Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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OTEC Debatenexus.com
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OTEC Debatenexus.com
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Finally, loss of protein from fish pushes us over the edge into extinction through
disease or war.
By Douglas S. Winnail October 1996 (Ph. D) From the World A head “On the
Horizon: Famine”
With world food stores dwindling, grain production leveling off and a string of bad harvests
around the world, the next couple of years will be critical. Agricultural experts suggest it will take
two bumper crops in a row to bring supplies back up to normal. However, poor harvests in 1996
and 1997 could create severe food shortages and push millions over the edge.
Is it possible we are only one or two harvests away from a global disaster? Is there any
significance to what is happening today? Where is it all leading? What does the future hold?
The clear implication is that things will get worse before they get better. Wars, famine and
disease will affect the lives of billions of people! Although famines have occurred at various times
in the past, the new famines will happen during a time of unprecedented global stress--times
that have no parallel in recorded history--at a time when the total destruction of humanity
would be possible!
Is it merely a coincidence that we are seeing a growing menace of famine on a global scale at
a time when the world is facing the threat of a resurgence of new and old epidemic diseases,
and the demands of an exploding population? These are pushing the world's resources to its
limits! The world has never before faced such an ominous series of potential global crises at the
same time!
However, droughts and shrinking grain stores are not the only threats to world food supplies.
According to the U.N.'s studies, all 17 major fishing areas in the world have either reached or
exceeded their natural limits. In fact, nine of these areas are in serious decline.
The realization that we may be facing a shortage of food from both oceanic and land-based
sources is a troubling one . It's troubling because seafood--the world's leading source of animal
protein--could be depleted quite rapidly. In the early 1970s, the Peruvian anchovy catch--the
largest in the world--collapsed from 12 million tons to 2 million in just three years from overfishing.
If this happens on a global scale, we will be in deep trouble. This precarious situation is also
without historical precedent!
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OTEC Debatenexus.com
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[___] Biodiversity.
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OTEC Debatenexus.com
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Also, loss of marine biodiversity creates a snowball effect that destroys the entire
marine environment.
Environment News Service August 21 2002 Marine Ecosystems Collapse When
Predators Removed
preservation of biodiversity is an absolute necessity to keep marine ecosystems healthy and
prevent local or regional extinction of multiple species, say marine zoologists at Oregon State
University. Their newly published study was done on coral reefs in the Bahamas, where the
scientists were able to isolate some reefs and selectively remove certain fish, and their
competitors or predators, to observe the effect. They found that overfishing of any one species,
especially predator species, can have ripple effects that destabilize the whole fishery. "The
research showed that all fish species within a food web are connected with one another, and
the removal of any one species can cause whole populations to break down," said Dr. Mark
Hixon, Oregon State University professor of zoology, the study's lead author.
"This is especially true when you take away the predatory species, which are a key to the natural
balance and health of marine ecosystems, said Hixon, a marine ecologist and conservation
biologist specializing in coastal fishes. The study is relevant to the global problems now being
experienced in many commercial fisheries, Hixon said, because many of the fish species most
commonly targeted by fisheries are marine predators. The study, published this week in a
professional journal, the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences," was funded by a
four year, $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, and also by the National
Undersea Research Program of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA). "We found that the removal of any one species can have ramifications for the whole
ecosystem," Hixon said. "Without predation, a fish species can increase its population to an
unsupportable size. Lacking food, fish become vulnerable to disease, changes in water
conditions and ultimate collapse of that species or the whole fishery. Everything is connected to
everything else."
And, species extinction is like playing Russian Roulette – we never know which
species extinction might cause complete collapse and human extinction.
Paul Wapner, Angust 1994 Dep’t of Int’l Politics and Foreign Policy at American
University “Politics and Life Sciences” p.177
Massive extinction of species is dangerous then because one cannot predict which species are
expendable to the system as a whole. As Philip Hoose remarks, “Plants and animals cannot tell
us what they mean to each other.” One can never be sure which species holds up
fundamental biological relationships in the planetary ecosystem. And, because removing
species is an irreversible act, it may be too late to save the system after the extinction of key
plants or animals. According to the US National Research council, “the ramifications of an
ecological change of this magnitude [vast extinction of species] are so far reaching that no one
on earth will escape them.” Trifling with the “lives” of species is like playing Russian roulette with
our collective futures as the stakes.
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OTEC Debatenexus.com
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And, antibiotics used to treat outbreaks of disease in fish farms mean antibiotic
resistant bacteria will spread to humans.
Suzuki 2002 (David, August 4, Founder of the David Suzuki Foundation) St. John’s
Telegram “Destroying a Valuable Tool”
The European Union has banned the use of antibiotics in animal feed, but it is still permitted in
North America. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, more than half of the
antibiotics in the U.S. are used for agricultural purposes (which includes farming fish like salmon).
This indiscriminate use of antibiotics can lad to resistant infections in humans in two ways.
First, people can become infected with resistant bacteria by direct consumption of meat
containing a resistant pathogen like salmonella. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration
estimates that every year up to 10,000 Americans develop antibiotic-resistant infections from
eating chicken containing such bacteria.
Second, resistant bacteria found in food animals can transfer resistance to normally harmless
bacteria in humans through physical contact. These common bacteria are persistent and may
spread from person to person. They can cause infections, and if the bacteria are resistant to
antibiotics, the infection may prove difficult to treat.
Recently, a ground of U.S. scientists developed a mathematical model to examine how feed
antibiotics to livestock can lead to resistance. Their findings indicate that giving animals massive
doses of antibiotics that are also used for humans reduces the useful lifespan of the drug by
about 30 per cent.
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OTEC Debatenexus.com
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Additionally, resistant microbes are becoming harder and harder to treat, and
could spread internationally like wildfire.
Laurie Garett 1996 (science and health writer for Newsday and author of The
Coming Plague) “The Return of Infectious Diseases” Foreign Affairs
Anything but stationary, microbes and the insects, rodents, and other animals that transmit them
are in a constant state of biological flux and evolution. Darwin noted that certain genetic
mutations allow plants and animals to better adapt to environmental conditions and so produce
more offspring; this process of natural selection, he argued, was the mechanism of evolution.
Less than a decade after the U.S. military first supplied penicillin to its field physicians in the
Pacific theater, geneticist Joshua Lederberg demonstrated that natural selection was operation
in the bacterial world. Strains of staphylococcus and streptococcus that happened to carry
genes for resistance to the drugs arose and flourished where drug-susceptible strains had been
driven out. Use of antibiotics was selecting for ever-more-resistant bugs.
More recently scientists have witnessed an alarming mechanism of microbial adaptation and
change – one less dependent on random inherited genetic advantage. The genetic blueprints
of some microbes contain DNA and RNA codes that command mutation under stress, offer
escapes from antibiotics and other drugs, marshal collection behaviors conducive to group
survival, and allow the microbes and their progeny to scour their environments for potentially
useful genetic material. Such material is present in stable rings or pieces of DNA and RNA,
known as plasmids and transposons, that move freely among microorganisms, even jumping
between species of bacteria, fungi, and parasites. Some plasmids carry the genes for resistance
to five or more different families of antibiotics, or dozens of individual drugs. Others confer
greater powers of infectivity, virulence, resistance to disinfectants of chlorine, even such subtly
important characteristics as the ability to tolerate higher temperatures or more acidic
conditions. Microbes have appeared that can grow on a bar of soap, swim unabashed in
bleach, and ignore doses of penicillin logarithmically larger than those effective in 1950.
In the microbial soup, then, is a vast, constantly changing lending library of genetic material that
offers humanity’s minute predators myriad ways to outmaneuver the drug arsenal. And the
arsenal, large as it might seem, is limited. In 1994 the Food and Drug Administration licensed only
three new antimicrobial: drugs, two of them for the treatment of AIDS and none an
antibacterial. Research and development has ground to a near halt now that the easy
approaches to killing viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites—those that mimic the ways
competing microbes kill one another in their endless tiny battles throughout the human
gastrointestinal tract—have been exploited. Researches have run out of ideas for countering
many microbial scourges, and the lack of profitability has stifled the development of drugs to
combat organisms that are currently found predominantly in poor countries. “The pipeline is dry.
We really have a global crisis,” James Hughes, director of the National Center for Infectious
Disease at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, said recently.
DISEASES WITHOUT BORDERS
During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund devised
investment policies based on the assumption that economic modernization should come first
and improved health would naturally follow. Today the World Bank recognizes that a nation in
which more than ten percent of the working-age population is chronically ill cannot be
expected to reach higher levels of development without investment in health infrastructure.
<<continues>>
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OTEC Debatenexus.com
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<<continued>>
Furthermore, the bank acknowledges that few societies spend health care dollars effectively for
the poor, among whom the potential for the outbreak of infectious disease is greatest. Most of
the achievements in infectious disease control have resulted from grand international efforts
such as the expanded program for childhood immunization mounted by the U.N.’s Children’s
Emergency Fund and WHO’s smallpox eradication drive. At the local level, particularly in
potentially unstable poor countries, few genuine successes can be cited.
Geographical sequestration was crucial in all postwar health planning, but diseases can no
longer be expected to remain in their country or region of origin. Even before commercial air
travel, swine flu in 1918-19 managed to circumnavigate the planet five times in 18 months, killing
22 million people, 500,000 in the United States. How many more victims could a similarly lethal
strain of influenza claim in 1996, when some half a billion passengers will board airline flights?
Every day one million people cross an international border. One million a week travel between
the industrial and developing worlds. And as people move, unwanted microbial hitchhikers tag
along. In the nineteenth century most diseases and infections that travelers carried manifested
themselves during the long sea voyages that were the primary means of covering great
distances. Recognizing the symptoms, the authorities at ports of entry could quarantine
contagious individuals or take other action. In the age of jet travel, however, a person
incubating a disease such as Ebola can board a plane, travel 12,000 miles, pass unnoticed
through customs and immigration, take a domestic carrier to a remote destination, and still not
develop symptoms for several days, infecting many other people before his condition is
noticeable.
THE CITY AS A VECTOR
Population expansion raises the statistical probability that pathogens will be transmitted, whether
from person to person of vector-insect, rodent, or other—to person. Human density is rising
rapidly worldwide. Seven countries now have overall population densities exceeded 2,000
people per square mile, and 43 have densities greater than 500 people per square mile. (The
U.S. average, by contrast, is 74).
High density need not doom a nation to epidemics and unusual outbreaks of disease if sewage
and water systems, housing, and public health provisions are adequate. The Netherlands, for
example, with 1,180 people per square mile, ranks among the top 20 countries for good health
and life expectancy. But the areas in which density is increasing most are not those capable of
providing such infrastructural support. They are, rather, the poorest on earth. Even countries
with low overall density may have cities that have become focuses for extraordinary
overpopulation, from the point of view of public health. Some of these urban agglomerations
have only one toilet for every 750 or more people.
Most people on the move come to burgeoning metropolises like India’s Surat, (where
pneumonic plague struck in 1994) and Zaire’s Kikwit (site of the 1995 Ebola epidemic) that offer
few fundamental amenities. These new centers of urbanization typically lack sewage systems,
paved roads, housing, safe drinking water, medical facilities, and schools adequate to serve
even the most affluent residents. They are squalid sites of destitution where hundreds of
thousands live much as they would in poor villages, yet so jammed together as to ensure
astronomical transmission rates for airborne, waterborne, sexually transmittied, and contact-
transmitted microbes.
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<<continues>>
Fish, as well as other animals, are also being genetically engineered to grow more rapidly. If they
are released to the environment (fish culture tanks often discharge during storm conditions), they
may out-compete native species and thereby disrupt ecosystems.
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OTEC Debatenexus.com
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Also, genetically modified foods increase world hunger and cause exploitation
of the poor by multinational corporations.
Pakissan.com 2001 Advisory / BIOTECHNOLOGY Environmental impacts of
genetic
engineering http://www.pakissan.com/english/advisory/biotechnology/environ
mental.empacts.shtml
Although increases in population are often used to justify the development of genetic
engineering, according to the United Nations' World Food Programme we are currently
producing one and a half times the amount of food needed to provide everyone in the world
with an adequate and nutritious diet. In spite of this, at least 1 in 7 people in the world are
suffering from severe hunger.
Even if genetic engineering was able to deliver its promises of high yielding, disease-resistant
crops to the third world, it seems unlikely that this would be of benefit to starving populations
because it fails to address the root causes of hunger. Indeed, the suggestion that this complex
problem can be solved with a biotechnological panacea allows both governments and industry
to distance themselves from their complicity in the political structures and social inequalities that
lead to starvation.
For every £1 that the West is gives in aid to third world countries, £3 is paid back by these same
countries as interest on their debt. The UN Development Report in '97 stated that, "In Africa
alone, the money spent on annual debt repayments could be used to save the lives of about 21
million children by the year 2000."
At the height of the 1984 famine in Ethiopia, oilseed rape, linseed, and cottonseed was being
grown on prime agricultural land to be exported as feed for livestock to the UK and other
European countries.
"Rather than reducing world hunger, genetic engineering is likely to exacerbate it. Farmers will
be caught in a vicious circle, increasingly dependent on a small number of giant multinationals,
such as Monsanto, for their survival. For 25 years Action Aid has been listening to poor farmers
and supporting their efforts to maintain sustainable farming. Even though the world's population
is growing, we know it produces enough food for all - food mountains are evidence of this. It is
the inequitable distribution of food that is keeping millions hungry. The truth is that genetically
engineered crops will provide a 'better way forward' for Monsanto's profits, but could be a huge
step backwards for the world's poor."
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OTEC Debatenexus.com
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And, genetic engineering reduces animals to tools for humans and causes
unnecessary suffering.
Andrew B. Perzigian 2003 “Genetic Engineering and Animals: A Short Summary
of the Legal Terrain and Ethical Implications” Animal Legal and Historical Center
Michigan State University--Detroit College of Law
In general, opponents of genetic engineering assert that such technology creates a huge
diminution in the standing of animals, leaving them as nothing more than "test tubes with tails,"
only of benefit for the exploitive practices of factory farming, and drug and organ
manufacturing. Creating more efficient agricultural animals threatens weaken the genetic
diversity of the herd and thereby make them more susceptible to new strains of infectious
disease. Also, if transgenic farm animals ever escape into wild populations, they can have
profoundly disturbing effects on the natural environment, including a complete elimination of
natural populations and the processes of natural selection.
Animal rights advocates also argue that each species should enjoy an inherent, natural right to
be free of genetic manipulation in any form. This is especially the case when genetic
engineering is used as a means of depriving animals of their sentience, of exacerbating the
cruel, horrific conditions of the modern factory farm and biomedical lab. Although the sheer
numbers may decline, the actual suffering experienced by agricultural and research animals
may increase.
Finally, genetic engineering breaks down the barriers between species that are
key to sustaining life on earth – the impact is extinction.
Sierra Club March 2001 “Genetic Engineering at a Historic Crossroads” Genetic
Engineering Committee Report
As environmentalists, one of our most basic concerns is the preservation of species. We live in a
time when the rate of species extinction has increased drastically, primarily as a result of human
activities. Now a new form of human activity, genetic engineering, may pose the ultimate threat
to the survival of all species.
Many of those who are promoting genetic engineering give every indication that they regard
life as a form of information technology: that genes are mere bundles of information to be
transferred from one species to another on the basis of expediency and potential corporate
cash-flow; that the natural barriers to genetic transfer that protect the integrity of species are
mere inconveniences to be overcome; and that the very concept of species is an anachronism
which it is now time to discard.
Because these principles are being put into application—genetically engineered organisms are
now being made and released to the environment—we have to conclude that genetic
engineering threatens the continued existence of all species as life-forms that are distinct from
one another.
Genetic engineering should be considered an environmentally dangerous technology that is
breaking down the barriers that have protected the integrity of species for millions of years.
There are probably good reasons why it is impossible for a conventional plant breeder to
combine plant genes with animal genes. Those reasons have to do with the very survival of life
on earth, and we ignore them at our peril.
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OTEC Debatenexus.com
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Offshore drilling is causing oil spills, which are widespread and cause huge
damage to ecosystems.
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OTEC Debatenexus.com
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Oil reserves are almost exhausted and could begin to decline in the next few
years.
Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall April 2003 How Hydrogen Can Save America
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.04/hydrogen_pr.html
Petroleum suppliers and auto manufacturers alike understand the need to disentangle their
business models from crude. By most estimates, the worldwide oil supply has nearly stopped
growing. Thanks to new discoveries, the total reserve increased by 56 percent between 1980
and 1990 but only 1.4 percent between 1990 and 2000. Pessimistic geologists argue that
production will begin to decline as early as 2006, while optimists point at 2040. What's more, it's
now clear that oil consumption is at least partly to blame for global warming, prompting ever-
louder calls for alternatives. It shouldn't take much persuasion to convince the oil and car
industries that the most profitable course is to adapt to hydrogen sooner with government
money rather than later without.
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OTEC Debatenexus.com
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And, the exhaustion of fossil fuels will cause ecological destruction and wars
around the planet.
Joseph George Caldwell February 3 2003 (supervised economic development
projects in the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and Africa, PhD degree in
mathematical statistics) “What Oil Can Do to Tiny States: And Big Ones Too!”
T S Elliot (“The Hollow Men”) surmised that the world would end in a whimper. That is possible,
but the leaders of the human species do not do things that way. Mankind will not sit around
collectively and starve to death as the world’s food supplies disappear as global oil reserves
exhaust. Nation will attack nation, tribe will attack tribe, clan will attack clan, fighting over the
last drop of oil and the food that it makes possible. Unless plague strikes first – and the possibility
of that increases daily with each new day of gross intermingling and each new strain of
genetically modified life – global famine will lead to global war, not to global resignation.
Can anything be done to bring an early end to the mass industrialization that is choking the
planet to death? Or is a solution totally beyond man’s capacity? Economics has a stranglehold
on the planet. As the situation grows more and more dire, all world leaders call for more
industrial production, not less. Instead of using the last of the fossil fuels to prepare for a better
world tomorrow, all world leaders are champing at the bit to consume every bit of it as fast as
possible, in a feeding frenzy of consumption and hedonic pleasure – more factories, more cars,
more roads, more subways, more houses, more computers, more telephones, more
communications, more bandwidth, more hospitals, more drugs, more physicians, more schools,
more buildings, more clothes, more food, more money, better homes, better medical care,
more televisions, more CDs, more churches, more temples, more mosques, more exotic
vacations, more airplanes, more cruise ships, more ski lodges, more movies, more spare time,
more and better sports stadia – more of every material good, service, and pleasure. More for
our generation even though it means a ruined world for all generations to come. And more is
never enough. And the cost to the other species of the planet and to future generations of
mankind does not matter. The gap between rich and poor grows wider and wider, and ever-
growing numbers endure lives of hellish misery as Moloch consumes the Earth. The religion of
economics calls for more efficiency and promises an ever-higher standard of living for human
beings, even as millions more are born into direst poverty, the animal world is disappearing, and
our world crumbles. The leaders offer more of everything, and say that more industrial
production will provide it. But more industrial production means more and more people living in
dire poverty, and more and more destruction of the environment, and more and more
extinction of species. No leader has the courage or the will or the desire to accept and to admit
and to declare that it is industrial production that is the problem, not the solution. The lie that
continued industrial production and continued peace will reduce poverty and improve
mankind’s standard of living is very deceptive. The Siren’s call to a better life is irresistible. The
people are helpless to say “No! We do not believe you any more, and we have suffered
enough!” What is to be done? You might start by praying for an early end to the petroleum
age.
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OTEC Debatenexus.com
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Fossil fuels cause global warming, and the pace is increasing – if we don’t act
now, climate change will cause huge damage.
John D. Podesta August 2003 VISITING PROFESSOR OF LAW AT GEORGETOWN
UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER “The Future of Energy Policy” Foreign Affairs
The clearest consequences of increased concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere have now
been well documented: rising temperatures and sea levels, altered precipitation patterns,
increased storm intensity, and the destruction or migration of important ecosystems. Most
unsettling, however, is the growing scientific concern that climatic changes may not happen
gradually, as has been commonly assumed. In a recent report, the National Research Council
warned:
Recent scientific evidence shows that major and widespread climate changes have occurred
with startling speed. For example, roughly half the north Atlantic warming since the last ice age
was achieved in only a decade. ... Abrupt climate changes were especially common when the
climate system was being forced to change most rapidly. Thus, greenhouse warming and other
human alterations of the earth system may increase the possibility of large, abrupt, and
unwelcome regional or global climatic events.
Preventing catastrophic climate change is, at its core, an energy challenge. Globally, fossil fuel
production and use accounts for nearly 60 percent of the emissions that are causing the earth's
atmospheric greenhouse to trap more heat. In the United States, the number is 85 percent. To
avoid worsening the problem, governments around the world would have to take immediate,
far-reaching steps: dramatically r educing the burning of fossil fuels, slowing deforestation,
altering agricultural practices, and stemming the use of certain chemicals. Because change of
this magnitude will take so much time, and because there is so much momentum built into the
current rate of carbon release, it will be impossible to hold atmospheric concentrations at the
current level of 380 parts per million (which is already one-third higher than preindustrial levels).
More realistically, studies for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggest that an
extremely ambitious program to reduce worldwide carbon emissions by as much as two-thirds
by the end of the century will be necessary just to hold the level of accumulated carbon in the
earth's atmosphere below 550 parts per million -- roughly double preindustrial levels. Even if this
goal is reached, the likely result is that sea levels will rise significantly and species extinction will
increase.
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OTEC Debatenexus.com
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The U.S. is already hugely dependent on foreign oil, and it’s only going to get
worse.
Gary C. Bryner Spring, 2002 Research Associate, Natural Resources Law Center,
University of Colorado School of Law, and Professor, Public Policy Program,
Brigham Young University THE NATIONAL ENERGY POLICY: ASSESSING ENERGY
POLICY CHOICES Colorado Law Review
The United States imports about sixty percent of the oil it uses each day, and that percentage
will likely climb as domestic energy production declines and consumption increases. Even if the
United States increases domestic output significantly, the nation is projected to become more
and more dependent on imports because of growing demand and will, therefore, continue to
be vulnerable to energy shocks. n138 The future of oil imports is quite uncertain. The United States
imports some 1.6 million barrels of oil a day from Saudi Arabia, n139 and that country warned in
October 2001 that the Bush administration's failure to negotiate peace between Israel and the
Palestinians might jeopardize United States-Saudi relations. n140 Iraq, exporter of 0.6 million
barrels of oil a day to the United States, n141 might withhold oil from global markets in retaliation
for United Nations' sanctions n142 or in response to the war on global terrorism. Neither the
leading congressional bills nor the Bush plan offer a solution to this quandary of our major
dependence on imported oil. Critics have repeatedly argued that opening ANWR to oil
development, the Bush administration's major response to American reliance on imported oil,
would not produce oil for at least seven years, and then would likely yield only the equivalent of
140 days worth of oil. n143
The United States simply lacks the domestic oil resources to be able to become self-sufficient by
expanding production. It [*366] has not been self sufficient in energy for more than forty years.
n144 Those who make projections about the availability of resources often assume that the rate
of consumption will be constant and, thus, create overly optimistic expectations concerning
available supplies. In fact, steady growth in consumption results in enormous increases because
of the profound power of exponential growth. For example, a resource that would last one
hundred years at current consumption levels will only last sixty-nine years at a one percent
growth rate, fifty-five years at a two percent growth rate, and only thirty-six years at a five
percent growth rate. n145 Projections of energy resources at current consumption rates can
give a false sense of security that resources will be plentiful in the future, when, in reality,
population and consumption growth rates make the future of energy resources quite uncertain.
While energy use per dollar of gross domestic product has fallen dramatically in the United
States (fifty percent between 1950 and 2000), energy consumption per person in the United
States has increased significantly during the past half century. n146 Given the nation's steady
population growth, an energy policy that relies on a continuance of existing policy, and even a
temporary expansion in domestic fossil fuel production, will result in even greater reliance on
imported energy in the future.
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And, foreign oil dependence will always risk economic collapse, terrorism, and
drawing the US into regional wars.
John D. Podesta August 2003 VISITING PROFESSOR OF LAW AT GEORGETOWN
UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER “The Future of Energy Policy” Foreign Affairs
The intensity of oil use in the transportation sector makes the American economy vulnerable to
the actions of other states. A study by Oak Ridge National Laboratory estimates a $7 trillion cost
to the U.S. economy from the oil market upheavals of the last 30 years. Indeed, every economic
recession in the past 40 years has been preceded by a significant increase in oil prices.
Diversification of U.S. oil imports is not an adequate answer. Oil is like any other commodity -- the
last unit sold determines its price. The United States could shift all its purchases to sources that are
relatively safe politically, such as Canada and Mexico, and it would still not be protected. The
global price is what matters most. This means, for example, that if a terrorist sets off a "dirty
bomb" in the Saudi port of Ras Tanura, the price of oil will spike everywhere in the world,
dramatically affecting the U.S. economy.
Nor are supply disruptions and price shocks the only risks that oil dependence creates for U.S.
national security. The flow of funds to certain oil-producing states has financed widespread
corruption, perpetuated repressive regimes, funded radical anti-American fundamentalism, and
fed hatreds that derive from rigid rule and stark contrasts between rich and poor. Terrorism and
aggression are byproducts of these realities. Iraq tried to use its oil wealth to buy the ingredients
for weapons of mass destruction. In the future, some oil-producing states may seek to swap
assured access to oil for the weapons themselves. It is also increasingly clear that the riches from
oil trickle down to those who would do harm to America and its friends. If this situation remains
unchanged, the United States will find itself sending soldiers into battle again and again, adding
the lives of American men and women in uniform to the already high cost of oil.
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Piracy of oil tankers is on the rise – as long as tankers are going, there will be the
risk of an intentional oil spill that will devastate ecosystems.
James M. Stuhltrager 2003 Staff Attorney, Mid-Atlantic Environmental Law Center
at Widener University School of Law COMBATING TERRORISM IN THE
ENVIRONMENTAL TRENCHES Widener Law Symposium
The risk of the use of oil pollution as a terrorist weapon is both real and significant. Modern risk
management defines risk as "the likelihood of harm (in defined circumstances, and usually
qualified by some statement of the severity of the harm)." n14 When applied to oil pollution, it is
apparent that the risk of the intentional use oil pollution as a weapon is great. The probability
that a terrorist group could hijack or otherwise commandeer an oil tanker is significant. As
evidenced by the occurrence of piracy, modern oil tankers are extremely vulnerable to
hijacking. Moreover, the environmental and economic consequences of an intentional oil spill
are enormous. By that measure, the risk of terrorist use of oil pollution is significant.
International shipping is extremely vulnerable to acts of piracy. Although in the United States,
tales of pirates may have been relegated to history or amusement park attractions, in the rest of
the world, piracy remains a very real threat. There were more than 800 pirate attacks in 2000 and
2001. n15 Though acts of piracy are widespread, they are particularly serious in Southeast Asia. In
2000, the three countries that experienced the most piracy incidents were Indonesia, India, and
Bangladesh. n16
Pirate attacks on oil tankers are on the rise. The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has noted
that attacks on oil tankers have increased in terms of percentage of overall piracy. n17 This
surge in oil tanker hijackings is primarily due to the value [*404] of petroleum and the ease with
which it is sold on the black market. n18 An example of this was the hijacking of the Singaporean
oil tanker Selayang. The Selayang was hijacked on June 19, 2001 after the vessel left the Shell
refinery in Port Dickson, Malaysia. n19 The vessel was recovered and the hijackers were captured
in an anti-piracy operation conducted by Indonesian naval and air forces. n20 The hijackers
indicated that they had arranged to sell the cargo of 3,500 tons of gasoline. n21
This increase in pirate attacks on oil tankers has led some officials to begin to consider the
potential environmental ramifications. n22 The IMB has warned maritime nations that hijacked oil
tankers or liquified natural gas (LNG) carriers could be used to carry out suicide missions. n23 Due
to the size of oil tankers and the proximity of sealanes, confined areas, such as straits, harbors,
and rivers, are the most vulnerable. One expert has noted that "[g]iven the large number of . . .
fully laden oil tankers using the straits of Malacca and Singapore every day, there is a very real
danger of a piracy attack creating an environmental catastrophe. . . ." n24 Such fears are not
confined to Southeast Asia. Following September 11, Boston officials temporarily banned LNG
vessels from entering the city's harbor due to fears of terrorist attacks. n25
If a terrorist group was to commandeer a tanker and an intentional oil spill was to occur, the
potential consequences, both environmental and economic, would be enormous.
<<continues>>
These types of injuries would likely be magnified by the intentional use of oil pollution. Terrorists
would plan the incident to occur in environmentally sensitive or economically important areas.
For example, an intentional release in the Chesapeake Bay would likely devastate the area's
commercial fishing and shellfishing industries. n34 A release in the Delaware River, already an
inviting target as it borders the second largest petroleum refining center in the United States,
would threaten drinking water supplies to tens of thousands of citizens. n35
19
OTEC Debatenexus.com
Affirmative ___/___
Water shortages are coming due to population pressure and climate change,
and they will cause disease and environmental destruction.
Michael McCarthy March 5, 2003 “Water Scarcity Could Affect Billions: Is This the
Biggest Crisis of All?” the lndependent
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0305-05.htm
Population growth is the prime driver. The soaring of human numbers to more than six billion by
the millennium meant that water consumption almost doubled in half a century. Between 1970
and 1990 available per capita water supply decreased by one third. Even though birth rates are
now slowing, world population is still likely to increase by half as much again, to about 9.3 billion
by 2050.
Demand, of course, comes not just from the need to drink, the need to wash and the need to
deal with human waste, enormous though these are; the really great calls on water supply
come from industry in the developed world, and, in the developing world, from agriculture.
Irrigating crops in hot dry countries accounts for 70 per cent of all the water use in the world.
Pollution, from industry, agriculture and not least, human waste, adds another fierce pressure.
About two million tons of waste are dumped every day into rivers, lakes and streams, with one
liter of waste water sufficient to pollute about eight liters of fresh water. Today's report estimates
that across the world there are about 12,000 cubic kilometers of waste water, which is more than
the total amount contained in the world's 10 largest river basins at any given moment. Therefore,
it suggests, if pollution keeps pace with population growth, the world will in effect lose 18,000
cubic kilometers by 2050 – almost nine times the amount all countries currently use for irrigation.
All that's bad enough. But increasing the stress on water supply still further will be climate
change, which UN scientists calculate will probably account for about a fifth of the increase in
water scarcity. While rainfall is predicted to get heavier in winter in high latitudes, such as Britain
and northern Europe, in many drought-prone countries and even some tropical regions it is
predicted to decrease further; and water quality will worsen with rising pollution levels and water
temperatures.
Yet another difficulty will be the growing urbanization of the world: at present, 48 per cent of the
Earth's population lives in towns and cities; by 2030 this will be 60 per cent. Urban areas often
have more readily available water supplies than rural ones; their problem is that they
concentrate wastes. As the report notes: "Where good waste management is lacking, urban
areas are among the world's most life-threatening environments."
The direst, direct effects of water scarcity will undoubtedly be on health. The presence of water
can be a bane as well as a benefit: Water-related diseases are among the commonest causes
of illness and death. Water-borne illnesses, such as gastric infections leading to diarrhea, are
caused by drinking contaminated water; vector-borne diseases, such as malaria and
schistosomiasis, are passed on by the mosquitoes and small snails that use water to breed.
Millions contract such diseases. In the year 2000, the number of people estimated to have died
from water/sanitation associated diseases was 2.2 million, a million of them from malaria. The
majority of victims were aged under five.
The world's soaring demand for fresh water is also causing increasing environmental stress; the
stream flows of about 60 per cent of the world's largest rivers have been interrupted by dams
and, of the creatures associated with inland waters, 24 per cent of mammals and 12 per cent of
birds are threatened. About 10 per cent of freshwater fish species have been studied in detail
and about a third of these are thought to be threatened.
20
OTEC Debatenexus.com
Affirmative ___/___
And, water shortages will hit the Middle East the hardest and cause armed
conflict.
Wolf 1996 (Aaron, Prof. of Geography @ Alabama U., July 10)
“Water” and “war” are two topics being assessed together with increasing frequency. Articles in
the academic literature (Cooley 1984; Gleick 1993; Starr 1991; and others) and popular press
(Bulloch and Darwish 1993; World Press Review 1995) point to water not only as a cause of
historic armed conflict, but as the resource which will bring combatants to the battlefield in the
21st century. Invariably, these writings on “water wars” point to the arid and hostile Middle East
as an example of a worst-case scenario, where armies have in fact been mobilized and shots
fired over this scarce and precious resource. Elaborate “hydraulic imperative” theories have
been developed for the region, particularly between Arabs and Israelis, citing water as the
prime motivator for military strategy and territorial conquest.
The basic argument is as follows: water is a resource to all aspects of a nation’s survival, from its
inhabitants biology to their economy; the scarcity of water in an arid environment leads to
intense political pressures, often referred to as “water stress” (a term coined by Falkenmark
1989); the Middle East is a region not only of extreme political conflict, but in which many states
are reaching the limits of their annual freshwater supply; therefore Middle East warfare and
territorial acquisition must be related to the region’s water stress.
Finally, conflict in the Middle East cause nuclear use by Israel and Armageddon
Now.
Executive Intelligence Review April 20, 2001 Nuclear War Now?!
http://www.larouchepub.com/lar/2001/010420_nuclear_war_now.html
If one takes into account, the impact of that 1962 missile-crisis, in reshaping, misshaping, and so
on, the mind-set of, especially, the adolescent population of that time, and its later progeny, we
should recognize what the actual use of nuclear weapon by Israel would do to the psyche of
the entire world. Do you wish to speak of "Opening Pandora's Box"? I encourage you to do so,
while you still might be able react rationally to the thought.
Agreed, under usual circumstances such an event, even by a U.S. "Mega"-backed Sharon or
Netanyahu government in Israel, would not be possible. The notable fact is, therefore, that "usual
circumstances" have just gone entirely out of business with the combination of the inauguration
of a looney but malicious President George W. "Friedrich Nietzsche" Bush, and with the onrush of
the greatest financial collapse in human existence.
In such times as these, given the indelicately unbalanced state of mind of the majority of the
government and population of Israel at this time, the unthinkable is the only thing which is likely.
Look into the mind of the Sharon governent, and the lack of sanity exhibited by Bush and the
gnostic religious loonies who are his most important popular base.
In short, it is time for all sane members of the U.S. Congress, to dump the customary, and immoral
practice of "go along, to get along." Without a forceful and construction intervention by the
government of the U.S.A. for good, there are no limits to the extremities into which the current
Middle East situation might lead the world. The only way a "Battle of Armageddon" could
happen now, is if people in the state of mind of the backers of Sharon Bush might be seized by
an irresistable urge to "go all the way," in a Hitler-style exhibition of the Nietzschean will, and thus
bring it about.
21
OTEC Debatenexus.com
Affirmative ___/___
Plan:
Also, the aff is given fiat by the ‘should’ in the resolution – the neg has
no resolution, so they have no fiat and any counterplan is illegit.
22
OTEC Debatenexus.com
Affirmative ___/___
23
OTEC Debatenexus.com
Affirmative ___/___
Additionally, OTEC makes water colder, which improves ocean ecosystems and
fishing.
Braun 2002 (Harry, Chairman of the Hydrogen Political Action Committee,
September 20, “OTEC CAN SAVE THE OCEANS”)
OTEC plants will profoundly improve ocean ecosystems because they function by
pumping the deep cold water that is rich in nutrients needed for aquatic plants and
animals to the surface. Only then can the nutrients react with sunlight, which then
allows the ecosystems to flourish. Indeed, natural cold-water upwellings are responsible
for some of the most fertile fishing grounds in the world, such as those off the west coast
of South America. Thus, deploying large numbers of OTEC plants throughout the
tropical seas could dramatically increase world seafood supplies. Unlike fossil fuel and
nuclear power plants, OTEC systems can dramatically improve the natural ocean
environment in which they operate. Detailed OTEC engineering studies have been
completed by a number of investigators, including Lockheed, Bechtel, Grumman, TRW,
the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University and the College of
Engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Also, OTEC would completely replace fossil fuels as a source of energy and
provide renewable energy to the entire world population.
Braun 2002 (Harry, Chairman of the Hydrogen Political Action Committee,
September 20, “OTEC CAN SAVE THE OCEANS”)
The oceans contain 98 percent of the Earth's water, and they make up over 70 percent of the
Earth's surface area that receives solar radiation. This makes the oceans the largest solar
collector on the Earth, and it has cost nothing to build. Moreover, half of the Earth's surface lies
between the latitudes 20 degrees North and 20 degrees South, which is mostly occupied by the
tropical oceans where ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) plants could efficiently
operate. According to calculations by Clarence Zener, a professor of physics at Carnegie-
Mellon University, the potential energy that could be extracted by OTEC plants located in the
tropical ocean areas would be approximately 60 mil-lion megawatts. Assuming the OTEC
systems would have an operating capacity of about 80 percent, they would be able to
generate over 400 billion megawatt-hours per year, which is more than three times the current
total human annual energy consumption of roughly 150 billion megawatt-hours. Thus, OTEC
systems could, in and of themselves, have the potential to generate enough electricity and/or
hydrogen literally to run the world -- without using any of the earth's remaining fossil fuel reserves.
And, OTEC creates fresh water which solves for shortages and food supplies.
Patrick Takahashi and Andrew Trenka, 1996 Hawaii Natural Energy Institute and
Pacific International Center for High Technology Research, Ocean Thermal
Energy Conversion, pg. 7-8
The desalinated water produced by open-cycle and hybrid-cycle OTEC systems is actually purer
(less saline) than the water provided by most municipal water systems. Estimates indicate a 1
MW plant fitted with a second stage fresh water production unit could supply approximately 55
kilograms per second of fresh water, approximately 4750 m3/day, sufficient for serving a
population of 20 000. Fresh water production from reverse osmosis and multi-stage flash
desalination plants costs between $1.30 and $2.00jm3 for a plant with a 4000 m3/day capacity.
Using these figures, a 1 MW OTEC plant could produce almost $3 million worth of desalinated
water per year. In addition to potable, fresh water for domestic use, desalinated water from
OTEC can be used for crop irrigation to increase food supplies.
24
OTEC Debatenexus.com
Affirmative ___/___
And, OTEC provides the economic and technological basis for space
colonization.
Marshall T. Savage, 1993 founder of the First Millennial Foundation The Millennial
Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps, pg. 34
In the process of producing power, the OTECs pump vast quantities of cold water up from the
depths. This deep water is saturated with nitrogen and other nutrients. When this nutrient-rich
water hits the warm sunlit surface, algae populations explode. The algae are cultivated in
broad shallow containment ponds that spread out around the central island of Aquarius like the
leaves of a water lily. The algae soak in the tropical sun, absorbing the rich nutrient broth from
the depths and producing millions of tons of protein. Aquarius will be the first of the new
cybergenic life forms, but by no means the last. Once we have grown ten thousand of these
colonial super-organisms, we will culture and harvest enough protein-rich algae to feed every
hungry human on earth. We will generate enough electrical power power-converted into
clean-burning hydrogen -to completely replace all fossil fuels. We will build enough living space
to house hundreds of millions of people in self-sufficient, pollution-free, comfort. We will learn the
harsh lessons of space colonization in the mellow school of a tropical paradise. And, we will
unleash a cash flow large enough to underwrite any adventure in space we care to imagine.
25
OTEC Debatenexus.com
Affirmative ___/___
[___] Asteroids.
First, we find new asteroids around the earth every day, any of which could kill
billions or cause human extinction if there were a collision.
The Times (London) September 19, 2000 Asteroids could shut down Earth plc
Mark Henderson
The danger of a catastrophic impact is so great that any private company incurring
comparable risks would fail British safety standards, the Near Earth Objects Task Force said.
A collision with even a medium-size asteroid would put hundreds of thousands of lives at risk from
the initial energy blast, tidal waves and a "nuclear winter" effect, the task force found. At worst,
an impact could destroy all human life: a similar event 65 million years ago is believed to have
led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. International co-operation to track potentially hazardous
asteroids and comets, and research into ways of deflecting them from the Earth, is the only
answer to the threat, the report concluded. Britain should take the lead in the construction of a
powerful new telescope as a key component of a "spaceguard" early-warning system, it
advised.
The panel, which was chaired by Harry Atkinson, a former chairman of the European Space
Agency, was set up in January by Lord Sainsbury of Turville, the Science Minister. Other members
were Sir Crispin Tickell, a former British Ambassador to the United Nations, and David Williams,
Professor of Astronomy at University College London.
Lord Sainsbury is expected to respond to the findings by the end of the year. Estimates of the
total cost of the recommendations range from Pounds 15million to Pounds 70million.
None of the asteroids and comets that are known to astronomers will pose a threat in the next
50 years but new objects are being discovered every day, leaving the Earth at a definite risk. The
probability of a devastating collision is low , Dr Atkinson said, but the effects of a medium-size
asteroid made present levels of risk "intolerable".
An asteroid 0.6 miles across, which strikes the Earth every 100,000 to 200,000 years, would cause
a "nuclear winter" effect, killing up to 1.5 billion people.
Smaller objects, which strike at an interval of 70,000 years, could kill as many as 500,000 people.
26
OTEC Debatenexus.com
Affirmative ___/___
And, there’s always a chance of an asteroid wiping out life on earth – we never
know when we’ll be hit. There’s a moral obligation to go into space to allow
civilization to survive.
Carl Sagan 1994 (American astronomer, planetologist, biologist) “A Pale Blue
Dot” Random House
We are sure that neglecting science, in general, and space research and exploration, in
particular, is the exceptionally shortsighted and dangerous course of action, putting at risk the
very future of humanity. In the best case, it leads to a waste of time; in the worst, it may end in
extinction.
There are many threats to mankind, which only expansion into space can fend off.
The most spectacular of them is the possible collision of Earth with some celestial body - comet
or asteroid. Depending on the size of such a body, the consequences may be different,
including extinction of humanity as a species, as well. Astronomical observations and current
space research clearly confirm that such cosmic collisions are not rare exceptions within
geological timescale; on the contrary, they are a norm. It suffices to look through ordinary
binoculars at the surface of the Moon, pockmarked with thousands of impact craters. Many
such collisions happened also on Earth in the past; one of them caused the extinction of
dinosaurs and many more species of plants and animals. It is also certain that similar collisions will
happen in the future. Only, we do not know when - possibly after thousands of years - possibly
just next year. Therefore, every year of delay may turn out to be the critical one.
Earth also becomes overpopulated. Nothing indicates that the number of its inhabitants may
undergo any significant decrease - except as a result of some severe war or global cataclysm,
which could endanger the whole Earth's biosphere. Expansion into space offers here a possibility
for a peaceful and gentle unburdening of the natural environment, while, at the same time,
making survival of our species and civilization possible, even if the damage turns out to be
irreversible.
The civilization which crosses the space barrier and makes its existence independent of the fate
of a particular planet will survive. Others are doomed.
<<continues>
The opening of space to humanity and the ensuing creation of a new branch of human
civilization should be done by all of humanity, but in fact it only will be done by those nations
who actively choose to participate. If we think that our nation should not consign itself to the
sidelines of history; if we think that our people should have accomplishments celebrated in
newspapers and not just museums; if we feel that our country and culture holds things that are
precious and should be passed on as part of the heritage of humanity's New World, then it is our
responsibility to do whatever we can to get our country involved in space exploration, either on
its own or teamed with others.
27
OTEC Debatenexus.com
Affirmative ___/___
Worldwide nuclear war is still a possibility, and nuclear weapons will be mixed
with other WMDs to a degree that could cause human extinction.
Rex Stephens 2003 Quantum Theorist, The Preparation,
http://www.thepreparation.net/Chap6.html
Mankind has been faced with the threat of nuclear war for some time now, and despite what
some people think, the threat hasn't gone away. The threat has shifted somewhat though,
towards a threat of nuclear terrorism and nuclear exchanges between lesser military powers.
Nuclear war in and of itself never did pose a threat of eliminating all of humanity. A full scale
nuclear war in which every nuclear weapon on Earth is used could wipe out around 30% of the
Earth's human population (most fatalities in a nuclear war result from after effects of the nuclear
exchange such as: radiation poisoning, environmental changes, starvation, ... and social
upheaval) and set human technology back 40 years. The larger problem with nuclear war is
nuclear weapons will almost never be used alone. Nuclear weapons will be used together with
chemical, biological, and conventional weapons, and this combination of weaponry would
have the potential of eradicating all human life, if the conflict were world wide.
28
OTEC Debatenexus.com
Affirmative ___/___
And, colonizing space makes nuclear war less likely to occur, and if it does
occur, colonies prevent human extinction.
Rex Stephens 2003 Quantum Theorist, The Preparation,
http://www.thepreparation.net/Chap6.html
The colonization of space would moderate many of the problems associated with the nuclear
war extinction trap.
The primary cause of war is human competition and our aggressive natures. We should never try
to eliminate our competitive natures (the passion for conquest). To attempt to eliminate our
desire to compete would create another extinction trap - the non-advancement trap - which is
always 100% fatal.
We can however, redirect our competitive natures into positive directions. It is no more difficult
for us to direct our competitive natures into positive directions than it is to direct those same
natures in negative directions.
Another problem we face today is the Earth is a closed system. It is very difficult to exercise our
competitive natures without treading on someone else's interests. There is nothing we can do to
make Earth an open ended system.
Space IS an open ended system and we should be colonizing space and venting our
competitive natures against the worthy challenge of space colonization at this very moment.
Unfortunately, this is not happening. We are still locked up on our little closed system planet,
killing and subjugating one another to a greater or lesser extent in order to get a bigger piece of
what is an inherently limited system. Humanity's only possible salvation at this time is the advance
of human technology, which has allowed us to utilize a larger portion of the Earth's closed
system (usually at the expense of the Earth's other life forms), but the Earth's system IS STILL
CLOSED.
The threat of nuclear war can not be eliminated by the colonization of space. The colonization
of space can only reduce the likely hood of such a war's occurrence, by diverting some of
mankind's competitive energy from the power struggle among men for acquiring control over
larger pieces of the Earth's closed system, to a struggle to acquire useful power within the open
ended system of space. This need not involve control over, or conflict with our fellow man. In
space there is plenty of room; you can have as many material goods as you want without
infringing on someone else's space; your environment is your own creation to do with as you
wish; you can make your environment as large as you want; you can move somewhere else if
you don't like your neighbors; your mistakes or someone else's mistakes don't have to affect any
one else - because you don't have to be connected to their environment.
Even if the colonization of space doesn't prevent the waging of nuclear war, it will greatly
increase mankind's chances of surviving such a war. With colonization far enough along when a
nuclear war occurred, such a war wouldn't affect the current level of human technology.
A large number of space colonies would be nearly impossible to target and destroy. Every
space colony will consist of many small independent micro-environments that are able to
function separately. Which would make the spreading of a biological or chemical agent
throughout a colony very difficult. Each colony is an island of high technology which would be
able to help the victims of a nuclear war and rebuild the survivors technology base when the
war was over. The space colonies would be unlikely to be directly involved in a nuclear war
because the inhabitants of the space colonies will be too busy advancing themselves and
making their lives better to meddle in Earth's (backward and unproductive) business.
29
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Affirmative ___/___
[___] Nanotechnology.
Nanites are being developed all over the world, and will influence all parts of
society when completed.
Rex Stephens 2003 Quantum Theorist, The Preparation,
http://www.thepreparation.net/Chap2.html
Nanites refer to a particular type of nanotechnology. Nanites are small machines used to
manipulate small amounts of matter. Nanites range in size from dust-sized down to
submicroscopic. Nanites are being built right now in the USA, Japan and many other places the
world over but, are not yet of sufficiently advanced design to be useful for much. Nanites will,
however, become so useful they will totally change the economic systems and even the social
structure of every country on Earth. Nanites will build consumer goods and control processes on
a much smaller level and with much greater precision than the macro-machines we now use, as
well as accomplish tasks that are now impossible. Some of the many types of nanites humans will
invent and use are :
And, misuse of nanotech is inevitable – however, going to space solves all the
dangers of nanotechnology.
Rex Stephens 2003 Quantum Theorist, The Preparation,
http://www.thepreparation.net/Chap2.html
I believe humans are incapable of using responsibly such a powerful technology. Are we
humans just going to resign ourselves to a future here on Earth in which we just hope for the best
as the Earth is shaken by wave after wave of war, terror, environmental catastrophe, economic
collapse, and plague as each higher level of nanotechnology is developed.
My opinion is humans should leave this Earth before nanotechnology is advanced enough to
wreak havoc on the Earth's ecosystem and ourselves. Man can build a large number of self
contained space colonies separated by great distances. These colonies will communicate and
trade with one another and with Earth, but the distances between the colonies will tend to limit
each disaster caused by the development of nanotechnology to just one colony. The other
colonies will then learn from that one colony's mistake. A large number of space colonies will
also serve to reduce tensions among different factions of humanity because the actions and
needs of one faction, need not interfere with any other colony, within limits of course.
Nanotechnology can provide every colony with almost limitless material goods at very cheap
prices. Earth is a closed system; Earth will never get any larger; because the Earth is of limited
area each person in all fairness will have to settle for a small piece of a limited pie, and some
people will always want more than their fair share.
30
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Affirmative ___/___
The early transistorized computers soon beat the most advanced vacuum-tube computers
because they were based on superior devices. For the same reason, early assembler-based
replicators could beat the most advanced modern organisms. "Plants" with "leaves" no more
efficient than today's solar cells could out-compete real plants, crowding the biosphere with an
inedible foliage. Tough, omnivorous "bacteria" could out-compete real bacteria: they could
spread like blowing pollen, replicate swiftly, and reduce the biosphere to dust in a matter of
days. Dangerous replicators could easily be too tough, small, and rapidly spreading to stop - at
least if we made no preparation. We have trouble enough controlling viruses and fruit flies.
Among the cognoscenti of nanotechnology, this threat has become known as the "gray goo
problem." Though masses of uncontrolled replicators need not be gray or gooey, the term "gray
goo" emphasizes that replicators able to obliterate life might be less inspiring than a single
species of crabgrass. They might be "superior" in an evolutionary sense, but this need not make
them valuable. We have evolved to love a world rich in living things, ideas, and diversity, so
there is no reason to value gray goo merely because it could spread. Indeed, if we prevent it we
will thereby prove our evolutionary superiority.
31
OTEC Debatenexus.com
Affirmative ___/___
[___] Bio-weapons.
32
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Affirmative ___/___
[___] Economy.
First, Coming global economic shifts will cause complete economic collapse in
all developed nations.
Rex Stephens 2003 Quantum Theorist, The Preparation,
http://www.thepreparation.net/Chap1.html
In the next couple of decades what are now third world nations will become fully industrialized
nations with booming economies. The economies of what are now industrialized nations may
not be doing so well because their sources of cheap raw materials, cheap labor, cheap
consumer goods and out of country investors (who are a major source of capital financing the
national debts of the industrialized nations) will be cut off, as former third word nations consume
their labor, industrial output, and capital internally. What are now the wealthiest countries of the
world could very well become for a while the poorest countries on Earth. When the economies
of what are now the wealthy nations of the world collapse, not many will come to their rescue.
The third world nations will be more than happy to pay the USA and the other wealthy nations
back for interfering in their internal affaires and slighting them in the past .
The wealth of the industrialized nations is becoming more and more concentrated into the
hands and control of a smaller and smaller percentage of the total population. These wealthy
individuals and corporations will not wait around and allow their wealth to be seized or taxed
out of existence when the economies of their home nations go sour. They will abandon their
home nations for the greener economic pastures of what are now third world nations and when
they leave they will take most of the disposable wealth of their home nations with them. This
capital flight will turn deep recessions within what are now wealthy nations into economic
collapses.
33
OTEC Debatenexus.com
Affirmative ___/___
34
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Affirmative ___/___
35
OTEC Debatenexus.com
Affirmative ___/___
No OTEC Now
Current are preventing private development of OTEC.
Johnson, F.A., Ocean Thermal Enterprises, Inc. March, 2003. "Low Cost Power
and Water."
“Current U.S. law prevents anyone from making OTEC facilities who is not a licensed operator for
the U.S. government. This preventative measure though it was originally put in place to prevent
commercial use while the government was testing the technology is long overdue to be open to
commercial industries….. The United States has been testing modern day OTEC technology for
over 30 years, and all reports have confirmed that there are no negative effects due to use of
the technology. OTEC is possibly the only source of nonrenewable energy that would be of an
economical advantage to these businesses and they are not being allowed to access it.”
36
OTEC Debatenexus.com
Affirmative ___/___
Overfishing Now
Overfishing is occurring at over one-third of all fishing locations, which causes
massive damage to marine ecosystems.
Dayton, Thrush and Coleman in 2002 Paul K. Dayton (Scripps Institution of
Oceanography) Simon Thrush (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric
Research and Felicia C. Coleman (Florida State University) October 28 2002 “The
Ecological Effects of Fishing” for the Pew Ocean Commission)
Are the oceans in crisis because of fishing? Perhaps they are not. Data from the last decade of
United
Nations’ reports suggests that global fishing yields have kept pace with increasing fishing effort.
However, this simple correlation tells little of the story. Indeed, the reality of declining yields has
been obscured by chronic misreporting of catches, by technological advances in gear that
increase the capacity to locate and capture fish, and by shifts among industrial fishing fleets
toward lower trophic-level species as the top-level predators disappear from marine
ecosystems. Do these global realities transfer to the United States? Yes. They may not transfer at
the same scale, but with the addition of recreational impacts of fishing, the elements are
consistent. In the 2001 report to Congress on the status of U.S. stocks, the National Marine
Fisheries Service (NMFS) found that approximately one-third of the stocks for
which the status was known were either overfished or experiencing overfishing. Though
increasing application of conservative single-species management techniques has begun to
improve conservation in recent years, it remains that current levels of fishing result in significant
ecological and economic consequences. The combined effects of overfishing, bycatch,
habitat degradation, and fishing- induced food web changes alter the composition of
ecological communities and the structure, function, productivity, and resilience of marine
ecosystems. A discussion of these ecological consequences serves as the basis for this report.
We don’t even know all the places where overfishing is occurring now – all
estimates are low.
Dayton, Thrush and Coleman in 2002 Paul K. Dayton (Scripps Institution of
Oceanography) Simon Thrush (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric
Research and Felicia C. Coleman (Florida State University) October 28 2002 “The
Ecological Effects of Fishing” for the Pew Ocean Commission)
The fact that relatively few (28 percent) of the minor stocks that have been assessed are
considered overfished should not lull us into a state of complacency. The truth is that we know
pitiably little about the status of nearly 81 per-cent of these minor stocks, even though they are
fished or perhaps overfished, and we still cannot determine the status of 40.7 percent of the
major stocks that produce the vast majority of annual landings (Figure Three).
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Overfishing Now
Roughly 75% of fisheries are overfishing now, which is destroying many species
of fish.
Angela Somma January 2003 (Natural Resource Specialist, Office of Sustainable
Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service)ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES Volume 8,
Number 1
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, world marine and inland capture fisheries production increased
steadily, on average by as much as 6 percent per year. In the 1980s, the rate of growth slowed
considerably, and in the 1990s harvests leveled off. Around 1990, global fish production
plateaued at about 100 million tons annually and hasn't moved much in the succeeding years.
While aquaculture output continued to grow, yields from fisheries harvesting wild stocks from the
oceans and inland waters were uneven and began to stagnate. A consensus emerged that the
stagnation was the result of widespread overfishing. This paper examines the environmental and
economic costs of that overfishing.
Over the past decade, it became increasingly clear that fisheries resources that were once
thought of as nearly inexhaustible had been severely overfished as one fishery after another
experienced serious decline. The once-abundant fisheries of bottom-dwelling fish such as cod in
New England and eastern Canada were decimated, giant tuna species in the Atlantic were
depressed to levels that jeopardized rebuilding, and several species of Pacific and Atlantic
salmon were placed on the U.S. endangered species list. And the problem persists. In October
2002, an international scientific advisory commission recommended that all fisheries targeting
cod in the North Sea, Irish Sea and waters west of Scotland be closed. Overfishing has obvious
detrimental effects on the stocks being overharvested, but it can also harm the ecosystem in
which those stocks live and cause economic hardship to fishermen and their communities.
The problem of overfishing is widespread throughout both the developed and developing
worlds. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that of the major
marine fish stocks or groups of stocks for which information is available, 47-50 percent are fully
exploited, 15-18 percent are over-exploited, and 9-10 percent have been depleted or are
recovering from depletion. Thus, close to 75 percent of the world's major fisheries are fully
exploited, or w orse.(1)
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Overfishing Now
The United States is destroying its diverse oceans through overfishing.
Kate Wing April 2001 (NRDC policy analyst who works to protect marine species
and habitat) National Resources Defense Council“ Keeping Oceans Wild”
We live in an ocean country. The United States controls the waters stretching out to 200 nautical
miles from the shore, an area of sea as large as the total land in all fifty states. Inside the waters
of this ocean country live some of the most extraordinary communities of plants and animals on
earth. Because the United States stretches across latitudes from the arctic to the tropics, our
oceans contain a greater amount of diversity than almost any other nation. Millions of
Americans head to the sea each year to experience this marine biodiversity: in Alaskan bays
filled with sea lions and salmon; along sandy beaches in the Gulf of Mexico; on delicate coral
reefs around the Hawaiian Islands; and in the rocky tidepools of New England and Washington.
There is tremendous wealth in our sea, and we draw on its resources every day. How can we
make sure that these rich ocean ecosystems survive for future generations?
All too often the only news about the ocean is bad news. Fisheries are crashing as more boats
chase increasingly fewer fish. Oil spills and sewage pollute the beaches. Heavy trawl fishing gear
scrapes the ocean floor bare, disturbing underwater wildlife. Corals are shattered by boat
anchors or die from disease and pollution. Last year, scientists working with the American
Fisheries Society identified 82 marine fishes at risk of becoming extinct in the near future.1 Years
of treating the ocean as the last frontier—inexhaustible and open 24 hours a day—have taken
their toll. We rely on poor and incomplete information about the ocean’s condition and we
have erred on the side of taking more, not less. When the National Marine Fisheries Service
published its most recent report on the status of fish populations, the most shocking figure was
not the 106 populations considered to be overfished. It was the fact that over two-thirds of
species that are actively fished are considered “unknown,” meaning that the service has no
idea of the condition of those stocks.2 With such a poor understanding of the ocean, marine
plants and animals can disappear completely unnoticed.3
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Biodiversity Impact
each species we destroy could be the one that causes an ecological collapse
and human extinction.
David Diner 1994 (JD Ohio State, Military Law Review, Winter, l/n)
4. Biological Diversity. -- The main premise of species preservation is better than simplicity. As the
current mass extinction has progressed, the world's biological diversity generally has decreased.
This trend occurs within ecosystems by reducing the number of species, and within species by
reducing the number of individuals. Both trends carry serious future implications.
Biologically diverse ecosystems are characterized by a large number of specialist species, filling
narrow ecological niches. These ecosystems inherently are more stable than less diverse systems.
"The more complex the ecosystem, the more successfully it can resist stress... [l]ike a net, in which
each knot is connected to others by several strands, such a fabric can resist collapse better than
a simple, unbranched circle of threads -- which is cut anywhere breaks down as a whole."
By causing widespread extinctions, humans have artificially simplified many ecosystems. As
biologic simplicity increases, so does the risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara Desert in
Africa, and the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild examples
of what might be expected if this trend continues. Theoretically, each new animal or plant
extinction, with all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects, could cause total ecosystem
collapse and human extinction. Each new extinction increases the risk of disaster. Like a
mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from an aircraft's wing, mankind may be edging
closer to the abyss.
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People in poorer countries will be hurt the most by a collapse of fishing stocks -
one billion people will be left without food or livelihood.
Robert S. Pomeroy 2001 (Senior Associate for the Coastal and Marine Projects,
Biological Resources Program at the World Resources Institute) “DEVOLUTION
AND FISHERIES CO-MANAGEMENT”
Despite intense fishing pressure and a decline in productivity, small-scale fisheries
in the inland, estuarine and near-shore areas still play an important role in local food
security in developing countries. They provide food, income and employment. In most
societies, small-scale fishers are particularly hit by the problem of shrinking resource
base as they have low social status, low incomes, poor living conditions and little
political influence. They frequently compete for resource access with larger-scale
fishers and other sectors of the economy. It is important to remember that small-scale
fisheries are embedded in larger aquatic resource, social, economic and political systems
and many of the solutions to improving standard of living lie outside the fisheries sector.
The resources on which these people depend are still largely natural fish populations.
It is estimated that at least 50 million people in developing countries are directly
involved in the harvesting, processing and marketing of fish and other aquatic products
and worldwide fish production provides some 150 million people with employment.
Approximately 1 billion people rely on fish as a major source of their food, income
and/or livelihood (ICLARM 1999). The combined effects of increasing population
growth and stabilization of fish supplies has led to a decline in the per capita availability
of fish supplies for human consumption, while prices have continued to rise due to a
widening gap between supply and demand. Capture fish production has not been able to
keep pace with the demand for fish. Production of fish by capture fisheries reached its
upper limits in 1989 and began a decline thereafter.
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<<continues>>
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We shouldn’t meddle with genetics because we can never understand all the
outcomes – any risk at all of our impact is enough to vote for us.
COMTEX Newswire May 25, 2000 “Playing genetic roulette” Nathan Brouwer
http://www.spu.edu/falcon
The Falcon, Seattle Pacific U. and U-WIRE
Man, in his giddiness over his unlocking of the DNA code, now has the audacity to think he can
control and predict all the consequences of his tinkering. Whether you accept an evolutionary
or creationist model of Earth, both systems are intricately designed and balanced either by
billions of years of evolution or by an all-knowing creator.
It seems to be both an arrogant and potentially dangerous attitude to think that humans can
get away with permanently changing parts of the natural world. Earlier this century another
agricultural advancement promised to revolutionize farming: pesticides.
Chemicals such as DDT were thought to be bringing about a new golden era of farming. It was
only later discovered that they were causing severe ecological strife, even bringing some
species toward extinction. Agricultural genetic engineering has many things to offer, but it may
also be a Pandora's box of trouble like DDT. Caution, not scientific exuberance or economic
greed, should temper our decisions about how to apply this powerful new technology.
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Genetically modified fish farms do even more damage to the ocean and
destroy biodiversity.
Greenpeace International, Online “Aquaculture Threat to Food Security”
accessed April 8, 2003
Farming the sea is being increasingly held up as the future of sustainable development and
management of the oceans -- humans controlling, shaping and limiting nature and its processes.
For many people, whether fishers or environmentalists, this would be a tragic outcome. Even
more tragic for what we call natural "biodiversity". The sea remains one of the last great
wilderness sanctuaries on the planet. There are many, though, multinational corporate seafood
conglomerates among them, who consider that the loss of wilderness is the price that must be
paid to ensure their continued profitability.
It should not be assumed, however, that progress towards farming the oceans would necessarily
bring with it sound husbandry. So far, in the terrestrial as well as in the marine context, it has
consisted of ruthless clearance of land and sea. Enthusiasts of farming the seas should reflect
that upon land, what has often grown back after repeated attacks upon wilderness has not
been rich diverse forest, nor even a sustainable monoculture, but degraded woodland, scrub,
poor grazing land and ultimately desert. Are we heading down the same path with the oceans?
Fish in fish farms are fed with other fish, which leads to an overall decrease in the
number of fish available and continued ecological destruction.
Bill Ballantine November 1999. (marine biologist and grassroots activist) MARINE
RESERVES IN NEW ZEALAND:THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT AND THE
PRINCIPLES
Marine aquaculture can be ecologically sensible, as well as commercially
profitable, when the arrangement is simply to put organisms in situations where they can
feed themselves efficiently (such as mussel farming. However, a great deal of aquaculture
makes no ecological sense at all, since it involves the destruction of food. When caged
salmon are fed with pellets made from fish meal obtained by industrial fishing elsewhere,
it may be profitable, if the fish pellets are cheap enough and the salmon expensive, but it
means less fish. Where large scale habitat destruction is involved (most shrimp farms are
created out of mangrove areas) the resulting total loss of edible biomass is even worse.
While marine aquaculture may be economic, it is not a better alternative to fishing for the
production of food.
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Fossil fuels are being used up at an amazing rate – in 50 years they’ll run out and
society will collapse.
Joseph George Caldwell November 21 2000 (supervised economic
development projects in the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and Africa, PhD degree
in mathematical statistics) "Can America Survive?"
The tremendous global population increase has been brought about by the development of
technology to utilize the energy stored in fossil fuels, such as petroleum, natural gas, and coal.
Petroleum and gas reserves will be exhausted, however, by about 2050, and coal reserves will
not last much beyond that date if industrial development continues to expand worldwide.
Look around you. If you live in the US or other economically developed country, every man-
made thing you see or see happening is a product of the expenditure of energy, and most of
that energy is derived from fossil fuels. To establish and maintain our present lifestyle requires
prodigious amounts of energy – an amount equivalent to about 8,000 kilograms of oil annually
for each man, woman, and child living in the country. Pre-agricultural man lived “off the land,”
consuming only the bounty of nature. Agricultural man could produce about 10 calories of
energy with the expenditure of about one calorie of energy. Industrial man, it has been
estimated, uses over ten calories of energy to produce a single calorie of food! The present
system is not only exquisitely wasteful, but it is completely unsustainable. Most of what you see in
the industrial world is a transitory illusion made possible by a one-time windfall supply of energy
from fossil fuels that were accumulated over millions of years. When the fossil fuel reserves
deplete in about 50 years, the modern world will simply disappear along with them.
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Depletion of fossil fuels will cause economic collapse and resource wars.
Tony Boys, March 24 2001 A "New Millennium" – Where the hell are we going:
"Prosperity" or "Collapse"?presentation given at the International Green Forum in
Aoyama, Tokyo
What runs our current economy and society? Oil, natural gas and coal:
the fossil fuels, with a little nuclear power, some hydropower, and a few other bits and pieces…
40/20/20/10/10: Oil/Coal/Natural Gas/Nuclear/hydroelectricity + renewables, etc.
Oil is really important for several reasons… It's fairly clean, burns efficiently, it's a liquid, etc.
How much oil are we currently using?
? World oil consumption Oct-Dec 2000 76.4 Mb/d (27.9 Gb/yr) [Up approx. 11 Mb/d since 1990]
? World oil consumption predicted by IEA (1996) for 2010 and 2020: 92-97 Mb/d (33.58 – 35.40
Gb/yr) In 1996, the IEA forecasted that, "World demand is projected to rise from 70 million barrels
at present to between 92 and 97 million barrels of oil per day in 2010." Two years later (1998), the
IEA reported, "Fossil fuels are expected to meet 95% of additional global energy demand from
1995 to 2020." Oh, so only 5% is supposed to be from alternative and renewable energy
sources??[8] (See table) The IEA also says that demand will rise at 1.8% per year to 112 Mb/d by
2020 under a scenario with prices rising to $25/b(!). But if peak production in 2006-2007 is around
32 Gb/yr (87.7 Mb/d), where does that leave us? And look again at the 2020 column; 19.1 Mb/d
in "unidentified unconventional". In other words, "non-existent" – a shortfall![9] What goes up must
come down: The peak of world oil production in five or six years, market predominance of OPEC
in about seven years. (See graph) Oil certainly won't be cheap then.
That means the end of cheap and abundant (= easily available) oil. Oil production due to
decline 3-6% per year. What does that tell you about the prognosis for economic growth? When
oil becomes scarce (therefore expensive) aren't there going to be supply disruptions? (Oil
shocks, resource wars – remember the Gulf War?)
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In the late 1970s, when oil prices spiked because of turmoil in Iran, the nation's motorists and
corporations consumed 17 million barrels of oil a day, with 40 percent from foreign sources.
Today, the nation consumes an additional 2 million barrels a day, and nearly 60 percent comes
from foreign sources - with Middle East nations as the greatest source and volatile Venezuela as
another big supplier.
And with the nation at the brink of war against Iraq, economists and environmentalists alike are
calling for renewed focus on the nation's energy plan.
"We're not in an energy crisis now, but the stage is set for tragedy," said Joe Fulton, the director
for research and environmental management for City Public Service. "The energy policy that the
president introduced in 2001 was the beginning of an energy plan, but that's been put in the
drawer, and it's gathering dust and it needs to be pulled out and discussed.
"Venezuela is on the verge of anarchy. The Middle East is in a state of perpetual turmoil. And
Nigeria has its problems. Our main sources of oil are in geopolitically unstable places in this world,
and there needs to be a plan that addresses this."
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Oil dependence will require more involvement in the Middle East, which
increases anti-Western sentiment and makes peace impossible.
Leonardo Maugeri August 2003 Group Senior Vice President for Corporate
Strategies and Planning for the Italian energy company eni. “Not in Oil's Name”
Foreign Affairs
Like the Greek god Proteus, the oil market is escaping control by constantly assuming different
forms, which makes political manipulation of oil difficult, indeed useless. It is also dangerous
because of the concentration of oil reserves in the highly sensitive Middle East. A hypothetical
Western search for oil security through control of oil resources would perpetuate the Arabs' and
Muslims' perception of a looming threat to their future, thereby increasing anti-Western sentiment
and diverting the countries of the Middle East from confronting their own problems.
Oil security and scarcity are simply divisive and confusing myths. Western governments must
explain clearly to their constituencies that oil is prone to price volatility, which makes occasional
high prices unavoidable. Furthermore, they must disabuse their citizens of "bonanza" oil
expectations and promote more careful consumption habits and investment in new energy
technology.
The West must also commit to a long-term strategy of containment and rollback of any violent or
terrorist mutations of Islamic doctrine, without confusing them with Islam. It must also assist Middle
Eastern civil societies in their search for a different future, without seeming to pose a choice
between two extremes: a Western social model that is not part of their culture and an
authoritarian model that does not accommodate freedom and individual rights.
This dialogue needs to be reinforced by Western aid to develop economic activities other than
oil. Throughout the 1990s, this task was relegated to private companies or international
institutions, which were constrained by restrictive financial and social criteria that only increased
Middle Eastern discomfort with the West.
Of course, there is no easy or immediate solution to the Middle East dilemma. Throughout history,
the shaping and consolidation of national identities has been a prolonged process fraught with
considerable suffering. The countries of the Middle East are relatively new, forged mainly after
World War I, and Western states must ready themselves for the long road ahead, on which they
must avoid either underestimating the strength of Middle Eastern states or exaggerating the
threats that they pose. Western governments must also overcome their misguided obsession with
oil security so that they can begin to cope more impartially with the Middle East's problems.
Ultimately, Western nations can prevail in helping to bring about a better future for the Middle
East, but only if they debunk the oil myths and hold fast to their deepest values of freedom, self-
determination, and tolerance, and the awareness that there is no absolute truth in human
affairs. [para.]
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Every American above the age of 10 understands that the U.S. economy and the American way
of life depend on a steady receipt of overseas oil.
The United States frequently is faulted for consuming 25 percent of the world's oil production. But
that criticism ignores the fact that the United States generates 30 percent of the world total of
goods and services. The U.S. economy, including its banking and investment systems and its
rock-steady currency, is a gigantic engine that keeps the entire world turning. If the lights ever
go out in the United States, the entire world will be plunged into darkness.
Like it or not, oil dependence is a fact of American life and for the next few decades nothing --
not conservation, not drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, not developing alternative
energy sources -- is going to change that.
Europe depends on the Middle East for oil even more than the US.
Malaysian Business April 1, 2003 A strike for oil By Bishen Bedi
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Europe
depends more heavily on Persian Gulf and North African oil than the US. In
2001, roughly 35 per cent of OECD oil imports came from the Persian Gulf -
mainly from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Kuwait.
About one-third came from Africa, mainly Libya and Algeria. The rest was
sourced from Russia. Japan imports over three-quarters of its oil supplies
from the Persian Gulf, mainly from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia,
Iran, Kuwait and Qatar. The scale of oil dependence of Japan and OECD
Europe on Persian Gulf oil is staggering for the prospects of the world
economy going forward.
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[*137] Increased competition for water use could create an increased conflict between the
maintenance of natural ecosystems and the needs of agriculture and urban development. For
example, as sea level rises, increased fresh water flow would be required to maintain fresh and
brackish water ecosystems along the coasts, but this water demand would conflict with
agricultural pressures. n42 Such problems would be especially severe in California which already
has serious conflicts over water supplies. Pressures to build new reservoirs would create
additional conflicts between nature conservation and demands for societal uses of water.
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Some agricultural experts have suggested that the positive effect of carbon dioxide on plants
will benefit crops, leading to an increase in production that will at least compensate for
decreases due to changes in temperature. This is only likely if temperature and moisture impacts
remain small while the fertilization effect is large.
In addition to increased temperatures, the increases in the variability of climate could also have
negative effects on agriculture. For example, corn, soybeans, wheat, and sorghum are sensitive
to high temperatures, especially when flowers are formed. n46 An increase in climate variability
could lead to an increasing chance of high temperatures during this part of the growing season,
with a resulting decline in crop yields even if there were little overall increase in average
temperatures. Increases in the chance of early and late frosts also could lead to a decrease in
crop yields. n47
[*139] Global warming could also change the distribution and abundance of crop pests. These
changes could increase overwintering of insect pests in some areas, leading to an increase in
crop destruction by these pests. n48
At the present we live in a fortunate time where the best climates for agriculture tend to occur
where the best soils occur, as in the North American midwest. With the onset of global warming,
the best climates for agriculture may shift so that they occur over poorer soils. In North America,
a northward movement of climate would place good agricultural climates over Canada where,
due to the effects of ice age glaciers, soils are not in general as fertile as they are in the midwest
of the United States.
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The IPCC was established in 1988 and is composed of over 2000 scientists from over 100
countries. n28 The IPCC has released a number of reports citing strong evidence that the major
source of global warming over the last 50 years is anthropogenic in nature. n29 The IPCC's third
report on global warming, issued early in 2001 and authored by 700 expert scientists, concluded
that unless the international community limits and reduces GHG emissions, the earth's average
temperature will rise anywhere from 2<degree>F to 10<degree>F over the next century. n30
Additionally, the IPCC projects that the climate changes over the next 100 years will be more
significant than those of the past 100 years. n31
In an attempt to refute the IPCC's third report, President George W. Bush requested and
received a second opinion from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). n32 The NAS,
however, confirmed the IPCC's findings, stating:
The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have
been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current
thinking of the scientific community on this issue . . . Despite the uncertainties, there is general
agreement that the [*700] observed warming is real and particularly strong within the past
twenty years. n33
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It was just one skirmish in what is shaping up to be the energy battle of the next decade, thanks
to the growing U.S. appetite for natural gas. The days when North America was able to produce
its ow n natural gas are ending. Without a new supply from overseas, many experts believe the
economy will suffer debilitating price spikes for this crucial fuel. "There is no way we can be self-
sufficient," Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told a congressional committee recently.
Greenspan decided to speak out after observing that the price of contracts for natural gas
deliveries several years out were skyrocketing past those of oil. Even now, with natural gas selling
at nearly double the price of a year ago, supply and demand are out of whack.
Not so slick. Shipping natural gas from overseas is not easy or cheap, however. Marine terminals
must be built, and security of this potentially hazardous cargo must be addressed. And with
foreign oil dependence already a concern, a move toward LNG would propel the nation into a
new era of reliance on countries like Algeria, Nigeria, and Trinidad.
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Within twenty years, 1.8 billion people will face water shortages.
International Water Management Institute, accessed October 5, 2003 Projected
Water Scarcity in 2025 http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/home/wsmap.htm
By 2025, 1.8 billion people will live in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity. Most
countries in the Middle East and North Africa can be classified as having absolute water scarcity
today. By 2025, these countries will be joined by Pakistan, South Africa, and large parts of India
and China. This means that they will not have sufficient water resources to maintain their current
level of per capita food production from irrigated agriculture—even at high levels of irrigation
efficiency—and also to meet reasonable water needs for domestic, industrial, and
environmental purposes. To sustain their needs, water will have to be transferred out of
agriculture into other sectors, making these countries or regions increasingly dependent on
imported food.
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Water shortages are going to hit the entire world soon, which will cause disease,
starvation, and war for billions of people.
Michael McCarthy March 5, 2003 “Water Scarcity Could Affect Billions: Is This the
Biggest Crisis of All?” the lndependent
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0305-05.htm
Glug-glug: Not normally a sound of foreboding. But mankind's most serious challenge in the 21st
century might not be war or hunger or disease or even the collapse of civic order, a UN report
says; it may be the lack of fresh water.
Population growth, pollution and climate change, all accelerating, are likely to combine to
produce a drastic decline in water supply in the coming decades, according to the World
Water Development Report, published today. And of course that supply is already problematic
for up to a third of the world's population.
At present 1.1 billion people lack access to clean water and 2.4 billion lack access to proper
sanitation, nearly all of them in the developing countries. Yet the fact that these figures are likely
to worsen remorselessly has not been properly grasped by the world community, the report says.
"Despite widely available evidence of the crisis, political commitment to reverse these trends has
been lacking."
Faced with "inertia at the leadership level and a world population not fully aware of the scale of
the problem", the global water crisis will reach unprecedented heights in the years ahead, the
report says, with growing per capita scarcity in many parts of the developing world. And that
means hunger, disease and death.
The report makes an alarming prediction. By the middle of the century, it says that, in the worst
case, no fewer than seven billion people in 60 countries may be faced with water scarcity,
although if the right policies are followed this may be brought down to two billion people in 48
nations.
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But if Nasa's current projects aren't generating as much excitement, it's clear the childhood
dream of becoming an astronaut has not vanished altogether. The world's two first space
tourists, Dennis Tito, left, and Mark Shuttleworth, each spent upwards of GBP 14m for a week in
space. N'Sync singer Lance Bass's dream was cut short after being asked to leave Russia's
cosmonaut training programme. Crude violations of his contract were cited for the decision, the
singer's fans blamed paperwork problems, but at the end of the day it looked like he couldn't
come up with the GBP 13m needed to secure his seat.
It's clear there would need to be a significant reduction in prices for the average person to
afford a trip into space. But there may be other ways - last September it was reported that Pepsi
was planning a reality game show where the prize would be the chance to go into orbit with the
Russian space agency. Perhaps that would just be the first step into the real commercialisation
of space. Space probes could carry company logos like Formula One cars, the first pioneers
would knock Big Brother off the ratings if cameras were allowed into their homes. But until that
happens, summer holidays in space remain the exclusive domain of very rich science fiction
fans.
Aldiss is incredulous that most of Nasa's funding goes into the International Space Station, due to
cost more than Pounds 70 billion over the next three decades. "The idea behind the station is not
scientific but practical - to keep the Russians interested instead of assisting China or Japan," he
says.
While Nasa's shuttle craft, which the Columbia inquiry board said could probably not be safely
operated for "more than a few years" based on Nasa's abysmal record, are grounded, the ISS is
off limits. And the agency now has to digest 29 recommendations before scheduling any future
missions.
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But his commitment to NASA has been tepid. And his chosen head for the agency, administrator
Sean O'Keefe, has focused more on fixing the agency's accounting problems than articulating
its future.
Many observers say the outcome of the investigation board's work means Bush and O'Keefe
now must make tough decisions that they've so far avoided.
"I'm disappointed in the president," said Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Beaumont, whose district includes
Johnson Space Center. "I hoped he'd champion a new set of goals. But we seem to have
gotten a slowdown in where we are going."
The report blamed the loss of Columbia and its seven astronauts on a management system that
failed to heed warnings about damage caused by a chunk of insulating foam during liftoff.
Absent direction from the administration, key lawmakers have come to their own conclusions.
Florida Republican Dave Weldon, whose district includes Kennedy Space Center, said he will ask
Bush to increase NASA's budget by 25 percent over the next three years, largely to accelerate
production of a new orbital space plane.
"I believe it is likely that we will conclude that a shift in emphasis toward unmanned flight is
reasonable for both safety and research value," said Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., chairman of the
House Science Subcommittee on Research, which competes with the shuttle program for
funding authorizations.
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Underwhelmed. NASA certainly hasn't managed that with its current focus: using the shuttles to
build and maintain the space station. Since construction began in 1998, 250 miles above Earth,
NASA has tried to make it look as routine as building a downtown office tower. "The ideal space
mission is routine," explains Keith Cowing, editor of the NASA Watch Web site. But underwhelmed
Americans showed little interest in the space program--until the fatal mishap. And although the
ISS is meant as an orbiting lab for cutting-edge science, budget cuts have curtailed research. It's
not worth the cost or risk, critics argue. Neal Lane, a former science adviser to President Clinton,
says that "the space station on its own is not a sufficiently exciting or bold enough goal" to justify
the dangers of space travel.
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If we can get to nearby planets, we can mine resources from them to get to
farther ones.
Leonard David November 14 2000 Senior Space Writer “Deep Space Exploration
- Looking for Planetary Paydirt”
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_mining_011114-
1.html
GOLDEN, COLORADO -- Here's the claim: A "miner" breakthrough is needed to develop and
utilize the resources of space, be they from asteroids, the Moon or Mars. The solar system is a
heaven -sent treasure trove -- a bounty, ready and waiting, of metals and materials that can
fortify humankind's outward reach into the cosmos.
Experts from NASA, federal research labs, industry, universities, and private groups met here
October 24-26 at the Colorado School of Mines, taking part in a "Space Resources Utilization
Roundtable."
New spacecraft data clearly picture the inner and outer solar system as a prospector's paradise.
We can get resources for further space travel from Mars or the moon.
Leonard David November 14 2000 Senior Space Writer “Deep Space Exploration
- Looking for Planetary Paydirt”
Planetary geologist, Jeffrey Taylor of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, said space resources
are essential for space settlement. He is working on a plan of action to promote planetary
prospecting.
Celestial campsites on the Moon or Mars that support more than a few thousand people require
use of local, down-and-dirty resources to build and sustain those far-flung housing projects and
generate products for export, Taylor argues.
In the case of setting up a Martian settlement, Taylor said, it may be cost effective to ship out
needed water, oxygen, hydrogen, major metals, and food from a lively lunar operation, at least
initially. "As we begin to settle the Moon and Mars, we must also keep track of changing
economic conditions, such as launch costs or substitutes of one material for another," he said.
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China will try to get along with the rest of the world – they won’t go to war.
CATO January 16 2003 “CATO HANDBOOK FOR CONGRESS POLICY
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE 108TH CONGRESS”
p://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb108/hb108-57.pdf
Painting China as an economic and military adversary is dangerous
and misguided. Free trade is mutually beneficial—both China and other
countries gain from trade liberalization. There is no doubt that, as the
Chinese economy grows, so will the Chinese military budget. But that is
not unusual for a large nation-state, and thus far China’s military spending
and its military modernization effort have been relatively modest.
It is true that no one can be certain how the PRC will behave on security
issues in the future. Unlike Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, however,
the PRC is not a messianic, expansionist power; it is a normal rising (or
reawakening) great power. At times, that can be difficult for other countries
to deal with, but such a country does not pose a malignant security threat.
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Public disfavor with anything nuclear has extended itself into space. When the Cassini probe
launched in 1997, its 73 pounds of plutonium sparked protests that called into question any
future nuclear project in space. Protesters contended that an error in launch or an encounter
with Earth later on in the voyage could result in dangerous radioactivity raining down from the
sky. What the protestors failed to realize was the actual risk involved: the increase in radioactivity
that would result from the destruction of Cassini would have been equivalent to a 15,000th of a
normal lifetime absorption of radioactivity. There is most likely more radioactivity in a tanning
booth or dental X-ray.
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The existing programs for nuclear powered space travel will never solve.
Brian Rudo March 5 2003 Nuclear Propulsion and What It Means to Space
Exploration http://www.redcolony.com/articles/030305text.html
So, while we should expect to see some form of advancement in nuclear propulsion in the near
future, most probably in NASA’s Prometheus nuclear electric propulsion project, we should not
expect this to significantly impact space travel as we know it. Manned flight in particular would
receive little benefit from the Prometheus project. In fact, Dr. Robert Zubrin, President of the Mars
Society and Pioneer Astronautics, believes that the only real benefit for manned exploration
would be from the construction of small nuclear reactors for the project. These reactors are ideal
for the Mars Direct plan, which ambitiously aims to send humans to Mars within ten years of the
program start – for an average of a billion dollars a year if the program were maintained for ten
flights to Mars, one per every two-year launch window. This pocket change would produce a
safe program that could maintain a manned presence on Mars cheaply and reliably.
Unfortunately, it would utilize only conventional propulsion, mostly because nuclear electric
propulsion will not hold promise for relatively large spacecraft and relatively short duration flights
(See Also: Mars Direct).
Therefore, despite the great promise to propulsion that nuclear technology has showed, it seems
that only the most limited benefits are to be had in the near future. Long duration flights, like a
probe to another star system, will see extreme benefits from the Prometheus project. Mars rovers
and missions will also see a great benefit, but most of that benefit will reside on the staying
capacity, endurance, and raw power given to missions once they land, not in any actual
propulsion gains. Despite its many benefits and its evident value, Project Prometheus is merely a
poor substitute for NERVA and its nuclear thermal propulsion – a system we had working in the
1960s but that was forgotten.
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Asteroid = Extinction
There are hundreds of asteroids out there that we don’t know about, which could
hit us at any time. Collisions are common.
Courier Mail March 18, 2000 Final frontier yields secrets of life Rodney Chester
IT is a rock the size of Bribie Island travelling through space. And if it were to hit the Earth, it
would mean the end of human life on the planet. Fortunately, it is 245 million kilometres from
Earth and is not on a collision path, unlike an estimated 700 yet-to-be-discovered "near-Earth
asteroids", any of which could be heading straight for us without our knowledge.
This asteroid called Eros is the centre of man's efforts to understand the rocks that threaten the
planet from the depths of space.
NASA has spent $325 million on a mission to study this 33km-long, peanut-shaped rock for two
reasons. An asteroid like Eros could one day wipe out human life in the same way that an
asteroid's impact caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. And it is probably asteroids and comets
that carried the building blocks of life to Earth.
Asteroids are the primary threat to human survival – even small ones have huge
destructive potential equal to 15 nuclear weapons.
Sydney Morning Herald October 18, 1999 Judy Wilkinson The Day The Earth Was
Hit
PERHAPS Ronald Reagan's Star Wars theory wasn't so loony after all. This program provides a
convincing argument that life on Earth is one stray meteorite away from extinction.
It tracks the cataclysm that unfolded in the early hours of June 20, 1908, in Tunguska, Siberia.
Survivors say they saw a fireball screaming through the sky towards them. Thinking it was the end
of the world, they prayed into a night which was illuminated as if it were day. The events at
Tunguska have been described as the largest of Earth's encounters with cosmic objects, and the
jury is still out on whether it was an asteroid, a comet or something else. The confusion
surrounding this event was caused by the absence of a crater. Yet the man who developed the
hydrogen bomb, Edward Teller, says there is a phenomenon called "big effect, no crater".
Ninety years on, scientists are still baffled over the cause, despite more than 150 theories being
put forward. One fact they all agree on is that at 15 megatonnes, the explosion that laid flat
2,000 square kilometres of forest, incinerated thousands of reindeer and vaporised homes, was
about 1,000 times larger than the Hiroshima bomb.
It was so great that a shock wave, travelling at the speed of a passenger jet, spread out as far
as Britain.
Many astronomers, scientists, explosion experts and even NASA officials say the events at
Tunguska expose an underestimated threat to our existence. The nearest source of danger is the
main asteroid belt the planet travels through every 300 years. And some scientists believe it was
matter from this "cosmic shooting gallery" that hit Tunguska.
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Asteroid = Extinction
A big asteroid would cause human extinction. Here’s how it goes down…
Michael Paine November 5 1999 How an Asteroid Impact Causes Extinction
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/asteroid_paine_october.
html
Imagine: NASA scientists announce they have detected a 10-mile-wide asteroid on a collision
course with the Earth. They calculate it will hit Southeast Asia in two weeks. There is no chance of
Bruce Willis being sent on a beefed -up space shuttle to blow up the asteroid. Earthlings willhave
to ride out the impact.
The world economy grinds to a halt as people take to the hills. Anarchy sets in, civilization breaks
down. Accusations fly over the lack of warning -- where was Spaceguard, the proposed
international search effort for large asteroids?
People in Brazil feel less vulnerable than most of the world's population. They are on the opposite
side of the Earth from the predicted impact point. But one hour after the impact Brazilians notice
some brilliant meteors. Then more meteors. Soon the sky gets brighter and hotter from the
overwhelming number of meteors. Within a few minutes trees ignite from the fierce radiant heat.
Millions of fragments of rock, ejected into space by the blast, are making a fiery return all over
the planet.
Only people hiding underground survive the deadly fireworks display. Within three hours,
however, massive shock waves from the impact travel through the Earth's crust and converge
on Brazil at the same time. The ground shakes so violently that the ground fractures and molten
rock spews from deep underground. Maybe Brazil wasn't the best place to be after all.
The survivors of the firestorms, tsunami and massive earthquakes emerge to a devastated
landscape. Within a few days the Sun vanishes behind a dark thick cloud -- a combination of
soot from the firestorms, dust thrown up by the impact and a toxic smog from chemical
reactions. Photosynthesis in plants and algae ceases and temperatures plummet. A long, sunless
Arctic winter seems mild compared to the new conditions on most of the planet.
After a year or so the dust settles and sunlight begins to filter through the clouds. The Earth's
surface starts warming up. But the elevated carbon dioxide levels created by the fires (and, by
chance, vaporization of huge quantities of limestone at the impact site) results in a runway
greenhouse effect. Those creatures that managed to survive the deep freeze now have to cope
with being cooked.
Many species of plants and animals vanish. The few hundred thousand human survivors find
themselves reverting to a Stone Age existence.
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Collisions on a smaller scale are common and a planet killer could come by at
any time.
Courier Mail March 18, 2000 Final frontier yields secrets of life Rodney Chester
Asteroids are to be found at the start of life, and at the end. It is not unusual for bits of asteroids,
known as meteorites, to hit Earth. On average, about two meteorites a day come down
somewhere in Australia.
Fortunately, large impacts are not as common. About every 100 years, an object, either a
comet or an asteroid, measuring about 50m smacks into the Earth causing major but local
damage.
A comet about 60m wide destroyed a 40km patch of a Siberian forest in 1908, and would have
caused thousands of casualties had it hit a city rather than an uninhabited zone.
Earth is hit by an object bigger than 350m about every 15,000 years, with the impact likely to
destroy an area the size of south-east Queensland.
Every 250,000 years, an object bigger than 1700m in diameter hits, wiping out an area at least
the size of Queensland.
A recent study downgraded the chances of a catastrophic collision, but still estimated a 1
percent chance that an asteroid would cause global catastrophe in the next 1000 years.
The object that sent the world into a global winter and wiped out the dinosaurs was probably
about a third of the size of Eros.
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Current plans can’t effectively deflect an asteroid, which would kill billions or
worse.
The Times June 4, 1998, “Saving the Earth could be trickier than we thought” by
Nigel Hawkes, Science Editor
SAVING the Earth from being hit by an asteroid may be harder than believed - although anyone
who has seen the film Deep Impact might believe that it was hard enough.
Some asteroids are so loosely put together that they could soak up the blast of a nuclear
explosion without much effect, according to calculations by Erik Asphaug, of the University of
California in Santa Cruz, and colleagues. The threat to Earth from asteroids is being taken
seriously by some astronomers. A direct hit from a big asteroid could kill billions of people. Such
an impact is said by many to have caused the demise of the dinosaurs 64 million years ago.
If spotted soon enough, asteroids could be shifted away from the Earth or broken up by crashing
another object into them, or exploding nuclear warheads near by. But, in an analysis in Nature ,
Dr Asphaug casts doubt on how easy this would be.
The nature of many asteroids, loosely assembled piles of rubble held together by gravity, means
that they could dampen the shock waves from an explosion, limiting its effectiveness. "It's a lot
more difficult to nudge these asteroids around than we had thought," Dr Asphaug said. "More
work needs to be done before we can decide whether nuclear warheads provide a viable
deterrent."
To determine the effects, astronomers need to know a lot more about asteroids' internal
structure, he says. "In case we ever identify an asteroid or comet on a collision course, it would
be best to know our enemy."
And that flows our way anyway, because to effectively deflect the asteroid,
we’d need a strong space program. That makes this a new advantage for us,
because not only do we escape the asteroid, but we also stop it from causing
billions of deaths on earth.
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<<continues>>
Nobody knows how long it will take to fully commercialise the conquest of space, but it may
not be so far away.
The US Congress has already passed the Commercial Space Act, legalising private manned
space flight, and has directed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) to
consider opening the International Space Station commercial activity.
A new wave of space exploration is emerging. Part of this is a space race sponsored by the
St. Louis-based X-PRIZE Foundation, which will award $10 million to the first private group that
launches a manned spacecraft into sub-orbital flight, then repeats the flight in two weeks.
The winner would essentially have to build a cheaper version of the Space Shuttle that can
be used several times a week instead of a few times a year.
In the running for the prize are Rotary Rocket Company, Kelly Space and Technology,
Pioneer Rocketplane, and Advent Launch Services.
Many believe tourism is a potentially lucrative segment of the space industry.
Virginia-based LunaCorp wants to give people a chance to explore the Moon without
leaving Earth. According to WWW.discovery.com, the company is trying to raise $100 million
to land two robotic vehicles on the Moon.
LunaCorp's Rovers will be equipped with panoramic video cameras and sophisticated
software that will enable them to transmit 360-degree images back to Earth, along with data
on everything from the lunar temperature to the roughness of the terrain. The Rovers will
provide realistic special effects for moon rides in theme parks and science centres.
Another idea that has been put forward is to mine the Moon and asteroids, which some
believe will yield precious stones. Former astronaut Jack Schmidt, a geologist, has proposed
mining lunar soil and heating it to extract Helium 3, an isotope difficult to obtain on Earth.
Theoretically, there's enough on the Moon to generate 10,000 times as much energy as the
Earth's entire remaining reserves of fossil fuel.
Others want to manufacture semiconductors in space, believing the zero-gravity conditions
and other factors would produce better products than those manufactured on Earth.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers are eager to try making drugs in space.
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The memory, in the form of crisscrossing wires, will be just 100 nanometers across (a nanometer
equals one-billionth of a meter, or about the width of two atoms). It will hold 16 bits of data. That
is not much - just enough to hold a couple of words. But if it works, it could presage a quantum
leap in the speed and power of all kinds of computer chips, including microprocessors.
"Nanotech should make it possible to build computers 1 billion times as powerful as they are
now," said Williams.
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Nanotechnology is Inevitable
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Hydrogen fuel isn’t capable of being put into wide use with current infrastructure.
Jacques Leslie October 1997 Dawn of the Hydrogen Age Wired magazine
http://hotwired.wired.com/collections/space_exploration/5.10_hydrogen1.html
Yet shifting to hydrogen-powered fuel cell cars will not be easy. True enough, hydrogen is
already used in all sorts of processing, from the hardening of fats and oils - hydrogenation - to,
ironically enough, oil refining. But hydrogen, like gasoline, must be manufactured: it bonds so
easily with other elements that it doesn't exist naturally on Earth in pure form. The trouble is that
while gasoline is sold in 200,000filling stations across the US, the hydrogen infrastructure is
minuscule. The result is a chicken-and-egg dilemma: What manufacturers will market hydrogen-
powered cars if hydrogen isn't available to drivers? What hydrogen producers will build more
plants if hydrogen cars aren't on the road? And without hydrogen fuel, who will buy hydrogen-
powered cars?
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"For Canada, the challenge is how to continue to benefit from an industry it has leadership in,"
says Rasul. But the gap is narrow ing.
He points out Japan, which, as part of its own $2.4 billion commitment toward Kyoto, has
launched a government program that could one day see Ballard fuel-cell systems replacing
traditional hot-water furnaces in thousands, even millions, of Tokyo and Osaka homes.
"The Japanese have come a long way, and I'm very impressed with the progress they've made.
Now, we're still ahead, but we have to continue to find a way to stay ahead."
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A2: EU Relations
The U.S. and Europe are working together on hydrogen technology now in spite
of differences.
New York Times June 17, 2003, Europe and U.S. Will Share Research on Hydrogen
Fuel By PAUL MELLER
The European Union and the United States agreed today to pool their research efforts into
hydrogen fuel cells, despite their widely differing views on what the technology will mean for
energy policy.
While the European Union views the fuel cells as a way to harness renewable power sources like
solar or wind energy, the United States is focusing on ways to use it along with fossil fuels and
nuclear energy.
"This agreement lays out the framework for our two entities to collaborate on a matter important
to both the U.S. and the European Union: hydrogen research," said the United States secretary of
energy, Spencer Abraham, at a meeting today with his European counterparts in Brussels.
Mr. Abraham said other countries would be invited to join the cooperation agreement later. "The
United States is looking forward to working together on a broad international basis, including
countries such as Japan," he said.
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Floating ocean nourishment plants on barges over deep water would produce ammonia, a
compound of hydrogen and nitrogen which can be absorbed by plants as energy.
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OTEC consumes energy only from the sun, so it’s effectively infinite.
Marshall T. Savage, 1993 founder of the First Millennial Foundation The Millennial
Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps, pg. 33-34
This is a characteristic that OTECs share with most solar powered devices, including green plants. The
OTEC consumes no fuel, so the only energy the system requires is that needed to construct and operate it.
Byvirtue of its ability to absorb solar energy, and to use that energy to impose higher states of order on the
materials in its environment, the OTEC, like a living plant, is able to operate in defiance of the second law of
thermodynamics. Of course, the law is not violated in the broader universe, since the sun is providing the
energy, and it is running down, just as the law demands. But it will be a long time before we have to include
the fusion engine of the sun in our calculations of local entropy. For the time being, we can consider
sunlightas a free good, outside the limits of our earthbound system of energy accounting.
OTECs can draw energy from the ocean and can produce ten times as much
energy as all other methods combined.
Marshall T. Savage, 1993 founder of the First Millennial Foundation The Millennial
Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps, pg. 35
All heat engines function on the simple proposition that energy will flow from a warmer to a cooler body. In
conventional power plants, the temperature difference is hundreds of degrees. An OTEC operates on a
temperature difference of only 40 degrees. In the tropical seas, surface waters, bathed in the intense light
of the equatorial sun, are heated to 80°+ F. (26.6° C.); deep waters, condemned to centuries in utter
darkness, are cooled to 40°F (4.44° C.). This difference in temperature is enough to run a thermal engine,
albeit at low efficiency. (The greater the difference in temperature, the more efficient the engine.) A
typical fossil fuel plant will convert 40% of the energy available in the fuel to electricity.27 An OTEC, will
convert only 2.5% of the available energy to electricity.28 Usually, this would seem a ridiculously low level of
efficiency not warranting any consideration as a realistic source of energy-but there is nothing usual about
the sea. At sea, even very low levels of thermal efficiency are rendered practical by the sheer size of the
available resource. Expressed in electrical terms, the energy resource of the oceans represents a
renewable power base of over 200 million megawatts.29 By comparison, the global installed electrical
capacity in 1978 was only one million megawatts.30 In other words, the total electrical output of mankind
represents only a half of one percent of the power latent in the world's oceans. Even at very low levels of
net efficiency, OTECs could produce ten times as much electrical energy as every other current power
source combined.
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There is enough potential energy from OTEC to replace all other forms of power,
while avoiding warming and pollution.
Patrick Takahashi and Andrew Trenka, 1996 Hawaii Natural Energy Institute and
Pacific International Center for High Technology Research, Ocean Thermal
Energy Conversion, , pg. 1-2
The oceans occupy almost three-quarters of the earth's surface and represent an enormous source of
nonpolluting, inexhaustible energy. They can provide an alternative energy source that can be utilized to
offset reliance on combustion of fossil fuels and their resultant environmental problems of global warming
and air pollution. While many of the major developed nations have conducted exploratory research and
development, and even installed a few commercial facilities, the total operational power available, with
the exception of a French tidal power plant, is far less than 100 megawatts. Conversely, the projected
available ocean power far exceeds the ultimate energy consumption of mankind, making this option
extremely attractive, especially when the environmental implications are considered.
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The plan is a green energy policy that will be accepted easily by businesses –
past examples prove businesses will go along with it.
Adrian Bradbrook April, 2002 Bonython Professor of Law, University of Adelaide
“Green Power Schemes: The Need for a Legislative Base” Melbourne University
Law Review
In contrast, green power schemes have been introduced without legislation and political
controversy. Such schemes have empowered proponents of sustainable energy development
by enabling them to make a personal contribution to further the cause. They have also enabled
industries and businesses that enter into a scheme to promote themselves in their publicity as
environmentally friendly. Such schemes have proved to be popular where they have been
introduced and have met or even exceeded the initial expectations of their proponents. n39
Green power schemes are seen to be consistent with and a natural extension of other 'green'
schemes introduced in the field of product labelling, packaging and advertising. n40 Being
voluntary in nature, such schemes are also consistent with the general approach in a number of
developed countries, including Australia, of 'light-handed regulation' in environmental
management and with the preferred approach of seeking voluntary agreements to resolve
environmental problems. n41 This preference for voluntary agreements appears to be
particularly true in the energy context. The most recent illustration is the 1999 agreement with the
building industry, represented by the Australian Building Energy Council, to [*23] encourage
voluntary best practices in energy efficient building design, construction and operation by way
of a code of practice. n42 This approach can be contrasted with that in the United States,
where environmental solutions are almost invariably imposed by legislation. n43
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A2: No Locations
Anywhere in a tropical zone will work for OTEC – that’s 60 million square
kilometers worth of space.
Richard Crews December 28 1997 OTEC Sites
http://www.trellis.demon.co.uk/reports/otec_sites.html
OTECs can be sited anywhere across about 60 million square kilometers (23 million square miles)
of tropical oceans-anywhere there is deep (and, therefore, cold) water lying under warm
surface water. This generally means at latitudes within about 20 or 25 degrees of the equator-
very roughly between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. (For meteorological
reasons this zone is somewhat contracted along the west coasts of continents and expanded
along the east coasts.) Surface water in these regions, warmed by the sun, generally stays at 25
degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) or above. Ocean water more than 1,000 meters (0.6
miles) below the surface is generally at about four degrees C (39 degrees F). Since the average
ocean depth is about 4,000 meters (2.5 miles), there is a vast reservoir of cold deep water under
tropical skies-some 180 million cubic kilometers (43 million cubic miles). And even this
inconceivably vast resource is constantly being renewed by deep cold-water flows from the
polar regions.
The warmth of the surface water is constantly renewed by the heat of the Sun. The tropical
ocean surface functions as an efficient solar collector. Over 90 percent of the radiant energy
that falls on it is absorbed and serves to warm the water. The vastness of this energy resource
can be appreciated by the realization that the absorbed solar energy per day is equivalent to
over 1,000 times the current worldwide human energy consumption.
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Even if all of the world’s energy needs were powered by OTEC, it would only
reduce sea temperatures by less than 1 percent.
Braun 2002 (Harry, Chairman of the Hydrogen Political Action Committee,
September 20, “OTEC CAN SAVE THE OCEANS”)
It follows that all of the impending environmental problems that will result if those remaining fossil
fuels are extracted, shipped and burned could be avoided. Moreover, professor Zener
calculated that even if 100 percent of the world's energy needs were provided by OTEC
systems, and even assuming the entire world was consuming energy at the rate that the U.S.
does, the surface temperature of the tropical oceans would only be lowered by less than one
degree Centigrade. Given the current concerns regarding global warming, this slight drop in
ocean temperatures could another important by-product of the large-scale deployment of
OTEC systems.
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Politically Unpopular
Energy policy results in political gridlock due to opposing interests.
John D. Podesta August 2003 VISITING PROFESSOR OF LAW AT GEORGETOWN
UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER “The Future of Energy Policy” Foreign Affairs
Unfortunately, energy policymaking in the United States in recent years has been neither
decisive nor strategic. U.S. energy policy is reminiscent of Mark Twain's quip about the weather:
everyone talks about it, but no one does anything. This inertia has deep roots. Vested interests --
in the oil, utility, and transportation industries, for example -- have been powerful economic and
political players, protecting the status quo and brooking little interference from the outside.
Similarly, the environmental lobby has proved itself able to block proposals it opposes but less
successful in advancing initiatives it favors. As a consequence, little progress has been made
toward breaking the gridlock.
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Increases Economy
We solve for uncertainty over global warming, which was hurting business
confidence.
John D. Podesta August 2003 VISITING PROFESSOR OF LAW AT GEORGETOWN
UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER “The Future of Energy Policy” Foreign Affairs
Uncertainty is the bane of long-term investors, and investment in such technologies today is
discouraged by corporate uncertainty about climate change. Many U.S. companies --
particularly those with operations in other countries -- are prepared to embark on aggressive
and innovative strategies to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. But without a market
signal to justify this course, they wait. Meanwhile, investments in carbon-intensive facilities such
as coal-fired power plants are held back in the United States by the specter of significant
carbon costs in the future, which are surely coming.
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Decreases Hegemony
When OTEC becomes viable worldwide it will cause other countries to replace
the United States in control of energy supplies, which will destroy our hegemony.
Helfferich 1991 (Carla, April 24, “The Someday Energy Barons”
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF10/1027.html)
The Alaska Natural Energy Institute's newsletter crossed my desk the other day, and set me thinking.
ANEI apparently believes that civilized life will be possible after oil is gone, and that intelligent life exists
right now ---that is, people are smart enough to develop alternative energy technologies while they
still have oil to burn.
I hope both are true, but my musings ran instead toward post -petroleum geopolitics: What corners of
the world will replace the Middle East as global powers controlling the new energy resources?
Answering that question requires predicting what the new resources are likely to be. If coal or natural
gas replaces oil as fuel and chemical feedstock of choice, the United States (especially Alaska) will
be well off. We have abundant supplies of both coal and natural gas. But if worldwide concerns---
and regulations---clamp down on greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants, those faithful old
combustibles won't look so good. Then, replacing names like Qatar or Bahrain in discussions of global
energy leaders, talk may turn to Raratonga or Pukapuka. In the United States, Texas and Alaska may
take a back seat to Hawaii.
Thanks to their location, these Pacific islands are bathed in warm waters, with sea- surface
temperatures near 24°C (75°F). But they are also surprisingly close to cold water. Chilly salt water,
consistently near temperatures of 4°C (39°F), flows nearby at the bottom of the deep ocean.
With essentially unlimited supplies of seawater at two different temperatures, many fortunate islands
are perfectly situated to take advantage of ocean thermal energy conversion. Taylor A. Pryor, a
government planner from Cook Islands, explained this OTEC technology informally in the March/April
issue of Pacific Magazine. Big pipes are sunk so their deep ends lie in the cold water, another pipe
taps surface waters "so both warm and cold seawater can be pumped ashore. On shore is a
structure housing two heat exchangers---one a condenser, the other an evaporator---plus a turbo-
generator. Inside the exchangers is ammonia, a volatile substance that will vaporize at 24 degrees
and liquefy at 4 degrees. When it vaporizes, there is a modest pressure increase, which is what can be
induced to drive the turbine. Once that work is done, the ammonia is chilled, returned to its liquid
form and the cycle begins again."
Pryor wasn't selling a science-fiction scheme. An experimental OTEC plant is working right now on the
island of Hawaii. It's discussed in some detail in the March/April issue of another magazine, Sea
Frontiers. That article indicates the experiment isn't a perfect success; the cost of electricity generated
in the process depends on the life cycle of the equipment, and no one yet knows how long the plant
components will last. But even optimistic estimates come out with kilowatt-hour costs higher than
those for standard oil-burning generators consuming $20 a barrel oil.
However, the Hawaiian OTEC plant generates more than plain electricity, and its byproducts are
valuable. Most of them are luxury foods in high demand--even salmon thrive in the cold, clean, but
nutrient -rich water from the deep sea. Ocean Farms of Hawaii, a neighboring commercial venture
using OTEC's cold sea water, estimates eventual salmon production of 4 million pounds a year.
Such pricey products improve OTEC economics, but don't turn OTEC sites into international energy
exporters. However, as Taylor Pryor noted, OTEC-generated electricity can be used to split seawater
into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is top candidate for ultimate fuel, what we'll use when
everything else is gone, and the subject of extensive efforts to make it useful sooner. (The Alaska
Natural Energy Institute, for example, is presently organizing the world's first hydrogen-powered
vehicles competition.) Someday, supertankers loaded with transportable forms of hydrogen may sail
from the South Pacific, the new energy capital of the world.
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Perm solves best – moderation avoids local resentment and solves better.
New Scientist June 21, 2003 A greyer shade of green by Fred Pearce
Several factors are driving this sea change. First, there is an admission that hard-line conservation
has a chequered history, with more failures than successes, and that it often breeds resentment
in local communities. Secondly, there's the realisation that western environmentalists, however
well-meaning, have no right to ride roughshod over local sensibilities. Finally, they are riding the
current fashion wave: the idea that environmental protection and economic development
don't have to be mutually exclusive. In fact, there are conservation strategies that allow them to
reinforce each other. And this ethos of "sustainable development", first made popular at the
Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro ten years ago, is taking many environmentalists in directions they
had never anticipated.
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Most environmentalists outside the hard-core animal rights groups say they are in favour of
conserving traditional cultures. In practice that usually involves preserving their hunting traditions.
So WWF quietly supports the Inuit, who hunt polar bears, and the Gwich'in people, who hunt
caribou as the animals travel through northern Canada and Alaska on one of the greatest
mammal migrations left on Earth.
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Topicality
Our Ocean’s number one resource is the solar energy it gathers.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 2003. Ocean Thermal Energy
Conversion. Environmental Impact Analysis. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department
of Commerce, Office of Ocean Minerals and Energy.
“The oceans cover a little more than 70 percent of the Earth's surface. This makes them the
world's largest solar energy collector and energy storage system. On an average day, 60 million
square kilometers…of tropical seas absorb an amount of solar radiation equal in heat content to
about 250 billion barrels of oil. If less than one-tenth of one percent of this stored solar energy
could be converted into electric power, it would supply more than 20 times the total amount of
electricity consumed in the United States on any given day. This makes thermal energy
undoubtedly the most valuable resource in the water.”
Water is a resource.
Elroy Bos and Ger Bergkamp October 2001 (the communication officer and the
freshwater management advisor at the Wetlands and Water Resources
Programme of the IUCN) 2020 Focus 9 (Overcoming Water Scarcity and Quality
Constraints), Brief 6 of 14, WATER AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Water is a scarce resource. If we continue to overuse and pollute our water and destroy our
natural ecosystems, we may fulfill the prediction that 30 percent of the world's population will
not have enough water by 2025.
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