much lower
than the average value of the climate models incorporated in the IPCC’s AR5 is an efficient explanation for why climate models tend to
overpredict the amount of global warming which has taken place—which has huge significance in assessing the utility
of climate model projections for future climate change . Based upon these and other lines of evidence (laid out in our
numerous scientific publications, books, blogs articles, social media (see publications listed here and here for example)), we conclude that future
global warming will occur at a pace substantially lower than that upon which US federal and international actions to restrict
greenhouse gas emissions are founded. It is high time to rethink those efforts.
Warming won’t cause extinction – empirical
Costello et al. 11
(Anthony Costello, Professor of International Child Health and head of the Centre for International Health and Development at the UCL Institute of Child Health, Mark
Maslin, Professor of Climatology at University College London. He is a co-founder and Executive Director of Carbon Associates Ltd., Hugh Montgomery, director of
the UCL Institute for Human Health and Performance at University College London, Anne M. Johnson, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Co-Director
of the Institute for Global Health at University College London, and Paul Ekins, professor of energy and environment at the University College London Energy
Institute, May 11, “Global health and climate change: moving from denial and catastrophic fatalism to positive action”, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 13 May 2011 vol. 369 no.
1942 1866-1882)
At the other end of the scale are doom-mongers who predict catastrophic population collapse and the end of civilization. In the early nineteenth century, the French
palaeontologist Georges Cuvier first addressed catastrophism and explained patterns of extinction observed in the fossil record through catastrophic
natural events [10]. We know now of five major extinctions: the Ordovician–Silurian extinction (439 million years ago), the Late Devonian extinction (about
364 million years ago), the Permian–Triassic extinction (about 251 million years ago), the End Triassic extinction (roughly 199 million to 214 million years
ago) and the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction (about 65 million years ago). These mass extinctions were caused by a combination of plate tectonics,
supervolcanism and asteroid impacts. The understanding of the mass extinctions led Gould & Eldredge [11] to update Darwin’s theory of evolution with their
own theory of punctuated equilibrium. Many scientists have suggested that the current human-induced extinction rates could be as fast as those during these mass
extinctions [12,13]. For example, one study predicted that 58 per cent of species may be committed to extinction by 2050 due to climate change alone
[14], though this paper has been criticized [15,16]. Some people have even suggested that human extinction may not be a remote risk [17–19]. Sherwood &
Huber point to continued heating effects that could make the world largely uninhabitable by humans and mammals within 300 years. Peak heat stress,
quantified by the wet-bulb temperature (used because it reflects both the ambient temperature and relative humidity of the site), is surprisingly similar
across diverse climates and never exceeds 31°C. They suggest that if it rose to 35°C, which never happens now but would at a warming of 7°C,
hyperthermia in humans and other mammals would occur as dissipation of metabolic heat becomes impossible, therefore making many environments
uninhabitable. However, these studies do not take account of geological reconstructions. We know that during the Eocene some 50 million years ago global
temperature was at least 5°C higher than today, with forests on Antarctica and rainforest extending as far north as Canada and as far south as Patagonia
[20]. Some scientists argue that this was the golden age of life, as there could have been at least twice as much living biomass on the Earth as today. At the beginning of
this period, there was an extreme period of global warming called the Paleocene–Eocene thermal maximum when global temperatures were at least another
5°C warmer [21,22]. This did lead to some extinction in the oceans but it was not the end of life on the planet nor did mammals suffer
mass extinctions. So, while history suggests that imminent catastrophe is as false as climate change denial, it could be as big a threat to action.
Catastrophic speculation, especially when based on limited evidence and without specific time frames, may induce an unnecessary sense of fatalism and helplessness
when, in the shorter term, there is a huge scope for positive action.