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Plan: The United States Congress should charter a corporation to build solar power satellites.

Inherency
The lack of US commitment to Space Solar Power prevents us from addressing our energy needs
Snead 9 (Mike, Aerospace engineering @ AFIT, Lead structures engineer ASD,
http://spacefaringamerica.net/2009/08/10/26--getting-behind-space-solar-power.aspx.aspx, DA 6/23/11, 8/10, OST)
Americas future energy security is at risk because insufficient emphasis has been placed on developing new sustainable energy supplies to replace oil, coal, and natural gas as these resources are depleted in the coming decades. Energy scarcity is a very real possibility that should not be easily dismissed. Current nuclear fission energy and terrestrial renewable energy sources (hydroelectric, geothermal, wind, ground solar energy, and land biomass converted fuels) lack the capacity, even under optimistic conditions, to meet growing U.S. energy needsthey are even inadequate to
meet current U.S. needs. Public expectations that such green energy sources will easily replace oil, coal, and natural gas are creating a false sense of future American energy security that will only increase the potential of future energy scarcity. To provide baseload, dispatchable electrical power generation, space solar power is the only large-scale electrical power generation option, not currently being pursued, that is ready for commercial engineering development. The two primary alternativesmethane hydrates and advanced nuclear energy (e.g., fusion)are not yet ready for commercial engineering development. A well-reasoned and executable U.S. energy policy must squarely address the need to aggressively develop new U.S. sustainable energy sources to avoid potential energy scarcity. A key element of the execution of this policy should be to start the commercial development of space solar power (SSP) as a hedge against potential future national energy scarcity

Advantage One: Economy


We isolate three internal links First, Aerospace stimulus the industry is crucial to jobs and manufacturing
Bugos 10 (Glenn E., Historian with the Prologue Group, The History of the Aerospace Industry, EH.net,
February 1, http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/bugos.aerospace.industry.history YS) The aerospace industry ranks among the world's largest manufacturing industries in terms of people
employed and value of output. Yet even beyond its shear size, the aerospace industry was one of the defining industries of the twentieth century. As a socio-political phenomenon, aerospace has inflamed the imaginations of youth around the world, inspired new schools of industrial design, decisively bolstered both the self-image and power of the nation state, and shrunk the effective size of the globe. As an economic phenomenon, aerospace has consumed the major amount of research and development funds across many fields,

subsidized innovation in a vast array of component technologies, evoked new forms of production, spurred construction of enormous manufacturing complexes, inspired technology-sensitive managerial techniques, supported dependent regional economies, and justified the deeper incursion of national governments into their economies. No other industry has so persistently and intimately interacted with the bureaucratic apparatus of the nation state. Aerospace technology permeates many other industries -- travel and tourism, logistics, telecommunications, electronics and computing, advanced materials, civil construction, capital goods manufacture, and defense supply. Here, the aerospace industry is defined by those firms that design and
build vehicles that fly through our atmosphere and outer space.

And the failure to renew investment in aerospace industries threatens US national interests
Wynne and Moseley 8 (Michael, Secretary of the United States Air Force, T. Michael, Chief of Staff of the
United States Air Force, United States Air Force Posture Statement 2008, United States Department of Defense, 2/27/2008, http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=usafresearch, LH)

Americas public and private aerospace industrial base, workforce, and capabilities are vital to the Air Force and national defense. The aerospace industry produced the brainpower, innovations, technology, and vehicles that propelled the U.S. to global leadership in the 20th Century. The aerospace sector gave birth to the technologies and minds that have made the information age a reality. This key industrial sector continues to lead and produce the technologies and capabilities America needs to safeguard our future. Yet this vital industry has deteriorated over the last decade. We have witnessed an industry consolidation
and contraction from more than ten domestic U.S. aircraft manufacturers in the early 1990s to only three prime domestic aircraft manufacturers today. Without funding, in the coming decade production lines will irreversibly close, skilled

workforces will age or retire, and companies will shut their doors. The U.S. aerospace industry is rapidly approaching a point of no return. As Air Force assets wear out, the U.S. is losing the ability to build new ones. We must reverse this erosion through increased investment. We must find ways to maintain and preserve our aerospace industrial capabilities. We must maintain national options for keeping production lines open.
Complex 21st Century weapons systems cannot be produced without long lead development and procurement actions. Additionally, we must continue our investment in a modern, industrial sustainment base. Air Force depots and private sector maintenance centers have played vital roles in sustaining our capabilities and have become models of modern industrial transformation. We are fully committed to sustaining a healthy, modern depot level maintenance and repair capability. Furthermore, we must recognize that these industry

capabilities represent our national ability to research, innovate, develop, produce, and sustain the advanced technologies and systems we will continue to need in the future. This vital industrial sector represents a center of gravity and single point vulnerability for our national defense.

Second, Green Tech-SQuo risks losing out on $3.2 trillion in potential GDP and 3.9 million
new jobs Webster 11 [Stephen C, senior editor of Raw Story, an internationally-read news and politics website that
specializes in investigative journalism and cutting-edge reporting. Google predicts U.S. will miss up to $3.2 trillion in GDP growth if green tech isnt encouraged http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/06/28/google-predicts-gdp-loss-of3-2-trillion-if-green-tech-isnt-encouraged/ rawstory] DG Web giant Google said Tuesday that the United States stands to lose up to $3.2 trillion in potential gross domestic product (GDP) growth if it further delays policies that encourage renewable energy technology. In an economic study published on the company's official blog, Google researchers assumed several key
breakthroughs would be made in solar, wind and biomass energy, then drew their models outwards through 2050. Comparing their results to models based on "business as usual" in the carbon-generating energy economy, Google found that delaying public

policies to encourage green tech by just four more years could result in the loss of up to $3.2 trillion in GDP and the failure to realize as many as 1.4 million new jobs. The study also suggested that clean energy policies being considered today would also reduce average household energy costs by over $942 a year, cut back on U.S. oil consumption by 1.1 billion barrels a year and shave off at least 13 percent of the nation's total carbon emissions by 2030. By 2050, Google projects a net gain of 3.9 million jobs and a total carbon output reduction of 55 percent. The key to achieving those results is rapid improvements in current technology and public policies that encourage growth.

Third, fuel market instability-Its inevitable in the SQuo


Warld et al 9 (Charles, USAF General, CNA, May,
http://www.cna.org/sites/default/files/Powering%20Americas%20Defense.pdf, accessed 6-24-11, CH)
The volatile fossil fuel markets have a major impact on our national economy, which in turn affects national security. Upward spikes in energy pricestied to the wild swings now common in the worlds fossil fuel marketsconstrict the economy in the short-term, and undermine strategic planning in the longterm. Volatility is not limited to the oil market: the nations economy is also wrenched by the increasingly sharp swings in price of natural gas and coal. This volatility wreaks havoc with government revenue projections, making the task of addressing strategic and systemic national security problems much more challenging. It also makes it more difcult for companies to commit to the long-term investments needed to develop and deploy new energy technologies and upgrade major infrastructure. A signicant and long-lasting trade decit can put us at a disadvantage in global economic competitions. In 2008, our economy paid an average of $28.5 billion each
month to buy foreign oil [47]. This amount is expected to grow: while oil prices wax and wane periodically, in the long term, oil prices

This transfer of wealth means America borrows heavily from the rest of the world, making the U.S. dependent economically.
are trending upward [48].

And this instability exacerbates all other factors that negatively affect the economy Conraria & Wen 7 (Luis, NEPI economic policies research unit, Yi, federal reserve bank of St. Louis, July 30,
http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2006/2006-060.pdf, accessed: 17 July 2011, MH) If we compare the values of Table 1 with Table 2, we see that the required returns to scale for indeterminacy may vary between 1.04 and 1.10 in the presence of foreign energy imports. These values imply that many industrial countries are in the dangerous zone of indeterminacy. For example, Laitner and Stolyarov (2004) found the estimated returns to scale around 1.09 1.11 for the U.S. economy. Inklaar (2006) found the estimated returns to scale around 1.16 for Germany and 1.12
for France. Hansen and Knowles (1998) found the average estimated returns to scale around 1.105 for high income OECD countries (including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, West Germany, Japan, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States). Miyagawa et al. (2006) found estimated returns to scale in Japan about 1.075, and Kwack and Sun (2005) found it to be around 1.1 for South Korea. With these numbers in mind, it is clear that dependence on imported energy can

significantly increase a country's risk of indeterminacy, thereby making the country more susceptible to sunspots-driven fluctuations. 3 Conclusion The impact of oil price shocks on economic fluctuations have been widely recognized. But the relationship between economic stability and the reliance on foreign energy has not been fully investigated in the literature. This paper shows that dependence of domestic production on imported energy, such as oil or natural gas, can significantly increase the economy's instability in the presence of externalities or increasing returns to scale, because it reduces the required degree of returns to scale for indeterminacy. As a result, the economy is more susceptible to endogenous fluctuations driven by self-fulfilling expectations.

Nuclear War Mead 9 (Walter Russell Mead, Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign
Relations. The New Republic, http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=571cbbb9-2887-4d81-854292e83915f5f8&p=2)JFS
So far, such half-hearted experiments not only have failed to work; they have left the societies that have tried them in a progressively worse position, farther behind the front-runners as time goes by. Argentina has lost ground to Chile; Russian development has fallen farther behind that of the Baltic states and Central Europe. Frequently, the crisis has weakened the power of the merchants, industrialists, financiers, and professionals who want to develop a liberal capitalist society integrated into the world. Crisis can also strengthen the hand of religious extremists, populist radicals, or authoritarian traditionalists who are determined to resist liberal capitalist society for a variety of reasons. Meanwhile, the companies and banks based in these societies are often less established and more vulnerable to the consequences of a financial crisis than more established firms in wealthier societies. As a result, developing countries and countries where capitalism has relatively recent and shallow roots tend to suffer greater economic and political damage when crisis strikes--as, inevitably, it does. And, consequently, financial crises often reinforce rather than challenge the global distribution of power and wealth. This may be happening yet again. None of which means that we can just sit back and enjoy the recession. History may suggest that financial crises actually help capitalist great powers maintain their leads--but it has other, less reassuring messages as well. If financial crises have been a normal part of life during the 300-year rise of the liberal capitalist system under the Anglophone powers, so has war. The wars of the League of Augsburg and the Spanish Succession; the Seven Years War; the American Revolution; the Napoleonic Wars; the two World Wars; the cold war: The list of wars is almost as long as the list of financial crises. Bad economic times can breed wars. Europe was a pretty peaceful place in 1928, but the Depression poisoned German public opinion and helped bring Adolf Hitler to power. If the current crisis turns into a depression, what rough beasts might start slouching toward Moscow, Karachi, Beijing, or New Delhi to be born? The United States may not, yet, decline, but, if we can't get the

world economy back on track, we may still have to fight.

And these conflicts are part of a vicious cycle of suffering and escalation Strauss-Kahn 9 (Dominique, Manging Director of the IMF, International Monetary Fund,
http://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2009/102309.htm)JFS
Let me stress that the crisis is by no means over, and many risks remain. Economic activity is still dependent on policy support, and a premature withdrawal of this support could kill the recovery. And even as growth recovers, it will take some time for jobs to follow suit. This economic instability will continue to threaten social stability. The stakes

are particularly high in the low-income countries. Our colleagues at the United Nations and World Bank think that up to 90 million people might be pushed into extreme poverty as a result of this crisis. In many areas of the world, what is at stake is not only higher unemployment or lower purchasing power, but life and death itself. Economic marginalization and destitution could lead to social unrest, political instability, a breakdown of democracy, or war. In a sense, our collective efforts to fight the crisis cannot be separated from our efforts guard social stability and to secure peace. This is particularly important in low-income countries. War might justifiably be called development in reverse. War leads to death, disability, disease, and displacement of population. War increases poverty. War reduces growth potential by destroying infrastructure as well as financial and human capital. War diverts resources toward violence, rent-seeking, and corruption. War weakens institutions. War in one country harms neighboring countries, including through an influx of refugees. Most wars since the 1970s have been wars within states. It is hard to estimate the true cost of a civil war. Recent research suggests that one year of conflict can knock 2-2 percentage points off a countrys growth rate. And since the average civil war lasts 7 years, that means an economy that is 15 percent smaller than it would have been with peace. Of course, no cost can be put on the loss of life or the great human suffering that always accompanies war. The causality also runs the other way. Just as wars devastate the economy, a weak economy makes a country more prone to war. The evidence is quite clear on this pointlow income or slow economic growth increases the risk of a country falling into civil conflict. Poverty and economic stagnation lead people to become marginalized, without a stake in the productive economy. With little hope of employment or a decent standard of living, they might turn instead to violent activities. Dependence on natural resources is also a risk factorcompetition for control over these resources can trigger conflict and income from natural resources can finance war. And so we can see a vicious circle war makes economic conditions and prospects worse, and weakens institutions, and this in turn increases the likelihood of war. Once a war has started, its hard to stop. And even if it stops, its easy to slip back into conflict.
During the first decade after a war, there is a 50 percent chance of returning to violence, partly because of weakened institutions.

The terminal impact of global nuclear war makes the economy the top issue in the round

Broward 9 ((Member of Triond) http://newsflavor.com/opinions/will-an-economiccollapse-kill-you)JFS


Now its

time to look at the consequences of a failing world economy. With five official nations having nuclear weapons, and four more likely to have them there could be major consequences of another world war. The first thing that will happen after an economic collapse will be war over resources. The
United States currency will become useless and will have no way of securing reserves. The United States has little to no capacity to produce oil, it is totally dependent on foreign oil. If the United States stopped getting foreign oil, the government would go to no ends to secure more, if there were a war with any other major power over oil, like Russia or China, these wars would

most likely involve nuclear weapons. Once one nation launches a nuclear weapon, there would of course be retaliation, and with five or more countries with nuclear weapons there would most likely be a world nuclear war. The risk is so high that acting to save the economy is the most important issue facing us in the 21st century.

Only federal investing in aerospace jump-starts the private sector and creates new jobs
NASA 8 (Office of Strategic Communications, Space Economy, Understanding the Space Economy: A Study for
NASA, June 2008, http://spaceeconomy.gmu.edu/studies/judgments.pdf) EK 1. The space sector is a hybrid economy. Experience shows that only governments can afford to develop the tools and let the contracts that will kick-start the private sector, as in the case of the early days of space-based telecommunications and now remote sensing. Experience also shows that the rewards for doing so are not just better delivery of the benefits from the space economy to consumers but also the creation of new jobs, new businesses and new skills. In addition, the links between space and the wider economy mean that a country that plays a central role in space is well positioned on the high ground of global competitiveness. 2. In recent years, opportunities have grown for channeling public sector investment through private sector enterprises. This has strengthened rather than weakened the reasons why the governments

role is so crucial. Nurturing these new enterprises, which at present are focused on delivering better services to the downstream consumers in the space economy, will be the foundation of leadership not only in the space sector but also in the wider global economy over the coming decades. This is why taking the space economy into the next phase of its evolution will demand another surge of public commitment.

Advantage Two: Hegemony


SPS is key to economic and military leadership
Nansen 2k (Ralph, pres Solar Space Industries, September 7, testimony before subcommittee on Space
and Aeronautics, http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/2000-testimony-RalphNansen.htm, accessed: 23 June 2011, JT)
Solar power satellite development would reduce and eventually eliminate United States dependence on foreign oil imports. They would help reduce the international trade imbalance. Electric energy from solar power satellites can be delivered to any nation on the earth. The United States could become a major energy exporter. The market for electric energy will be enormous. Most important of all is the fact that whatever nation develops and controls the next major energy source will dominate the economy of the world. In addition there are many potential spin-offs. These include: Generation of space tourism. The need to develop low cost reusable space transports to deploy solar power satellites will open space to the vast economic potential of space tourism. Utilize solar power to manufacture rocket fuel on orbit from water for manned planetary missions. Provide large quantities of electric power on orbit for military applications. Provide large quantities of electric power to thrust vehicles into inter-planetary space. Open large-scale commercial access to space. The potential of space industrial parks could become a reality. Make the United States the preferred launch provider for the world.

Only hegemony can prevent conflicts from escalating to nuclear use Robert Kagan 7, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and senior
transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund, August/September 2007, The Hoover Policy Review, online: http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/8552512.html, accessed August 17, 2007
The jostling for status and influence among these ambitious nations and would-be nations is a second defining feature of the new post-Cold War international system. Nationalism in all its forms is back, if it ever went away, and so is international competition for power, influence, honor, and status. American

predominance prevents these rivalries from intensifying its regional as well as its global predominance. Were the United States to diminish its influence in the regions where it is currently the strongest power, the other nations would settle disputes as great and lesser powers have done in the past: sometimes through diplomacy and accommodation but often through confrontation and wars of varying scope, intensity, and destructiveness. One novel aspect of such a multipolar world is that most of these powers would possess nuclear weapons. That could make wars between them less likely, or it could simply make them more catastrophic.

And, Even if they win that a world without hegemony is good, they still lose getting there would mean massive transition wars across the globe
Nye 90 (Joe, Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations and former Dean of the Kennedy
School at Harvard and one of the most influential and respected contemporary IR scholars, pg 17)
Perceptions of change in the relative power of nations are of critical importance to understanding the relationship between decline and war. One of the oldest generalizations about international politics attributes the onset of major wars to shifts in power among the leading nations. Thus Thucydides accounted for the onset of the Peloponnesian War which destroyed the power of ancient Athens. The history of the interstate system since 1500 is punctuated by severe wars in which one country struggled to surpass another as the leading state. If as Robert Gilpin argues, international politics has not changed fundamentally over the millennia, the implications for the future are bleak. And if fears about shifting power precipitate a major war in a world with 50,000 nuclear weapons, history as we know it may end.

Advantage Three: Energy

Scenario 1 Resource Wars The necessary transition away from terrestrial energy s limits is a matter of war and peace
Dinerman 8 (Taylor has written on space and defense issues for the Wall Street Journal, National Review, and Ad
Astra the magazine of the National Space Society, Space News, and elsewhere. He is now a Senior Editor at the Hudson Institutes New York office, and an author of the textbook Space Science for Students and has been a part time consultant for the US Defense
Department, The Space Review, September 15, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1209/1) It was a little more than a month ago when the crisis in the Caucasus erupted. It will be years before historians sort out exactly how it started, but no one can deny that it ended with a classic case of Russia using massive military force to impose its will on a tiny but bothersome neighbor. In any case this little war has shocked the international space industry in more ways than one. While politicians in the US and Europe debate the best way to ensure access to the International Space Station (ISS), a more profound lesson from the crisis is evident. The world can no longer afford to depend upon easily disrupted pipelines for critical energy supplies. The one that ran from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey was, no doubt, an important factor in setting off the events of August 2008. Nations that get a large percentage of their electricity from space will not have to fear that their neighbors will cut them off from gas or coal supplies. In the future other pipelines, such as the one that may run from the coast of Pakistan to western China, may be just as important and as vulnerable as the one that runs through Georgia. Removing this kind of infrastructure from its central role in the worlds energy economy would eliminate one of the most dangerous motivations for war that we may face in the 21st century. If the world really is entering into a new age of resource shortagesor even if these shortages are simply widely-held illusionsnations will naturally try their best to ensure that they will have free and reasonably priced access to the stuff they need to survive and to prosper. Some of the proposed regulations aimed at the climate change issue will inevitably make matters worse by making it harder for nations with large coal deposits to use them in effective and timely ways. The coming huge increase in demand for energy as more and more nations achieve developed status has been discussed elsewhere. It is hard to imagine that large powerful states such as China or India will allow themselves to be pushed back into relative poverty by a lack of resources or by environmental restrictions. The need for a wholly new kind of world energy infrastructure is not just an issue involving economics or conservation, but of war and peace.

And the escalation risks destroying civilization as we know it Bearden 2k (Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army, www.cheniere.org/techpapers/Unnecessary%20Energy%20Crisis.doc) MH
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.

SPS is the only way to solve Snead 9 (Mike, Aerospace engineering @ AFIT, Lead structures engineer ASD,
http://spacefaringamerica.net/2009/08/10/26--getting-behind-space-solar-power.aspx.aspx, DA 6/23/11, 8/10, OST) Americas future energy security is at risk because insufficient emphasis has been placed on developing new sustainable energy supplies to replace oil, coal, and natural gas as these resources are depleted in the coming decades. Energy scarcity is a very real possibility that should not be easily dismissed. Current nuclear fission energy and terrestrial renewable energy sources (hydroelectric, geothermal, wind, ground solar energy, and land biomass converted fuels) lack the capacity, even under optimistic conditions, to meet growing U.S. energy needsthey are even inadequate to
meet current U.S. needs. Public expectations that such green energy sources will easily replace oil, coal, and natural gas are creating a

false sense of future American energy security that will only increase the potential of future energy scarcity. To provide baseload, dispatchable electrical power generation, space solar power is the only large-scale electrical power generation option, not currently being pursued, that is ready for commercial engineering development. The two primary alternativesmethane nd hydrates and advanced nuclear energy (e.g., fusion)are not yet ready for commercial engineering development. A well-reasoned and executable U.S. energy policy must squarely address the need to aggressively develop new U.S. sustainable energy sources to avoid potential energy scarcity. A key element of the execution of this policy should be to start the commercial development of space solar power (SSP) as a hedge against potential future national energy scarcity.

Scenario Two - Warming

Continued reliance on fossil fuel leads to extinction


Tickell 8 (Oliver, Environmental Researcher, The Guardian, August 11,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/11/climatechange, JMB, accessed 6-23-11) We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson told the Guardian last week. At first sight this looks like wise counsel from the climate science adviser to Defra. But the idea that we could adapt to a 4C rise is absurd and dangerous. Global warming on this scale would be a catastrophe that would mean, in the immortal words that Chief Seattle probably never spoke, "the end of living and the beginning of survival" for humankind. Or perhaps the beginning of our extinction. The collapse of the polar ice caps would become inevitable, bringing long-term sea level rises of 70-80 metres. All the world's coastal plains would be lost, complete with ports, cities, transport and industrial infrastructure, and much of the world's most productive farmland. The world's geography would be transformed much as it was at the end of the last ice age, when sea levels rose by about 120 metres to create the Channel, the North Sea and Cardigan Bay out of dry land. Weather would become extreme and unpredictable, with more frequent and severe droughts, floods and hurricanes. The Earth's carrying capacity would be hugely reduced. Billions would undoubtedly die. Watson's call was supported by the government's former chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, who warned that "if we get to a four-degree rise it is quite possible that we would begin to see a runaway increase". This is a remarkable understatement. The climate system is already experiencing significant feedbacks, notably the summer melting of the Arctic sea ice. The more the ice melts, the more sunshine is absorbed by the sea, and the more the Arctic warms. And as the Arctic warms, the release of billions of tonnes of methane a greenhouse gas 70 times stronger than carbon dioxide over 20 years captured under melting permafrost is already under way. To see how far this process could go, look 55.5m years to
the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, when a global temperature increase of 6C coincided with the release of about 5,000 gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, both as CO2 and as methane from bogs and seabed sediments. Lush subtropical forests grew in polar regions, and sea levels rose to 100m higher than today. It appears that an initial warming pulse triggered other warming processes. Many scientists warn that this historical event may be analogous to the present: the warming caused by human

emissions could propel us towards a similar hothouse Earth

SPS solves global warming


Space Solar Power Workshop 11 (Georgia Institute of Technology, Silent Power, pg. 41-42, JT)
Human activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate. These effects add to natural influences that have been present over Earth's history. Scientific evidence strongly indicates that natural influences cannot explain the rapid increase in global near-surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century. Research indicates that increased levels of carbon dioxide will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years. It is virtually certain that increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will cause the global surface climate to be warmer. Human impacts on the climate system include increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons and their substitutes, methane, nitrous oxide, etc.), air pollution, increasing concentrations of airborne particles, and land alteration. A particular concern is that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide may be rising faster than at any time in Earth's history, except possibly following rare events like impacts from large extraterrestrial objects. We can generate virtually unlimited clean baseload energy using Space Solar Power. The time has come to stop exacerbating climate change with inappropriate energy polices. The tools and technology are available today.

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