Cellulose Aff

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Cellulose Ethanol Aff
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Cellulose Aff – Index

Cellulose Aff – Index................................................................................................................... ........................1
1AC – 1/12........................................................................................................................................... ...............3
1AC – 2/12........................................................................................................................................... ...............5
1AC – 3/12........................................................................................................................................... ...............6
1AC – 4/12........................................................................................................................................... ...............7
1AC – 5/12........................................................................................................................................... ...............9
1AC – 6/12......................................................................................................................................... ...............10
1AC – 7/12......................................................................................................................................... ...............12
1AC – 8/12......................................................................................................................................... ...............13
1AC – 9/12......................................................................................................................................... ...............14
1AC – 10/12...................................................................................................................................... ................15
1AC – 11/12...................................................................................................................................... ................17
1AC – 12/12...................................................................................................................................... ................18
Inherency – Alt Energy Plan is Piecemeal.......................................................................... ...............................19
Inherency – Corn Ethanol Now................................................................................................................. .........20
Inherency – No Cellulose Now......................................................................................................................... ..21
Inherency – Subsidies for Corn Increasing.................................................................................. ......................22
Solvency – Cellulose  More Energy......................................................................................... .......................23
Solvency – Tech Key.......................................................................................................................................... 24
Solvency – Wood Waste........................................................................................................................ ............25
Solvency – Tech already exists........................................................................................... ..............................26
Solvency – Cellulose easy to put into the market...................................................................... .......................27
Solvency – Ethanol Mixtures are Enough........................................................................................ ..................28
Fossil Fuels  Global Warming.................................................................................................. .......................29
Corn  Global Warming.................................................................................................................................... 30
Consumption High Now................................................................................................................ ....................31
Free Market not reacting fast enough................................................................................................... ............32
Reducing emissions now better than later...................................................................................................... ..33
GW Bad – Probability.................................................................................................................. ......................34
GW Bad – Timeframe............................................................................................................................... .........35
GW Bad – Oscillation............................................................................................................ ............................36
GW Bad – Extinction by Cooking................................................................................................................... ....37
GW Bad – Extinction by Suffocation................................................................................................................ ..38
GW Bad – Economic Collapse................................................................................................. ..........................39
GW Bad – Disease .............................................................................................................. .............................40
GW Bad – Outweighs Nuclear War.................................................................................................... ................41
Alternative Energies Solve .......................................................................................................................... ....43
AT: No Impact to Warming ....................................................................................................... .......................44
Global Warming Exists – Science Proves................................................................................................... ........45
Global Warming Exists – Man Made............................................................................................... ...................46
Global Warming Exists – Consensus .................................................................................... ............................47
Global Warming Exists – Not sun spots.................................................................................................... .........48
Global Warming Exists – Even if it doesn’t, still worth a try......................................................... .....................49
Food shortages now............................................................................................................. ............................50
Shortages in the future................................................................................................................................... ..51
Corn inflates prices........................................................................................................................................ ...52
EPAct Makes Corn Price Hike Inevitable Now........................................................................... .........................53
Food shortages  collapse of civilization (Brown)......................................................................... ...................54
AT: Economy resilient ......................................................................................................... .............................55
AT: Production Now Makes You Non-Inherent................................................................................ ....................56
AT: Ethanol Bad – Ethanol Inevitable................................................................................................................ .57
AT: Ethanol Bad – Ethanol Inevitable .............................................................................................................. ..59
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AT: Politics/Plan Partisan.............................................................................................................. .....................60

AT: Corn Market Good – N/U.................................................................................................................... ..........61
AT: Sugarcane CP........................................................................................................................................... ...63
AT: Eliminate Subsidies/Tariff’s CP....................................................................................... .............................64
AT: Eliminate Subsidies/Tariff’s CP....................................................................................... .............................65
AT: Plan bipart...................................................................................................................... ............................66
AT: Plan popular ........................................................................................................................................ .......67
AT: Plan unpopular.................................................................................................................................... ........68
Gulf Dead Zone Add-On.................................................................................................................................. ..69
Gulf Dead Zone Add-On.................................................................................................................................. ..71
Runoff  Dead Zone........................................................................................................... .............................72
Cellulose solves dead zones.............................................................................................................. ...............73
Deadzone Now – no gov’t response........................................................................................................... .......74
Deadzone Expanding – Farm Bill................................................................................................................... ....75
Corn  Deadzone....................................................................................................................................... ......76
Deadzone  Gulf environmental destruction............................................................................ .......................77
Biodev Good – Extinction.......................................................................................................................... ........78
Biodev Good – D-Rule....................................................................................................................... ................79
Marine Life key to Biodev/human survival...................................................................................... ..................80
Biofuels kill Amazon.............................................................................................................. ...........................81
Canada Relations Add-on................................................................................................... ..............................82
Paper Industry Add-on....................................................................................................................... ...............84
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1AC – 1/12
Observation One is Inherency:
President Bush’s call to increase ethanol production by 2012 has been met with due
skepticism because grain-based ethanol is simply not sustainable – however, cellulosic
sources are – the only barrier is that the production costs are too high to be
independently competitive.
Toronto Star 7
(“Ethanol’s Future Not Dependent on Corn”, February 19, accessed online June 30, 2008, p. L/N) DMZ
An aggressive push into ethanol production is a horrible idea, particularly when it's supported by hard-earned
taxpayer dollars. So say the politicians, journalists and energy executives who attack ambitious policies
aimed at making the renewable fuel more plentiful. It would make food and cattle feedstock prices rise, they
lament. The energy return on ethanol is too small to be worthwhile, they point out. It's a farmer's subsidy in
disguise, they argue, neglecting to mention the massive subsidies that go to the oil industry and other hidden
oil-industry costs that our governments take on. So when the U.S. president announced in his recent State of
the Union address that he wanted his country to produce 132 billion litres of biofuels a year by 2017, and as a
result reduce U.S. gas consumption by 20 per cent, there was no shortage of skeptics in the crowd. The
controversy is partly deserved, if we assume that well into the future we'll be making ethanol mostly from
food crops such as corn. Even if corn was the ideal ingredient, there's simply not enough of it to reach Bush's
goal of a five-fold increase in ethanol production. At best, corn could satisfy about half of demand - and that
ignores the general impact on food and feedstock prices. The situation in Canada is different, but heading in
the same direction. Dave O'Reilly, chief executive of U.S. oil giant Chevron, said in a recent Reuters report
that achieving Bush's target "requires technology that has not yet been invented." Exxon Mobil CEO Rex
Tillerson made a similar comment, insisting that "some significant technological breakthroughs" are needed
to get the necessary scale of ethanol production. Clearly, ethanol isn't the problem. It's the way we currently
make it that's the problem. And with due respect to comments from these well-paid CEOs who have their own
corporate interests to protect, the "technological breakthroughs" and inventions are already here. It all
centres on a technique for making ethanol out of agricultural residues, wood waste and non-food corps such
as switch grass, instead of from the starches of corn, wheat and similar grains. This type of biofuel, called
cellulosic ethanol, doesn't impact food supply or prices, requires less energy to produce and isn't a front for
farmer subsidies. Technologies used to produce cellulosic ethanol work. The challenge is to lower the cost of
production so it becomes economically competitive without, over the long term, the need for government
subsidies. Demonstration production plants have already been built, and a number of commercial plants are
currently in development around the world.
Unfortunately, despite a governmental mandate for making cellulosic ethanol

conversation more efficient, companies are unlikely to jump on board due to the
monetary costs of production.
Selig 8
(Marcus F., Virginia Poliytechnic Institute and State University; J.D. Candidate 2008 Indiani U. School of Law,
“Getting more from the giving tree: regulating the use of biotechnology in forest management”, 26 Va. Envtl.
L.J. 577, accessed online 25 June 2008, p. L/N) DMZ
Additionally, trees may be engineered to serve as an efficient cellulosic feedstock for the production of
ethanol. n59 The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) "has established an objective to achieve cost-competitive
production of cellulosic ethanol by 2012 per the President's Advanced Energy Initiative and to displace 30
percent of 2004 levels of gasoline consumption with biofuels by 2030." n60 Trees may prove the most valuable
resource for accomplishing this goal. Wood is composed of a combination of three organic polymers:
cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. n61 Cellulose, an efficient source of glucose, which can be fermented by
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yeast to form ethanol, constitutes slightly less than one-half the weight of wood, while the other half is
composed of varying amounts of lignin and hemicellulose. n62 Unfortunately, high lignin and hemicellulose
components, which must be removed prior to ethanol production, make cellulose-based feedstocks such as
wood expensive and unattractive. n63 However, it may be possible to engineer trees that either produce less
lignin or alter its composition, thereby eliminating the costly pretreatment steps which are currently
necessary for ethanol production. n64
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1AC – 2/12
Thus, the plan:
The United States federal government should substantially increase alternative energy
incentives in the United States by providing all necessary funding and support to the
development of cellulose-conversion technology for the production of ethanol. We’ll
clarify.
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1AC – 3/12
Observation Two is Solvency:
First, the transition away from oil is easy – the means have been around for years.
Smolin 6
(Michael, Principal @ EXL GROUP LLC, “Challenges and Opportunities for Energy Alternatives for
Transportation in the United States”, 36 Cumb. L. Rev. 479, accessed online p. L/N) DMZ
For some time now, the technology has existed to replace petroleum-based fuels, such as gasoline, kerosene,
and diesel oil, with domestically derived renewable fuels and to reduce fuel consumption with more efficient
vehicles and fuel systems. I suggest that market forces will drive the United States and the rest of the world
to adopt these technologies. Some countries have already adopted alternative energy strategies. The United
States lags behind Europe, South Africa, Brazil, and other countries that have adopted policies and are
beginning to replace petroleum-based fuels with renewable fuels. Other nations such as Pakistan are
replacing petroleum-based fuels with natural gas-derived fuels such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) and
synthetic gasoline and diesel fuels. The world consumes the equivalent of thirty-one billion barrels of
petroleum (crude oil) per year. The United States, which consumes 25% of the world's demand, consumes
approximately eight billion barrels of crude oil equivalents every year (or about 336 billion gallons per year).
Transportation fuels account for approximately 40% of total consumption in the United States (or about 130
billion gallons per year). New vehicle technology can decrease vehicle fuel consumption to half the present
rate. Alternative fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel can virtually replace gasoline and petroleum diesel in
cars, trucks, and planes. The result of this mixture of developments makes it possible to substantially
decrease demand for imported oil in a reasonable time period.
Second, as the price of oil inevitably increases, the demand for ethanol will follow – this
ensures that a cellulosic-based industry will be competitive, even against the current
ethanol market.
Sklar 8
(Tim, Sklar & Associates, Murrells Inlet, SC., “Ethanol from wood waste an opportunity for refiners”, June 2, Oil
& Gas Journal, accessed online June 30, 2008, p. L/N) DMZ
Ethanol prices will increase concurrently with rising crude and gasoline prices. Ethanol rack prices are
currently averaging $2.33/gal; the 51¢/gal blenders' credit and hedging is maintaining ethanol's price parity
with gasoline in E10 blends. Even if the 51¢/gal subsidy is phased out, gasoline prices would still increase and
ethanol prices would still maintain price parity with gasoline. Accordingly, with continued increased demand
for ethanol and expected higher prices, producers of cellulosic ethanol should be able to sell everything they
can produce at prices that well exceed their costs. Recent studies state that cellulosic ethanol will be cheaper
to produce than corn ethanol due in part to the inflationary effect that increased corn ethanol production is
having on corn prices, on the lower cost of bio-waste, and on lower cellulosic ethanol processing costs as
more commercial-sized plants come on stream.
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1AC – 4/12
And corn sources may be sweet now, but they’ll grow bitter as time goes on – we need
cellulose production to supplement corn production.
Sklar 8
Cellulosic ethanol will be needed in the next few years to supplement corn ethanol. Unlike other renewable
biofuels such as methanol, butanol, and di-methyl ether (DME), cellulosic ethanol already has a ready market
as a blending ingredient in E10 gasoline. What's wrong with corn ethanol? According to US Department of
Energy projections, the US cannot rely only on corn ethanol or ethanol imports. Although corn ethanol
satisfies 99% of current ethanol demand, projected increases in corn ethanol will not be enough to meet
projected US biofuels needs. In 10 years, corn ethanol will meet only 62.5% of these needs; in 15 years, only
41.7%. The remainder will have to come from imports and cellulosic biofuels. Ethanol imports, however,
cannot satisfy the shortfall either. Ethanol imports primarily consist of sugar-based ethanol from Brazil. Due to
the fragmentation of Brazilian ethanol producers and sugar growers, however, it is already more difficult and
costly to increase these imports. Clearly, there will be a significant need for cellulosic ethanol produced in the
US. The DOE expects that, in 15 years, 16 billion gal/year of cellulosic ethanol will be needed. Another
problem with corn ethanol is that it is quickly becoming uneconomic. Corn prices will continue to increase,
which will have a widespread inflationary effect on corn ethanol; corn already accounts for 55% of the cost of
producing corn ethanol. At best, producing ethanol from corn is only marginally energy efficient. Conversely,
studies show that cellulosic ethanol costs 25% less to produce than corn ethanol, cellulosic ethanol plants
offer higher energy gains, and most biowaste feedstocks are 50% cheaper than corn. In addition, corn ethanol
is becoming politically unsustainable. Inefficiencies in conversion of corn to fuel have already upset other
markets. The widespread use of corn to produce ethanol has pushed up food prices and ethanol subsidies
have again become a political issue. Furthermore, processes used to produce corn ethanol consume
significant amounts of water and, in many water short corn-producing areas, new corn ethanol plants are no
longer welcome because the public views them as having an adverse environmental impact.
And cellulosic ethanol will always have demand among producers as it’s cheaper and
more viable to produce.
Sklar 8
Cellulosic ethanol has two primary advantages over other advanced cellulosic biofuels such as methanol,
butanol, and DME. First, there is an immediate and growing market for ethanol; increased demand for E10 will
continue with rising demand for gasoline. Second, no additional investment is needed for marketing or
distribution--even though other biofuels have higher carbon content and produce more power than ethanol,
they will require capital investment in separate storage, transportation, and delivery infrastructure. In
addition, added investment will be required for supporting marketing efforts needed to obtain consumer
acceptance of advanced cellulosic biofuels. Additional investment will be needed for making engine
modifications and for subsidies to keep advanced cellulosic biofuels prices competitive with E10 gasoline.
More importantly, there is an increasing short-term demand for E10. Are there better profit opportunities in
making cellulosic ethanol? Production and sale of cellulosic ethanol offers great potential profit opportunities.
Ethanol prices are high and are rising because they track gasoline prices and not prices paid for feedstock or
cost of producing ethanol. The margins ethanol producers are earning are therefore reduced by the prices
paid for corn by food and animal-feed producers. In contrast, cellulosic ethanol margins will be higher and
less volatile than corn ethanol margins. First, cellulosic ethanol yields are improving due to technology
advancements. Second, the revenues for biowastes converted into cellulosic ethanol are substantially higher
than revenues from converting the same biowaste into fuel, fertilizer, or animal feed. Cellulosic ethanol
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margins could still vary, depending on the cost of the biowaste used, the ethanol yield from various
biowastes, and the process used to convert biowaste into ethanol.
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1AC – 5/12
And a refocus of subsidies to high cellulose-content ethanol would allow for better
internationalization of the ethanol industry without threatening our domestic focus – it
would also allow for better energy dependence.
Armas 7
(Marcel De, JD candidate @ American University Washington College of Law, “Exploring How Today’s
Development Affects Future Generations Around the Globe: Feature: Misleadingly Green: Time to Repeal the
Ethanol Tariff and Subsidy For Corn”, 7 Sustainable Dev. L. & Pol’y 25, Spring, accessed online June 11, p. L/N)
DMZ
To protect its environment the United States should eliminate the current ethanol tariff and subsidy, or at
least focus the subsidy on crops with high cellulose contents. In particular, eliminating the tariff on ethanol
will promote the growth of an ethanol distribution system because more imports would enter the country
increasing the market for ethanol. n16 In addition, eliminating the ethanol tariff would increase the demand for
sugar cane, and thus, reduce third world countries' excess supply. As a result, the price of sugar cane would
increase providing additional revenue to the third world sugar cane producers. n17 The additional sugar cane
revenue entering these third world countries could foster the development of a middle class interested in
protecting their own environment and promoting sustainable development. n18 Finally, the elimination of the
tariff and subsidy could rekindle the trade negotiations for a Free Trade Area of the Americas that stalled over
agriculture and service industry differences between Brazil and the United States. n19 Even if America could
end its thirst for foreign oil by using crops with higher cellulose content and allowing greater imports of
ethanol from abroad, it still should encourage the development of alternative renewable energies to ensure
its economic, national, and environmental security by ending its addiction to foreign oil. n20 The United States
needs to seek alternative renewable energies, in addition to raising mileage standards for vehicles, creating a
carbon tax or tradable carbon market to discourage the burning of fossil fuels in the development of ethanol
and other energy intensive industries, and end or refocus its subsidy to more efficient crops. n21 These steps
would allow for American oil dollars to end up in the pockets of Americans and its neighbors to the North and
South rather than in the pockets of potentially tyrannical regimes or hostile terrorists. n22
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1AC – 6/12
Advantage One is Global Warming:
First, as our reliance on fossil fuels increases, our biosphere captures more CO2,
increasing global warming – the trends are already being seen.
Spaulding 3
(Raci Oriona, J.D. @ the U of Iowa College of Law, “Fuel From Vegetables? A Modern Approach to Global
Climate Change”, 13 Transnat’l L. & Contemp. Probs. 277, Spring, accessed online p. L/N) DMZ
Perhaps the most serious consequence of the ever-increasing global reliance on the products of industrialized
economies is the problem of global climate change. This change in global climate has been largely attributed
to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions - carbon emissions caused by burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and
coal. n21 Most available evidence suggests that there [*281] is a detectable human influence on the global
climate. n22 For instance, the U.S. Climate Action Report of 2002, written by the Environmental Protection
Agency, indicated that "greenhouse gases are accumulating in the Earth's atmosphere as a result of human
activities, causing global mean surface air temperature and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise." n23
Additionally, Christopher Flavin, President of Worldwatch Institute, has noted that: From the ice cap at the
North Pole, which has lost 40 percent of its thickness in the last decade, to the coral reefs near the Equator,
one-quarter of which have been killed by rising ocean temperatures and other stresses, the Earth is telling us
that we are entering an era of dangerous climate change that is already threatening populations around the
world. Already, economic damages from natural disasters has reached $ 608 billion over the last decade - as
much as in the previous four decades combined. n24 Humans magnify these effects by increasing the global
economy's dependence on fossil fuels. As more fossil fuel is demanded by automobiles, factories, and power
plants, more fossil fuel is burned, thus emitting more carbon dioxide into the Earth's atmosphere and
exacerbating global warming. The effects of global warming, while still somewhat uncertain, are expected to
do damage around the globe by causing excessive droughts in some areas while increasing rainfall in others,
exacerbating coastal damage like erosion, and increasing instances of heat stress and respiratory illness in
many nations. n25 Statistics from nations around the world demonstrate the truth of this statement. For
instance: Dramatic examples of the human health impacts from severe flooding can be found in China. In
1996, official national statistics showed 200 million people affected by flooding. There were more than 3,000
deaths and 363,800 injuries; 3.7 million residences were destroyed, with 18 million damaged. Direct
economic loses exceeded U.S. $ 12 billion. n26Chinese statistics have further shown that "200 million people
[were] affected by flooding, more than 3,000 [were killed], and 4 million homes [were] damaged; direct
economic losses exceeded U.S. $ 20 billion." n27 While Chinese scientists could not prove [*282]
that all of these impacts are directly attributable to human-induced climate change, [they could] say that the
heating of the planet that has already occurred is likely to be at least partially responsible for the severity of
these human health impacts. Moreover, [they could say that] future heating will make such adverse impacts
more probable. n28
And corn ethanol production actually contributes more CO2 into the atmosphere than
fossil fuels by themselves.
Cleland and Manning 3

(F. Michael and David, Senior VP of Gov’t Affairs for Canadian Electricity Association, Senior VP of Corporate
Affairs @ KeySpan, “Securing the Energy Supply in North America”, 29 Can.-U.S. L.J. 307, accessed online p.
L/N) DMZ
MR. MANNING: Let me speak to that for one second. From the U.S. perspective there has been a recent
provision in the State of the Union, n11 that [*318] we would have a hydrogen economy. n12 For those of you
who follow the press, the hydrogen economy is probably some distance away. Hydrogen either has to come
out of the water, which is very expensive to do with electricity or it has to come from natural gas. There have
been some cynics. The point about the ethanol is that it will be an ethanol mandate. There will be ethanol,
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which will be an additive in gasoline. That is a great benefit to farm states in the central U.S. However, when
you grow the corn, you mill, haul with a diesel engine, and cook it into alcohol and gasoline it emits more
CO[2] full cycle than gasoline does. n13
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1AC – 7/12
And reacting now is a necessity – waiting risks feed back loops which actually speed the
warming process – this threatens a global collapse of ecosystems.
CNN 6
(“Be worried, be very worried”, March 26, accessed online June 12, 2008, p. L/N) DMZ
Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to
play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us. From heat waves to storms to floods to fires to
massive glacial melts, the global climate seems to be crashing around us. The problem -- as scientists
suspected but few others appreciated -- is that global climate systems are booby-trapped with tipping points
and feedback loops, thresholds past which the slow creep of environmental decay gives way to sudden and
self-perpetuating collapse. That's just what's happening now. It's at the north and south poles -- where ice
cover is crumbling to slush -- that the crisis is being felt the most acutely. Late last year, for example,
researchers analyzed data from Canadian and European satellites and found that the Greenland ice sheet is
not only melting, but doing so faster and faster, with 53 cubic miles draining away into the sea last year
alone, compared to 23 cubic miles in 1996. One of the reasons the loss of the planet's ice cover is
accelerating is that as the poles' bright white surface disappears it changes the relationship of the Earth and
the sun. Polar ice is so reflective that 90 percent of the sunlight that strikes it simply bounces back into space,
taking its energy with it. Ocean water does just the opposite, absorbing 90 percent of the light and heat it
receives, meaning that each mile of ice that melts vanishes faster than the mile that preceded it.
This is what scientists call a feedback loop, and a similar one is also melting the frozen land called
permafrost, much of which has been frozen -- since the end of last ice age in fact, or at least 8,000 years ago.
Sealed inside that cryonic time capsule are layers of decaying organic matter, thick with carbon, which itself
can transform into CO2. In places like the southern boundary of Alaska the soil is now melting and softening.
As fast as global warming is changing the oceans and ice caps, it's having an even more immediate effect on
land. Droughts are increasingly common as higher temperatures also bake moisture out of soil faster, causing
dry regions that live at the margins to tip into full-blown crisis. Wildfires in such sensitive regions as
Indonesia, the western U.S. and even inland Alaska have been occurring with increased frequency as
timberlands grow more parched. Those forests that don't succumb to fire can simply die from thirst. With
habitats crashing, the animals that call them home are succumbing too. In Alaska, salmon populations are
faltering as melting permafrost pours mud into rivers, burying the gravel the fish need for spawning. Small
animals such as bushy tailed rats, chipmunks and pinion mice are being chased upslope by rising
temperatures, until they at last have no place to run. And with sea ice vanishing, polar bears are starting to
turn up drowned. "There will be no polar ice by 2060," says Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife
Federation. "Somewhere along that path, the polar bear drops out."
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1AC – 8/12
Ultimately, warming will collapse the biosphere, destroying every living thing on the
planet.
Caldwell 3
(Joseph George, “What Oil Can Do to Tiny States – and Big Ones, Too!, Foundation.bw, February 3, accessed
online June 12, 2008, p. L/N) DMZ
What The Economist article fails to point out is that what happens to small states when their national oil
reserves run out is much the same as will happen to big states when global oil reserves run out. By the year
2050, global oil reserves will be exhausted, and industrial civilization will collapse worldwide. But there is a
very significant – and very tragic – difference between the situation when small states run out of oil and when
the world runs out of oil. When small states run out of oil, the population will simply return to what they did
before, or they will migrate, or they will beg for food from the rest of the world. Life goes on, for them and
the rest of the planet, pretty much as before. When the world runs out of oil, however, global human
population will collapse and, unless a significant intervention occurs, the biosphere will have been destroyed
by the petroleum age. As the energy inputs of oil (mechanization, irrigation, insecticides and other modern
high-energy inputs) cease to flow, there will be a massive drop in global food production. World human
population will drop from over six billion people to a few hundred million, since that is all that the current-
solar-energy budget of the planet will support in the long term. The death of more than six billion people is
not the real tragedy, however, since everyone must someday die. The great tragedy is that oil-fed global
industrialization is destroying the biosphere – causing the extinction of an estimated 30,000 species a year. If
industrial civilization continues until global oil supplies run out, what will remain will be a ruined planet, with
far less biological diversity than before oil. Because of global warming, the petroleum age may even cause a
greenhouse death of the planet, with the extinction of mankind along with all other large plant and animal
species.
Fortunately, we can avert this by drastically cutting carbon emissions by 80 percent –

Investment in alternative energy solves.
Brown 8
(Lester, founder and President of Earth Policy Institute, found of WorldWatch Institute, “Global Warming
Melting Glaciers, Shrinking Harvests in China and India”, March 26, accessed online May 2, 2008, p.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/global-warming-melting-glaciers-shrinking-harvests.php) DMZ
The glaciologists have given us a clear sense of how fast glaciers are shrinking. The challenge now is to
translate their findings into national energy policies designed to save the glaciers. At issue is not just the
future of mountain glaciers, but the future of world grain harvests. The alternative to this civilization-
threatening scenario is to abandon business-as-usual energy policies and move to cut carbon emissions 80
percent -- not by 2050 as many political leaders suggest, because that will be too late, but by 2020, as
outlined in Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. The first step is to ban new coal-fired power plants, a
move that is fast gaining momentum in the United States (see report). At issue is whether we can mobilize to
lower atmospheric CO2 concentrations before higher temperatures melt the mountain glaciers that feed the
major rivers of Asia and elsewhere, and before shrinking harvests lead to an unraveling of our civilization. The
good news is that we have the energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies to dramatically reduce
CO2 concentrations if we choose to do so.
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1AC – 9/12
And cellulosic ethanol is independently cleaner than the current corn model because of
the way it is made – it requires less materials to produce that rely on foreign oil.
Chemical Week 7
(“Researchers Calculate Benefits of Bioethanol”, March 7, accessed online June 30, 2008, p. L/N) DMZ
Researchers at the University of California (Berkeley) say that replacing gasoline with ethanol made from corn
offers only marginal environmental benefits. However, there are technologies under development for
producing ethanol from cellulosic materials that "promise to make ethanol a truly 'green' fuel, with
significantly less environmental impact than gasoline." The research attempts to reconcile public debate,
much of which has focused on whether manufacturing ethanol takes more nonrenewable energy than the
resulting fuel provides, the researchers say. The research team developed a set of metrics to compare the two
primary types of bioethanol, corn-based and cellulose-based, with gasoline. These metrics calculate the
intensity of primary energy inputs and net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The team -- led by Daniel
Kammen, professor of energy/energy and resources group (ERG) and Alex Farrell, assistant professor of
energy/ERG -- found that corn-based ethanol requires more natural gas and coal to produce than does
gasoline, but that it generates slightly lower GHG emissions. Meanwhile, cellulose-based ethanol requires
significantly less fossil fuel-based energy and generates close to 90% lower GHG emissions. The difference
between the two types of bioethanol involves how each is made, say the researchers, whose work appeared
in a recent issue of Science. Corn-based ethanol relies on fossil fuels for heat during the conversion of corn
into sugars. Cellulose-based ethanol relies on biomass, which is a by-product of converting cellulose into
fermentable sugars, as the heat source. The research team also evaluated six representative ethanol studies
to reconcile conflicting reports. To compare the studies, the team developed a model for calculating net
energy. The team found that several studies omitted some of the indirect benefits of bioethanol, such as the
creation of by-products during ethanol production. One such by-product is animal feed products -- corn gluten
meal and corn gluten feed, researchers say. Substituting the by-product is cost-effective and displaces
competing products that require energy to produce, they add.
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1AC – 10/12
Advantage Two is the Food Crisis:
The world faces looming food shortages – grain prices have escalated as corn for energy
has risen the price of all grain – we are already witnessing global food riots and
starvation.
Brown 8
(Lester, founder and President of Earth Policy Institute, found of WorldWatch Institute, “Food Shortages Drive
Global Prices to Record Highs”, accessed online April 29, 2008 p. L/N) DMZ
A fast-unfolding food shortage is engulfing the entire world, driving food prices to record highs. (Check out the
full report or podcast.) Over the past 50 years grain prices have occasionally spiked due to weather-related
events -- such as the 1972 Soviet crop failure that led to a doubling of world wheat, rice, and corn prices. The
situation today is entirely different, however. The current doubling of grain prices is trend-driven, the
cumulative effect of some trends that are accelerating growth in demand and other trends that are slowing
the growth in supply. The world has not experienced anything quite like this before. In the face of rising food
prices and spreading hunger, the social order is beginning to break down in some countries. In several
provinces in Thailand, for instance, rustlers steal rice by harvesting fields during the night. In response, Thai
villagers with distant fields have taken to guarding ripe rice fields with loaded shotguns. In Sudan, the U.N.
World Food Programme (WFP), the organization responsible for supplying grain to two million people in Darfur
refugee camps, is facing a difficult mission to say the least. During the first three months of this year, 56
grain-laden trucks were hijacked. Thus far, only 20 of the trucks have been recovered and some 24 drivers
are still unaccounted for. This threat to U.N.-supplied food to the Darfur camps has reduced the flow of food
into the region by half, raising the specter of starvation if supply lines cannot be secured. Food riots are now
becoming commonplace in Egypt, Yemen, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, and
Senegal. (Examples of food price unrest.) Even prosperous Japan is not immune from food shortages. Around
the world, a politics of food scarcity is emerging. Most fundamentally, it involves the restriction of grain
exports by countries that want to check the rise in their domestic food prices. Russia, the Ukraine, and
Argentina are among the governments that are currently restricting wheat exports. Countries restricting rice
exports include Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Egypt. These export restrictions simply drive prices higher in the
world market.
And corn expansion places grain demand in terms of energy versus food – this threatens
a complete collapse of global food markets.
Brown 8
Global Prices to Record Highs”, accessed online April 29, 2008 p. L/N) DMZ
The chronically tight food supply the world is now facing is driven by the cumulative effect of several well-
established trends that are affecting both global demand and supply. On the demand side, the trends include
the continuing addition of 70 million people per year to the earth’s population, the desire of some four billion
people to move up the food chain and consume more grain-intensive livestock products, and the recent sharp
acceleration in the U.S. use of grain to produce ethanol for cars. Since 2005, this last source of demand has
raised the annual growth in world grain consumption from roughly 20 million tons to 50 million tons.
Meanwhile, on the supply side, there is little new land to be brought under the plow unless it comes from
clearing tropical rainforests in the Amazon and Congo basins and in Indonesia, or from clearing land in the
Brazilian cerrado, a savanna-like region south of the Amazon rainforest. Unfortunately, this has heavy
environmental costs: the release of sequestered carbon, the loss of plant and animal species, and increased
rainfall runoff and soil erosion. And in scores of countries prime cropland is being lost to both industrial and
residential construction and to the paving of land for roads, highways, and parking lots for fast-growing
automobile fleets. New sources of irrigation water are even more scarce than new land to plow. Meanwhile,
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the backlog of agricultural technology that can be used to raise cropland productivity is dwindling. And the
rising price of oil is boosting the costs of both food production and transport while at the same time making it
more profitable to convert grain into fuel for cars. Beyond this, climate change presents new risks. Crop-
withering heat waves, increasingly destructive storms, and the melting of the Asian mountain glaciers that
sustain the dry-season flow of that region’s major rivers are combining to make harvest expansion more
difficult. In the past the negative effect of unusual weather events was always temporary; within a year or
two things would return to normal. But with climate in flux, there is no norm to return to. The collective effect
of these trends makes it more and more difficult for farmers to keep pace with the growth in demand. With
grain stocks at an all-time low, the world is only one poor harvest away from total chaos in world grain
markets.
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1AC – 11/12
And put away your alt cause arguments – the food price hikes result entirely from corn
being used as an energy source.
Brown 8
(Lester, founder and President of Earth Policy Institute, found of WorldWatch Institute, “Why Ethanol
Production Will Drive Food Prices Even Higher in 2008”, February 3, accessed online May 2, 2008, p.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/02/why_ethanol_pro.php) DMZ
Whereas previous dramatic rises in world grain prices were weather-induced, this one is policy-induced and
can be dealt with by policy adjustments. The crop fuels program that currently satisfies scarcely 3 percent of
U.S. gasoline needs is simply not worth the human suffering and political chaos it is causing. If the entire U.S.
grain harvest were converted into ethanol, it would satisfy scarcely 18 percent of our automotive fuel needs.
The irony is that U.S. taxpayers, by subsidizing the conversion of grain into ethanol, are in effect financing a
rise in their own food prices. It is time to end the subsidy for converting food into fuel and to do it quickly
before the deteriorating world food situation spirals out of control.
This causes global conflict.
Calvin 91
(William Calvin, Whole Earth Review, 12-22-91, p. Lexis)
But non-Europeans are vulnerable too, and not just those along the. eastern shores of North America (and
elsewhere around the world where repercussions of the Younger Dryas have been detected). Abrupt and
widespread agricultural shortfalls in densely populated technological societies tend to suggest
lebensraum-style global conflict. Affected populations will initially switch (as they have during brief
droughts of the past) to themselves eating the feed grains that now produce meat at 20 percent efficiency -
but remember how poorly an "economic response' worked for Ireland in the nineteenth-century famine.
Another cold spike need not endure for 800 years to exhaust stockpiles and people's patience. Just imagine
any country affected by the North Atlantic Current contemplating starvation - while possessing the
military technology needed to take over another country (which will undoubtedly be described by the
aggressors as 'irresponsibly squandering its agricultural potential while others starve").
And collapse of food markets threatens the global economy.
Euractiv 8
(“G8: Oil, food prices endanger global economy”, June 16, accessed online June 12, 2008, p. L/N) DMZ
Finance ministers from the G8 countries met on 13 and 14 June to discuss the current state of the global
economy. The group expressed "strong concerns" about soaring crude oil and agricultural commodity prices,
issues that are also high on the EU's current political agenda. "Elevated commodity prices, especially of oil
and food, pose a serious challenge to stable growth worldwide, have serious implications for the most
vulnerable, and may increase global inflationary pressure," says a G8 joint statement released on 14 June in
Hokkaido, Japan. Higher energy demand from rapidly developing countries and blocked or difficult access to
existing oil reserves are frequently cited as being among numerous structural causes for the oil price hikes.
And food prices are increasingly intertwined with fossil fuel prices, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO). There is a "strengthening of linkages among agricultural commodity markets and others,
such as those of fossil fuels; biofuels and financial instruments that influence not only the costs of production
of agricultural commodities but also the demand for them," the FAO says in a fact sheet on food prices.
Speculators are also being blamed for pushing prices upward. "The recent financial turmoil has revealed the
risks posed to the financial system by excessive risk taking and leveraging," the G8 statement says.
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1AC – 12/12
The impact is extinction.
Bearden 2k
(Lieutenant Colonel, THE UNNECESSARY ENERGY CRISIS: HOW WE CAN SOLVE IT, 2000,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Big-Medicine/message/642) DMZ
Bluntly, we foresee these factors - and others { } not covered - converging to a catastrophic collapse of
the world economy in about eight years. As the collapse of the Western economies nears, one may expect
catastrophic stress on the 160 developing nations as the developed nations are forced to dramatically
curtail orders. International Strategic Threat Aspects History bears out that desperate nations take
desperate actions. Prior to the final economic collapse, the stress on nations will have increased the
intensity and number of their conflicts, to the point where the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) now possessed by some 25 nations, are almost certain to be released. As an example, suppose a
starving North Korea launches nuclear weapons upon Japan and South Korea, including U.S. forces there, in
a spasmodic suicidal response. Or suppose a desperate China - whose long range nuclear missiles can
reach the United States - attacks Taiwan. In addition to immediate responses, the mutual treaties involved
in such scenarios will quickly draw other nations into the conflict, escalating it significantly. Strategic
nuclear studies have shown for decades that, under such extreme stress conditions, once a few nukes are
launched, adversaries and potential adversaries are then compelled to launch on perception of
preparations by one's adversary. The real legacy of the MAD concept is his side of the MAD coin that is
almost never discussed. Without effective defense, the only chance a nation has to survive at all, is to
launch immediate full-bore pre-emptive strikes and try to take out its perceived foes as rapidly and
massively as possible. As the studies showed, rapid escalation to full WMD exchange occurs, with a great
percent of the WMD arsenals being unleashed . The resulting great Armageddon will destroy civilization as
we know it, and perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many decades.
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Inherency – Alt Energy Plan is Piecemeal

And we’ve come full circle since 1973 – we still lack a decisive alternative energy policy,
and reliance on foreign fuels demands that an adequate ethanol policy be set by the
government.
Potter 8
(Nancy I., J.D. Candidate @ Washington U School of Law, St. Louis, “How Brazil Achieved Energy
Independence and the Lessons the United States Should Learn from Brazil’s Experience”, 7 Wash. U. Global
Stud. L. Rev. 331, accessed online June 11, p. L/N) DMZ
Although the United States has been aware of its energy supply problem since World War II, n56 it has failed to
develop viable alternative energy sources to supplement domestic oil production and decrease reliance on
foreign oil. n57 While the government has given much lip service to decreasing U.S. reliance on foreign oil and
increasing domestic energy supplies, n58 there has been little success, such that renewable energy in [*339]
2005 compromised only seven percent of the U.S. energy supply. n59 Of the renewable energy consumed in
the United States, n60 only a small portion is used in the transportation sector. n61 "Oil remains at the center of
the transportation sector and at the center of our national energy policy debate." n62
Due to the transportation sector's near-total reliance on petroleum, the lack of success in U.S. energy policy is
felt most acutely there. n63 While other industries are more diversified n64 and are able to switch from one
energy source to another in reaction to rising or falling prices, the transportation industry depends almost
entirely on petroleum for its energy supply. n65 The U.S. approach to energy policy has been sporadic and
piecemeal; n66 what has been lacking is a single coherent and consistent vision supported through times of
calm and crisis. n67 While U.S. energy policy has [*340] periodically received much discussion and attention,
n68
the questions facing the nation have changed very little since the first energy crisis in 1973. "In 30 years,
will we again come full circle and ask ourselves these same questions about our energy future?" n69
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Inherency – Corn Ethanol Now

Corn is now the medium for ethanol production by US politicians.
Kerr 7
(Kevin, Marketwatch, “Dethroning the king of the biofuels: It may be checkmate for corn-based ethanol”,
December 20, accessed online April 29, 2008, p. http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/may-checkmate-
corn-based-ethanol/story.aspx?guid=%7BF5E9F902-79ED-44C9-8B9E-DC1499AE8798%7D) DMZ
So a few years ago the corn-based ethanol boom was born. Initially created by farmers, mostly to be used on
their farms and in the local area, ethanol has grown to be a major privately held industry resembling little of
what it originally was designed to do. Suddenly it was talked about by politicians as a panacea to the energy
problems in the U.S. That storyline was then sold to the public as the answer not only to our country's out of
control energy dependence, but also to provide a new stream of income to farmers in the Midwest. The
rhetoric wasn't a bad political move either.
Upward trends by government set benchmarks make corn the status quo
Geyer, Chong, and Hxue 7

(L. Leon, Phillip, Bill, prf @ Virginia Tech Dept. of Ag and Applied Econ, Research assistants, “Agricultural Law
Symposium & Meeting: Ethanol Biomass Biofuels and Energy A Profile and Overview”, 12 Drake J. Agric. L.
61, Spring, p. L/N) DMZ
According to Robert J. Samuelson, "production of ethanol from corn has surged from 1.6 billion gallons in 2000
to 5 billion in 2006." n20 This production has come from 101 ethanol bio-refineries nationwide which have the
capacity to produce more than 4.8 billion gallons annually. n21 Currently, thirty-nine ethanol refineries and
seven expansions are under construction with a potential combined [*64] annual capacity of nearly 2.5
billion gallons. n22 The upward production trend has been further encouraged by government-set ethanol
mobile-fuel production benchmarks: 35 billion gallons by 2017 with an ultimate goal of 60 billion gallons by
2030. n23
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Inherency – No Cellulose Now

Despite Cellulose representing the most viable means of energy independence, no plant
has been constructed due to high costs.
Smolin 6
(Michael, Prinicple of EXL Group LLC, “Challenges and Opportunities for Energy Alternatives for Transportation
in the United States”, 36 Cumb. L. Rev. 479, accessed online June 25, 2008, p. L/N) DMZ
Fortune Magazine has stated that so-called cellulosic ethanol represents our best opportunity for
development of alternative fuels, providing one of four steps to "kick our longtime oil addiction." n17 The
cellulosic ethanol process consists of digestion of the cellulosic and hemi-cellulosic materials to convert these
constituents to starches and sugars. The starches and sugars can then be fermented by non-aerobic
fermentation (conventional ethanol process) to an ethanol solution that is distilled to pure ethanol. Capital
costs for this complex technology are very high. However, new microbes are being developed that
simultaneously convert cellulose and hemi-cellulose to sugars and the sugars to ethanol. At present, no plant
has been completed to commercialize this technology. The first plant in Jennings, Louisiana, is awaiting
financial commitments to be built and will use sugar cane bagasse. A pilot plant in Canada produces one
million gallons per year. n18 Several other biomass sources are contemplated for cellulosic ethanol plants.
These include corn stover, special fast growing energy crops such as switch-grass, waste agricultural
biomass, and forestry waste. One concern is that stripping the soils of waste biomass will rob the soils of
valuable nutrients being put back into the soil by the rotting of this waste material, but there is little or no
data to support this claim. The availability of biomass sources in the United States makes it a very viable raw
material for the production of fuel-grade ethanol. Meanwhile Brazil has developed its own synthetic fuel
resources based on ethanol in its vehicles using sugar cane as the raw material.
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Inherency – Subsidies for Corn Increasing

All major legislative ethanol bills expand subsidies for domestic corn-ethanol – no
turning back coming anytime soon.
Sautter, Furrey, and Gresham 7

(John A., Laura, and R. Lee, BA From NYU and PHD from UNL, BS From CPSU, BA From College of the Holy
Cross and J.D. Candidate @ Carnegie Mellon’s School of Engineering and Public Policy, all three are research
associates @ the Vermont Institute for Energy and Environment @ Vermont Law School, “Exploring How
Today’s Development Affects Future Generations Around the Globe: In this Issue: Sustainable Energy:
Construction of a Fool’s Paradise: Ethanol Subsidies in America”, 7 Sustainable Dev. L. & Pol’y 26, Spring,
accessed online June 11, p. L/N) DMZ
There are currently a number of bills circulating in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives that
call for amendments promoting the expansion of ethanol use through subsidies to ethanol producers and
distributors. Importantly, none of the bills alter the subsidy scheme that has been used in the past. As a
result, all of the new bills merely add more layers of government intervention and support. [*29] The first is
the American Fuels Act of 2007. n58 The proposed Act offers an incentive for the retail sale of E-85 (fuel blends
of 85 percent ethanol and fifteen percent gasoline) starting at $ 0.35 per gallon (before 2010) and decreasing
to $ 0.10 per gallon in 2012. Furthermore, the bill has incorporated another financial incentive that pays for
50 percent of the equipment used to blend and process ethanol. The incentive caps at $ 2,000,000, the
amount that ethanol producers can garner from the government for the equipment. n59 The bill also includes
tax credits for manufacturers of flexible fuel motor vehicles. Another proposed law is the Dependence
Reduction Through Innovation in Vehicles and Energy Act ("DRIVE Act"), introduced in the House of
Representatives. The bill includes an "Ethanol Action Plan" that calls for ten percent ethanol in the
transportation fuel supply by December 31, 2015. n60 This bill also proposes to amend the Internal Revenue
Code of 1986 by increasing the ethanol tax credit from thirty percent to fifty percent of the cost of any
qualified alternative fuel vehicle refueling property put into service by the taxpayer. A refueling property will
qualify as an alternative fuel vehicle refueling property if at least 85 percent of the volume is ethanol
(amongst other alternative fuels). The Biofuels Security Act of 2007 calls for the increase of renewable fuels
to 60 billion gallons by 2030. The bill also requires the installation of E-85 pumps at an increasing percentage
of refueling stations by "major oil companies" at owned and branded stations. The Biofuels Security Act also
provides incentives for the manufacture of dual fuel vehicles in order to promote the use of vehicles that
utilize ethanol and other alternative fuels. Many of the proposed subsidies being contemplated for ethanol
producers are taking the form of tax incentives. These subsidies operate by making ethanol producers pay
less in taxes, thus keeping more money for investment. One such amendment to the IRS is the E-85
Investment Act of 2007, which would increase the incentives for E-85 "fuel vehicle refueling property" related
to ethanol from 30 percent to 75 percent. n61 Another bill, the Independence from Oil with Agriculture Act of
2007, proposes permanent tax incentives for alternative energy. n62 The Renewable Fuels and Energy
Independence Promotion Act of 2007 further anticipates permanent tax incentives for ethanol and biodiesel.
n63
The "To Encourage Alternatively Fueled Vehicle Manufacturing up for Energy Independence Act of 2007,"
also known as "TEAM up for Energy Independence Act," plans to amend the IRS Code to impose an excise tax
on automobiles sold in the United States that are not compatible with alternative fuels. n64 Other legislation
promoting the use of ethanol is the "Congress Leads by Example through Alt-fuel Resources Act," or the
CLEAR Act, which proposes to prohibit the use of a Member's Representational Allowance to provide any
individual with a vehicle, including providing an individual with a vehicle under a long-term lease, which is not
an alternative fuel vehicle. n65 As their names indicate, these legislative bills attempt to capitalize on the yet
unproven exogenous benefits promised by ethanol producers. Although this pending legislation will not
necessarily be enacted into law, it is important to realize that Congress is contemplating an array of ethanol
subsidies. If even a minority of these ethanol subsidies were passed, it would add to the growing government
largess that artificially supports ethanol production.
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Solvency – Cellulose  More Energy

Cellulosic sources of ethanol can provide up to 8 times the energy of current corn
production.

While corn is currently the primary source of ethanol, it is possible that more efficient sources of energy may
be developed. For example, switchgrass, also called tall panic grass, is a warm-season plant that is thought
by many experts as the ideal alternative to corn for cellulosic ethanol production. n90 In the 2006 State of the
Union Address, President Bush pressed the need for "research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol,
not just form corn, but from . . . switch grass." n91 Preliminary research by USDA scientists has found that
switchgrass has an energy output/input ratio more than 3.5 times greater than corn ethanol. n92 Similarly,
sugar feedstock such as sugar cane and sugar beets offer "more efficient" alternatives to corn based ethanol.
n93
According to scientific data reported by Larry Rohter, Brazil's sugar cane ethanol yields nearly eight times
as much energy as corn-based options. n94
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Solvency – Tech Key

Investment in technology is the only necessary step to allowing our ethanol production
to meet Bush’s goal.

Aside from corn, sugar, and switchgrass based ethanol, cellulosic ethanol is another type of ethanol derived
from biomass which "refers to a wide variety of plentiful materials obtained from plants -- including certain
forest-related resources . . . , many types of solid wood waste materials, and certain agricultural [*74]
wastes (including corn stover) -- as well as plants that are specifically grown as fuel for generating electricity."
n95
Cellulosic ethanol may be seven to eight times more efficient in respect to corn-based ethanol's net energy
balance ratio. n96 Y.H. Percival Zhang of Virginia Tech stated that "if we want to produce 30 to 60 billion gallons
of ethanol, which is what is needed to meet the President's goal, we have to use the entire plant, or the
stover (leaves, stalks, and cobs)." n97 The technology necessary to utilize the entire plant lies in cellulosic
ethanol and requires the "technologies that can break the cellulose into the sugars that are distilled to
produce ethanol." n98 Unfortunately, at this point in time, such technologies are not economically viable
alternatives.
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Solvency – Wood Waste

Wood Waste could easily provide the necessary resources for cellulose expansion.
Sklar 8
Most of the 50 pulp and paper mills in the US use wood waste to supplement natural gas or coal used to fuel
their boilers. They could easily divert this wood waste to make a high-value product such as ethanol. Many of
these mills have local access to abundant untapped sources of wood waste that could be used to produce
cellulosic biofuels. These mills also have the infrastructure needed for on site preprocessing, storage, and
handling of wood waste. All are in a position to provide supplies of wood chips and wood waste that a
cellulosic ethanol plant may need, assuming the cellulosic ethanol plant is situated near each mill. Based on a
recent study of woodland areas of a typical pulp and paper producing state in the US Southeast, we
determined that significant amounts of cellulosic waste could be recovered each year from forest residues left
behind by logging operations and from wastes deposited in urban landfills The study suggested that, if all of
these forestry wastes, mill wastes, and cellulosic wastes taken to landfills were recovered as a new source of
feedstock for cellulosic ethanol plants, there would be enough additional wood waste in the US Southeast to
support 172 new 20-million-gal/year ethanol plants. These could produce 3.432 billion gal/year of cellulosic
ethanol (Table 1). This is quite an untapped potential.
Wood waste is abundantly available and could help farmers with a replacement for
feedstock.
Sklar 8
The best immediately available feedstock for producing cellulosic ethanol is wood waste and wood chips, not
municipal solid waste (MSW) or agricultural waste. MSW has its own set of problems--one is the assumption
that cellulosic ethanol plants can obtain MSW from landfill operators at no cost. Cellulosic ethanol plant
operators often have to pay for presorting and preprocessing before the MSW can be used as a feedstock.
Furthermore, the cellulosic content of MSW is not always uniform, nor are continuous supplies guaranteed,
which could create operating problems. Likewise, although agriwaste is a good source of cellulosic material, it
also has problems. First, outside of the Corn Belt, only a few cellulosic ethanol plants are being designed to
use these materials because collection, storage, and preprocessing is costly. Agriwastes are more costly if
they have to be gathered and transported over long distances to an ethanol plant. There is a lack of
infrastructure for efficiently collecting and processing large quantities of wheat straw, switch grass, and rice
straw, so that they can be efficiently transported in sufficient quantities to cellulosic ethanol plants.
Furthermore, much of this agriwaste is now used in farming as a natural fertilizer, or as an animal feed,
making its availability sometimes limited and more expensive. Conversely, there is an abundant supply of
wood waste to exploit; pulp and paper mills are already set up to acquire additional supplies of wood waste.
These waste materials are logging residue, such as treetops, thinnings (precommercial biomass), as well as
sawmill and lumberyard wastes; they can supply "resident" cellulosic ethanol plants with their cellulosic
feedstock requirements (Table 1). Because they represent materials that mills do not currently use, their
acquisition should not push up prices mills pay for their wood basket.
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Solvency – Tech already exists

The technology already exists to make cellulose expansion happen – it’s just a question
of when.
Sklar 8
Cellulosic ethanol technologies have advanced to the point where many are nearing commercial viability and
are available through a few existing technology providers. Two basic technologies are effective in converting
cellulosic material into renewable liquid transportation fuels. The first is "two-staged thermal with
gasification"; the other is "two-staged concentrated acid hydrolysis." There are many variants for each
technology. In the two-stage thermal with gasification process, devolatization of the wood waste occurs with
controlled high temperature and pressure in a partial steam-reforming gasifier. Syngas is then catalytically
converted into alcohols in distillation towers, using the entire waste stream to produce a high yield of
biofuels, little waste, and low levels of greenhouse gases. This process also has a favorable (3:1) energy-
balance ratio. The two-stage concentrated acid hydrolysis process is designed specifically to convert cellulosic
feedstock into ethanol. One version of this process was perfected on a commercial scale and is patented
under the name Arkenol. This process can separate cellulosic wastes into sugar-bearing and nonsugar-bearing
components to extract the sugars and obtain ethanol using fermentation. The Arkenol process is most
efficient when the cellulose content of the cellulosic material is at least 75%, allowing for a high recovery of
the sugar-bearing cellulose and hemicellulose components, leaving behind less nonsugar-bearing lignin. This
technology is proven and has been used in making ethanol from municipal solid waste, agricultural waste,
and, on a limited scale, wood waste. Better enzymes are now being developed to improve the sugar
fermentation process and increase ethanol yield. In addition, there appears to be significant economies of
scale associated with Arkenol processes (Table 2). Our feasibility study findings showed that the most
economical partially integrated Arkenol plant would be medium sized because the feedstock requirement
could be met using 100% wood waste (Table 3).
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Solvency – Cellulose easy to put into the market

The technology is progressively getting cheaper, and government support can only
increase its usefulness.
Gray and Varcoe 2005

(C. Boyden and Andrew R., President’s nominee for US Ambassador to the EU, “Octane, Clean Air, and
Renewable Fuels: A Modest Step Toward Energy Independence”, 10 Tex. Rev. Law & Pol. 9, Fall, accessed
online July 1, 2008, p. L/N) DMZ
[*55] Happily, today's ethanol doesn't have to be made just from corn. Brazilian sugar-based ethanol is
cheaper, n179 but a U.S. tariff offsets the value of the tax credit, distorting competition and raising ethanol
prices for U.S. consumers. n180 Eventually, cellulose - plant fiber - and other kinds of biomass may replace
sugar as the cheapest source of ethanol. n181 Although the production costs are still relatively high, progress is
being made. The Battelle Memorial Institute recently concluded that using biomass to make 50 billion gallons
of ethanol a year - over a quarter of the energy content of the 130 billion gallons of gasoline that Americans
consume for ground transportation each year n182 - would require "a large increase over current biomass use,
but would not result in large impacts on the agricultural system." n183 By the end of the 1990s, according to
the Department of Energy, the cost of cellulosic ethanol was $ 2.30 per gallon. n184 Because of the energy
content difference between ethanol and gasoline, that would be competitive only if the comparable cost for
gasoline were about $ 3.30 per gallon - no longer an implausible scenario in light of recent events. Yet the
[*56] costs of making cellulosic ethanol have fallen since then. n185 For instance, a Danish company,
Novozymes, announced in April 2005 that it had managed to cut thirty-fold the cost of enzymes used to
convert corn cellulose biomass to ethanol, from over $ 5 per gallon in 2001 to 18 cents in 2005. n186 Ironically,
Henry Ford, Charles Kettering of General Motors, and others predicted eighty years ago that alcohol derived
from cellulose would eventually replace gasoline.
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Solvency – Ethanol Mixtures are Enough

Even if we are not a complete dissolution of fossil fuels, shifting to blended fuels is still
beneficial and moves to the market in the direction of full ethanol use.
Gray and Varcoe 2005

(C. Boyden and Andrew R., President’s nominee for US Ambassador to the EU, “Octane, Clean Air, and
Renewable Fuels: A Modest Step Toward Energy Independence”, 10 Tex. Rev. Law & Pol. 9, Fall, accessed
online July 1, 2008, p. L/N) DMZ
A word about ethanol infrastructure should be added here. It might be argued that the major oil companies
make little or no effort to put E85 in their pumps because they do not want it to get a foothold in competing
with their main product. n194 The major companies, after all, are vertically integrated, with major resources
devoted to exploration, production, refining, transportation, and marketing. n195 Without access to the needed
infrastructure, ethanol and other renewable fuels could not [*58] make headway against an established
competitor. n196 Yet we assume that one or more of the majors, or at the very least owners of independent
service stations, would aggressively sell ethanol at their stations given the right economic incentives.
Minnesota, where a concentration of E85 stations is developing, n197 will be an interesting test case for our
assumption. In Thailand, where an explosion of demand for ethanol-blended gasoline has occurred in 2005 (a
six-fold increase in the first five months over the same period in 2004), ExxonMobil's Thai unit has made
plans to install ten percent-ethanol (E10) pumps in all 650 of its Thai stations by 2006. n198
In the meantime, much can be done with gasoline blends containing relatively small amounts of ethanol. E10
gasoline contains the maximum ethanol allowed for U.S. automobiles that are not FFVs. But Minnesota
recently passed a law that would require all gasoline sold in the state to contain twenty percent ethanol (E20)
if certain conditions are met. EPA approval, which is one of the conditions, would likely mean that E20 could
be sold nationwide. n199 In Brazil, conventional gasoline has been over twenty percent ethanol for years. n200
Blending ethanol in small amounts with gasoline does present some environmental challenges. But as the
Natural Resources Defense Council has explained, they are not insurmountable. n201 For example, E10 and
other low-ethanol blends are more [*59] volatile than ordinary gasoline - or straight ethanol. This can result
in higher summer ozone levels. n202 Over time, the problem will diminish, as cleaner, newer vehicles replace
older ones. Even now, it can be addressed by tightening volatility requirements for gasoline itself, which has
been done before and can be done again. n203 That, of course, would not be costless. Yet the added costs
would be more than offset by ethanol's cost advantage over aromatic octane enhancers and by the net air
toxics reductions caused by using ethanol. n204 In short, no additive is perfect, but ethanol is considerably
better than what it would replace. n205 That there are (as always) tradeoffs should not blind us to the overall
picture.
The United States should certainly consider renewable options other than ethanol. For example, we should
consider the use of an ether derived from ethanol, ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE), that is less volatile than
ethanol and is widely used in the European Union. n206 The energy legislation recently [*60] signed by
President Bush requires EPA to conduct a study on the public health, air quality, and water resources effects
of using ETBE, ethanol, and other compounds in gasoline. n207 The study should provide policymakers with
guidance on the issue. n208
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Fossil Fuels  Global Warming

Man-made emissions is the source
Doughton 4
(Sandi, Seattle Times staff reporter, “The truth about global warming”, October 11, accessed online June 12,
2008, p. L/N) DMZ
"With each passing year the evidence has gotten stronger — and is getting stronger still." 1995 was the
hottest year on record until it was eclipsed by 1997 — then 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. Melting ice has
driven Alaska Natives from seal-hunting areas used for generations. Glaciers around the globe are shrinking
so rapidly many could disappear before the middle of the century. As one study after another has pointed to
carbon dioxide and other man-made emissions as the most plausible explanation, the cautious community of
science has embraced an idea initially dismissed as far-fetched. The result is a convergence of opinion rarely
seen in a profession where attacking each other's work is part of the process. Every major scientific body to
examine the evidence has come to the same conclusion: The planet is getting hotter; man is to blame; and
it's going to get worse.
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Corn  Global Warming

Grain ethanol not only contributes as much pollution as fossil fuels, but creates new
environmental dilemma through runoff – crops with higher cellulose content don’t run
into this problem.
Armas 7
DMZ
On closer inspection, ethanol produced from corn may generate as much pollution as the fossil fuels it
replaces and may create new environmental problems. n9 Due to the growing demand for ethanol, farmers
intend to plant an estimated 88 million acres of corn this year, the equivalent of covering Florida, Georgia,
and South Carolina in corn. n10 In addition, farmers will likely reduce crop rotation and replant fallow fields,
which will increase the use of fertilizers and insecticides and result in greater pollution run-off into our water
system. n11 To replace the United States' current dependence on gasoline (140 billion gallons per year) would
take approximately 350 million acres of corn (assuming 400 gallons per acre per year of ethanol). n12 Since
greater ethanol production results from plants with higher cellulose content, switchgrass or sugar cane should
be used to produce ethanol, and thus, minimize the amount of land cultivated. n13
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Consumption High Now

Energy consumption is at an all time high
Washington Post 7
(September 5th, p. L/N) DMZ
It has been 30 years since President Jimmy Carter delivered a call to action on energy, calling the issue "the
moral equivalent of war." Like today's lawmakers, he warned that the United States risked compromising its
foreign-policy latitude, the economy and the environment. Yet the nation's energy picture is more dire today.
The United States last year spent eight times as much on oil imports as it did 30 years ago. Oil imports
account for more than 60 percent of U.S. consumption, up from just 25 percent when Carter spoke. The
average American today uses about 70 barrels of oil a year; Carter said that in 1977 the average American
used the energy equivalent of 60 barrels of oil.
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Free Market not reacting fast enough

The free market isn’t enough – slow progress of science will ensure we become the
ultimate victims.
Brandenburg and Paxon 1999

(Rocket Scientist and Science Editor, “Dead Mars, Dying Earth”, p. 269-0, NetLibrary) DMZ
The environmental issues we are facing are time critical. This is an emergency. There is so much at stake. We
are truly facing life and death issues that will affect the entire population of the planet. Some of us, even tens
of millions of us, possibly hundreds of millions, perhaps even all of us, will be dramatically affected. This is
precisely why every voice counts. We must act quickly, especially as the scientific process doesn't necessarily
provide completely solid answers fast enough for the circumstances we are in. But, often, excessively speedy
research methods do not produce "good" science. Slow, careful, and methodical are the watchwords for
producing good science through the traditional methods of research applied to environmental sciences. So,
Earth's immediate need for environmental remediation may be thwarted by the slow progress of science. The
model doesn't apply very well. It's not the time to do environmental impact studies when your house is
burning down. First you put out the fire, then you figure out what went wrong. There are other scientific
models, however. There are models that have a sound grounding in scientific reality that do allow remedies,
based on the best available information, to be applied quickly. Given the terrible consequences we may face if
we wait too long, we propose to begin healing our environment, and to consider adapting other models for
our purposes.
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Reducing emissions now better than later

Warming is a time sensitive issue – stalling is bad as the future will require
exponentially greater reductions.
Dotto 2k
(Science Writer, Canadian Science Writers Association awardee, “Storm Warming”, p. 184-5, Netlibrary) DMZ
There's little doubt that industries would find a gradual adjustment more palatable than a sudden one, but it
doesn't follow that there's little or no price to be paid for waiting. Even accepting the questionable claim that
"most scientists" don't expect serious impacts for "many decades," it misses the point. The issue is not when
the serious impacts will first show up, but how long they will continue to worsen afterward. The idea that
there will "still be plenty of time to act" ignores the fact that it takes a long time for the atmosphere and
oceans to respond to changes in greenhouse gas emissions. Even if it does take decades for "serious impacts"
to appear, it will take many more decades after that, perhaps a century or more, for those impacts to reverse
themselves in response to cuts in greenhouse gas emissionsassuming, of course, that the climate system
doesn't trip over an irreversible threshold into a significantly different state. We've seen that, with business-
as-usual emission scenarios, it will be virtually impossible to avoid a doubling of CO2 by the end of the 21st
century, and a tripling is not impossible. Moreover, with such scenarios, atmospheric greenhouse gas
concentrations will continue rising after 2100, in some cases substantially. If we do nothing for another few
decades and then find proof that global warming really is happening, we can't stop it on a dime-not even in
the unlikely event that we manage to stop our emissions on a dime. If we continue pumping greenhouse
gases into the atmosphere at an accelerating rate until the day scientists prove to the satisfaction of the
fossil fuel industry and the skeptics that global warming is real, then we will very likely have major trouble on
our hands until well into the 22nd century. The IPCC report points out, moreover, that "decisions taken during
the next few years may limit the range of possible policy options in the future, because high near-term
emissions would require deeper reductions in the future." While delay might reduce the cost of avoidance
measures by allowing time for technological advances, it would likely increase both the rate and the eventual
magnitude of climate change and, in turn, increase the costs associated with the damage it causes and
measures to adapt to it. Danny Harvey of the University of Toronto argues that delay could result in higher,
rather than lower, costs because of "lost windows of opportunity." For example, it's less expensive to design
cities at the outset to require less vehicle use and encourage energy efficiency than to redesign them later.
Delay might force an acceleration of capital turnover, which could be very expensive, especially if climatic
impacts are worse than expected.
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GW Bad – Probability
And climate is very balanced – even slight emissions can cause drastic changes.
Gelbspan 97
(Pulitzer Prize Winner, “The Heat is On”, p. 30, NetLibrary) DMZ
Ancient ice cores are made of annual layers of frozen water, which hold natural records of our ancient
atmosphere. Several years ago researchers examining them found that those ice age transitions, involving
temperature changes of up to 10 degrees Celsius, occurred within the space of only ten years-a virtual
millisecond in geological time. In the last 70,000 years, they learned, the earth's climate has snappedabruptly
and dramatically-into radically different temperature regimes. "Our results suggest that the present climate
system is very delicately poised," said Scott Lehman, a researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution, announcing findings in 1993. "The system could snap suddenly between very different conditions
with an abruptness that is scary. It's a strongly non-linear response, meaning shifts could happen very rapidly
if conditions are right, and we cannot predict when that will occur. Our studies tell us only that when a shift
occurs, it could be very sudden." In an interview with The Boston Globe he added, "You don't want to push
your luck by perturbing the system. A small effect might produce a major change."
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GW Bad – Timeframe
And we can’t wait – we can overpass a threshold making catastrophe inevitable.
Oppenheimer and Boyle 90

(Prof of Geosciences and Intl Affairs @ Princeton, “Dead Heat: The Race Against the Greenhouse Effect”, p.
84-85, NetLibrary) DMZ
Warming beyond three degrees, the boundary of experience for the modern human species, is like going over
a cliff with little notion of how far we will fall. Circumstances are changing so rapidly that, even without
knowing it, we may approach the edge in a few short years. The faster we emit greenhouse gases, the further
we will be committed to an overshoot before much can be done, and the harder the fall will be when the
effects are manifest. As with Wile E. Coyote, we will have gone quite far past the edge before we understand
our situation.
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GW Bad – Oscillation
And if you live in the Midwest, you’ll care – heating of the Earth increases moisture
momentum making every storm larger and more destructive.
Stocker 1
(T.F, Professor of Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute, University of Bern, Switzerland, IPCC
Third Assessment Report, Climate Change 2001: Working Group I: The Scientific Basis, Chapter 7. Physical
Climate Processes and Feedbacks, 2001, http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar...df/TAR-07.PDF) DMZ
Because moisture convergence is likely to be proportionately enhanced as the moisture content increases, it
should lead to similarly enhanced precipitation rates. Moreover, the latent heat released feed back on the
intensity of the storms. These factors suggest that, while global precipitation exhibits a small increase with
modest surface warming, it becomes increasingly concentrated in intense events, as is observed to be
happening in many parts of the world (Karl et al., 1995), including the USA (Karl and Knight, 1998), Japan
(Iwashima and Yamamoto, 1993) and Australia (Suppiah and Hennessy, 1998), thus increasing risk of
flooding. However, the overall changes in precipitation must equal evaporation changes, and this is smaller
percentage-wise than the typical change in moisture content in most model simulations (e.g., Mitchell et al,
1987: roads et al., 1996). Thus there are implications for the frequency of storms or other factors (duration,
efficiency, etc.) that must come into play to restrict the total precipitation. One possibility is that individual
storms could be more intense from the latent heat enhancement, but are fewer and farther between Itren
berth, 1998, 1999).
And only a few years of such oscillation will result in the deaths of billions.
Milbrath 94
(Lester, Director of the Research Program in Environment and Society @ the State University of New York,
“The Futurist”, p. xi) DMZ
Another scenario suggests that there could be an extended period, perhaps a decade or two, when there is
oscillation-type chaos in the climate system. Plants will be especially vulnerable to oscillating chaos, since
they are injured or die when climate is too hot or too cold, too dry or too wet. And since plants make food for
all other creatures, plant dieback would lead to severe declines in agricultural production. Farm animals and
wildlife would die in large numbers. Many humans also would starve. Several years of climate oscillation could
kill billions of people.
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GW Bad – Extinction by Cooking

Fossil fuel reliance will eventually open up the ozone, making the Earth a giant oven,
guaranteeing extinction.

One can imagine a scenario for global catastrophe that runs similarly. If the human race adopted a mentality
like the crew aboard the ship Californian-as some urge, saying that both ozone hole and global warming will
disappear if statistics are properly examined, and we need do nothing about either-the following scenario
could occur. The world goes on its merry way and fossil fuels continue to power it. Rather than making painful
or politically difficult choices, such as investing in fusion research or enacting a rigorous plan of conserving,
the industrial world chooses to muddle through the temperature climb. Let's imagine that America and
Europe are too worried about economic dislocation to change course. The ozone hole expands, driven by a
monstrous synergy with global warming that puts more catalytic ice crystals into the stratosphere, but this
affects the far north and south and not the major nations' heartlands. The seas rise, the tropics roast but the
media networks no longer cover it. The Amazon rainforest becomes the Amazon desert. Oxygen levels fall,
but profits rise for those who can provide it in bottles. An equatorial high pressure zone forms, forcing drought
in central Africa and Brazil, the Nile dries up and the monsoons fail. Then inevitably, at some unlucky point in
time, a major unexpected event occurs-a major volcanic eruption, a sudden and dramatic shift in ocean
circulation or a large asteroid impact (those who think freakish accidents do not occur have paid little
attention to life or Mars), or a nuclear war that starts between Pakistan and India and escalates to involve
China and Russia . . . Suddenly the gradual climb in global temperatures goes on a mad excursion as the
oceans warm and release large amounts of dissolved carbon dioxide from their lower depths into the
atmosphere. Oxygen levels go down precipitously as oxygen replaces lost oceanic carbon dioxide. Asthma
cases double and then double again. Now a third of the world fears breathing. As the oceans dump carbon
dioxide, the greenhouse effect increases, which further warms the oceans, causing them to dump even more
carbon. Because of the heat, plants die and burn in enormous fires which release more carbon dioxide, and
the oceans evaporate, adding more water vapor to the greenhouse. Soon, we are in what is termed a
runaway greenhouse effect, as happened to Venus eons ago. The last two surviving scientists inevitably
argue, one telling the other, "See! I told you the missing sink was in the ocean!" Earth, as we know it, dies.
After this Venusian excursion in temperatures, the oxygen disappears into the soil, the oceans evaporate and
are lost and the dead Earth loses its ozone layer completely. Earth is too far from the Sun for it to be the
second Venus for long. Its atmosphere is slowly lost-as is its water-because of ultraviolet bombardment
breaking up all the molecules apart from carbon dioxide. As the atmosphere becomes thin, the Earth
becomes colder. For a short while temperatures are nearly normal, but the ultraviolet sears any life that tries
to make a comeback. The carbon dioxide thins out to form a thin veneer with a few wispy clouds and dust
devils. Earth becomes the second Mars-red, desolate, with perhaps a few hardy microbes surviving. In what
was once Egypt, near a large but dried-out river bed, a group of pyramids and an eroded Sphinx confront the
dead sky. In a distant future a passing probe from another civilization takes a picture, but most of the
scientists who see it are skeptical that it could represent anything artificial and ridicule those who think
otherwise.
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GW Bad – Extinction by Suffocation

Life will be threatened as CO2 emissions will deny the Earth’s ability to produce oxygen
– we literally suffocate to death.

The monitoring of air samples at Mauna Loa was able to reveal a trend that has continued predictably over
time. Since 1955, when monitoring began, to the present, the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen
somewhere between 0.5 and 2.88 parts per million per year. Each year, the blip in the graph that indicates
the change of the seasons takes the line to yet a higher level, irrespective of whether there was a car driving
up the side of the mountain or not.'' Global air contains a little more carbon dioxide every year, and the 1998
reading was the biggest increase in a single year ever recorded. The propane car at the observatory was
eventually abandoned when an increase in traffic of regular cars up the mountain made it pointless to
attempt to maintain the purity of the air to the same high standard. Yet despite the fact that the liquid
propane needed to run the car wasn't readily available in 1972 (and it cost more than gasoline) and that the
expense involved in converting the engine of a single car to propane was about $600, Dr. Pueschel felt that
conversion was worth the additional expense, even for the average car owner. Dr. Pueschel knew something
that virtually no one else knew: what a single automobile could do to air quality. He personally had witnessed
the impact a lone car had made on the monitoring equipment. "Someday we will have to pay, and it won't be
cheap," he predicted. Dr. Pueschel had also seen the relentless upward climb of the meedle measuring carbon
dioxide in the global atmosphere during the previous two decades. Could his warning have been any more
clear? "We take for granted our air is free, but someday we just won't have it anymore." ' The wisdom of
hindsight may illuminate what he really meant when he told the newspaper why they had bought the propane
car. Gradually, incrementally, we are changing Earth's atmosphere. But are we slowly altering our atmosphere
away from something that supports human life toward something deadly like the atmosphere of Mars? Such
an atmosphere would have been very familiar to Joseph Black, who isolated the very first atmospheric gas.
Unitarian minister Joseph Priestley would have recognized the atmosphere of Mars as well. So would coal
miners from the early part of the 20th century and the canary that lay gasping at the bottom of the cage, for
the atmosphere of Mars is made of fixed air. The atmosphere of Mars is made of blackdamp. The atmosphere
of Mars is made of carbonic acid gas. The atmosphere of Mars is made of a substance that has over time had
many names reflecting the toxic side of its nature. While today we call all of them "carbon dioxide" (which we
think of as a benign product of our own bodies and the harmless bubbles in soda pop), this substance has
clearly not always been viewed as a harmless gas. Nor should it be in the future, for it is time once again to
inform our opinions about this substance and recognize its invisible, dark side. As long as a stylus attached to
the monitoring equipment in some lonely station on the top of an inactive volcano in Hawaii continues to etch
a line ratcheting upward-showing the increased amounts of carbon dioxide that, year after year, flood our
atmosphere, threatening us-then we too must think of it very differently. It isn't a matter of speculation. It is a
matter of hard, cold scientific fact supported by numerous studies conducted by many respected scientists. In
the overwhelming majority they agree: Earth's atmosphere has far too much of what we now must think of as
carbon die-oxide. It is warming our planet to the point where life, human life, is endangered. We are going to
have to do something decisive and effective about this killer. No matter how successful or enlightened we
think ourselves to be, we are not exempt from the need to act-in the same way that we are not exempt from
the need to breathe.
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GW Bad – Economic Collapse

Warming risks economic catastrophe – business relies on the environment and other life
– takes our your economy DA’s.

It is not a time for seeking certainties, it is a time for estimating risks-the probability of human complicity in
global change, multiplied by the damage that will accrue if we do not desist. Since the potential damage is
terrible, even a low probability is enough to argue that certain activities should cease. There are scientists
who insist that all the effects, from deformed frogs to ozone holes, to, finally, greenhouse gas-induced global
warming trends, are either illusory or misunderstood natural effects. How certain can they be? Given the
potentially life-threatening consequences, shouldn't we err on the side of safety? Having identified the
probable human causes, isn't it better to dramatically curtail these activities? If we are cautious, even overly
cautious, little damage will ensue other than a slowing down in economic growth. But if we fail to act, to act
conservatively-to conserve life on Earth-then the real price in catastrophic economic losses could bring the
U.S. economy and the world's economy to their knees. British Environment Minister Michael Meacher has
suggested that, "People are starting to wake up to the cost of devastating climate change." He warned that
the economic costs of rising seas, hurricanes, flooding and heat waves will "dwarf the costs of trying to
prevent them."" It is reasonable to ask how problems such as global warming can be remedied with the
minimum of economic detriment and dislocation, especially for the poor. Economic dislocation kills people as
surely as does pollution or climatic change. But it is also reasonable to consider that, while the economic
costs of environmental problems accrue to everyone, as with most environmental problems, the burdens fall
disproportionately on the poor. Yet, economic consequences can cut both ways, since there may also be
economic benefits for those companies and organizations that innovate and develop new energy solutions, as
Amory Lovins at the Aspen Institute points out so powerfully. Nevertheless, fears about the economy do not
represent an adequate justification to delay solving the problems of carbon dioxide. If we are truly committed
to a vibrant world economy, the best strategy would be to make an all-out effort to ensure that safe, low-cost,
lowcarbon energy is available to everyone.
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GW Bad – Disease
Global warming threatens infectious disease at a time that public health systems are on
the brink – threatens human extinction.
Dotto 2k
(Science Writer, Canadian Science Writers Association awardee, “Storm Warming”, p. 149-52, Netlibrary) DMZ
Global warming skeptics have vigorously attacked suggestions of a link between climate change and
infectious diseases. The World Climate Report claims that advocates of greenhouse gas cuts are trying to
scare the public by alleging that a warmer climate would cause death and disease. Some skeptics argue that
if any health problems arise, health care and social support systems will cope with them. Leaving aside the
fact that billions of people don't have access to even the most basic health care and social support systems
(some of whom, it should be noted, live in developed countries like Canada and the U.S.), there is the
question of financing. As Scheraga said, "effective health care comes at a cost. There are those who argue we
can adapt, but even if that's true, adaptation costs something and those resources must be diverted from
other activities." In any event, there are doubts about how well the much-vaunted health care systems of
industrialized countries would respond to added pressures caused by an increase in climate- and weather-
related health problems. Many are hard-pressed to deal with existing demands. In the U.S., with a mostly
private health system, more than 40 million people are without basic medical coverage. Nor is the U.S. health
care system well prepared to respond to natural disasters, according to emergency medicine specialists who
spoke at a 1996 conference at the University of Colorado. The report summarizing their remarks said the U.S.
will face "significant problems in providing sufficient emergency medical resources at the local level following
catastrophic disasters." They attributed the lack of medical preparedness to several factors, including
fragmentation and downsizing of hospitals and health support systems, increased costs, and confusion in
emergency planning. In Canada, where the public health care system until recently has been a source of
national pride, there's also mounting concern about the erosion caused by years of government cutbacks.
There are ominous signs that the system is starting to crumble from the stress of too much demand and too
few resources. With the baby boom generation just entering its senior years, the situation will continue to
deteriorate unless these trends are reversed. It's hard to be sanguine about the ability of this system to
handle additional pressures stemming from climate change and weather extremes. Some infectious disease
experts have also expressed concern about failures of public health infrastructure all over the world. There's
worrying evidence that disease outbreaks are increasing everywhere, including in developed countries. A
1995 study by Ann Platt of the World Watch Institute found that mortality from infectious diseases was rising
worldwide and that these diseases accounted for a third of all deaths, more than those caused by cancer and
heart disease combined. The CDC found that U.S. deaths with infectious disease as an underlying cause
increased by 58% between 1980 and 1992 (39% when adjusted for population aging). Contrary to previous
predictions that infection diseases would wane in the U.S., "these data show that infectious disease mortality
has actually been increasing in recent years," said Robert Pinner of the CDC. The crisis results from both the
emergence of new diseases and the reemergence of old diseases like tuberculosis, once thought beaten in
developed countries. The growing drug resistance of many disease organisms is an added problem that could
be exacerbated by climate change. A warming climate is likely to accelerate the reproduction of parasites,
facilitating genetic adaptations that help them fend off drugs and other control methods. Climate change may
also reduce the effectiveness of programs to control disease-carrying vectors. Platt blamed the global
increase in infectious diseases on a "deadly mix of exploding populations, rampant poverty, inadequate
health care, misuse of antibiotics, and severe environmental degradation." She noted that 80% of all disease
in developing countries stems from unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation. Even in the U.S., with its
advanced sanitation facilities, water-borne diseases cost an estimated $20 billion a year. A 1993 outbreak of
cryptosporidium, which affected more than 400,000 people, was partly caused by a nonfunctioning water
filtration plant; similar deficiencies have been found in other U.S. cities. Even with all its resources, the U.S.
public health system hasn't been able to prevent either the resurgence of old diseases like tuberculosis or
outbreaks of emerging diseases like hantavirus and Lyme disease. When skeptics argue that the best way to
cope with infectious diseases is to improve sanitation and other public health measures, there's often an
assumption that this is not a big problem. The World Climate Report, for example, states that dealing with
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cholera is "simple"-merely a matter of filtering and chlorinating the water supply. "A warmer climate, if it were
to occur, would not reduce the effectiveness of these water purification measures." While this is true, it's
hardly the point. The effectiveness of purification measures is irrelevant if they're not implemented, and the
fact is, they're not being implemented nearly enough as it is. If this were really that simple a matter, it would
long since have been accomplished. However, many countries are stymied by budget cuts, population
growth, and grinding poverty (which has been described as the deadliest disease of all). Eradicating world
poverty is hardly more trivial a challenge than preventing global warming. We're not dealing particularly well
today with the threat of infectious diseases. Indeed, there's evidence that we're losing ground, even in
developed countries. There's little reason to assume our already stressed public health systems can readily
handle an increased threat caused by global warming. At a conference sponsored by the U.S. National
Academy of Sciences, scientists concluded that, while more research is needed to reduce uncertainties in
linking climate change and infectious diseases, "the lack of complete data should not be used as an excuse
for inaction. Instead, the precautionary principle should apply: If the risk to public health is great, even if there
is uncertainty, both policy and action should be biased in favor of precaution." A report by the World Health
Organization notes that humans can probably deal with even fairly major climatic changes-after all, they live
in nearly all climatic environments right now-but the adjustments needed to do this could be substantial,
expensive, and "may require many sacrifices in life-style and wellbeing to re-establish and maintain the basic
needs." All aspects of life-housing, clothing, nutrition, mobility, education, health services, industrial
production, and much of the established infrastructure-would be affected. This reality highlights one of the
oddest aspects of the argument that improved social and health care programs can handle any health
problems global warming may throw our way-which is that it's so often proffered by people who generally are
not enthusiastic supporters of government spending on social programs or foreign aid. It seems rather
disingenuous to urge delay in cutting greenhouse gas emissions on the grounds that social programs are a
better way of coping with health problems caused by global warming. One wonders if this can be taken as an
endorsement of spending whatever's needed to eradicate world poverty and provide everyone with adequate
medical care, clean water, and air conditioning.
GW Bad – Outweighs Nuclear War
Even if nuclear war happens, it can be limited and people can hide – global warming
doesn’t allow this even.
Hunter 3
(Founder of Greenpeace, “Thermageddon”, p. 58-9, Net Library) DMZ
Even though, from the beginning, Rachel Carson had warned of worldwide chemical fallout patterns, the
individuals who were most sensitive to her message believed (some still do) it must be possible to find a
haven or refuge outside The System, somewhere beyond the reach of the thrashing tails of the dying urban
dinosaurs. The back-to-the-land movement, with its flurry of communes being set up as close to the end of
the road as possible, in remote valleys or on the shores of isolated bays, was a reenactment of the North
American pioneer stage, embodying the same spirit of independence and naive faith in Utopia. A fantasy
existed that even a nuclear war was survivable if you lived far enough away from any big cities and you had a
supply of seeds, some solar panels, iodine pills, a gun, and a copy of The Whole Earth Catalogue. And it was
true, should the nuclear exchange be limited, that it was just possible there would be survivors out in the
bush and the countryside, somewhat unscathed. In the face of a truly drastic climate flip of the ecosystem,
unfortunately, there ultimately will be no safe, remote places left anywhere. The Pacific Northwest's
coniferous forests are expected to last longer than boreal forests, as rising temperatures turn the glacial
moraine into a frying pan, but with climate itself affected, everything - everywhere - is affected. The skies and
air and water of even Walden Pond are already degraded and slipping further. If the sudden global heating we
have triggered does indeed activate an ice age, there will be no place in the entire northern hemisphere to
hide. In the worst-case situation, a runaway greenhouse effect, there would be no place on Earth, period. The
fantasy of escaping to an organic farm is no longer a reasonable, let alone viable, option. A better, more
realistic hope, by the time my grandson is my age, will be to head out into space. Good luck making the final
crew list, Dexter.
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Even if nuclear war accesses extinction, it can be stopped with last-minute diplomacy –
warming can’t.
Hunter 3
(Founder of Greenpeace, “Thermageddon”, p. 12, Net Library) DMZ
Surely, my contemporaries will argue, the crisis cannot be compared to the threat of an all-out nuclear
exchange, such as we faced until as recently as the 1989 collapse of the Soviet Union. Even by the late 1980,
there was nothing self-evident about the proposition that we would survive until the end of the century. For a
long while, the odds seemed stacked against us. But we did not nuke ourselves, and thus it can be said that
humanity has demonstrated a remarkable gift for last-minute salvation -or incredible luck. Either way, all
history since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 can rightly be described as borrowed time. Collectively, we had
a near-death experience. We thought we had survived rather nicely, only to look up when the dust of the Cold
War settled and see a climate cataclysm rumbling towards us that could have as devastating an impact on
the northern hemisphere as a nuclear exchange. And, if one can bear to think about it, this raises the even
more soul-crushing question of how we are affecting the millennial cycle of climate. Contemplate that. Not
just the next few generations affected, but generation after generation after generation. We won the struggle
against those who would have nuked us all, but now it is all of us who are doing the nuking. It was a relatively
simple business, in retrospect, avoiding nuclear destruction. All we had to do was make sure no one pushed
The Button. What do you do to prevent half a billion vehicles' ignition keys from being turned on?
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Alternative Energies Solve

Government investment into ethanol production can turn around carbon emissions to an
extent further than even the Kyoto Protocol.
Spaulding 3
Today, due in part to Ford's dream, the United States consumes more oil than any country in the world. n3 As a
result, the United States emits more dangerous carbon gases - gases that significantly contribute to the
greenhouse effect, than any other nation on earth. n4 Automobile consumption is partly responsible for the
United States' incredibly high carbon emissions; 62% of petroleum used is in the transportation industry. n5
The greenhouse effect is a phenomenon accepted by most scientists. n6 These scientists believe that while the
greenhouse effect is a natural process, it has become a serious threat to life on earth because of human
aggravation. n7 As support for its existence, these scientists point to the growing number of natural disasters
and the increase in global temperatures. n8 Believers offer "grim possibilities for the future if global warming is
not harnessed." n9 [*279] In 1997, in an effort to reverse the greenhouse effect, a number of world leaders
met in Kyoto, Japan and developed a plan designed to combat global warming: the Kyoto Protocol (Kyoto or
Protocol). n10 While the Protocol exempts developing nations, it calls for industrial countries to reduce their
annual greenhouse gas emissions by an average of five percent below 1990 levels. n11 The Protocol includes
various mechanisms designed to help countries meet their reduction requirements. These include a joint
implementation mechanism, a clean development mechanism, and an emissions trading mechanism. n12
Despite the fact that the leaders of almost every country signed the document, the world's largest polluter,
the United States, refused to participate. n13 Although the United States rejected the Kyoto agreement, the
nation remains bound by the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCC or Framework). In 1992,
the United States Senate ratified the Framework, which requires signatories to reduce emissions regardless of
whether the science behind global warming is questionable. n14 Consequently, even without Kyoto, the United
States must act to reduce its domestic emissions. This Note will argue that the United States could effectively
meet its environmental obligations, and alleviate a number of non-environmental problems, by returning to
Diesel's early vision: power from vegetables. A Congressional bill mandating the use of renewable fuels,
including ethanol and biodiesel, could provide the United States and the international community with a
solution to the greenhouse problem superior to Kyoto. To reach this conclusion, this Note will discuss the
climate change problem and the international community's solution, the Kyoto Protocol. Then, this Note will
examine the United States' response to Kyoto and why Bush's solution is inadequate.
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AT: No Impact to Warming

The impacts of warming will only magnify in the future – just because we don’t see a
‘problem’ now is NOT a reason why the situation won’t get worse.
Spaulding 3
Although experts may differ in opinion about exactly how global warming may negatively impact the Earth,
most agree that the problem will only worsen as time goes on. As a Department of Energy report recently
stated, "the direness of the GHG emission problem is compounded by the prediction that worldwide energy
consumption is expected to increase by seventy-five percent between 1995 and 2020, leading to a
proportionate increase in GHG emissions." n29 This increased concentration of GHGs in the Earth's atmosphere
is expected to cause tens of thousands of premature deaths and illnesses, such as asthma, chronic bronchitis,
and heart disease each year. n30 Additionally, one study estimates that the global climate change's impact on
agricultural output will cause thirty million more people to be hungry. n31 Given the direness of these future
predictions, it is critical that the global community act to reverse the harmful consequences growing
emissions will have on the planet.
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Global Warming Exists – Science Proves

Warming now – overwhelming scientific consensus.
Johansen 2
(Prof. of Comm @ UNO, “The Global Warming Desk Reference”, p. 1-2, NetLibrary) DMZ
For the past two centuries, at an accelerating rate, the basic composition of the Earth's atmosphere has been
materially altered by the fossil-fuel effluvia of machine culture. Human-induced warming of the Earth's
climate is emerging as one of the major scientific, social, and economic issues of the twenty-first century, as
the effects of climate change become evident in everyday life in locations as varied as small island nations of
the Pacific Ocean and the shores of the Arctic Ocean. "The risks of global warming are real, palpable, the
effects are accumulating daily, and the costs of correcting the trend rise with each day's delay," warns Dr.
George M. Woodwell, Director of the Woods Hole Research Center (Eco Bridge N.d.). Dean Edwin Abrahamson,
a early leader in the field, comments: "Fossil fuel burning, deforestation, and the release of industrial
chemicals are rapidly heating the earth to temperatures not experienced in human memory. Limiting global
heating and climatic change is the central environmental challenge of our time" (Abrahamson 1989, xi).
Evidence has been accumulating that sustained, human-induced warming of the Earth's lower troposphere
has been in progress since about 1980, accelerating during the 1990s. During 1997 and 1998, the global
temperature set records for 15 consecutive months; July of 1998 averaged 0.6 of a degree F. higher than July
of 1997, an enormous increase if maintained year to year. The year 1998 was the warmest of the millennium,
topping 1997 by a quarter of a degree F. (Christianson 1999, 275). Alarm bells have been ringing regarding
global warming in the scientific community for the better part of two decades. A statement issued in Toronto
during June, 1988, representing the views of more than 300 policymakers and scientists from 46 countries,
the United Nations, and other international organizations warned Humanity is conducting an unintended,
uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to nuclear
war. The earth's atmosphere is being changed at an unprecedented rate by pollutants resulting from human
activities, inefficient and wasteful fossil fuel use and the effects of rapid population growth in many regions.
These changes are already having harmful consequences over many parts of the globe. (Abrahamson, Global
Warming, 1989, 3) Michael Meacher, speaking as Great Britain's environment minister, has said, "Combating
climate change is the greatest challenge of human history" (P. Brown 1999, 44). If the atmosphere's carbon
dioxide level doubles over preindustrial levels, which is likely (at present rates of increase) before the year
2100, climate models indicate that temperatures may rise 1.9 to 5.2 degrees C. (3.4 to 9.4 degrees F.) within
a century, producing "a climate warmer than any in human history. The consequences of this amount of
warming are unknown and could include extremely unpleasant surprises" (National Academy 1991, 2).
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Global Warming Exists – Man Made

It’s not just an environmental phenomena – it’s human made.
Pew Center for Climate Change 1

(Ed. Eileen Cluassen, Chairman of the Board, “Climate Change: Science, Strategies, and Solutions”, p. 7-8,
NetLibrary) DMZ
The composition of the atmosphere has changed markedly since pre-industrial times: CO2 concentration has
risen from about 280 parts per million (ppm) to around 370 ppm today, CH4 has risen from about 700 parts
per billion (ppb) to over 1700 ppb, and N20 has increased from about 270 ppb to over 310 ppb. Halocarbons,
largely nonexistent prior to the 1950s, are now present in amounts that have a noticeable greenhouse effect.
Pre-industrial levels of greenhouse gases are known because the composition of ancient air trapped in
bubbles in ice cores from Antarctica can be measured directly (Etheridge et al., 1998; Gulluk et al., 1998).
These ice cores show that the concentrations of these gases are much higher than in preindustrial times and
far exceed levels of the preceding 10,000 years. Human activity - fossil-fuel burning, land-use changes,
production and use of halocarbons, etc. - is the dominant cause of these changes in atmospheric composition.
Human activity is the undeniable source of atmospheric halocarbons (the most climatically important of which
are the chlorofluorocarbons, CFC11 and CFC12) because the vast majority of these gases do not occur
naturally. Today, many halocarbons are controlled under the Montreal Protocol ,2 and substitute chemicals,
which do not cause ozone depletion and so are not controlled, are being introduced. These new gases, like all
halocarbons, are strong greenhouse gases (although their net effects on future climate are expected to be
small relative to C02). For C02, CH4, and N2O, the human role is virtually certain too, partly because their
changes since pre-industrial times have been so large and at such unprecedented rates, and also because
computer simulations provide an unequivocal link between the emissions of these gases in recent decades
and observed changes in atmospheric composition. In addition to the gases mentioned above, anthropogenic
emissions of the reactive gases, carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NO,), and volatile organic
compounds (VOCs) such as butane and propane have increased concentrations of tropospheric ozone.
Tropospheric ozone (03) is a powerful greenhouse gas. Most greenhouse gases also have natural sources.
However, in pre-industrial times emissions were balanced by natural removal or "sink" processes. Human
activities have disturbed this balance.
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Global Warming Exists – Consensus

Overwhelming consensus proves warming theory
Johansen 2
(Prof of Comm @ UNO, “The Global Warming Desk Reference”, p. 49, NetLibrary) DMZ
The public policy debate regarding global warming has often conveyed an impression that scientists are
hopelessly divided over the issue of whether human activities are warming the lower atmosphere. In
actuality, a high degree of agreement has existed since the IPCC's First Assessment was published in 1990.
The IPCC's first major report forecast widely varying temperature rises by region with an assumed doubling of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The largest increases (six to seven degrees C.) were forecast in the
interiors of northern North America and Asia during the winter; increases in the summer for the same regions
were forecast at between three and four degrees C. The largest summer temperature increase (4.8 degrees
C.) was forecast for interior southern Asia. the smallest increases year-round were forecast for the tropics,
especially areas near large bodies of water. An IPCC conference during November, 1990, at Geneva,
Switzerland, issued a "ministerial declaration" representing 137 countries which agreed that while climate
had varied in the past, "[t]he rate of climate change predicted by the IPCC to occur over the next century
[due to greenhouse warming] is unprecedented." The ministers declared, "[C]limate change is a global
problem of unique character" (Jager and Ferguson 1991, 525). The ministers also declared that the eventual
goal should be "to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that would prevent dangerous
anthropogenic interference with climate" (Jager and Ferguson 1991, 536). The question of whether the Earth
is becoming unnaturally warmer because of huuman activities was largely settled in scientific circles by 1995,
with publication of the Second Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a
worldwide group of about 2,500 experts. The panel concluded that the earth's temperature had increased
between 0.5 and 1.1 degrees F. (0.3 to 0.6 degrees C.) since reliable worldwide records became available
between 1850 and 1900. The IPCC noted that warming accelerated as measurements approached the present
day (Bolin et al. 1995). The IPCC's Second Assessment concluded that human activity-increased generation of
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases-is at least partially responsible for the accelerating rise in global
temperatures. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been rising nearly every year due to
increased use of fossil fuels by ever-larger human populations experiencing higher living standards. The
IPCC's Second Assessment, according to one observer, "makes an unprecedented, though qualified,
attribution of the observed climate change to human causes. Though the human signal is still building and
somewhat masked within natural variation, and while there are key uncertainties to be resolved, the Panel
concludes that `the balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global
climate' " (Landsea 1999).
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Global Warming Exists – Not sun spots

Studies disprove sun spots as the source
Johansen 2
(Prof of Comm @ UNO, “The Global Warming Desk Reference”, p. 87, NetLibrary) DMZ
G L O B A L - W A R M I N G S K E P T I C S A N D T H E S U N S P O T C Y C L E Many global-warming skeptics

argue that the sunspot cycle is causing a significant part of the warming that has been measured by surface
thermometers during the twentieth century's final two decades. Accurate measurements of the sun's energy
output have been taken only since about 1980, however, so their archival value for comparative purposes is
severely limited. Michaels, editor of the World Climate Report, cites a study of sunspot-related solar
brightness conducted by Judith Lean and Peter Foukal, who contend that roughly half of the 0.55 degree C. of
warming observed since 1850 is a result of changes in the sun's radiative output. "That would leave," says
Michaels, "at best, 0.28 degree C. [due] to the greenhouse effect" (Michaels 1996). J.J. Lean and her
associates also estimate that approximately one-half of the warming of the last 130 years has resulted from
variations in the sun's delivery of radiant energy to the earth (Lean, Beer, and Bradley 1995). While solar
variability has a role in climate change, Martin I. Hoffert and associates (writing in Nature) believe that those
who make it the primary variable are overplaying their hand: "Although solar effects on this century's climate
may not be negligible, quantitative considerations imply that they are small relative to the anthropogenic
release of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide" (Hoffert et al. 1999, 764).
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Global Warming Exists – Even if it doesn’t, still worth

a try
Uncertainty runs both ways – better to risk living than dying
Gelbspan 97
(Pulitizer Prize Winner, “The Heat is On”, p. 31-2, NetLibrary) DMZ
The naysayers' rallying cry of last resort is uncertainty. We know too little about climate change to act, they
assure us. Until the holes of scientific uncertainty are filled, they warn, it would be irresponsible to
actespecially when action could be costly and, worse, so revolutionary as to disrupt the established order of
things. What they do not mention is that to avoid acting could be to compound, incalculably, the costs of
addressing climate change and its disruptions to civilization. What they do not mention is that uncertainty
cuts both ways. At a recent meeting at Tufts University, Dr. Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, arguably the most academically accomplished of the scientific skeptics, described at great length
the various shortcomings of the climate models and their inability to resolve a number of significant
uncertainties. When he had finished, Dr. Michael McElroy, chairman of Harvard University's department of
earth and planetary sciences, recalled that in the early 1980s scientists had spent several years modeling
projected ozone depletion. "When researchers finally conducted actual ozone measurements in the
atmosphere, their findings were far worse than the worst case scenarios of the models," he said, adding, "Just
because a situation is uncertain does not imply that the underlying reality is benign." Our scientific
knowledge, in other words may even be lagging behind nature. The momentum of globally disrupting climate
change may be further advanced than earth science, with its areas of uncertainty, is currently able to prove.
What we do know is that the earth's systems are showing irrefutable signs of climate-related stress. The
evidence goes beyond computer models and laboratory calculations. It lies in numerous research discoveries
(examined later in this book) about the oceans, the forests, the glaciers, and the soils, and in the dramatic
outbreaks of infectious diseases under the forces of climatic change.
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Food shortages now

Food prices up now – wheat and grain have skyrocketed to decreased grain use for food.
Brown 8
We are witnessing the beginning of one of the great tragedies of history. The United States, in a misguided
effort to reduce its oil insecurity by converting grain into fuel for cars, is generating global food insecurity on
a scale never seen before. (Full report here.) The world is facing the most severe food price inflation in history
as grain and soybean prices climb to all-time highs. As a result, prices of food products such as bread, pasta,
and tortillas, as well as pork, poultry, beef, milk, and eggs, are everywhere on the rise. In Mexico, corn meal
prices are up 60 percent. In Pakistan, flour prices have doubled. China is facing rampant food price inflation,
some of the worst in decades. By late 2007, the U.S. price of a loaf of whole wheat bread was 12 percent
higher than a year earlier, milk was up 29 percent, and eggs were up 36 percent. In Italy, pasta prices were
up 20 percent. The reason: demand is simply outpacing supply. In seven of the last eight years world grain
production has fallen short of consumption. These annual shortfalls have been covered by drawing down
grain stocks, but the carryover stocks—the amount in the bin when the new harvest begins—have now
dropped to 54 days of world consumption, the lowest on record. (See data.)
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Shortages in the future

Increased grain prices bolsters food shortages – food aid programs give less, exports
are decreased – a boost in the price of grain is imminent in the future.
Brown 8
The World Bank reports that for each 1 percent rise in food prices, caloric intake among the poor drops 0.5
percent. Millions of those living on the lower rungs of the global economic ladder, people who are barely
hanging on, will lose their grip and begin to fall off.
Since the budgets of international food aid agencies are set well in advance, a rise in food prices shrinks food
assistance. The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), which is now supplying emergency food aid to 37
countries, is cutting shipments as prices soar. As grain prices climb, a politics of food scarcity is emerging as
exporting countries, including Russia, Argentina, and Viet Nam, are restricting exports to limit the rise in
domestic food prices. There is much to be concerned about on the food front. We enter this new crop year
with the lowest grain stocks on record, the highest grain prices ever, the prospect of a smaller U.S. grain
harvest as several million acres of land that shifted from soybeans to corn last year go back to soybeans, the
need to feed an additional 70 million people, and U.S. distillers wanting 33 million more tons of grain to
supply the new ethanol distilleries coming online this year. Corn futures prices for December 2008 delivery
are higher than those for March, suggesting that market analysts see even tighter supplies after the next
harvest.
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Corn inflates prices

Corn ethanol decreases supply of food corn, inflating the price – all crops that can’t be
rotated take away from food staples.
Topix ‘8
(Thought Monster, “What if gas cost $10 a gallon?”, accessed online May 24, 2008, p.
http://www.topix.com/member/profile/thoughtmonster) DMZ
Although global warming is not proven yet, no one can deny human affect on the environment, really two
separate matters commonly associated together. Ethanol is good except only when corn prices were at $4.00
a bushel and not $6.00. The margins to produce are not there anymore. Also increasing farm land for corn
and sugar most likely takes away land for other crops decreasing the supply of that crop. Yes, there are
exceptions like in the US and the farm land conservation program. But land is a finite resource, and where
do you draw the line on increasing farm land and destroying rain forest and forest land? Plus, it's the US
policy to increase ethanol consumption from last year which inflated corn prices on the world, because,
essentially the 30% of the US corn crops were dedicated to ethanol and US is a net exporter of corn. And
infrastructure for ethanol is not near what oil infrastructure is. How many ethanol stations are near where you
live, if there is it might be one per the 50 gas stations in the 10 mile radius. One big problem with ethanol is
the new debate about food vs fuel, should corn, which is a main staple corn for the world be used as fuel?
Corn directly impacts most all food related items
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EPAct Makes Corn Price Hike Inevitable Now

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 makes a significant expansion of corn production
inevitable.

A bushel of corn will produce 2.79 gallons of ethanol. n99 As stated earlier in this paper, the Energy Policy Act
of 2005 has set a production goal of 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol by 2012. n100 As of 2006, the annual corn
production in the United States was approximately 11 billion bushels. n101 Under the assumption that an
average acre of land yields 146 bushels of corn n102 and that a bushel of corn can currently produce 2.8
gallons of ethanol, n103 in order to achieve the 7.5 billion gallon [*75] goal set forth by the Energy Policy Act
of 2005, current ethanol production methods and technology will require 2.7 billion bushels of corn, n104 nearly
a quarter of current production. Although this rough estimate leaves variables, such as supply and demand
constant, it is certain that an increase of ethanol production will have an unpredictable impact on the corn
market, which will in turn create significant repercussions upon national and world food markets. Lester
Brown, president of Washington D.C. based environmental research group Earth Policy Institute, stated that
"the competition for grain between the world's 800 million motorists who want to maintain their mobility and
its 2 billion poorest people who are simply trying to survive is emerging as an epic issue." n105 The economic
pressure created by corn's increasing demand and limited supply has already been felt around the world.
Since the summer of 2006, "average corn prices have leapt to nearly $ 4 a bushel," n106 the highest in a
decade. Due to the fact corn is the largest component of animal feed, the National Chicken Council has
estimated that "ethanol demand has already increased the price of chicken by six cents per pound
wholesale." n107 In Mexico, increasing corn prices have tripled or quadrupled the price of tortillas. n108 This has
exposed the "country's outsize dependence on tortillas in its diet -- especially among the poor." n109 The
situations within the U.S. chicken and Mexican tortilla industries illustrate the interconnectedness of the
agricultural market system. According to William Lapp, the president of Advanced Economic Solutions, such a
situation may foreshadow "a fairly dramatic inflation scenario for food costs." n110
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Food shortages  collapse of civilization (Brown)

Only a shift from corn can stop the collapse of civilization.
Brown 8
Global Prices to Record Highs”, April 23, accessed online April 29, 2008 p. L/N) DMZ
Business-as-usual is no longer a viable option. Food security will deteriorate further unless leading countries
can collectively mobilize to stabilize population, restrict the use of grain to produce automotive fuel, stabilize
climate, stabilize water tables and aquifers, protect cropland, and conserve soils. Stabilizing population is not
simply a matter of providing reproductive health care and family planning services. It requires a worldwide
effort to eradicate poverty. Eliminating water shortages depends on a global attempt to raise water
productivity similar to the effort launched a half-century ago to raise land productivity, an initiative that has
nearly tripled the world grain yield per hectare. None of these goals can be achieved quickly, but progress
toward all is essential to restoring a semblance of food security. This troubling situation is unlike any the
world has faced before. The challenge is not simply to deal with a temporary rise in grain prices, as in the
past, but rather to quickly alter those trends whose cumulative effects collectively threaten the food security
that is a hallmark of civilization. If food security cannot be restored quickly, social unrest and political
instability will spread and the number of failing states will likely increase dramatically, threatening the very
stability of civilization itself.
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AT: Economy resilient

Your resiliency claims are assuming central banks can curb the problem, but they have
no control – food prices can be felt by the globe.
International Herald Tribune 8

(Bloomberg News, Reuters/Associated Press, “Central bankers warn global economy faces inflation risk from
food”, May 5, accessed online June 11, 2008, p. L/N) DMZ
BASEL Switzerland: Europe is facing "significant" inflation risks as global food prices surge, a trend that has
become one of the most serious issues facing global policy makers, top central bankers gathered here said
Monday. The European Central Bank president, Jean-Claude Trichet, who chaired a meeting of central bankers
from the Group of 10 industrialized nations Monday, said that inflation risks were rising as growth, particularly
in emerging markets, remained strong. "We see ongoing growth at a significant level, but somewhat lower
than in the previous year," Trichet said during a news conference here. "Inflation risks are significant," he
added, because of the increase in commodity prices, which he described as "a very important phenomenon
on a global level." Economic growth in emerging markets like China, India and Russia has increased demand
for commodities, pushing up inflation. The International Monetary Fund has forecast that growth will average
9.3 percent in China this year and 6.8 percent in Russia. World output is estimated at 3.7 percent. Trichet said
that the increase in food prices was "one of the issues we mentioned constantly," in addition to inflation risks
stemming from the rise in other commodity prices. "Food pressures could be one of the most serious
problems that we have to face now," added Poland's National Bank president, Slawomir Skrzypek. But he said
that central banks "cannot use monetary policy tools to manage this problem." Worldwide, food prices in
March were 57 percent higher than a year earlier, according to the United Nations, and oil prices hit a record
$119.93 a barrel last month. The price of rice has doubled in the past year and wheat has climbed 65 percent,
triggering violent protests in Cameroon and Burkina Faso as well as rallies in Indonesia following reports of
deaths from starvation. On Monday, high food prices sparked riots in Mogadishu, Somalia, where troops
opened fire and killed at least two people. "They have an impact on the situation of many poor people around
the world," said Erkki Liikanen, the Finnish central bank governor who also sits on the ECB Governing Council.
"It's a challenging situation in many developing countries in a way which we have not seen for some time," he
added. Somalia is the fourth African country to suffer protests in recent months. In Africa, prices of some
staple foods have increased more than 50 percent in a matter of weeks. The European Commission set aside
$253 million in aid last month to augment food supplies and stocks in the world's poorest countries, and is
studying further measures to help poor countries deal with the crisis. Adding to the burden is the surge in
crude oil prices, which have risen 78 percent from a year ago. Oil jumped more than $3 to strike a record over
$120 a barrel on Monday on the weaker dollar and supply concerns. Last month, the International Monetary
Fund estimated that inflation in major economies would accelerate to 2.6 percent from 2.2 percent in 2007.
The fund also cut its global growth forecast for this year to 3.7 percent from 4.1 percent. Food and agricultural
product inflation is being felt "in all economies without exception," Trichet said. "From that standpoint, the
anchoring of inflation expectations in line with price stability is very important in all countries." There is "no
time for complacency in any respect for central banks," he added.
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AT: Production Now Makes You Non-Inherent

1 – No – the fact that there’s production now is a reason why your disads are empirically
denied – there is a drastic difference between the funding and development of cellulosic
ethanol and it full-intervention into our economy.
2 – And production won’t even result in a gallon of cellulosic ethanol being made until
2012 in the status quo – plan speeds up the process, making our advantages unique and
your generic links empirically denied.
Clayton 8
(Mark, Staff writer of the Christian Science Monitor, “The race for nonfood biofuel”, June 5, accessed online
June 30, 2008, p. L/N) DMZ
Way back in 2006, when gasoline cost just $2.50 a gallon, President Bush called for home-grown biofuels to
replace three-quarters of oil imports from the Persian Gulf - or about 72 billion gallons - by 2025. How to
achieve that goal is still a question. Corn-based ethanol production is expected to be 12 billion to 15 billion
gallons in coming years. But with gas now at $4 a gallon and critics hammering corn ethanol for helping to
pump up global food prices, it is clear that the holy grail of biofuels - cellulosic ethanol - needs to make its
entrance soon. Driven by a growing political consensus to shift toward nonfood biofuels, the high price of oil,
and gains in technology, a flood of public and private investment has poured into the development of
cellulosic ethanol. â€œActual marketplace production of cellulosic ethanol is zero - there's not a gallon being
produced [commercially] right now,â€ says Thomas Foust, biofuels research director at the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo. â€œBut with all these plants coming on line ... by 2010 or
2011 we will start to see millions of gallons.â€
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AT: Ethanol Bad – Ethanol Inevitable

Basically, your disads have no game. Global oil reserves are down now, the oil peak has
already occurred, Saudi Arabia will be out of oil in 15 years, consumption will only rise
in the developing world in the future, and renewable development is rapidly underway
now.
Smolin 6
The economic and political drivers for a switch from petroleum-derived fuels to more efficient energy
conversion equipment and alternative fuels (which in reality is already taking place in the United States)
include the following: . Almost half of all the crude oil ever created by global processes has already been
pumped out of the ground. . Hubbert's Peak has occurred. This refers to the point in time at which the
increase in demand is greater than the increase in reserves (new oil discoveries), which also seems to
correspond to the point of maximum worldwide production of crude oil, sometimes called peak oil. n2 . Saudi
Arabia, which has the world's largest reserve of crude oil, is running out of oil. Recent projections describe
Saudi Arabia's reserves as lasting between fifteen and thirty more years. In actuality, no one in this country
knows, and the Saudis either do not know or are not telling. Also, the oil that is still in the ground is
increasingly difficult to extricate. . For a number of reasons, the oil industry in Iraq has not been able to
produce the crude oil said to be in the ground. . Developing nations including China and India, which together
contain one-third of all earth's inhabitants, are increasing their demand for oil and gas as their growing
populations climb into the middle class and demand the kind of lifestyle that many enjoy in the United States.
Recently, China has been attempting to buy the rights to the Canadian oil sand reserves. n3 [*481] .
Canadians and Europeans pay more for gas than we do in the United States. Although this difference is due to
tax policy, transportation fuels represent a potential for increased taxes in the United States. . Domestically
produced renewable fuels will be a less expensive option as fossil fuels become more scarce. . Vehicle
technologies are already in production to drastically alter the United States' demand for petroleum
transportation fuels
Ethanol inevitable – consumer demand will shape US car producers.
Smolin 6
More efficient vehicles and renewable fuels will be produced in this country in response to consumer demand.
Personally, I would rather spend twenty dollars to fill up my gas tank every week than fifty or sixty dollars,
and if I have that choice, I will take it. [*482] However, most consumers will only buy renewable fuels when
its price is equal to or lower than the price of petroleum fuels. According to private correspondence with
producers and potential producers, ethanol and biodiesel are less expensive to produce than gasoline and
petroleum diesel. In some locations, biodiesel blends are beginning to sell for the same price as petroleum
diesel at the pump. Based on the success of hybrid vehicles, Toyota will convert its line of automobiles and
SUVs to hybrid technology. Recently, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler announced production of flexible fuel
vehicles, which will encourage the production of ethanol. Exxon-Mobil has profited from the high prices of
crude oil, gasoline, and diesel oil. However, BP (formerly British Petroleum) is looking ahead and now signs its
advertisements "BP: Beyond Petroleum." According to the Wall Street Journal, in 2005 the demand for crude
oil increased faster than the discovery of new sources of oil. This is the classic definition of Hubbert's Peak,
originally applied by M. King Hubbert, an employee of Shell Oil's research laboratories, to United States
production of petroleum crude oil but now applied to global production. If in fact 2005 saw the arrival of
Hubbert's Peak, then students graduating now will personally experience the end of the oil age. Of course, the
possibility exists that there is really an unending supply of petroleum and that it is of geological rather than
biological origin. n5 Professor Gold has maintained that petroleum seeps up from the middle of the planet to
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renew the petroleum that is pumped out of underground sites. If this is true, it means that the price of oil is
kept artificially high because of ignorance and incorrect science. If Saudi Arabia has not run out of oil in
twenty or thirty years, we can revisit this theory.
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AT: Ethanol Bad – Ethanol Inevitable

Put away your disads – ethanol inevitable because of consumer demand.
Wald 7
(Matthew L, NY Times correspondent, “Challenging Gasoline: Diesel, Ethanol, Hydrogen”, NYTimes, October
24, accessed online April 29, 2008, p.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/automobiles/autospecial/24ALT.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=autospe
cial) DMZ
YES, gasoline has the corner on the American car fuel market, but maybe not forever. Carmakers already
produce passenger vehicles that run nicely on diesel fuel, ethanol or hydrogen. The first two are on the road
in the millions around the world, and the third is moving slowly toward viability. The catch is that the path to
the pump, as Thomas Hobbes might have said, can be nasty, brutish and long. And the overall picture for
pollution and energy — which the engineers call “well to wheels” — might have drawbacks to equal
gasoline’s. Still, the supply chains for diesel, ethanol and hydrogen are immature. That should change in a
few years, as the most important choice for consumers in car showrooms may be what kind of fuel they want
to use. “Buying a car is not going to be about color choices or automatic versus manual transmission,” said
Allen Schaeffer, the executive director for the Diesel Technology Forum, a trade association. “It’s going to be
about getting into a powertrain.”
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AT: Politics/Plan Partisan

Alternative fuel packages require bipartisanship to be formed.
Looper and Ball 7

(Don and Aaron, members of Looper Reed & McGraw, P.C., “Feel the Heat: Biofules are a Hot Investment, but
Don’t Get Burned…”, January/February, 44 Houston Lawyer 22, accessed online June 13, 2008, p.L/N) DMZ
There are tremendous growth opportunities for investors and operators in the alternative fuels industry.
Chances are, your clients already are invested in one of the numerous operations springing up in Texas and
elsewhere across the country. Natural disasters such as hurricanes in the Gulf and conflicts such as the war in
Iraq serve as reminders of the United States' dependency on oil and the volatility of its supply. n1 These
recent events have also sparked renewed interest in alternative fuels. Bi-partisan support from a Democrat-
controlled Congress and President Bush could mean huge growth in alternative fuels. However, with all its
promise, this industry is born of a strange marriage of agriculture, manufacturing, and energy; driven almost
entirely by government incentives and subsidies, and where the cost of production inputs does not correlate
to the market price of finished products. To advise clients investing in the industry or considering building
their own operating company, attorneys need to understand the market, its risks, and the potential
opportunities.
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AT: Corn Market Good – N/U

Corn bust inevitable with current ethanol growth.
Guebert 6
(Alan, “Many fear the inevitable bust of ethanol”, November 29, Pantagraph, accessed online June 6, 2008, p.
http://www.pantagraph.com/blogs/main/?p=1197) DMZ
For years, farmers’ hearts would leap when the word “ethanol” appeared in a newspaper headline.
Now farmers almost dread it because they know the ensuing story is likely to outline the inevitable bust that
awaits them if the current unplanned, willy-nilly ethanol boom continues. Two weeks ago this space listed
several scientific, economic and political facts about to take the shine off ethanol’s apple. It was offered as a
caution to hopped-up farmer-investors throwing buckets of money, either real cash or contracted cheap corn,
at the many ethanol schemes now roaring down nearly every county blacktop. Reaction to that column was
stunning. Nine out of every 10 readers who contacted me by phone or email agreed that this beautiful new
agricultural outlet was quickly heading for disaster because of rapid overbuilding, the lack of coordinated
planning and pie-in-the-sky economics. Indeed, these private remarks were, and are, the direct opposite of
public remarks made by ethanol enthusiasts. Most invoke ethanol as the future of American agriculture. All
claim America can replicate Brazil’s near fuel self-sufficiency with ethanol. And nearly everyone promises an
endless era of happy biofuel days ahead. More and more farmers, however, are more and more skeptical. All
wish (as do I) ethanol future success. All know, however, that today’s gold rush is foolishly unreal. And we
know because we can read. For example, according to a Nov. 19 Des Moines Register story, Iowa now has 25
operational ethanol plants, another 11 under construction, and “a couple of dozen on the drawing boards.” “If
all are built,” noted the Register’s Phil Brasher citing estimates developed by Iowa State University ag
economist Bob Wisner, “Iowa farmers would have to plant an additional 8 million acres of corn—nearly two-
thirds more than they harvested this year—to make ethanol and still feed the millions of hogs, chickens and
turkeys produced here.” If the 8-million-acres-more figure rings a bell, recall that in testimony to the Senate
Ag Committee earlier this year USDA Chief Economist Keith Collins projected the U.S., by 2010, would need
10 million more acres of corn nationwide to fuel the oncoming ethanol industry. Now, however, a more
detailed, local examination suggests that figure far off the mark. Indeed, the Hawkeye State alone—forget the
other 20 states with plants either producing, under construction, planned or all three—needs 8 million acres
more just to make ends meet if all its ethanol plans are carried out. Far off the mark, also, is invoking Brazil in
every ethanol discussion, says Tad Patzek, the UC-Berkeley engineer highlighted here two weeks ago. “It’s a
perfectly rotten analogy,” he explains, “because most Brazilians are too poor to own cars. As such, there are
millions and millions fewer miles driven in Brazil. The comparison would only be valid if all Americans drove
their cars only one day every other week.” No one explains the Brazil-U.S. ethanol analogy this way because
no one offering it has examined the facts.
US market can’t handle corn ethanol – storage, transportation, and associated costs
can’t be answered.
Guebert 6
(Alan, “Many fear the inevitable bust of ethanol”, November 29, Pantagraph, accessed online June 6, 2008, p.
http://www.pantagraph.com/blogs/main/?p=1197) DMZ
Other facts seem to be unexamined or overlooked. For example, how will U.S. farmers and their commercial
counterparts store the billions more bushels of corn needed for ethanol when we cannot now store an 11
billion bushel crop? Also, how will these huge amounts of grain move in — and by-products move out — of the
ethanol facilities when our current rail and trucking sectors can’t move today’s lesser amounts?
And what will the transportation cost? American farmers pay twice commercial freight rates already; will
those fees go even higher? And too, if the vast majority of future corn production flows into domestic biofuel
production should taxpayers now spend billions for scheduled Mississippi and Illinois River lock improvements
even though American grain exports are likely to tumble? These aren’t esoteric or angry questions; they are
questions nearly every farmer asks as he views today’s corn Klondike. They neither want nor need a gold
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rush. What they need are answers so ethanol can become sustainable as it remains profitable. But today’s
grab-it-while-you-can approach is going to cost billions when it busts. Just ask any farmer.
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AT: Sugarcane CP
Case is a disad to the CP – sugarcane would require tons of new land cultivation.
Armas 7
DMZ
Besides having a higher cellulose content, sugar cane offers several advantages over corn in the production
of ethanol. First, unlike corn, farmers plant sugar cane once every four to seven years but harvest it yearly
resulting in less soil erosion. Second, sugar cane requires less fertilizers since it can obtain some of its
nitrogen from the air. Third, the energy to power the transformation from sugar cane to ethanol comes from
burning the sugar cane's waste product and not from oil, gas, or the electrical grid as with corn. n14
Unfortunately with our current technology, even if the United States produced most of its ethanol from sugar
cane or other crops with higher cellulose content it still would require excessive amounts of land for
cultivation. n15
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AT: Eliminate Subsidies/Tariff’s CP

You don’t have a NB not solved for by the perm – the tariff expires in 2009.
Reel 7
(Monte, Washington Post Foreign Service, “US Seeks Partnership with Brazil on Ethanol; Countering Oil-rich
Venezuela is Part of Aim”, accessed online June 7, 2008, p. L/N) DMZ
The United States currently places a 54-cent-a-gallon tariff on most imported ethanol. Brazilian producers
have long labeled the tariff hypocritical, saying that it is exactly the kind of trade barrier that U.S. officials
oppose in other countries. "It's not about free trade, but fair trade," said Matt Hartwig, spokesman for the
Renewable Fuels Association, a Washington-based lobbying group that says lifting the tariff would amount to
the United States supporting Brazilian producers. "The tariff has never served as a barrier to entry. More than
400 million gallons of ethanol came in from Brazil alone last year -- straight from Sao Paulo to New York
Harbor." The tariff is unlikely to be lifted during the current talks. It expires in 2009, and many in the industry
believe the government is unlikely to address the issue before a presidential election year. "The
administration has indicated it would support lifting the tariff, but I think the current inclination is to allow it to
expire and have that discussion at a later date," said Brian Dean, head of the private Interamerican Ethanol
Commission, which was created in December by then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) to encourage U.S. ethanol
partnerships with Brazil and other Latin American nations.
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AT: Eliminate Subsidies/Tariff’s CP

Your destroy domestic ethanol:
1 – Investor confidence – plan sends the signal that the government doesn’t care about
the domestic industry, prompting a massive pull-out.
Lytle 7
(Kaylan, J.D. Candidate, “Driving the Market: The Effects on the United States Ethanol Industry If The Foreign
Ethanol Tariff is Lifted”, 28 Energy L. J. 693, accessed online June 11, p. L/N//dmz)
One argument is that the removal of the tariff will have a chilling effect on the ethanol industry. n131 The
ethanol industry desperately needs continued investment in order to conduct crucial research and
development. Investors may be wary to support an industry that appears to have lost the backing of the
government. Opponents argue that the removal of the tariff will be "the wrong signal to send just as
America's ethanol industry is picking up steam." n132 Representative Boswell (D-IA) introduced legislation in
the House on May 19, 2006, seeking to extend the temporary ethanol tariff until January 1, 2011. n133
Representative Boswell is a supporter of the tariff, as domestic ethanol production is important to his
constituency. According to Representative Boswell, "the tariff has helped America's ethanol producers
succeed and it's simply not the time to halt its progress at a time when the ethanol industry is picking up
speed." n134 Similarly, Senator Grassley (R-IA) views the potential removal of the tariff as undermining the
purpose of the RFS in the EPAct. n135 Senator Grassley, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance,
argues that removing the tariff will not lower prices for consumers but will only counteract the progress made
in the domestic ethanol industry. n136
2 – Foreign dependence – the tariff allows the domestic industry to reach fruition –
removing it too soon just leads to a fallback on Brazilian imports.
Lytle 7
A second argument is that the EPAct mandates represent the country's desire to obtain energy independence.
The tariff, therefore, serves as an example of the government's determination to promote the growth of the
domestic industry rather than support foreign industries. Senator Thune (R-SD) supported the EPAct as a way
for the federal government to reduce foreign dependency as well as invest in existing state ethanol programs.
n137
Senator Obama (D-IL) supported the RFS portion of the EPAct primarily because of the possibility of
reducing dependency on foreign oil. n138 [*708] Since Brazil is already exporting some ethanol duty-free
through the CBERA, Senator Brownback (R-KS) argues that removing the tariff will only improve foreign
access to the U.S. market without benefits or reciprocity. n139 The tariff, therefore, serves as a necessary
roadblock to ensure that the domestic industry has the resources to continue to grow. Investing in the ethanol
industry requires the government to secure demand for the domestic product. The desire to achieve greater
energy independence also serves as an impetus for state action. State leaders realize that bolstering the
ethanol industry can have a tremendous effect on a state's economy. n140 In September of 2006, Florida
sponsored a summit to create an alternative fuel strategy for the state. n141 Florida officials are pushing to
make the state a key player in "25/25," a "national goal set by the agricultural industry to produce 25 percent
of the energy consumed in the United States by 2025." n142
And don’t pull that silly “your cards are talking about corn” trick with us – these cards
are specific to the industry and lobby in general, meaning even your silly Caribbean corn
mumbo-jumbo hits the tank as well.
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AT: Plan bipart

Removing the tariff is politically divisive – 2006 congressional election proves
Lytle 7
Nevertheless, whether it is protectionist or preservationist, the tariff is temporary. n103 While it is unlikely that
legislative action will occur prior to the fall of 2007, the ethanol tariff was instrumental in the highly divisive
2006 Congressional elections. Some politicians, mostly those with urban constituents, suggested that the
removal of the tariff would lower the price of fuel. n104 Other politicians, specifically those from mid-western
states, secured the corn farmer and ethanol producer's vote by stressing the threat to the domestic industry if
the tariff is lifted. n105
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AT: Plan popular

CP is unpopular – the ethanol lobby will oppose
Lytle 7
Talks of removing the tariff have been met with animosity from those involved in the domestic ethanol
industry. Likewise, supporters of the EPAct are [*707] concerned that lifting the tariff will counteract many of
the advancements brought about as a result of the legislation. Tariff supporters admonish the government to
promote the domestic ethanol industry as a way to further gain energy independence.
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AT: Plan unpopular

Public approval ratings say plan is a win

The U.S. energy industry has returned to past conditions and has created a need for alternative sources of
energy. New data from the polling firm Public Opinion Strategies shows that 78 percent of Americans support
increasing the use of ethanol and two-thirds of Americans support the increased use of biofuels in general. n12
"Additional results show that 91 percent of Americans feel the country is facing an energy crisis and 53
percent believe we should diversify our energy supply by utilizing alternative energy sources like ethanol." n13
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Gulf Dead Zone Add-On

Current government subsidies for ethanol protect the corn market – this threatens Gulf
ecosystems by drastically increasing the amount of fertilizers needed – this is
comparative to cellulose sources of ethanol, which don’t require pollution and generates
better energy.
Armas 7
DMZ
[*25] The United States is recognizing the value and importance of energy diversification, but it may also be
creating greater environmental harm in the process. n1 If America decreases its dependence on foreign oil it
will create greater economic security for itself, reduce its current account deficit, provide less financing for
tyrannical leaders and terrorists with American petro-dollars, and improve its environmental credentials. n2 To
reduce America's craving for oil, the government encourages domestic ethanol production; the United States
is behind only Brazil, the world's largest producer of ethanol, and combined the two produce over 70 percent
of the world's ethanol. n3 Currently the U.S. domestic ethanol industry is growing as a result of alternative
fuels becoming politically popular, and the addition of a subsidy and tariff applied to ethanol. n4 However,
arguably the ethanol tariff and subsidy do not provide any substantial environmental benefits for the United
States or the world. n5 The United States grants a 54 cent tax credit for each gallon of ethanol in a qualified
mixture, which is a mixture of alcohol and gasoline. n6 Additionally, the government provides extra protection
to the ethanol industry from foreign competition by imposing a 2.5 percent ad valorem tax and 14.27 cents
per liter tax on imported ethanol from countries with normal trade relations. n7 Proponents of the tariff argue
that it protects and promotes a domestic industry, prevents the government from subsidizing foreign ethanol
production, and encourages the development of cleaner technology. n8 On closer inspection, ethanol produced
from corn may generate as much pollution as the fossil fuels it replaces and may create new environmental
problems. n9 Due to the growing demand for ethanol, farmers intend to plant an estimated 88 million acres of
corn this year, the equivalent of covering Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina in corn. n10 In addition, farmers
will likely reduce crop rotation and replant fallow fields, which will increase the use of fertilizers and
insecticides and result in greater pollution run-off into our water system. n11 To replace the United States'
current dependence on gasoline (140 billion gallons per year) would take approximately 350 million acres of
corn (assuming 400 gallons per acre per year of ethanol). n12 Since greater ethanol production results from
plants with higher cellulose content, switchgrass or sugar cane should be used to produce ethanol, and thus,
minimize the amount of land cultivated. n13 Besides having a higher cellulose content, sugar cane offers
several advantages over corn in the production of ethanol. First, unlike corn, farmers plant sugar cane once
every four to seven years but harvest it yearly resulting in less soil erosion. Second, sugar cane requires less
fertilizers since it can obtain some of its nitrogen from the air. Third, the energy to power the transformation
from sugar cane to ethanol comes from burning the sugar cane's waste product and not from oil, gas, or the
electrical grid as with corn. n14 Unfortunately with our current technology, even if the United States produced
most of its ethanol from sugar cane or other crops with higher cellulose content it still would require excessive
amounts of land for cultivation. n15
And Gulf dead zones fueled by runoff will not leave for years – this guarantees
wholesale destruction of the Gulf’s environment.
Garber 8
(Kent, “Dead Zones Grow in the Gulf of Mexico”, June 6, US News and World Report, accessed online June 6,
2008, p. L/N) DMZ
Although states have tried to address the problem, cooperation among them is suffering, and federal
leadership and funding are lagging. And now, scientists say, there is a new obstacle: the impact of ethanol
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production on water quality. Spurred by recent ethanol mandates and, to a lesser extent, high commodity
prices, U.S. farmers are planting record-size crops. From 2006 to 2007, corn acres rose by about 15 million,
mostly in the Mississippi River basin. Mid-Atlantic farmers are expected to plant 500,000 more acres of corn,
soybeans, and wheat this year than they did in 2006, a 7 percent jump. To grow more crops, particularly corn,
farmers usually have to use more fertilizer. Fertilizer runoff is the primary contributor to dead zone formation,
the source of three quarters of the nitrogen and more than half of the phosphorous in the water.
In a recent study, researchers at the University of British Columbia and the University of Wisconsin found that
the U.S. government's goal to produce 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022, with a maximum of 15 billion
from corn, would most likely increase the nitrogen flow to the Gulf by 10 to 20 percent. "It is hard to be critical
of a farmer if your crop is all you have," says Simon Donner, the paper's coauthor. Yet the new biofuel
policies, he says, seem to make it all but impossible to control dead zones in the near future, since cleaning
up the Gulf would require at least a 30 percent reduction in nitrogen levels. As is often the case, federal
subsidies benefit some at the expense of others. Hard data are lacking, but anecdotes of economic distress
abound. At the end of last summer, for example, fishermen, crabbers, and shrimpers in Grand Isle, La., called
a news conference to call attention to the threat of dead zones to their livelihood. Some reported hauls down
hundreds of thousands of pounds. The ecological impact may be worse: Unlike nitrogen, which
eventually evaporates as a gas, phosphorus lingers in the water, contributing to dead zones of
the future and the potential for significant environmental damage.
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Gulf Dead Zone Add-On

The impact is extinction
Genesis of Eden Diversity Encyclopedia 3

(http://www.dhushara.com/book/diversit/saceve.htm)
Biodiversity is not just some benign backdrop for hiking holidays, but the very substance and foundation of
our survival, whether we realize it or not. We are entirely dependent upon the plants, animals, fungi, and
micro-organisms that share the world with us. Individually, they alone feed us, and without them we would
starve. Yet we frequently act to undermine these very species essential to our welfare. In addition to food,
they provide many of the drugs and other medicinal and industrial products on which the quality of our lives
increasingly depends. They offer the promise of sustainable economy - productivity that the Earth can
support on a continuing basis, so our children and, in turn, their children will survive and be able to live
peaceful lives of abundant splendour..
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Runoff  Dead Zone

Runoff will bolster a Midwest drought and create massive dead zones in the Gulf of
Mexico.
Kerr 7
rhetoric wasn't a bad political move either. Just one big problem. Everything! The damage from the massive
amount of corn planting in the Midwest is just starting to be felt. As water supplies get sucked up from local
ethanol plants, the Midwest is now one drought away from disaster. Even more devastating is that as nitrogen
from fertilizer runs off into the Mississippi, it is now responsible for creating a "dead zone." Massive quantities
of nitrogen have virtually destroyed the oxygen in the water killing fish, crabs, shrimp, and vegetation. Over
7,900 square miles in the Gulf have been impacted. There are numerous other problems that simply make
ethanol from corn a bad idea, and it's getting worse.
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Cellulose solves dead zones

Without investing in alternative crops for biofuels, reducing the Dead Zone in the Gulf is
impossible – only the plan has a chance of solving.
World News 2008

(“Increasing Ethanol Production Worsening Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone”, March 17, accessed online July 1,
2008, p. L/N) DMZ
“This result confirms our suspicion that there’s a significant tradeoff to the expanded production of ethanol
from corn grain,” said Chris Kucharik, a scientist with the University of Wisconsin's Nelson Institute for
Environmental Studies. “It also shows that we need to continue considering our options for other biofuel
feedstocks. And when we do, we need to keep the greater impacts on ecosystems in mind.” Most ethanol in
the U.S. is produced from cornstarch, but the biofuel can be made from a wide variety of crops, such as
soybeans and sugarcane. The scientists conclude that if ethanol production goals are to be reached, as well
as reaching previously set U.S. goals to reduce the dead zone, there must be a substantial reduction in the
amount of corn that is grown for animal feed and meat production. Without substantial changes to America’s
farming practices, the report found, there will be a 95% probability of failure to meet the goals of dead zone
reduction.
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Deadzone Now – no gov’t response

There are no federal or state coalitions to prevent expansion – this makes massive
species die-off inevitable.
Garber 8
2008, p. L/N) DMZ
Finding more. Not only are dead zones not going away, scientists say, but they are becoming more frequent
and intense. A 2004 U.N. report documented nearly 150 dead zones worldwide, and scientists continue to
come across new ones, including some apparently caused by climate change. Researchers at Oregon State
University, for example, identified a recurring dead zone in the Pacific Northwest in 2002; during the 2006
cycle, it caused "mass die-offs" of marine life on the seafloor. So far, the federal response has been
desultory. In 2001, a government task force called for a 75 percent reduction in the size of the Gulf of
Mexico dead zone by 2015. It was an ambitious goal and ultimately a hollow one. Virtually no federal funding
has been provided. Instead, states were asked to address the problem voluntarily; little coordination
followed. A new "action plan" for the Gulf was released in March, but that plan merely called upon individual
states to propose solutions "as soon as possible, but no later than 2013." Efforts in the Chesapeake region
have met similar problems. Last year, local officials acknowledged that the goal of cleaning up the bay by
2010 would not be met. A report card issued by the University of Maryland puts the bay's overall health at a
C-, up from a D+ in 2006.
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Deadzone Expanding – Farm Bill

The Farm Bill’s passage bolsters the Dead Zone by pushing farmers to grow crops on
land formerly set aside for conservation.
Garber 8
2008, p. L/N) DMZ
Stopping runoff. Congress recently passed a sweeping farm bill that provides, for the first time, more than
$400 million to improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay. No doubt that money will be useful. Leaky
septic tanks in thousands of private homes need replacement; sewage treatment facilities could benefit from
newer technologies. But experts say the biggest help could come from better conservation practices, such as
fences or buffer strips to help prevent runoff. "I once did a survey of Iowa farmers," says Donald Scavia, a
professor in the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan and an expert on
dead zones. "They said they would be absolutely willing to do those things if they would be paid to do them.
They want to live in a landscape that is more diverse, but they don't want to lose money doing it." The new
farm bill allots several billion dollars for land stewardship and over a billion more for wetlands, which are
highly effective at trapping pollution. But the bill also takes a huge whack at the Conservation Reserve
Program, which pays farmers to set aside land buffer strips and keep erodible land unfarmed. Last year,
these practices kept hundreds of millions of tons of nitrogen and phosphorus out of waterways. With crop
prices at record levels, however, farmers are choosing to take land out of conservation and grow crops on it
instead. That, in turn, offers a double jolt to dead zones: more fertilizer in the ground and fewer barriers to
stop it.
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Corn  Deadzone
Corn ethanol expansions will bolster a Midwest drought and create massive dead zones
in the Gulf of Mexico.
Kerr 7
rhetoric wasn't a bad political move either. Just one big problem. Everything! The damage from the massive
amount of corn planting in the Midwest is just starting to be felt. As water supplies get sucked up from local
ethanol plants, the Midwest is now one drought away from disaster. Even more devastating is that as nitrogen
from fertilizer runs off into the Mississippi, it is now responsible for creating a "dead zone." Massive quantities
of nitrogen have virtually destroyed the oxygen in the water killing fish, crabs, shrimp, and vegetation. Over
7,900 square miles in the Gulf have been impacted. There are numerous other problems that simply make
ethanol from corn a bad idea, and it's getting worse.
This amounts to significant pollution around watershed areas.

Another significant impact of ethanol revolves around the environment. Although ethanol has been praised
for its ability to reduce harmful vehicle emissions, the removal of biomass for energy production intensifies
soil erosion, water runoff, and soil nutrient loss. As Pimentel states, "the removal of biomass for all purposes,
but most especially for energy production, threatens the integrity of the entire natural ecosystem." n111 More
specifically, this environmental concern [*76] stems from the fear that an increase in corn farming will
further stress the environment through fertilizer and pesticide runoffs, which will create eutrophication within
surrounding watershed areas. n112
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Deadzone  Gulf environmental destruction

Ethanol expansion boosts runoff into the Gulf of Mexico, fueling a dead zone crisis that
will not leave for years – this guarantees wholesale destruction of the Gulf’s
environment.
Garber 8
2008, p. L/N) DMZ
Although states have tried to address the problem, cooperation among them is suffering, and federal
leadership and funding are lagging. And now, scientists say, there is a new obstacle: the impact of ethanol
production on water quality. Spurred by recent ethanol mandates and, to a lesser extent, high commodity
prices, U.S. farmers are planting record-size crops. From 2006 to 2007, corn acres rose by about 15 million,
mostly in the Mississippi River basin. Mid-Atlantic farmers are expected to plant 500,000 more acres of corn,
soybeans, and wheat this year than they did in 2006, a 7 percent jump. To grow more crops, particularly corn,
farmers usually have to use more fertilizer. Fertilizer runoff is the primary contributor to dead zone formation,
the source of three quarters of the nitrogen and more than half of the phosphorous in the water.
In a recent study, researchers at the University of British Columbia and the University of Wisconsin found that
the U.S. government's goal to produce 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022, with a maximum of 15 billion
from corn, would most likely increase the nitrogen flow to the Gulf by 10 to 20 percent. "It is hard to be critical
of a farmer if your crop is all you have," says Simon Donner, the paper's coauthor. Yet the new biofuel
policies, he says, seem to make it all but impossible to control dead zones in the near future, since cleaning
up the Gulf would require at least a 30 percent reduction in nitrogen levels. As is often the case, federal
subsidies benefit some at the expense of others. Hard data are lacking, but anecdotes of economic distress
abound. At the end of last summer, for example, fishermen, crabbers, and shrimpers in Grand Isle, La., called
a news conference to call attention to the threat of dead zones to their livelihood. Some reported hauls down
hundreds of thousands of pounds. The ecological impact may be worse: Unlike nitrogen, which eventually
evaporates as a gas, phosphorus lingers in the water, contributing to dead zones of the future and the
potential for significant environmental damage.
WDW 2008
Ziegler
And the white! - [ 78 / 84 ]
Biodev Good – Extinction

Genesis of Eden Diversity Encyclopedia 3

(http://www.dhushara.com/book/diversit/saceve.htm)
Biodiversity is not just some benign backdrop for hiking holidays, but the very substance and foundation of
our survival, whether we realize it or not. We are entirely dependent upon the plants, animals, fungi, and
micro-organisms that share the world with us. Individually, they alone feed us, and without them we would
starve. Yet we frequently act to undermine these very species essential to our welfare. In addition to food,
they provide many of the drugs and other medicinal and industrial products on which the quality of our lives
increasingly depends. They offer the promise of sustainable economy - productivity that the Earth can
support on a continuing basis, so our children and, in turn, their children will survive and be able to live
peaceful lives of abundant splendour..
Kaufmann 81
(Les, Chief Scientist @ Edgerton Research, “The Last Extinction”, p. 4, NetLibrary) DMZ
The fourth argument for preserving biological diversity is the simplest: Our lives depend on it. We are part of
a common fabric of life. Our survival is dependent on the integrity of this fabric, for the loss of a few critical
threads could lead to a quick unraveling of the whole. We know that there have been previous mass
extinctions, through which some life survived. As for our own chances of surviving this mass extinction, there
can be no promises. If the Grim Reaper plays any favorites at all, then it would seem to be a special fondness
for striking down dominant organisms in their prime. David Joblinski examines the fates of rudist dames,
mammalike reptiles, dinosaurs, and a host of other scintillating but doomed creatures in his essay. Humans
are now the dominant creatures, at least in terms of their influence. So, lest history bear false witness and
barring some serious conservation efforts on our part, this mass extinction could well be the last one that we
will ever know about.
WDW 2008
Ziegler
And the white! - [ 79 / 84 ]
Biodev Good – D-Rule

It’s a D-rule – specie’s innate right to life just ain’t worth a fancy Honda with shitty fuel
economy.
Kucinich 94
(John, Judge Advocate specializing in environmental law, ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REVIEW, Spring 1994, p. 501.)
Finally, and least pragmatic, is the moral duty not to exterminate our fellow passengers on this planet. With
its origins at least as ancient as the biblical injunction to “replenish” the earth as its caretakers, this moral
duty has strong precedential support. Although most people accept the propriety of human use of other
species, they would draw the line at exploiting these species into extinction. Thus moral duty may be seen as
an obligation to refrain from “murdering” another species, because that species has in some sense a right
to exist. Additionally, people may want to preserve other species as a living legacy for their children and
grandchildren, feeling it is wrong to deprive their posterity of a heritage their own ancestors had passed down
for their enjoyment.
WDW 2008
Ziegler
And the white! - [ 80 / 84 ]
Marine Life key to Biodev/human survival

Specifically, marine life is a keystone to biodiversity – loss of it takes away the very
stitching of ecological existence.
Agardy 1
(Tundi, internationally renowned expert on marine conservation, specializing in marine protected areas and
coastal planning and previous senior director for the Global Marine Program at Conservation International a
global environmental organization; 2001 WGBH Educational Foundation and Clear Blue Sky Productions Inc.,
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/extinction/massext/statement_01.html)
Many marine ecologists would agree we are indeed facing an extinction crisis. This may surprise those who
view the seas as vast and immutable -- the one great constant in an ever-changing world. But while there are
remote ocean areas that remain relatively pristine, most coastal areas have undergone a radical human-
induced transformation in the last 100 years. The marine extinction crisis is not as widely grasped as the
crises in tropical forests and other terrestrial biomes. Though the number of marine extinctions is small, this is
due to our state of knowledge. First, the bulk of marine species are undiscovered -- we are losing species
before we even know of them. Second, the species label itself does not work well for marine organisms -- here
unique populations are at risk, not entire species (the U.S. placing certain runs of salmon on the endangered
species list exemplifies this). As with species extinction, the devastation of genetically unique populations is
an irreversible biodiversity loss. Marine biodiversity is reduced by both over-exploitation of living resources
and the much more insidious and dangerous loss of habitat. Nearly three-quarters of the world's commercially
fished stocks are overharvested and at risk. At the same time, habitat loss is a chronic and much more acute
problem, with grave consequences for marine life and the entire biosphere. The most ecologically essential
habitats -- estuaries, wetlands, shallow water seagrasses, and coral reefs -- are most threatened. Thirty
percent of the world's mangrove forests and nearly half the world's coral reefs have been lost due to direct
habitat destruction. Many of the remaining critical marine habitats are indirectly degraded by pollution,
freshwater diversion, and climate change. As human population pressures grow, essential ecological services
and species are affected, leading to conditions in which the planet's vital organs can serve neither nature nor
us.
WDW 2008
Ziegler
And the white! - [ 81 / 84 ]
Biofuels kill Amazon

Independently, giving demand for ethanol not from cellulosic sources leads to expansion
that annihilates the Amazon – the impact is extinction.
Brown 6
(Lester, Earth Policy Institute, PLAN B 2.0 – RESCUING A PLANET UNDER STRESS AND A CIVILIZATION IN
TROUBLE, p. 35-6, Net Library) DMZ
Aside from the prospective use of cellulose, current and planned ethanol-producing operations use food crops
such as sugarcane, sugar beets, corn, wheat, and barley. The United States, for example, in 2004 used 32
million tons of corn to produce 3.4 billion gallons of ethanol. Although this is scarcely 12 percent of the huge
U.S. corn crop, it is enough to feed 100 million people at average world grain consumption levels. In an oil-
short world, what will be the economic and environmental effects of agriculture's emergence as a producer of
transport fuels? Agriculture's role in the global economy clearly will be strengthened as it faces a vast,
virtually unlimited market for automotive fuel. Tropical and subtropical countries that can produce sugarcane
or palm oil will be able to full exploit their year-round growing conditions, giving them a strong comparative
advantage in the world market. With biofuel production spreading, the world price for oil will, in effect,
become a support price for farm products. If food and feed crop prices are weak and oil prices are high,
commodities will go to fuel producers. For example, vegetable oils trading on European markets on any given
day may end up in either supermarkets or service stations. The risk is that economic pressures to clear land
for expanding sugarcane production in the Brazilian cerrado and Amazon basin and for palm oil plantations in
countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia will pose a major new threat to plant and animal diversity. In the
absence of governmental constraints, the rising price of oil could quickly become the leading threat to
biodiversity, ensuring that the wave of extinctions now under way does indeed become the sixth
great extinction
WDW 2008
Ziegler
And the white! - [ 82 / 84 ]
Canada Relations Add-on

Expansion of a North-American alternative energy sector would bridge relations
between Canada and the US.

L/N) DMZ
[*307] MR. CLELAND: Dave and I spoke about this several weeks ago and decided that we should try to do
something jointly. I think that reflects the underlying nature of the topic we are dealing with today. Canada
and the U.S. have a very close energy relationship going back a long way. Consequently, it makes sense to do
something, at least coordinated, if not precisely integrated. We will start off with a few of the key things we
want to leave you with. One may be a bit overstated or always true is that energy certainly is a key to the
North American economy, remembering the North America economy is one of the most energy-intensive in
the world. That is true of both Canada and the U.S. Energy in and of itself is a very important industry and
that the integration of energy, the commonality of our energy systems is extremely important to our joint
economic security. Although we do produce a lot of energy and a diverse range of energies, we are getting
less and less of it from North America. We import about 50 percent of our oil. Most Canadians do not realize
we import about 50 percent of Canadian oil supplies into Canada from offshore. We are going to be importing
an increasingly large part of our natural gas in the future. What that means is, yes, we have North American
cooperation, but not a North [*308] America fortress. We have to think about how we work with the rest of
the world on energy. The environmental file and energy. This could be written the other way around if you
were an environmentalist or someone wanting to give the environmental perspective, but it is a simple fact
that the two agendas are butting up against each other. This is happening in part, because of some serious
policy failures in both countries. This is something where it is in the interest of everyone to figure out how we
bring together the economy, security and environment around energy issues.
Canada wants the US to acknowledge that energy is a two-way street – energy security
can only bolster relations.

L/N) DMZ
MR. CLELAND: David talked about the issue of the infrastructure. Two things, deliverability, which is the actual
physical infrastructure and reliability, being how does it work and does it work when we want it to work? That
is largely an electricity issue, although not only that. There are lots of strategies for dealing with reliability
and there are policy issues that flow from that. These include how you manage the systems and how you do it
jointly across jurisdictions. It is fairly straightforward. You have to get it there. Most people do not think about
that when they think about energy at all. They think about the lights being on or occasionally they hear about
the power plants and oil wells. They do not think about water wells and pipes that cause the two to come
together. Building new infrastructures includes a lot of challenges, including financing, regulatory, and
sighting. There are lots of strategies you can follow: redundant systems, looping back, stopping, and storage.
All of those are being used now. The question is have we got the right mix? Have we got enough to ensure the
reliability of the system? A real loss of a major facility can have catastrophic affects. We saw that with the ice
storm in Quebec in the northeast U.S. and Ontario in 1998, n14 but they are rare. We need to keep it that way.
Just a little bit on the interconnection of the systems. This is something that Canadians have been working on
in Washington. Trying to remind our American friends the [*319] systems are interconnected and we need to
work together to ensure reliability standards and market rules that work together. They are interconnected,
but it is a dispirit set of systems that governs them. There is a lot of work to do there to make sure that the
system actually does work. Electricity is a top priority because it is the one source in which a breakdown in
WDW 2008
Ziegler
And the white! - [ 83 / 84 ]
any part of the system cascades through the whole thing, as we saw back in the 60's. The natural gas system
is a different story because it is better integrated, there are more common market rules and it is highly
evolved because of the earlier process of deregulation. The key thing with natural gas is ensuring the
financing capability for expansion, finding credit where the shippers are who will support new pipeline
capacity.
WDW 2008
Ziegler
And the white! - [ 84 / 84 ]
Paper Industry Add-on

Expansion of cellulosic technology is key to the survival of the paper energy.
Sklar 8
Participation in cellulosic ethanol projects by the US paper industry may be critical to survival of many of their
pulp and paper mills, particularly those that face direct competition from paper product imports. This has
increased the volatility and erosion of profit margins earned by many US pulp and paper manufacturers.
There are only a few ways to stop this erosion. Mill owners must keep their pulping and paper manufacturing
processes going because it is much more costly to shut down than it is to build up inventories, or liquidate
excess inventory at discounts. Mills that shut down also run the risk of losing reliable supplies of pulpwood
and they may have to buy their way back into the wood supply chain when supplies are again needed.
Curtailment in pulping and papermaking is not a good short-term option. Increasing pulping and paper-
making capacity to meet short-term pulp and paper demand will not work either, because this is a longer-
term option. Our prefeasibility study showed that earnings and cash flows that a mill can earn by participating
in a resident cellulosic ethanol plant, would go a long way to offset erosion in profit margins in cyclical
downturns and will significantly improve profits when margins from mill operations are at sustainable levels
(Table 3). Many major paper companies have initiated programs to make biofuels from wood waste. Several
paper companies are developing the capability to make cellulosic ethanol and view such participation as an
immediate business opportunity. They are willing to bet that available technology is commercially viable.
There are some who are taking a longer-term view and are not starting cellulosic ethanol projects. Instead,
they are investing in research and development, often in joint-venture partnerships with major energy
companies, to develop technologies to make a wide range of advanced biofuels. There are other mill owners
that are still taking a wait-and-see approach because they are uncertain if they have mills that could host
resident biofuels plants. And there are those that are still uncertain as to the future of biofuels and their
ability to participate successfully in producing and marketing biofuels.

Cellulose Aff

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Cellulose Aff

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WDW 2008

Cellulose Aff – Index

AT: Politics/Plan Partisan.............................................................................................................. .....................60

Unfortunately, despite a governmental mandate for making cellulosic ethanol

Cleland and Manning 3

Fortunately, we can avert this by drastically cutting carbon emissions by 80 percent –

This causes global conflict.

And collapse of food markets threatens the global economy.

Inherency – Alt Energy Plan is Piecemeal

Inherency – Corn Ethanol Now

Geyer, Chong, and Hxue 7

Inherency – No Cellulose Now

Inherency – Subsidies for Corn Increasing

Sautter, Furrey, and Gresham 7

Solvency – Cellulose  More Energy

Geyer, Chong, and Hxue 7

Solvency – Tech Key

Geyer, Chong, and Hxue 7

Solvency – Wood Waste

Solvency – Tech already exists

Solvency – Cellulose easy to put into the market

Gray and Varcoe 2005

Solvency – Ethanol Mixtures are Enough

Gray and Varcoe 2005

Fossil Fuels  Global Warming

Corn  Global Warming

Consumption High Now

Free Market not reacting fast enough

Brandenburg and Paxon 1999

Reducing emissions now better than later

Oppenheimer and Boyle 90

GW Bad – Extinction by Cooking

Brandenburg and Paxon 1999

GW Bad – Extinction by Suffocation

Brandenburg and Paxon 1999

GW Bad – Economic Collapse

Brandenburg and Paxon 1999

Alternative Energies Solve

AT: No Impact to Warming

Global Warming Exists – Science Proves

Global Warming Exists – Man Made

Pew Center for Climate Change 1

Global Warming Exists – Consensus

Global Warming Exists – Not sun spots

G L O B A L - W A R M I N G S K E P T I C S A N D T H E S U N S P O T C Y C L E Many global-warming skeptics

Global Warming Exists – Even if it doesn’t, still worth

Food shortages now

Shortages in the future

Corn inflates prices

EPAct Makes Corn Price Hike Inevitable Now

Geyer, Chong, and Hxue 7

Food shortages  collapse of civilization (Brown)

AT: Economy resilient

International Herald Tribune 8

AT: Production Now Makes You Non-Inherent

AT: Ethanol Bad – Ethanol Inevitable

Ethanol inevitable – consumer demand will shape US car producers.

AT: Ethanol Bad – Ethanol Inevitable

AT: Politics/Plan Partisan

Looper and Ball 7

AT: Corn Market Good – N/U

AT: Eliminate Subsidies/Tariff’s CP

AT: Eliminate Subsidies/Tariff’s CP