Index

Index.................................................................................................................................... ...........1
***FYI – Carbon Trading***..................................................................................... .................3
FYI – Plan Description............................................................................................. ......................4
***1AC***........................................................................................................... .........................5
1AC....................................................................................................................... .........................6
1AC....................................................................................................................... .........................7
1AC....................................................................................................................... .........................8
1AC....................................................................................................................... .........................9
1AC.................................................................................................................... ..........................10
1AC............................................................................................................................................. ..11
1AC.................................................................................................................... ..........................12
1AC.................................................................................................................... ..........................13
1AC.................................................................................................................... ..........................14
1AC.................................................................................................................... ..........................15
1AC – Plan................................................................................................................................... .16
1AC.................................................................................................................... ..........................17
1AC.................................................................................................................... ..........................18
1AC.................................................................................................................... ..........................19
***Warming Advantage***.................................................................................. .....................20
Yes – Warming: Sat Data........................................................................................ ......................21
A2 – IPCC Bad............................................................................................................ .................22
A2 – Solar Data/Cosmic rays............................................................................................... .........23
2AC – Impact Outweighs DA.......................................................................................... .............24
A2 – CO2 Ag.............................................................................................................. ..................25
A2 – SO2 Screw................................................................................................... ........................26
***Solvency***...................................................................................................... .....................27
Renewables Solve............................................................................................................ .............28
***A2 – States***................................................................................................ .......................29
2AC – States CP................................................................................................... ........................30
***A2 – Elections***.................................................................................................. ................31
Yes – McCain.............................................................................................................................. ..32
2AC – Link Turns....................................................................................................... ..................33
A2 – Obama Solves Case........................................................................................................ ......34
***A2 – Econ DA***............................................................................................... ...................35
2AC – Link Turns....................................................................................................... ..................36
Economy Down........................................................................................................ ....................38
Economy Down........................................................................................................ ....................39
N/U – Perceive Regs Now......................................................................................... ...................40
Case Outweighs – DA Inevitable................................................................................ ..................41
A2 – Energy Prices Link..................................................................................................... ..........42
No Link – Businesses Like the Plan............................................................................................ ..43
***A2 – Oil***........................................................................................................... .................44
2AC – Oil No Link................................................................................................ .......................45
2AC – Econ Turn........................................................................................................... ...............46
2AC – Econ Turn........................................................................................................... ...............47
2AC Russian Oil............................................................................................................. ..............48
2AC Russian Oil............................................................................................................. ..............49
2AC Russian Oil............................................................................................................. ..............50
1AR Russia – Dutch Disease................................................................................... .....................51
***A2 – K***........................................................................................................ ......................52
2AC – Framework............................................................................................... .........................53
2AC – Theory.......................................................................................................... .....................54
A2 – No Value to Life........................................................................................................ ...........55
2AC -- Extinction Outweighs The K......................................................................................... ....56
1AR – Extinction Outweighs the K.............................................................................................. .57
2AC – Eco-Pragmatism......................................................................................... .......................58
2AC – Fractures the Left Turn................................................................................... ...................59
2AC – Nazi Turn...................................................................................................................... .....60
***FYI – Carbon Trading***
 FYI – Plan Description
Larry Lohman, Corner House Research, 2006, Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversion on Climate
Change, Privatisation, and Power, http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/carbonDDlow.pdf
There are two kinds of carbon trading. The first is emissions trading. The second is trading in project-
based credits. Often the two categories are put together in hybrid trading systems. Emissions trading
Suppose you have two companies, A and B. Each emits 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. The
government wants to cut their emissions by 5 per cent. It gives each company rights, or ‘allowances’,
to emit 95,000 tonnes this year. Each company must either reduce its emissions by 5,000 tonnes or
buy 5,000 tonnes of allowances from someone else. The market price for these allowances is usd 10
per tonne. Company A can reduce its emissions for half this cost per tonne. So it’s reasonable for it to
cut its emissions by 10,000 tonnes: if it sells the extra 5,000 tonnes (for usd 50,000) it will be able to
recover its entire expenditure. So the company saves usd 25,000. For company B, making reductions
is more expensive. Cutting each tonne of emissions costs it usd 15. So it decides not to reduce its
emissions, but instead to buy the 5,000 tonnes of surplus allowances that company A is offering. If
company B reduced its own emissions, it would cost usd 75,000. But if it buys company A’s surplus
allowances, the cost is only usd 50,000. So company B also saves usd 25,000 on the deal. Both firms,
in short, save usd 25,000 over what they would have had to spend without trading. If they are the only
two companies in the country, this means the country’s business sector winds up cutting emissions
just as much as it would have under ordinary regulation. But by distributing the reductions over the
country’s entire private sector, it costs the sector as a whole usd 50,000 less to do so. Some emissions
trading schemes allow companies to save any surplus allowances they have for their own use in future
years, rather than selling them. Emissions trading is also sometimes called ‘cap-and-trade’. Trading in
project-based credits Suppose you have the same two companies, A and B, each emitting 100,000
tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. Again, the government wants to cut their emissions by 5 per cent, so
it gives each company allowances to emit only 95,000 tonnes. But now the government tells each
company that if it doesn’t want to cut its emissions by 5,000 tonnes each, it has another option. It can
invest abroad in projects that ‘reduce’ emissions of carbon dioxide 5,000 tonnes ‘below what would
have happened otherwise’. Such projects might include growing crops to produce biofuels that can be
used instead of oil; installing machinery at a chemical factory to destroy greenhouse gases; burning
methane seeping out of a coal mine or waste dump so that it doesn’t escape to the atmosphere; or
building a windpower generator. The price of credits from such projects is only usd 4 per tonne, due to
low labour costs, a plethora of ‘dirty’ factories, and government and World Bank subsidies covering
part of the costs of building the projects and calculating how much carbon dioxide equivalent they
save. In this situation, it makes sense for both company A and company B to buy credits from abroad
rather than make reductions themselves. Company A saves usd 5,000 by buying credits from projects
abroad rather than cutting its own emissions. Company B meanwhile saves usd 55,000. The total
saving for the domestic private sector is usd 60,000. Other names for project-based credit trading
include ‘baseline-and-credit’ trading and ‘off set’ trading. Hybrid trading systems Some pollution
trading systems use emissions trading only. Hybrid systems use both emissions trading and ‘off set’
trading, and try to make ‘allowances’ exchangeable for project-based ‘credits’. The US sulphur
dioxide market uses emissions trading only. But both the Kyoto Protocol and the EU Emissions
Trading System mix ‘cap-and-trade’ allowances and project-based credits, and try to make them
mutually exchangeable. Such systems are enormously complex. Not only is it difficult to try to create
credible ‘credits’ and make them equivalent to ‘allowances’. Mixing the two also changes the
economics. For example, imagine that company A and company B above are allowed three options in
any combination: cutting their own emissions, trading allowances with each other, or buying credits
from abroad. For company B, the best option would be, again, to buy usd 20,000 worth of credits
abroad rather than spend usd 75,000 to reduce its own emissions. For company A, the best option
would be to cut its own emissions by 10,000 tonnes – but only if it could fi nd a buyer who would pay
usd 10 per tonne for the 5,000 allowances it would have to spare. Instead of having to pay usd 20,000
for carbon credits from abroad, it wouldn’t have to spend anything. Unfortunately for company A, it
can’t fi nd any such buyer. If company B can save usd 5,000 by going abroad for credits, it won’t buy
company A’s spare allowances. But company B is the only other firm in the emissions trading scheme.
So without company B as a buyer, it’s not worthwhile for company A to make any cuts at all, and it
too will wind up buying credits overseas.
***1AC***
 1AC
Contention One: The Squo

Federal and state governments have not adopted the necessary policies to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions

Hillman et al, ‘7
(Senior Fellow -- Policy Institute in London, The Suicidal Planet, p. 160)

Current energy policies in the United States are by no means comprehensive enough to put the
country on a path to a low-carbon future. Perhaps most starkly they are ineffectual in comparison with
those of other developed countries that have explicit greenhouse gas reduction policies. They certainly
do not lay the foundation for the radical changes necessary to meet the requirement of a considerable
reduction in carbon emissions over the next few decades. The federal government has steadfastly
refused to adopt any policy framework aimed at reducing energy consumption per se, let alone
ensuring that the country contributes its share of the “burden" of the climate change problem. Even
the policies in individual states that are designed to promote energy efficiency and a switch to lower-
carbon fuels are, in the main, mostly "business as usual." This is not a realistic strategy.

Lack of U.S. action is undermining the international responses to climate change

now.

Environmental Law, ‘8 (Winter)

In response, California has set a target to reduce GHG emissions by twenty-five percent by 2020. n58
Despite California's efforts, the United States has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and commit to
its international reduction obligation. As the world's second biggest emitter of GHGs, n60 the United
States' refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol seriously hinders international efforts to address the cause
of climate change.
 1AC
Contention Two : Warming

Subpoint (A) – The Heat is On

Fossil fuel consumption is driving the rate of anthropogenic global warming–

satellite data, computer models, and climate archives confirm.

Gelbspan ‘04
(Ross, environmental editor at the Washington Post, Boiling Point, p.24-32)
That argument was first answered in 1995 by the world's community of climate scientists when they
determined that the warming is, undeniably, due to human activities. Since that 1995 declaration, a
succession of new findings has strengthened the case for. human-induced climate change beyond a
doubt. This is not the hypothesis of a few researchers. The finding that human beings are changing the
climate comes from more than 2,000 scientists from 100 countries reporting to the United Nations in
what is the largest and most rigorously peer-reviewed scientific collaboration in history. In 1988, the
United Nations created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to find out why the planet is
warming: Was it attributable to the natural variability of the climate, or was it due to human activities?
Seven years later, the IPCC declared that the scientific panel had found-in the conservative language
of science a "discernible human influence" on the climate. After reviewing the scientific literature on
climate change, the IPCC found that the heating of the planet was due to the buildup of greenhouse
gases-primarily carbon dioxide from our burning of coal and oil-in our atmosphere. That 1995
consensus declaration was based on a number of findings, including three critical research efforts.
That year, a team of researchers led by Dr. Benjamin Santer of the Lawrence Livermore Lab
examined the pattern of heating in the atmosphere. That pattern of warming over land and water and
warm and cold areas-produced a very specific pattern, one that matches the pattern projected by
computer models of "greenhouse gas," plus sulfate warming. When the vertical structure of the
warming was examined, it was found to be graphically different from the structure produced by
natural warming. A second "smoking gun" was published in 1995 when a team of scientists at
NOAA's National Climatic Data Center verified an increase of extreme weather events in the United
States. They concluded the growing weather extremes are due, by a probability of 90 percent, to rising
levels of greenhouse gases. Those extremes-which reflect an intensification of the planet's hydrological cycle from atmospheric heating-are not
consistent with natural warming and, instead, resemble the changes that were projected for emissions from fossil fuels. The researchers declared the climate in the United
States is becoming more "greenhouse-like"-with more intense rain and snowfalls, more winter precipitation, more droughts, floods, and heat waves. It concluded: "[T]he
late-century changes recorded in U.S. climate are consistent with the general trends anticipated from a greenhouseenhanced atmosphere." A third contribution to our
. Thomson, a signals analyst at AT&T Bell Labs,
understanding of the global climate appeared that same spring when David J
evaluated a century of summer and winter temperature data. Whereas some scientific skeptics had
attributed this century's atmospheric warming to solar variations, Thomson discovered the opposite:
The accumulation of greenhouse gases had overwhelmed the relatively weak effects of solar cycles on
the climate. He also discovered that since the beginning of World War II, when accelerating industrialization led to a skyrocketing of carbon dioxide emissions,
the timing of the seasons had begun to shift. Since 1940, he wrote in the journal Science, the seasonal patterns "of the previous 300 years began to change and now appear
to be changing at an unprecedented rate." Since the IPCC's 1995 declaration, a succession of studies has profoundly strengthened the case for human-induced global
warming. In 1997, a research team led by David Easterling of NOAA's National Climatic Data Center found that the nighttime and wintertime low temperatures are rising
nearly twice as fast as the daytime and summertime high temperatures. Easterling called the findings a "fingerprint" study of "greenhouse warming." That research, based
on data from 5,400 observing stations around the world, showed that "[t]he rise in [minimum temperatures] is due to higher humidity and more water vapor, especially in
the winter in northern latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. In an increasingly `greenhouse' world this is the kind of rise you'd expect to see," Easterling wrote. He added
that if the warming were natural, and not driven by fossil fuel emissions, the high and low temperatures would more or less rise and fall in parallel. In 1999, a team of
British meteorologists studied all the factors that influence changes in the climate-solar activity,
volcanic eruptions, emissions of sulfur particulates, and greenhouse gases. According to an editorial
in the journal Nature, "The researchers' findings were unambiguous: `The temperature changes over
the Twentieth Century cannot be explained by any combination of natural internal variability and the
response to natural forcings alone,' they conclude. Rather, it seems necessary to include some human-
induced component in the climate forcing throughout the century. . . ." "Thus the rise in temperature
of about a quarter of a degree since the 1940s seems to be due mainly to increases in greenhouse gases
... All in all," the editorial concluded, "it seems we can lay to rest the idea that recent climate warming
is just a freak of nature." A year later, Thomas Crowley at Texas A&M University concluded that 75
percent of the warming of the twentieth century was due to human activities-and that the rate of
warming exceeded any similar time period in the last 1,000 years. The Crowley findings affirmed a groundbreaking study
published two years earlier by a team of scientists who essentially reconstructed the history of the global climate over the previous 1,000 years. Michael Mann, Raymond
Bradley, and Malcolm Hughes published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Geophysical Research Letters. The reconstruction involved examinations of tree rings,
ice cores, and sediments that contain information about earlier climatic periods. They found that since the year 1000, the decade of the 1990s was the hottest in history-
and that 1998 was the warmest year at least in the millennium. Their research, captured in a famous "hockey-stick" graph, showed that from about the year 1,000 to the
mid-nineteenth century, the climate was actually cooling very slightly-about onefourth of a degree. But in the last 150 years, beginning with the widespread
computer
industrialization of the late nineteenth century, the temperature has shot upward at a rate unseen in the last 10,000 years. Those studies-which used
models and physical climate "archives"-were corroborated for the first time by direct evidence from
satellites in 2001.
Continues
1AC
Continued
That year, scientists studying the escape of longwave radiation from Earth into the outer atmosphere discovered there had been a marked change between 1970 and 1997.
Using data gathered by satellites in those two years, the scientists found that radiation from greenhouse gases had increased significantly over the twenty-seven-year
period. The satellite radiation readings, according to researchers, provided the first direct experimental evidence "for a significant increase in the Earth's greenhouse effect
the rate of heating
that is consistent with concerns over radiative forcing of climate." Those concerns were heightened in 2000 when scientists determined that
had skyrocketed in the latter part of the twentieth century. In early 2000, scientists declared that the
earth's surface is warming at an "unprecedented rate" that was not expected to be seen until well into
the twenty-first century. According to an analysis by a team of climatologists, led by Tom Karl of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, although warming for most of the twentieth
century was progressing at the rate of I 'C per century, that changed in the mid-1970s. Since 1976, the
earth has been warming at a rate of about 3°C per century. Karl speculated that the planet may have
experienced a "change point" at which the rate of warming suddenly accelerated. Said Jonathan
Overpeck, director of the University of Arizonas Institute for the Study of Planet Earth: "There is no
known precedent of natural forces that could have given rise to the temperatures of the last decade."
That heating was apparent not only in atmospheric studies but in measurements of the deep oceans as
well. In 2001, two studies indicated that the warming was penetrating to far deeper levels-with
potentially irreversible consequences. That year, two teams of researchers, one headed by Sydney
Levitus of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the other by Tim Barnett of the
Scripps Institute of Oceanography, found that the world's oceans had warmed by about one-tenth of 1
°C down to a depth of 3,000 meters-almost two miles-in the last fifty years. Said Levitus: "I believe
our results represent the strongest evidence to date that the Earth's climate system is responding to
human-induced forcing." Levitus and his colleagues calculated the average of how much the oceans had warmed by compiling millions of deep ocean
temperature measurements from 1948 through 1995. But initially they couldn't say for sure whether the heat came from greenhouse warming or from a natural swing in
the climate cycle. To solve that riddle, Levitus and Barnett each used a different computer model of the earth's climate to simulate how ocean temperature should respond
to current levels of greenhouse gases and other modern atmospheric conditions. The amount of warming predicted by both models matched the warming that had been
physically measured. The Scripps team ran their model with-and withoutthe extra greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols produced by combustion of coal and oil. "What
we found is that the signal is so bold and big that you don't have to do any fancy statistics to beat it out of the data. It's just there, bang," said Dr. Barnett. He added that the
The findings of the Levitus team also
findings "will make it much harder for naysayers to dismiss predictions from climate models."
answered a major question posed by "greenhouse skeptics." The skeptics contended that if the climate
models were accurate, the atmosphere should have warmed considerably more than it has. But the
findings from deep ocean measurements showed that a substantial portion of that heat had been
absorbed by the world's oceans. "We've shown that a large part of the `missing warming' has occurred
in the ocean," said Levitus, who added: "The whole-Earth system has gone into a relatively warm
state." By 2003, the science had become so robust that even the most conservatively spoken scientists
were adamant about the fact that humans, primarily through their burning of fossil fuels, are heating
the atmosphere. "Modern climate change is dominated by human influences, which are now large enough to exceed the bounds of natural variability. The main
source of global climate change is human-induced changes in atmospheric composition ... Anthropogenic climate change is now likely to continue for many centuries. We
are venturing into the unknown with climate, and its associated impacts could be quite disruptive," wrote Thomas Karl and Kevin Trenberth in the journal Science. Putting
the various strands of temperature research together, the picture that emerges is profoundly ominous. It begins with bare physical measurements-independent of computer
models. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere traps in heat. For the last 10,000 years, the amount of C02 remained constant at about 280 parts per million-until the late
nineteenth century, when the world began to industrialize using coal and oil. Today, that 280 is up to 379 parts per million. That is a level the planet has not experienced
. Seventeen of the
for 420,000 years. The most direct consequence of this buildup of atmospheric carbon is in the relentless rise of global temperatures
eighteen hottest years on record have occurred since 1980. The period from 1991 to 1995 constitutes
the hottest five-year period on record. The year 1998 replaced 1997 as the hottest year in human
history, and 2001 replaced 1997 as the second-hottest year. Then 2001 was replaced by 2002. The
decade of the 1990s was the hottest at least in this last millennium. And the planet is heating at a rate
faster than at any time in the last 10,000 years. Senior scientist Tom M.L. Wigley of the National
Center for Atmospheric Research put the coming changes in perspective in a letter to Senators Tom
Daschle (D-ND) and William Frist (R-TN) in July 2003: There is only one chance in 100 that the rate
of warming will be less than double the warming rate of the last 100 years-and a 99 percent
probability that it will exceed double the past warming rate ... The most likely estimate of warming between [now] and
2100 is 5.5 degrees F This is five times the warming rate experienced over the past 100 years. At the high end, there is a five percent chance that
the warming could be more than eight times the warming rate of the past century. Our climate is capable of immense and wildly disruptive
surprises. Every day, those surprises seem progressively more likely than not. Not only are we gambling with our future, we are gambling with
our eyes blindfolded. We can't even read the cards we've been dealt.
 1AC
Ice core data proves.

McKenna et al. ‘07

(Phil, environmental studies fellow at MIT, Catherine Brahic, New Scientist environmental reporter,
David Chandler of the National Ass’n of Science Writers, Michael Le Page of the Centre for Child
Health Research, Fred Pearce environmental consultant, “Climate Myths,” New Scientist, 5-19, lexis)
Our planet's climate is anything but simple. It depends on the interplay of many factors, from massive events in the sun to microscopic creatures in the oceans. Yet a
clear picture has emerged, supported by an overwhelming amount of evidence: the world is warming,
this warming is due to increasing levels of greenhouse gases caused by human activity, and if emissions
continue unabated the warming will too, with ever more serious consequences. True, there are big uncertainties in some predictions, but these
swing both ways: the response of clouds might slow warming or could speed it up instead, for instance. With so much at stake, the last thing we
need is for the real issues to be obscured by discredited arguments and wild theories. We must act now to avoid the worst effects. So for those who
are not sure what to believe, here's our guide to climate myths and misconceptions. Decide for yourself. BYLINE: Catherine Brahic, David L.
Chandler, Michael Le Page, Phil McKenna, Fred Pearce SECTION: FEATURES; Cover Story; Pg. 34-42 LENGTH: 3233 words
Myth: Carbon dioxide levels only rose after the start of warm periods, so CO2 does not cause warming SAMPLES of ice dating
back hundreds of thousands of years have been extracted from the sheets covering Antarctica and
Greenland. These cores show that at the end of recent ice ages, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere
often did not start to rise until temperatures had already been climbing for some time. There is uncertainty
about the precise timing, partly because the air trapped in the cores is younger than the ice itself, but it appears the lags might sometimes have
been 800 years or more. These lags show that rising CO2 did not trigger the initial warming at the end of these ice ages - but then, no one claims
it did. They do not undermine the idea that more CO2 in the atmosphere warms the planet. We know CO2 is a greenhouse gas because it absorbs
and emits infrared. Fairly basic physics proves that such gases will trap heat radiating from Earth, and that the planet would be a lot colder if this
did not happen. This does not mean that there will be a perfect correlation between past temperature and past CO2 levels. Many other factors also
affect the climate: when there are big changes in these factors, the relationship between CO2 and temperature will be obscured. So why, over the
past million years or so, has Earth repeatedly switched between ice ages and warmer periods? The long-held theory is that this is due to variations
in Earth's orbit - known as Milankovitch cycles - that change the amount and location of solar energy reaching Earth. These correspond with most
- but not all - climate transitions . However, their direct heating or cooling effect is small, and does not fully explain the temperature switches.
This suggests that some kind of feedback effect amplified the initial changes in temperatures. The ice itself is one contender here. As vast ice
sheets started to shrink, less of the sun's energy would have been reflected back into space, accelerating the warming. The possibility that CO2
ice cores show that there is a remarkable correlation
also plays a role was suggested more than a century ago. The
between CO2 levels and temperature over the past half-million years. It takes about 5000 years for an ice age to end and,
after the initial lag, temperature and CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere rise together for at least 4000-odd years. What seems to have happened at the end of ice ages is
that an initial warming due to orbital shifts led to more CO2 being released into the atmosphere, resulting in further warming that caused still more CO2 to be released and
so on. As the area of ice shrank, temperatures rose still higher. Where did the extra CO2 come from? The evidence suggests it was from the oceans. The gas is less soluble
in warmer water, so warmer seas release it into the air, but this can explain only a little of the increase. Another factor may have been biological: phytoplankton in the seas
soak up CO2 as they grow and fall to the ocean floor, but as the world warmed changes in winds, currents and salinity would have cut the phytoplankton's growth. While
CO2 was only a secondary player in the ice ages, further back in time there are examples of warming triggered by rises in CO2 (see below). What the ice ages tell us is
that temperature can influence CO2 levels as well as vice versa, which is a cause for concern. At the moment, the oceans are soaking up 40 per cent of the extra CO2 we
are emitting. If they switch to emitting CO2 instead, cuts in human emissions will make little difference. Half-truth: It has been warmer in the past, so what's the big deal?
FIRST, it needs to be said that everything we think we know about global temperatures before about 150 years ago is an estimate - a reconstruction based on second-hand
evidence such as ice cores and a set of assumptions. The further back we look, the greater the uncertainties. It is certainly true that Earth has experienced some extremes
that were warmer than today. In some cases the main factors that caused these climatic variations are well understood, though not in all. From 750 million to 580 million
years ago, Earth was in the grip of an ice age more extreme than any since. At times the whole planet may have been covered in ice and snow, a phenomenon known as
Snowball Earth. Why did this happen? The balance between two opposing effects may have been crucial. The growth of ice sheets can lead to extra cooling as more of the
sun's heat gets reflected back into space. However, ice on land blocks the weathering of rocks, a process that removes CO2 from the atmosphere. Snowball Earth may
have come about because the continents were then clustered on the equator: weathering would have continued to remove CO2 even as ice sheets spread from the poles.
Only when most of the land was iced over would greenhouse gases have started to build up. After this deep freeze, there were long periods when both greenhouse gas
levels and temperatures were higher than they are today, though there is great uncertainty about the details . The warmest period was probably the Palaeocene-Eocene
Thermal Maximum (PETM) about 55 million years ago. During this event, which coincided with mass extinctions, global temperatures may have warmed by 5 to 8 °C
within a few thousand years. The Arctic Ocean reached 23 °C. Isotope levels in fossil plankton show the warming was caused by the release of massive amounts of
methane or CO2. The latest theory is that this was due to lava from a massive volcanic eruption heating coal deposits. In other words, this may be an example of
catastrophic global warming caused by the sudden release of massive quantities of fossil carbon into the atmosphere. The warm period lasted 200,000 years. Over the past
few million years Earth has switched between ice ages and warmer interglacials. These periodic changes seem to be triggered by oscillations in the planet's orbit that alter
the amount of solar radiation reaching Earth . In between ice ages, there have been several temperature peaks, notably during the Eemian interglacial around 125,000
years ago. At this time, temperatures may have been 1 to 2 °C warmer than today, and the sea level was 5 to 8 metres higher than it is now. After the last ice age, there was
another peak around 6000 years ago called the Holocene Climatic Optimum. This warming appears to have been largely regional, though, and temperatures were probably
not much higher than in recent decades, if at all. Do these past periods of natural warming mean we can dismiss the rapid warming over the past few years as more of the
Natural factors such as changes in the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth can
same? The answer is no.
explain only a small part of the recent warming. Nor does the fact that it has been warmer in the past
mean that future warming is nothing to worry about. The sea level has been tens of metres higher
during past warm periods - enough to submerge many major cities. Half-truth: Human carbon dioxide
emissions are tiny compared with natural sources YES, it's true that CO2 emissions due to human
activity are small compared with most natural sources. Yet ice cores show that levels in the
atmosphere have remained fairly steady at between 180 and 300 parts per million for the past half-
million years, only to shoot up to more than 380 ppm since the industrial age began. How is this
possible? The answer is that natural sources are balanced by natural sinks . The breakdown of organic
matter, for instance, releases huge quantities of CO2, but growing plants soak up just as much. CO2
levels have risen because slightly more of the gas has been entering the atmosphere each year than can
be soaked up by natural sinks. How can we be sure that we are responsible for the extra CO2? There are several lines of evidence. For instance, fossil
fuels contain virtually no carbon-14, because this unstable isotope, formed when cosmic rays hit the atmosphere, has a half-life of around 6000 years. Nearly all the
carbon-14 in a fossil fuel will have long decayed by the time we burn the fuel, so the resulting CO2 will contain almost no carbon-14 too. Studies of tree rings have shown
,
that the proportion of carbon-14 in the air dropped by about 2 per cent between 1850 and 1954 (after 1954, nuclear tests released large amounts of carbon-14). Finally
claims that volcanoes emit more CO2 than human activities are simply not true. CO2 levels around
the world do not rise after major eruptions. Total emissions from volcanoes on land are estimated to
average just 0.3 gigatonnes of CO2 each year - about a hundredth of human emissions - and are
balanced by the carbon carried under tectonic plates in subducted ocean sediments.
 1AC

There is an overwhelming scientific consensus.

De Gaetano and Marcell ‘7

(Art, Earth and Atmospheric Science prof at Cornell, and Kristin of the Hudson River Estuary
Program on climate change, and “Climate change & New York's future," New York State
Conservationist, v62n1, August 1, lexis)
Is climate change real? Yes, say more than 3,700 scientific experts from 130 countries who make up
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). A recent IPCC report, concluded that the
earth has warmed during the last century, that warming is changing the planet's climate, and that much
of the warming comes from burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) to generate electricity and to
power vehicles and buildings. Yes, say scientists in the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment and the
U.S. Global Change Research Program, both of which focus on climate change in the northeastern
United States. They conclude that we can head off the worst effects of climate change in our area by
improving the way we produce and use energy.
Why is the earth getting warmer? Greenhouse gases that naturally occur in the earth's atmosphere act
like a pane of glass. Energy coming in from the sun passes through the atmosphere and warms the
earth's surface. But when heat radiates back out from the earth, these same gases prevent it from
escaping.

Newest computer models prove global warming isn’t within natural variation.

New Scientist ‘7
(“Nowhere to turn for climate change deniers,” 4-14, lexis)
WRIGGLE-ROOM shrank this week for those who believe that global warming is not caused by
human activity. The latest report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows
that the world is already changing in line with forecasts from computer models that include
greenhouse gases as an integral factor. Everything from the increasing numbers of glacial lakes to the
poleward shifts in the ranges of animals and plants is almost certainly down to global warming. The
IPCC also finds that natural variation is "very unlikely" to be the sole cause of such changes. Models
that include only natural influences on temperature, such as volcanoes and solar activity, are
significantly outperformed by models that also include greenhouse gases. Why shouldn't we take
these results at face value? Assuming there is no "groupthink" here (see above), or a global scientific
conspiracy, the only other occasionally voiced argument is that IPCC scientists have staked so much
on greenhouse gases that they are unwilling to brook any alternative. This notion runs so completely
counter to what science is about that it is as likely as a global conspiracy. Scientific ideas are judged
by their ability to explain the natural world, and the best ones win. No amount of polemic or political
influence will change that, or make a wrong idea right. Some scientists are challenging our ideas on
climate change, which is vital if we are to progress. But to overturn present thinking will need very
strong evidence because, as the IPCC states, confidence in the idea that anthropogenic warming is
changing our world has never been higher.
 1AC

Negative authors are paid off, and have no standing in the scientific community

Gelbspan ‘4
(Ross, environmental editor at the Washington Post, Boiling Point, p.51-3)
During the 1990s, that effort had been spearheaded by Fred Palmer, who, around the time of the Bush
election, was hired as chief lobbyist for Peabody Energy. Prior to his hiring by Peabody, Palmer
headed up the Western Fuels Association, a $400-million coal consortium that had funded a tiny hand-
ful of industry-funded "greenhouse skeptics" who had long been dismissed by the mainstream
scientific community. Throughout the 1990s, Palmer directed an extensive and extremely successful
public relations offensive funded by the coal industry that used such prominent "greenhouse skeptics"
as Fred Singer, Pat Michaels, Sherwood Idso, and Robert Balling, among others. One campaign,
which sent three of these "skeptics" around the country to do media interviews, was crafted, according
to its strategy papers, "to reposition global warming as theory rather than fact" and, more specifically,
was designed to target "older, less-educated men ... and young low-income women" in districts that
get their electricity from coal and preferably have a member on the House Energy Committee,
according to the strategy papers for the campaign. Over the last ten years, those skeptics received
more than a million dollars, either directly or indirectly, from coal and oil interests. Their strategy was
quite simple-continue to raise doubts about the science in order to preempt any public demand for
action. Their funding by the fossil fuel lobby was never disclosed publicly until it was published in
The Heat Is On in 1997. (The issue of financial disclosure is not a small one. Industry-funded research
can be neutral-and it can be good or bad. But disclosure is critical so that the work in question can be
reviewed with an eye to commercial bias. If, for instance, a medical researcher's work is funded by a
pharmaceutical company, that funding must be declared in the tag line as a condition of publication.
Unfortunately, those same guidelines do not apply to climate science. And-most damning-few
journalists who have written about this issue have ever bothered to ask about funding.) What is
especially telling about the industry-funded "greenhouse skeptics" is their lack of standing in the
scientific community. In a review of Michaels's work, Tom M.L. Wigley, a preeminent climate
modeler at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, concluded it was so flawed that not only
would it fail to pass the scrutiny of qualified climate scientists, it would not even be accepted for peer
review. As for Singer, he has been unable to publish anything in the peer-reviewed literature in the last
twenty years except for one technical comment. Singer's recklessness transcends his deeply flawed
scientific pronouncements. It involves at least one public lie about his own funding. In early 2001,
Singer was accused of having his work funded by the oil industry. In response, Singer wrote in a letter
to the Washington Post that he had not received any oil industry money for at least twenty yearswhen
he had done a consulting job for the industry. In fact, Singer received at least $10,000 and as much as
$75,000 from ExxonMobil in 1998 alone, according to information on the oil giant's own Web site.
(Shortly after that information was published in the Nation, ExxonMobil withdrew the page from its
Web site.)
 1AC
Subpoint (B): The Impacts

First, runaway warming – Multiple positive feedbacks will cause rapid warming
and extinction.

Edwards ‘01
(David, Division for Ocean Circulation and Climate, “Happiness is Dissent – The Truth About
‘Looking After Number 1,’” August, http://www.medialens.org/articles_2001/de_number_one.html)
Evidence for Shantideva's assertion is all around us. Climate scientists are now warning that the
world's giant forests, which have so far absorbed a large proportion of man-made greenhouse gas
emissions, will soon be saturated. As a result, this great natural brake on global warming will begin to
be released, and temperatures will begin to rise much more rapidly. One consequence will be that
rainfall patterns over great carbon sinks such as the Amazon rainforest will likely be disrupted,
making them arid and vulnerable to fire - around the world the giant carbon sinks that have so far
protected us, will die back and burn, becoming giant pumps spewing greenhouse gas into the
atmosphere. This in turn may cause temperatures around the Arctic Ocean to increase by as much as 8
degrees, such that warming seas unleash billions of tones of methane hydrates lying frozen on the
seabed. Methane is sixty times more warming than carbon dioxide - the result would be simply
catastrophic. As climate scientist Peter Cox says, "It's difficult to know what in the world around us
could survive this kind of warming." This apocalypse could happen within our lifetimes and certainly
before the end of the century.

Any delay will multiplies the risk of the impact.

Reuters ‘7
(1-18, “Crunch year for planet earth”
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/01/18/climate.crunch.reut/index.html)
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- This will be a crunch year for action on the climate crisis, a leading
environmental lobbyist said on Wednesday.
Never have the opportunities been better and the danger from failure greater, Friends of the Earth
chief Tony Juniper said in an interview with Reuters. "There is an urgency that wasn't there before,"
Juniper said. "The science is there, the economics is there and the politics is there ...If they don't take
this opportunity then we really should start to think about the future of life on earth." The scientists
who mind the "Doomsday Clock" moved it forward two minutes on Wednesday to five minutes until
midnight, symbolizing the growing risk of the annihilation of civilization, and for the first time said global
warming was a threat. (Full story) Early next month the International Panel on Climate Change will produce the first of four key reports this year
assessing the latest scientific knowledge on global warming. This will be followed by a report in April on adaptation, one in May on mitigation
and a final overview in November. A European Union-United States summit in April is expected to focus on energy security, and a Group of Eight
summit in early June will highlight energy and climate.Sources close to the diplomatic process say British Prime Minister Tony Blair, seeking a
lasting legacy from his decade in power before he stands down mid-year, wants the G-8 summit to agree an outline plan for further climate action.
Most scientists agree temperatures will rise by between 2 and 6 degrees Celsius this century, mainly
because of increasing carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels for power and transport, putting
millions of lives at risk from flood and famine.Former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern
said in October that urgent action on global warming was vital, and that delay would multiply the
cost 20 times.

Also – warming makes every major flashpoint for war inevitable.

The New American, ‘7 (11/7 http://www.thenewamerican.com/node/6153)

Climate change acts as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the
world. Projected climate change will seriously exacerbate already marginal living standards in many
Asian, African, and Middle Eastern nations, causing widespread political instability and the likelihood of
failed states. Unlike most conventional security threats that involve a single entity acting in specific ways and points in time, climate change has
the potential to result in multiple chronic conditions, occurring globally within the same time frame. Economic and environmental conditions in
already fragile areas will further erode as food production declines, diseases increase, clean water becomes increasingly scarce, and large
populations move in search of resources. Weakened and failing governments, with an already thin margin for survival, foster the conditions for
internal conflicts, extremism, and movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies.
The U.S. may be drawn more
frequently into these situations, either alone or with allies, to help provide stability before conditions
worsen and are exploited by extremists. The U.S. may also be called upon to undertake stability and
reconstruction efforts once a conflict has begun, to avert further disaster and reconstitute a stable
environment.
 1AC
Second, agriculture -- Climate oscillations from warming destroy agriculture and
collapses the global economy killing billions

Milbrath ‘94
(Lester, poli sci prof at State U of NY, The Futurist, Climate and Chaos: Societal Impact of Sudden
Weather Shifts, p. 27-8)
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 climatic oscillation could kill billions of people. The loss of the premise of
continuity would also precipitate collapse of world financial markets. That collapse would lead to
sharp declines in commodity markets, world trade, factory output, retail sales, research and
development, tax income for governments and education. Such nonessential activities as tourism,
travel, hotel occupancy, restaurants, entertainment, and fashion would be severely affected. Billions
of unemployed people would drastically reduce their consumption, and modern society’s vaunted
economic system would collapse like a house of cards.

Economic collapse causes nuclear war.

Mead ‘92
(Walter Russell, Senior Fellow – Council on Foreign Relations, New Perspectives Quarterly, Summer,
p. 30)
The failure to develop an international system to hedge against the possibility of worldwide
depression- will open their eyes to their folly. Hundreds of millions-billions-of people around the
world have pinned their hopes on the international market economy. They and their leaders have
embraced market principles-and drawn closer to the West-because they believe that our system can
work for them. But what if it can't? What if the global economy stagnates, or even shrinks? In that
case, we will face a new period of international conflict: South against North, rich against poor.
Russia. China. India-these countries with their billions of people and their nuclear weapons will pose
a much greater danger to world order than Germany and Japan did in the 1930's.

CO2 independently undermines plant genetic diversity and destroys global

agriculture.

Raeburn ‘95
(Paul, science writer and agricultural expert, The Last Harvest: The Genetic Gamble That
Threatens to Destroy American Agriculture, December)
Fakhri A. Bazzaz of Harvard University maintains a small cluster of greenhouses on the Harvard campus. Each is isolated
from the others, and the air inside them contains differing amounts of carbon dioxide. After years of growing plants inside those greenhouses and
Rising levels
comparing the results, he has shown that different species of plants respond differently to increasing levels of carbon dioxide.
of carbon dioxide—even if they do not produce substantial temperature increases—could have a
profound effect on agriculture, Bazzaz has found. Certain crops, such as soybeans, might be able to
compete better against weeds in a carbon dioxide-rich environment. But other crops, such as corn and
sugarcane, would fare poorly in the competition with weeds as carbon dioxide levels rise. The
increased competition from weeds could cause yields to drop, Bazzaz said. He also concluded that
rising carbon-dioxide levels are likely to wipe out many endangered plant species, further eroding the
world’s genetic diversity and further limiting plant breeders’ options. “It is clear that high carbon dioxide levels will
have wide-ranging consequences for the natural world,” Bazzaz said. “And it is clear that the carbon dioxide fertilization effect does not
guarantee a lush, green future of agricultural abundance….Such an atmosphere will not help lessen the planet’s environmental and demographic
woes. This atmosphere may induce climatic modification that could undermine the integrity of the
biological systems on which all Homo sapiens depend.” The critical point is that rising levels of
carbon dioxide—which are a measurable fact, not a prediction—can affect plants dramatically even
without any rise in global temperatures. If the dire predictions of global warming are wrong, climate may not change
dramatically. But agriculture is certain to change.
 1AC
Mass starvation would result in WWIII.

Calvin, ‘98
(Neurophysiologist at the University of Washington, Atlantic Monthly, January)
The population-crash scenario is surely the most appalling. Plummeting crop yields would cause some
powerful countries to try to take over their neighbors or distant lands -- if only because their armies,
unpaid and lacking food, would go marauding, both at home and across the borders. The better-
organized countries would attempt to use their armies, before they fell apart entirely, to take over
countries with significant remaining resources, driving out or starving their inhabitants if not using
modern weapons to accomplish the same end: eliminating competitors for the remaining food. This
would be a worldwide problem -- and could lead to a Third World War -- but Europe's vulnerability
is particularly easy to analyze.

Third, Ice age.

Warming shuts down the Gulf Stream causing extinction

Dyer ‘03
(Gwynne, PhD in military and Middle Eastern history from the University of London, 7-4, Hamilton
Spectator, lexis)
The problem is that global warming was the first aspect of climate change to catch the public's attention and, for the vast majority of people, it
remains the only threat - if indeed it is a threat. After all, warmer isn't necessarily worse, and anyway, it's a gradual process and we'll all probably
be safely dead before it gets too serious. Climate researchers have known this is untrue for about 20 years, since the evidence of the
Greenland ice-cores became available, but it has still not affected the public debate. Those cores go
down two miles into the ice-cap and bring up evidence of weather from up to 250,000 years ago.
What shocked researchers realised when they examined the cores is climate change - real climate
change - is not gradual at all. It's a threshold phenomenon, a sudden flip into a radically different state,
that may then persist for a very long time. The real danger we face is that gradual warming of the sort
we are experiencing now will trigger a sudden cooling that could drop average global temperatures by
5C (41F) in 10 years. The sudden cooling, and the accompanying droughts, would destroy most of
the agriculture that now sustains six billion of us, and at least 90 per cent of the human race would be
killed by famine and war in a matter of a decade or so. These abrupt climate changes could herald the
beginning of the next Ice Age - but climatic flips like this can also occur for lengthy periods - even in
the midst of warm-and-wet interglacial periods like the present. WE do still live in the Ice Age, of course. For the past three
million years, ever since continental drift closed the channel between North America to South America and changed the ocean currents, glaciers
have covered more than a third of the planet's surface, almost 90 per cent of the time. The recent pattern has been around 100,000 years of freeze,
followed by a much shorter warm period. The previous interglacial era, which ended 117,000 years ago, was only 13,000 years long, so at 15,000
years we're already into overtime on this one - but we don't even need a major Ice Age to do the damage. The process by which the climate flips is
now fairly well understood. The
trigger is a phase of gradual warming that, either through glacial melting or
just more rainfall, increases the amount of fresh water on the ocean surface between Labrador,
Greenland and Norway. This critical part of the North Atlantic is where the Gulf Stream's water,
having become salty and dense, sinks to the bottom and flows back south - but, if it is diluted by too
much fresh water on the surface, it doesn't sink and the circuit is broken. The whole global climate
suddenly flips into a cool, dry phase that can last for many centuries before warmer conditions return: There have
been two such episodes, at 12,500 years ago and 8,500 years ago, even since the end of the last Ice Age. Or the cool, dry phase could last for
The
100,000 years if other conditions, like the shape of the earth's orbit and the tilt of its axis, have already put us on the brink of a new Ice Age.
flips of the past were caused by natural warming of one kind or another but, by adding man-made warming to the problem,
we are making it far more dangerous. We have built entire human civilisations, and increased our
population a thousandfold since the last cool, dry episode. All of that is at risk if the climate flips, and
yet the public debate is still about gradual change.
 1AC
Fourth, Biodiversity

Warming crushes it.

Gelbspan ‘04
(Ross, environmental editor at the Washington Post, Boiling Point, p.33-6)
The report came a year after a similar study was published by a team of German scientists. That study
found that ecosystems around the globe are showing the effects of climate warming. Earlier arrival of migrant
birds, earlier appearance of butterflies, earlier spawning in amphibians, earlier flowering of plants-spring has been coming sooner every year since
the 1960s, researchers reported. `Although
we are only at an early stage in the projected trends of global
warming, ecological responses to recent climate change are already clearly visible, " wrote Gian-Reto
Wlalther of the University of Hanover, Germany. "There is now ample evidence that these recent
climatic changes have affected a broad range of organisms with diverse geographical distributions, "
Walther and his team reported. "The implications of such large scale, consistent responses to relatively low average rates of climate change are
"the projected warming for the coming decades raises even more
large, " the researchers warned, adding that
concern about its ecological and socio-economic consequences. " In Britain, a recent study found in the fall of 2002
that British seasons are becoming increasingly muddled. Spring arrived three weeks early that year. Oak trees changed color more than a week
late, while beech trees lost their leaves twelve days later than usual. People in certain parts of the United Kingdom found they had to mow their
lawns all year-round. What most startled officials was the rapidity with which the change is takingplace. Dr. Tim Sparks of the Centre for Ecology
and Hydrology said the most astonishing finding was how much earlier spring came in 2002 compared with 2001. "The majority of climate
scientists would agree that there are already signs of a warming climate and this is having a knock-on effect on ourplants and animals," he told the
BBC. The change in the timing of the seasons may seem of small consequence. On reflection, it is profoundly sobering. As the writer Bill
McKibben put it. "What this means is that, by accident, we are changing the rhythms of nature by which we have lived our lives and planted our
crops and written our poetry for 10,000 years. " As growing numbers of plants, animals, birds, insects, and fish are becoming imperiled, their past
and future habitats face an equally bleak outlook. On landmasses around the world, habitats are being rapidly altered.
According to one report, one-third of the world's habitats could disappear or change beyond recognition by the end of this century. In Russia,
Canada, and Scandinavia, up to 70 percent of habitats could be lost. In the United States, much of the spruce and fir forests of New England and
according to the World Wide Fund for Nature.
New York state may be wiped out if carbon dioxide emissions are not reduced,
"This is not some slow, controlled change we're talking about. It's fast, it's unpredictable and it's
unprecedented during human civilization, " said Adam Markham, a co-author of the report. The study was based on a
`moderate"projection that concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will double from pre-industrial levels during this century. These
nineteen researchers from seven
forecasts were underscored at the beginning of2004 by a study in the journal Nature by
countries, warning that rising temperatures could doom more than one-third of the planet's species to
extinction by 2050.

Human extinction results

California Academy of Sciences ‘04
(last modified 8/21/2004 (http://www.calacademy.org/research/library/biodiv.htm)
Currently, more than 10,000 species become extinct each year and while precise calculation is difficult, it is certain that this rate has increased
alarmingly in recent years. The central cause of species extinction is destruction of natural habitats by human beings. Human survival itself
may depend upon reversing this accelerating threat to species diversity. Among the millions of undescribed
species are important new sources of food, medicine and other products. When a species vanishes, we lose access
to the survival strategies encoded in its genes through millions of years of evolution. We lose the opportunity to
understand those strategies which may hold absolutely essential options for our own future survival as a species.
 1AC – Plan
The United States federal government should establish an upstream, auctioned, cap
and trade system with a cap that reduces domestic non-governmental carbon
emissions to below 1990 levels by 2020.
 1AC
Contention Three: Solvency

Top scientists agree – only a program that targets 1990 levels solves.

Hill Heat, 1-25

January 25, 2008, http://www.hillheat.com/articles/2008/01/25/are-1990-levels-by-2020-a-sufficient-
cut
The Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill (S. 2191), which Sen. Boxer said may come to the floor
before June, sets a cap of 15% below 2005 emissions levels by 2020 for covered sectors, reducing
allowed emissions to the amount last seen in 1990.
Is that near-term target sufficient, in terms of the science?
As Holmes Hummel points out, the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) paints a much different
picture.
At Bali, all of the Annex I signatories to the Kyoto Protocol (every industrialized country other than
the US and Turkey) agreed to this roadmap, which states in convoluted language that the Annex I
countries “noted” that the AR4 indicates that global emissions “need to peak in the next 10-15 years”
and be reduced “well below half of levels in 2000” by 2050 “in order to stabilize their concentrations
in the atmosphere at the lowest levels assessed by the IPCC to date in its scenarios.” The countries
also “recognized” that the AR4 indicates that to achieve those levels “would require Annex I Parties
as a group to reduce emissions in a range of 25–40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.25-40% below
1990 levels is dramatically below the Lieberman-Warner target. From AR4, these “lowest levels” of
concentrations are 350-400ppm CO2What’s the value of achieving concentrations “at the lowest
levels”? The report says that using the “best estimate” for climate sensitivity (the temperature
response to greenhouse gas concentrations), reaching a stable concentration of 350-400ppm CO2
leads to 2.0-2.4 degrees C warming above pre-industrial levels. But Hummel notes that the “best
estimate” is just one for which half the estimates are higher and half are lower. Thus To have a 50%
chance of making the 2°C stabilization target, global emissions need to peak by 2015 and Annex I
countries need to be 25-40% below 1990 by 2020. As AAAS president John Holdren argued in his
speech Meeting the Climate Change (at 38:29; see also the slide presentation): The chance of a
tipping point into truly catastrophic change grows rapidly for increases in the global average
surface temperature more than about 2°C above the pre-industrial level, and again we’re already
committed basically to one and a half. For a better than even chance of not exceeding 2°C above the
pre-industrial level, CO2 emissions must peak globally no later than 2025 and they need to be falling
steadily after that. That is a great task. From the UN Scientific Expert Group on Climate Change and
Sustainable Development, an international panel of 18 top scientists (including John Holdren):
In our judgment and that of a growing number of other analysts and groups, however, increases
beyond 2°C to 2.5°C above the 1750 level will entail sharply rising risks of crossing a climate
“tipping point” that could lead to intolerable impacts on human well-being, in spite of all feasible
attempts at adaptation.
 1AC
An auctioned, upstream permits system incentivizes alternative energy technologies
which independently solve climate change.

Yale Climate Forum, ‘6

(http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/dept/1207_bali2.htm)
A tradable permits system can regulate emissions at the point where carbon enters the economy, the
point where greenhouse gases are actually released, or somewhere in betweenUnder an upstream
program, producers and importers of GHG-producing fuels would be required to hold permits for any
fuel they sold, based on the GHG emissions associated with those fuels. The price effect of an
upstream permit system would spread out throughout the economy, raising the price of energy
produced in proportion to carbon releases and creating an incentive for increased energy efficiency
and more use of alternative energy generation technologies. Upstream solutions will benefit from greater coverage and simpler implementation
than downstream solutions, as there may be as few as 2,000 or so entities required to hold allowances. However, upstream solution may be less politically palatable given
their wide coverage of sectors for which price increases may be particularly unpopular. Downstream solutions, on the other hand, would be quite expensive to implement
outside of the rather narrow power sector. Regulating emissions at the tailpipe, for instance, clearly would be impractical for all 300 million vehicles on the roads in the
United States, and costs would be prohibitive. If a downstream solution focused on a particular sector, as the Kyoto Protocol focuses on the power sector, some leakage
between regulated and non-regulated sectors would be inevitable. For example, regulating just large power producers would create an incentive to run smaller generators
under the threshold for regulation. Costs of meeting a particular overall emissions target would be higher for specific goods in a limited downstream system, while an
upstream system with broad coverage would spread out costs more broadly.
There is also a question of how the price signal would differ if permits or fees are disconnected from the point of emissions. For downstream users in an upstream system,
the incentive for emissions abatement would be solely embodied in the GHG intensity-weighted price of fuels. Price increases in fuel would create an incentive to
minimize fuel use, or minimize power purchased from generators using expensive fuel. As long as greenhouse gas emissions from any given fuel are independent of the
method in which the fuel is used, a price mechanism theoretically should have an identical effect no matter where it is placed in the product "stream".
However, shifting the price signal upstream from the point of emissions could dampen the abatement incentive by shifting the focus from reducing emissions to reducing
costs. As there are potential options for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions of a given fuel, especially for non-carbon fuels that can be converted to a more benign form
(e.g., methane incineration), pricing emissions downstream could potentially create more incentive for innovative emissions reduction solutions, rather than just for energy
efficiency. Initial Allocations of Permits: Auctioning vs. Grandfathering Given the potential value of emission permits, initial permit allocation is extremely important.
Permits can be allocated by grandfathering or auctioning. Grandfathering involves giving firms permits based on a certain baseline year, preferably far enough in the past
so as not to influence recent investment decisions. The European experience with Kyoto suggests that grandfathered permits can result in windfall profits for firms if the
cost of permits can be passed through to consumers while the benefits of permit sales are not. Experts say this outcome is particularly likely in strongly regulated markets
with little price competition between power providers. Grandfathering also poses a barrier to entry for new firms in a sector, as they would have no initial allocation of
permits and would have to purchase them all from existing firms. As an alternative to grandfathering, the government could initially auction permits. The auctions could
Because permit prices might change since
reduce potential barriers to entry of new firms, as all firms would have to pay for their permits.
the initial auction, however, the relative burden on companies may depend on their time of entry.
Auctions could provide a revenue stream for offsetting the effects of higher energy prices.

Action now is critical to build momentum to solve climate change globally. U.S.
initiative and leadership will mobilize a global response

Claussen & Diringer, ‘7

(Harvard International Review, Spring, President and Director of International Strategies, respectively,
of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change)
The urgency of the task is irrefutable. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's latest
assessment concluded with 90 percent confidence that human activity is warming the planet and
warned of irreversible and potentially catastrophic consequences if emissions continue unabated.
Politically as well, the next few years represent a critical window for action. The emission limits
assumed by most industrialized countries under the Kyoto Protocol expire in 2012. What momentum
the treaty has achieved and the multibillion-dollar carbon market it has spawned may well be lost
unless a new agreement can be forged.
Any new treaty will be environmentally effective and politically feasible only to the degree that it
successfully engages and binds all of the world's major economies. Coming to terms with cost and
equity while also bridging the gap between developed and developing is an extraordinary diplomatic
challenge. Meeting it will require fresh thinking and approaches, a genuine readiness to compromise
and a collective political will that, while perhaps emerging, is by no means assured. What is needed
above all right now is US leadership, for no country bears greater responsibility for climate
change, nor has greater capacity to catalyze a global response. Responsibility is measured most
directly in terms of emissions, and it should surprise no one that history's greatest economic power is
also the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter. By the same token, the tremendous enterprise,
prosperity, and technological prowess that have contributed so heavily to the atmospheric burden
uniquely qualify the United States to lead a low-carbon transition. Indeed, no nation has done more to
advance scientific understanding of the causes and consequences of global warming. But thus far, the
US contribution to the global effort largely ends there.
 1AC
Climate change can’t be solved without international cooperation

Environmental Law, Winter 2008, p.179-90

The growing interest in emissions trading systems corresponds to a continued steady rise in
greenhouse gas emissions that threatens the world with dramatic climate change. Greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions work as "a blanket around the earth," likely increasing the earth's average
temperature n2 over the next one hundred years between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius. The
temperature increase from climate change causes extreme weather patterns such as flooding, drought,
and shifting ocean currents. "Eleven of the last twelve years (1995-2006) rank among the 12
warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature (since 1850)." The effects of
climate change are already visible at the local level. For example, Europe faces dramatic cooling
caused by climate change that slows the North Atlantic Drift, the ocean current that gives Europe its
warm, mild weather. In the Pacific Northwest, shifts in ocean temperature off the Oregon Coast, most
likely caused by climate change, n7 created a hypoxic dead zone n8 for the fifth straight year. Since
2002, when the phenomenon first appeared, the dead zone has quadrupled in size to 1235 square
miles. These examples are only two of many and demonstrate the international effect of climate
change. Climate change is a global problem and remains unsolvable at an isolated, local level. One
ton of carbon emitted in New York has the same climate change effect in Portland, Oregon, as one ton
of carbon emitted in China. As a result, the fight to prevent or limit the effects of anthropogenic
climate change requires international cooperation. Climate change is a global threat and therefore only
international efforts can address local problems such as the hypoxic dead zone and the slowing of the
North Atlantic Current.
***Warming Advantage***
 Yes – Warming: Sat Data
Satellite data supports.

Holmes ‘7
(Bob, science reporter, “Global warming raises water content of atmosphere,”New Scientist, 9-22,
lexis)
Benjamin Santer, a climate scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and
his colleagues studied satellite measurements of the water content of the atmosphere. They found that
total moisture content over the oceans had increased since satellite records began in 1988, but the
question remained whether or not this was due to human activity. So Santer's team combed through a
database of computer simulations involving 22 different climate models, far more than any previous
study. This reduced the risk that the idiosyncrasies of any particular model would influence
their conclusions.
Some of the simulations included greenhouse gas emissions, some included natural factors such as
volcanic eruptions and fluctuations in solar radiation, and some included both or neither. When they
compared the results of the simulations and matched them to the satellite data, the researchers
found that the simulations for increased greenhouse gas emissions gave the closest match
(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0702872104 ). Moreover, the
amount of extra moisture in the atmosphere was very close to that predicted from increased
evaporation as a result of the temperature increase so far. "The climate system is telling us an
internally consistent story, so some of the criticisms we received 10 years ago are no longer valid,"
says Santer. Extra atmospheric water vapour fuels the development of hurricanes and also acts as a
potent greenhouse gas in its own right, says Santer.
 A2 – IPCC Bad

IPCC underestimates climate impacts

International Herald Tribune, November 19, 2007, p. 1

The blunt and powerful final report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, released here by the UN secretary general, may well underplay the problem of climate
change, many experts and even the report's authors admit. ''Slowing - and reversing - these threats
is the defining challenge of our age,'' said Secretary General Ban Ki Moon upon its release Saturday.
He had just completed a whirlwind tour of some climate-change hot spots, which he called as
''frightening as a science fiction movie.'' He described ice sheets breaking up in Antarctica, the
suffocating of the Amazon rain forest in Brazil, and children in Chile having to wear protective
clothing because an ozone hole was letting in so much ultraviolet radiation. The report, the
fourth from the panel this year, combined information from thousands of pages of scientific data
that were collected for the three previous reports, to create an official ''pocket guide'' to climate
change for policy makers who must now decide how the world will respond. Although the scientific
data are not new, this so-called synthesis report was the first time it had been looked at together in its
entirety, leading the scientists to new emphasis and more sweeping conclusions. For example, they
concluded that ice sheet melts, though not highly likely, would produce such extreme sea-level rise if
they occurred that the problem deserved special mention. Delegations from hundreds of nations will
be meeting in Bali, Indonesia, in two weeks to start hammering out a global climate agreement to
succeed the Kyoto Protocol, the current climate change treaty. The first phase of the Kyoto treaty
expires in 2012. Filled with simple charts and tables, the synthesis report set out choices and the
consequences of action or inaction: If the world is allowed to warm 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees
Fahrenheit), for example, millions more people in the world will experience flooding, 30 percent
of wetlands will be lost and up to 30 percent of species will go extinct. But even as IPCC was
working toward its conclusions over the past several years, a steady stream of more alarming
data has come in. ''The IPCC is a five-year process, and the IPCC is struggling to keep up with the
data - we are all being inundated with new evidence and new science,'' said Hans Verolme, director
WWF's Global Climate Change Program. ''And the new science is saying: 'You thought it was bad?
No it's worse.' '' Even the panel's chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, an engineer and economist from
India, acknowledged the new trajectory. ''If you look at the scientific knowledge things do seem
to be getting progressively worse,'' he said in an interview in Valencia. ''Maybe before we were in a
state of ignorance, but also we've seen much stronger trends in climate change. So you'd better start
with the interventions even earlier. Now.'' The effects will be greatest in the developing world. Even
without the new more alarming data, the report says that climate change could cause some island
states to be inundated and abandoned; up to 250 million Africans could be left short of water
because of drought. New disturbing developments that affect the IPCC predictions that have made
such scenarios even more likely, scientists said, included the faster than expected industrial
development in China and India, with all the attendant emissions from factories and cars. Economic
growth has a huge effect because these countries' industries are largely powered by electricity from
burning coal, a highly polluting source of energy. ''The IPCC report never imagined the world would
move back to a coal-based energy economy - and that's essentially what we've done,'' said Gernot
Klepper, an economist who studies climate change at the Kiel Institute in Germany. ''If you
extrapolate from that, we're running into a disaster.'' Likewise, scientific evidence suggests that
warming may be happening faster than studies available to the IPCC scientists had projected.
Part of the reason the scientists inserted their alarming statements about polar ice melts in the
synthesis report is because ''recent observations'' were not ''fully included in ice sheet models'' used by
the IPCC, the report said.
 A2 – Solar Data/Cosmic rays
Solar variation does not cause warming

McKenna et al. ‘07

(Phil, environmental studies fellow at MIT, Catherine Brahic, New Scientist environmental reporter,
David Chandler of the National Ass’n of Science Writers, Michael Le Page of the Centre for Child
Health Research, Fred Pearce environmental consultant, “Climate Myths,” New Scientist, 5-19, lexis)
Myth: It's all down to cosmic rays NO ONE denies the crucial influence of the sun on Earth's climate.
The total amount of energy reaching Earth varies, but recent variations cannot explain the recent
warming. What if changes in other forms of solar activity have larger-than-expected effects on the
climate, though? In the late 1990s, Danish scientists revived the idea that the high-energy particles
known as cosmic rays might influence cloud formation by ionising the atmosphere. If so, this could
amplify the effect of small changes in solar activity on the climate. Though most cosmic rays come
from deep space, changes in solar activity can alter the number that reach Earth. When there are many
sunspots, the sun's magnetic field strengthens, deflecting more of the cosmic rays in the solar system.
Henrik Svensmark of the Danish National Space Center claims that fewer cosmic rays would mean
fewer clouds, so warming Earth. He thinks this effect explains the recent warming, arguing the case in
a book he wrote with science journalist Nigel Calder (who edited New Scientist from 1962 to 1966).
There are at least three separate issues here. Firstly, do cosmic rays really trigger cloud formation?
Secondly, if they do, how do the changes in cloud cover affect temperature? Finally, can this explain
the warming trend of the past few decades? The hypothesis is that the ionisation of air by cosmic rays
imparts an electric charge to aerosols that encourages them to clump together; the clumps become
large enough to trigger the condensation of water, and hence clouds form. As yet there is no
convincing evidence that such clumping occurs. Experiments under way at the CERN particle physics
laboratory near Geneva should settle the issue, but will not reveal if it matters in the real world: the
atmosphere already has plenty of cloud condensation nuclei, so it is not clear why cosmic rays should
have any great effect on cloud formation. A series of attempts by Svensmark to show an effect have
come unstuck. Most recently, he has claimed there is a correlation between low-altitude cloud cover
and cosmic rays. Yet a correlation does not prove cause and effect. What's more, the correlation holds
up after 1995 only if data is "corrected", and others in the field say this correction is not justified . "It's
dubious manipulation of data in order to suit his hypothesis," says Joanna Haigh, an atmospheric
physicist at Imperial College London, UK. A few independent studies by other groups hint at a very
tiny effect on clouds, but most have found no effect. Then there is the question of how clouds and
climate interact. Svensmark claims the overall effect of less cloud cover is a warmer world in which
the extra heat that clear skies allow in during the day outweighs the increased heat losses at night. Not
all scientists agree with this reasoning, as even during the day many clouds in the upper atmosphere
can in fact have a warming effect. Finally, and most importantly, even if changes in cosmic ray
intensity do turn out to influence cloud cover and temperature, they cannot explain the rapid warming
of the past few decades. Direct measurements going back 50 years show a periodic variation in
intensity, but no downward trend coinciding with the recent warming.
 2AC – Impact Outweighs DA
First, environmental impacts are the greatest risk of extinction and they
independently crash the global economy.

Mische, ‘89
(Global Ed. Associate, Alternatives)
We are at a point in human history and in the planet’s development when it has become critical to reconsider
security priorities in light of new threats to human life emanating from human assaults on the Earth.
The bottom line for economic security is the functioning integrity of the Earth. And military security is irrelevant if
the Earth cannot sustain human life. Today the threats to the planet’s life sustaining process and with it
to economic well-being and ultimately human survival are as grave or even graver than those posed by the
prospect of military invasion, including the prospect of nuclear confrontation.

Second, nuclear war doesn’t cause extinction – only global warming does.

Seitz ‘6
(Russell, former Presidential science advisor and keynote speaker at international science conferences,
holds multiple patents and degrees from Harvard and MIT, “The ‘Nuclear Winter’ Meltdown,” 12-20,
http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2006/12/preherein_honor.html)
Apocalyptic predictions require, to be taken seriously higher standards of evidence than do assertions
on other matters where the stakes are not as great." wrote Sagan in Foreign Affairs, Winter 1983 -84.
But that "evidence" was never forthcoming. 'Nuclear Winter' never existed outside of a
computer except as air-brushed animation commissioned by the a PR firm - Porter Novelli Inc. Yet
Sagan predicted "the extinction of the human species " as temperatures plummeted 35 degrees C and
the world froze in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. Last year, Sagan's cohort tried to reanimate
the ghost in a machine anti-nuclear activists invoked in the depths of the Cold War, by re-running
equally arbitrary scenarios on a modern interactive Global Circulation Model. But the Cold War is
history in more ways than one. It is a credit to post-modern computer climate simulations that they do
not reproduce the apocalyptic results of what Sagan oxymoronically termed "a sophisticated one
dimensional model. "The subzero 'baseline case' has melted down into a tepid 1.3 degrees of average
cooling grey skies do not a Ragnarok make . What remains is just not the stuff that End of the World
myths are made of.
 A2 – CO2 Ag

Theoretical benefits of CO2 are overwhelmed in a warmer world

Flavin and Tunali ‘96
(Christopher and Odil, Worldwatch Institute, “Climate of Hope,” Worldwatch Paper 130, p.21-2)
Global circulation models indicate that climate change could increase agricultural productivity in
some northern regions as a result of longer growing seasons and increased precipitation. But most of
the areas that might benefit, including northern Canada and Siberia, Lack the rich soils now found in
areas such as the Midwestern United States and Ukraine, and so would be unable to deliver the
bumper crops produced in today’s “grain belts.” Also, higher summer temperatures would impede
pollination and boost evaporation, reducing soil moisture. Higher temperatures would also allow
insects and diseases to proliferate, which would further reduce yields. Potential disruptions are shown
by the fact that between 1988 and 1995, three US grain harvests were diminished by heat and drought,
contributing to a rapid drawdown in global grain reserves.

Slowing warming allows adaptation and captures the benefits of CO2 - the current rate is
too fast
Bernard ‘93
(Harold, Climate Institute, Global Warming Unchecked, p. 104-5)
There have been suggestions that farmers will adapt to climatic change, that - as our weather changes
- they will move, plant different crops, modify varieties, and alter husbandry. There have been
suggestions that the agriculture of some nations might benefit from a warmer world….that countries currently
having vast areas of land too cold for large-scale farming, such as Canada and Russia, might come out as twenty-first century winners. All of
this might be true if our climate were to change gradually, if we were to have time to plan, to
cultivate different crops, to change methods, to seek government assistance. But our climate will not
change gradually. Take a look again at figure 7.2 showing the extreme rapidity with which our world is forecast to warm. This is really a
startling graphic, one you should keep in mind when people suggest that a greenhouse world might not be so bad. As James Hansen points out,
“If we go all the way to a four-degree increase by the middle of next century, that will be an incredible
climate change” occurring in an incredibly short time. Stephen Schneider put it into quantitative terms when he says
we’re “altering the climate at ten to sixty times the natural rates.” That is, over the next fifty years we’re likely to warm our climate an amount
that under natural conditions would have taken 500 to 3,000 years. “We’re altering the environment faster than we can predict the
consequences,” says Schneider. And Michael Oppenheimer, of the Environmental Defense Fund, metaphorically warns, “There
will be no
winners in this world of continuous change, only a globe full of losers. Today’s beneficiaries of
change will be tomorrow’s victims as any advantages of the new climate roll past them like a fast
moving wave.”Even if farmers were able to react rapidly enough to keep up with the “fast-moving
wave,” that doesn’t mean ecosystems could. Canada, for instance, probably couldn’t take full
agricultural advantage of a warmer climate, since much of the nation does not have the optimum-type soil for growing wheat
and corn. Despite the availability of modern technology and government support, one has to be skeptical regarding just how
adaptable even the American farmer might be. Remember that in the 1980s, U.S. agricultural and livestock losses from
drought and heat totaled over forty-five billion dollars. And that was just “spring training.”

Models prove warming on balance increases food prices and famine

Chen ‘96
(Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network, Climate Change and World Food
Security, Thomas Downing, ed., p. 44-5)
In all cases, climate change leads to net declines in cereal production and agricultural GDP in the
developing world. Modest increases in production in the developed world in most instances do not
fully counterbalance the developing world declines, except at high levels of adaptation in the less
dramatic GCM scenarios. World market price increases at the same time the developing counties are
forced to import more cereals. As a result, the estimated number of undernourished people is
projected to increases in 11 of the 12 climate change scenarios examined. Tables 4 and 5 summarize the
results of the BLS scenario experiments in comparison with our scenario of a food-secure world. These illustrate that there is a
large gap between a “desirable” food-secure scenario and the BLS scenarios with respect to the prevalence of undernutrition
and future growth in food availability and income. About 500 million more people, or an additional 5 percent of
the world population in 2060, suffer from severe undernutrition in the BLS Reference Scenario
compared with the food-secure scenario. Under the most adverse climate changes considered the
number of undernourished could increase drastically to more than 2 billion, or 20 percent of the 2060
population.
 A2 – SO2 Screw

Warming overwhelms aerosol cooling

Energy ‘04
(Winter v29 i1 p26)
AOSS researchers have provided observational evidence that burning fossil fuels has a direct impact
on the solar radiation reflectivity of clouds, thereby contributing to global climate change. Professor
Joyce E. Penner and graduate student Yang Chen, from the University of Michigan Department of
Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences (AOSS), with assistant professor Xiquan Dong, from the
University of North Department of Atmospheric Science, presented their findings in the January 15
issue of the journal Nature. Most evidence that increased levels of fossil fuel particles (aerosols)
affects the reflectivity of clouds, thereby producing a cooling effect on the climate, has been indirect.
"This made it difficult to determine the impact this phenomena, known as the indirect aerosol effect,
has on the global climate," said Penner. "Our data makes the direct connection, and opens new areas
of study." Solar radiation, which adds to global warming, is reflected back into space by clouds.
Cloud droplets are increased with higher levels of aerosols allowing for less radiation, or heat, to
reach the lower atmosphere. The end result is a measurable cooling effect on the climate. Using
atmospheric data gathered from a site in Oklahoma, a typical continental site with a high
concentration of aerosols, and a typical Arctic site in Barrow Alaska with low aerosol concentration,
the researchers were able to show that the difference in cloud reflectivity at the two sites was caused
by the difference in aerosol levels. The researchers also provided important evidence that the
computer simulation model used in the study was capable of estimating cloud optical properties
determined over a broad range of aerosol concentrations. "This study is important for two reasons,"
said Penner. "First, it provides evidence that there is some cooling of the climate due to anthropogenic
aerosols. Second, the simulation model we used has been shown to be a valuable tool in determining
more directly the impact of aerosols on the climate." Penner cautioned that over longer time scales in
the future, the climate cooling due to the indirect aerosol effect will be minimal when compared to the
climate warming of carbon dioxide.
***Solvency***
 Renewables Solve
Renewables independently solve.

Trenberth ‘01
(Kevin, Head of the Climate Analysis Section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research,
Environment, May 2001 v43 i4, p. infotrac)
The evidence presented by the IPCC report suggests that there is a strong case for slowing down the
projected rates of climate change caused by human influences. Any climate change scenario is fraught
with uncertainties. But a slowing in the warming process would allow researchers to improve
projections of climate change and its impacts. Actions taken to slow down climate change would
provide time to better prepare for and adapt to the changes as they appear. Natural systems and human
systems, many of which have long amortization lifetimes (e.g., power stations, dams, and buildings),
are then less likely to be dislocated or become obsolete quickly. Therefore, we must plan ahead.
Greater energy efficiency and expanding use of renewable resources, such as solar power, are clearly
key steps toward slowing the rate of climate change.
***A2 – States***
 2AC – States CP
-- States not solve warming – need legislation

SIEGAL 1—13—04
Despite growing activity at the state and local level, federal regulation is necessary to ensure that all
states contribute to addressing the problem. In addition, given that the United States is the world's
leading emitter of greenhouse gases, national legislation would signal other nations that we are not
turning a blind eye to the problem, despite President Bush's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol. With
Russia's potential rejection of the protocol and uncertainty about the agreement's fate, it is imperative
that our nation take a leadership role.

-- Feds have more regulatory resources and federal uniformity critical to trigger
technology investment

Kaswan, ‘7
(Professor of Law, University of San Francisco School of Law, University of San Francisco Law
Review, Summer 2007)
Several justifications for federal regulation are grounded in efficiency: The federal government has
more resources for research and for the development of regulatory standards, and it would be
inefficient to have all fifty states conduct the same research and address the same concerns. Federal
regulation can also be more efficient for industry, especially nationwide or multinational industries,
which might otherwise face different regulatory standards in different states. For example, the
automobile industry's support for uniform federal emissions standards that would preempt divergent
state standards was a key factor in the promulgation of the Federal Clean Air Act. Moreover, a
uniform federal approach could promote investment in technology by providing a national market for
potential inventions.

-- Turn: Environmental Leadership

(a) Regional greenhouse gas initiatives undermine U.S. global leadership on climate
change

Maxwell, ‘7
(2007 graduate of the Dickinson School of Law of the Pennsylvania State University and a 2004
graduate of Columbia University, Barnard College, Penn State Environmental Law Review, Winter)
Not having enacted any legislation about the emissions of CO2, does not mean that the United States
has failed to take a stance on the issue. Oftentimes, inaction is more signaling then actual action, and
just like in Virginia v. Tennessee can be very telling of Congress' intent. By refusing to act on CO2
emissions the federal government has laid out a federal climate change policy, that shows it is
opposed to regulating CO2 emissions. There are many plausible reasons why Congress and Bush
administration may not want a national program similar to RGGI, and it is just as easy to argue that
Republicans are being manipulated by energy lobbyists as it is to say that RGGI-like agreements are
bad policy as they encourage other forms of energy that may cause other environmental harms that are
arguably worse than an increase in CO2 emissions. Regardless, of whether states agree with the policy
plan, they should be bound by federal policy. Furthermore, by publicly speaking out against federal
policy, the RGGI states are undermining the official policy of the Congress and the President. The
United States is losing international clout on the issue of global warming, by the mere fact that it can
not control its own states. If RGGI, was forced to seek Congressional approval under the interstate
compact clause, then Congress could properly exercise its authority and either force the RGGI states
 to comply with the federal policy, or compromise with them to come to a new national understanding
on global warming and the need to regulate carbon based emissions.

(B) International co-op key – that’s the 1AC Claussen & Environmental Law ev.
Need U.S. to create a coalition against warming.
***A2 – Elections***
 Yes – McCain

DESPITE BUSH RATINGS MCCAIN CLOSE IN POLLS TO OBAMA

Reid Wilson, Real Clear Politics, June 12, 2008

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/politics_nation/2008/06/strategy_memo_hey_ladies.html

President Bush's job approval rating is in the tank, as just 29% approve, per the latest RCP Average.
Only 16% say the country is headed in the right direction. And Democrats lead Republicans in a
generic congressional ballot matchup by an average of twelve points. Yet John McCain trails Barack
Obama by just over four points in the latest RCP General Election Average, and he's doing very well
among white males and among traditionally Democratic white suburban women, who have more
typically voted Democratic in recent years, as the Wall Street Journal's Jackie Calmes writes today.
 2AC – Link Turns
-- Turn – Flip Flop

(a) McCain is proposing cap and trade policies now

John McCain Press Release 6/24

[http://www.standardnewswire.com/news/465962925.html]
John McCain Proposes A Cap-And-Trade System That Would Set Limits On Greenhouse Gas
Emissions While Encouraging The Development Of Low-Cost Compliance Options. A climate cap-
and-trade mechanism would set a limit on greenhouse gas emissions and allow entities to buy and sell
rights to emit, similar to the successful acid rain trading program of the early 1990s. The key feature
of this mechanism is that it allows the market to decide and encourage the lowest-cost compliance
options. How Does A Cap-And-Trade System Work? A cap-and-trade system harnesses human
ingenuity in the pursuit of alternatives to carbon-based fuels. Market participants are allotted total
permits equal to the cap on greenhouse gas emissions. If they can invent, improve, or acquire a way to
reduce their emissions, they can sell their extra permits for cash. The profit motive will coordinate the
efforts of venture capitalists, corporate planners, entrepreneurs, and environmentalists on the common
motive of reducing emissions.

(B) Plan ends the ability for McCain to distance himself from Bush- undermines
critical support

Sargent, Writer for TPN Election Central, 6/24

[Greg, Talking Points Memo,
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/poll_obama_holds_huge_advantag.php]
And not only that, it also finds that energy policy, by one measure, has now become the number one
concern of voters. The poll finds that Obama leads McCain by 19 points (47%-28%) on the question
of who would do a better job handling energy policy, including gas prices. It also finds that 51% say
that energy and gas prices are "extremely important" in determining their vote, higher than the
economy (49%) or Iraq (44%). It's worth pointing out that energy policy is central to McCain's
strategy -- pushing an energy plan has emerged as one of the key ways in which he's hoping to
achieve separation from Bush and the GOP.

Pushing for alternative energy alienates voters- too long term

Strassel, Writer for the Wall Street Journal, 6/23
[Kim, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121416141424495047.html?mod=googlenews_wsj]

Strassel: I think it is. When you have $4-a-gallon gas, it focuses the mind out there in the public. And
what helps him is that there is a very clear distinction between what he and Barack Obama are
proposing. He says, Look, America has a lot of oil resources with huge potential. We don't--supply is
tight. We should go in there and we should drill. It will help with oil prices. Barack Obama is saying,
You know, I'm not going to do anything about more drilling, and in fact, what I want to do is take a
lot of tax dollars and spend it on more alternative energy research. And I think lot of Americans go,
How's that going to help me now?

Cap and Trade policies are unpopular- seen as raising gas prices

Wall Street Journal 6/8

Even Barack Obama and John McCain backed away from a bill they claim to favor. Mr. McCain said
he opposed it because it didn't do enough for nuclear power, while Mr. Obama blamed the failure on
Republicans. But the word on Capitol Hill is that both Presidential candidates urged Mr. Reid to yank
the bill, lest they get trapped into voting for higher energy prices. Maybe a vast reordering of the American economy
in the name of solving a speculative problem isn't as popular as the greens believe. And perhaps President Bush's approach to climate change –
voluntary reductions and subsidies for alternative technology – will seem a lot more realistic once the partisan fevers of the moment have passed.
That's not to say that cap and trade won't return in a more politically potent form next year. The greens will regroup and try to do a better job of
the
buying off their adversaries, especially businesses that could profit from carbon regulation. Nonetheless, this past week has shown that
more transparent any cap and trade debate is, the less chance this tax and spend idea will become law.
 A2 – Obama Solves Case
All presidential candidates favor caps – DA can’t turn the case

Fortune, April 28, 2008

THE ECO-CAPITALISTS It's easy to get bogged down in the details of carbon finance and lose sight
of its overarching goal-to get the world's big economies to stop using fossil fuels or, barring that,
figure out ways to clean them up. The leading bill in Congress to regulate greenhouse gases, which is
sponsored by Senator John Warner (R-Virginia) and Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Connecticut), calls
for a 70% reduction of emissions from 2005 levels by 2050 Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton,
Barack Obama, and John McCain all favor caps in that ballpark. So does the U.S. Climate Action
Partnership, a broad coalition of big companies like GE, GM, and DuPont, and advocacy groups like
Environmental Defense and the Natural Resources Defense Council. California and a group of
Northeastern states have also passed laws to regulate carbon. If enacted, a federal cap would set off a
radical disruption of the economy.
***A2 – Econ DA***
 2AC – Link Turns

Patchwork state policies will wreck energy utilities in the status quo. A uniform cap
and trade policy is critical to investment.
Doug Smith, former general counsel of the FERC, January 2004 [Public Utilities Fortnightly, lexis]
In addition, a determination by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that it lacks any
regulatory authority under the Clean Air Act to address climate change likely will open the door for
more states and municipalities to develop climate programs. The emergence of multiple state and
local climate programs could have significant implications for utilities. Although some efforts are
under way to coordinate regional, state, and local climate change programs, those programs are likely
to vary significantly. Diverse policies could present real problems for utilities. Electricity grids and
markets increasingly are becoming regional, if not national in scope. For utilities doing business in
multiple states and regions, a patchwork of different state and regional climate policies will
complicate business planning and could have significant implications for competition. Moreover,
inconsistent state and regional policies related to emissions accounting and crediting systems could
inhibit the development of cost-saving emissions trading markets.

Certainty key to investment and growth.

James Cooper and Kathleen Madigan, Business Week, 10-4-04 [lexis]
Uncertainty matters, of course, because it causes economic players to sit on the sidelines. In the past,
Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has compared uncertainty to walking into an unlit room. Faced with
darkness, the occupant tends to freeze up. That may be happening again: Consumers and businesses
seem to prefer to hold on to their cash rather than spend it on goods and services or invest in the
financial markets.

Businesses like tradable permits-multiple reasons

Robert W. Fri, Visiting Scholar, Resources for the Future, 10/1/03 (Energy Journal, l/n)
Businesses no doubt appreciate the shrinking price tag, but they like these market-based approaches to
environmental protection for other reasons. First, they provide regulatory certainty. With a system
like the Acid Rain Program, businesses know exactly what targets they are shooting for and don't have
to worry year in and year out about new rules being imposed by governments. In short, they can plan
for the future. Second, marker-based approaches are flexible and permit businesses to figure out for
themselves how best to reduce their emissions. Lastly, the market creates new business
opportunities. As the pollution-control markets develop, companies need a variety of business
offerings that range from insurance to brokerage and trading services.

Warming will collapse the economy-transitioning to renewables creates a massive

amount of jobs
Ross Gelbspan, author of The Heat is On, March 1, 2004 (Dollars & Sense, l/n)

Even from the perspective of capitalist financial institutions, this plan should make perfect sense.
Recently, Swiss Re-Insurance said it anticipates losses from climate impacts to reach $ 150 billion a
year within this decade. Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer, estimates that within several
decades, losses from climate impacts will reach $ 300 billion a year. Climate change will destroy
property; raise health care costs; ruin crops; and damage energy, communications and
transportation infrastructures. It will likely wound the insurance and banking sectors in the
process. Last year, the largest re-insurer in Britain said that unchecked climate change could
bankrupt the global economy by 2065. And its effects hit poor countries hardest--not because nature
discriminates against the poor, but because poor countries can't afford the kinds of infrastructure
needed to buffer its impacts. By contrast, a worldwide energy transition would create a dramatic
expansion of the overall wealth in the global economy. It would raise living standards in the South
without compromising those in the North. Rewiring the planet with clean energy in time to meet
nature's deadline will generate a staggering number of new jobs for the global labor force. By
blocking a transition to clean energy, the coal and oil industries are hindering a huge surge in
new jobs all over the world.
 Economy Down
Expert consensus is that we’re in a recession
McGee and Soat 3-24
(Marianne and Joan, Information Week, “Recession and You,” lexis)
Like Mathews, business technology leaders need to get ahead of the downturn. Earlier this month,
71% of the 55 economists in a Wall Street Journal poll said the United States is in a recession, and, on
average, they gave it a 48% chance of being worse than the downturns in 2001 and 1990. Most IT and
business pros in our survey also see a recession upon us or looming. When the usually upbeat tech
managers join economists in seeing tough times ahead, it's time to prepare for the worst, even if you
hold out hope for the best.

Housing, unemployment, food and energy costs, and spending mean the economy is
tanked
Bloomberg News 3-28
(reported in the Boston Globe,
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/03/28/economy_barely_grows_in_4th_quarter/)
WASHINGTON - The US economy grew at an annual pace of 0.6 percent from October though
December, weakened by a deepening housing slump that may be bringing an end to the six-year
expansion. The gain in gross domestic product followed a 4.9 percent third-quarter growth rate, the Commerce Department
said yesterday. Measures of inflation were revised down and corporate profits dropped. Claims for jobless benefits
over the past month were at the highest level in more than two years, a separate report showed,
indicating a rise in firings that may further slow consumer spending. With declines in business
investment and construction, the world's largest economy may not grow from January through March.
"It's hard to see any good news at all," said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight
Inc., a Lexington, Mass., forecasting firm. "Housing is still dropping like a stone and now the
consumer is slowing, too. That's the big difference" from last quarter. Yesterday's report was the final of three estimates provided by the
government. The advance reading on first-quarter growth is due April 30. Economists forecast a final GDP reading of 0.6 percent, according to
the median projection in a Bloomberg News survey. The figures yesterday included a first look at corporate profits for the quarter. Earnings
dropped 3.3 percent, a second straight decline, to an annual rate of $1.57 trillion. The drop may even be understated because the government
doesn't take into account asset write-downs and loan-loss provisions in calculating current-quarter profits. Financial firms still recorded a 15
percent drop in profits last quarter, even without reflecting those losses. For all of last year, profits were up 2.7 percent, the smallest gain since a
decline in 2001. The average number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits over the last four weeks rose to 358,000,
the highest since October 2005. The figures indicate employers are cutting jobs or delaying hiring. "That's a pretty good indication of the softness
in the labor markets," said Stephen Gallagher, chief US economist at Societe Generale SA in New York. "Businesses are nervous and are
cautious." Companies continue to pare jobs. Western Union Co., the biggest US money transfer business, said last week it'll close offices in
Missouri and Texas, cutting 650 union jobs. A weaker economy and tighter immigration controls have limited domestic money transfers and
remittances to Mexico, hurting the Englewood, Colo.-based company. Employers cut 85,000 jobs in the first two months of this year, the most in
nearly five years, Labor Department figures showed this month. The GDP report showed prices rose at a 2.4 percent pace in the last three months
of 2007, down from the 2.7 percent estimated previously. Excluding food and fuel, consumers paid 2.5 percent more for goods and services at an
annual rate, down from the 2.7 percent projected last month. Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the economy, rose
at a 2.3 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, revised up from the 1.9 percent increase previously estimated, according to yesterday's report.
The weakening labor market, combined with higher food and energy
Spending rose 2.8 percent in the third quarter.
costs and the ongoing slump in housing, has unnerved consumers this quarter. The Conference Board
said this week its confidence index fell to a five-year low in March.

Subprime, consumer spending, housing, and dollar depreciation mean recession is

inevitable
Huiwen 3-28
(Yang, The Straits Times (Singapore) “US economy expected to worsen before it gets better” lexis)
IT WILL be a slow and painful road to recovery for the United States economy, as its sub-prime
write-downs and credit crisis deepen, according to the British Chamber of Commerce's resident
economic spokesman in Singapore. Mr Roman Scott told the chamber's first biannual economic
briefing yesterday that total write-downs had amounted to about $195US billion ($269S.5 billion), but
this could be just 'the tip of the iceberg'. He said further write-downs for other associated credit losses
could eventually bring the total bill to as much as $500US billion. 'It is very misleading to say it's a
short-term problem. It is not a shallow recession, not a passing blink,' said Mr Scott, who is also the
managing director of Calamander Capital, a Singapore-based investment and advisory firm. He added
that it would take two to three years to clear up the credit mess. The credit crunch and the spectre of a
recession coupled with inflation and the massive depreciation of the US currency - each a big problem
in itself - are, in combination, something of a perfect financial storm, said Mr Scott. 'The US has been
an accident waiting to happen for a long time,' he said. The Federal Reserve's rate cuts will help ailing
banks by reducing their cost of money, but these will be ineffective in staving off a recession, which
is consumer- and household-driven.
 Economy Down
Economy is on a downward spiral – it’ll get worse before it gets better
Stafford 3-27
(Diane, reporter for the Kansas City Start,
http://www.kansascity.com/business/story/549652.html)
The U.S. real gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter of
2007, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said Thursday. That growth rate — the same as earlier
preliminary estimates — adds another signal of a slowing economy. Real GDP in the third quarter had
increased at a 4.9 percent rate. Real GDP is the output of goods and services produced by labor and property in the United
States. The bureau said the fourth-quarter deceleration “primarily reflected a downturn in inventory
investment and decelerations in exports, in federal government spending, and in personal
consumption expenditures.” Real personal consumption spending increased 2.3 percent in the fourth quarter, compared
with an increase of 2.8 percent in the third quarter. The bureau’s report also noted that corporate profits from current production
decreased $52.9 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with a decrease of $20.5 billion in the third quarter. Another sign of
a slowdown, published Thursday, was a further dip in the Conference Board’s Help-Wanted
Advertising Index, a measure of job offerings in 51 major metropolitan newspapers around the
country. “More regions of the country are experiencing economic distress, and the impact is now
evident in the labor markets,” said Ken Goldstein, labor economist at the business research
organization. “There’s been very little profit growth, and virtually no job growth in the past three
months. Businesses are cautious about investing and hiring.” The board’s proprietary index, which measures
print advertising volume, now stands at 21, nine points lower than the same time last year. It should also be noted, though, that
print help-wanted ads have been trending down in the last year as employers turn to online job recruitment tools. Goldstein
commented on the ripple effect: “The lack of job growth sours consumer attitudes and spending plans. The
lack of spending causes businesses to retrench. This is the downward spiral we are on.”
 N/U – Perceive Regs Now

NU – Businesses perceive climate caps coming now

Environmental Law, Winter 2008, p.203-4
CCX is a voluntary market and therefore has different requirements than a government regulated
emissions trading program. CCX is not regulated by a government authority and therefore regulatory
certainty over time is not essential for the market to function optimally. The growth of CCX reflects
the awareness that a national carbon emissions trading program may emerge in the United States. The
United States faces increasing economic and political pressure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and create
a binding emissions trading scheme. Emissions are being converted into economic terms, and
CCX's increasing acceptance suggests that investors view the regulation of greenhouse gas
emissions as inevitable. Big businesses that have consistently refused to recognize climate
change, such as Exxon Mobil, concede now that there is a problem and that their products
contribute to it. n200 In addition, "last year four-fifths of utility executives ... expected mandatory
emissions caps within a decade." n201 In 2006, United States companies invested over $ 30 billion in
alternative energy, seven times more then their European counterparts, reflecting industry recognition
of the growing market for cleaner energy. In addition, international pressure may result in the United
States joining or creating an emissions trading scheme. Currently, Kyoto Protocol parties are
imposing higher costs on their GHG emissions because the competition does not have to incorporate
the extra cost of GHG emissions into production. The EU has proposed a carbon tax on the
import of industrial products from countries that refuse to commit themselves to the Kyoto
Protocol after 2012. n If the EU acts on its threat to impose a green tax, American industry will
face higher export prices, reducing trade, while also being denied access to possibly lucrative
markets for new energy technology. CCX plays a crucial role in these developments by allowing
businesses and cities to learn to operate in a carbon market, while increasing political awareness and
acceptance of carbon markets. The ability of CCX, in conjunction with international and domestic
pressure, to join the Kyoto Protocol and create a carbon emissions trading system will determine the
regulatory certainty of a U.S. emissions trading scheme.
 Case Outweighs – DA Inevitable
Turn-- Costs of failure to act outweigh the costs of acting

Environmental Law, Winter 2008, p. 180-1

Carbon emissions trading, one of the Kyoto Protocol's flexible mechanisms, presents a promising tool to limit
global emissions of greenhouse gases that cause climate change. Questions still remain whether carbon markets
provide a cost-efficient and environmentally effective method for reducing GHG emissions. Ideally, emissions
trading reduces the cost of meeting emissions obligations by placing a monetary value on GHG emissions and
using the flexibility of the market to allow participants to decide whether it is cheaper to reduce emissions or to
purchase excess allowances from others. Emissions trading holds the promise to correct a market failure that
allows "companies [to be] rewarded financially for maximizing externalities in order to minimize costs."
Currently, business decisions do not incorporate the true external cost of climate change
because there is no incorporated production cost for the environmental effects of emitting GHG
emissions into the commons. Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist of the World Bank,
recognizes this market problem and estimates that if climate change goes unabated, the total
cost of climate change could top $ 5.5 trillion, or twenty percent of the world's economic output,
approximately equal to the cost to the economy suffered during the Great Depression. In
contrast, "an investment of one percent [$ 350 billion] of total world economic output would
suffice to avert the direst consequences of global warming." Emissions trading promises to incorporate
environmental externalities and to "enable capital markets to achieve their intended purpose - to consistently
allocate capital to its highest and best use for the good of the people and planet." If an emissions trading system
adequately limits the supply of emissions allowance through a sufficient cap to prevent anthropogenic climate
change, a carbon market will force participants to find cost-efficient ways to either reduce emissions or acquire
reduction credits as cheaply as possible to meet their obligation.
 A2 – Energy Prices Link
Only a small, gradual increase in energy prices under cap & trade
Robert N. Stavins, economist, Harvard, National Bureua of Economic Research, October 2007, A
U.S. Cap-and- Trade System to Address Global Climate Change,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2007/10climate_stavins/10_climate_stavins.pdf

As indicated above, the cap-and-trade system has the effect of reducing

demand for fossil fuels relative to BAU and hence reducing fossil fuel prices
relative to what those prices would be in the absence of policy. There is an
important distinction, however, between the price of fuels themselves (Table
6) and the cost of using those fuels. Table 8 reports estimates of the added
cost for each of the major fuels, including crude oil, gasoline, heating oil,
wellhead natural gas, residential natural gas, and utility coal, at sample
allowance prices of $25, $50, and $100 per ton of CO2. These added costs of
allowances to fuel users (which do not include the adjustment for the effects
of the cap-and-trade policies on producer prices from Table 6) are compared
with the average price of the respective fuels over a recent period. Not
surprisingly, the percentage impacts on costs for users of crude oil are
greater than for users of derived products, such as gasoline and heating oil,
because the costs of these products include capital and labor for refining, in
addition to the cost of the crude oil itself. Likewise, the percentage impact on
the cost of wellhead natural gas is much greater than that on residential
natural gas, which includes costs of transportation and distribution. Of
course, by far the greatest impacts are on users of coal. In the case of
gasoline, natural gas, and electricity, anticipated price impacts are actually
relatively modest when compared with historical changes in prices since
1990. Also, the anticipated price increases take place much more gradually
than did recent spikes in energy prices
 No Link – Businesses Like the Plan
Major US businesses now support cap and trade
Knight Ridder Washington Bureau January 17, 2008 p. l/n
WASHINGTON _ U.S. businesses are betting that the federal government soon will put
mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions, and they're making sure they have a say in shaping
a vast new regulatory system. Some of the country's biggest businesses support a cap and trade
system, the approach that Congress is considering. Under cap and trade, the government gives or
sells companies allowances to emit certain amounts of greenhouse gases, and companies may sell
unused allowances to other companies. While it may sound simple, the details would be complex
and the plan would affect the entire economy and require monitoring for decades. The U.S.
Climate Action Partnership _ which includes U.S. automakers, other big manufacturers such as
Alcoa and Caterpillar Inc. and energy companies such as FPL Group, Duke Energy and PG&E
Corp. _ supports a cap and trade system, but its members have questions about key elements, such
as how emissions could be offset and how much they'd have to pay for the allowances. "In the last
year there's been a sea change" in business thinking on a mandatory federal emissions policy,
said Truman Semans, the director for marketing and business strategy for a group of large U.S.
companies at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change's Business Environmental Leadership
Council. The council comprises 44 companies with $2.8 trillion in market capitalization, a sizable
chunk of the world economy. Most favor a mandatory market-based emissions policy, Semans said.
***A2 – Oil***
 2AC – Oil No Link
Oil will continue to be consumed in transport

Krupp, ‘8
Fred Krupp, Environmental Defense Fund, 2008, Earth: The Sequel The Race to Reinvent Energy and
Stop Global Warming, p. 73

In a civilization as centered as ours on the automobile, however, and a global economy so dependent
on transport, fluid fuels will necessarily play a crucial part. While there are many clean ways to make
electricity, and while electricity may in the future become the prime power source for transport
(Chapter 9 explores this idea), there is simply no immediate substitute for liquid fuels, which as
currently produced inflict a heavy burden: the U.S. vehicle fleet pumps 1.3 billion tons of carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere every year, and $820 million in capital is exported every day for the oil
needed to do so. The concentration of chemical energy in a gallon of diesel or gasoline and the ease of
storing and delivering that energy are unmatched. As Caltech professor Nate Lewis says, "You can
take a $5 piece of hose and pump at a rate of 10 mega¬watts into your car. To move 10 megawatts of
electricity, you need high-voltage transmission lines. And the electricity won't just sit there, like the
gas, waiting for you to be ready to use it." Nor is it just cars and planes that rely on petroleum: the
$1.5 trillion chemi¬cal and plastics industries also depend on the stuff.
 2AC – Econ Turn
Current prices will collapse the economy

Luft ‘8
(Gal, executive director of Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, PhD in strategic studies
from Johns Hopkins, The Cutting Edge, 1-28, “Bush begs the Saudis,”
http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=294)
President Bush’s appeal to the Saudis to increase oil production is more pitiful than understandable.
At $100 a barrel, the United States bleeds over a billion dollars per day in order to finance its
petroleum import needs. The result: ballooning trade deficits, growing unemployment, a weakened
dollar and crumbling financial institutions like Citigroup and Merrill Lynch now forced to beg Persian
Gulf monarchies for cash infusions. At current oil prices, the U.S. economy is melting faster than the
ice caps.

Oil will hit 200 by year end

Schlossberg ‘8
(Boris, Sr. Currency Strategist, Daily FX, “$1000 Gold? $100 Oil? One May Glitter While The
Other Turns to Sludge,” 1-10,
http://www.dailyfx.com/story/topheadline/_1000_Gold___100_Oil__One_1199968093530.html)
Oil has been the other great commodity story of 2007. In fact as 2008 opens for business the fastest-
growing bet in the oil market these days is that the price of crude will double to $200 a barrel by the
end of the year. According to Bloomberg, “Options to buy oil for $200 on the New York Mercantile
Exchange rose 10-fold in the past two months to 5,533 contracts, a record increase for any similar
period. These contracts – which are the cheapest way to speculate in energy markets - appreciated 36
percent since early December as crude futures reached a record $100.09 on Jan. 3.” But are oil traders
getting ahead of themselves? The demand for crude has been predicated on two key drivers –geo-
political risk and global growth.

And it makes a price collapse inevitable – the only way to avoid their impact is to
moderate prices now
Douthwaite ‘03
(Richard, economist and founder of the economic think tank Foundation for the Economics of
Sustainability “Oil and the Irish Economy,”
http://www.constructireland.ie/articles/0210douthwaite.php)
The bank referred to a ‘spike’ because prices could not stay at the $100 level for more than a few
months without causing the collapse of the world economy. This would happen because we would all
be spending so much more to buy our oil that we would be unable to carry on buying other things at
the rate we do at present, particularly as the prices of other fuels would rise in step with that of oil. As
a result of the diversion of our spending, factories around the world would find they had spare
capacity. They would lay off staff and cancel expansion projects and, as construction work is so
energy intensive, its cessation would cause oil demand to fall rapidly. This is exactly what happened
the last time its price went significantly above the $20 level in 1972 money. Millions of people would
become unemployed and cut their spending to the bare minimum, causing other people to lose their
jobs too. A global depression could develop in which the lack of activity in the world economy could
cause the price of oil in today’s money to plummet from $100 back to around $15 a barrel again.
 2AC – Econ Turn
Our impact is empirically true – another oil spike will crash the global economy
Dyer ‘07
(Gwynne, London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries,
Canberra Times, 8-6, lexis)
NINE of the last 10 serious downturns in the world economy followed a spike in the price of oil, and
we are heading for another spike, with oil back up near the peak of $US78.40 a barrel that it reached
almost exactly a year ago. A record number of options contracts are now being sold that entitle
customers to buy oil in the future at $US100 a barrel. That tells you where the inside players think the
price of oil is heading, since those options will only be of value if the price were actually above
$US100 a barrel. That is the price that Goldman Sachs, the world's biggest brokerage house, predicted
oil would reach by 2009. However, one big negative headline further disruption of supplies from
Nigeria or Iraq, say and oil could be trading at more than $US100 a barrel by next month. But the
concern is not really about oil prices. It's about what more expensive oil will do to the world
economy, and the professional optimists are still optimistic.

Your impact is empirically false – oil prices dropped 18 dollars last fall
Halligan ‘06
(Liam, economics editor for The Sunday Telegraph (London), “Winds of change shake
forecasts,” 10-22, lexis)
Since July, oil prices have fallen from $78 to $60 ( pounds 41 to pounds 32) a barrel - the biggest drop
for 15 years. Over the same period, the Middle East has been relatively quiet - with the US tempering
its Iran rhetoric and fighting in Lebanon on hold.
 2AC Russian Oil
Dutch disease is crippling the Russian economy – Putin is mishandling revenue –
and reserves mean Russia can withstand a price fall to 50 dollars
Evans-Pritchard ‘8
(Ambrose, Int'l Business Editor for The Telegraph (London), "Russian economy succumbs to the
oil curse," 2-5,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/02/04/ccview104.xml)
This is the curse of commodity wealth, the "Dutch Disease" that eats at the competitive foundations of
an economy and incubates a parasite culture. No doubt Russia's scientists, engineers, and cyber talent,
will enrich the country, but first it must overcome the toxic effects of oil at $90 a barrel. "We can no
longer afford to buy Russian equipment," said Yevgeny Ivanov, head of Polyus Gold. "The prices
here are one and a half times higher than abroad so we're having to break our rigid rule and turn to
foreign-made machinery. It is bad news for Russian firms. The commodity super-cycle is catching up
with us through higher prices. It is a disheartening picture," he said. "There's no infrastructure, no
power, no roads. Electricity costs twice what they pay in Alaska and Canada. We face a Soviet
bureaucracy passing decrees that make you weep," he said. The government has declared an
infrastructure emergency. Russia has hit the limits of durable growth on today's rickety
foundations. China has built 25,000 miles of highways since 1988, Russia a few hundred. President Vladimir Putin has ordered a $1 trillion blitz on ports,
highways, power grids, and water plants over seven years. Some 2,600 miles of road are planned each year, starting with the St Petersburg "High-Speed Diameter" and the
$3bn Helsinki Expressway. Bouygues and Bechtel are battling for the first tender. Around $200bn is to come from state coffers: the rest from industry and banks. Taken
together, the scheme is the biggest project in the world outside China. Finance minister Alexei Kudrin said the railways alone would need $440bn by 2030. "We are
prepared to guarantee foreign investors a high level of return," he said. Hence the pinstripe and Blackberry brigade descending on Moscow. There were no visible tourists
. The economy is already
on my BA flight from London. Two thirds of the aircraft was business class, a telling sign. The infrastructure edict comes late
over-heating. Inflation has hit 12pc, despite Soviet price controls on food. Factory gate prices are up
25pc. Yet the all-conquering rouble rises, strapped to oil. This is double strangulation. "The
government must bring down inflation, there is no other way," said Andrew Bosomworth, head of
PIMCO in Europe. "Interest rates [7pc] are negative in real terms. It will encourage borrowing until
the cows come home," he said. Car sales rose 67pc last year to $53bn, imported Audis and Renaults
by the look of it. The current account surplus will shrivel to 2.6pc of GDP this year, down from 9.5pc
two years ago. The oil bonanza is draining into shopping malls. "We believe the trade surplus will
disappear before the end of 2009," said Danske Bank. The slippage is ominous with oil, gas, and
metals near historic highs. They make up 80pc of exports. "Russia has all the classical symptoms of
the Dutch Disease," said a World Bank report. "Firms have largely exhausted the productivity gains
derived from idle capacity and labour shedding after the 1998 crisis," it said. This feels like the late phase of the 1970s oil boom, when Mexicans briefly thought they
walked on water. The sequel was not happy. Eighty cents on every dollar above $27 a barrel goes to the state. Energy rents fund 48pc of the budget. Yet the fiscal surplus
has halved in two years. Plans are now afoot to lavish funds on long-suffering pensioners. One sympathises, but this is how macro-blunders occur. Mr Kudrin is chopping
If a US-British-Club Med-Japanese
his figures as fast as Alistair Darling. The budget surplus will be 2.8pc in 2007, not 4.8pc as expected.
recession knocks oil down to $50, Russia faces a crunch. Ex-premier Yegor Gaidar said Russia is
ready this time. "It won't be a catastrophe. We can easily adjust because of our accumulated reserves,"
he said. Perhaps, but the credit markets are sniffing Russia-risk. Even Gazprom is paying much higher
spreads. "The bond market effectively shut down in October," said Commerzbank. The Oil
Stabilization Fund was supposed to inoculate Russia against the curse by siphoning revenues out the
domestic economy. Certainly it helps. There will be no repeat of 1998 default. Russia has paid off its
foreign debt. The oil fund ($157bn) and foreign reserves ($470bn) are enough to deflect anything
short of financial cataclysm.
 2AC Russian Oil

High prices are increasing inflation and prevent reform – and Russian oil
production will decrease in the next 5 years
Weafer 11-28-7
(Chris, chief strategist at UralSib oil, Prime-Tass, Moscow News Service, 11-28-07, "$100 Oil and
Russia: Sinking or Swimming in a sea of cash," http://www.prime-
tass.com/news/show.asp?topicid=65&id=430430)
But high average oil prices also bring problems that, if not handled properly, have the potential to
negate the benefits of higher revenues. As the government now moves from a period of sanitizing oil
revenues (via the stabilization fund) to a more active spending phase, the pressure on an already-rising
inflation base will increase. Higher revenues that translate into higher spending levels will push the
inflation rate much higher. That could kill off, or severely reduce, the growth trend, as the economy
becomes increasingly less competitive. Higher oil prices will make the government's plan to allow
ruble appreciation in 2008 easier, but will also make the ruble even more attractive to speculative
investors. A rising volume of speculative capital inflows can provide a short-term boost to the
economy, and some asset types, but ultimately it will severely destabilize the economy. This is what
happened in South East Asia in the mid 1990s. High oil revenues that make spending programmes
easier to fund have historically slowed the pace of reform in oil-producing countries. While high oil
revenues can fund growth in other sectors, the real danger is that the budget and economy actually
increase reliance on these high revenue flows, which increase the vulnerability of an economy to
future oil price shocks. For Russia's investment case, the optimum oil price per barrel is around $75
p/bbl, or about $10 p/bbl higher than the price average assumed in government investment plans.
Despite the sharp rise in the price of oil since the late spring, there is considerable uncertainty as to
where the price will head in 2008. A slide of the US economy into recession, dragging the rest of the
world with it, is the biggest downside threat, while a supply cut over Iran is the biggest on the upside.
But there are other clear and contradictory drivers that will affect the price. One of those is the fact
that Russia's oil production looks set to plateau sometime over the next five years, while export
volumes will inevitably fall. The almost zero growth in production is due to the low level of capital
expenditure in the industry and a deliberate Kremlin policy of not making available any new
hydrocarbon deposits for development. At the same time, domestic demand for oil products,
particularly gasoline, has been rising steadily, because of the expanding economy and the more than 2
mln new cars sold in Russia annually. Until recently, the growth in demand for fuel has been matched
by efficiency gains. But that is now over. It is estimated that in the next 4 to 5 years, Russia will
reduce the volume of oil exports by an annualized 250,000 bbl/d. By 2012, therefore, Russia's export
volume of crude and oil products will be between 1.0 and 1.3 million barrels per day lower than
current export volumes.
 2AC Russian Oil
Oil is not key to the Russian economy
Baker ‘7
(Dean, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in DC and PhD in economics
from U Mich, “Russia's "Oil-Driven" Economic Resurrection,” July 1, 2007,
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive)
Russia's "Oil-Driven" Economic Resurrection. That's what the Washington Post calls Russia's growth
spurt under Putin, but the numbers don't really support this claim. Russia is not Saudi Arabia. It has a
lot of oil, but its also a big economy. It does not live by oil alone. Russia exports approximately 7
million barrels a day, which comes to 2.6 billion barrels a year. If we say that the oil price run-up of
recent years has added a preimum of $30 per barrel compared to the pre-Iraq war level, this implies an
dividend for Russia of $78 billion a year. According to the CIA Factbook, Russia's exchange rate
GDP (the appropriate measure here -- the exports are paid for in foreign currency) was $730 billion in
2006. That puts the oil premium at 10.7 percent of GDP. The IMF data puts average GDP growth in
Russia since 2000 at 6.8 percent annually for a cumulative increase of more than 58 percent thus far
this decade. The oil dividend certainly helped this growth, but it can hardly explain such a strong and
sustained performance. The more obvious explanation is that Russia broke out of the economic
straightjacket that the United States and the IMF had imposed when it devalued its currency and
temporarily suspended payments on its debt in the middle of 1998. This move was portrayed as a
disaster for Russia at the time, as the IMF and the financial team in the Clinton administration
(dubbed at the time "the Committee to Save the World") did everything they could to keep Russia
from taking this route. It turned out that the Clinton administration's failure in Russia (mourned by
Robert Rubin in his book), was the basis for Russia's economic revival. The jump in world oil prices
has helped, but Russia's change in economic policies was far more important.

Resource depletion and heavy taxes means oil will turn negative soon
Zhdannikov ‘8
(Dmitry, correspondent for Reuters, “Russia oil firms need to shape up to grow abroad,”
Reuters, 2-5, http://www.forbes.com/)
Heavy taxation has crimped growth in Russian oil production while Kremlin orders for higher social
spending and large missions abroad for state energy champions are burdening firms such as Gazprom
and Rosneft. “Depletion of oil and gas resources means that far more efficient cost management and
more investment in exploration and new production is necessary if Russia wants not only to grow but
even to maintain its current level of production,” said Vladimir Melnikov from MMD, a Moscow-based consultancy. President Vladimir Putin, hugely
popular at home, has picked Gazprom chairman and First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as his preferred candidate for the March 2 presidential elections, making Medvedev’s victory virtually
certain. Putin plans to become prime minister under Medvedev and is largely expected to retain political influence and keep the role of arbiter to prevent infighting between rival Kremlin clans. Medvedev,
42, will take over the $1.3tn economy after a nine year-long economic boom, which saw the world’s second-largest oil exporter raise oil output by over 60%. He will also have to look after much bigger
state firms, which control half of the oil industry compared to just 10% before Putin came to power and embarked on a large renationalisation including the landmark Yukos takeover. Gazprom and Rosneft
have benefited most from the moves, which drew parallels with resource nationalism in countries like Venezuela. Both also piled up heavy debts for acquisitions. They are now leading industry-wide calls
for lighter taxes, a plea which has become more insistent after a steady appreciation of the rouble against the US dollar over the past five years has threatened the competitiveness of exporters. “Taxes are

. Oil and gas production is

too high. Something must be done in the next three to four years, otherwise we will see negative surprises,” said Ron Smith from Alfa Bank

expected to remain flat in Russia in the years to come. Rosneft is growing much faster than the
industry and Gazprom has in the pipeline a number of potential value-added projects, but they still
need to persuade Western shareholders to stick to their increasingly expensive stocks. “The Russian
state hydrocarbon sector is still to meet the production effectiveness of Western firms,” says
Melnikov. That could prove to be an uphill task. “Occasionally, Gazprom or Rosneft will be requested
to do something which they would never do for purely economic reason,” said Smith. Those requests
could include connecting remote Russian regions to the gas network or building new pipelines such as
last month’s Kremlin-brokered deal between Gazprom and Serbia. Belgrade agreed to sell control of
its national oil company in return for a Gazprom pledge to route a big new gas pipeline through
Serbia, making the country a major distribution hub. Vladimir Milov from the Institute of Energy
Policies said the Serbian deal was politically driven and raised a lot of questions. “I think it would be
much cheaper to agree with Ukraine on better transit terms,” he said. He adds that a sudden decline in
the oil price will not only hamper development plans by Gazprom and Rosneft, which together owe
more than $70bn to credit institutions, but put at risk the Kremlin’s entire social development plan.
Even if the price remains high, the Russian oil industry’s free cash flow would turn negative from
2011 if taxes are kept at current levels, according to predictions by BP’s Russian joint venture TNK-
BP.
 1AR Russia – Dutch Disease
High oil prices cause the economy to overheat and wreck growth in other sectors
Oomes and Kalcheva ‘7
(Nienke and Katerina, of the Bank of Finland – Institute for Economies in Transition, “Diagnosing
Dutch disease: Does Russia have the symptoms?” July,
http://www.bof.fi/NR/rdonlyres/F9A915B5-39DE-45BB-92F2-B4C0ADFFE684/0/dp0707.pdf)
Oil and gas exports have contributed significantly to recent output growth in Russia. Crude oil, oil
products, and gas together account for almost 60 percent of Russia’s total export revenues,4 and for
an estimated 20–25 percent of Russia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).5 In recent years, record high
oil prices have generated significant windfall revenues, have put the real exchange rate on an
appreciation path, and have stimulated the economy to the point of overheating (Oomes and
Dynnikova, 2006). However, in spite of record high oil prices, crude oil output and export growth
have recently slowed significantly (Figure 1). In 2005 and 2006, oil output grew by only about 2½
percent year-on-year, following much higher growth rates of around 10 percent in both 2003 and
2004. There are several reasons for the slowdown. First, the recent increase in state ownership created
significant uncertainty in the sector. Second, increases in oil sector taxation and bottlenecks in the
distribution network have raised production and transportation costs. Third, there appear to be
diminishing returns to existing oil extraction, implying that further growth is possible only with
significant new investment in the exploration and development of new fields and the necessary export
infrastructure. In addition to the constraints on fuel sector growth, the experience of other resource-
rich countries suggests that natural resource wealth may lead to lower growth in thenon-resource
sector as well. The notion that there may be such a “natural resource curse” is based on the empirical
finding that resource-rich economies, on average, experience lower growth rates than resource-poor
economies (Sachs and Warner, 1995, 2001). One explanation for this is that the large windfall
revenues from natural resources tend to give rise to rent-seeking behavior and fights over the
distribution of these revenues, which in turn impede growth, as productive resources are drawn into
non-productive activities. A second explanation is that resource rents tend to be volatile, which is bad
for growth. A third explanation— the one we will focus on in this paper—is that of “Dutch Disease,”
the hypothesis that windfall revenues from natural resources give rise to real exchange rate
appreciation, which in turn reduces the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector.6
***A2 – K***
 2AC – Framework
-- Our framework --

The role of the ballot is a choice between the plan and a competitive counterplan or
the status quo, based on the outcomes of each policy for those that take action
and/or those that are effected.

-- This is best --

A—This increases education and allows us to critically examine the state.

Stark, ‘96
(Tennessee Associate Law Professor, Winter 32 Stan J Int’L L 91)
Role-playing exercises, in which students assume the roles of various states, replicate the diffusion of
normative authority and the need for consensus which characterize the law on the use of force. 68 In
addition, [*102] role-playing enables students to explore state identity from the "inside." What
shapes state identity? The case studies contained in Volume II allow students to explore a wide range
of political, geo-political and historical factors which have produced various hot-spots throughout the
world, as well as to distinguish state identity from "American" identity. Through role-playing,
students discover how self-interest shapes state narratives. Which states want to strengthen the
Charter paradigm and which seek to challenge it? Which state dominates the conversation? Why do
the others allow it to do so? Finally, as Stephanie Wildman has pointed out, role-playing allows
students to forget themselves and their anxieties about their performance in law school, freeing them
to explore these questions creatively. 69

B—Provides the best division of ground – you can run Kritiks with counterplans
and they have to be linked off plan action.

-- Weigh the case as a counter-critique --

Even if they win their framework arguments, that just means you can weigh our
advantages that do not function as direct critique offense as a counter-critique.
 2AC – Theory
-- Alt is illegit – voting issue

A—No text – we can’t pin them to a stable advocacy. This jacks our ability to
leverage offense or read permutations.

B—Utopian – they defend a perfect world when ours is flawed. It’s impossible to
compare these two worlds.

C—Floating PIC – they suck up the case and we have no idea how – This steals aff
ground and forces us to debate against ourselves.

D—Aff should choose the framework – neg choice makes 9 minutes of the 1AC moot
and is unpredictable. And there is no offense since you can run your framework
when you are aff.

E—This outweighs the (K)— Rules are necessary for protecting subversion

Shively, 2k
(Former Texas A&M Assistant Politics Professor, Partisan Politics and Political Theory, pp. 181-4,
We have the full text of the card if you want to see it)
At the very least, we must agree about what it is that is being debated before we can debate it. For
instance, once cannot have an argument about euthanasia with someone who thinks euthanasia is a musical group. One cannot
successfully stage a sit-in if one’s target audience simply thinks everyone is resting or if those doing the sitting have no
complaints. Nor can one demonstrate resistance to a policy if no one knows that it is a policy. In other words, contest is
meaningless if there is a lack of agreement or communication about what is being contested.
Resisters, demonstrators, and debaters must have some shared ideas about the subject and/or the
terms of their disagreements. The participants and the target of a sit-in must share an understanding of the complaint at
hand. And a demonstrator’s audience must know what is being resisted. In short, the contesting of an idea presumes
some agreement about what that idea is and how one might go about intelligibly contesting it. In
other words, contestation rests on some basic agreements or harmony.
Continues on page 184
But, again, the response to the ambiguist must be that the practice of questioning and undermining rules, like all
other social practices, needs a certain order. The subversive needs rules to protect subversion. And when
we look more closely at the rules protective of subversion, we find that they are roughly the rules of
argument discussed above. In fact, the rules of argument are roughly the rules of democracy or civility:
the delineation of boundaries necessary to protect speech and action from violence, manipulation,
and other forms of tyranny.
 A2 – No Value to Life
-- Life has intrinsic value – we shouldn’t let people die.

-- Determining value of life by quality is flawed because it relies on personal

preference.

Schwartz, 02
(Medical Ethicist, www.fleshandbones.com/readingroom/pdf/399.pdf)
The first criterion that springs to mind regarding the value of life is usually the quality of the life or
lives in question: The quality of life ethic puts the emphasis on the type of life being lived, not upon
the fact of life. Lives are not all of one kind; some lives are of great value to the person himself and to
others while others are not. What the life means to someone is what is important. Keeping this in
mind it is not inappropriate to say that some lives are of greater value than others, that the condition or
meaning of life does have much to do with the justification for terminating that life.1 Those who
choose to reason on this basis hope that if the quality of a life can be measured then the answer to
whether that life has value to the individual can be determined easily. This raises special problems,
however, because the idea of quality involves a value judgment, and value judgments are, by their
essence, subject to indeterminate relative factors such as preferences and dislikes. Hence, quality of
life is difficult to measure and will vary according to individual tastes, preferences and aspirations. As
a result, no general rules or principles can be asserted that would simplify decisions about the
value of a life based on its quality.

-- Using relativism to determine a value to life causes violence.

Schwartz, 02
(Medical Ethicist, www.fleshandbones.com/readingroom/pdf/399.pdf)
The first assertion, that life is of relative value, could be taken in two ways. In one sense, it could
mean that the value of a given life can be placed on a scale and measured against other lives. The
scale could be a social scale, for example, where the contributions or potential for contribution of
individuals are measured against those of fellow citizens. Critics of quality of life criteria frequently
name this as a potential slippery slope where lives would be deemed worthy of saving, or even not
saving, based on the relative social value of the individual concerned. So, for example, a mother of
four children who is a practising doctor could be regarded of greater value to the community than an
unmarried accountant. The concern is that the potential for discrimination is too high.
 2AC -- Extinction Outweighs The K
-- Extinction outweighs all - ethics demands you evaluate our impacts first.

Seeley, ‘86
(Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, The Handbook of Non-Violence, p. 269-70)
In moral reasoning prediction of consequences is nearly always impossible. One balances the risks of
an action against its benefits; one also considers what known damage the action would do. Thus a
surgeon in deciding whether to perform an operation weighs the known effects (the loss of some
nerve function, for example) and risks (death) against the benefits, and weighs also the risks and
benefits of not performing surgery. Morally, however, human extinction is unlike any other risk.
No conceivable human good could be worth the extinction of the race, for in order to be a human
good it must be experienced by human beings. Thus extinction is one result we dare not-may not-
risk. Though not conclusively established, the risk of extinction is real enough to make nuclear war
utterly impermissible under any sane moral code.

Ethics before ontology – lack of ethics results in Nazism

Kaplan, ‘3
(Mortimer Jackson Professor of Law, the University of Wisconsin School of Law, Summer 2003,
Brooklyn Law Review, 68 Brooklyn L. Rev. 1159)
The individual psychology of the characters in Shame affirms the ethical position of Emmanuel
Levinas. n81 Levinas follows in a long line of philosophers who sought to bring philosophy into the
service of theological concerns, bringing the tools of Athens under the revelatory dictates of
Jerusalem. n82 Perhaps more than any other philosopher, Levinas makes the argument for what he
calls a scandalous position: that ethics precedes ontology. n83 Levinas means that an individual
cannot [*1187] achieve any real personhood without making the ethical central to personal
development. Without the primacy of the ethical we are lost as individuals. For Heidegger, ontology
culminated in the authenticity of the Nazi regime. n84 The logic of authenticity and the care of
ontology fundamental to Heideggerean philosophy demanded universalizing the particular ( Nazi
racial theory) into an allencompassing being for the other who was now in concert with yourself. n85
Heideggerean ontology, from Levinas's point of view, celebrates sameness, not the particularity that
an individual soul brings to existence. n86
 1AR – Extinction Outweighs the K

The ethics of stopping death precede ontology

Davidson, ‘89
(co-editor of Critical Inquiry, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Member of the Committees on
General Studies in the Humanities and on the Conceptual Foundations of Science at the University of
Chicago, Critical Inquiry, Winter)
I understand Levinas’ work to suggest another path to the recovery of the human, one that leads
through or toward other human beings: The dimension of the divine opens forth from the human
face….Hence metaphysics is enacted where the social relation is enacted—in our relations with
men….The Other is not the incarnation of God, but precisely by his face, in which he is disincarnate,
is the manifestation of the height in which God is revealed. It is our relations with men…that give to
theological concepts the sole signification they admit of. Levinas places ethics before ontology by
beginning with our experience of the human face: and, in a clear reference to Heidegger’s idolatry of the
village life of peasants, he associates himself with Socrates, who preferred the city where he encountered men to
the country with its trees. In his discussions of skepticism and the problem of others, Cavell also aligns himself
with this path of thought, with the recovery of the finite human self through the acknowledgment of others: As
long as God exists, I am not alone. And couldn’t the other suffer the fate of God?…I wish to understand how the
other now bears the weight of God, shows me that I am not alone in the universe. This requires understanding the
philosophical problem of the other as the trace or scar of the departure of God. [CR, p. 470] The suppression of
the other, the human, in Heidegger’s thought accounts, I believe, for the absence, in his writing after
the war, of the experience of horror. Horror is always disconnected toward the human: every object of
horror bears the imprint of the human will. So Levinas can see in Heidegger’s silence about the gas
chambers and death camps “a kind of consent to the horror.” And Cavell can characterize Nazis as
“those who have lost the capacity for being horrified by what they do.” Where was Heidegger’s
horror? How could he have failed to know what he had consented to? Hannah Arendt associates
Heidegger with Paul Valery’s aphorism, “’Les evenements ne sont que l’ecume des choses’ (‘Events
are but the foam of things’).” I think one understands the source of her intuition. The mass
extermination of human beings, however, does not produce foam, but dust and ashes; and it is here
that questioning must stop.
 2AC – Eco-Pragmatism

-- Turn – Eco-Pragmatism

Environmental philosophy has to inform the decision making process. It is useless as

a theoretical process

Light, ‘96
(Research fellow in the Environmental Health Program and Professor at Alberta, Andrew,
“Environmental Pragmatism” p. 1-2)
“Can Philosophers…environmental policy”
Can philosophers contribute anything to an investigation of environmental problems? Do the
traditions, history and skills of philosophical thought have any relevance to the development of
environmental policy? We believe that the answer is yes. Despite the problematic (and, heretofore,
ineffectual) status of environmental ethics as a practical discipline, the field has much to offer. But the
fruits of this philosophical enterprise must be directed towards the practical resolution of
environmental problems — environmental ethics cannot remain mired in long-running theoretic
debates in an attempt to achieve philosophical certainty. As Mark Sagoff has written:
We have to get along without certainty; we have to solve practical, not theoretical, problems; and we
must adjust the ends we pursue to the means available to accomplish them. Otherwise, method
becomes an obstacle to mora1ity dogma the foe of deliberation, and the ideal society we aspire to in
theory will become a formidable enemy of the good society we can achieve in fact.
In short, environmental ethics must develop for itself a methodology of environmental pragmatism —
fueled by a recognition that theoretical debates are problematic for the development of environmental
policy.
 2AC – Fractures the Left Turn
-- Their criticism is a retreat from political change – while kritik can be valuable
disconnecting it from policy solutions creates the Left as mere spectators talking
philosophy while suffering continues – challenging institutions is the only way to
create a better world.

McClean, ‘1
(New School for Social Research Grad Student, http://www.american-
philosophy.org/archives/past_conference_programs/pc2001/Discussion%20papers/david_mcclean.ht
m)
Yet for some reason, at least partially explicated in Richard Rorty's Achieving Our Country, a book
that I think is long overdue, leftist critics continue to cite and refer to the eccentric and often a priori
ruminations of people like those just mentioned, and a litany of others including Derrida, Deleuze,
Lyotard, Jameson, and Lacan, who are to me hugely more irrelevant than Habermas in their narrative
attempts to suggest policy prescriptions (when they actually do suggest them) aimed at curing the ills
of homelessness, poverty, market greed, national belligerence and racism. I would like to suggest that
it is time for American social critics who are enamored with this group, those who actually want to be
relevant, to recognize that they have a disease, and a disease regarding which I myself must remember
to stay faithful to my own twelve step program of recovery. The disease is the need for elaborate
theoretical "remedies" wrapped in neological and multi-syllabic jargon. These elaborate theoretical remedies are more "interesting," to be sure, than the pragmatically settled
questions about what shape democracy should take in various contexts, or whether private property should be protected by the state, or regarding our basic human nature (described, if not defined (heaven
forbid!), in such statements as "We don't like to starve" and "We like to speak our minds without fear of death" and "We like to keep our children safe from poverty"). As Rorty puts it, "When one of
today's academic leftists says that some topic has been 'inadequately theorized,' you can be pretty certain that he or she is going to drag in either philosophy of language, or Lacanian psychoanalysis, or

futile attempts to philosophize one's way into political relevance are

some neo-Marxist version of economic determinism. . . . These

a symptom of what happens when a Left retreats from activism and adopts a spectatorial approach
to the problems of its country. Disengagement from practice produces theoretical
hallucinations"(italics mine).(1) Or as John Dewey put it in his The Need for a Recovery of
Philosophy, "I believe that philosophy in America will be lost between chewing a historical cud long
since reduced to woody fiber, or an apologetics for lost causes, . . . . or a scholastic, schematic
formalism, unless it can somehow bring to consciousness America's own needs and its own implicit
principle of successful action."
Those who suffer or have suffered from this disease Rorty refers to as the Cultural Left, which left is
juxtaposed to the Political Left that Rorty prefers and prefers for good reason. Another attribute of the
Cultural Left is that its members fancy themselves pure culture critics who view the successes of
America and the West, rather than some of the barbarous methods for achieving those successes, as
mostly evil, and who view anything like national pride as equally evil even when that pride is
tempered with the knowledge and admission of the nation's shortcomings. In other words, the Cultural
Left, in this country, too often dismiss American society as beyond reform and redemption. And
Rorty correctly argues that this is a disastrous conclusion, i.e. disastrous for the Cultural Left. I think
it may also be disastrous for our social hopes, as I will explain.
Leftist American culture critics might put their considerable talents to better use if they bury some of their cynicism about America's social and political prospects and help forge public and political
possibilities in a spirit of determination to, indeed, achieve our country - the country of Jefferson and King; the country of John Dewey and Malcom X; the country of Franklin Roosevelt and Bayard
Rustin, and of the later George Wallace and the later Barry Goldwater. To invoke the words of King, and with reference to the American society, the time is always ripe to seize the opportunity to help
create the "beloved community," one woven with the thread of agape into a conceptually single yet diverse tapestry that shoots for nothing less than a true intra-American cosmopolitan ethos, one wherein
both same sex unions and faith-based initiatives will be able to be part of the same social reality, one wherein business interests and the university are not seen as belonging to two separate galaxies but as
part of the same answer to the threat of social and ethical nihilism. We who fancy ourselves philosophers would do well to create from within ourselves and from within our ranks a new kind of public
intellectual who has both a hungry theoretical mind and who is yet capable of seeing the need to move past high theory to other important questions that are less bedazzling and "interesting" but more
important to the prospect of our flourishing - questions such as "How is it possible to develop a citizenry that cherishes a certain hexis, one which prizes the character of the Samaritan on the road to Jericho
almost more than any other?" or "How can we square the political dogma that undergirds the fantasy of a missile defense system with the need to treat America as but one member in a community of
nations under a "law of peoples?"

The new public philosopher might seek to understand labor law and military and trade theory and
doctrine as much as theories of surplus value; the logic of international markets and trade agreements
as much as critiques of commodification, and the politics of complexity as much as the politics of
power (all of which can still be done from our arm chairs.) This means going down deep into the guts
of our quotidian social institutions, into the grimy pragmatic details where intellectuals are loathe to
dwell but where the officers and bureaucrats of those institutions take difficult and often
unpleasant, imperfect decisions that affect other peoples' lives, and it means making honest
attempts to truly understand how those institutions actually function in the actual world before
howling for their overthrow commences. This might help keep us from being slapped down in
debates by true policy pros who actually know what they are talking about but who lack awareness of
the dogmatic assumptions from which they proceed, and who have not yet found a good reason to
listen to jargon-riddled lectures from philosophers and culture critics with their snobish disrespect for
the so-called "managerial class."
 2AC – Nazi Turn
-- The alternative’s attempt to move away from the inauthentic life repeats the
failures of Heidegger and results in a catastrophic, fascist politics.

Parker, ‘4
(Manchester Metropolitan Discourse Unit Prof, Slavoj Zizek, pp. 50-1)
While Heideggerians might sometimes be sniffy enough about any particular existing community,
Zizek’s argument is that they will eventually be seduced by one that seems powerful and all-
embracing enough, for they operate on the assumption that beneath, behind, or before technologically-
distorted forms of Being-in-the-world there is some way of Being in which we are genuinely at one
with others. The merely empirical ‘ontic’ things of the world are insufficient for Heideggerians
because they yearn for the real thing, the real things with deep ontological weight, things that inhere
in our very Being. There is, then, a paradoxical substantialisation of Truth as Truth, something that
would one day wipe away error. A community that would promise to retrieve Truth of Being would
thus be truly great. Heideggerians are ‘eternally in search of a positive ontic political system that
would come closest to the epochal ontological truth’. This is ‘a strategy which inevitably leads to
error’, but the Heideggerians will never learn the lesson that the fact of error does not necessarily
portend the disclosure of deep Truth. Heidegger’s ‘mistake’ in hailing the ‘greatness’ of Nazism, then,
was deeper and more dangerous than it seemed. Bad enough as an endorsement of Hitler,
Heidegger’s mistake revealed how the lure of substantive coherent community would always be
operative for a philosophical system that was waiting for some authentic Volkish rebellion against
inauthentic modern life.