Advocacy Competition and Clean Energy Alternatives

The February 2016 topic asks debaters to debate the wisdom of imposing a carbon tax on the United States, and in so doing asks debaters to wade into one of the biggest debates impacting the upcoming century. The threat of global warming combined with rapidly waning sources of fossil fuels mean that the status quo is not sustainable, and the only serious question is what comes next. The scholarly community largely echoes that position: the debate is not whether the status quo must change, but rather how it must change. Accordingly, the literature contains an enormous arsenal of negative arguments proposing serious and pragmatic alternatives to carbon taxes.

Unfortunately, an enormous number of debaters have struggled with the concept of proposing alternatives for one of two reasons; either the debaters perceive any suggestion of an alternative as a prohibited counterplan, or they struggle to explain the opportunity cost involved in selecting one course of action over another. This Article will address both concerns generally, and then apply the idea of pragmatic policy alternatives to the carbon tax topic.

What is a counterplan?

A "counterplan" is a concept borrowed from policy debate to reference a negative's response to an affirmative's "plan" of action. Instead of defending the status quo versus the affirmative's plan, the negative shifts the debate and instead advocates for a different plan, which runs counter to the affirmative's advocacy.

Why did counterplans develop?

Counterplans developed strategically because the status quo became difficult, impossible, or simply unstrategic to defend. If the status quo is likely intolerable - such as the status quo's failure to act seriously about global warming - than defending the status quo cedes an enormous moral high ground to the affirmative. On the carbon taxes topic, an affirmative could suggest that the impending threat of global warming means that inaction is intolerable, and since the negative does not propose any action, the judge should vote affirmative. Whether articulated in that manner, or in a more nuanced, case-specific manner, that form of affirmative argument is very potent and very persuasive.

What is not a counterplan?

I start with what is not a counterplan because the NSDA has actually specified arguments that are protected as permissible. These arguments are advocacies that do not rise to the level of specificity to be properly called counterplans. The NSDA:^[1]

defines a plan or counterplan as a formalized, comprehensive proposal for implementation. Neither the pro or con side is permitted to offer a plan or counterplan; rather, they should offer reasoning to support a position of advocacy. Debaters may offer generalized, practical solutions.

Thus, negative debaters may rebut affirmative policy proposals by offering alternative policy actions.

What makes something a counterplan?

Whether an argument qualifies as the NSDA's expressly permitted "practical solution" or a prohibited counterplan turns on the specificity of the advocacy. A negative advocacy favoring "federal loan guarantees for the creation of solar farms in Nevada deserts" is almost certainly too specific, while "support solar energy" is almost certainly not too specific. Whether an advocacy is either appropriately specific or too specific - and indeed, where to draw that line - is probably something debaters will have to work out in rounds. One line that I have suggested to my students is whether the advocacy provides sufficient detail for policymakers to implement. Debaters could then defend against the counterplan objection by pointing out what further information, specificity, and detail a reasonable policymaker would need in order to enact the advocacy.

I have also suggested that specificity invited by a debater's opponent is never sufficient to trigger the prohibition on counterplans.^[2] For example, if the negative says "support solar energy" and the affirmative responds that there is no way to support solar energy, the negative must be allowed to explain precisely how to support solar energy (say, for example, by offering loan guarantees). Since the affirmative specifically challenged the negative to explain how solar energy could be supported, the negative should be allowed to answer that challenge. The alternative rule - that the affirmative may point out a lack of specificity but that the negative may not then supply the requested specificity - is unfair to negatives and arbitrarily limits the debate's educational value. If the negative is prepared to discuss how solar energy can be supported and the affirmative requests that they do so, it is neither fair nor educational to prevent the negative from explaining.

Why do counterplans justify a negative vote?

Not every advocacy offered by the negative actually justifies rejection of the affirmative's proposition. For example, if the affirmative says "the government should implement a carbon tax" and the negative says "the government should stop supplying small arms to Middle Eastern dictators," the negative has offered a good idea - but it has not offered an idea that justifies rejecting the affirmative. Whether a counterplan justifies a negative vote turns on how a counterplan "competes" with the affirmative's advocacy. There are two forms of competition: mutual exclusivity, and net benefits.

What is competition via mutual exclusivity?

Mutual exclusivity is what it sounds like: it is logically or practically impossible to combine the two advocacies. For an example of logical impossibility, if the affirmative says "implement carbon taxes" and the negative says "ban carbon taxes," it is impossible to combine the advocacies.^[3] Mutual exclusivity also occurs when a set of actions are practically impossible to combine. For example, imagine three circumstances: (1) a government has twenty dollars to spend, (2) deficit spending is prohibited and (3) both bagels and pizza cost twenty dollars. In such a situation, an advocacy to buy bagels is mutually exclusive with an advocacy to buy pizza. Though it is logically possible^[4] to buy both pizza and bagels,^[5] it is practically impossible to do both.

What is competition via net benefits?

Competition via net benefits occurs when it is both logically and practically possible to combine two advocacies, but when it is undesirable to do so. Negative advocacies that compete via net benefits likely address the same problems the affirmative addresses, but avoid some independent harm. In essence, this form of competition does not ask "can these two advocacies be combined," it asks "should these two advocacies be combined?"

People use this form of decision making all the time. For example, if someone asks you whether to buy pizza or a vegetarian burger for lunch, it is logically and practically possible to do both, but it is undesirable to do so since just one of those options will fill you up, while eating both causes several harms: making you poor (spending money on eating out), making you painfully full, and making you unhealthy (double carb lunches are not good). Here, both options address the same harm (being hungry), but combining the two creates an independent harm. A negative debater advocating for eating the vegetarian burger might also point out that pizza is greasy and unhealthy, thus eating a vegetarian burger is a more healthy way to get full. Thus, the negative's advocacy alone is preferable to the combination of the affirmative and negative advocacies.

Arguments that compete via net benefits are often described as follows in round: "our advocacy solves 100% of the affirmative and avoids the ^[blank] disadvantage." In our food example, that argument might read "our vegetarian burger advocacy solves 100% of the affirmative's pizza offense, and avoids the grease disadvantage." Combining the two does not add any value - if you are already full, getting double-full does not make you feel any better - and has a harm (getting greasy).

On this topic, such an argument might read "our wind power advocacy solves 100% of the affirmative's global warming offense, but avoids the economic decline disadvantage to using carbon taxes." Combining the two does not add any value - wind power sufficiently reduces the U.S.'s emissions from fossil fuels so carbon taxes do not add anything new^[6] - and has a harm (the economic issues with carbon taxes).^[7]

What negative advocacies should I advocate for on this topic?

That really depends on the way the affirmative structures their case, and the way that negative debaters structure their disadvantages to carbon taxes. For example, a cap and trade system likely recreates the same issues with outsourcing that are created by a carbon tax.^[8] A cap and trade system might not, however, incur economic problems that are specific to the cost mechanisms involved with carbon taxes. Thus, negative debaters should develop their alternatives in tandem with the disadvantages they choose to levy against the affirmative's advocacy.

I also recommend examining some form of economic incentive to use some specific alternative energy - (space based / land based) solar, wind, hydrological, nuclear, natural gas and so forth^[9] are all budding forms of energy production that might viably support the U.S.'s energy needs.

Footnotes and Citations

^[1] https://ci.uky.edu/toc/sites/default/files/NSDA%20Event%20Rulebook%202014.pdf

^[2] In law, this concept is called "invited error," and occurs when a side deliberately encourages or prompted their opponent into doing something otherwise prohibited. For example, if a defendant successfully admits a piece of evidence, they cannot argue on appeal that the evidence was unfair to admit.

^[3] Inserting the word "ban" before the affirmative is a great way to envision mutually exclusive advocacies. "Ban sending troops to the Middle East" is mutually exclusive with "sending troops to the Middle East," "ban deficit spending" is mutually exclusive with "deficit spending," and "ban doing pushups" is pleasant but mutually exclusive with "do pushups." Exclusivity with a subset of the affirmative's advocacy is also mutual exclusivity: "ban eating bagels" is mutually exclusive with a plan to eat all breads.

^[4] And highly desirable.

^[5] Source: my life.

^[6] Of course, the affirmative can dispute this claim and suggest that every effort to combat global warming helps. This is often termed "double solvency," and is especially applicable to issues that an affirmative only partially solves, or that might benefit from increased degrees of solvency. In the case of warming, the fewer emitted gasses, the better the planet will be. Thus, two actions to reduce emissions likely doubly reduce the risk of emissions causing catastrophic warming, providing "double solvency" for the warming advantage. Double solvency likely does not apply to issues where the affirmative is fully sufficient - such as the food example where one lunch is enough to make you completely full.

^[7]The above section explains how to argue that the combination of the affirmative and negative advocacies is undesirable. The negative's advocacy must not only be superior to the combination of advocacies, but superior to the affirmative's advocacy standing alone. If the affirmative advocacy is simply better than the negative's advocacy, then the negative's advocacy may be exclusive but remains undesirable. For example, if a debater reads a "ban food" advocacy to negate my "eat lunch" affirmative, I should win because food is delicious. Also: writing while hungry leads to lots of food examples.

^[8] The outsourcing argument is that increased costs of using energy will result in companies outsourcing their carbon-intensive work to other, poorer countries to avoid the tax, rather than voluntarily paying the tax. This is net worse because some poorer countries have lower degrees of environmental regulation, thus allowing the companies to be even worse than they would have been by simply staying in the U.S. without any carbon tax.

^[9] https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/c5/0a/08/c50a08f4cac64a4118fd431045a6140c.jpg