Tournament: Greenhill | Round: 3 | Opponent: Interlake AM | Judge: Chase Hamilton
Welcome to the Anthropocene, where extinction lurks behind every corner. Ecological extinction is inevitable and irreversible and the aff’s obsession with the redemption of the human narrative ensures that we will never even notice us plummeting towards our own demise and paves over the destruction of the biosphere that we have created. The aff’s focus on stopping extinction fails to see the forest through the quickly disappearing trees.
Cohen 12
Tom Cohen (Professor of Literary, Cultural, and Media Studies at University of Albany), “Murmurations—“Climate Change” and the Defacement of Theory”, Telemorphosis: Theory in the Era of Climate Change, Vol. 1.
Warnings regarding the planet earth’s imminent depletion …….. but also the “autogenic” turning of wars without discrete (national) enemies into suicidal rages against the “homeland”—a sort of, again, auto-occupation that is accelerating.
The apocalypse is not something to be prevented but recognized as ongoing – we need to cut our losses and ensure we don’t harm the biosphere more than we have already. The new context of the anthropocene means we have new political responsibilities towards the non-human world.
Swyngedouw 13
Erik Swyngedouw (Professor of Geography at the School of Environment and Development at University of Manchester Lewis), “Apocalypse Now! Fear and Doomsday Pleasures,” Symposium on Apocalypse. Published 02/06/2013. 

Against this cynical stand, the third, and for me proper, leftist response to the apocalyptic imaginary ….. And it is within this reality that political choices have to be made and sides taken.

The alternative is to learn how to die gracefully. The end is near with no tinfoil hats in sight, we either die in fear or live authentically and try our best to leave Earth intact. That starts with rejecting the shortsighted politics of the aff.
Scranton 13
Roy Scranton (Served in the United States Army from 2002 to 2006. He is a doctoral candidate in English at Princeton University, and co-editor of “Fire and Forget: Short Stories from the Long War.” He has written for The New York Times, Boston Review, Theory and Event and recently completed a novel about the Iraq War), “Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene”; November 10, 2013; http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/learning-how-to-die-in-the-anthropocene/?_r=0

There’s a word for this new era we live in: the Anthropocene……. If we want to learn to live in the Anthropocene, we must first learn how to die.
The role of the ballot is to vote for the debater who provides the best method to reframe humanities relationship to nature. The imminence of the anthropocene makes this our foremost educational responsibility. Ecological Thoughtprint 11
Ecological Thoughtprint (website for educators that promote sustainability education and teach ecological epistemology) “Dualism doesn’t make sense” December 4, 2011. https://ecologicalthoughtprint.org/2011/12/04/dualism-doesnt-make-sense/

Have you ever asked someone, “Where is Nature?  ……..factory in a distant industrial land.

Tournament: Voices | Round: 2 | Opponent: Harker EM | Judge:
Cp: Use apatite barriers, citric acid solution and phytoremediation through genetically modified Brassica juncea plants to ameliorate the effects of nuclear power. 

Ibrahim, et al ‘15 “Phytoremediation of Radioactive Contaminated Soils”

Uranium usually occurs in soil in three isotopes, ......determining the uptake of these radio nuclides.

Malik, et al’15 ”Recent Trends and Approaches in Phytoremediation” Department of Bioresources, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, India

Genetic engineering is one of the important approaches .....this will 

Hinchman, et al ‘98 “PHYTOREMEDIATION: USING GREEN PLANTS TO CLEAN UP CONTAMINATED SOIL, GROUNDWATER, AND WASTEWATER” Argonne National Labratory

Large green plants have the capability to move .......(compared to the original biomass or the extremely large volume of contaminated soil) can be disposed of in an appropriate manner.